PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A convicted murderer who was executed by the state of Texas in 1999 has been identified as the person who killed a 20-year-old woman in her Northwest Portland apartment on July 24, 1979.
Anna Marie Hlavka was found sexually assaulted and strangled with the electric cord from her clock radio in her apartment at 1811 NW Couch Street.
After 40 years, the killer was identified as Jerry Walter McFadden, who was 31 at the time of the murder.
How they found him is a combination of shoe-leather detective work, stick-to-it-iveness and technology that was not available at the time.
The initial investigation
Anna Hlavka, who had just gotten home from her shift at the McDonald’s at 19th and Burnside, was found by her sister when she got home from work. They lived at the apartment with Anna’s fiance’.
Detectives determined neither of them were home at the time of the murder.
Hlavka shared that apartment with her fiancé and sister who were both working at the time of the murder. Hlavka, who had finished her shift at the nearby McDonald’s was discovered by her sister, Roseanne, who had just come home after working. #koin6news pic.twitter.com/ipK71NUDMD— Jennifer Dowling (@JenDowlingKoin6) January 31, 2019
Over time, there were a number of suspects but all of them were cleared. Eventually the case went cold.
But in 2009, retired detective volunteers submitted numerous pieces of evidence to the Oregon State Police Crime Lab for forensic testing.
About 2 years later, a matching DNA “full profile” was discovered from that evidence. Over the next 7 years, detectives kept researching.
A “full profile” DNA is rare after this many years, police said, because DNA evidence can degrade over time.
Beginning in 2012 and continuing for 4 years, the Cold Case Homicide Detail actively looked into the Hlavka murder. Despite getting 8 DNA profiles from people that were potential suspects, all came back negative.
Technology in the Golden State Killer case
In May 2018, DNA from a tissue left in a trash can led authorities to arrest a former California police officer suspected of being the Golden State Killer. Joseph D’Angelo, 72, was arrested in connection with a dozen killings and about 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s.
The technology used in that case — researching forensic genealogy using unidentified DNA profiles — was used to identify Jerry McFadden. The DNA on file in Anna Hlavka’s case was submitted to Parabon NanoLabs and the OSP Crime Lab for testing in May 2018.
Five months later, the forensic genealogist linked the DNA to McFadden.
“They gave Portland Police a name and then Detective Hopper and Detective McGuire went to investigate that further and were able to obtain DNA standards from family members of the potential suspect that had long since died,” said Dr. Janelle Moore, a senior forensic scientist at the Oregon State Crime Lab.
Detectives went to Texas to talk with McFadden’s family and get a DNA sample they could use to confirm what the lab showed. McFadden’s family agreed and also told investigators McFadden traveled to the Pacific Northwest in 1979 with a Texas acquaintance.
That woman told police she dropped him off in Portland and didn’t have any further contact with him.
McFadden, who was also a convicted rapist, also strangled and assaulted a woman in Texas about a month before he traveled to Portland.
He was executed in Texas in October 1999 for killing an 18-year-old cheerleader.
The case continues
Though McFadden was identified as the killer, the cold case detectives still want to talk with anyone who lived in Portland in 1979 who knew him. Detective Meredith Hopper is the lead investigator.
Without the DNA and the improved forensic techniques, the murder of Anna Hlavka “never would have been solved,” Hopper said. “He never would have risen to the level of a suspect, had no record here.”
