Detectives Used Gum to Solve Two Cold Case Murders

The Murders Were 40 Years Cold. A Stick of Gum Changed Everything.

Susan Vesey was murdered on the morning of July 12, 1980 - the day after her 21st birthday. Judy Weaver was murdered on June 1, 1984. Both women were killed in the Everett, Washington area. For four decades, their cases went unsolved. The man responsible walked free, grew old, and was living quietly in the same region where he had killed two people.

Then a detective named Susan Logothetti knocked on his door pretending to sell gum.

The Undercover Operation

Investigators with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office had identified Mitchell Gaff, 68, as a suspect through genealogy database work - the same technique that cracked the Golden State Killer case. But they needed his DNA to confirm it.

Detective Logothetti approached Gaff under the pretense of selling gum door-to-door. He bought a pack, handled it, and left behind the DNA sample investigators needed. The sample matched genetic material collected from both crime scenes decades earlier.

Gaff was arrested. On April 16, 2026, he entered a guilty plea to both murders. He was 68 years old - the same age as the victims would have been had they lived.

The Sentencing

On May 13, 2026, Mitchell Gaff was sentenced in Snohomish County Superior Court. The judge imposed a sentence of a minimum of 50 years with a maximum of life in prison. Given his age, it is effectively a life sentence.

The courtroom included family members of both victims, who had waited more than 40 years for this moment.

The Victims

Judy Weaver was murdered on June 1, 1984. The details of how she died have been confirmed through court records, but her full biography has been held privately by her family, who attended the sentencing.

Susan Vesey was 21 years old when she was killed - murdered the morning after her birthday. Her family has not issued a public statement, but investigators have described the day’s significance as something the case never let go of.

What This Case Means

The Gaff conviction is part of a growing body of cases resolved through investigative genetic genealogy - a technique that uses public DNA databases to identify suspects whose DNA was collected at crime scenes but never matched. In Washington State alone, multiple cold cases have been cracked using variations of this method.

For the families of Judy Weaver and Susan Vesey, the conviction is not the end of grief. It is, however, the end of uncertainty - the answer to a question that outlasted careers, marriages, and decades of hoping that someone, somewhere, had not forgotten.

References: Detective Used Chewing Gum to Crack Decades-Old Washington Cold Case Murders | Cops Used Chewing Gum to Make Murder Cases Stick Against Cold Case Suspect | DNA From Chewing Gum Solves Decades-Old Cold Case Double Murder in Washington