KITSAP, Wash. — The suspect in a 1995 Kitsap County cold case has been identified through DNA.
Kitsap County Sheriff John Gese said Douglas Keith Krohne is suspected of killing 61-year-old Patricia Lorraine Barnes. Krohne died in 2016.
Othram, a Texas-based lab, helped solve the case after the sheriff's office reopened its investigation in 2018, Gese said.
Barnes' body was found unclothed and partially covered by a passerby along a rural road in Kitsap County in August 1995, according to the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office (KCSO). Barnes was reportedly shot in the head twice.
Detectives spoke with the last person believed to see Barnes alive in the original investigation and was able to provide an artist rendering of a possible suspect. After a lengthy investigation, KCSO detectives were unable to identify a suspect in the killing and the case went cold after some time.
In 2018, KCSO reopened the investigation and sent DNA samples to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, as well as Othram labs and another private lab in Flordia.
KCSO said Orthram used the DNA evidence to search genealogy databases for possible genetic relatives of the suspect. In December 2021, Orthram labs provided the name of a potential suspect to KSCO detectives.
Krohne died in an accident in Arizona in 2016, according to KCSO.
The DNA evidence linked Krohne to the killing. He matched the 1995 artist rendering of the potential suspect.
Krohne lived in Seattle and Tacoma around the time of the killing and detectives said he had a lengthy criminal history in western Washington, including felony convictions and a kidnapping arrest in 1994.
"In a matter of speaking, this case was solved in 1995," Detective Mark Grant said. "The work done by detectives then is what solved this case. It wasn't until advances in forensic science, genetic genealogy becoming available most recently, that we were able to resolve this case that they had started."
Gese said Barnes' family was relieved to have a resolution to her death. Gese thanked the law enforcement officers involved and all of those who worked to bring the investigation to a close.
Ortham labs also helped law enforcement in Snohomish County solve a 40-year-old cold case through DNA evidence. A John Doe found dead in Snohomish County in 1980 was identified as a Georgia man who was reported missing in King County in 1979.