Nabbed Because Of Cigarette

Thirty-five years after a woman was murdered police arrested a man when his discarded butt linked him to the crime scene

- Jane Vorster

It's New Year’s Eve 1985 and the party is in full swing. Dancing and celebrating at the restaurant in Pensacola, Florida, is a 23-year-old single mom who’s enjoying the chance to let down her hair.

At 1.30 am Tonya McKinley waves goodbye to her friends and heads out to return to her 18-month-old son. Little do her friends realise it’s the last time they’ll see her alive.

Hours later the pretty young woman is found strangled and partially naked in a parking lot, and the brutal murder sends shockwaves across America.

Pensacola police launch an extensive search for the killer but they can uncover no concrete evidence that will allow them to make an arrest.

Tonya’s murder seems destined to the forlorn scrapheap of cold cases – until something rather extraordinary happens a full 35 years later.

A cigarette butt, carelessly thrown out of a car window, offers the final bit of evidence cops need to arrest a now 57-year old man.

At the time of the murder authorities collected physical evidence – including semen and hair – but as none of these DNA matched samples in the national database they were stumped.

Yet over the past few years open-source genealogy databases, such as ancestry. com and 23andMe where people can submit their DNA in the hope that it will allow them to be reunited with long-lost relatives, have been providing police with a trove of useful information.