Summary

On December 29, 2005, officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department were dispatched to an apartment on North Bruce Street in Las Vegas, Nevada. Upon the arrival of first responders, Daniel Zeiszler was found deceased inside his residence. The initial investigation revealed Zeiszler had been strangled with a telephone cord, and his Dodge Neon and house keys were missing.

During the follow-up investigation, detectives recovered surveillance video from a store of an unknown, white male, who had arrived driving the victim’s vehicle and used the victim's bank card. On January 19, 2006, Zeiszler's vehicle was found abandoned in Tennessee. The vehicle was processed, and a suspect's DNA profile was recovered.

Although an STR profile was developed from biological evidence collected during the investigation and entered into CODIS, there was no match to a known individual.

Investigators submitted the unidentified STR profile to Othram in September 2024. Othram used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to develop a comprehensive SNP profile from the evidence. This profile was used in a forensic genetic genealogy search led by Othram's in-house forensic genetic genealogy team, which generated new investigative leads. Investigators used these leads to advance their investigation, which ultimately identified the individual related to the murder of Daniel Zeisler. Unfortunately, the individual identified died in 2020.

This development represents a significant breakthrough in a case that remained unresolved for more than 20 years, demonstrating the impact of leveraging the latest DNA technology for resolving cold case homicides.

This is the 18th publicly announced case in the State of Nevada where officials leveraged Othram's identity inference pipeline. Learn about other cases at Othram.com.