LAS VEGAS - A major break in two cold cases in Clark County may involve a suspected serial killer. The cases, which are decades old, involve the rapes and murders of two women. DNA evidence and a nationwide manhunt helped solve this case.
Metro detectives say they have cracked two cold cases that have haunted two different families for decades.
Sixty-two-year-old Nathaniel Burkett was arrested July 18 near Biloxi, Mississippi for the murders of Barbara Ann Cox and Tina Gayle Mitchell.
According to police reports from 1978, Cox's murder happened in Las Vegas in the 200 block of West Wilson Avenue. Reports show her naked body was found with indications she had been strangled. Burkett was contacted but never arrested. The case eventually went cold.
Almost 16 years later, the second murder took place in the 900 block of H Street. On February 20, 1994, officers say Tina Gayle Mitchell's body was found covered in white towels. Evidence showed she had been strangled and raped. Louis Moore was named a suspect, but charges against him were later dropped because of lack of evidence.
Burkett, meanwhile, served six years in prison in Nevada for an unrelated manslaughter conviction and was released in 2009. At the time, he had a prior manslaughter conviction in Mississippi for the 1982 murder of his own mother.
Metro authorities say a grant to test back-logged DNA helped them link Burkett to the murders of Cox and Mitchell.
Burkett has been taken into custody in Mississippi and has waived his right to extradition.
