SD SD - Gwen Miller, 60, Rapid City, 29 February 1968

February 29, 1968
Sixty-year-old Gwen Miller was found deceased at her residence on Hall Street. She was living alone at the time of her death. When police arrived on scene, they found the back window of her home had been smashed. An autopsy determined Miller had been raped and strangled.
Numerous leads were investigated, including the discovery of a watch in Mitchell, SD, with Miller's name engraved on it. Several of Miller's co-workers at Bennett Clarkson Hospital were interviewed, but she was described as a quiet woman who didn't volunteer much personal information to her colleagues.
Police also followed a tip that Miller may have been killed by a former pharmacist in Lincoln, Nebraska. The suspect was described as a drug addict who met Miller in Nebraska. None of these leads were useful in determining who killed Miller. The case remains unsolved.

http://www.rcgov.org/Police/unsolved.html

Evidence maintained in murder case for nearly 50 years

http://www.kotatv.com/content/news/Evidence-maintained-in-murder-case-for-nearly-50-years-401448385.html

48 years after 60 year old Gwen Miller's murder shocked Rapid City...DNA testing could finally unveil her killer.

With much of the physical documentation gone and many of the witnesses now dead, Detective Keefe has had a difficult time putting the pieces of Miller's case together.

Evidence such as clothing, fingerprints, and the brick from the broken window are still sitting in the Pennington County evidence building.

And the fingerprints taken from the scene are now being analyzed with new DNA tests...a new technology that wasn't around 48 years ago.

"We can now use that fingerprint material for DNA Analysis," says Forensic Examiner Kimberly Gerhardt.

Click to expand...

http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/lo...cle_d9b25d91-b18b-5286-9833-fc13571b1221.html

Miller, a hospital pharmacist, was found dead in bed as if she had died in her sleep. She was single, had no children and lived alone...

Miller was lying on her back, her hair neatly arranged. There was no blood on the bed or signs of a struggle...

Miller’s autopsy showed also that she suffered several broken ribs, attributed to the man kneeling on her chest while assaulting her. He left fingerprints on Miller’s headboard and body hair on the bed...

What neighbors saw that night, according to a recent television report, was a taxi dropping off a man at Miller’s home. Fingerprints found in her house matched prints later found in the taxi, the report said, but their owner could not be identified. The police department declined to verify this information, and other investigation details, citing Keefe’s ongoing work.

Click to expand...

Great article! Makes you wonder how fast they'd have had the perp in 1968 if DNA had been available.

"In 1968, Gwen Miller was raped and strangled to death at her Rapid City home. For decades, the case has gone unsolved. But the perpetrator was recently identified thanks to DNA genealogy, according to Karl Jegeris, chief of the Rapid City police.

"For the first time in our dept's history, we have solved a major case using DNA genealogy," he tweeted Monday morning. "Although there is a slight celebratory mood as we solve this case, our hearts are heavy for the horrific victimization that occurred in Rapid City in 1968," he said...

The main suspect is already dead and there’s no indication that solving the case might lead to other victims, Keefe told the Journal in a December 2016 interview."

UPDATE: DNA genealogy solved 1968 Rapid City rape, murder

"In a press conference Monday afternoon, Rapid City Police Chief Karl Jegeris spoke alongside Detective Wayne Keefe as they outlined the evidence that pointed to Eugene Carroll Field, a previously unknown suspect, in the 1968 murder of Gwen Miller...

Keefe reached out to IdentiFinders, a forensic genealogy firm run by Colleen Fitzpatrick, for assistance in the case. She came back to police with connections to someone with the last name of "Field" or "Fields" — names that had no prior mentions in the investigation or connection to the case.

Using that information, Keefe identified Eugene Carroll Field — a ticketing agent for Western Airlines at the Rapid City Regional Airport, which Miller frequented. He also determined that Field had rented a room in the house next door to Miller for several months in 1963.

Keefe interviewed two women who had been married to Field, both of whom reported abuse from their former husband. He also contacted Field's only sibling — a brother who provided a DNA sample. That DNA sample, when analyzed and compared to DNA from the crime scene, showed a 99.23 percent probability of being from a full sibling.

Keefe said there was enough evidence to charge Field with first-degree murder — but he died in June of 2009, the result of a tumor in his throat that grew until it cut off his air supply."
Rapid City police solve 51-year-old cold case with help of genealogy