So, here's a thought for all other late night posters....
This is a very small town (Parsons area). Many families have lived there for years and years. As such, many families are related to some of the other older, larger families in town somewhere down the line.
Wondering if police might be thinking of using a strategy to do familial comparison DNA testing? (That is, if they have or ever get DNA, we don't know.) Might it work?
For example, if I were the lead investigator, could I ask say 100 men in town to voluntarily provide DNA samples. Maybe only 50 agree to do this. I run the perp's DNA against all 50 samples. The analysis shows that none are an exact match, but the perp's sample is most strongly related to Mr. J, Mr. Q. and Mr. X. A search of vital records shows that all three of these men have one pair of ancestors in common....Mr. and Mrs. Doe, who died around 1930. Let's say there are about 250 living descendants of this couple. Let's say only about 180 still live or have ever lived in the area. 90 are males. 5 are excluded for being over the age of 70 and 20 are excluded for being under the age of 15. Of the 65 remaining, the list is whittled down further....the school bus driver has an air tight alibi, and so does the swim team coach, etc. You could really narrow down your list of possible suspects pretty quickly, no?
PS to Grandmaj.....I'm running for "most improved" lol...