A spit-out piece of chewing gum led to a conviction in a 1980 murder case in the United States. The DNA of the now 60-year-old Robert Plympton was found in the candy, he was convicted of the murder of then 19-year-old student Barbara Tucker .
On January 15, 1980, nineteen-year-old Barbara Tucker was “kidnapped, sexually assaulted and beaten to death” in the US state of Oregon. This is stated in the statement of the local prosecutor. Her murder remained unsolved for a long time.
At the time of the murder, several witnesses had noticed a woman in distress. One woman described a girl “with her arms waving in the air and a bloody face,” while another said she saw “a man peeking through the bushes next to the (college) parking lot.”
Tucker’s body was found the next morning near a parking lot by students on their way to class, the district attorney’s news release said.
Red-haired perpetrator
During Tucker’s autopsy, cotton swabs were used to create a DNA profile of the suspect, but that turned up nothing at the time. It was only a few decades later that a breakthrough in research occurred. After a recent, extensive analysis of the DNA found, physical characteristics of the perpetrator could be determined. For example, it emerged that the person who murdered and raped Barbara ‘with an extremely high probability’ had red hair.
Based on that knowledge, Robert Plympton (60) came into the picture as a suspect. Following the results of the investigation, police kept a close eye on Plympton and managed to collect a piece of chewing gum that he had spit out. The DNA of the chewing gum matched the profile found during the autopsy in 1980. This is how the police managed to catch the perpetrator, 44 years after the murder of Barbara Tucker.
Robert Plympton was found guilty of first-degree murder last week. It is still unclear what punishment he will receive.
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