A 66-year-old Connecticut man has been arrested in connection with the 1986 rape and murder of a young woman in Virginia Beach after investigators used forensic genealogy to link him to DNA evidence from the decades-old crime scene, police said this week.
Virginia Beach police identified the suspect as Charles Berry of Newington, Connecticut, and said he is accused of the killing of 22-year-old Roberta Walls, whose body was found in a field behind what was then Old Donation Elementary School on May 15, 1986.
Walls, a library worker, had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and the case remained unsolved for nearly 40 years despite early efforts to collect and preserve biological evidence from the scene. Authorities said Berry was arrested Monday in Newington and is being held while he awaits extradition to Virginia, according to NBC News.
According to Virginia Beach police, detectives developed a DNA profile from evidence recovered in 1986, but for years it did not match any profiles in state or national databases, leaving the case cold.
In 2017, investigators used newer lab technology to create composite sketches of a possible suspect based on that DNA, which showed what the man might have looked like at about ages 25 and 55 and helped narrow down their list of persons of interest.
The investigation shifted in 2023, when the Virginia Beach Police Department received grant funding under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to pursue forensic genealogy testing on the existing DNA profile, WTKR reported.
Using genetic genealogy, analysts identified a family line that led detectives to Berry, who had ties to the Virginia Beach area during the mid-1980s, police said. Investigators then obtained a court order for a sample of Berry's DNA, and a direct comparison matched him to the crime scene profile, according to authorities.
Berry has been charged in Virginia with rape and capital murder in the commission of a rape, and Newington police said he is also being held there as a fugitive from justice.
His bond in Connecticut was set between $2 million and $10 million, according to local and national reports, and he will face extradition proceedings before being transferred to Virginia Beach to answer the charges, as per CBS News.
