Serial Killers Identified in 2025: Genetic Genealogy Solves Cold Cases While New Threats Emerge

# SEO-Friendly Podcast Episode Description

**Serial Killers in 2025: Cold Cases Solved, Active Investigations, and What Modern Forensics Reveals**

Pull up a chair and join Detective Emily Em Carter as she breaks down the most current serial killer cases, investigations, and breakthroughs shaking law enforcement across North America and beyond. This is not a greatest hits episode—this is what's unfolding *right now*.

From the **Toronto cold case breakthrough** using cutting-edge genetic genealogy to identify Kenneth Smith as the killer of three women murdered in the 1980s and 1990s, to the **Houston and Buffalo Bayou bodies** sparking fears of an active serial killer, to the **Phoenix death sentence** of Cleophus Cooksey Junior for eight murders, Detective Carter walks listeners through real investigative techniques, forensic breakthroughs, and the patterns hidden in plain sight.

**In This Episode:**
- How familial DNA and genealogical databases are solving decades-old serial murders
- Linkage analysis and victimology in active investigations
- The difference between public panic and evidence-based law enforcement
- Why marginalized communities face the highest risk from serial predators
- Federal charges against Labar Tsethlikai for serial murder of Native American victims
- The Russian Povolzhsky Maniac case and jurisdictional challenges
- Female serial killers and emerging crime patterns
- What cold case clearances and active cases reveal about modern serial investigation

**Perfect for listeners interested in:** true crime, serial killers, forensic science, criminal investigation, cold cases, DNA genealogy, law enforcement, criminology, homicide detective work, and modern policing.

*A rookie detective's deep dive into the cases, science, and investigative lessons reshaping serial killer investigations in 2025.*

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners, pull up a chair and hang onto your coffee.
I am Detective Emily M. Carter, your friendly neighborhood rookie
cop with way too many case files bookmarked and not
nearly enough sleep. Today we are diving into the most
current serial killer headlines and investigations, shaking law enforcement, forensic labs,
and yes, the true crime world. This is not a

(00:20):
Greatest Hits episode. This is what is unfolding right now
or has just broken in the last stretch of the calendar.
Fresh indictments, new DNA breakthroughs, death sentences finally handed down,
and communities wondering if there is a predator in their
midst We are going to move across North America and
beyond connecting the gods. Like I was trained to do

(00:41):
in the academy, I will walk you through what we
know when investigators are still trying to figure out and
what these cases tell us about modern serial offender investigations.
Let us start in Canada, where one of the biggest
cold case serial breakthroughs of the year just landed in
Toronto to Roano cold case breakthrough Kenneth Smith and the

(01:03):
three murdered women. If you are into cold cases, this
one is textbook twenty four century policing. Toronto detectives have
finally identified the man they say murdered three women in
the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, And they did it
using something my instructors would not stop talking about in class,
familial DNA, also called genetic genealogy. The name you need

(01:25):
to remember is Kenneth Smith. According to Toronto Police, Smith
has been identified as the killer of at least three women,
Pristine Prince, Claire Samson, Graceland or Graceland Greenidge. The cases
span fourteen years in different parts of the Toronto region.
Here is the rough sequence based on what has been reported.
Christine Prince was a young woman from Wells who had

(01:48):
come to Toronto to work as a nanny. She was
last seen alive and her body was found the next
day in the Rouge River area on the East Saint
side of the city. Next you have Claire Samson. She
was last seen on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto on
September first, nineteen eighty three. Witnesses remembered her getting into
a beage car with a balding older man. Later, she

(02:11):
was found fatally shot north of Barry. That pattern a
vulnerable victim in the downtown corps. A vehicle, then a
body dumped outside the city is exactly the kind of
sequence we are talked to flag as possible serial behavior.
Then fourteen years later, in nineteen ninety seven, forty one
year old Graceland sometimes spelled Graceland Breenage, was found dead

(02:36):
in an apartment on Driftwood Avenue in Toronto on July
twenty ninth. She had been last seen the previous night,
leading work, same offender type, very different setting an apartment
versus outdoors to an investigator, that suggests someone who is
flexible and opportunistic rather than rigid in their method. For decades,

(02:58):
these crimes were unconnected. Missus investigators had DNA but no
match in the traditional criminal data bases. Fast forward, Toronto
police turned to a private DNA lab, Author Incorporated around
twenty twenty two. That is one of the private labs
that works with law enforcement on investigative genetic genealogy. Think

(03:19):
of it like this, Instead of looking for the exact
suspect profile in a criminal database, they searched genealogical databases
for relatives. From there, trained genealogists and detectives build family
trees backward and then forward until they narrow down a
likely suspect. In twenty twenty five, that process finally paid off.

(03:43):
Investigators found a familial branch in the data that pointed
them straight to a specific family. They worked through that
tree and ultimately identified Kenneth Smith as the likely offender.
He had died in Windsor in twenty nineteen at the
wall age of seven TV two, meaning he will never
be tried in court, but the cases can finally be

(04:05):
cleared for the victims families. This was the end of
the second half of the title. In one work from
a rookie cop perspective, this is exactly the kind of
case we studied as a model for what genetic genealogy
can do. A stranger predator spread across years, no apparent
witness who can give a license plate, no quick confession.

(04:27):
Traditional policing hits the wall. Then technology and patience finally
crack it. A detail worth noticing. Toronto Police have said
they are continuing the investigation and want to hear from
anyone who knew Smith or his whereabouts during the periods
of those murders. That is something my Sergeant Hammer's home.

(04:47):
When you identify as serial predator after the fact. You
do not assume the known victims are the only victims.
You work backward and sideways. You look for similar unsolved
homicides or sexual assaults in the same time frames and
travel patterns. So for Toronto, the story right now is
both closure and a big open question. Was Kenneth Smith

(05:12):
only responsible for those three murders or are there other
victims still buried in cold case files from the eighties
and nineties. Now we move from closure to fear Houston
and the Buffalo Bayou bodies. Are we looking at a
serial killer? Down in Texas? Public anxiety is sky high
around a series of bodies recovered from waterways, especially in

(05:36):
and around Houston and Buffalo bay This is one of
those situations where the headlines and the official statements are
not perfectly aligned, which is exactly the kind of tension
we talk about in our media training. Here is what
is happening. According to recent coverage, three more bodies have
been pulled from Houston area waters, continuing a disturbing pattern

(05:57):
that is developed over the last few years. Bodies have
been found in or near Buffalo Bayou, and some social
media users and amateur sleuths have been quick to coin
phrases like the Bayou serial Killer or to link it
to similar rumors about an Austin area lake. Law enforcement,
for the record, is pushing back hard on that narrative.

(06:17):
Officers have publicly stated that in the Austin series, for instance,
only one of several widely discussed water debts has been