Suspect Gregory Thurson
At the direction of Griffith Police Chief Mance, investigators were tasked to re-investigate Griffith Police Cold Cases for any homicides that were unsolved.
In 2018, Griffith Police Detective John Mowery Jr. began looking into the 1981 murder of 51-year-old John Blaylock—an open case with no suspect.
Mowery Jr. scoured the old case file and re-interviewed witnesses and Griffith Police detectives that worked on the original case, including his own father, retired Griffith Detective John Mowery Sr.
Mowery Jr. discovered that blood from an unknown male was found at the crime scene. The blood was determined to be that of the individual most likely responsible for the homicide.
The blood was sent to the Indiana State Police for laboratory examination and a DNA profile was developed; however, there was no match in the national DNA database for offenders.
Mowery Jr. then outsourced the suspect’s blood to Parabon Nanolabs for genetic genealogy analysis and investigation. Additional funding for this outsourcing was approved and provided by the Griffith Town Council.
Parabon was able to identify and narrow down a familial match to the suspect’s DNA profile. With this new information, Mowery Jr. was able to identify two brothers that would most likely match that of the suspect’s DNA.
With the assistance of the Burnham, Ill., police department, Mowery Jr. was able to obtain a DNA sample from one of the brothers. After testing, it was determined that he was not the suspect; however, he was likely the brother of the suspect. The other brother was found to be living in Oregon.
Given that Mowery Jr.’s investigation had led to the likely killer of John Blaylock, he provided his findings to the Lake County Prosecutor’s office. After careful review, the charge of murder was filed against Gregory Thurson.
With an arrest warrant for Thurson in hand, Mowery Jr. and other detectives traveled to Eugene, Oregon. Thurson was taken into custody without incident, and has since been extradited back to Lake County.
Republished courtesy of Griffith Indiana Police Department