Anna Kane was 26 years old when she was strangled to death and her body was found on October 23, 1988 along a trail in Perry Township, Pennsylvania. Nearly 35 years after her death, her killer has been identified using groundbreaking DNA genealogy technology, a local official said. He was identified as Scott Grim during a press conference Thursday. After the 1988 murder, DNA evidence was collected from Kane’s clothing. An indeterminate male DNA profile was shown, but no match was found. In 1990, the Reading Eagle newspaper ran a front-page story on Kane’s murder, asking for help with information on the case. In February 1990 the newspaper received an anonymous letter signed by a “concerned citizen” that had “many intimate details” about the murder, said State Trooper Daniel Womer. “This led investigators to believe that whoever wrote the letter had committed the murder,” he said. The saliva-sealed envelope in which the letter was sent was tested for DNA and matched the DNA profile found on Kane’s clothing. This year, genetic pedigree testing from this DNA profile was completed by Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, a lab that helped solve a series of colds. The results determined that a possible suspect was Scott Grim. He died in 2018 of natural causes, aged 58. He would have been 26 at the time of Kane’s murder. Police then obtained a direct sample of Grimm’s DNA for their own testing and matched the DNA profile on the letter envelope and the profile found on Kane’s clothing. Officials did not say how they got that sample. “We were able to get the direct sample from Scott Grimm. We had the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory do a direct match to the DNA from the letter in 1990 as well as the original evidence from the victim’s clothing, all of which pointed to the same associate being Scott Grim – his DNA profile it was in all these items,” Mr Womer said. Police praised the work of the original investigators in the case, saying evidence gathering was key to solving the case now that DNA technology has advanced. Police said Grimm did not show up in the FBI’s Combined DNA Indicator System, which began in 1998. They found that Grimm, who was originally from the Hamburg area, had been arrested in 2002 in Berks County in a molestation case in which he was charged to mail threatening letters to his former partner. Officials said the investigation is continuing into Grimm’s history and background, including his exact relationship to Kane. Police said so far interviews with people who knew Grimm have revealed no connection between the two. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t some connection we haven’t found yet,” Mr Womer said. He acknowledged that it has been reported in the past that Kane worked as a prostitute and it is possible that Grimm was a client. The Reading Eagle described Kane as a mother of three. He had lived in Redding but had moved to the Birdsboro area shortly before he was killed, officials said. Pennsylvania State Police and Berks County District Attorney John Adams praised authorities for their diligent work on the case. “I know in some ways the fact that he died, he will never face justice, as we all would hope for this murder,” he said. “But we worked it out. We gave the family some closure.” The original story can be found here.
