DNA leads to arrest in 1998 Boise murder

Evelyn, left, and Terry Jackson, parents of Kay Lynn Jackson, comfort daughter Jennifer Lay at a press conference Wednesday announcing that charges have been filed against Patrick Jon Zacharias in the 1998 rape and slaying of their daughter, Kay Lynn Jackson.

Joe Jaszewski jjaszewski@idahostatesman.comBuy Photo

The Idaho State Police's efforts to eliminate an evidence backlog pays off in the solving of a grisly slaying.

BOISE For 15 years, Boise Police Detective Mark Ayotte has kept Kay Lynn Jackson's files on his desk. He felt the unsolved murder as a heavy and constant weight.

In 1999, Ayotte told the Idaho Statesman that he had faith that DNA evidence would one day lead to her killer.

Ayotte's DNA prophecy proved true. After more than 1,000 leads came up empty, it was a DNA "profile" that finally broke the case, police said Wednesday.

"We have been waiting 15 years for this day," said Deputy Chief Pete Ritter.

State police scientists have spent the past couple of years entering a backlog of DNA samples from Idaho criminals into a national database. They got a hit on one of the samples; on Monday, a grand jury indicted Patrick Jon Zacharias, a state prison inmate, in the 1998 rape and murder of Jackson.

The 22-year-old was killed on April 5, Palm Sunday morning, under the Americana Boulevard Bridge. She was walking to church after getting off work.

Zacharias, 40, has been in prison since February 2007, serving a life sentence for lewd conduct with a girl under 11. He was transferred on Tuesday to the Ada County Jail, where he was served an arrest warrant and charged with rape and first-degree murder. He is scheduled for arraignment Friday.

Read this article:
DNA leads to arrest in 1998 Boise murder