VANCOUVER, Wash. — A 57-year-old Oregon man has been arrested on suspicion of murder with sexual motivation in the death of a Vancouver woman strangled in her bed nearly 25 years ago.
Richard Eugene Knapp was booked into Clark County Jail Tuesday.
Audrey Hoellein, who was also known as Audrey Frasier, was found strangled at the Family Tree Apartments July 17, 1994.
According to Vancouver police, officers who responded to Frasier's apartment that night collected DNA evidence, and that investigators developed a DNA profile for an unknown person.
Police said advances in forensic science led investigators to Knapp, who is from Fairview.
Authorities say after months of surveillance investigators obtained a cigarette butt belonging to Knapp and his DNA matched the original profile.
Knapp is scheduled to appear in Clark County court on Wednesday.
The Hoellein family released the following statement:
“This crime not only took away a sister from her two brothers, it left a mother and father without a daughter, and a young child without a mother. Since then the family has grown with nephews that will never meet their aunt, and a grandchild that can only see grandma in pictures, only knowing her from shared memories.
We as a family are grateful for the many detectives that have worked on this case. But, we are extremely grateful for detectives Dustin Goudschaal and Neil Martin. The loss of a loved one is something very tragic for a family. When this loss was at the hands of someone else, the grief is impossible to bare. Many losses have closure at the funeral; in this case the funeral wasn’t enough. Our family was left with so many unknowns, the biggest of these being who did this awful crime. As this case is starting to unfold after almost 25 years, the wound is being re-opened, and our family is experiencing the pain all over again. But, Thanks to detectives Dustin Goudschaal and Neil Martin our family may finally have the opportunity to find closure to our biggest unknown. We hope that the use of this technology can be used to bring closure to more families across the nation”.