More than five decades after a brutal killing inside a North Park bedroom, San Diego police say they have a suspect in custody thousands of miles away in the Midwest.
Authorities announced that 71-year-old Johnnie Salisbury of Syracuse, Indiana, was arrested this week in connection with the 1975 homicide of 34-year-old Edmund LaFave. LaFave was found dead in his North Park bedroom on February 25, 1975, and despite what investigators described at the time as an all-out effort, the case eventually went cold. The new arrest has reopened old wounds for relatives and renewed interest in a case many neighbors had filed away as unsolved history.
Salisbury was taken into custody on Wednesday and is being held in Kosciusko County, Indiana, pending an extradition hearing, according to NBC 7 San Diego. San Diego investigators say they identified him as the suspect in LaFave’s killing after renewed cold case work that relied on modern investigative tools.
"LaFave had been severely beaten and repeatedly stabbed," SDPD acting Lt. Chris Leahy said, adding that "despite an exhaustive investigation at the onset of the case, it eventually went cold," as reported by NBC 7 San Diego. A suspected motive has not been disclosed, and detectives say they are still collecting corroborating evidence before any charging decisions are made.
Cold case cracked with genetic genealogy
Investigators credited investigative genetic genealogy for generating the lead that brought them to Salisbury. The approach pairs DNA analysis with genealogical research to identify relatives and build out family trees, then points detectives toward possible suspects for traditional follow-up work.
Experts describe it as a powerful way to generate leads, one that has been used in hundreds of cold cases since the Golden State Killer investigation. Federal guidance treats it as a tool that must be backed up by conventional investigation and additional testing before prosecutors move forward, according to an interim policy from the Department of Justice and recent national reviews by the National Academies.
Extradition fight and next legal steps
Salisbury is currently held in the Kosciusko County facility in Warsaw, Indiana, where detainees are processed and housed. An extradition hearing will decide whether he is sent back to California to face questioning and possible charges. San Diego prosecutors are expected to review the case once detectives finish assembling their evidence.
For now, police say the investigation remains very much active as they work to back up the genetic lead with case files, physical evidence and other corroboration. The arrest offers a rare development in a homicide that many assumed would remain unsolved, yet it also raises fresh questions for LaFave’s family and for detectives who have lived with the case for years.
San Diego police are asking anyone with information about the 1975 killing to contact the SDPD Homicide Unit.
