FL/AR - Kenneth L Knight, Long Haul Trucker, 1980s-90's

[Reader]

http://www.wtxl.com/content/localne...ylor-Co-cold-case/b_KNY-X8BEm_VJUUQQB8Aw.cspx

PERRY, Fla. – Kenneth L. Knight, 52, is pleading guilty to the Feb. 18, 1988 murder of an Indiana woman after DNA linked him to the homicide, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Leads into the murder of Sandra Espinoza, 22, dried up soon after her body was discovered dumped along US 27 in Perry, but the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office never stopped searching for her killer.

Taylor County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reexamined the case by utilizing old crime scene evidence which resulted in a DNA hit linking Knight to the homicide in 2008.

Knight, a truck driver, pled guilty to 2nd degree murder on Friday, Feb. 24, 2012.

More at link....

 

[lauriej]

--how unfortunate they could not have caught him in 1988---before he went on to murder another woman.

http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/40872192.html

Florida authorities re-opened the homicide as part of a cold case review. DNA evidence from the crime scene was re-submitted to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) by FDLE’s Tallahassee Crime Lab.

The sample matched Knight who was arrested in Arkansas in December 1996 for the murder of Rose Marie Arnette. The circumstances surrounding Arnette’s murder were similar to the Espinoza homicide.

----and why is he now only getting 23 years for the 1988 murder of (then 22 year old) sandra epinoza?

 

[kgeaux]

I love it when justice catches up with a killer. I, too, wish it would have been before another woman was murdered.

DNA technology is such a blessing for LE!

 

[colette]

He probably has killed many more women, 1988 until 1996 is a long time.