West Mifflin man arrested 41 years after Lottie Jo Gunn, 16, was found dead in North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County<\/p>\n
NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n
An arrest has been made 41 years after the stabbing death of 16-year-old Lottie Jo Gunn.<\/p>\n
James Kruczek, 61, of West Mifflin, is charged with criminal homicide in the Ohio teen’s death, the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Gunn’s body was found on Turney Valley Road in North Huntingdon in May 1985.<\/p>\n
Investigators said DNA helped identify Kruczek as a suspect.<\/p>\n
Looking for more news in your area | Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n “An acquaintance of Kruczek’s told investigators that in the spring of 1985, Kruczek picked up a female, killed her and dumped her body in the Coulter area of North Huntingdon Township,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Clothing from the victim was sent to the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Laboratory and a DNA profile was created on the victim’s profile. Investigators obtained a search warrant for a sample of Kruczek’s DNA and submitted the sample to the lab which returned a match with the DNA found on the victim’s clothing.”<\/p>\n Kruczek was set to be arraigned on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n “Lottie Jo’s family waited an excruciating four decades for answers. While her parents are no longer with us to hear those answers, I am proud of the groundwork our detectives poured into this case in an effort to pursue justice,” District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said in a statement announcing arrest of Kruczek.<\/p>\n This is a developing story. Stay with Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 for updates. <\/p>\n Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Mifflin man arrested 41 years after Lottie Jo Gunn, 16, was found dead in North Huntingdon, Westmoreland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[457,130612,783,40211,28,30,29,2794,5910],"class_list":["post-321993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-homicide","tag-lottie-jo-gunn","tag-murder","tag-north-huntingdon","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-stabbing","tag-westmoreland-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}