FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — On June 27, 1983, 11-year-old Julie Fuller disappeared from the Kensington Motel in Arlington after taking out the trash. She was found raped and murdered in Fort Worth the following day. Her killer had never been found — until now, 36 years later.
Julie Fuller (Fort Worth Police Department)
Decades after investigating the cold case, Fort Worth police were able to get DNA evidence into the database CODIS, but with no matches.
In February 2018, homicide detectives then reached out to Parabon Nanolabs and obtained a DNA phenotyping report — a tool used to predict a suspect’s physical appearance and ancestry from unidentified DNA evidence.
No sign of Julie Fuller’s killer was ever found, although police acquired some DNA evidence that didn’t produce a match.
A year and a half later, on Dec. 13, Fort Worth police said they have identified Fuller’s killer as James McNichols, who died in 2004.