A stunning forensic breakthrough connects two of Michigan's most notorious cold cases, revealing the chilling work of a serial killer who eluded justice for decades.
Detective Sergeant Kilbourne, a seasoned Michigan State Police veteran with experience in everything from undercover narcotics to high-profile murder investigations, faces his most challenging assignment yet. Taking charge of the 1986 Margaret Ebi murder case fifteen years after the crime, he discovers a chaotic evidence collection that forces him to rebuild the investigation from the ground up. "We don't have a crime scene, but we got pictures of a crime scene," his superior reminds him as they forge ahead.
The turning point arrives when DNA samples preserved from the Ebi crime scene, previously thought degraded beyond use, are submitted to Michigan's state-of-the-art crime lab. What happens next electrifies the investigation – the genetic fingerprint matches DNA from the unsolved 1991 murder of flight attendant Nancy Ludwig in Romulus. Two seemingly unrelated high-profile murders, connected by the invisible thread of a killer's DNA.
As the investigation widens, we meet Detective Mike Larson, Kilbourne's counterpart described as "Mr. Yang to Kilbourne's Mr. Ying" – opposite personalities united in their pursuit of justice. Their work parallels the revolutionary case chronicled in Joseph Wambach's bestseller "The Blooding," which documents how DNA profiling first caught a serial killer in England, forever changing criminal investigations worldwide.
The path forward becomes complicated when territorial issues arise between state and local agencies. Detective Gordy Melianak, who devoted years to the Ludwig case, finds himself sidelined by departmental politics just as the breakthrough occurs. Will interagency tensions derail the investigation, or can these dedicated detectives overcome bureaucratic obstacles to finally bring closure to two of Michigan's most haunting unsolved murders?
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