‘Once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down.’: Kent Detective solves 44-year-old murder

KENT, Wash. — Kent police announcing they have cracked the case of the decades old murder of a Boeing employee. An Arkansas man is now in custody, charged in her murder.

That murder suspect is now 65 years old.

But he was Just 20 when detectives believe he murdered 30-year-old Dorothy Silzel in her Kent apartment in February of 1980.

A dedicated Kent police sergeant is credited with leading the effort to catch her killer.

We got some sense of just how important this case was to this detective during a news conference. Yes, his voice broke as he talked about how important it was to him to solve this case.

A 30-year-old Boeing employee murdered in her apartment right here on Kent’s East Hill.

For 44 years Kent police did not know who killed her.

They say now they do.

Why this case? That is what Det. Sgt. Tim Ford was asked.

He paused, fighting back tears making his, the emotional center of this moment.

“Listening to Ken (victim’s brother) talk to me on the phone,” Ford said, his voice breaking. “Their loss.”

Ford is the veteran Kent police sergeant who spent nine long years tracking down a suspect in a murder that is nearly 45 years old.

“I knew about the case, from prior,” he said, haltingly. “I knew her name. Didn’t know all the facts.”

Those facts and the story of murder victim Dorothy Silzel revealed at this news conference led by Kent’s police chief.

“We have a picture of her here of her in the workplace here,” said Chief Rafael Padilla. “That we honor the human being that we all lost on that fateful day.”

Kent police say that 30-year-old Dottie, as her family called her, was strangled to death inside her apartment on Kent’s East Hill in February of 1980.

Evidence collected at the scene and advanced DNA technology led detectives to her alleged killer, 65-year-old Kenneth Kundert, living in Arkansas.

He was 20 and lived three blocks away from Silzel in 1980.

Kundert came back a match from a cigarette he tossed away with his DNA.

It is offering some relief to her still grieving family.

“The apprehension of Dottie’s killer has also given hope to so many other families,” said her brother, Jim Yantzer.

All of it because of the unwavering resolve of one dedicated detective.

“Once I got into it,” said Ford, his voice breaking. “I couldn’t put it down.”

Kent had just three murders the year Dottie Silzel was killed.  And the detectives who worked the case in 1980 are all retired.

At the end of this year, Sergeant Ford will retire, too.

As for the suspect, he is awaiting extradition from Arkansas.

©2024 Cox Media Group