As more dust gathered on unsolved cases, investigators finally received the break that they needed. According to the Los Angeles Times, a multi-million dollar grant from the federal government in 2001 helped the Kansas City Police department gain access to DNA testing. That technology was applied to a backlog of cold cases.  

While the science behind DNA wasn’t as advanced in the 1970s and 1980s, investigators still took hair, blood, and samples of other bodily fluids from crime scenes when they could. And as they began to re-open unsolved murder cases one by one, they recognized a pattern in many of them. Twelve different murder victims had the DNA of one man on them. That man was Lorenzo Gilyard. 

Using the DNA from the blood sample that he provided authorities with back in 1987, investigators were able to link him directly to all twelve victims. All it took was DNA technology getting more advanced, a sizable grant from the federal government to fund the detective work, and the perseverance of the Kansas City police department. Confident of the case they had built against Gilyard with the DNA evidence, they got a warrant for his arrest and charged him for murder.