Police Arrest Former Attorney, 77, In Connection With 50-Year-Old Cold Case Murder Of Teenager In Hawaii

Authorities believe the 50-year-old question of who murdered a teenager in Hawaii has been answered thanks to DNA.

Around 4 a.m. on Sept. 13, police in Reno, Nevada, arrested former attorney Tudor Chirila, 77, on a no-bail warrant in connection with the death of 19-year-old Nancy Anderson, The Star Advertiser reported.

On Jan. 7, 1972, Anderson’s 18-year-old roommate, Jody Spooner, found her fatally stabbed in their Waikiki apartment.

According to an article published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin shortly after the homicide, Spooner said she came home around 2:30 p.m. that day and saw Anderson chatting with two salesmen. Spooner then went to take a nap and about 4:15 p.m. though she may have heard a scream.

When she checked on Anderson around 45 minutes later, she discovered her lying in a pool of blood with multiple slash marks to her body.

Anderson, who graduated from high school in Michigan in 1970, moved to Honolulu and was working at a local McDonald’s at the time of her death.

Investigators were unable to come up with any viable leads in the teenager's slaying, and the case went cold.

According to Hawaii News Now, in December 2021, authorities in Hawaii got a tip about Chirila, who lived in the state around the time of Anderson’s death and was a University of Hawaii grad assistant.

Detectives provided DNA samples to Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs and identified Chirila as a suspect after DNA testing allegedly linked him to a bloody towel taken into evidence at the crime scene, authorities said.

Chirila, who allegedly attempted to kill himself after police recently collected a DNA sample from him, is expected to be extradited from Nevada to Hawaii to face charges, Hawaii News Now reported.

“She was an integral part of our family and when she was killed it just left a hole in our hearts and in our family,” the victim’s brother, Jack Anderson, told the publication.