Girl, 9, was raped and murdered in 1959. Authorities finally identified her killer.

[RandySF]

A former door-to-door salesman who authorities said raped and murdered a 9-year-old girl in Washington State more than six decades ago was identified Friday, ending what one detective called the “Mount Everest” of cold case investigations.

The man, John Reigh Hoff, died by suicide at the age of 31 in 1970, but his daughter provided DNA to investigators in Spokane that helped solve the murder of Candy Rogers, the city’s police department said in a news release.

In a video released by the department, Det. Zac Storment compared the investigation to the world's tallest mountain, saying it was "the one we could never seem to overcome, but at the same time nobody ever forgot."

Candy was selling camp fire mints in her Spokane neighborhood when she vanished March 6, 1959. Sixteen days later, after a sprawling search effort turned deadly — two airmen with the Air Force died after their helicopter struck a power line — her body was found in the woods a few miles from her home.

Hoff, then 20, was in the Army and stationed at the Fairchild Air Force base in Spokane County. He wasn't identified as a suspect in Candy's killing, though two years later he was convicted of assault after tying up a woman with her own clothes and strangling her, the department said.




https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/girl-9-was-raped-murdered-1959-authorities-finally-identified-killer-rcna6217?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

[ItsjustMe]

1. Link for Desktop

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/girl-9-was-raped-murdered-1959-authorities-finally-identified-killer-rcna6217

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. I lived there then. I was 11. This murder completely

panicked the whole town. It was awful. It was really the end of innocence for so many families.

I am glad they were finally able to close this case and give this family peace. And give peace to all of us that remember that terrible time.

[Skittles]

3. kudos to his daughter for her immediate cooperation

that could not have been easy for her

[Demovictory9]

4. K&r

[phylny]

5. Back in the late 50s, my mother answered the front door by opening the heavy wood door

but left the locked screen door closed and opened the jalousie windows only. She told the salesman she wasn’t interested in whatever he was selling. A woman around the corner was raped by the same salesman later in the day.