INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana State Police stated Tuesday that they used genealogical information and crime scene proof to hyperlink an Iowa man who died in 2013 to the killings of three feminine motel clerks and sexual assault of a fourth in Indiana and Kentucky from 1987 via 1990.

Harry Edward Greenwell, who died at age 68 in New Albin, Iowa, in January 2013, was the so-called “I-65 killer,” Sgt. Glen Fifield of the Indiana State Police stated throughout a information convention in Indianapolis. The killings earned that moniker as a result of they occurred at motels close to Interstate 65.

“Greenwell had an in depth prison historical past and had been out and in of jail a number of instances, even escaping from jail on two separate events,” he stated. “He was identified to journey steadily within the Midwest.”

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Greenwell was born in Kentucky and died in Iowa, and his obituary listed most cancers as his reason for loss of life.

Fifield stated proof linked Greenwell to the Feb. 21, 1987, killing of Vicki Heath, 41, who was sexually assaulted and fatally shot whereas working an evening shift at a Tremendous 8 Lodge in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. It additionally linked him to the March 3, 1989, killings of Margaret “Peggy” Gill and Jeanne Gilbert.

Gilbert, 34, was slain whereas working the evening shift at a Days Inn in Remington, Indiana, whereas Gill, 24, was killed whereas working at a Days Inn in Merrillville, Indiana. Each had been sexually assaulted and fatally shot.

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Fifield stated Greenwell was additionally linked by investigators to the Jan. 2, 1990, sexual assault of a 21-year-old feminine clerk at a Days Inn in Columbus, Indiana.

“This sufferer was in a position to escape her attacker and survive. She was later in a position to give a wonderful bodily description of the suspect and particulars of the crime,” he stated. “She is the one identified sufferer to have survived the vicious, brutal assaults of this killer.”

Fifield stated the state police crime lab matched ballistic proof within the Gill and Gilbert slayings, and the crime lab later matched DNA proof linking the Heath and Gilbert killings to the Columbus, Indiana, case.

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He stated one of many major components linking the 4 crimes scenes was their proximity to Interstate 65, which runs from Gary, Indiana, to Cellular, Alabama.

Fifield stated investigative family tree, the usage of DNA evaluation together with conventional family tree analysis and historic information, “generated a big and necessary lead” within the 4 circumstances.

“Additional investigation and kinship lab testing by the Indiana State Police lab of crime scene samples optimistic recognized the suspect. The match was 99.9999% optimistic. It’s this scientific breakthrough that in the end led to the identification of the I-65 killer, Harry Edward Greenwell,” Fifield stated.

He stated investigators proceed reaching out to different police departments within the Midwest as a result of there’s a “distinct risk” that Greenwell dedicated different unsolved killings, rapes, robberies or assaults.

Fifield was joined on the information convention by members of the FBI, the Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Columbus, Indiana, police departments, and relations of among the victims.

Gilbert’s daughter, Kimberly Gilbert Wright, stated her household was very grateful for legislation enforcement’s efforts to determine her mom’s killer and serving to deliver some sort of closure to her household and the opposite victims’ relations.

“She’s nonetheless in my household’s hearts,” she stated of her mom. “We speak about her as if she hasn’t gone. My brother and I had been lucky sufficient to have spent the final seven months of her life residing together with her and experiencing the enjoyment that she might deliver to day by day of our life.”

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This story was up to date to right the spelling of Sgt. Glen Fifield’s first title and that Gill’s first title was Margaret, and never Mary.