Suspect in killings expects vindication with DNA tests

Roger L. McIntyre walked out of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson Tuesday morning confident DNA samples taken by police will eliminate him as a suspect in the 1982 murders of Margie Call and Mildred Wallace.

"I don't have to wait for the results," he said. "These guys are good and they'll catch the guy who did it."

McIntyre, 38, of Jackson, was named last month in court documents as a suspect in the murders. On Friday, a judge denied McIntyre's request to quash an investigative subpoena and ordered him to submit samples.

Detectives Jim Smith and Joe Tado of the Cape Girardeau Police Department met with McIntyre at the county prosecutor's office shortly before 9 a.m. to collect the samples. Three cotton swabs were rubbed inside McIntyre's mouth, between his cheek and gums, and at least a dozen hairs were pulled from both his head and pubic area.

The samples will be compared to evidence from the crime scenes, but results may not be completed for several weeks to 18 months, depending on which government or private agency does the labwork. Detectives, Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle and members of the SEMO Crime Lab will meet soon to determine when and where the samples will be sent, Tado said.

More DNA sought

Another man -- unnamed by court documents -- submitted samples last month. Smith said other suspects will be asked to comply.

"Yes, there will be more, but we don't know in what order or who they're going to be right now," he said. "There were all kinds of tips back then."

McIntyre said he initially refused to cooperate because he didn't know exactly why police wanted his DNA and believed it was a violation of his rights.

"They never told me what the samples were for," he said. "They told me murders, but not which murders."

Frustrated with the attention brought on by the DNA request, McIntyre said he just wants to put the episode behind him. He said he knows nothing about the murders.

Call was found strangled in her Brink Street home on Jan. 27, 1982. Wallace was found shot in the head six months later on June 21 at her William Street home. Both women apparently came home on a Sunday evening to an attacker already present inside. They were bound, struck and sexually assaulted.

At the time, police were still investigating the Aug. 12, 1977, murders of Mary and Brenda Parsh, a 58-year-old mother and her 27-year-old daughter found shot three days after they were bound and presumed sexually assaulted in a home just three blocks from Call's house.

Viable suspect

Detectives said McIntyre contacted police in March 1982 and showed them footpaths behind Call's home and asked questions about how the perpetrator broke into the house and whether there were any footprints found. This helped make him a viable suspect, police said.

But McIntyre says more than a dozen teenage boys lived in or near the neighborhood and frequented the paths and doesn't understand why he is being singled out.

"I didn't even know the ladies," he said. "I was just one of the kids who hung out on the block."

McIntyre joined the military that spring and said he was not in town when Wallace died. He showed detectives paperwork Tuesday detailing his brief stint in the U.S. Army and said he was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood from May 31 to Oct. 13 in 1982.

However, Smith said the papers -- which include earnings statements and discharge papers -- neither prove nor disprove McIntyre was in the city at the time. He does not intend to research other military documents, choosing instead to let the DNA results speak to whether McIntyre was involved in the killings.

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160