A killer stalked South Florida highways in 1975, deflating women's tires and offering help – then dumping their bodies in canals.
He was never caught.
Florida's new AG just told him his time is up.
The Killer Who Thought Time Was His Friend
More than 21,000 unsolved homicides have piled up in Florida since 1965.
Nearly 900 cases involve unidentified human remains.
Another 2,500 missing persons cases have never been resolved.
For decades, killers who were smart enough not to get caught in the moment assumed they had won.
The evidence collected in the 1970s and 1980s sat on shelves.
The technology of that era couldn't link biological samples to specific people.
And every year that passed felt like another year of safety.
The new task force – housed within Florida's Office of Statewide Prosecution and backed by more than $600,000 in state funding – is built around a private forensic lab called Othram that has already cracked cases most people had given up on.
Othram doesn't rely on the traditional criminal DNA database.
Their Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing generates leads from hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, then matches crime scene DNA to distant relatives to build a family tree straight to the killer's door.
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Special Counsel Rich Mantei made clear Wednesday that this task force isn't just about evidence. It's a message.
"We want them sweating at the sign of a patrol car," Mantei said. "We want them startling in fear at every knock at the door, and we want them to experience some of the terror that they instilled in our communities for themselves so they can know that time is no longer their friend."
This Technology Already Proved It Works
The proof of concept came in 2018 when investigators used genetic genealogy to identify Joseph James DeAngelo – the Golden State Killer – responsible for at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes across California from 1974 to 1986.
DeAngelo had evaded law enforcement for four decades.
Investigators built a family tree from distant cousin matches in a public genealogy database, narrowed the pool by age and geography, placed DeAngelo under surveillance, and collected his discarded DNA to confirm the match.
He pleaded guilty in 2020 to 26 crimes including 13 counts of murder.
The capture opened the door. At least 400 cold cases have since been reopened using similar techniques.
Othram has been at the center of many of the highest-profile breakthroughs – including the Idaho college student murders and the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Their CEO has said publicly: "If you've left DNA at a crime scene, you're probably already caught. It's just a matter of time."
Florida already committed to this approach before Wednesday's announcement.
The legislature allocated $150,000 for cold case DNA projects in 2023, and the state spent another $500,000 on a Forensic Genetic Genealogy Grant Program in 2024.
The new task force escalates that investment with dedicated prosecution resources behind it.
The Families Who've Waited Long Enough
The task force will prioritize serial offenders and multiple homicides.
Cases already under active review include a series of 1970s murders tied to Broward and Miami-Dade counties, a late-2000s double homicide in the Miami Gardens area, and an early-1980s Orlando murder connected to a previous crime.
Ryan Backmann, founder of Project Cold Case, knows what these statistics actually mean.
His father was robbed and murdered in Jacksonville in 2009.
The case is still unsolved.
"For thousands of Florida families, a cold case is not a file, a number, or an episode on television," Backmann said. "It's an empty chair at a dining room table."
Uthmeier put it plainly at Wednesday's press conference: "Time does not erase the need for justice, and it does not erase our duty to pursue it."
Here's the contrast nobody in the mainstream media will draw for you.
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While Florida's Republican AG is spending $600,000 to hunt down murderers from fifty years ago, Soros-funded district attorneys in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia have spent the last four years doing the opposite – dropping charges, reducing sentences, and letting violent criminals walk.
The same left that calls ICE agents fascists for enforcing the law has spent years systematically dismantling the tools that keep killers off the street.
Florida is building the machine to find the monsters.
The Democrat-run cities are opening the cages.
Sources:
- Michelle Vecerina, "Florida AG launches statewide task force to crack 21,000 cold cases with advanced DNA technology," Florida News, April 8, 2026.
- WUWF, "Uthmeier deploys genetic genealogy to tackle massive cold case backlog," April 9, 2026.
- FOX 26 Houston, "Woodlands-based Othram Labs cracks cold cases with groundbreaking forensic technique," September 8, 2024.
- Wikipedia, "Flat-Tire murders," updated February 2026.
- Fearing.org, "The Golden State Killer: How Decades of DNA Silence Finally Spoke," November 2025.
