A Missouri man has been charged with the 1993 rape and murder of a young Indianapolis woman after his DNA matched evidence found at the crime scene and on the victim’s body, authorities said.
Dana Shepherd, 52, of Columbia, Missouri, was arrested Friday in Missouri on charges of murder, felony assault and rape in the killing of 19-year-old Carmen Van Huss, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement. News release,
Indianapolis Police
Shepherd was being held without bail Wednesday at the Boone County Jail in Missouri, and an extradition hearing is scheduled for the coming days, the police department said in a news release.
Online Indiana court records did not list an attorney who would speak on Shepherd’s behalf Wednesday.
Kendell Adams, deputy chief of the police department’s criminal investigations division, said in a statement Tuesday that he hoped Shepherd’s arrest would bring Van Huss’ family “some measure of peace.”
“For 31 years, the family of Carmen Van Huss has been looking for answers and justice,” he said.
Van Huss’ father found her dead in her Indianapolis apartment in March 1993 after she failed to show up for work. An autopsy found she had been raped and stabbed 61 times, according to court records.
“We hope after all this time people will understand how violent my sister’s murder was,” Van Huss’ brother, Jimmy Van Huss, said. told CBS affiliate WTTV“She was raped and stabbed over 60 times and my father had to see her like that, blood everywhere, blood on the walls, his daughter lying naked… he had to see it all. It changed him forever.”
Police said DNA evidence was found on the body and blood was found on a paper bag in her apartment, but the case eventually went cold.
In 2018, the department submitted a sample of DNA found at the scene to a specialized company. Last year, detectives used that company’s genetic genealogy analysis to identify Shepherd as a suspect. They then collected DNA from Shepherd in February and found it matched DNA found on Van Huss’s body and paper bag.
Investigators said at the time Van Huss was killed, he and Shepherd lived in the same apartment complex.
Jimmy Van Huss told WTTV he hopes an arrest in his sister’s murder will bring more attention to other cold cases.
“We want them all to get this treatment,” he told the station. “And by that I mean DNA, genealogy treatment. We want a bill, a law, a process — something in memory of Carmen that will bring attention to other cases.”