Unsolved homicide of Genevieve Zitricki, Greenville, SC April 6, 1990

[nanabillie]

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Posted: Jun 5, 2007 8:40 PM Please note the official release of this information was April 2006. The unsolved homicide of Genevieve Zitricki is now 17 years old. The case turned 17 years old on April 06, 2007.

If you lived in the Greenville, South Carolina area in 1990 and remember anything about this case or you know anything about the Missouri double homicide or Tennessee attack or if you can possibly put a name with the face please notify the police ASAP. Seventeen years is way too long for any case to go unsolved.

Below you will find a photo of Genevieve Zitricki and composites of the suspect.
Tammy Welch - Carolina Unsolved
__________________________________________________ __
Genevieve Zitricki
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/stoneygurl/misc/Carolina%20Unsolved-Unsolved%20Homicides/unsolved_genevievezitricki.jpg (http://photobucket.com/)

GREENVILLE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT MEDIA RELEASE
__________________________________________________ __
Releasing Official: Lieutenant Mike Gambrell
Public Information Officer
Date: April 21, 2006
Type of Incident: Zitricki Murder Investigation Update
__________________________________________________ __
The month of April marks the sixteen year anniversary of the Genevieve Zitricki homicide. In speaking with relatives during this time, we would like to take this time to update everyone on our investigation in hopes to generate some new leads. We must first begin by reminding everyone of the facts regarding this horrible incident.
On April 6, 1990, officers with the Greenville City Police Department responded to Hidden Lakes Apartments at 15 Villa Road, apartment # 227, in reference to a deceased female found in the bathroom.

The deceased was identified as a 28 year old white female who lived alone named Genevieve R. Zitricki. Zitricki was found lying in her bathtub. Evidence revealed that she had been beaten and strangled. Evidence of a forcible entry was found at the rear sliding glass door. The inside of the apartment was found in disarray with evidence of the incident beginning in her bedroom. Zitricki was an outgoing young lady of our community employed as a computer analyst at Michelin.

With S.L.E.D. being responsible for the forensics at the scene, our detectives along with S.L.E.D. investigators have reviewed this active case many times exhausting over 150 leads through the past 16 years with no specific suspect identified. Over the course of the past year, our Cold Case Unit was assigned this case in May of 2005 and recruited the services of a retired law enforcement consultant to assist in a total review of the evidence in this case. Our Cold Case Unit was established in late 2002 and has made arrests in three unsolved homicides. These numbers have reflected well with the overall success rate of our investigators of only seven (7) unsolved homicides from a total of one hundred ten (110) since 1992.

DNA found at the scene of the Zitricki homicide was placed into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) during August of 2005. This system was established during late1998 and compiles known offender DNA samples and accepts active criminal investigations with unidentified suspects. This system has taken a number of years to formulate a good database for comparison.

Their tireless efforts coupled with forensic technology developed a new lead connecting this case with an unsolved double homicide in Portageville, Missouri on March 28, 1998. Investigators in Missouri, reviewing their case, placed a DNA sample into CODIS during March of 2006. Upon entry, CODIS reported a match between the two DNA suspect samples.

The Missouri State Police linked their double homicide to a shooting in Dyersburg, Tennessee that occurred approximately two hours later. Investigation into these two incidents formulated a composite sketch of a white male suspect. Once this DNA match occurred, investigators from Missouri traveled to Greenville over the past few weeks to review both cases collectively.

As a result, investigators have now determined that the same suspect is responsible for these crimes. The latent DNA from the Greenville 1990 case is the same latent DNA from the Missouri 1998 case. The ballistics evidence from the Missouri case is connected to ballistics evidence in the Tennessee case.

With this clarification, the investigation now stretches across state boundary lines. Therefore, we are announcing that a multi-agency task force has been formulated including the Greenville City Police Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, S.L.E.D., F.B.I., 13th Circuit Solicitors Office, U.S. Marshals Service, and retired S.L.E.D. Major Jim Christopher. We are prepared to march across America and follow up wherever leads might take us.

