DNA Key to Solving Old South Nyack Homicide

Before finding , police are hoping to track down a living relative.

Kalbach was a South Nyack landlady murdered in 1971—when authorities discovered the grisly scene, they found the 84-year-old strangled, bruised and slashed, her room ransacked.

(Learn about other unsolved murders in the Nyacks .)

Now, decades later, have reopened the case in hopes of using DNA technology to track down the murderer. Currently, state police lab teams are combing through preserved evidence from the scene for possible hair, blood or other DNA leads, said Robert Van Cura, the villages' police chief, last Thursday.

But first, they need to identify Kalbach's DNA, so it's not mistaken as the killers. And since Kalbach cannot volunteer a sample, police are hoping to find a relative who can. The relative's DNA would be similar enough to Kalbach' to aid the case, police said.