cigarette butts out the window. so these are, like, when i bought the car. there were more than a dozen cigarette butts. police hoped at least one was from daniel woloson. they gave the evidence to dna analyst jennifer andrew. what i gathered from speaking with the investigator in charge, there was a homicide about 20 years ago of a college student. and you know, me being recently out of college, it was a little bit personal for me. one by one, andrew cut open the cigarette filters, often a good source of dna. because that s where all the saliva and skin cells would be deposited. the samples were treated with a solvent that separates the dna. a profile was generated from an unknown male. the profile was sent to illinois for comparison with the 20-year-old genetic material left at susan schumake s murder. and it matched daniel woloson.
paul echols was convinced he was closing in on susan schumake s killer. but only dna could prove it. and the suspect, daniel woloson, wasn t willing to provide it. so michigan state police decid they d take his dna in a perfectly legal manner. they decided to run surveillance on him. the whole purpose was to try to get something that might have daniel woloson s dna so we could either identify him or eliminate him. it wasn t easy. since woloson worked in an auto parts salvage yard, only other employees could get close to him without arousing suspicion. then police learned he had recently sold his car. and they knew he smoked cigarettes. so they traced the car to its new owner. they asked him about the cigarette butts in the ashtray. he says, well, i don t smoke, and all my friends throw their
find this person with whom he spent the night, were unsuccessful. woloson cooperated with police and provided hair samples. but the next day when police went to speak with him again, he was gone. in his room, they found a torn note. some of the pieces were in the toilet. the rest were in a trash can. it read almost like a suicide note. i don t know why it s always me. i know i can t handle prison again. i know everyone is better off this way. police continued to search for woloson until they examined his hair sample. woloson s hair was not consistent with the hair found on susan s body, so he was eliminated as a suspect. the case threatened to go cold, until john paul phillips, now in prison for rape and kidnapping, allegedly bragged about his murders to his prison cellmate, thomas moccabe.
the first person on their list was daniel woloson. he was originally a suspect. he was working a quarter mile away on the day of the murder. then he ran off when police tried to question him. police found him in michigan where he worked at an auto salvage yard. by this time, he was divorced with one child and did not want to talk with police. woloson told them that he had provided hair samples and fingerprints back in 1981. he was not interested in cooperating with their investigation. investigators wanted a dna sample. woloson refused to provide one, and the courts refused to order one, citing the lack of probable cause. woloson s hair was on file from the original investigation, but the samples didn t contain root material, so they couldn t be
she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. despite the evidence against him, woloson pleaded not guilty. in march of 2006, 25 years after susan s murder, daniel woloson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison. the university has now built a well-lighted pedestrian overpass so students no longer have to walk through the overgrown dirt path where susan was abducted and murdered. it was named in susan s honor. my wife had made the comment, she said, you know, i wonder how much it costs to have one of these overpasses built. and i said, i ll tell you what it costs. it costs one human life. that s why we do what we do, you know, to bring justice to these families, so the families deserve a lot of credit, as well. they re the people who push us along the way.