The double homicide investigation from Missouri has been featured on America’s Most Wanted on several occasions. We have a composite which is being released today from the Tennessee investigation. These investigators are working diligently through a unified effort to solve these cases. We are urging anyone that recognizes this composite as someone they know, seen, or have additional information regarding the crimes to call our Investigative Services Division at (864) 350-1711 or Crime Stoppers at (864) 23-CRIME.

Our investigation is now sixteen years old. We have remained hopeful with this investigation through the years. This new information is promising but there is still much work left to perform in identifying this killer.

Lieutenant Mike Gambrell
Public Information Officer
(864) 467-5222
Fax (864) 467-4317
gambrem@greatergreenville.com

Unknown Suspect
1998 Tennessee Composite Sketches
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/stoneygurl/misc/Carolina%20Unsolved-Unsolved%20Homicides/composite_unknownmale_zitrickihomic.jpg (http://photobucket.com/)
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[nanabillie]

http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/crime/article/greenvile_police_need_your_help_with_cold_case_mur der/19578/
Greenvile Police Need Your Help With Cold Case Murder


Greenville Police Department
Published: June 11, 2009
The month of April marks the nineteen year anniversary of the Genevieve Zitricki homicide. In speaking with relatives during this time, we would like to take this time to update everyone on our investigation in hopes to generate some new leads. We must first begin by reminding everyone of the facts regarding this horrible incident. On April 6, 1990, officers with the Greenville City Police Department responded to Hidden Lakes Apartments at 15 Villa Road, apartment # 227, in reference to a deceased female found in the bathroom.

The deceased was identified as a 28 year old white female who lived alone named Genevieve R. Zitricki. Zitricki was found lying in her bathtub. Evidence revealed that she had been beaten and strangled. Evidence of a forcible entry was found at the rear sliding glass door. The inside of the apartment was found in disarray with evidence of the incident beginning in her bedroom.

Zitricki was an outgoing young lady of our community employed as a computer analyst at Michelin.
With S.L.E.D. being responsible for the forensics at the scene, our detectives along with S.L.E.D. investigators have reviewed this active case many times exhausting over 150 leads through the past 16 years with no specific suspect identified. Over the course of the past year, our Cold Case Unit was assigned this case in May of 2005 and recruited the services of a retired law enforcement consultant to assist in a total review of the evidence in this case.

Our Cold Case Unit was established in late 2002 and has made arrests in three unsolved homicides. These numbers have reflected well with the overall success rate of our investigators of only seven (7) unsolved homicides from a total of one hundred ten (110) since 1992.
DNA found at the scene of the Zitricki homicide was placed into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) during August of 2005. This system was established during late1998 and compiles known offender DNA samples and accepts active criminal investigations with unidentified suspects. This system has taken a number of years to formulate a good database for comparison.

Their tireless efforts coupled with forensic technology developed a new lead connecting this case with an unsolved double homicide in Portageville, Missouri on March 28, 1998. Investigators in Missouri, reviewing their case, placed a DNA sample into CODIS during March of 2006. Upon entry, CODIS reported a match between the two DNA suspect samples.

The Missouri State Police linked their double homicide to a shooting in Dyersburg, Tennessee that occurred approximately two hours later. Investigation into these two incidents formulated a composite sketch of a white male suspect. Once this DNA match occurred, investigators from Missouri traveled to Greenville over the past few weeks to review both cases collectively.

As a result, investigators have now determined that the same suspect is responsible for these crimes. The latent DNA from the Greenville 1990 case is the same latent DNA from the Missouri 1998 case. The ballistics evidence from the Missouri case is connected to ballistics evidence in the Tennessee case.

With this clarification, the investigation now stretches across state boundary lines. Therefore, we are announcing that a multi-agency task force has been formulated including the Greenville City Police Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, S.L.E.D., F.B.I., 13th Circuit Solicitors Office, U.S. Marshals Service, and retired S.L.E.D. Major Jim Christopher. We are prepared to march across America and follow up wherever leads might take us.

