The murder of Susan Lowe
Bellevue, King County, Washington · 1980
Overview
Susan Barbara Lowe, a 19-year-old woman, was raped and strangled with her own nylon leggings on the evening of April 23, 1980, inside her apartment at the Quorum Apartments on 148th Avenue Southeast in Bellevue, Washington; her roommate found her the next morning. Detectives recovered a semen sample from the scene, but DNA testing did not yet exist and the case was inactivated in 1987. A DNA profile was developed from the preserved evidence in 1999, entered into the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab database around 2001, and produced no match for years. The case broke open in 2012 when the offender database was updated to include the DNA of men civilly committed as sexually violent predators at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. The new profiles produced a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) hit to Michael Allan Halgren, a serial rapist already confined there who had grown up only three blocks from Lowe's apartment and was 23 at the time of the killing. Halgren was arrested on January 9, 2013, and charged with first-degree murder. Because the decades-old DNA evidence had degraded, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to second-degree murder on June 26, 2014. In July 2014 a King County judge sentenced Halgren to 14 and a half years to life in prison; should he ever be paroled, he would be returned to the Special Commitment Center rather than freed.
How it was solved
The case against Michael Allan Halgren was made by a single piece of biological evidence preserved across thirty-two years and a routine expansion of the state offender DNA database. When Susan Lowe was raped and strangled in her Bellevue apartment on April 23, 1980, detectives collected a semen sample from the scene, but the science that could have turned that sample into an identity did not yet exist. DNA profiling was years away, conventional leads were exhausted, and the case was inactivated in 1987. The file was reassigned to a Bellevue police detective in 1997, and in 1999 the Forensic Science Associates of California developed a DNA profile from the surviving evidence, a profile later enhanced by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab and filed into the state database around 2001. For years that profile sat in the database with no answer, because the man who left it was not yet in the system. The decisive change was administrative rather than investigative. Michael Halgren, by then a serial rapist who had been civilly committed in the early 2000s as a sexually violent predator, was confined at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. According to the charging papers, the case was cracked when the database was updated to include civilly committed sexually violent predators held at McNeil Island, whose DNA had not previously been part of the offender index. When Halgren's profile entered the system, it produced a Combined DNA Index System hit, matching the unknown male DNA recovered from Lowe's body in 1980. Investigators reported the match in December 2012. The match was, in human terms, almost absurdly close to home: Halgren had grown up on the 2200 block of 151st Avenue Southeast, only three blocks from the apartment where Lowe was killed, and he had been about 23 years old at the time of the murder. His criminal record after 1980 was extensive. Court records noted that Halgren had admitted to raping more than 20 women since the early 1970s, and his civil commitment had followed a 1989 conviction for the kidnapping and rape of a woman in Bellevue along with other sexual crimes in Seattle. Halgren was arrested at the Special Commitment Center on January 9, 2013, and charged with first-degree murder; he pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in King County Superior Court on January 23, 2013, and was held without bail. The prosecution faced a complication common to very old DNA cases: the biological evidence had degraded over the intervening decades, weakening the certainty prosecutors would need to win a first-degree murder verdict at trial. Rather than risk that uncertainty, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office negotiated a plea. On June 26, 2014, Halgren, then 58, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. In July 2014 he was sentenced to a minimum of 14 and a half years to life under the indeterminate sentencing system that governed 1980 crimes, a term the sentencing judge structured so that parole would likely be impossible until Halgren was in his eighties; the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board retained authority to keep him imprisoned for life, and the prosecutor's office noted that if he were ever paroled he would be returned to the Special Commitment Center rather than released. King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg summarized the result, saying there is a special satisfaction when we can solve a murder more than three decades old using modern forensic science. No genetic genealogy or family-tree research was involved; the identification came entirely from a direct offender-database match.
Sources
- Bellevue cold case closes with murder plea | Michael Halgren facing life in prison for 1980 murder of Susan Lowe
“Susan Lowe, a 19-year-old woman, was murdered on April 23, 1980, inside her apartment at the Quorum Apartments in Bellevue, Washington. She was raped and strangled with her own nylon leggings. The Forensic Science Associates of California created a DNA profile in 1999, which was later enhanced by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Michael A. Halgren was identified as a DNA match to the sample in May 2012.”
- Bellevue Cold Case: Halgren Pleads Not Guilty in 1980 Murder
“Michael Allan Halgren was arrested on January 9, 2013, at McNeil Island's Special Commitment Center and charged with first-degree murder in the 1980 strangling death of Susan Lowe. According to charging papers, the DNA was filed into the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab database in 2001. The case was cracked when the database was updated to include civilly committed sexually violent predators at McNeil Island, resulting in a match in 2012.”
- Rapist pleads guilty in Bellevue woman's 1980 murder
“In December 2012, a DNA match connected Michael Allan Halgren to the crime through CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). On June 26, 2014, Halgren, age 58, appeared in court and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He had been civilly committed to McNeil Island's Special Commitment Center as a sexually violent predator.”
- Rapist expected to admit to 1980 cold case murder
“On April 24, 1980, 19-year-old Susan Barbara Lowe was discovered dead in her Bellevue apartment bedroom. She had been raped and strangled. A DNA profile from the unknown killer was entered into Washington's database in 1999 and enhanced in 2001. In December 2012, forensic analysis identified convicted sex offender Michael Allan Halgren as a match through the CODIS system. According to court records, Halgren has admitted to raping more than 20 women since the early 1970s.”
- Sex predator admits raping, murdering Bellevue teen 34 years ago
“Susan Lowe was a Bellevue teenager killed in April 1980. She was alone in her apartment watching a Seattle SuperSonics game when the attack occurred. Michael Halgren was 23 years old at the time of the murder and lived just three blocks from Lowe's residence. When Halgren was sent to the Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island, he provided a DNA sample. A cold case detective matched his DNA to Lowe's 1980 killing.”
- Sex offender linked by DNA to 1980 Bellevue murder gets 14 1/2 years to life in prison
“Sentence: 14 and a half years to life in prison. Plea: Guilty to second-degree murder, entered June 26, 2014. Halgren's DNA profile was obtained during a 2012 updating process for sexually violent predators at McNeil Island Special Commitment Center and matched evidence from the cold case through CODIS. Bellevue Police Lieutenant Jim Hershey stated: 'It is always rewarding to solve any case, but especially a cold case.'”
- Sexual offender pleads guilty to cold case Bellevue murder
“Susan Barbara Lowe was 19 years old when she was killed on April 23, 1980, in Bellevue, Washington. Michael Allan Halgren, 58, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. His DNA profile was obtained during an updating process in 2012 while he was civilly committed at McNeil Island Special Commitment Center near Tacoma. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg remarked: 'There is a special satisfaction when we can solve a murder more than three decades old using modern forensic science.'”
- Cold-case killer gets 14 1/2 years in prison
“Michael Allan Halgren, 58, was sentenced to 14 1/2 years to life in prison for raping and killing 19-year-old Susan Barbara Lowe in her Bellevue apartment in April 1980. In 2012, Halgren's DNA was collected and matched to semen found on Lowe's body. Halgren was originally charged with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to second-degree murder because DNA evidence in the case had degraded over time.”