FORT WRIGHT, Ky. — The Boone County Sheriff’s Office announced a break in a 46-year-old cold case Wednesday morning.
Carol Sue Klaber, 16, of Fort Wright was found dead on Chambers Road in Walton on June 5, 1976. The sheriff’s office said at a press conference investigators used DNA evidence to identify the killer as 18-year-old Thomas E. Dunaway. Police said he died in 1990 at age 33.
Detectives met with her family this week to tell them about their findings.
"To sit down with family members and just see that closure kind of come to them physically and then they verbalized it, it means a lot," said Det. Coy Cox, with the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office website, Carol was raped before she was killed.
Detectives said Klaber was seen getting into Dunaway’s car at Devou Park. They said it is unclear if they knew each other before that day. Cox said that’s a question they may never get an answer to.
"The initial cause of death was blunt force trauma with also evidence of sexual assault and strangulation. The killer’s DNA was recovered at that time," said Public Information Officer Maj. Philip Ridgell.
KSP detective Jerry Keith worked the investigation for nearly a decade before it went cold. Last year, Boone County’s cold case unit sent the killer’s DNA to an advanced forensic DNA testing lab. The commonwealth attorney said based on the investigation, if he were alive today, Dunaway would be fully prosecuted for the crime.
Carol Sue Klaber’s cousin, Debbie Ponder, described Klaber as happy, friendly and a genuinely good person. She said solving cold cases matters. She is thankful for the closure this brings her family.
LINKnky is a media partner of WCPO.com.
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