2024 National Forensic Science Week Presentation

Solving a Cold Case Homicide in Canyon County Idaho using Whole Genome Sequencing —Finding justice for a victim of abduction, rape, and murder

This presentation will provide case overview of the murder of Daralyn Johnson. She was only 9 years old in February of 1982 as she was walking to school when she was abducted and eventually raped and murdered. Her body was later dumped near a river that was 18 miles away.

The case involved the use of scientific examinations in 1982, which at the time did not employ the use of DNA. Charles Fain was wrongfully convicted in 1983 of this murder and served 18 years on Idaho’s death row. Through the diligence of attorneys working on his case, along with attorneys working for the attorney general’s office, he was eventually cleared of the murder in 2001 by use of mitochondrial DNA testing.

The case remained a cold case until 2020, when Dr. Edward Green from the University of California Santa Cruz, was asked to perform testing on rootless hairs that were recovered from the victim at the original crime scene.