Eugene police solve serial killer cold case from 1980s, identify suspect using new technology

Following the brutal murder and sexual assault of three women in Eugene 35 years ago, details were slim, and the community was left wondering who committed the horrific acts. This week, the victims' families got closure after police were able to put a name to the crimes.

In all, the murders were a result of "very violent strangulation, sharp force injury and sexual assault," according to Eugene police Detective Jennifer Curry, who has worked on the cold case since 2018.

On June 5, 1986, the first murder was discovered at a senior citizen complex in the 200 block of High Street. Gladys Hensley, 62, hadn't been seen in a few days, so the staff went to check on her apartment. Upon entry, they found Hensley lying dead in the apartment with the curtains drawn and the window unlocked. There were no suspects at the time, police said in a 1986 Register-Guard article.

Two weeks later, a murder happened in a public setting on a grassy hillside behind a car dealership on Coburg Road just north of the Ferry Street Bridge.

The body of Janice Dickinson, 33, was found bloody and naked June 19, 1986, lying face-up near a tree, and police said it appeared connected to Hensley's murder at the time, with both happening in a similar area of town.

It was a similar manner of death to the first murder and there was a scuffle on the riverbank, but police didn't specify more than it being "brutal homicidal violence."

The final murder wouldn't happen until two years later. Geraldine Toohey, 73, was on the phone with her sister the night of Feb. 27, 1988, when the phone went dead, according to a 1992 Register-Guard article about the possible connection of the crimes.

When she went to pick up Toohey for church the next day, her sister's body was sprawled on the living room floor half naked. She had been stabbed, strangled and sexually assaulted, in similar fashion to the other murders at her home in the 5400 block of Franklin Boulevard.

The new details were reported following renewed interest in the case in 1992, generated by Toohey's daughter Bev Toohey, 44 at the time, who was eager to find the killer.

"As far as we know, she had no enemies," Toohey said in the article. "I'd like to catch that person and find out why."

Oregon State Police detective Gus Bradford said in 1992 the suspect had broken through Toohey's door, appeared to know she was home alone, and added that the perpetrator cut the phone lines. Right after the 1988 murder, a sketch was released, but police said the tips failed to pan out.

DNA technology restarts investigation

Despite the reinvigorated investigation in the 1990s, no conclusions came and the case remained cold for more than two decades. The only movement was DNA testing in August 2000 that confirmed Hensley's murder was connected to the two others.

Detectives with the Eugene Police Department restarted the investigation in 2016, following the release of new technology from Parabon Nano Labs that could infer physical characteristics of people based on DNA. It allowed them to analyze DNA and look for certain physical characteristics, and the results were received in September 2017.

The technology let detectives narrow down a profile for the suspect, giving a sense of their face shape, hair, skin and eye color, and ancestry, Parabon's Ellen Greytak said at a news conference alongside Curry where they released the new sketch in January 2018.

A Eugene area native herself, Curry said told The Register-Guard on Wednesday she has felt a personal connection to the case.

Since investigating it, Curry has provided the victims' families with updates and said she understood their desire to find the killer.

"It was kind of scary to not know if that person was still out there," she said.

Police released a snapshot of the suspect's characteristics and it generated more than 100 tips, but all of the names were eliminated, Curry said.

While it was interesting to get a physical profile and helped narrow possible suspects, that technology wasn't as useful as what came later in 2018 when detectives began using Parabon's newly released genetic genealogy services.

It allows for a cross-referencing of genetic analysis and traditional historical and genealogical research, such as census records, obituaries and newspapers. It also pairs with the snapshot technology from 2016 to help narrow the search, according to the Parabon website.

The suspect list narrows down

That new technology allowed Eugene detectives to narrow the suspect list down to four people, and after extensive follow-up and analysis of other evidence, police determined that the suspect was John Charles Bolsinger, who was traced to the Eugene area back to 1975, according to Curry.

It wasn't just the new technology that allowed police to identify him, Curry said. The investigation used evidence from the 1980s, including footprint evidence.

"We obviously didn't just use DNA in this case, there was footwear analysis, fingerprint analysis," Curry said.

Bolsinger, who was 30 at the time of the final murder, was found dead after committing suicide at his Springfield home March 23, 1988, a month after Toohey died, according to Eugene police in a Tuesday news release.

However, police remain unclear why Bolsinger killed these three women and if they had any connection to the suspect.

"We still to this day have not identified any relationship he would've had to them," Curry said.

Killer released from prison months before murder

Detectives made a timeline of Bolsinger's life going back to 1975, which showed he had interactions with law enforcement in Oregon and Utah, but was never connected to the murders in the 1980s or early 1990s.

Bosinger served a five-year sentence in a Utah prison for a separate 1980 murder in Salt Lake City. He traveled to Springfield after his parole release on March 7, 1986, according to the release, just three months before Hensley's murder.

The investigation also found that Bolsinger was arrested in September 1986 following a burglary of a woman's house in Springfield, a few months after Dickinson's murder.

Police said Bolsinger entered the home and approached the woman while she called 911 and fled after she began hitting him with the phone and a flashlight. Police reported he left a paring knife at the scene.

Although police said he was given a five-year Oregon prison sentence for the burglary, Bolsinger was transferred to Utah State Prison on Aug. 4, 1987, before being released early on Dec. 8, 1987. Soon after, he returned to the Eugene-Springfield area and enrolled in Lane Community College for the winter term.

Toohey's 1988 murder was just two months after Bolsinger was released from prison.

Curry, who said she has stayed in touch with the victims' families since working on the case, said they also feel relieved to finally close the loop on the serial killings, and said she feels satisfied as well.

"It feels satisfying to finally give them some answers and to the community," she said.

Eugene Police spokesman John Hankemeier wrote that the department is "pleased to finally bring closure to the family members of Gladys, Janice and Geraldine, as well as our community."

He asked anyone with more information regarding Bolsinger to contact Curry at 541-682-5166 or jcurry@eugene-or.gov.

Louis Krauss covers breaking news for The Register-Guard. Contact him at lkrauss@registerguard.com, and follow him on Twitter @LouisKraussNews.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Eugene police solve cold case, identify serial killer from 1980s