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Police Use DNA From Man’s Trash To Solve 26-Year-Old Murder

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Bradley Devlin General Assignment & Analysis Reporter
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Police have arrested a man for a 1995 sexual assault and murder after matching DNA taken from the man’s trash to semen found at the scene, according to 12 NewsNow.

61-year-old Clayton Bernard Foreman was arrested last week for the murder of Mary Catherine Edwards, a school teacher and bridesmaid in Foreman’s wedding in Texas more than 26 years ago, 12NewsNow reported.

Investigators used a genealogy website that helped narrow the investigation to someone in Foreman’s family tree. “We could track it to a family, but we couldn’t track it to an individual,” District Attorney Bob Wortham told 12NewsNow. That was the case until investigators were able to extract DNA taken from trash left on the curb of Foreman’s Ohio residence and match it to semen found at the scene of the crime, 12NewsNow reported. (RELATED: Coke Can Turns Out To Be The Key In 40-Year-Old Murder Cold Case In Colorado)

On Jan. 14, 1995, Edwards, then 31, was found dead in the bathroom at her Beaumont, Texas, residence by her father. The killer drowned her in her own bathtub by tying her hands behind her back and dunking her head in the water, KJAS.com reported.

While investigating Foreman, authorities discovered he was previously convicted for raping a classmate in 1981, reportedly tying the victim’s hands behind her back, according to 12NewsNow. Edwards was a high school classmate of Foreman’s.