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Officials announce break in “I-65 Killer” case

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Indiana State Police and the FBI announced a break in a cold case that’s been under investigation for decades. Law enforcement announced Tuesday they were able to identify a man known as the “I-65 Killer” or “Days Inn Killer” as Harry Edward Greenwell.

Investigators say modern DNA testing matched Greenwell to three murders and several other assaults along I-65 from the 1980s and 1990s. Greenwell died in 2013 from cancer, according to an obituary.

The case had gone unsolved for more than 30 years.

The investigations began when a hotel clerk in Elizabethtown, Kentucky was found murdered in February of 1987. Vicki Heath, 41, was found by police behind the motel where she was shot and sexually assaulted.

On March 2, 1989 a woman working at a Days Inn in Merrillville, Indiana was found dead. Police say Peggy Gill was raped and shot twice in the head.

Within the same month, police were called to the Remington Days Inn off I-65 for another murder. Jeanne Gilbert was working the front desk and at some point was forced out of the motel and into a car. Police found her body in White County and say she had also been sexually assaulted before being shot three times.

At the time, police believed all three incidents were linked to one suspect.

In 1990, the same suspect sexually assaulted a female employee during an armed robbery at a Days Inn in Columbus, Indiana. That woman was able to survive, and gave police the first description of Greenwell.

After collecting DNA evidence from multiple crime scenes police were finally able to confirm the identity of the killer over 30 years later.

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