AZ Central
June 20, 2014
Phoenix police arrested a man on Friday after DNA evidence linked him to an unsolved murder and sexual assault from 1989, court records show.
In January, a report from the Phoenix Police Department’s crime lab indicated a DNA match between a sample taken from the scene and a DNA profile in a state database that belonged to Cudellious Love, a 58-year-old man with a drug conviction that landed him in prison for more than three years in the early aughts, according to court records released Monday.
Police say Love’s DNA was found on the body of Laura Hunding, who was stabbed to death in her apartment in July 1989.
Hunding was found by her landlord days after witnesses last saw her in the early hours of July 16, records show. Witnesses at the time told police that Hunding had attended a dance that night and returned home alone.
There was no sign of forced entry into the apartment near 48th Street and McDowell Road, and police did not have any leads in the case, records show.
When located and questioned by police on May 12, Love denied any knowledge of Hunding or her homicide nearly 25 years ago, court records show.
“He claimed he had never ‘messed with’ White women, has never been to the victim’s apartment complex and was not at all familiar with the east side of Phoenix,” according to court records. “He was shown photographs of the victims and the victim’s apartment and he maintained he had never seen the victim or her apartment. He said there would be no reason his fingerprints or DNA would be found or identified as part of the crime scene.”
On Friday, police located and arrested Love after the agency’s crime lab determined there was no mistaking Love’s DNA to the DNA at the scene because “the approximate incidence of this profile is 1 in 110 quadrillion African Americans,” records show.