COLD CASE CRACKED
Patrick Gilham arrest for Roxanne Wood murder – Inside how STUDENTS used Post-it notes and cigarette clue to find killer
A MAN will spend decades in prison in a 1987 cold case as it's been revealed college students used Post-it notes and a cigarette to help find the killer.
Patrick Wayne Gilham was arrested and charged with second-degree murder decades after the death of Roxanne Wood.
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Gilham, 67, was also formally accused in February of breaking and entering of an occupied dwelling, .
The charges stem from February 20, 1987, when Terry Wood found his wife dead in their Niles Township, Michigan home.
They had driven separately to go bowling and Roxanne Wood, 30, returned home first.
Police say her husband found her with throat cut.
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The case remained an active investigation for decades, police said, and it was reexamined in 2001 and 2020 by investigators from Michigan State Police.
Students in Western Michigan University's Cold Case Program ultimately helped those detectives find Gilham on their first case working together.
The students collected and sorted piles of evidence, including digitized Post-it notes and unlimited case files.
Evidence from the scene was examined forensically using genetic genealogy by Identifinders International LLC and the MSP Forensic Laboratory in Grand Rapids, according to a police statement.
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After Gilham was identified as a suspect, he was "surveilled extensively" by undercover state police troopers and interviewed twice.
During this time, he discarded a cigarette that detectives collected.
Police then used DNA from the cigarette to confirm that DNA found at the crime scene belonged to Gilham, Michigan State Police Detective First Lt. Charles Christensen told .
Gilham was arrested in February, just days from the 35th anniversary of the killing.
Police said the students played a key organizational role in sifting through the 3,000-page case file and throwing out ideas with investigators.
In late March, Gilham pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and agreed to a minimum sentence of 23 years in prison.
Sentencing is set for April 25.
Identifiers International said in a that the case was a "landmark in the use of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) as the decades-old DNA sample used to identify Roxanne’s assailant was very low level and highly degraded, representing the contents of only a few cells of his body."
The organization's president, Colleen Fitzpatrick, said it was the toughest technical challenge they'd faced.
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"But it shows that we should never give up hope,” Fitzpatrick said.
"We are grateful to the Michigan State Police for having faith in us for the careful decision making it took to process the DNA and solve the case.”
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