Blood spot found 36 years ago still confounds detectives in 'solved' cold case

[mysteriew]

Were it not for a spot of blood the size of a fingernail, Gary Leiterman's story would fall into a mildly interesting, but familiar category of cold case: The seemingly upstanding citizen linked to an old murder by new forensic testing.

Leiterman, a 62-year-old retired nurse, was arrested last year for the 1969 shooting of Jane Mixer, a Michigan law student who went missing on her way home for spring break.

Leiterman had no known connection to the victim, and in the 36 years since the crime, he had never crossed investigators' radar screens. But the state police detectives who arrested him had forensic evidence that seemed airtight: DNA on the victim's pantyhose perfectly matched Leiterman's genetic profile.

But there was also a small drop of blood, scraped from Mixer's left hand almost four decades ago, and its analysis turned the case into a mystery so great even prosecutors say they can't fully solve it.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/leiterman/071905_ctv.html

[wordsnmorewords]

Very, very interesting reading. I remember reading an article where someone was accused of some crime where the LE said that her DNA matched the sample, but there was NO way it could have been her and she could prove it somehow, so there is a flaw somewhere. Scary to think that we are not as UNIQUE as we seem to think. I think the article was in Popular Science or Newsweek as those are the two that we get here at home and it was just within the last year or so. Can't wait to hear more on it.

[mysteriew]

Thirty-six years after a young law student was shot in the head at point-blank range and dumped in a cemetery, a circuit court jury convicted a retired nurse of her murder.

The panel found Gary Leiterman, 62, guilty of the first-degree murder of Jane Mixer Friday afternoon following five hours of deliberations.

Leiterman showed no reaction to the verdict.

Mixer disappeared on March 20, 1969, after telling her family she was accepting a ride home for spring break with a stranger. For years, her death was grouped with a half-dozen murders of young women that were believed to be the works of a serial killer operating in this college area.

Leiterman, a grandfather and one-time school board member, will receive a mandatory life term when Judge Donald Fhelton imposes his sentence on Aug. 30.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/leiterman/072205_verdict_ctv.html
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-26/1122063580218150.xml&storylist=newsmichigan