Victim of 1987 killing in Arizona identified as Spokane teen



MARANA, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities in southern Arizona say they've identified a teenage girl who was fatally shot in 1987 as being from Spokane, Washington.

The Marana Police Department announced Wednesday that DNA submitted by relatives for testing showed conclusively that the victim was Deanna Lee Criswell.

Police say Criswell would have been 16 years old when her body was found by a transient in a culvert underneath an Interstate 10 frontage road on Nov. 25, 1987.

Marana police say advances in forensic science enabled them to identify Criswell's killer through DNA tests in 2011 as a convict who died in a Tucson prison in 2005 while serving a life sentence for a series of armed robberies.

Police identified the convict as William Ross Knight, who died at age 48 of liver disease.