The case has been an immersed investigator for almost two decades: Jason Royter, the father of two, was found stabbed to death in his house in the Salt Lake City area.
No signs of forced entry and no apparent motif were found. Small for detectives and relatives of Mr. Royter, including his now adult children, continue unresolved murder.
But the DNA intervention finally provided a breakthrough in the cold case, which led to the arrest last week Mark Munoze, 53, the homeless, while killing Mr. Royter, the authorities stated during the Friday press conference.
At the briefing, which in the Sheriff’s Salt Lake County Sheriff Office, two of Mr. Royter’s sisters and his son joined the investigators to announce that Mr. Munoz was charged.
“I know it could stop,” said Niki Price, one of Mr. Royter’s sisters. “They wouldn’t stop until it was done.”
Investigators stated that DNA gathered from Mr. Royter’s house in Magna, Utah, corresponded to a sample that was collected from Mr. Munoz, which was included in the national forensic database used by coercive bodies when arrested in a separate matter in another state.
They refused to say to which state was the second case, or as far as they were concerned, and quoted the ongoing investigation of the murder of Mr. Royter.
“These cases will cool down,” said Rosie Rivera, Sherifka Salt Lake County, at a press conference. “Some of them go 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.”
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Munoz, who was taken into custody on Thursday, had a lawyer. On Monday, requests for commentary with the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association and the Salt Lake County district council were looking for this information.
Ben Pender, a detective who took over the investigation of cold cases, said on Friday that Mr. Munoz was difficult to trace because of his temporary background.
“He really doesn’t have a stable residence,” he said.
Sheriff Rivera said that investigators still did not set the motive in this case and that Mr Munoz did not cooperate with the investigators.
“He knows what happened,” she said. “No.”
The sheriff attributed murders to investigators who initially responded to the crime scene and said that progress in forensic science has helped solve cases such as Mr. Royter’s murder.
Stephani Perschon, another of Mr. Royter’s sisters, said Mr. Munoz’s arrest helped to alleviate the heavy burden of her family.
“I just want to say how much a relief is,” she said. “It was 20 years long.”
