18-year-old’s ‘amazing future’ cut short in 1986 killing, AZ cops say. Now arrest made
A suspect has been identified in the 1986 slaying of an 18-year-old woman, leading to an Arizona police department’s “oldest cold case homicide arrest.”
Through DNA testing, Alfred Earl Green, 70, was identified as a suspect in Lachelle “Shelly” Waite’s 1986 killing, the Phoenix Police Department said in a Feb. 21 news release.
“Being able to finally let the family know, and also let the community know that after 39 years, we’re still working on these cases, trying to get justice for them, for the victims and their families, speaks to what this unit is all about,” Detective Dominick Roestenberg said in the release.
Waite was found dead inside her home on Jan. 16, 1986, police said.
Detectives found no signs of forced entry and some property was stolen from the home, police said.
Investigators believed Waite knew the suspect, according to police.
“Every person that I’ve talked to in connection to this investigation described Shelly as the same: as a kind, caring, outgoing, great person,” Roestenberg said in a video shared to the department’s Facebook. “She was just a genuinely nice, intelligent person.”
At the time of her death, Waite “worked in the Maryvale area,” police said.
“She just finished high school at Maryvale High, so this is a local kid growing up that her life was cut way too short,” Sgt. Brian Bower told KNXV.
During high school, she participated in dance and choir, as well as tutored other students, police said.
“I’ve gotten close with Lachelle’s family over the years and I’ve learned what an amazing person Shelly was,” Roestenberg said in the release. “She was beautiful inside and out. She was caring, kind and had an amazing future ahead of her.”
Though “detectives had a strong investigative lead” in 1986, they didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest, police said.
As such, police said “the case went cold.”
Then, decades later, cold case detectives reviewed Waite’s case and found a piece of evidence that “could not be processed” in 1986, police said.
The evidence was processed, and “after additional advancements in technology,” it was sent off for DNA testing in 2022, police said.
This testing, along with additional investigation, led detectives to identify Green as the suspect, police said.
“The detective has been able to identify that (Green) in this case was known to the victim through the victim’s boyfriend at the time,” Sgt. Brian Bower told KNXV.
Green, who is serving a prison sentence stemming from an unrelated case, was arrested Feb. 20, police said.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office charged him with first-degree murder, according to police.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 1:06 PM with the headline "18-year-old’s ‘amazing future’ cut short in 1986 killing, AZ cops say. Now arrest made."
