the bad news, we still don t can t give you a suspect. the dna profile of their killer did not match any of the known criminal offenders in the national database. the dna match didn t tell us who that person was. that was our job, to find him. but it wouldn t be easy. margarette eby s murder took place many years earlier, and nancy ludwig was murdered in detroit, over 75 miles away from flint. but investigators suspected that the killer drove a monte carlo automobile and had access to twine used by landscapers. the hotel employee s boyfriend who owned the monte carlo had an alibi for the night of nancy ludwig s murder, and he was no longer considered a suspect. most of the times, killers are pretty stupid, and we catch them for some pretty stupid reason. he was very clever, very clever and very thorough. as the years passed, all 22,000 leads in the case were
automobile like the one a witness saw in the hotel parking lot on the night of nancy ludwig s murder. and there was another surprise. gorton worked for a water sprinkler company that serviced the sprinkler system in margarette eby s yard. that same company had been to margarette eby s residence several days before her death in order for them to blow out the sprinkler lines for the season. but that could have been easily explained why his fingerprint would have been inside eby s home. you re working with metal sprinkler equipment and maybe there s a sharp edge and you slice your finger. you come in, you wash your hands, you leave a bloody fingerprint. it s not a reason to go to jail. you haven t done anything. you just left a bloody fingerprint. gorton s fingerprint was in the florida database because of numerous arrests for attacks on women. he actually had assaulted several of them by walking up
perpetration or attempted perpetration of attempted sexual conduct in the first degree jeffrey gorton was tried and convicted for the first-degree murder of both nancy ludwig and margarette eby. he will spend the rest of his life in prison. i m afraid of him. i m glad he s locked up for the rest of his life. he is the absolutely most frightening person that i ve ever encountered because he was random, because he was so secretive, because he was so ordinary. walter tom henderson wrote about this case in blood justice and thinks there are other victims. my feeling is that some day, somebody s going to be running a dna sample that kicks up jeffrey gorton s name. it may be more than one or two. it might be quite a few. it still took a fingerprint or something very basic and
after several years, the cold case unit of the michigan state police decided to take a second look at the murders of margarette eby and nancy ludwig. they thought that perhaps the original investigators might have missed something. dna testing revealed the same man killed both women, but they had no idea to whom the dna belonged. so they concentrated on the partial fingerprint from the faucet in margarette eby s bathroom. the crime lab was able to identify a small print on the faucet knob in the sink of that bathroom. the faucet knob was actually taken off, taken back to the crime lab, where the fingerprint was photographed, and the knob was stored as evidence.
perpetration or attempted perpetration of attempted sexual conduct in the first degree. jeffrey gorton was tried and convicted for the first-degree murder of both nancy ludwig and margarette eby. he will spend the rest of his life in prison. i m afraid of him. i m glad he s locked up for the rest of his life. he is the absolutely most frightening person that i ve ever encountered because he was random, because he was so secretive, because he was so ordinary. walter tom henderson wrote about this case this blood justice and thinks there are other victims. my feeling is that some day, somebody s going to be running a dna sample that kicks up jeffrey gorton s name. it may be more than one or two, it might be quite a few. it still took a fingerprint or something very basic and maybe less high-tech, if you want to call it that, than dna testing to solve the crime.