ENGLEWOOD - It wasn't a lot of DNA. In fact, it really wasn't too terribly long ago when DNA experts were telling Englewood Police Department investigators it wasn't nearly enough to allow them to put together a solid profile.
So for years, those investigators waited for DNA technology to catch up with the small sample of DNA they had collected from the body of 5-year-old Alie Berrelez back in 1993 after she was abducted and murdered.
Then, in February they wondered if they had waited long enough. They sent the sample to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Last week, they got their phone call. There had been a match in the cold case.
"You put your best case together and hope that you get a break. Last week, we caught a break," Englewood Police Chief John Collins said on Tuesday.
That "break" brought them back to the very same person they had grown to suspect early on.
"We were pretty darn certain it was [Nicholas Stofer]," Collins said.
"In old cases, from time to time, we do find something that does provide the final piece," Katie Fetherston, a forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said.
Fetherston says recent advances in DNA science have allowed agencies like the Englewood Police Department to do follow ups with DNA samples.
"Back in the early 90's, you needed a lot of sample and that sample needed to have high quality DNA," she said.
You need much less now, she explained.
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