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 An online docket showed that Kruczek was being held in the county prison without bail, pending a preliminary hearing on Nov. 13.<\/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":907498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15684,11551,675,4,450,3877,8609,1155,451,694,28339,379547,379546,698,3,146174,16178,3234,136445,32338,16597,452,453,24370,15611],"class_list":["post-907497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-action-news","tag-arrest","tag-body","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-clothing","tag-death","tag-dna","tag-headlines","tag-homicide","tag-investigator","tag-james-kruczek","tag-lottie-jo-gunn","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-north-huntingdon","tag-office","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sample","tag-stabbing","tag-thursday","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-victim","tag-westmoreland-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}