Murder Victim. She was abducted while shopping for groceries and clothing for her husband and one year-old son. Her husband Donald reported her missing on January 27th and her abandoned vehicle was located the following day in a parking lot near Owosso, Michigan. A two day search by over 4,000 volunteers failed to locate any trace of the missing 20 year old woman. Her frozen body was eventually discovered March 4, 1973 in neighboring Saginaw County by two boys near Brady Township. Police reports indicated that she had been raped and shot three times. A rusted .22-caliber handgun believed to be the murder weapon was recovered from the Shiawassee River in 1974 and the victim's wallet containing photo ID was recovered on the opposite side of the river bank two years later. Over the next two decades her case remained unsolved. In 1995 the Michigan State Police re-opened the murder investigation, focusing on trace DNA evidence collected and preserved from the original crime scene in 1973, during a time when forensic science testing methods had yet to be developed. In 1999 authorities using computer records were successful in tracing the serial number from the gun to the original owner. During the investigative process the owner was located and cleared as a suspect in the crime. The owner told police that he had lost the gun many years earlier but was able to provide police with the name of a man who was a friend of his former wife and whom he thought might possibly be linked to the crime. The information led investigators to a suspect that had been convicted and jailed for the 1961 rape and robbery of a blind University of Michigan student. On March 7, 2001 authorities arrested Jerald Leroy Wingeart on charges of premeditated felony murder after obtaining DNA evidence from cigarette butts found in his trash. On November 27, 2001 Wingeart was found guilty by a jury, 28 years following the crime and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case drew national media attention appearing on the cable channel's Court-TV, the Art's and Entertainment cable television series "Closed Case Files" and served as the basis for the 2002 motion picture "An Ordinary Killer."

Jerald Leroy Wingeart died in prison 08/20/2022