In the early morning hours of November 21, 1985, 51-year-old Roger Dean was at his Lone Tree, Colorado, home when an intruder wearing a ski mask entered. The armed man confronted Dean while he was having coffee in the garage, forced him upstairs and made him tie up his wife, DJ. A struggle followed and ended in gunfire; Dean was shot five times as he tried to flee his home and died before help arrived.

Investigators noted several odd details: twine marks appeared on only one of Dean’s wrists, and his glasses were later found covered in duct tape in another room even though he had been wearing contact lenses. Five years after the killing Dean’s widow received a threatening letter demanding $100,000 and menacing the couple’s daughter. The case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in 1991.

Decades later DNA from an orange ski mask torn off the attacker renewed the inquiry. Through genetic genealogy, a suspect was identified and arrested in Los Angeles. The case remained complicated by revelations about a forensic scientist’s manipulation of DNA evidence.