For six decades, the brutal murder of nine-year-old Candy Rogers haunted the city of Spokane, Washington, a cold case that defied every traditional investigative technique. Now, in a stunning breakthrough announced today, law enforcement has finally identified her killer using advanced forensic genetic genealogy, closing a case that had remained unsolved since March 1959.
The suspect, John Reigh Hoff, a former U. S. Army soldier who died by suicide in 1971, was never on investigators’ radar during the original probe.
It took a combination of preserved DNA evidence, cutting-edge laboratory work by Othram Inc. , and relentless detective work by the Spokane Police Department to crack the case wide open.
“This is a monumental day for the family of Candy Rogers and for our entire community,” said Detective Zac Storment, the cold case investigator who spearheaded the renewed effort. “For 62 years, we never gave up. We knew the science would eventually catch up.
And it did.”
Candy Rogers, a bright and rule-following nine-year-old, disappeared on the evening of March 6, 1959, while selling Camp Fire mints door-to-door in her West Central neighborhood. Her body was discovered 16 days later, on March 22, by two off-duty airmen hunting in a wooded area about seven miles northwest of Spokane. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
Semen was found on her underwear, and that biological evidence was carefully preserved and frozen by forensic scientists decades ago.
In 2021, Detective Storment contacted Othram, a Texas-based forensic genealogy company, after learning about the techniques used to catch the Golden State Killer. The company’s founder, David Mittelman, assured him that even the degraded, 62-year-old DNA sample could yield a usable profile.
“We knew the sample was small and degraded, but we were confident,” Mittelman said. “We built a high-performing DNA profile from the semen stain and uploaded it to a genealogical database consented for law enforcement use.”
The profile led investigators to three brothers, all deceased. Only one, John Reigh Hoff, had living children. Detective Storment contacted Hoff’s daughter, Cathie, who agreed to provide a DNA sample.
The result was a statistical match of 2. 9 million to one that she was the daughter of the man who left the semen on Candy’s underwear.
To eliminate any doubt, authorities exhumed Hoff’s body on September 23, 2021. Forensic scientist Brittney Wright of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab extracted DNA from a tooth and produced a full profile. The match statistic was 1 in 15 quintillion.
“I was the first person in the world to know who did it,” Wright said. “It was pure excitement and joy, followed by a surreal feeling. This case had haunted so many for so long.”
John Reigh Hoff was 20 years old at the time of the murder. He was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base as part of an Army unit tasked with protecting the base using surface-to-air missiles. He had in-depth knowledge of the remote back roads where Candy’s body was found.
In 1961, he was arrested for attacking a woman in Spokane, attempting to strangle her with her own clothing. He was dishonorably discharged and later worked as a door-to-door knife salesman and at a meatpacking plant. He died by suicide in 1971.
Cathie Hoff, now an adult, expressed a mix of horror and relief. “I visited his grave and told him I hated him, that he made me sick,” she said. “I wish he were alive to be arrested and stand trial.
But my pastor said he has already stood before the one judge that matters.”
The case had never gone cold, according to police. Detectives over the decades followed hundreds of leads, including a serial killer named Hugh Morse, who passed a polygraph. But without forensic genetic genealogy, the case would likely have remained unsolved.
“Traditional means were never going to solve this,” Storment said. “Everyone who could be talked to had been talked to. Every suspect had been eliminated.
This was the only way.”
The community of Spokane, which had rallied together in 1959 to search for Candy and later mourned her death, now feels a collective sense of closure. A playground named in her memory is in the works, a tribute to a little girl whose smile lit up a room.
“She could have been a mother, a scientist, a teacher,” said Joanne Poss, Candy’s cousin. “All that was taken from her. But good has come.
This case shows that no matter how much time passes, justice can still be served.”
The Spokane Police Department plans to apply the same forensic genealogy techniques to other unsolved cold cases. “This is just the beginning,” Storment said. “Every killer, dead or alive, can be brought to justice.”
Nancy Grace, host of the true-crime series “Bloodline Detectives,” which featured the case, called the resolution “an incredible triumph of science and perseverance.” She added, “What could be more tragic than the 𝒔𝒆𝒙 attack and murder of a precious nine-year-old girl? Yet, 62 years later, bloodline detectives proved that even the coldest case can be cracked.”
The investigation into Candy Rogers’ murder is now officially closed. Her family, who lived through decades of unanswered questions, finally has the answer. And the man who took her life, though long dead, has been identified and named.
“For 62 years, we had people working on this case,” Storment said. “There was never a time where they let it go cold. Someone was constantly following leads.
And now, we have the truth.”
The truth, delivered by a strand of DNA preserved in a deep freezer, a team of dedicated scientists, and a detective who refused to give up. Candy Rogers’ killer has a name. And the city of Spokane can finally begin to heal.
