Larry Padgett Jr: Indiana man arrested for 1989 rape and murder of 23-yr-old Mary Luicile Willfong
MONROE COUNTY, INDIANA: Larry Padgett Jr, 59, an Indiana man, was arrested for the 1989 murder of Mary Luicile Willfong, 23. Police have been investigating and searching for the killer for more than 30 years; although there were many suspects, none of their DNA found on Willfong's body matched.
It was reported that Padgett had apparently sexually assaulted Willfong. Meanwhile, it was found that he got into a tractor trailer with a man at the Forest Park Farmers Market outside Atlanta. Although the case went cold after a period of time, it was reopened in 2019. Meanwhile, Willfong was found by deer hunters in a Georgia forest.
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Who is Larry Padgett Jr?
Padgett Jr was arrested in the Willfong death case. When the case was reopened in 2019, Marc Mansfield was assigned as an investigator and turned over the original evidence to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab to be tested with newer technology. They brought the DNA to Miami to perform a genetic genealogy test using Willfong's DNA. That test actually resulted in Padgett Jr being declared a suspect. As a result, warrants were issued last week by the FBI Evidence Recovery Team and the Washington Police Department in Indiana. An autopsy revealed that Willfong had been sexually assaulted. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Shortly after the warrant was issued, police drove to Indiana to arrest him. The suspect is currently in custody in Indiana until he can be extradited.
Killers who were traced using the DNA technology
There are also similar cases that have been proven with the advancement of technology. One is the Golden State Killer, in which DNA was used to capture Joseph James DeAngelo long after he terrorized Californians with a murder and rape spree. DeAngelo, now 77, was a former police officer who eluded authorities for years as the Golden State Killer served a string of life sentences for sadistic rapes and murders. DeAngelo was found guilty of 13 murders and 13 rapes that occurred between 1975 and 1986. DeAngelo later admitted to victimizing at least 87 people at 53 different crime scenes over an 11-year period. DeAngelo was sentenced in August 2020 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In another case, William Talbott II, a former Seattle-Tacoma truck driver, was convicted of murdering Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and her boyfriend Jay Cook, 20. The incident occurred in 1987, but Talbott was not arrested until 2018. Police were able to find his DNA in the victim's body and use a genealogy website to identify him. The road to arrest began when Chelsea Rustad, Talbott's cousin, entered a contest and won a DNA 'spit kit' and uploaded her profile to the website. She said, "Police told me that without my DNA, he would not have been arrested. There would have been no trial. That family would have never had answer," according to the Daily Mail. 19-year-old Jennifer Brinkman was murdered in 1987. However, her killer was not found until 2022. Jeffrey Paul Premo, 52, was arrested in the case, and his DNA was found with that on the ax used to kill her. It turned out that the duo had met through a chat line in 1987, and he was jailed in Snohomish County Jail on $250,000 bail.