16-year-old girl killed 45 years ago, Washington cops say. DNA now identifies suspect
A 16-year-old girl’s body was found next to power lines in Washington 45 years ago, deputies said.
DNA testing just identified the suspect in her death as Keith D. Lindblom, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said in a Sept. 8 Facebook post.
Krisann Baxter was reported as running away by her mother on Sept. 30, 1978. Power line workers found her body four days later, deputies said.
DNA evidence was sent to a lab that year, but because of limitations in testing at the time, there were no results, deputies said.
In 2006, evidence was sent to the lab again, and results showed there was “DNA consistent with Krisann Baxter and an ‘unknown male.’”
That information was logged into the FBI’S Combined DNA Indexing System. But no matches of a suspect turned up, deputies said.
The profile was then added to the National DNA Indexing System in 2014, deputies said.
Without any matches, investigators sent a sample with the unknown male’s DNA to Othram, a lab in The Woodlands, Texas, that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy.
Scientists extracted DNA from the sample and used it to find a “familial DNA match,” which led to finding Lindblom as a possible person of interest, deputies said.
They found one of his daughters in Louisiana and conducted a DNA comparison.
“Whole Genome Sequencing (WSG) showed a parent/child relationship used in this sample comparison and based on 45 total segments, had a match confidence level of 100%,” deputies said.
Prosecutors planned to charge Lindblom with murder and sexual assault, deputies said. However, he died in a fire on April 11, 1981.
In 1975, Lindblom was charged with a violent assault and rape of a 16-year-old girl, deputies said.
He was initially accused of raping and assaulting the teen in the same area Baxter’s body was found, deputies said. He pleaded guilty to the assault charge, and the rape charge was dropped.
Lindblom was released from prison Aug. 7, 1978, so he wasn’t in custody at the time of Baxter’s death.
Because Lindblom died, the case is being closed because of exceptional circumstances.
This story was originally published September 11, 2023 at 4:39 PM with the headline "16-year-old girl killed 45 years ago, Washington cops say. DNA now identifies suspect."
