Episode 17 Holly Cassano
In 2009, young single mother Holly Cassano shared a small home with her young daughter Alexis in Mahomet, Illinois. On a night when Alexis was at her grandma’s house overnight, someone came into Holly’s trailer and stabbed her nearly 60 times. The prime suspect, Holly’s ex, was the logical focus of the investigation, but he was ruled out by DNA evidence. The killer had left his blood at the crime scene, but no hits were generated when his profile was entered into CODIS. But it turned out that it should have been. Holly’s killer, a man no one suspected, would have been identified years earlier if DNA collection protocols had been followed. Not until he was named by forensic genealogy as a suspect were detectives able to connect him to Holly’s murder.