Detectives from the Baltimore County Police Department?s cold case squad have solved two homicides that were previously classified as “undetermined deaths” by Maryland?s medical examiner.
Police asked the Medical Examiner?s Office this week to review two asphyxiation deaths of women ? one in 1975 and another from 1982 ? and the doctors found they were homicides, not undetermined deaths, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said Friday.
Joyce Rein, 18, was strangled to death on Aug. 3, 1975, and found in a field in Halethorpe. Natalie Williams,
23, was also found strangled to death June 28, 1982, in Parkville.
Detectives combing through old files noticed several similarities between the two cases, including that both women had “a link” to a convicted murderer named Harold Houndshell, 42, who died in prison in 1999, Toohey said.
Police tested DNA evidence contained in Williams? underwear, which had previously not been tested, and found a match for Houndshell, Toohey said.
In Rein?s case, cold case squad detectives “connected some dots” that investigators three decades ago had missed, Toohey said.
“We did not have a homicide unit in those days,” Toohey said. “We now have more sophisticated investigative techniques.”
Detectives have cleared both cases because Houndshell, the man who would have been charged with the crimes, has died, Toohey said.
The two killings have been added to this year?s statistics, bringing the number of homicides in Baltimore County this year to 14. Police have cleared 11 of those cases.
Maryland?s medical examiner classifies hundreds of deaths annually as “undetermined,” meaning the state agency does not know whether the death was by homicide, suicide, accident or natural causes.
In 2004, for instance, 807 deaths were ruled undetermined in the state, with 341 undetermined deaths in Baltimore.
