DNA Leads to Florida Man in 1989 Murder
The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS - A man accused of killing a teenager 17 years ago was charged with murder Friday, after fighting extradition from Florida for six weeks.
David Ashworth, 46, is accused of strangling Lisa Joan Summers of Indianapolis in June 1989. Summers disappeared while riding a bicycle home from her job at a fast food restaurant. Her body was found four days later in a field on Indianapolis' far west side.
DNA evidence led to Ashworth's arrest Sept. 18 in Lakeland.Ashworth and another man reported finding Summers' body. When Marion County sheriff'sInvestigators interviewed Ashworth, he gave three different accounts of where he was the night she disappeared.His wife told investigators Ashworth had been home at the time, but in 1992 she recanted and said he had not returned until 6:30 a.m.In 2004, Detective WilliamRogers submitted a DNA sample taken from Ashworth in 1992 for testing against blood on Summers' clothing and saliva on a cigarette butt found near her body.Ashworth fought being brought back to Indiana from Florida to face charges.He had been "living there, working there (and) thinking he got away with murder," David Wyser, Marion County chief trial deputy prosecutor, said outside Marion Superior Court on Friday.Ashworth was being held without bail at the Marion County Jail.