CEDAR RAPIDS – Exactly 39 years from the day she disappeared, Cedar Rapids Police announced there’s an arrest for the murder of Michelle Martinko. Martinko was 18 when she was stabbed to death in the parking lot of Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids
Authorities arrested 64-year-old Jerry Lynn Burns of Manchester, Iowa Wednesday morning. He’s charged with First Degree Murder in the stabbing death of Michelle Martinko. Police say they arrested burns at his place of employment in Manchester.
Martinko drove the family’s 1972 Buick to Westdale Mall on December 19th, 1979. She was going to look at a winter coat, and had just come from a school banquet. She never came home. Her family reported her missing at two in the morning.
An officer found her stabbed to death in the parking lot two hours later. Authorities say they found DNA evidence of the suspected killer in 2006, but no match was ever found in a National Database of Criminals.
The Cedar Rapids Police Chief and Linn County Attorney provided some details, but left many questions unanswered. One detail, Burns was questioned at his place of employment in Manchester and denied involvement. But he couldn’t explain why his DNA was found at the crime scene back in 1979.
One question not answered at the news conference was what led investigators to Burns in the first place. Investigators had speculated that Martinko might have known her attacker. There was no evidence of robbery or sexual assault but wounds that showed she tried to fight off her attacker. For some reason, police began watching Burns and obtained a sample of his DNA.
“The police department later collected covert DNA from the subject and it was sent to the DCI laboratory for analysis. The laboratory found the collected DNA was a match,” said Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman.
In early 2017, police worked with a company to develop a profile of what the killer might look like; hair color and race based on his DNA. Authorities did not say if that effort led to the arrest and the public may not know some of those details until trial.
“Because the case is now in litigation the police department and Linn County Attorney’s Office will be unable to provide additional information at this time,” said Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden.
During the news conference, Chief Jerman thanked hundreds of officers and investigators who worked on the case and never gave up.
Burns is being held at the Linn County Jail on a $5 million cash-only bond, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for December 28.