Nevada former deputy attorney is named suspect in 50-year-old cold case murder in Hawaii

The suspect in a 50-year-old cold murder case is a former Nevada deputy attorney, police said.

Tudor Chirila, now 77, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for allegedly stabbing 19-year-old Nancy Elaine Anderson to death on 7 January 1972, local TV station Hawaii News Now first reported. She had at least 60 stab wounds in her neck, chest, and abdomen when she was found inside her Honolulu apartment.

Police were only able to positively match Mr Chirila’s DNA with the one retrieved from the crime scene after his son, John Chirila, of California, consented to a swab sample earlier this year. The department was then able to obtain a warrant for Mr Chirila’s DNA that was served on 6 September.

He reportedly attempted suicide on 8 September. Mr Chirila, who now lives in Nevada, was arrested in Reno on Wednesday and is waiting for extradition to Hawaii, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

Mr Chirila served as a deputy attorney in the 1970s and made an unsuccessful bid for the Nevada Supreme Court in 1994, the Reno Gazette reported. According to the outlet, he was also accused of tying up his girlfriend in an attempt to rape and kidnap her in 1995, but the charges were eventually dropped.

Mr Chirila, a longtime attorney in Reno, Carson City and the Lake Tahoe area, was also the president of a company used as a front for a brothel that defrauded the government in bankruptcy proceedings. He testified in court for the prosecution.

Anderson, who had moved to Hawaii from Michigan, was found by her roommate, who was sleeping in their Waikiki apartment at the time of the killing.

The woman told police she was taking a nap before she found the body and said she had seen Anderson with two male salesmen hours before.

The salesmen, Anderson’s past boyfriends and the building manager were interrogated and their DNA was tested but none matched the one found at the scene. The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) exhausted investigative leads and the case went cold.

In 2020, HPD partnered with a Virginia-based lab to create a profile with DNA retrieved from the scene.

According to the rendering, the suspect was of southern and southeastern European heritage, brown or hazel eyes and brown or black hair.

The next year they received a tip about Mr Chirila. Although the department was initially unable to test Mr Chirila’s DNA, his son agreed to provide his. A search warrant was obtained for Mr Chirila’s DNA on 1 September, and a positive match came back eleven days later.

Mr Chirila was booked into Washoe County Jail without bail.