The murder of 26-year-old Pennsylvania resident Anna Kane remained a mystery for a long time. Her family and friends spent months wondering if investigators would ever find the person who killed her. Well, the family of a 1988 murder victim may now have a modicum of closure after DNA evidence in her case revealed the identity of the killer.
With new advances in genetic genealogy, investigators were able to identify Anna’s killer
Scott Grim died of natural causes at the age of 58 in 2018. He was the man who beat and strangled Anna Jean Kane to death. Thereafter, he dumped her body alongside Ontelaunee Trail Road in Perry Township, Pennsylvania State Police said.
Anna was last seen on Franklin Street and South 6th Street in Reading at around 1 a.m. Oct. 23, 1988, police said. Later, in 1990, the Reading Eagle article newspaper published a story about a Pennsylvania woman asking the public for information. This piece indirectly resulted in the killer being found 30 years later.
The killer licked the envelope, and the DNA evidence from that assisted in identifying him
A “concerned citizen” wrote the Eagle a letter a few days after it was published. It contained “intricate” details regarding Anna’s murder that only her perpetrator could be aware of. Detectives were unsure as to who wrote the letter but were certain that the author was Kane’s killer.
The DNA evidence found on the Birdsboro Anna’s clothes matched that of an envelope containing a citizen’s letter sent to the Reading Eagle in 1990. Thereafter, Police were able to extract saliva from the anonymous letter at the time, which described intimate details about the crime scene that no one outside of the investigation would have known, according to authorities.
This prompted them to believe that whoever sent the letter was most likely the person responsible for killing Anna. Well, it’s the year 2022, and the tiniest piece of information they gathered was just what we needed to crack this case.