New DNA Evidence Might Help Find Inmate Who Escaped During 1973 Christmas Shopping Trip

Fifty-two years ago, Lester Eubanks escaped from a supervised Christmas shopping trip as a reward for good behavior while serving a life sentence for murdering 14-year-old Mary Ellen Deener in Mansfield, Ohio. Now one of the most-wanted fugitives in the United States, new DNA evidence and a robust database is giving cold case investigators renewed hope for his capture.

Hundreds of tips about Eubanks’s whereabouts have stretched across the United States and beyond over the years, but none have proved fruitful, according to the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS). Eubanks is known to have used at least two aliases, Victor Young and Pete Eubanks. With such a wide geographic search and presence of alias identities, tracking him down has proved challenging. But a forensics expert emphasized that DNA evidence can’t lie, and the DNA extracted this year from Eubanks’s clothes the night of the crime could lead to a break in the case or the ability to link him to other crimes.

Advancements in DNA technology have proved useful for investigators searching for fugitives, Vince Piccoli, the lead investigator for the Eubanks fugitive case, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. The USMS in the Northern District of Ohio took over the hunt for Eubanks in 2016, and investigators remain in contact with Eubanks’s family while reviewing all tips they receive.

Eubanks was imprisoned for murdering Deener in 1965 while out on bond for an attempted rape committed three months prior. He was reportedly last seen in Southern California during the late 1970s, going by the name Victor Young. A spokesperson for the USMS said investigators have received numerous tips leading them all over the country and internationally, but none have proved credible yet. Eubanks would be 82 years old today. 

Eubanks was named to the U.S. Marshals Service’s list of Top 15 Most Wanted Fugitives in 2018, with a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his whereabouts.

At the time of his conviction, DNA databases like the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) didn’t yet exist. CODIS contains DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons.

Cindy Cale, an expert in forensic biology and DNA, says that DNA from decades-old crimes can give cold cases new life. Even though the DNA from Eubanks’s clothes the night of the crime is old, she said such evidence is typically still extractable and can provide a needed break in cases.

“Names may change, but DNA does not,” Cale tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

CODIS became widely used in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, she adds. Convicted felons are required to submit a DNA sample that is uploaded to the database, which can then be continually compared against new evidence.

DNA evidence has played a pivotal role in other high-profile cases that previously went cold. The infamous “Golden State Killer” Joseph DeAngelo evaded capture for around 40 years. He ultimately pleaded guilty to the murder of 13 people, rape of dozens of women as well as burglaries after his 2018 arrest, where investigators used DNA databases and constructed family trees to locate him. 

Even if there is no direct hit in the DNA database for a suspect, investigators can find close matches to a given person’s genetic profile to locate parents, siblings and cousins. This family tree can create a new avenue for investigation. 

In 2020, investigators in Kansas City solved the murder of 16-year-old Fawn Cox, which had happened over 30 years prior. Evidence collected at the scene of the crime in 1989 was of no real use to investigators until decades later, when they extracted DNA and found a match in CODIS to Cox’s cousin. Before they had a solid match, those investigators built a family tree using similar DNA profiles just as authorities did in the Golden State Killer case.

While this type of forensics investigation is costly, investigators across these cases emphasized the importance of DNA in closing these decades-long unsolved cases.

Piccoli expresses frustration that Eubanks was permitted on a Christmas shopping trip in the first place. He adds that, fortunately, prisoners are not taken Christmas shopping anymore, but that trip made all the difference for Eubanks, who should have been imprisoned for life.

“We will continue every investigative effort and relentlessly pursue Lester Eubanks until this high-profile fugitive is located and apprehended,” Piccoli says.