DNA helps nab murder suspect in 15-year-old’s cold case death, Washington cops say
Melissa Lee went missing on April 14, 1993 and later that day her body was found in a ravine in Everett, Washington. The 15-year-old girl from Bothell had been strangled to death, and for the next 27 years, her case would remain unsolved.
On Tuesday, detectives — using genetic genealogy to identify the suspect — arrested the man they say kidnapped and killed Lee, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
He remains in the Snohomish County Jail with bail set at $2 million, according to KING.
Alan E. Dean, 62, of Bothell, faces charges of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder, the sheriff’s office said. Dean lived 3.6 miles away from the site where authorities found Lee’s body in 1993, according to the release.
“We never gave up hope that we would find Melissa’s killer,” Adam Fortney, Snohomish County sheriff, said in the release. “The arrest yesterday shows how our detective’s determination, combined with new advancements in DNA technology, continues to get us one step closer to justice for victims and their families, even decades later.”
Detectives identified Dean after Parabon NanoLabs performed a genetic genealogy analysis on evidence found at the crime scene, the sheriff’s office said. Detectives uploaded a file containing the DNA evidence to a public genetic genealogy website and found several of the suspect’s relatives that matched, according to the release.
Parabon’s genealogists determined the suspect’s identity and found his DNA on a discarded cigarette butt , the sheriff’s office said. Washington State Patrol’s crime lab confirmed Dean’s DNA sample matched the DNA profile of the evidence found at the scene.
Detectives interviewed Dean in 1993 after finding a phone number in Lee’s address book for “Michael,” the sheriff’s office said. Dean told detectives he used the name “Mike” when he met Lee and dated her twice in March 1993, according to the sheriff’s office.
Dean was 35 at the time of Lee’s killing, the sheriff’s office said.
This story was originally published July 29, 2020 at 5:45 PM.