DNA Evidence Helps ID Suspect in 1995 Washington Cold Case

A suspect in the 1995 murder of 61-year-old Patricia Lorraine Barnes has been identified through DNA to be Douglas Keith Krohne.

Othram, a Texas-based lab helped solve the case after the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office reopened the investigation in 2018, being one of 18 unsolved murder cases the department decided to reopen according to the Kitsap Sun.

Barnes’ body was found unclothed and partially uncovered by a passerby along Peacock Hill Road in August 1995. She was reportedly shot in the head twice.

After speaking with the person who was believed to be the last to see her alive in the original investigation, police released a sketch on what the assailant may have looked like. After their initial investigations, KSCO detectives were unable to identify a suspect in the killing and the case went cold.

In 2018, the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case and sent DNA samples to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, Othram, and a private lab in Florida. KSCO claimed that Othram used DNA evidence to search genealogy databases for possible genetic relatives of the suspect.

In December 2021, Othram labs provided the name of a potential suspect. The DNA evidence linked Krohne to the killing, and he resembled the police sketch according to the Associated Press.

Krohne lived in Seattle and Tacoma around 1995 and had a lengthy criminal history in western Washington, including felony convictions and a kidnapping arrest in 1994. He died in a car accident in Arizona in 2016.

Members of Barnes’ family are thankful to have a resolution to her death.

Photos: Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office