Boise police say they’ve solved a 36-year-old cold case. Here’s what they discovered

Noble Brigham
·2 min read

Boise police announced Friday that they have solved a 36-year-old cold case using DNA evidence.

On October 13, 1987, Joyce Casper, 65, was found dead behind the Hallmark store she owned in the Vista Village Shopping Center. She had been abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered, according to a news release from police.

After years of research based on crime scene DNA, police said they’ve determined that their suspect is Frank A. Rodriguez, who died in 2007.

“While nothing can bring back their lost loved one, we are proud that after 36 years and countless hours of investigation, we were able to bring some form of closure to the Casper family,” Capt. Matt Jones said in the release.

Casper’s case was reactivated by the Boise Special Victims unit in 2005, according to previous Idaho Statesman reporting. Over the years, police investigated 150 suspects and tried unsuccessfully to match the DNA evidence to someone in the national criminal DNA index.

Police detectives also focused on a report Casper had made two weeks before her murder that a young man with slicked-back black hair tried to assault her at the business. But they never arrested anyone.

The case was reinvigorated in 2017 when two detectives began focusing on it full-time, police said. They worked with a company called Parabon Nanolabs to use DNA to create a suspect profile. They determined the suspect was a Latino man with brown or black hair and brown or hazel eyes. But still they could not identify him.

Then, in 2019, Casper’s case was reassigned to another detective, who worked with Identifinders, another genetic genealogy company. The detective was able to zero in on one family tree. This year, evidence began pointing to Rodriguez. His family members provided DNA swabs that confirmed he was the suspect, according to the release.

“Justice has been a long time coming and we are proud and grateful to finally be able to give [Casper’s family] some answers,” Jones said in the release.