DNA leads police to suspect 25 years after murder of 9-year-old Angie Housman
ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — Twenty-five years after the abduction, rape and murder of 9-year-old Angie Housman, police believe they know who killed her, sources close to the investigation say.
Forensic scientists found a DNA sample last fall on a piece of evidence from the crime scene that had previously gone undetected. Using recent advances in DNA analysis, scientists matched the sample to a 61-year-old disgraced Air Force veteran, convicted pedophile and international online child pornography purveyor, according to sources familiar with the case.
St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar is expected to announce charges soon against the man, who remains civilly committed at a federal prison out of state, sources say.
In a statement, Lohmar confirmed there have been “new developments” in the case, but did not elaborate on the ongoing investigation.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch typically does not identify suspects until they are charged with a crime.
News of the arrest has come too late for Angie’s mother, Diane Bone. She died of cancer two years ago at age 52. Her family said Diane Bone grieved for her daughter until her own death in 2016.
Her husband, Ron Bone, Angie’s stepfather, said Tuesday that police questioned him about two or three months ago and showed him photographs of a man they thought was responsible for Angie’s death. Bone said he did not know the man.
“That picture, he’s a young kid but I don’t know him exactly by name but the picture looks familiar, face looks familiar but I can’t picture who he is,” Bone told the Post-Dispatch.
Bone is glad police are close to solving the case but faults them for not doing more sooner. “If they got the guy, fantastic.”
The brown-haired fourthgrader at Ritenour’s Buder School was abducted about a half block from her home on Wright Avenue in St. Ann, minutes after hopping off her school bus Nov. 18, 1993.
Hundreds of police officers and volunteers scoured the area. Ultimately, a deer hunter found her body nine days later tied to a tree in a remote section of Busch Wildlife Area in St. Charles County.
She had been starved, handcuffed, sexually assaulted, and her eyes and mouth were covered with duct tape. Authorities believe she died from exposure mere hours before she was found.
The crime sent local parents into a panic and led to one of the most intense police investigations ever launched in the St. Louis area.
Records show police might have been closer to identifying the suspect than they realized through the years. He had previous child molestation convictions and arrests and connections to the area at the time.