Bernalillo County prosecutors have received a Santa Fe district court judge’s permission to exhume the cremated remains of Michael Magirl, a man killed in 2002 while allegedly trying to sexually assault a woman, after a possible DNA match surfaced connecting him to an unsolved rape case from earlier that same year. The exhumation, if carried out, would send his remains to a laboratory for testing that could take several more months to complete.
“We have petitioned the district court in Santa Fe to exhume his body to finalize some DNA testing,” Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman said, according to KOB. A judge has since granted the office's request to exhume Magirl's remains, according to KOAT, though the DA's office has said it still needs a court order and approval from Santa Fe National Cemetery before the remains can actually be removed. Bregman said the office will continue efforts to find answers for victims and survivors and help bring closure to Magirl's victims, per KOAT.
The case prosecutors are trying to close dates to July 8, 2002, according to KOB. A private laboratory in Virginia later notified the District Attorney's Office that a male DNA profile from that case was a possible match to Magirl, as reported by the Albuquerque Journal. Investigators say Magirl's name surfaced through the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, per KOB.
How Magirl Died in 2002
Magirl, 51 at the time, was killed on July 20, 2002, while attempting to sexually assault a 31-year-old woman after breaking into her home near Eubank Boulevard and Constitution Avenue, according to the Albuquerque Journal's reporting. The woman wrestled his own firearm away from him during the struggle and shot him twice in the upper torso, the Journal reported. After his death, Magirl was cremated and interred at the national cemetery in Santa Fe, per the same account.
The Hurdles of Testing Cremated Remains
Prosecutors have acknowledged that pulling usable DNA from cremated remains is no simple task. “It is an extremely difficult process to extract DNA from cremated remains, but it's not impossible,” the DA's office said, according to KOB. Officials said the goal is to determine whether the remains yield enough material for comparison. “We need enough DNA from the remains to develop a profile sufficient for comparison,” the office said, per the same report, with testing meant to determine whether the remains contain a single-source DNA profile matching the rape-case evidence, per the state's filing.
Even if the exhumation moves forward, the timeline is not short. Laboratory testing and comparison could take several more months once the remains reach the lab, KOB reported. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which manages Santa Fe National Cemetery, said it had no comment when asked about the case, according to KRQE.
Part of a Larger Cold-Case Push
This case did not surface in isolation. It stems from a broader effort tracing back to a 2016 audit that found more than 5,000 unprocessed sexual-assault evidence kits across New Mexico, all of which had received an initial test by 2021, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The Jane Doe case tied to Magirl was among roughly 500 cases the District Attorney's Office selected for a second review given advances in DNA technology, according to the same report.
That broader review has already produced results. The District Attorney's Office has won more than two dozen convictions after testing sexual-assault kits, the Albuquerque Journal reported, while KRQE reported the office has convicted more than 20 rapists in the past three years connected to 40 attacks. Whether the Magirl case adds to that count depends on evidence that, for now, remains buried in Santa Fe.
