DNA testing helps solve 1980 homicide
Cigarette butts provide evidence in Yavapai case
Yavapai County sheriff’s detectives solved a cold case homicide from 1980 through DNA testing of crime scene evidence, officials announced Monday.
According to a statement by Detective
John McDormett, who oversaw the new investigation, the body of 29-yearold Michael E. Lee was found on a road that split off State Route 179 in October 1980.
Lee was found dead with several gunshot wounds in the head.
Deputies collected cigarette butts among other evidence from the crime scene in 1980, but the case died down after there were no significant leads.
However, in June 2018, a Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office cold case volunteer sent the cigarette butts to the Department of Public Safety lab for DNA testing, McDormett said.
Two of the cigarette butts were a positive DNA match for David Ellsworth Widmer, who was 31 years old at the time of the killing and had an “extensive criminal background,” according to McDormett. Detectives later learned that Widmer died in 2019.
According to McDormett, Widmer was connected to a person of interest in the initial investigation in the ‘80s and also was connected to the homicide through both circumstantial evidence and additional DNA matches.
Another suspect, Rocky Crabtree, was identified in the investigation and detectives believe he was an accomplice. Crabtree was a convicted felon and had died in 1990.
Despite both suspects being dead, detectives continued to investigate. Lee was an ironworker out of Indiana who was visiting the state and knew both Crabtree and Widmer. Detectives believe the two suspects knew Lee had a large amount of money that he kept in a bandanna on his leg and intended to rob him, according to the Sheriff ’s Office.
When detectives investigated the original crime scene they noticed the bandanna was cut off Lee’s leg and also found that a wallet in Lee’s pocket still contained more than $1,000, which the perpetrators failed to find.
They also took cannabis from Lee, but officers believed it was “skunk” weed, which is very low quality, McDormett said.
If Crabtree and Widmer were still alive, “detectives are confident that both men would have been charged,” McDormett said.
Lee’s family was notified and was appreciative of detectives’ efforts for giving them some resolution after 40 years in the dark, not knowing what happened to their loved one.
“The public should know that unsolved murder cases never go away,” McDormett said. “A specialized unit within the YCSO Criminal Investigations Bureau is always working old and unsolved murders.”