Jeffrey Lynn Hand was identified as the lead suspect in the September 16, 1972 murder of 19-year-old Pamela Millam in Terre Haute, Indiana. The case has been cleared by exception due to the death of Hand.
Millam was a student at ISU who did not return home for the weekend on Friday. Her father and sister searched the campus for her, and they found her body in the trunk of her car. Millam had been beaten, bound and gagged. She was determined to have been strangled to death.
The FGG investigation was conducted by Parabon Nanolabs. In 2009, familial DNA testing was requested, but not approved. The initial confirmation was made with one of Hand’s sons.
Less than a year after the murder of Millam, Hand was tried for another murder. He was accused of abducting a pair of hitchhikers – a husband and wife – along the I-70 in 1973. He murdered the husband and kidnapped the wife, but she escaped. Hand was acquitted at trial on grounds of insanity and he spent a short period of time in a mental facility. He was released in 1976.
He tried to abduct another woman in the Markland Mall shopping centre in 1978. He was killed in a shootout with police, after having shot an officer who responded to the kidnapping. He was 28 years old at the time.
The police’s main suspect in the murder of Millam was not Hand but a man named Robert Wayne Austin. DNA tests were only able to rule him out as a suspect in 2001.
Sources:
Adams, Matt. “DNA Evidence Leads Police to Killer of Indiana State Student Nearly 50 Years After Slaying.” Fox 59 News, May 6, 2019. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://fox59.com/news/dna-evidence-leads-police-to-killer-of-indiana-state-student-nearly-50-years-after-slaying/.
Fitton, Mark. “Homicide Suspect Lived Short, Violent Life.” Tribune-Star, May 6, 2019. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/reports-homicide-suspect-lived-short-violent-life/article_c6ab57ff-6f38-5c7e-b63a-8f74aff677e5.html.
WTHR.com Staff. “Police Identify Killer in 47-Year-Old Cold Case Murder of ISU Student.” WHTR News, May 6, 2019. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/police-identify-killer-47-year-old-cold-case-murder-isu-student/531-fc191e35-37b3-44f2-ab6f-14646972e873.