D.C. police solved 17 cold cases this year, including the 1983 rape and stabbing death of a French woman in Northwest Washington, the first time DNA evidence has led to an arrest in such an old homicide in the District.
The 17 solved cold cases likely represent the most the District has cleared in a single year, due in part to new technology, the proliferation of DNA evidence databases and a focus by detectives to comb through old evidence. Cold cases are homicides that go unsolved for more than three years.
Detectives said they solved the 23-year-old murder of Raymonde Plantiveau after receiving a hit on a DNA database in Virginia. DNA evidence that had been collected from the crime scene in Glover Park and stored in a warehouse for decades matched the DNA profile of Melvin Jackson, 53, a deacon of a small District church.
Plantiveau, 57, of France, was found stabbed to death in her daughter’s home in the 1900 block of 39th Street Northwest. Police said she was killed with a steak knife from the kitchen. Jackson is awaiting trial early next year.
Detectives got another DNA hit this year on a 1997 murder case that they had originally believed was part of a string of murders of young women in Northeast Washington.
DNA evidence also led to the conviction of Jerry D. Hill, 42, who admitted last week that he killed Venus Jamison in Southwest Washington in 1999. Jamison, 32, had been stabbed in the neck, head and torso when police found her half-naked body next to 95 M St. Southwest.
Hill had been arrested on another sex crime and submitted a DNA sample, which matched a sample found at the crime scene seven years ago.
The District for decades has depended on the FBI forensics lab in Quantico, which has slowed evidence analysis. Earlier this month, the city announced the construction of a forensics and bioterrorism laboratory three blocks east of L’Enfant Plaza, a major step toward a $253 million project that should end decades of delayed evidence analysis.
