A cold-case Kansas City homicide that only grudgingly gave up its secrets over 23 years cracked Friday as prosecutors announced charges against a 45-year-old Odessa, Mo., man.
Authorities alleged that Guy Shannon Jr. committed first-degree murder and forcible rape in the March 1989 strangulation and assault of Marcia Lynn Davis, 20, of Independence.
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Shannon’s name never came up in the investigation until the DNA match, said Sgt. Jeffrey L. Downing, supervisor of the Kansas City Police Department’s Violent Crimes and Cold Case Squad.
“He was an unknown,” Downing said.
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[Davis’ brother, Kenneth Davis of Independence,] confirmed that no one in his family had heard of Shannon or recognized his picture.
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Downing praised a 2004 change in Missouri law that requires all felons, and not just those convicted of violent crimes, to submit DNA samples for inclusion in a database. “If the law hadn’t changed we wouldn’t have had this.”
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