Ida Mae Bladen, a 30-year-old African American woman, was murdered in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 26, 1991. Her body was found the next day in a room at the Dennison Hotel on Vine Street, and the cause of death was strangulation. Initially the case produced no immediate leads or suspects.

Nearly a year later detectives in Nashville linked fingerprint evidence from a different homicide to prints recovered at Bladen’s scene. That match led investigators to Michael Scott Magliolo, a 31-year-old white man from Jefferson County, Texas, who had been arrested in Texas on a DUI that provided identifying information. Magliolo was arrested and charged in connection with multiple murders, including Bladen’s; he was convicted and given a life plus 50 years sentence in Tennessee on September 14, 1992, and later received an additional 15 years to life in Ohio in 1993 for Bladen’s murder.

The case underscores how cross-jurisdictional fingerprint work tied a transient suspect to crimes in multiple states. Did anyone who knew Ida Mae Bladen or stayed at the Dennison Hotel in 1991 see or hear anything that could add detail to her final day?