38 years after her body was discovered off of I-70 at Genesee Park, Jeffco Sheriff Jeff Shrader says investigators now know who killed Jeannie Moore.
In August of 1981, Moore, 18, went missing when she failed to report for work at a gas station. She hitchhiked to work and witnesses said they saw her get int a car. Five days later her body was found.
Using forensic, genetic, genealogy testing, investigators were able to search a public DNA database looking for family members who might be a close match to DNA collected years ago.
This lead them to the family of Donald Steven Perea, who was 23-year-old at the time of the murder. Perea died at age 54 in 2012. He had a criminal record and did time in a rape case.
His biological daughter agreed to a DNA test and that confirmed that Perea was 3.3 trillion times more likely than anyone else to have committed the murder.
The investigation was aided by a company called United Data Connect.