FORT WORTH, Texas - A man was convicted Thursday of a medical student's 1982 rape and murder, a case that was cold for 25 years until a nationwide DNA database linked evidence to a Florida prison inmate.
Jurors deliberated about 21/2 hours before convicting Lucky Lamon Odom of capital murder in the slaying of Kathryn Munroe, 23, whose body was found at an elementary school near her duplex.
Because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, the judge immediately sentenced Odom, 52, to life in prison. Under the law in effect in 1982, he is eligible for parole after 20 years, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Thursday online editions.
If jurors had convicted Odom of the lesser charge of murder, they could have heard additional evidence before deciding on a sentence from five years to life in prison.
Munroe's murder went unsolved until 2007 when Odom, who was then in a Florida prison on other convictions, was linked in a nationwide DNA database to evidence preserved from her body. A Fort Worth cold case detective flew to Florida to obtain Odom's DNA, and he was arrested and jailed in Fort Worth that summer after a lab determined his DNA matched evidence from Munroe's case.
A DNA analyst testified Wednesday that there was only one chance in 53.76 quadrillion that the sperm did not belong to Odom.
In closing arguments Thursday, Odom's attorney told jurors that the apparent DNA match did not prove Odom's guilt. Warren St. John suggested that Munroe and his client could have met and had sex before someone else killed her.
He said sperm on Munroe's underwear found on the school playground did not match Odom's DNA but, as the analyst had testified, came from an unknown man. St. John told jurors they should be concerned that authorities never tested the DNA of a Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine student who was an early suspect.
St. John reminded jurors that Munroe's former roommate testified that someone called her unlisted phone a month after the slaying, saying that if she didn't behave, she would "be next."
But prosecutor Bob Gill discounted the suggestion that authorities might have found someone else's DNA if they had tested cans, cups and a cigarette package found on the playground. He said authorities tested evidence of a sexual assault, which ultimately pointed to Odom, and that a medical examiner testified that Munroe was strangled about the same time she was raped.
Before the database hit in 2007, authorities investigated but ruled out a number of suspects, including the infamous Henry Lee Lucas. Although Lucas was a confessed serial killer who boasted several hundred victims during his life, some authorities believe he killed two to three dozen people, some cases never proven. Lucas died of health problems in 2001 while serving a life sentence in a Texas prison.
