Man arrested in cold case 1980 murder of 73-year-old grandmother after DNA match

By Daily Mail Reporter



Cold case arrest: DNA evidence has led to the arrest of Stephen Alan Thomas who is suspected of killing a 73-year-old grandmother in 1980

More than three decades after 73-year-old Mildred McKinney was raped, beaten and strangled authorities have made an arrest in the grandmother’s brutal murder.

Texas investigators say DNA evidence led to Stephen Alan Thomas, 53, being arrested on a capital murder charge for the 1980 killing.

Thomas’ DNA was found on a ligature, which was used to tie up McKinney’s body, and his fingerprint was also found in her home, according to police.

Detectives met with Thomas twice in Dallas and in Austin, where he had relocated to stay with his parents.

Investigators say he initially denied knowing the victim or assaulting her.

'The first time I talked to him, he denied everything and ever knowing Mildred McKinney, ever being in her house and any type of sexual contact with her,' Sgt. John Foster from the Williams County Sheriff's Department told ABC news.


McKinney was found dead in her home, where she lived alone, by her daughter. She had been beaten, strangled and raped.

The murderer had then stacked a recliner chair, end table and vacuum cleaner on the elderly woman’s head and chest.

McKinney’s grandson, Bob Stapleton, said his family were sad that the arrest came after the death of his mother who had long sought her mother’s killer.


Victim: Mildred McKinney was 73-years-old when she was beaten, strangled and raped in the Central Texas home where she lived alone

In a statement to ABC, he praised the work of Foster and the police force: 'Without their resolve, their determination, and their passion for this cold case we may have never known closure to my grandmother's story.

‘She was a glorious woman who my family and I love and cherish and who will continue to live on in our fondest memories,’ he wrote.

Henry Lee Lucas, a convicted serial killer who has since died, confessed to McKinney's murder but this was discounted in the late 1980s after DNA testing.

Thomas was not a suspect in the case until the DNA hit, said Foster, who described the killing as the ‘worst homicide’ he seen in his 20 years as an officer.

People had suspected a link between McKinney’s murder and the 1986 killing of Christine Morton.

The women lived less than a mile apart and in both cases the victims were beaten and had items stacked on their bodies after they were killed.

Morton’s husband, Michael Morton, spent nearly 25 years in prison for his wife’s murder. He was released in October after DNA linked 58-year-old Mark Norwood to the killing.

In January, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office reported that DNA from McKinney’s murder did not match that of Norwood’s. Norwood is awaiting trial for Christine Morton’s murder.


Further details were not immediately available on any previous criminal history that led to Thomas providing DNA samples.