The cold case of a female Navy recruit’s vicious murder in 1984 has finally been cracked nearly 35 years later thanks to a match found on a genealogy database.
Freshly minted seaman Pamela Cahanes, from Minnesota was just 25 when she was beaten and strangled to death, two days after graduating from Orlando Naval Training Center in August of 1984. Her white uniform was found strewn inches away from her body.
The killer went free for 34 years after investigators failed to find a match for her assailant’s DNA found on her body despite exhaustive testing.
Finally, on Wednesday Thomas Lewis Garner, 59, a dental hygienist from Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested for her murder after investigators tracked him down using genealogy service Parabon Nanolabs.
Garner and Cahanes had been stationed at the Orlando Naval training center at the same time. Authorities are not sure on how the two encountered each other.

Investigators waited for DNA technology to advance and finally worked with Parabon NanoLabs to create Garner’s family tree and later narrow down to the suspect.
Authorities then trailed after Garner until he dropped a ‘personal item’ and they tested it for DNA and found it matched the evidence found on Cahanes’ body.

Local police set up this billboard to raise awareness about Cahanes’ unsolved murder in Florida, hoping to receive helpful tips, but it failed to yield results for decades

The odds of the DNA belonging to anyone other than Garner is 700 billion to one.  ‘We were certain that he was the person responsible for the murder. Actually, it was scientific confirmation,’ Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said on Thursday, announcing the breakthrough arrest.
Garner was arrested Wednesday at his Jacksonville home and was taken to Seminole County Jail where he’s being held without bond on a first-degree murder charge, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 
However, he has not admitted to killing Cahanes on August 5, 1984.
She was found face-down in her underwear a yard of a vacant home covered in blood near the academy. It did not appear that she had been sexually assaulted.

Cahanes [second left with peers at her graduation], was found strangled and beaten to death on on August 5, 1984,  two days after she had graduated from the Orlando Naval Training Center in Florida.
The Naval recruit and Thomas Garner were both at the training center at the same time though it’s not clear how they ran into each other.

Advances in DNA testing technology aided investigators in isolating DNA found on Cahanes’ body which had been tested for years to no avail

Investigators had found DNA on Cahanes’ body and tested it for years to no avail.
Thanks to advances in technology, they were able to create a family based off the DNA and narrow down Garner as a suspect. Garner had a clean record other than a battery charge during his time serving in the navy.
‘It’s extremely bizarre to think that somebody could commit a crime like this, then go on and lead a normal life,’ Sheriff Lemma said.
Prior to the DNA family tree testing he was not considered a suspect.
‘If you think about his perspective, quite literally he was probably under the belief that he was getting away with murder,’ Lemma said.
Retired SCSO Investigator Bob Jaynes admantly worked on Cahanes’ case for over 20 years, keeping a picture of her on his desk.
He had hoped to find her killer before Cahanes’ mother Alice Cahanes passed away. Unfortunately she died in 2016.
‘It is extremely sad to know that our victim’s mom had passed away, and never had the opportunity to see this. I’m convinced she’s looking down from heaven right now, knowing this is a day of relief as this person is held accountable and responsible for what he’s done,’ Lemma said at a press conference Thursday.
Cahanes was one of eight children from Minnesota. Some of her siblings gathered at a home there to hear the news.
‘Pam was a loving, charming farm girl at heart who wanted to continue to explore by going into the Navy,’ her sister Eileen Bergmann, 69, said to the local peper.
‘I guess (we) didn’t think this day would come. It was 1984. They didn’t have DNA in those days and it went on and on,’ she added to Click Orlando. 
Linda’s murder joins a number of cold cases that have been potentially solved through the use of modern DNA technology.
In August, Golden State Killer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested for a dozen murders and 50 rapes that took place back in the late 70s and 80s, after investigators utilized the online genealogical sites Ancenstry.com and 23andMe.