Woman’s death in 1987 was never solved — until digging into man’s grave, NM city says
Donna Sue Hyatt was found dead in her New Mexico home in 1987.
It was then discovered she had been sexually assaulted before being killed, the city of Carlsbad said in an April 11 news release.
For the next 36 years, her killing and sexual assault went unsolved.
But now — after a man’s grave was dug up for DNA testing in Texas — her case is finally closed, the city said.
This testing positively identified Michael Ruff Wigley, who died in 1989, as a suspect in Hyatt’s killing, the city said.
“It is our sincere hope that the recent efforts, and the efforts of those involved in 1987, can bring some small form of peace and closure to the family of Donna Sue Hyatt and the community of Carlsbad,” Mayor Dale Janway said in the release.
Before her death, witnesses said they saw Hyatt with a man “leaving a nearby store on foot,” the city said.
Despite investigation, her case went cold.
The city said 36 years later, Carlsbad police detectives Joey Landgraf and Tim Nyce reexamined the case and sent “crime scene evidence” to Othram Inc., a forensic genealogy company, for testing.
With the evidence, Othram created a “comprehensive DNA profile for an unknown male suspect” using forensic-grade genome sequencing, the city said.
The FBI used this profile to develop leads using forensic genetic genealogy.
Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing coupled with “traditional genealogical methods” to create “family history profiles,” according to the Library of Congress. With genealogical DNA testing, researchers can determine if and how people are biologically related.
The city said Landgraf and Nyce then identified Wigley as a person of interest.
The detectives learned Wigley had been “investigated in the early 1980s for two separate incidents of sexual assault cases in central Texas,” according to the city.
In one of the cases, he was charged, convicted and sentenced to prison, the city said. After being released from prison, officials said, he died “in a traffic accident in 1989.”
The detectives got a search warrant to exhume Wigley’s body in Amarillo, Texas, for DNA testing, the city said.
“That testing positively and definitively identified Wigley as the suspect responsible for taking the life of Donna Sue Hyatt in July 1987,” according to the city.
In addition to DNA testing, interviews with witnesses and family members helped confirm Wigley was in Carlsbad at the time of Hyatt’s death, the city said.
Carlsbad sits above the Texas border, about 150 miles east of Las Cruces.
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