The double homicide investigation from Missouri has been featured on America’s Most Wanted on several occasions. We have a composite which is being released today from the Tennessee investigation. These investigators are working diligently through a unified effort to solve these cases. We are urging anyone that recognizes this composite as someone they know, seen, or have additional information regarding the crimes to call our Investigative Services Division at (864) 350-1711 or Crime Stoppers at 23-CRIME.

Our investigation is now nineteen years old. We have remained hopeful with this investigation through the years. This new information is promising but there is still much work left to perform in identifying this killer.

[nanabillie]

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?s=7878801

Possible Connection
The Scherer Murders
By: Kathy Sweeney
PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. - When we watch our favorite crime shows on TV, we know at the end of the hour, the killer usually gets caught. But, local investigators will tell you, that's not how it happens in real life.
In real life, it can take years to catch a killer. But now, there's new hope in a Heartland cold case that's haunted a community for the past 10 years.
The man who killed a mother and daughter inside their rural Portageville home back in 1998 may be as close to investigators as a name on a new list of leads they're working through right now.
As you read through the details involving the murders of Sherri and Megan Scherer, maybe you will remember someone or something that could help break this case wide open.
It happened around 6:30 p.m. on March 28, 1998. No one heard a handful of shots fired inside the rural Portageville home of Tony and Sherri Scherer.
"When the call came out, it came out on our pagers as a gunshot wound," recalled former EMT Nonnie Laux.
As emergency crews responded to the call, Sherri's best friend Tina DeLisle learns from her husband that something's wrong out at the Scherer home.
"Whatever had happened out there was bad," Tina said. "We couldn't even get down the road."
The road to the Scherer house was paved with love and laughter back in 1998, and dotted with the footprints of three dogs and too many cats to count. Tony Scherer says Sherri took real pride in their home, doing most the decorating herself.
She and Tony married in 1981 and had two children, Steven and Megan. Tony describes his wife as very creative, and very organized. Sherri loved to water ski and she loved her pets, always keeping a houseful.
Megan was in the 6th grade, getting straight A's. She played basketball and baseball and, like her mom, loved the water. You could comfortably call them a typical Heartland family, until one man's unexplainable choice changed everything.
Portageville Police Chief Ronnie Adams recalls arriving at the Scherer home the night of the shooting.
"I just went in to see what was going on. It was something you won't ever forget," Adams said.
Assistant Chief Freddie Hill met Tony Scherer in the driveway after he made the horrifying discovery.
"Tony told me he thought his wife and daughter had been murdered," Hill remembered.
"I can see it today as plain as I saw it 10 years ago," Nonnie Laux said with tears in her eyes.
Emergency crews found Sherri and Megan lying dead on the living room floor. Both had been shot, and it was painfully obvious that Megan had been sexually assaulted.
Sgt. Bud Cooper with the Missouri Highway Patrol is the lead investigator in the Scherer case.
"We have figured out he had about a 30 minute window of opportunity to be in that house," Cooper said, "to get in and get out."
In just 30 minutes, a mother and daughter were gone. A family was forever fractured. And a community was shaken to its very core.
"This was an innocent little girl and her mother," Nonnie Laux said. "They were well known, they were well liked, good people who would never hurt anyone and then you walk in and see what someone has done to them?" Chief Adams finished her thought with, "It takes an animal to do something like that."
And, that animal would come in contact with another local family that same warm March evening. Two and a half hours after Sherri and Megan were killed, a Dyersburg, Tennessee woman came face to face with the same man, flashing the same gun. According to investigators, he stopped at her trailer, asking for directions. He pulled out his gun, they struggled, he shot the woman in the upper arm before taking off.
I asked Sgt. Cooper if this could this be the same method the killer used to get into the Scherer home. "Certainly, you would think it just worked for him two and a half hours before. Why would you change what works? So, my theory would be that's exactly what happened here and he's going to do it again because it just worked."
The Dyersburg connection also gave police something they didn't have just hours earlier, an eyewitness description of their killer. The composite from the Tennessee crime remains the best image of the man no one saw kill Sherri and Megan. Over the next several years, investigators tried to put a name with the face. They came up with several viable leads but each time, the DNA didn't match.

