Crucial DNA evidence solves the cold case rape and murder of Anchorage teenager Shelley Connolly
Crucial DNA evidence has helped prosecutors close the book on a murder that shocked the residents of an Alaskan town more than four decades ago.
A jury in the town of Anchorage this week found Donald McQuade, now aged 67, guilty on all counts over the murder of 16-year-old Shelley Connolly.
In a trial lasting just two weeks, prosecutors successfully argued that McQuade was responsible for killing Connolly who was last seen in the early hours of January 7, 1978.
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Shelley Connolly was ruled to have been raped and murdered by investigators after her body was found at the bottom of an embankment next to a highway. CNN
After being spotted at a local bar and then a restaurant in Anchorage, her body was discovered at the bottom of an embankment on the nearby Seward Highway.
A pathologist ruled that she had been raped and murdered, but it was not until advances in technology that authorities were able to piece together her final moments.
Prosecutor Erin McCarthy said investigators at the time had a good idea of what had happened to Connolly, "but at the time they could not get to who".
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Shelley Connolly was last seen on January 7, 1978, at several locations including a restaurant in Anchorage. CNN
"Investigators could not have known over the course of this 40-year investigation that they had collected all the evidence they needed to find Shelley's murderer on that first day."
In 2019, DNA technology matched a sample taken from Connolly's body to McQuade, who was aged 21 and living in Anchorage at the time.
The defence argued that the DNA evidence did not answer the question of who actually killed Connolly, only that their client likely had sex with her sometime before the murder.
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Donald McQuade was found guilty this week of murdering the teenager more than four decades ago. CNN
But the state argued successfully that McQuade killed Connolly during a sexual assault and then dumped her body.
Assistant public defender Benjamin Dresner remained adamant that his client did not kill Connolly.
"Don McQuade did not murder Shelly Connolly. At best, the state's evidence shows that these two people might have had sex in the day or two before she died," he said.
McQuade appeared tired as the jury's verdict was read out. A delay in the trial caused by the pandemic meant he had spent the past few years on bail, but he was taken away from the courthouse in handcuffs.
McQuade's lawyers are expected to lodge an appeal. He is due for sentencing on April 26.
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