Cold case murder of Florida nurse is cracked after more than three decades

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After 37 years of being left in the dark over who “viciously murdered” Teresa Lee Scalf, her family finally learned her alleged killer’s identity thanks to evolving DNA technology.

Scalf, a 29-year-old nurse from Lakeland, Florida, was the target of a “sexually motivated” attack which ended in her death on 27 October 1986.

She was found “severely cut and had significant defensive wounds on her hands” and the killer “cut her head almost off”, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

The sheriff’s office has now named Donald Douglas, 33 at the time, as the man responsible for Scalf’s death.

Sheriff Grady Judd led a news conference on Monday surrounded by Scalf’s family.

The sheriff believes that Douglas was possibly rejected by Scalf, which could have led to the motive for her murder.

“We believe it was a sexual rejection; we think had some interest in her sexually, and obviously she didn’t have any,” he told the conference. “We believe that he was angry and upset because she wouldn’t have a relationship with him.”

“Teresa had told us about some creepy neighbour that had showed up at her house with what looked like he had yanked a flower out of the ground and slapped it into a pot, and he was sort of stalkerish,” sister Lynn Scalf told reporters.

“She had told us about him, but she never described him.”

Douglas passed away at the age of 54 in 2008 from natural causes - years before police could bring the suspected murderer to justice.

Mr Judd also revealed that detectives talked to Douglas during the investigation at the time, as they were carrying out neighbourhood canvases, but said there was “nothing out of the ordinary.”

However, the road to his identification was not easy. Douglas was not on the DNA profile database for previously convicted offenders and missing persons (CODIS) and his body was also cremated after his death.

Yet the blood samples taken from the crime scene in 1986 were also tested by Othram, a Texas-based private laboratory specialising in forensic genetics, the sheriff’s office said.

Othram “analysed the suspect’s blood, and they were able to narrow the scope to distant relatives of the still unknown suspect,” the sheriff’s office confirmed.

The identification ultimately came down to a genealogy on the DNA that was traced back to 1949 when a third cousin to Douglas had an illicit affair.

A son of Douglas agreed to hand over a DNA sample, which was genetically analysed against the blood sample at the crime scene, which gave the police their answer to this almost 40-year-old cold case.

Mr Judd said that Douglas’ son was “mortified” to hear the DNA test results, as his father had never been arrested before.

“The DNA profile indicated a 100% confidence of a parent/child biological relationship compared to Douglas’ son’s DNA profile,” the office said.

The sheriff’s office said Douglas lived directly behind Scalf at the time of her murder.

Her mother, Betty Scalf, was the one who found her daughter’s body hours after she was killed.

She went looking for Scalf after she did not she did not turn up to work.

“All I want to say is, I’m 84 years old. I lived to see this done,” Betty Scalf said, “I think that’s why I lived so long.”