DNA From Letter Solves 30-Year-Old Cold Case of Murdered Mom

The Reading Eagle published a story on its front page in 1990 about a Pennsylvania mother who had been brutally murdered two years earlier—an article that would indirectly lead to the mother’s killer being identified 30 years later.

That woman, Anna Kane, was just 26 when she was strangled to death with a rope and her body abandoned in woodland near Hamburg, Pennsylvania, in October 1988. The paper’s story detailed her killing, and highlighted how cops were struggling to identify a suspect despite detecting a man’s DNA on her clothes and body.

A few days after publishing, the Eagle received a letter from a “concerned citizen.” Inside were “intricate” details about Kane’s slaying—details only her killer could know, cops said at the time and the Reading Eagle reported Thursday. Detectives knew the letter’s author was Kane’s killer, they just didn’t know who wrote it.

This would remain the situation for another 32 years until this week, when state police were able to take DNA from the letter’s envelope—licked by Kane’s killer—and finally identified him as Scott Grimm, a Pennsylvania man who died in 2018.

Grimm was 58 and died from natural causes, the Eagle reported. The Berks County District Attorney, John Adams, said he hopes the identification brings closure to Kane’s loved ones, despite Grimm being unable to face justice himself.

Kane’s daughter, Tamika Reyes, was just 9 when her mother was killed. She had mixed feelings about authorities identifying Grimm.

“I didn’t think I’d see this day, but I had hope,” Reyes, now 42, told ABC 6. “My emotions are all over the place: happy, sad, angry.”

Reyes, who couldn’t be reached by The Daily Beast on Saturday, said she has some memories of her mother, but her younger brothers don’t.

Newspaper archives from the time said Kane worked as a prostitute in the area when she went missing early in the morning on Oct. 23, 1988. An article published by Allentown’s The Morning Call later that week said Kane was found dead along the Ontelaunee Trail, a rope tied around her neck and her face severely bruised.

Kane wasn’t sexually assaulted but did engage in a struggle with her killer—evidenced by the bruises, The Morning Call reported, citing cops.

State police praised law enforcement who investigated Kane’s murder in 1988 at a press conference Thursday, saying their predecessors maintained a “solid foundation” of physical evidence that was integral to identifying Grimm today.

“It was preserved as it should be because they knew probably somewhere down the line what they collected could be that little piece of evidence of what they needed,” Sgt. Nathan Trate said. “Well, here we are in 2022, and that little piece of evidence that they collected was exactly what we needed to solve this case.”

Detectives said Grimm had a past arrest, for harassing a former business partner in 2002, but never had an arrest that led to his DNA being entered into a police database. They did not elaborate on how they obtained a sample of Grimm’s DNA to match with DNA from the letter.

A Virginia laboratory processed the DNA using grant funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, officials said. The district attorney said his office also contributed a portion of the funding.

Trate said there was no known connection between Grimm and Kane. Few details were released about Grimm’s life, but detectives said he remained a resident of southeast Pennsylvania until he died.

“Every victim, despite their background whether good, bad or indifferent, deserves closure,” said Capt. Robert Bailey of the Pennsylvania State Police’s local troop. “I hope this sends a message to the citizens of Berks County that we are willing to do anything in our power to investigate any case that comes our way.”