Inmate's DNA links him to murder, officials say

An Ohio prison inmate has been charged with capital murder from his DNA sample, possibly solving a 2003 cold case.

Joseph R. Bowers, 22, an inmate at the Southeastern Correctional Insitution in Lancaster was indicted today for aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, rape and kidnapping from the July 2003 slaying of Toni Miller.

Miller, 49, was found stabbed to death in her Far West Side apartment on Pipers Lane near Norton and Hall roads. Columbus police think she was watching TV alone when she was hit on the head and stabbed on July 25, 2003. Her purse was stolen.

The case remained unsolved despite a reward offered by Crime Stoppers. Homicide detectives assigned to the cold case unit kept the file active. Bowers is expected to appear in court next week on the new charges.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said state officials matched Bowers' DNA to evidence from the crime scene after Bowers was sent to prison in September for two drug offenses from Fairfield County. Bowers was sentenced to five years on that case. His DNA also was matched to a shirt discarded at the scene of another robbery that year in a Meijer parking lot, O'Brien said.

“This brutal murder was solved due to the forensic advances in the DNA field that we have seen over the past decade,” O'Brien said in a statement. “In past years, very likely this case would have gone unsolved.”