Dallas cold case investigators say a DNA match has led to an arrest more than three decades after 55-year-old Tommie Davis was found murdered inside her Texas home. The arrest highlights how evidence collected years ago can take on new importance when forensic technology and national databases improve.
Dallas police arrested 56-year-old Gary Len Ross on Oct. 2. Police said Ross had been living under the alias Tommy Lynn Jones. He is charged with capital murder in the 1993 killing of Davis.
The charge is an accusation. Ross is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
Dallas cold case dates back to May 1993
Davis was found dead in her home on Haskell Avenue in Dallas on May 18, 1993. According to police, she had been beaten with a two-by-four piece of wood and slashed with a knife.
The case went unsolved for decades.
When Detective Andrea Isom later reinvestigated the case, police said she discovered that blood collected from a wall inside the home did not belong to Davis.
Investigators were able to develop a DNA profile from the evidence and enter it into the Combined DNA Index System, commonly known as CODIS.
DNA database produced a match, police say
Police said the DNA profile returned a match to the identity Ross had allegedly been using.
CODIS allows local, state and federal laboratories to compare DNA profiles linked to criminal investigations. A match does not automatically prove guilt, but it can provide investigators with a lead that is then tested against other evidence.
Dallas police said Ross was arrested Friday and booked on a capital murder charge.
Major Bobbie Epperson of the Dallas Police Department’s CAPERS Unit said investigators remain committed to older cases.
“The Dallas Police Department is committed to pursuing justice in every case, no matter how much time has passed,” Epperson said in a statement reported by CBS Texas.
Why cold cases can reopen decades later
Many older homicide investigations were conducted before today’s forensic tools existed. Evidence may have been collected properly but could not be fully analyzed at the time.
Several developments have changed that:
- DNA testing can now work with smaller or more degraded samples.
- National databases can connect evidence from one jurisdiction to a person identified elsewhere.
- Digital record systems make it easier to revisit old evidence and compare cases.
- Specialized cold case units can focus on investigations that no longer receive daily attention.
Those tools do not guarantee an arrest, but they have helped police departments around the country reopen cases once considered unlikely to be solved.
The importance of preserving evidence
The Dallas case also shows why careful evidence storage matters. Blood collected in 1993 had to remain usable decades later for investigators to build a DNA profile.
When physical evidence is lost, contaminated or destroyed, new technology cannot recover what no longer exists.
Cold case detectives often begin by examining what was preserved, whether it was tested before and whether modern laboratories can learn something new from it.
What happens after a cold case arrest
An arrest after decades does not end the legal process. Prosecutors still must prove the case using admissible evidence.
Defense attorneys may challenge the reliability of old evidence, chain-of-custody records, witness memories and the meaning of DNA results.
Prosecutors may also face witnesses who have died, moved away or no longer remember events clearly.
That can make cold case prosecutions difficult even when a forensic match appears strong.
Why this matters beyond Dallas
Police agencies across New York also use DNA databases and regularly revisit unsolved homicides. For families in Utica, Rome and elsewhere in the Mohawk Valley, cases like this can be a reminder that an unsolved case is not necessarily a closed case.
New forensic methods can create leads years after a crime, especially when investigators preserved biological evidence and entered profiles into shared databases.
Cold case work can bring answers, but not erase the loss
For relatives of homicide victims, an arrest may bring relief, renewed grief or both. Some families wait decades without knowing whether anyone will ever be held accountable.
Police said they hope the arrest provides “a measure of closure” to Davis’s family.
Closure is a deeply personal idea, and a criminal case cannot undo the loss. But identifying a suspect can answer questions that have remained unresolved for years.
The investigation is continuing
Dallas police said the case remains under investigation even after the arrest.
That could mean detectives are continuing to examine Ross’s movements, relationships, possible motive and any additional evidence connected to the 1993 crime.
Authorities have not publicly detailed what relationship, if any, Ross had with Davis.
The key development is the DNA match that brought investigators back to a killing committed 33 years ago. The next phase will move from police work into court, where prosecutors must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.
Source: CBS News Texas, Oct. 3, 2026.
