Tina McMenamin, an 18-year-old UNL freshman, was stabbed and sexually assaulted in her condominium on July 25, 1995.
Gregory Gabel, a mentally sick Lincoln man, was arrested within the murder and has all the time been the prime suspect, an investigator stated, even after pivotal DNA proof didn’t hyperlink him to the crime scene. Gabel has a computerlike reminiscence for numbers and info and a historical past of following ladies at companies and public occasions, retired investigator Wealthy Doetker stated in 2005.
McMenamin was killed within the minutes earlier than she was due at work at Godfather’s Pizza at 5:30 p.m. that evening in 1995. Roommate Sarah Bognich discovered her good friend in a pool of blood that evening.
“The condominium was ransacked. I walked previous the bed room a few instances earlier than noticing her on the ground. My life modified after that. I attempted to return (to varsity), and I could not ever end.”
A single hair clutched in McMenamin’s hand led police to Gabel. It matched his DNA, a one-in-1,049 likelihood. Circumstantial proof additionally linked Gabel to the condominium constructing. And a person matching Gabel’s description was seen fleeing the crime scene, Amberwood Residences, 4600 Briarpark Drive.
That evening, Gabel was a block away at a Sonic Drive-In. He was there each Tuesday evening, cleansing up in alternate for meals. And Gabel had earlier convictions for third-degree sexual assault and public indecency. Police arrested him a yr after the crime.
However two years later, when a special DNA check proved the hair was not Gabel’s, he was launched. That hair, nevertheless, did not essentially belong to the killer, Doetker stated. The investigator additionally has suspicions in regards to the validity of the second DNA check, carried out in a Pennsylvania lab.
“There have been questions that got here up: Was it the precise hair? The identical hair?” he stated.
Homicide expenses had been dropped in opposition to Gabel with the hope that further proof could be discovered to re-arrest him, Doetker stated. If the case went to trial and Gabel was discovered harmless, Doetker added, he couldn’t be retried if new proof got here to gentle.
Mary Hepburn-O’Shea, who has labored within the psychological well being subject in Lincoln for many years and has identified Gabel for a lot of of these years, stated in 2005 that the person misplaced two years in jail for one thing he did not do.
Hepburn-O’Shea runs downtown O.U.R. Properties, town’s largest supplier for developmentally disabled folks that additionally homes folks with psychological sicknesses. Gabel lives and works there. “He is a bizarre child,” she stated. “He isn’t ever a violent child.”
Then-Assistant Police Chief Jim Peschong, talking in 2005, added that you could’t attempt a case on private beliefs and supposition. Peschong stated he personally believes there’s a suspect within the crime, however he declined naming anybody.