Cops arrested Michael Breisch, 65, in Ohio this week after new technology linked his DNA to evidence left at the 1989 murder scene of Rose Hnath, 78, the Lehigh County District Attorney announced Thursday.
After 35 years, cops say they have cracked the cold case killing of a 78-year-old woman who was murdered in her Pennsylvania home in 1989..
Cops arrested Michael Breisch, 65, in Ohio this week after new technology linked his DNA to evidence left at the scene of the murder of Rose Hnath, the Lehigh County District Attorney announced Thursday.
Hnath was discovered dead in the living room of her house in Lehigh County on Jan. 21, 1989, officiails said. Her nephew made the grisly discovery after Hnath, who lived alone after her husband died, didn't make it to church, the New York Post reported.
She had been stabbed and beaten, and she also had defensive wounds on her body, indicating she put up a fight against her attacker, cops said.
Hnath’s home was "ransacked, so there were a number of items that were touched, that were moved," Thomas McAndrew of the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office said at Thursday’s press conference.
McAndrew also said that a month before her death, Hnath’s home was robbed.
"It would be hard to believe that this woman goes her whole life leading a pretty simple life at this house. There's a burglary where a firearm and jewelry is taken and now weeks later, that house is burglarized again," he said.
Detectives set out to find who was responsible for the elderly woman's murder, but ultimately the case went cold. Then, in 2018, advances in DNA technology helped move the case forward, officials said.
"There have been some DNA profiles obtained from some items within the residence that we're exploring for potential genealogical identification," Pennsylvania State Det. Robert Devers said in 2022.
Then on Thursday, authorities announced that they arrested who they say was responsible for Hnath's killing.
Michael Breisch, who was 30 at the time of the murder, lived in a community corrections facility in nearby Allentown and is not believed to have known Hnath, authorities said Thursday.
Breisch was arrested in Wind Gap, Ohio, where he had recently moved. Local law enforcement working in partnership with the Pennsylvania agencies made the arrest. He has been extradited to Pennsylvania and is being held in Lehigh County Jail without bail, authorities said.
“You don’t get a free pass on murder,” Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan. “The cases stay around and the detectives’ memory stays around and the case files stay around.”
It is unclear if Breisch has entered a plea or obtained a lawyer.
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to the Lehigh County Courts and District Attorneys Office for more information and has not heard back.
Authorities noted that Hnath’s family was personally notified of Breisch's arrest.
“We’re at the end of a long investigation that, although it went cold, it was never forgotten, and it was never put aside,” Holihan said.
