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Rare clue at Minneapolis crime scene points to a barefoot killer

It was a grisly scene when police arrived at a Minneapolis apartment complex on June 13, 1993, to investigate the murder of 35-year-old Jeanie Childs. Her body was found partially under her bed, her bedroom was in disarray, and there was blood spatter across the walls and floor. Childs had been stabbed more than 60 times. As investigators tried to piece together what unfolded, they found a rare clue in the bedroom: bloody, bare footprints.

“That drew my attention right away … I mean, wow,” Bart Epstein, a retired forensic scientist, told “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty in “The Footprint,” airing May 17 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. “You don’t see this at crime scenes in general, bare feet that have stepped in blood,” said Epstein.



Pivotal clue at crime scene helps investigators crack open cold case

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Investigators knew the footprints had to belong to Childs’ killer because she was wearing socks at the time of her death. Those footprints had to have been left there after the perpetrator stepped in her wet blood after the murder. Investigators documented and photographed the footprints.

“So the footprints, beyond being something that would tend to show guilt, also was important to show to clear people who might have been under any suspicion,” said retired FBI agent Chris Boeckers, who would later join the investigation.

According to the case file, investigators compared the footprints left at the crime scene to multiple people, including a man named Arthur Gray, whom Childs lived with at the time of her murder. According to police reports, authorities found hairs stuck to Childs’ left hand and one of those hairs matched Gray.

But Boeckers says the case against Gray started to fall apart pretty quickly. “He had a really solid alibi that he was out of town that weekend that was corroborated by others.” Gray, who enjoyed riding motorcycles, told authorities he was in Milwaukee. Forensic scientists also examined Gray’s footprints and determined he did not leave those footprints at the crime scene.

Would the bloody bare footprints finally lead to Jeanie Childs’ killer? 

Hennepin County District Court


Days turned into years and then decades without finding the individual who left those footprints. In 2015, forensic scientist Andrea Feia, who was asked to do DNA testing on items collected at the crime scene, determined there was an unknown DNA profile that kept repeating itself. It was found on the comforter, a towel, a washcloth, a T-shirt and on the bathroom sink.

Investigators then turned to investigative genetic genealogy for answers. A forensic genealogist submitted the unknown DNA profile to genealogy websites. “The forensic genealogist indicated she had a match to potentially two brothers here in Minnesota,” Boeckers said. One of those brothers was businessman and hockey dad Jerry Westrom.

Investigators were anxious to confirm that the unknown crime scene DNA was indeed Westrom’s, but to do that, they needed to track him down. In January 2019, investigators followed Westrom to his daughter’s college hockey game in Wisconsin and obtained a napkin and food container he had used after eating at the arena. They took the items to the lab for testing and the results revealed there was a match.

DNA linked Jerry Westrom to Jeanie Childs’ apartment, but he denied killing her.

Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office


The following month, in February 2019, Westrom was arrested for the murder of Childs. During his police interview, Westrom denied being at the apartment and knowing Childs. The next day, authorities collected his footprints for comparison.

Although Westrom’s DNA was at the scene, it was important to confirm the footprints belonged to him because there was other male DNA found at Childs’ apartment that did not belong to Westrom.

Mark Ulrick, a supervisor with the Minneapolis Police Forensic Division, examined the footprints. “In Minnesota here, people are not committing crimes a lot of times with the socks and shoes off,” he told “48 Hours.” He says he focused on the friction ridge skin — the arrangement of ridges and furrows — unique to every person. “Friction ridge skin is found on … your fingers, your palms, and the soles of your feet,” Ulrick explained. During his examination, he compared the unknown footprints to Westrom’s prints and to those of alternate suspects.

Westrom’s defense team hired its own forensic scientist, Alicia McCarthy, to verify Ulrick’s work. What would the experts conclude about the footprints? Watch “The Footprint” Saturday, May 17 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

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Man who spent 38 years in prison for bartender’s 1987 murder has conviction overturned: “I am not angry”

A man who spent nearly four decades in a British prison in the killing of a bartender said he was not angry or bitter Tuesday as his murder conviction was overturned because of newly available DNA evidence.

Peter Sullivan put his hand over his mouth and appeared to become emotional as the Court of Appeal in London ordered his conviction quashed after years of attempts to clear his name.

