Brianna Denison Murder
Nevada
Brianna Denison's body was found, last February, in a field in Reno, Nevada. The 19-year-old had been missing and feared abducted for a month.
Denison vanished from the off-campus rental house of a friend who was a student at the University of Nevada-Reno, on Jan. 20. She was back in her hometown for winter break from Santa Barbara City College, where she attends classes. Police say she was last seen going to sleep on her friend's couch for the night after they attended a party at a Reno casino.
Police said Brianna Denison had been abducted and strangled in what they called a sexually motivated crime.
DNA evidence linked Denison's kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late 2007, police said. An earlier campus attack also could be related. In that incident, the attacker brazenly raped a woman at gunpoint in a garage where campus police park their cruisers.
With the community of college students now in fear, the hunt was on for a serial rapist. Students began carrying Tasers, pepper spray and bear spray.
After 10 months of wondering who killed Brianna, Reno police arrested a 27-year-old Spanish Springs father on suspicion of her murder, as well as the rape and kidnapping of another college student that occurred weeks earlier.
Authorities said critical DNA evidence links James Michael Biela to the strangulation and sexual assault of Brianna.
An anonymous Secret Witness tipster is being credited with leading detectives to Biela, a construction worker who left the area in March. Biela sold his pickup where he allegedly assaulted the December victim, and then returned to Reno in September, authorities said.
On November 12, Biela's estranged girlfriend let police take a DNA sample of their 4-year-old son, and on November 25, a Washoe County Crime Laboratory scientist said the biological father of the child could not be excluded as Brianna's killer. A judge signed a warrant for Biela's arrest, and also ordered he give police a DNA sample.
About 5:30 a.m., the same day, scientists confirmed that Biela's DNA profile matched the DNA left on Brianna's body. It also matched the body of the December victim. The DNA also matched the forensic evidence he left on the back door knob of the apartment, where she vanished, and a condom packet found near where the November victim was attacked.
The Secret Witness tip evolved after a friend of Biela's estranged girlfriend, Carleen Harmon, reported that Harmon, in September, had found women's underwear in Biela's new truck. Police announced months ago they believed the suspect had a fetish for collecting size small women's panties, and that two pairs were found with Brianna's body. Harmon said she confronted Biela, who said he found the size small thong style panties at a Seattle laundromat.
Police said Biela's DNA matched to DNA found on one of the pairs of underwear found under Brianna's legs, where she was dumped in a Reno field near a business where Harmon was working. Following the Secret Witness tip, Detective Adam Wygnanski, on Nov. 7, met with Biela and told him he was mentioned in the Brianna murder investigation. Wygnanski said he denied involvement, and refused to submit a DNA sample.
Biela said Harmon could provide him with an alibi. Five days later, detectives met Harmon who said she could not account for the whereabouts of her boyfriend of six years.
Resources...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331016,00.html
http://m.rgj.com/news.jsp?key=133721&rc=lo
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4301456&page=1
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27928026/
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01/01/09
Prosecutor confident in Peterson cases
The new year should bring new information that will help investigators determine what happened to at least one of Drew Peterson's wives, Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said Tuesday.
Though Glasgow made a similar, still-unfulfilled prediction two months ago, he remains upbeat that authorities will solve the 2007 disappearance of Stacy Peterson and the 2004 drowning death of Kathleen Savio.
"I'm very positive. I'm very encouraged by the work the police have done,'' said Glasgow, speaking about the cases for the first time in several months. "We are not at a dead end by any stretch of the imagination.''
Read resource details...
http://www.suntimes.com/news/peterson/1355937,CST-NWS-boling31.article
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/31/Official_hints_at_new_Peterson_evidence/UPI-92111230744390/
12/03/08
Additional Possible Victims
Detectives issued a public plea for women who were sexually assaulted from late 2007 through March to step forward if they have not already reported the crimes.
"We would really love for any more victims to come forward," police Lt. Robert McDonald told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "We will do our best to keep the information confidential, but we need to know if there are more victims out there."
McDonald said authorities in Washington and Idaho also are revisiting unsolved sexual crimes for any ties to Biela.
Police said after Denison's body was found Feb. 15 in Reno, Biela quit his job here and moved to Lake Moses, Wash., to work as a pipe fitter.
In Idaho, Biela sold his truck, which was similar to the truck that the December victim described for police. He then bought another truck.
Read full resource details...
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11103369