Husband identified as killer in 1998 cold case after wife’s remains found in Utah

Two many years after his wife’s killing, authorities named late Ohio enterprise proprietor Edward Geddes as the particular person answerable for the murder of Lina Reyes-Geddes, who was found lifeless alongside an interstate freeway close to Maidenwater Spring, Utah.

Utah police found Reyes-Geddes’ physique inside a sleeping bag certain by duct tape and twine, wrapped in a carpet and lined with plastic in April of 1998, though they weren’t in a position to establish her for years after she was killed.

In 2018, detectives introduced a breakthrough in the case — which had been closed, reopened, and brought on by the brokers on the State Bureau of Investigation in Utah after a county sheriff’s workplace couldn’t resolve it — when a photograph launched by Utah state investigators matched one just lately added to an up to date lacking individuals file in Youngstown, Ohio. 

The native lacking individuals file identified Reyes-Geddes by identify, since she and her husband have been each residents of Youngstown. A relative of Reyes-Geddes then traveled from Mexico to Utah to offer the DNA pattern that finally allowed investigators to positively establish her physique. She was beforehand identified solely as the “Maidenwater victim.”

Four years later, cooperative efforts by Utah state brokers and Youngstown police led Reyes-Geddes’ case to its conclusion. Police defined throughout a press convention this week that a number of swabs collected by relations of her former husband allowed them to create a DNA profile for Geddes, which matched DNA that was found on the rope tied round her physique. 

They mentioned that extra superior fashionable know-how made this discovery attainable, as Geddes’ DNA was in contrast with some detected on the rope earlier than, however previous assessments didn’t produce outcomes as a result of such a small quantity of proof had been left behind.

Geddes, who was briefly made a suspect in his wife’s unsolved case after declining to report her as a lacking particular person, was found lifeless in 2001 by obvious suicide in Nevada. Police decided on the time that Geddes shot himself.

“It goes to show the science of where we’re at with DNA,” mentioned Utah Department of Public Safety Agent Brian Davis at Wednesday’s press convention, in line with CBS affiliate WKBN. Davis added that “it’s very, very fulfilling to be a part of that [solved case] and the people coming together.”

If you or somebody is in emotional misery or suicidal disaster, name the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).