Sexual assault evidence led to 1986 murder suspect

Advances in DNA science in the past 32 years helped Pasco police solve a cold case with the identification of a murder suspect.

Theodore Milam, 54, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder - just four days shy of the anniversary when a Richland contractor's bludgeoned body was found floating in the Pasco Boat Basin.

State forensic scientists eventually got a match after extracting a DNA profile from crime scene swabs in 2006, but they didn't have a name until earlier this year.

Now, Milam sits in the Spokane County jail connected to both the 1986 Pasco murder of Robert J. McDonald and a 1999 rape in Spokane.

Court documents filed Wednesday for the Pasco murder show that McDonald also was sexually assaulted.

An arrest warrant with $500,000 bail was issued by Judge Sam Swanberg.

However, it could be some time before Milam makes an appearance in a Franklin County courtroom.

The Spokane case may take precedent. Jail records show Milam was booked there Tuesday on $250,000 bail for rape, kidnapping, robbery and burglary.

Milam currently lives in Deer Park, but was living in Pasco when McDonald was killed Feb. 25, 1986.

Two young boys playing with their father discovered McDonald's body at 12:30 p.m. below the small park at the south end of Fourth Avenue and Washington Street, according to Herald archives.

McDonald, 40, was pulled from the shallow bay of the boat basin, now known as Schlagel Park. He was floating face down, his hands were bound together with a T-shirt and he'd apparently been in the water for several hours, police said.

McDonald had a cut above the right eyebrow. An autopsy determined he'd been hit in the head, causing a brain bleed and loss of consciousness.

Milam then threw him into the Columbia River, court documents show. He died from drowning.

McDonald was found nearly naked, with his jeans and underwear pushed down below his knees.

His orange pickup was parked a few feet from the water in the park's parking lot. It was unlocked, and his wallet was tucked between the cab and the canopy shell on the driver's side, court documents said.

Witnesses told police at the time that it was McDonald's habit to hide his wallet "when confronted with a situation with which he was uncomfortable," documents said.

Detectives found evidence of a struggle on the riverbank.

McDonald reportedly worked as a construction contractor and at one time operated a tree-trimming business in the Tri-Cities.

Deputy Chief Ken Roske said Wednesday that the case went dormant after several years of intense investigation. There were no leads from fingerprint evidence.

The sexual assault evidence were sent to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory in March 1994 for possible DNA analysis, court documents said.

The methods for testing at the time were insufficient to develop a suspect, Pasco Detective Jonathan Davis said in documents.

It was only after a DNA profile was extracted from the evidence in 2006 that investigators got a step closer to solving the case, Roske said.

That profile was linked through the FBI's DNA database to the 1999 Spokane case. The suspect in that rape also was unknown.

It wasn't until Milam was arrested by Spokane police on a separate investigation that they collected his DNA and added it to the database. The reported match was made to the Pasco murder when scientists ran a regular search of unsolved cases in the system.

Pasco police were notified Feb. 1 by the state crime lab, and detectives went to Spokane to interview Milam on Tuesday.

Milam said he had not been at the boat basin since he was 12, wrote Davis. He would have been 22 when McDonald was killed.

When shown photos of McDonald and the victim's truck, Milam denied knowing him or having ever seen him.

Detectives have notified some of McDonald's relatives about the arrest, Roske said.

At the time, his parents, ex-wife and an 18-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son lived in the Tri-Cities.

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 3:15 PM with the headline "Sexual assault evidence led to 1986 murder suspect."