Then in April of 2006, that long-awaited match took investigators in an unexpected direction. The DNA recovered at the Scherer murder scene did have a match to the DNA left by an unknown killer eight years earlier in Greenville, South Carolina.

"It certainly told us we had someone who was traveling," Cooper said. "In my mind, it certainly told us we had a serial killer."
The DNA match linking the murders of Sherri and Megan Scherer in 1998 to the murder of Genevieve Zitricki in 1990 didn't just open up leads to an unknown serial killer. It also brought in help from the FBI. The agency opened a file, and offered up agents to run down leads and collect evidence. Federal agents also came up with a profile of the Scherer's killer. It appeared to be someone who knew his victims, or at least knew their routine.

Does that make the killer local or does that make him someone who's around for several days and stalking his victims?
"It makes him have ties here," Cooper explained, "some type of thread of something that draws him here. The most important thing they (FBI profilers) told us is you're going to find something that links your killer to South Carolina in 1990 and Portageville in 1998."

So now, investigators are looking for that "something". And, they may have just found it. A geographic mapping system just gave them a list of new leads.
The computer program spit out the names of everyone living within 100 miles of the Portageville and Dyersburg crime scenes, then matched it with a list of those living around the South Carolina crime scene. There are in excess of 300 names on the largest search map.

"Initially, I was amazed there would be that great a number of people that actually had ties to both locations during these two time periods," said New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens.

About four weeks ago, members of the major case squad joined investigators already dedicated to the Scherer case. Each took a portion of the list and began tracking down the people on it.
"We don't want to put a fear into everybody on the list that we're looking at them as a homicide suspect," explained Sheriff Stevens.
"But," added Sgt. Phil Gregory with the Missouri Highway Patrol, "we do think there's a probability or a possibility that the person who committed this murder in Greenville and committed this murder in Portageville could be on this list."

So far, the list has generated "some good leads" according to lead investigator Bud Cooper. But each time he says, those suspects have been cleared through DNA.
"I think they're closer than they have been ever, yes I do," Tina DeLisle said. She keeps a flyer with that composite sketch on her desk at work, hoping some day she'll learn the identity of the man who took away her best friend Sherri, and her daughter's best friend Megan.
And there's a real hope the list will be the key, that someone on it will remember something, and investigators will be able to bring sense of justice to a crime that never made any sense....
"I hope somebody here knows who did it," Bud Cooper said. "I hope they come forward and tell us. But we haven't had that happen in 10 years."
Do you think your killer is on that list?, I asked. "I don't know, that's a tough call. I hope so."

I want to end this report by telling you Tony Scherer has been a remarkable help to me as I gathered information for this report. I did not want to highlight this case without his blessing and he gave me much more than that. He opened up his family photo albums to me and told me he trusted me to report on his wife and daughter's case.
This is a story that touches me personally. This crime was so senseless and no amount of explaining or rationalizing can make it make sense.
Everything is supposed to happen for a reason, but there is no rhyme or reason to a mother and daughter slaughtered in the safety and security of their own home.
Please don't forget about Sherri and Megan. For more information on their case, you can head to the New Madrid County Sheriff's Department website at www.nmcosd.com (http://www.nmcosd.com/). If you have any information you think might be helpful in solving their case, contact the New Madrid Co. Sheriff's Department at 573-748-2516 or the Missouri Highway Patrol at 573-840-9500.

[nanabillie]

Quote


So now, investigators are looking for that "something". And, they may have just found it. A geographic mapping system just gave them a list of new leads.
The computer program spit out the names of everyone living within 100 miles of the Portageville and Dyersburg crime scenes, then matched it with a list of those living around the South Carolina crime scene. There are in excess of 300 names on the largest search map.

"Initially, I was amazed there would be that great a number of people that actually had ties to both locations during these two time periods," said New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens.



That is just mind boggling to me. That many people!