Michelle Martinko:A Mall Murder, 39 Years, and a Discarded Straw

On the night of December 19, 1979, 18-year-old Michelle Martinko drove to Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to buy a new winter coat. She never made it home. Early the next morning, Michelle was found inside her family’s Buick in the mall parking lot. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the face, neck, and chest in a vicious attack that left investigators with plenty of questions—but no killer. For nearly four decades, the murder haunted Cedar Rapids. Police interviewed suspects, followed tips, and eventually developed a male DNA profile from blood evidence recovered from Michelle’s clothing. But the sample produced no match in traditional law-enforcement databases, and the case remained cold. Then investigative genetic genealogy changed everything. In 2018, investigators uploaded DNA information from the crime scene to GEDmatch, where genealogists located distant relatives of the unknown killer. Building family trees eventually narrowed the possibilities to three brothers from Iowa. Police began following one of them: Jerry Lynn Burns. When Burns stopped for something to drink, an investigator retrieved the discarded straw he left behind. DNA recovered from that straw matched the male DNA from Michelle’s murder scene. On December 19, 2018—exactly 39 years after Michelle was killed—Jerry Burns was arrested and charged with her murder. In February 2020, a jury found Burns guilty of first-degree murder after only a few hours of deliberation. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His conviction has survived subsequent appeals, including an unsuccessful Iowa Supreme Court challenge. This is the true crime story of Michelle Martinko—an 18-year-old murdered outside a shopping mall, a cold case that endured for 39 years, and a discarded drinking straw that finally gave investigators the DNA they needed to identify her killer. Sources for this podcast Send Kris and Rob a Message Support the show JOIN THE  HITCHED 2 HOMICIDE IN-LAWS AND OUTLAWS START KRIS CALVERT'S BOOKS TODAY FOR FREE H2H WEBSITE H2H on TWITTER H2H on INSTA Michelle Martinko, Michelle Martinko murder, Jerry Burns, Jerry Lynn Burns, Westdale Mall murder, Cedar Rapids murder, Cedar Rapids Iowa true crime, Michelle Martinko cold case, genetic genealogy murder case, GEDmatch cold case, DNA solves murder, discarded straw DNA, Iowa cold case, 1979 murder, 39 year cold case, forensic genealogy, Parabon NanoLabs, cold case solved, Iowa true crime, true crime podcast #MichelleMartinko, #JerryBurns, #JerryLynnBurns, #WestdaleMall, #CedarRapidsTrueCrime, #IowaTrueCrime, #ColdCase, #ColdCaseSolved, #GeneticGenealogy, #ForensicGenealogy, #DNAEvidence, #GEDmatch, #TrueCrime, #TrueCrimePodcast, #TrueCrimeCommunity, #CrimeInvestigation, #Hitched2Homicide     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.