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Washington killer ‘person of interest' in 1973 UC Berkeley student's murder

By Amy Clancy
By Amy Clancy
A man serving a life sentence in Washington State for a cold case murder in Seattle is now a “person of interest” in the murder of Susan McLaughlin near Sacramento, California in 1973.
McLaughlin was a University of California Berkeley student who had taken a bus from campus to her parents’ home in El Dorado County, California.   

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The new leads about the man who might have been responsible for her death – Bryan Lee Gelenaw -- were filed as part of a search warrant in King County Superior Court this week.
Gelenaw is known in the Pacific Northwest as the "Bus Stop Rapist."  He kidnapped multiple young women at bus stops throughout Snohomish County -- at knife point  --- then brutally raped them.
About the same time as the “bus stop rapes” Gelenaw also murdered Angelita Axelson in 1981.
That case wasn't solved until 2003, when Gelenaw's DNA was connected to Axelson at the crime scene; a hotel in downtown Seattle.
Axelson's family had to wait 22 years for justice.
KIRO 7 covered Gelenaw’s sentencing, where Axelson’s sister Robin Thompson addressed the court and said “it’s nice to know that I can walk down the street now and not walk by somebody and wonder if that’s the person who killed my sister.”
Gelenaw is serving a life sentence at Clallam Bay Corrections Center in Clallam Bay, Washington.
This week, KIRO 7 discovered a California family may also get justice --- 44-years after the death of Susan McLaughlin, whose body was found twomiles east of Kyburz, near Highway 50 in El Dorado County on March 10, 1973.
Four days after McLaughlin’s body was discovered, Gelenaw was arrested in the same California town for kidnapping and raping three other young women nearby.
He was considered a "person of interest" in McLaughlin's death, but provided an alibi.
More than four decades later, the Cold Case investigator working McLaughlin's case believes Gelenaw may have been lying about his alibi all those years ago.
Earlier this month, Chief Robert Cosley, an investigator for the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, flew to Sea-Tac Airport and drove to Clallam Bay Corrections Center, where he interviewed Gelenaw and collected a sample of his DNA.
That DNA is now being compared to a “non-sperm fraction sample” collected from the sweater McLaughlin was wearing the day she was murdered, according to a warrant filed for permission to collect the DNA.
The investigative documents also reveal “all Gelenaw’s victims were young white females, many that had long hair such as Susan McLaughlin.”
After interviewing Gelenaw, Cosley called him “a monster,” but said he was “cooperative.”
Cosley told KIRO 7 that even if the DNA sample does not link Gelenaw to McLaughlin’s murder, investigators wanted to have it tested because:
  • Gelenaw was in El Dorado County, California, at the time of McLaughlin's murder
  • Gelenaw was arrested for the kidnappings and rapes of other women in the area - at knife-point - during the same time frame
  • McLaughlin was stabbed to death and raped
  • Investigators are not able to verify Gelenaw's alibi because detectives' notes did not detail their verification and both detectives are deceased
For more information, or if you have information to share with investigators, click on: https://www.facebook.com/ElDoradoDA/

Cox Media Group

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