She Was Murdered In Front Of Her Young Son And Years Later Police Managed To Close The Case

In 1988, Diane Lynn Dahn was a 29-year-old woman who worked as a communications technician at San Diego Transit Corporation.

On May 2, the young woman did not show up for work so a co-worker went to her house to verify that she was okay.

However, once there he found a somewhat strange scene and that is that Mark, Diane’s 2-year-old son, was wandering alone through the apartment block. When the partner sounded the alarm they decided to enter the woman’s house and it was there that they found her death.

At first glance it could be seen that Diane had been murdered. The authorities of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department immediately arrived at the scene and collected several evidence. From here, the woman’s close circle was interviewed but no one had any idea who would want to hurt her.

According to the autopsy, Diane suffered multiple stab wounds in the chest area and was beaten with a blunt object. In addition, under her nails they collected samples in the hope of identifying the killer through DNA, and a lock of hair was also found in her hand that probably tore off her attacker while she was fighting for her life.

The agents carried out an extensive investigation, but they still could not capture the person who ended Diane’s life and that is that although they had all those samples at that time the DNA technology was still in diapers so they could not do anything.

In 2000, a DNA profile of the samples they obtained under Diane’s nails was identified, however this did not lead to the identity of a suspect.

More tests were carried out the following year, but unfortunately, the information was not enough to upload the profile to CODIS, which is the FBI’s DNA database. The tests carried out on the strand of hair also showed a profile, but did not lead to any coincidence. The investigators were at a dead end and the Diane case cooled.

In 2010, an unsolved case unit reviewed Diane Dahn’s case. Since new technology had already been developed in the field of DNA, they decided to compare the samples again.

Thanks to this it was possible to confirm that the samples under the nails and the lock of hair belonged to the same person, the bad thing was that when the DNA profile was sent back to CODIS it did not give a result either.

In 2020, the researchers worked again on Diane’s case but this time they resorted to genetic genealogy to find her killer.

It is important to mention that genetic genealogy is only used as a last resort in cases of homicide. In Diane’s, all the methods to identify the killer had been exhausted and for years there were no concrete results. It is most likely that the case would not have been resolved without the help of this technique, as the spokesman of the sheriff’s department said some time later.

The investigators worked extensively on a family tree to track down Diane’s killer. According to the sheriff’s office, nine family trees were created, consisting of about 1,300 people connected to the suspect by blood or marriage.

It was an exhausting task, but they finally discovered the identity of Dahn’s murderer. It was a man named Warren Robertson.

As the researchers pointed out, Robertson was born in Arkansas, but when he was young spent some time in San Diego. In fact, when Diane was murdered in 1988, he lived in the same apartment complex as her. It is known that Diane and Robertson were racing enthusiasts and often watched them on El Cajon Speedway, an old California racetrack.

Dinae’s family had never heard of. Robertson and in fact his name did not appear during the initial investigation either. Nobody knows the extent of the relationship that these two neighbors had, but what was clear was that the DNA that remained at the crime scene was that of the man.

Despite identifying the suspect, he could not be arrested since it was discovered that he moved from San Diego shortly after Diane’s murder and that he died in a house fire in 1999.

When the investigators told Diane’s family everything, they were relieved to learn that the murderer was finally identified.

Mark Beyer, the 2-year-old son who was found near the crime scene said that it was the closure that he and his mother’s family needed after 34 years of searching for answers.

Mark doesn’t remember anything about what happened but is grateful that the case has finally been resolved. Diane’s sister stated that for years she was worried about dying without knowing who had killed her sister. And although some of your questions have been answered, it still doesn’t relieve the pain of losing your loved one.

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