Debra Lee Miller, 26, was killed in her apartment in 1981 by James Vanest, who was shot dead by police last month. The murder of an 18-year-old woman in Ohio 43 years ago has been solved with the help of DNA technology, authorities announced on Monday. Jason Bammann, the Mansfield police chief, said the cold case of Debra Lee Miller, a local waitress beaten to death with an oven grate in her apartment on 29 April 1981, was finally solved when DNA of a man shot dead by police was linked to the crime scene.
The man, James Vanest, was shot dead by police last month as authorities attempted to serve him an indictment on federal gun charges. The investigation into the death of Miller had been long and troubled. Miller was one of several people from the Mansfield area whose suspicious deaths in the 1980s were examined for possible links to Mansfield police officers.
A special investigation ordered by the mayor concluded in 1989 that there was no evidence linking any officers with the deaths, but the report raised questions about sexual involvement between police officers and Miller, and about the way police investigated some homicides.
The report noted that Miller wrote in her diary that she was sexually involved with several Mansfield police officers. It wouldn’t be the only controversy surrounding the department. The local police chief retired the following year, after complaints arose over alleged irregularities in the investigation of the death of the ex-wife of a Mansfield patrolman.
