A 53 year old Beaufort man is to be charged in the 1988 murder of a 19-year-old in Michigan. DNA led to his arrest.

Cathy Swartz was 19 years old when she was found murdered on December 2nd, 1988 in her apartment.

She was found by her boyfriend; her 9 month old daughter was found uninjured in an upstairs bedroom. She had been stabbed, beaten, and strangled before her death. There were signs of attempted rape and self defense on her. Fingerprints, blood, and foot prints were recovered at the scene.

Investigation and Arrest

The FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime created a profile for the perpetrator suggesting that the killer might have lived in the general area and may have known the victim. The Western Michigan University Cold Case Program, which works with the Michigan State Police on cold cases also worked on the case.

Investigators with the Three Rivers Police Department in St. Joseph County, Michigan announced in May 2023 that they had used forensic genetic genealogy on DNA found at the scene through Othram. They were able to narrow down suspects to a family they had interviewed and fingerprinted. They identified Robert Odell Waters, now aged 53, as a suspect and travelled to South Carolina to interview him.

Waters turned himself into police on on the weekend and as of the next day, he was held at the Beaufort County Detention Center on a fugitive from justice charge. He is awaiting extradition to Michigan where he'll be charged with open murder. This means that a jury will decide whether he's guilty or not, as well as to what degree of murder this case involves.

Waters would have been roughly 18 years old at the time of the murder.

sources:

https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/crime/article274928641.html

https://dnasolves.com/articles/michigan-murder-cathy-swartz-1988/