DNA identifies killer of woman in 1986 Bedford cold case; suspect died in January
A Bedford resident who lived near 32-year-old Janet Love at the time she was raped and shot to death in her apartment in 1986 has been identified as her killer, Bedford police announced on Monday.
Detectives say DNA evidence linked Ray Anthony Chapa with Love’s cold-case murder more than 35 years after her death on April 24, 1986.
Chapa, who police identified as Love’s killer in September, died in January at 53 years old from a terminal illness, Bedford police said Monday.
“Chapa had no known ties to the victim and was never considered a suspect until DNA technology revealed the truth,” Bedford Police Chief Jeff Williams said in a Monday news release. “We are 100 percent sure this is the person who committed this terrible crime. I am so grateful for all the detectives’ hard work and finally being able to bring closure to Janet’s family. They’ve had to wait 35 years for this day.”
Love was found dead in her apartment in 1986 on L. Don Dodson Drive in Bedford.
Two co-workers found her body after she did not show up for work at Delta Airlines, where she was a ticket agent. Detectives determined that her attacker had entered her apartment, raped her and fatally shot her before fleeing the scene.
Police said on Monday that detectives at the time followed numerous leads, but they could never identify a suspect in the case.
DNA evidence was collected from the scene and later entered in the FBI Combined DNA Index System when the database was created., but the Bedford suspect’s profile never matched another crime scene or offender.
But in 2020, detectives turned to a Texas Department of Public Safety grant called the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Project, according to the news release. The grant uses funds from the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct forensic genetic genealogy testing of DNA samples from unknown offenders who are linked to sexual assaults and sexually related homicides. With the help of a genealogist and public records, Bedford detectives were able to use the DNA profile to piece together a family tree of the suspect.
Detectives obtained the suspect’s name and later requested the help of two family members to confirm the suspect’s identity through a kinship analysis conducted by the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.
In September, Bedford detectives were able to confirm that Ray Anthony Chapa killed Love. At the time of the murder, Chapa was a teenager and he lived less than 1,000 feet from Love in a neighboring apartment complex.
Bedford police met with the families of Love and Chapa before making the announcement on Monday that they had solved the cold case, and both families asked for privacy.
Bedford police noted that in 1986, DNA was just in its early stages and police departments did not regularly share information with other law enforcement agencies because of a lack of a central databases.
“The search never stopped,” said Bedford police Sgt. Brett Bowen, who was one of the detectives on the Love case when it was cleared. “It wasn’t unsolved because of lack of effort; we just needed science and technology to catch up to be able to put the final pieces together.”
Detectives are working with the FBI and investigating other possible offenses that Chapa may have committed across the country. In addition to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, he lived in Chicago and Montana.
The suspect had moved from Montana to Bluff Dale, Texas, before he died. Bluff Dale is 70 miles southwest of Bedford in Erath County.
Anyone with information should call Bedford police at 817-952-2272.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 11:03 AM.
