Murder Victim. A bright future was brought to a sad end on the night of June 20, 1978. Karla and her fiance Mark were headed toward a promising new adventure. The couple had been together for five years and had only the night before had a moving party to thank the friends that helped them move into a new place as a couple together. Karla, a cheerleader at Roxana High School, was finishing college, and Mark had a promising job as an electrician. Mark and his friend Tom found Karla beaten, socks tied together around her throat, and her body bent at the waist, submerged in a barrel of water. An autopsy would show Karla had been strangled before being placed into the water barrel. Her murder was solved by forensic experts who analyzed bite marks on the victim's body two years after the crime was committed. Her murder is a landmark case since it used bite-mark analysis as a DNA sample that convicted the killer. It also involved an exhumation, something atypical of most murder trials. A three-week jury trial in June and July of 1983 found John Prante guilty of the murder of Karla Brown, and he was sentenced to 75 years in prison. Karla's murder became the subject of the New York Times bestselling book "Silent Witness: The Karla Brown Murder Case."

Murder Victim. A bright future was brought to a sad end on the night of June 20, 1978. Karla and her fiance Mark were headed toward a promising new adventure. The couple had been together for five years and had only the night before had a moving party to thank the friends that helped them move into a new place as a couple together. Karla, a cheerleader at Roxana High School, was finishing college, and Mark had a promising job as an electrician. Mark and his friend Tom found Karla beaten, socks tied together around her throat, and her body bent at the waist, submerged in a barrel of water. An autopsy would show Karla had been strangled before being placed into the water barrel. Her murder was solved by forensic experts who analyzed bite marks on the victim's body two years after the crime was committed. Her murder is a landmark case since it used bite-mark analysis as a DNA sample that convicted the killer. It also involved an exhumation, something atypical of most murder trials. A three-week jury trial in June and July of 1983 found John Prante guilty of the murder of Karla Brown, and he was sentenced to 75 years in prison. Karla's murder became the subject of the New York Times bestselling book "Silent Witness: The Karla Brown Murder Case."

Bio by: Memorial Flower