MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – A cold case revived by Minneapolis police with newly discovered DNA evidence has resulted in a guilty plea to a 1980 murder.
Robert Skogstad has entered the plea in the fatal stabbing of 22-year-old Mary Steinhardt at a Minneapolis apartment building where he was a caretaker.
A Minneapolis police detective working on a cold case project in 2010 found additional DNA samples in archive files that had not been tested. She submitted those samples and additional profiles were recovered. Those profiles were entered into local and national databases and a match was made to Skogstad, a sex offender.
Prosecutors say his profile matched DNA evidence recovered from the victim.
The 58-year-old Skogstad was living in Edgerton, Kan. He will be sentenced Jan. 3 on a second-degree murder conviction.
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