Wife killed as husband was at work in 1973, CA cops say. Now an Idaho man is arrested
More than five decades after a woman was found dead in her California home, an Idaho man has been arrested in her killing, deputies say.
Michael Eugene Mullen, 75, was arrested in Salmon on Aug. 14 in the killing of Nina “Nadine” Fischer, a Swedish national, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
While her husband was away during the day for work in November 1973, Fischer was sexually assaulted and killed at her San Rafael home, deputies said.
Without any investigative leads, her case went cold, deputies said.
Seeking new leads, the sheriff’s office said it turned its efforts to familial DNA searching in 2021 and provided the case to the California Department of Justice’s Familial Search Program.
Familial DNA searching is done by comparing DNA profiles against government-run DNA databases, such as the Combined DNA Index System, according to Jennifer Wiebe, a professional genealogist.
Unlike forensic investigative genetic genealogy, which searches public DNA databases, it “can only locate very close relatives, either a parent, child or sibling,” Wiebe said on her website. Forensic investigative genetic genealogy can potentially find more distant relatives, according to Wiebe.
A few months after partnering with the department of justice, the agency provided a lead to deputies.
Over the next three years, investigators worked to confirm the lead and ultimately identified Mullen as a suspect, deputies said.
Mullen was booked into Lemhi County Jail on a murder charge and will be extradited to California to stand trial, according to deputies.
San Rafael is about a 20-mile drive northwest of San Francisco, and Salmon is about a 250-mile drive northeast from Boise.
This story was originally published August 19, 2024 at 9:28 AM with the headline "Wife killed as husband was at work in 1973, CA cops say. Now an Idaho man is arrested."
