DNA Discovery Solves Case Decades Later

(PatrioticPost.com)- Last Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police arrested a 76-year-old woman in connection to the 1987 murder of her husband.

Judith Ann Jarvis, 76, was charged with one count of murder for allegedly shooting her husband Carl Jarvis in August 1987 after investigators matched her husband’s DNA with evidence taken from the scene, linking her to his murder.

According to officials, Jarvis had called the police reporting that her husband was throwing and smashing things during a domestic dispute in her Perry County home. When police arrived, Jarvis met officers outside and told them she had not gone back into the house since calling them.

The police later found Carl Jarvis lying naked on the bedroom floor with two gunshot wounds to the head. A .22 caliber revolver was found on the bed close to his body. The autopsy confirmed Jarvis was shot at close range but determined he could not have shot himself.

Judith Jarvis was found with blood on her pajamas which she claimed was her own from a goose bite. Her pajamas were seized as evidence and stored.

More than three decades later, in October 2020, investigators conducted a DNA analysis of the blood on her pajamas and matched it to a lock of Carl’s hair.

Perry County District Attorney Lauren Eichelberger told WHTM News that the new technology used in the DNA analysis “led to our ability to bring charges in this 35-year-old case.”

An expert then reviewed the evidence and old reports from 1987 and confirmed that Carl Jarvis could not have committed suicide.

In January 2021, Judith Jarvis was interviewed by police where she once again claimed that the blood on her pajamas was hers and not her dead husband’s. She denied shooting Carl Jarvis, even in self-defense and also denied knowing that Carl was lying dead when police arrived at her home that night.

Judith Jarvis remains in custody at the Cumberland County jail after she was denied bail.

District Attorney Eichelberger confirmed that the prosecution will be requesting the death penalty in the case.