The Arlington Police Department has named a suspect in a murder case that’s gone unsolved for nearly 40 years.
The department announced Wednesday the murder of 22-year-old Terri McAdams in February 1985 has been linked to a suspect identified as Bernard Sharp, who died by suicide 9 months later after killing his wife and her friend.
Dallas FBI Special Agent Chad Yarbrough said it comes after a partial DNA match with a distant relative of Sharp and a sample collected at the scene.
“This month, lab results from the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas Health Science Center confirmed that DNA found at the homicide of Miss McAdams belonged to Bernard Sharp,” Yarbrough said.
On February 14, 1985, maintenance workers found McAdams’s body inside her fiancée’s apartment on the 2500 block of Walnut Hill Circle in Arlington. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted and died from blunt force trauma, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Investigators believe the suspect entered the apartment through a sliding glass door that connected to the bedroom.
Police at the time said the suspect stole her engagement ring and left a “distinct” footprint outside her apartment. Her fiancée was out of town on a business trip and was ruled out as a suspect.
Despite an investigation at the time, no arrests were made, and the case went cold.
APD said they received help from the FBI’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy team to work on the case.
Penelope Rivera is KERA’s news intern. Got a tip? Email Penelope at privera@kera.org.
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