Following a nine-day trial in Charles County, Maryland, the jury deliberated for about two hours earlier than discovering Andre Taylor responsible of murdering 28-year-old Vickie Lynn Belk in 1979.
A D.C. man has been convicted of first-degree homicide and rape within the killing of a Maryland girl that had gone unsolved for greater than 40 years earlier than developments in DNA helped crack the case.
Following a nine-day trial in Charles County, Maryland, the jury deliberated for about two hours earlier than discovering Andre Taylor responsible of murdering 28-year-old Vickie Lynn Belk in 1979.
Taylor, now 63, faces life in jail when he’s sentenced on Sept. 6.
In a information launch saying Taylor’s conviction, Charles County State’s Legal professional Tony Covington thanked the prosecutors in his workplace and detectives with the sheriff’s workplace for his or her persistence in investigating the case and bringing it to justice.
“These chilly circumstances are hardly ever solved,” Covington mentioned in a press release. “They get solved with dogged willpower and expertise. I’m very grateful that Charles County, after 45 years, was capable of carry some closure for the Belk household and justice for Vickie Lynn Belk.”
Mysterious disappearance
On the time she was killed, Belk lived in Suitland, Maryland, together with her boyfriend and labored as a administration analyst on the U.S. Division of Agriculture in D.C. Her boyfriend reported her lacking on Aug. 28, 1979, after she failed to come back residence after work.
Her physique was discovered the following day by a youngster out driving a motorbike on Metropolitan Church Street and Route 277 in Charles County. Belk had been shot within the aspect of the pinnacle and was discovered undressed from the waist down.
Detectives collected proof within the preliminary investigation, however the case ultimately went chilly.
Through the years, authorities mentioned, Charles County detectives stored revisiting the chilly case, in search of new leads, new clues — all to no avail.
How the case was cracked
In more moderen years, Detective Sgt. John Elliott of the Charles County Sheriff’s Workplace’s Legal Investigations Division determined to take one other have a look at the case.
Given the developments in forensic science — DNA was first used as proof in a felony case within the U.S. a few decade after Belk was killed — investigators in 2022 determined to submit the clothes Belk was discovered sporting on the time her physique was found for extra superior testing.
The trouble yielded sufficient DNA from the suspected attacker to undergo the nationwide DNA database run by the FBI known as CODIS, which accommodates the DNA profiles from different unsolved crimes and recognized offenders.
In November 2022, the sheriff’s workplace acquired the decision they’d been ready on for greater than 40 years — the DNA they’d submitted matched a recognized offender within the database they usually now had the title of a suspect in Belk’s killing: Andre Taylor.
Detectives then started investigating Taylor’s background. He was 18 on the time of Belk’s killing and lived at a residence on Bryan’s Street on the time, lower than 4 miles from the place her physique was found, investigators mentioned. Taylor additionally had connections to the realm of D.C. the place police believed Belk was kidnapped. And he had a violent felony historical past.
There was no proof Belk and Taylor knew every earlier than she went lacking, authorities mentioned.
Authorities started attempting to trace down Taylor and ultimately arrested him in June 2023, charging him with Belk’s killing.
In an interview with detectives, Taylor “admitted to actions that amounted to the rape of Belk, however he denied having any half in her homicide,” prosecutors mentioned in Friday’s information launch.
Following her loss of life, Belk’s household established the Vickie Belk Scholarship Foundation, which awards scholarships in her reminiscence.
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