Las Vegas cold case murder solved, DNA links suspect who died in 2020

After nearly 20 years, Las Vegas investigators tied Daniel Zeisler’s 2005 murder to a likely suspect through DNA work and forensic genetic genealogy, but the person identified died in 2020, leaving no arrest to make. Detective Tate Sanborn pushed to reopen the case after roughly two decades of inactivity, saying it needed to be “fired back up.”

The case began on December 29, 2005, when an apartment manager reported a foul odor at 821 N. Bruce Street, Apartment 1, in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Fire and Rescue and police entered the unit and found Zeisler’s body in a moderate state of decomposition. Investigators later determined that he had been strangled with a telephone cord. His 1997 Dodge Neon and house keys were missing from the scene.

That car turned up abandoned in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 19, 2006, but the case still stalled for years because investigators did not have enough evidence to identify a suspect. A later review changed that. Detectives recovered surveillance footage from a store showing an unknown white male arriving in Zeisler’s vehicle and using Zeisler’s bank card, a key corroborating detail that helped connect the car, the cash-out, and the killing.

The forensic break came much later. Othram says an unidentified STR profile from evidence in the case was submitted to its lab in September 2024, then converted into a comprehensive SNP profile and used in a forensic genetic genealogy search. That work pointed investigators toward a relative of the person they now believe was responsible. Othram says the Zeisler case was the 18th publicly announced Nevada case in which officials used its identity-inference pipeline.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department still lists the 2005 Zeisler homicide among its open homicide cases by year, even as the new DNA analysis has given the investigation its clearest answer yet. Crime Stoppers of Nevada continues to accept anonymous tips and forward them to law enforcement, keeping the file active in public view even after the suspect identified by investigators had already died.

What began with a foul smell in Apartment 1 now rests on a body of evidence that was unavailable for years: a strangled man, a missing car, store video in Memphis, and DNA that finally narrowed the case after two decades.