38-YEAR-OLD COLD CASE SOLVED BY NEW FINGERPRINT TECHNO;OGY, NOT BY DNA

Fingerprint linked to 1983 Florida slaying leads to suspect’s arrest on murder charge 

 

By Joshua Rhett Miller

 

New York Post

December 2, 2021

 

 

Ralph Williams was arrested for the murder of Carla Lowe after being a person of interest for quite a while. Police say he did not know her prior to killing her, and found her waiting for an Amtrak train

 

New fingerprint technology has led to a break in a 38-year-old cold case involving the slaying of a young Florida woman, police said.

Ralph Williams, 59, was arrested Monday in the killing of Carla Lowe, 21, who was discovered brutally beaten and run over near a Delray Beach train station on Nov. 13, 1983, police said at a Tuesday press conference.

Williams, who had been considered a person of interest in Lowe’s slaying, was charged with first-degree murder with a weapon, Delray Beach Police Chief Javaro Sims told reporters.

The arrest marks the first for the Delray Beach Police Department’s cold-case unit after it was created in January, Sims said.

“This is the exact reason why the cold-case position was initiated earlier this year,” the chief said. “To help bring some level of closure to the families who have lost any hope of justice for their losses.”

 

Carla Lowe’s body was found beaten and run over in 1983 

 

Investigators believe Williams killed Lowe as she waited for an Amtrak train. The Pompano Beach woman died from blunt force trauma, and the pair did not know each other, department officials told The Post.

Delray Beach police Detective Todd Clancy said new technology by a UK-based forensic science company, Foster + Freeman, allowed investigators to retrieve a fingerprint from evidence left at the original crime scene that led them to Williams.

“It was the advances in technology,” Clancy said. “I can’t elaborate … but we weren’t able to get this fingerprint the old traditional way that crime scene would get fingerprints.”

Clancy said the unspecified “new process” was able to extract a fingerprint from the evidence, which he declined to further detail. An investigation is still ongoing and a motive for the slaying remains unknown, he said.

The technology used to crack the case is known as a recovery machine, CBS Miami reported. It’s being eyed for use in other Delray Beach cold cases, Clancy said.

Williams was arrested on grand theft auto and burglary charges the day Lowe’s body was found, but investigators weren’t able to tie him to her murder, according to CBS Miami.

 

Detective Todd Clancy credits the break in the case to advancements in technology 

 

Some of Lowe’s relatives attended Tuesday’s press conference, but didn’t address reporters. But they provided a statement to police praising investigators for remaining vigilant in the case nearly four decades old.

“It means everything to me,” Lowe’s sister, Jackie Lowe-Repass, said of Williams’ arrest. “Thirty-eight years I’ve waited for this. He took a very beautiful person out of this world … There’s a name now to who did this to my sister.”

Lowe-Repass said she wanted people to know her late sister was a good and generous person.

 

Carla Lowe died of blunt force trauma. Her sister, Jackie Lowe-Repass, says she was a very beautiful person 

 

“She just wasn’t a piece of trash that someone threw her away,” Lowe-Repass’ statement continued.

Williams, of Jacksonville, remains held without bond on a first-degree murder charge in Duval County, online records show. It’s unclear if he’s hired an attorney.

 

Ralph Williams was arrested for grand theft auto and burglary the day Carla Lowe’s body was discovered but police were unable to tie him to the murder until now