SPOKANE, Wash – The man accused of killing a woman in east Spokane in 1986 entered a not guilty plea in court Tuesday.
74-year-old David Tibbett is accused of killing Mary Ann Turner in a case that was cold for decades.
Turner was strangled and police say she clearly put up a fight. They saved her fingernail clippings, which eventually showed DNA belonging to an unknown man.
Late last year, detectives worked with Othram lab in Texas, the same lab used to connect Bryan Kohberger to the murder of four University of Idaho students.
Othram used genetic genealogy and told Spokane Police to look at three Tibbett brothers. Two are dead, David Tibbett was alive at still lived in the same home where he lived at the time of the murder.
Tibbett has a criminal history of sexual assault, but his DNA was not in the state or federal databases. Spokane Police concocted what they called “a ruse” and sent Tibbett a letter about a car he previously reported stolen.
They asked him to sign the letter and send it back. DNA on the envelope matched the DNA found under Mary Ann Turner’s fingernails.
Tibbett is being held on $1 million bond. A trial date was set for December.
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