Trooper needs tipsto solve murder

The Associated Press

A year passed with no arrest in the killing of a woman whose body was found in a vegetable patch in Crawford County, and a state trooper said he is “up against a wall” and needing a breakthrough.

Danita Landres, 34, of Cleveland was strangled and left among soybeans and potatoes near the Ohio border in Linesville sometime before May 27, 1999.

It took a week to learn her name through her fingerprints. Next came interviews with relatives and associates in Cleveland. Neither pointed investigators toward a killer whom police believe committed the crime elsewhere and drove to the field.

Trooper Kurt Sitler of Meadville said he needs a tip or two and some good luck to advance the case.

“You have to take baby steps,” he said. “I will tell you, when we got her identified, it was a real moral victory.”

He said he remains optimistic but doesn’t really know what he is looking for. At times, all six investigators from Sitler’s unit in Meadville have been on the case.

“These kinds of cases are hard because you know the body was dumped there and you don’t have a crime scene where it happened,” Sitler said. “You have to think you will eventually solve it. If not, you’re just defeating yourself.”

Jim Fisher of New Wilmington, a former FBI agent and criminology professor at Edinboro University, said police were right to investigate Landres’ background to try to get leads but thinks the case likely never will be solved.

“From a ‘How good of a detective are you?’ perspective, the unattended deaths are the most challenging of cases,” Fisher said. “It takes a lot of work and dedication.”

Cpl. Scott Shipton said police are considering the possibility that Landres was the victim of a serial killer. Information about her case has been forwarded to the FBI in case that’s true. “There is a definite possibility that we’re dealing with a mobile killer,” Shipton said.

Landres also spelled her last name “Landers,” was unemployed when she died and had fingerprints on record with Cleveland police because of a small criminal record.

Police were unable to determine whom she had been with in the days before her death. She lived both in rooming houses and motels in northeastern Ohio.

Police said Landres was not close to her relatives. Cleveland funeral director Pernel Jones said they were at her wake and funeral last June 9.

An obituary submitted by the family said she “accepted Christ at an early age” and was “a strong-minded, outgoing person who was loved by many.”

“From friends and family, we haven’t gotten much. It seems like she moved around a lot,” Shipton said.

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Trooper needs tips to solve murder

Trooper needs tipsto solve murder