Nevada law enforcement officials on Wednesday announced the closure of two cold cases after advances in DNA technology linked a man to murders in both Las Vegas and Westminster, Colorado, nearly 16 years apart.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said during a press conference that in May 1991, officers responded to a report of a suspicious death inside an apartment in the 1000 block of Monroe Avenue.
Officers met with a friend and relative of 31-year-old Sherrie Bridgewater, who had just found her dead in her apartment.
The homicide division took over the case because of the suspicious nature of how Bridgewater’s body was found, and an autopsy found she had been sexually assaulted and killed by strangulation. The homicide investigation team has been working the case “non-stop” for years to solve the case, but unfortunately, it remains unsolved.
In 2013, the department submitted a sexual assault kit obtained during the investigation for DNA testing. DNA testing allowed detectives to develop a suspect profile of the person believed to have killed Bridgewater, although they were unable to put a name to the DNA profile.
Through DNA advances, police learned that Sherrie Bridgewater, left, and Teree Becker, right, were both killed by Thomas Martin Elliott. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
After entering the profile, detectives received a hit in the CODIS database that linked them to a second unsolved murder in Westminster, Colorado from December 1975.
Detectives with LVMPD immediately began working with Westminster PD, where they learned a woman named Teree Becker was found dead in a field. An autopsy conducted on Becker found that she had been sexually assaulted and died of strangulation.
Both agencies had the same suspect profile, but at the time, the technology wasn’t available to identify who the suspect was unless they obtained DNA from the suspect.
Elliott died in 1991 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
In 2018, the two agencies collaborated to submit the case for forensic genealogy, where DNA from the suspect was sent to a lab and then to a company in Denver, Colorado. Four years later, in 2022, detectives were able to identify the suspect as Thomas Martin Elliott.
Investigations conducted by both police agencies placed Elliott in Colorado at the time of Becker’s murder in Westminster, Colorado, and in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1991, at the time of Bridgewater’s murder.
In November 1991, Elliott was pronounced dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Las Vegas. He was later buried in a local cemetery in Las Vegas.
Although Elliott was identified as a suspect, detectives weren’t 100% sure until they were able to obtain DNA from his body.
Elliott’s body was exhumed so DNA could be extracted. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
With exhumation costs prohibitive, the two police agencies teamed up and approached the Vegas Justice League to help fund Elliott’s re-exhumation for DNA.
Elliott’s body was exhumed in October 2023, and detectives were able to obtain tissue and bone samples that were submitted to a lab. While in the lab, DNA samples were extracted and compared to both cases. The results of both were 100% matches, police said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
