READING, Pa. (WHTM) – Pennsylvania State Police say the decades-long cold case homicide of Anna Kane has been solved thanks to DNA on an envelope the suspected killer sent to a newspaper.
The 26-year-old Kane was found beaten and strangled to death with her body dumped alongside Ontelaunee Trail Road in Perry Township on October 23, 1988. She was last seen around Franklin Street and South 6th Street, Reading, Berks County, at approximately 1:00 a.m., the morning she was found.
On August 18, 2022, State Police say the investigation found DNA of an unknown male on multiple items of Kane’s clothing.
Two years after Kane’s death, the Reading Eagle newspaper received an anonymous letter concerning the homicide that had numerous intimate details. Investigators believe the writer of the letter committed the homicide and performed DNA testing on the envelope that matched the DNA on Kane’s clothing.
Genetic genealogy was completed by Parabon NanoLabs and determined a possible suspect identified by State Police as Scott Grim of Hamburg, Berks County. State Police say Grim died in 2018 of natural causes.
Troopers obtained a direct sample of Grim’s DNA that matched the DNA on Kane’s clothes and found that Grim previously mailed similar letters from a harassment case in 2002.
DNA on those envelopes also matched the Reading Eagle envelope DNA and the evidence on Kane’s clothing.