{"id":26900,"date":"2025-10-30T18:53:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26900\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T18:53:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:53:06","slug":"police-nbc-6-south-florida-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26900\/","title":{"rendered":"Police \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly four decades after a woman was brutally murdered and had her body dumped in a Davie canal, police believe they&#8217;ve identified her killer and solved the cold case.<\/p>\n<p>On the morning of Oct. 22, 1987, someone spotted Marilyn Decker&#8217;s body in a canal on the 3000 block of Flamingo Road.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old had been stabbed multiple times and the Broward Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide caused by asphyxiation.<\/p>\n<p>Detectives investigated and identified multiple suspects but the case went unsolved until Davie Police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement continued their investigation in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>But the case stayed cold <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcmiami.com\/news\/local\/3-decades-later-family-still-seeking-justice-for-woman-found-dead-in-davie-canal\/2479535\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nbcmiami.com\/news\/local\/3-decades-later-family-still-seeking-justice-for-woman-found-dead-in-davie-canal\/2479535\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">until 2021 when it was reopened<\/a> and detectives interviewed possible suspects and contacted family members.<\/p>\n<p>Decker&#8217;s case was even featured on a Broward Crime Stoppers billboard off Interstate 595 and the Florida&#8217;s Turnpike.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/103025-Marilyn-Decker-billboard.png\" loading=\"lazy\"   alt=\"The Broward Crime Stoppers billboard for Marilyn Decker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tNBC6<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tNBC6<\/p>\n<p>The Broward Crime Stoppers billboard for Marilyn Decker<\/p>\n<p>Detectives also sent hair samples taken from the scene to DNA experts, and the results indicated several of the hairs shared the same male DNA, police said.<\/p>\n<p>A genealogist spent months putting together a genetic tree and provided Davie Police with a possible suspect: Donald Lawless.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found Lawless lived in Florida from the early 1980s through 1993 and had lived in Davie.<\/p>\n<p>Lawless, who was born in 1925, had an extensive criminal past that dated back to the 1940s, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators began searching for Lawless but discovered he&#8217;d died in Ohio in 1995 and was cremated.<\/p>\n<p>But police were able to obtain DNA from a close relative of Lawless, which was then sent to DNA experts for comparison.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the genetic genealogy analysis and circumstantial evidence, Lawless was confirmed to be the suspect in Decker\u2019s death, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Detectives presented the case to the Broward State Attorney&#8217;s Office which determined there was enough evidence to charge Lawless with Decker&#8217;s murder and the case was closed.<\/p>\n<p>Davie Police were scheduled to hold a news conference Thursday afternoon to discuss the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly four decades after a woman was brutally murdered and had her body dumped in a Davie canal,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2453,20169,19535,19412,249,251,250],"class_list":["post-26900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-cold-case","tag-cold-case-murder","tag-cold-cases","tag-davie","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}