He is the longest-serving victim of a wrongful conviction in the U.K., attorney Sarah Myatt said outside court. His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody, the BBC reported. About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial.

Sullivan, who watched the hearing by video from Wakefield prison in northern England, said in a statement that he was not resentful and was anxious to see his loved ones.

“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free,” Myatt read from the statement. “It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale as we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me. I am not angry, I am not bitter.”

Lawyer Sarah Myatt speaking to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, after Peter Sullivan, who has spent 38 years in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall in 1986, had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.

Ben Whitley/PA Images via Getty Images


Sullivan, 68, was convicted in 1987 of killing Diane Sindall in Bebington, near Liverpool in northwest England. He spent 38 years behind bars.

Sindall, 21, a florist who was engaged to be married, was returning home from a part-time job at a pub on a Friday night in August 1986 when her van ran out of gas, police said. She was last seen walking along the road after midnight.

Her body was found about 12 hours later in an alley. She had been sexually assaulted and badly beaten.

Sexual fluid found on Sindall’s body could not be scientifically analyzed until recently.

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA, the BBC reported. A test in 2024 revealed it wasn’t Sullivan, defense attorney Jason Pitter said.

“The prosecution case is that it was one person. It was one person who carried out a sexual assault on the victim,” Pitter said. “The evidence here is now that one person was not the defendant.”

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson did not challenge the appeal and said that if the DNA evidence had been available at the time of the investigation it was inconceivable that Sullivan would have been prosecuted.

Merseyside Police said it reopened the investigation as the appeal was underway and was “committed to doing everything” to find the killer.

Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023, the BBC reported.

“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.

The memorial stone for Diane Sindall on Borough Road in Birkenhead, Wirral, pictured on May 13, 2025.

Eleanor Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images


The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which examines possible wrongful convictions, had declined to refer Sullivan’s case to the appeals court in 2008, and the court turned away his appeal in 2019.

But the CCRC took up the case again when the new DNA evidence was available.

“In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe,” Justice Timothy Holroyde said.

Sullivan’s sister, Kim Smith, reflected outside the court on the toll the case had taken on two families.

“We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day it’s not just us,” Smith said. “Peter hasn’t won and neither has the Sindall family. They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again.”

Kim Smith, sister of Peter Sullivan speaking to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, after Sullivan, who has spent 38 years in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall in 1986, had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.

Ben Whitley/PA Images via Getty Images


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The dire wolf, which went extinct 12,500 years ago, revived by biotech company

For the first time ever, scientists say they have made a species de-extinct, bringing the dire wolf back into the world thousands of years after it died off. 

Colossal Biosciences, a company based in Dallas, says it successfully birthed three dire wolves — a species that once roamed North America but has been extinct for more than 12,500 years — using revolutionary science.

Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said the team used DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull to analyze the full genome of the species and create three healthy dire wolf puppies, according to a news release.

Colossal Biosciences said it’s created three dire wolf puppies. Romulus and Remus, the two males, were born in October, while Khaleesi, the female, was born in January.  

Colossal Biosciences


The Colossal website explains that many dire wolf fossils were preserved in the La Brea tar pits, in the Los Angeles area, but the species’ DNA was not preserved in the tar. 

But using two dire wolf samples from an international study on the extinct species, Colossal was able to uncover more dire wolf DNA that ever previously found. Company scientists were eventually able to analyze the species’ genome — or its entire DNA set. 

Then they used CRISPR, a gene-editing technology, to genetically modify cells from a living gray wolf. Usually, cloning relies on tissue samples, but Colossal was able to use these modified cells to create embryos, then transferred them to a surrogate (a domestic dog, The Associated Press reported) to grow. 

Three litters of dire wolf puppies yielded two males, named Romulus and Remus, and a female, named Khaleesi after the “Game of Thrones” character — a nod to the HBO fantasy drama that featured dire wolves.

For the first time ever, scientists have made a species de-extinct, bringing the dire wolf back into the ecosystem about 12,500 years after it died off. 

Colossal Biosciences


However, critics say the physical and genetic resemblance to an extinct species falls short of a full revival.

“All you can do now is make something look superficially like something else,” Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research, told the AP.

