Elizabeth Ann "Lisa" Roberts
Teenager murdered in 1977 finally identified with new DNA technique and genetic genealogy
June 25, 2020
By
Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter
Forty-three years after berry pickers found the body of a young woman along a rural road in an unincorporated area of South Everett, the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the remains of a 17-year-old girl who ran away from her Oregon home in summer 1977.
A revolutionary technique to extract bits of DNA from shafts of hair coupled with genetic genealogy and decades-old adoption records led to her finally being identified June 16, according to a Thursday news release from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.
Born Elizabeth Ann Elder in 1959 in Hood River, Oregon, she was renamed Elizabeth Ann Roberts when she was adopted around the age of 2 but went by the name of Lisa, the release says. She grew up in Roseburg and her father reported her to police as a runaway on July 25, 1977.
She called home from Everett a couple of weeks later and her parents begged her to come home and she said she’d think about it, the release says. Roberts’ parents sent her money to Seafirst Bank in Everett but she never picked it up.
Roberts was strangled with a bungee cord and shot in the head and face seven times with a rifle, rendering her unrecognizable, according to the release and news accounts of the case. She was killed Aug. 9, 1977, and her body was found five days later in the 11300 block of 4th Avenue West.
Roberts’ killer, David Roth, confessed to killing a hitch-hiker he picked up on Bothell-Everett Highway, strangling her in the front seat of his 1963 Chevy Nova, then dragging her from the vehicle and emptying his rifle clip into her head after she refused his sexual advances; Roth spent 25 years in prison before his release in May 2005,
The Herald of Everett reported. According to the newspaper, Roth allowed detectives to question him after his release, hoping he’d remember something to help them identify her, before he died of cancer on Aug. 9, 2015, the 38th anniversary of Roberts’ killing...
Detective Jim Scharf, who has worked the cold case since 2008, called the girl “Precious Jane Doe” before her real name was known.
“This young girl was precious to me because her moral decision from her proper upbringing cost her her life,” Scharf was quoted as saying in the news release. “I knew she had to be precious to her family too, so I had to find them. We needed to give her name back to her and return her remains to her family.”
Identifying Roberts is the second case Scharf has successfully solved using genetic genealogy, using DNA to build a person’s family tree and identify a suspect or crime victim. The practice isn’t without controversy, with some scientists and ethicists expressing concerns about law enforcement identifying suspects through the DNA of relatives.
It’s the same technique that led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged serial rapist and killer known as the Golden State Killer in California, in April 2018.
A month later, William Talbot II was arrested and charged in Snohomish County Superior Court with the
1987 killings of Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook. Talbot was the first person to be convicted based on genetic genealogy and was sentenced to two life sentences, Scharf said in a phone interview.
William Talbot II
“Genetic genealogy is speeding up our solvability rate. Any case now where you have good DNA evidence, you have the potential to solve it with genetic genealogy, where you couldn’t solve it before,” Scharf said...
Buried in an unmarked grave at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Everett, Roberts’ remains were exhumed after the case was assigned to Scharf and were examined by Dr. Kathy Taylor, the state forensic anthropologist who works in the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.
It was initially thought the victim was a 25- to 35-year-old woman, but Taylor determined she was much younger, likely 16 to 19 years old...
LINK:
Teenager murdered in 1977 finally identified with new DNA technique and genetic genealogy
