42-Year-Old Homicide Case Solved With Genealogy Testing

BAY SHORE, NY — The 42-years-long cold case murder of a Bay Shore woman has finally been solved, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced on Wednesday.

Suffolk County Commissioner Rodney Harrison confirmed at a press conference that Herbert V. Rice — a Bay Shore man who is now dead — raped and murdered 20-year-old Eve Wilkowitz in 1980.

According to her friends and coworker, Wilkowitz was last seen alive on March 22, 1980, police said. She had been employed as a secretary for a publishing company in Manhattan and was reported to have boarded the 12:39 a.m. Long Island Rail Road train at Penn Station to return to her Bay Shore residence.

But Wilkowitz never made it home.

Her boyfriend reported her missing that same day, police said. Her body was recovered on March 25 on the lawn of a Center Avenue residence.

When she was discovered, police said she was missing her coat, blouse, shoes and pocketbook. There were ligature marks on her wrists and there were signs that she had been raped, police said; her cause of her death was later determined to be manual strangulation.

Samples of fluids that did not belong to Wilkowitz were obtained from her body and stored in evidence for years, police said.

In May of 2000, the SCPD Homicide Squad resubmitted swabs obtained from Wilkowitz for further
DNA testing based on new DNA technology, specifically, Short Tandem Repeat, or STR, DNA
technology.

Utilizing the new technology, the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory was able to develop a DNA
profile from the swabs, and determined that it came from an unknown male, police said.

In 2019, SCPD Homicide Squad Detective Jeffrey Bottari was assigned to the investigation. In an effort to further the investigation, he requested that a Y-STR DNA analysis be performed by the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory for purposes of Familial Searching through the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

However, after the profile was generated, the search did not result in any investigative leads.

Bottari then utilized Genetic Genealogy, a technique in which a profile is developed from different DNA markers, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs.

A SNP profile can be compared against publicly available databases maintained by direct to
consumer genealogy companies.

In partnership with FBI Agent Laurie Giordano, police were able to track down a relative of Rice who voluntarily provided a buccal swab.

Prior to his death Rice, lived on Central Avenue in Bay Shore, four houses away from where Wilkowitz’s body was first discovered and within walking distance of the Bay Shore Long Island Rail Road Station, from which she was walking at the time of her disappearance.

Rice died of natural causes and was buried on October 18, 1991 in Oakwood Cemetery in Bay Shore.

On March 10, with a warrant authorized by Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins, Rice’s body was exhumed from his burial plot, authorities said.

On Wednesday, an analyst confirmed Rice’s DNA was a match to the suspect profile developed from swabs from Wilkowitz's body, Tierney said.

“Today’s announcement marks the end of a more than four-decades-long investigation by Suffolk County Police detectives who never gave up on the pursuit of justice for Eve Wilkowitz,” said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison. “I applaud all of our partners in this
effort, especially Irene Wilkowitz, who never lost faith in our investigators’ dedication to solving
her sister’s murder and kept her memory alive.”