Cold case breakthrough solves teen murder after suspect lives free for decades: ‘Better to be scared’

Michigan authorities have identified the man responsible for the slaying of 16-year-old Sherry Jo Elliott, ending a four-decade-old cold case and marking the latest crime to be solved using advanced DNA technology.

Ronnie Collins, 75, of Grand Blanc, has been named as Elliott’s killer. According to Michigan State Police.

On November 16, 1983, Elliott left his home in Flint to walk to a bus stop and was never seen again.

She went missing a few hours after she did not return home from school.

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Authorities searched with Elliott’s family for several days in an agonizing effort to locate their missing loved one.

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“It was scary. But we went and put out missing signs to the neighbors and everyone we knew in town and the stores would put the missing ones in the windows,” Elliott’s aunt, Judy Sica, said. told Fox 66.

Four days after her disappearance, Elliott’s body was found in a ditch in nearby Saginaw County.

An autopsy found she had been sexually assaulted and shot multiple times, according to authorities.

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“You don’t know the horror that goes through your mind when they tell you they found her body,” Sika told Fox 66.

However, a break in the case came when MSP reopened the investigation in 2023 with the Western Michigan University Cold Case Program to take a fresh look at the evidence.

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“Students helped reorganize and digitize decades of research material, providing critical support to renewed research,” MSP said in a statement.

Recently re-examined evidence led police to Collins, but he died by suicide in January of this year before authorities could obtain a voluntary DNA sample.

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Using DNA collected from Collins’ autopsy, investigators “identified him as the person responsible for the crime, matching the analysis and findings of evidence recovered from Elliott in 1983,” MSP said.

The case is just the latest to use forensic genetic genealogy to lead investigators to the person responsible for a long-unsolved murder.

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“They worked the logical family members, and that could be a thousand people that you have to prove could be related to this person,” Tom Myers, a retired FBI forensics agent, told Fox News Digital.

“Then you start to develop who the potential person is,” Myers added. “It usually comes down to three or five people. Or sometimes, it’s one person who stands out and then when you crosscut with someone who’s been a bad boy their whole life, then there’s a good chance that’s your person.”

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According to Myers, the reality of testing cold case evidence also comes with the possibility that samples may have been damaged or deteriorated over time. However, the implementation of genetic genealogy has made it easier for researchers to do more with less.

“They can now get DNA from a single hair strand, versus a hair strand with a follicle,” Myers said. “In the 1980s to 1990s, it was a spot the size of a nickel. Now, it’s three to five skin cells—you can’t even see it. That’s DNA.”

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In light of another cold case being solved with genetic genealogy testing, Myers emphasized that the new technology will serve as a deterrent to would-be aspiring criminals who may reconsider their crimes because of the increased likelihood of being caught.

“Exploratory genealogy is more comprehensive and certainly a big deal,” Myers told Fox News Digital. “But if [investigators are] At the top of their game, you better be scared, because they’re going to get it.”

Original article source: Cold case breakthrough solves teen murder after suspect lives free for decades: ‘Better to be scared’