“Whatever ecological function the dire wolf performed before it went extinct, it can’t perform those functions” in today’s environment, Lynch said.

The company says the animals are being cared for on a 2,000-acre preserve, “certified by the American Humane Society and registered with USDA,” enclosed by a 10-foot-tall fence and perimeter security. 

Colossal was also able to create two litters of cloned red wolves, which are the most critically endangered wolf in the world.

The company says its de-extinction process could help support conservation efforts globally. “Preserving, expanding, and testing genetic diversity should be done well before important endangered animal species like the red wolf are lost,” said Harvard geneticist and co-founder of Colossal, Dr. George Church. 

In 2021, Colossal announced plans to de-extinct the woolly mammoth — a concept Church had been developing for years. He told “60 Minutes” in 2019, “I would say that probably in five years we’ll know whether we can get this to work for mice, and maybe pigs and elephants. And then if we can get embryos to grow in the laboratory all the way to term, then it’s probably a decade.”

Last month, the company said its scientists have simultaneously edited seven genes in mice embryos to create mice with long, thick, woolly hair — dubbing its creation the “Colossal woolly mouse.”

While the results and images of the the shaggy-haired mice were posted online, Colossal did not publish its research in a peer-reviewed journal and it has not been vetted by independent scientists. 

The scientists edited mouse genes related to their hair and fat metabolism — two qualities woolly mammoths needed to survive in their Arctic habitat. After confirming the gene modification process works in mice, they planned on testing it with elephants, which are woolly mammoth’s closest living relatives. But, since Asian elephants are endangered, the company will face a number of additional hurdles. It is also doing work aimed at protecting the world’s elephant populations.

Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces “The Uplift,” CBS News’ streaming show that focuses on good news.

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Ancient jawbone found in sea belongs to mysterious human ancestors, scientists say

An ancient jawbone discovered in Taiwan belonged to an enigmatic group of early human ancestors called Denisovans, scientists reported Thursday.

Relatively little is known about Denisovans, an extinct group of human cousins that interacted with Neanderthals and our own species, Homo sapiens.

“Denisovan fossils are very scarce,” with only a few confirmed finds in East Asia, said study co-author Takumi Tsutaya at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan.

So far, the only known Denisovan fossils include partial jawbones, a few teeth and part of a finger bone found in caves in Siberia and Tibet. Some scientists believe fossils found in a cave in Laos may also belong to Denisovans.

The probable identification of the jawbone from Taiwan as Denisovan expands the region where scientists know these ancient people once lived, said Tsutaya.

“Denisovans must therefore have been capable of adapting to a wide range of habitat types,” study co-author Frido Welker told the Reuters news agency.

This illustration provided by researchers in April 2025 depicts a Denisovan male in Taiwan in the Pleistocene era about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. 

Cheng-Han Sun / AP


The partial jawbone was first recovered when a fishing operation dredged the seafloor in the Penghu Channel near the Taiwan Strait. After it was sold to an antique shop, a collector spotted it and purchased it in 2008, then later donated it to Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science.

Based on the composition of marine invertebrates found attached to it, the fossil was dated to the Pleistocene era. But exactly which species of early human ancestor it belonged to remained a mystery.

The condition of the fossil made it impossible to study ancient DNA. But recently, scientists in Taiwan, Japan and Denmark were able to extract some protein sequences from the incomplete jawbone.

An analysis showed some protein sequences resembled those contained in the genome of a Denisovan fossil recovered in Siberia. The findings were published in the journal Science.

While the new research is promising, Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Project, said he would like to see further data before confirming the Taiwan fossil as Denisovan.

Potts, who was not involved in the new research, praised the study for “a fantastic job of recovering some proteins.” But he added, such a small sliver of material may not give a full picture.

At one time, at least three human ancestor groups – Denisovans, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens – coexisted in Eurasia and sometimes interbred, researchers say.

“We can identity Neanderthal elements and Denisovan elements” in the DNA of some people alive today, said Tsutaya.

Scientists still don’t know exactly why Denisovans went extinct.

“We have so little archaeological and fossil information about Denisovans that we can only speculate as to why they disappeared,” Welker told Reuters. “A lasting legacy, though, is that some human populations in East and Southeast Asia carry some Denisovan ancestry in their genomes today.”

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