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BREAKING NEWS | |
COLD CASE ARREST IN 33-YEAR OLD KING COUNTY HOMICIDE
September 24, 2011
 Murder suspect Ronald Wayne MacDonald as he looked in 1978 at the time Arlene Roberts was murdered. CLICK TO ENLARGE  Murder suspect Ronald Wayne MacDonald, 50, as he looked during his arrest this week in Reno. CLICK TO ENLARGE  Murder victim Arlene Roberts, 80, who was murdered in her small trailer in a King County Mobile Home Park on Rainier Ave South on October 28, 1978. CLICK TO ENLARGE
Ronald Wayne MacDonald, 50, was arrested in Reno, Nevada and was charged with a 1978 homicide. Prosecutors asked for a bail of $2 million.
The body of Arlene Roberts, an 80 year-old widow, was found in her small trailer in the Lakeshore Manor Mobile Home Park, 11448 Rainier Ave South on October 28, 1978. She lived alone, and had not been seen in several days so neighbors went to check on her.
Roberts’ hands and feet were tied with nylon stockings and there was a gag in her mouth. She was naked from the waist down and a ligature was around her neck, fashioned, from a hair net.
She had been strangled to death and the trailer was ransacked.
Over time the case went cold and was never solved.
Last year detectives from the Sheriff's Office Cold Case Unit took another look at the case.
Evidence collected at the time included latent fingerprints from the crime scene Detectives realized that advances in AFIS technology now allowed prints to be entered into the system that previously may have not met the criteria for quality or detail.
AFIS technicians found matches to MacDonald on three items from the crime scene, including a bank statement and a Traveler’s Cheque.
Detectives looked into MacDonald’s background and found that he was living about seven blocks from the victim around the time of the crime. In addition, he was booked into jail twice in 1978 on burglary charges.
By 1979 he had moved to Florida and was arrested for burglary in 1979 and 1980 and he subsequently served prison time in Florida and Washington.
MacDonald was also arrested in Nevada in 1992 and in 2001. He currently resides in Reno, where he was interviewed by Sheriff's Office detectives last June.
“DNA gets all the attention,” said Sheriff Sue Rahr. “But other advances, including fingerprint identification via AFIS, solve crimes as well. It is very gratifying to finally solve the murder of an 80 year-old woman, thanks to AFIS and great detective work.”
MacDonald will face an extradition hearing in the near future.
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