VANCOUVER, Wash. (KOIN) – For 25 years, the family of Audrey Hoellein Frasier has waited and hoped for answers.
“The father is getting older in age, and he told me he thought he was going to go to his grave without any resolution as to what happened to his daughter,” said Detective Dustin Goudschaal with the Vancouver Police Department.
In July of 1994, Audrey was 26 years old. She had a 5-year-old son and was separated from her husband.
That evening, a neighbor called police asking them to check on Audrey at her apartment on 4th Plain Boulevard.
Police found her raped and murdered.
Vancouver Police Assistant Chief Mike Lester said, “At the time of her murder, physical evidence including DNA was collected, but no matching information was in CODUS, the national database that contains DNA profiles of individuals convicted of certain crimes.”
The case went cold. But in 2018, Vancouver detectives decided to try something new.
They submitted the crime scene DNA to a company that used genetic genealogy to build a family tree.
The company came back with a possible name. For months, detectives watched 57-year-old Richard Knapp of Fairview.
“We were able to obtain abandoned DNA from that person in the form of a cigarette butt,” Detective Goudschaal explained. “This product was then sent to the Washington State lab to compare to the original source DNA from the crime scene.”
It was a match. On Sunday, police arrested Knapp during a traffic stop.
Detectives hope the next step will be justice for Audrey and her family.
“We’re happy that we can provide them with maybe not closure but at least the next step in the progression of this event,” Detective Goudschaal said. “It is an open investigation. We’re still working to make contact with witnesses and other investigative leads, so our information dissemination is quite limited at this time. But it is an open and active case.”
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