Police in Oklahoma have arrested and charged a man with murder, almost 20 years after an eight-year old girl from his neighbourhood disappeared from her bedroom.
the little girl, Kirsten Hatfield, lived two doors down from the main suspect, Anthony Joseph Palma, 56, when she went missing.
Palma was arrested at his home earlier this week.
He has never moved from the house where he lived when Kirsten went missing, and police believe that may because he is concealing the body somewhere on his property.
Kirsten’s mother, Shannon, said the family was hopeful of a breakthrough after all these years.
The arrest comes after a new investigator took over the case, and re-examined key pieces of evidence, including bloodstains on Kirsten’s underwear, which was found in the backyard, and on her bedroom windowsill.
Tests taken at the time came back inconclusive because the technology to test it at the time was limited.
“The State Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab found a DNA match to Palma in July, putting its odds of certainty at 263 sextillion to 1,” the report says.
“The evidence shows that Kirsten may have been targeted by Palma for sexual assault,” Miller wrote in the affidavit.
“It is likely that Palma has been motivated to stay in the same home to conceal evidence of the crime and/or the location of Kristen’s body.”
