Arkansas Man Arrested 44 Years After Murder Thanks to Discarded Cigarette
After an astonishing 44-year gap, an Arkansas man named Kenneth Kundert, 65, has been arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Dorothy “Dottie” Silzel in Kent, Washington. The breakthrough came thanks to a discarded cigarette butt that provided the DNA evidence authorities needed to crack the cold case.
Silzel, a 30-year-old Boeing instructor, went missing in February 1980. She was found dead in her condominium two days later. Despite DNA evidence collected at the time, no match was ever found until modern DNA technologies made a breakthrough possible. The case had gone cold until Kent Detective Sgt. Tim Ford took it on in 2015.
Ford’s persistence led to partnering with forensic genealogist Misty Gillis in 2022, who narrowed down potential suspects to 11 individuals. Two of these suspects were brothers Kurt and Kenneth Kundert of Arkansas. Although Kurt’s DNA did not match, Kenneth’s ties to Washington state raised suspicions. He had worked in the Snohomish County area in 1987, and further investigation revealed he lived in an apartment complex just 1,200 feet from Silzel’s condo.
A surveillance operation monitored Kundert’s activities, resulting in the retrieval of a discarded cigarette butt that yielded the critical DNA match. The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab confirmed the DNA as belonging to the suspect known as “Individual A.”
Kundert’s arrest on August 20 was assisted by the FBI, the Arkansas 20th Judicial Drug Task Force, and the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office. Currently, he is in the Van Buren Correctional Facility awaiting extradition to Washington, where his bail is set at million.
This remarkable story highlights the power of modern DNA technology and the unwavering dedication of investigators like Sgt. Tim Ford, who refused to let the case fade away.