SHAFTSBURY, Vt. -
David Allan Morrison, 52, abducted Sarah Hunter, then sexually assaulted and strangled her, Vermont State Police and the Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office said at a press conference Monday.
Hunter, a golf pro who worked at the Manchester Country Club, was reported missing on September 19, 1986. Her car was found parked behind a gas station on Route 7A in Manchester.
After 25 years of interviews and DNA testing, investigators believe Morrison, who was 26 at the time, is responsible for Hunter’s murder. They’re preparing to charge him with first-degree murder.
Morrison became a suspect weeks after Hunter disappeared, court documents said. He worked at a gas station less than 200 feet away from where Hunter’s car was found.
Hunter had left the home of her boyfriend the night of September 18, 1986, court documents said. She stopped at Leo’s Citgo station and purchased a six-pack of beer. Hunter made it home that night, investigators said, a beer was found in her room and the remaining beers were found in her backseat.
Sometime between 10:30 p.m. the night of September 18 and 2:00 a.m. the following morning, police believe Morrison abducted Hunter.
Hunter’s purse was discovered on October 4, 1986, in Danby, Vt. A man, described as Morrison, was seen in the area the day after the murder, court documents said.
Hunter’s body was found in a wooded area next to a cornfield in Pawlet, Vt., on November 27, 1986, Thanksgiving Day.
Investigators interviewed Morrison in October 1986. He said he was only familiar with the case because of a poster at the gas station where he worked. Investigators interviewed Morrison a second time in January 1987, where he again said he did not know Hunter, but that he was familiar with the Danby area, court documents said.
Morrison left Vermont for California in January 1988. In August 1988, he was convicted for kidnapping, attempted murder and sexual assault. He pled guilty to those charges and is serving a 20-to-life sentence in a California prison.
Morrison abandoned his car when he moved to California, allowing investigators to obtain a warrant for the property where the car was parked and to search the vehicle.
Evidence gathered led investigators to identify Morrison as a primary suspect,” said Vermont State Police Lt. Tim Oliver. “However, the evidence was insufficient to arrest Morrison for Sarah's murder.”
Officials in California contacted Vermont investigators in 2009, when Morrison was to be interviewed for a similar homicide as Hunter’s, court documents said.
“While Morrison denied killing [the California victim], he never denied killing Hunter,” court documents said.
Morrison told the investigator he had some knowledge of Hunter’s death, saying he had “made peace with it,” adding “her family hasn’t,” court documents said.
A Vermont detective then re-interviewed Morrison in California and all evidence collected from his car was retested with new technologies.
Advancements in DNA testing allows for older evidence to be retested in ways it couldn’t have been in the past, said Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage.
During testing, hair found in Morrison’s vehicle in 1988 matched with a sample mitochondrial DNA found in Sarah’s sister’s saliva. (Mitochondrial DNA is the same between biological siblings from the same mother, investigators said.)
“It was believed there were sufficient advances in DNA analysis that would confirm that forensic evidence gathered from Morrison's vehicle belonged to Sarah,” Oliver said.
Morrison has been identified or convicted in four similar cases, where he approaches a female, abducts, assaults and then kills them, court documents said.
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