On April 9, 2026, at a press conference in Camden, New Jersey, Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay announced that two killings from the early 1990s, one in the city of Camden and one in the borough of Magnolia, had the same DNA source. The victims were Marebeth Welsh, a 24-year-old woman from Woodlynne who was found dead on a Camden sidewalk in November 1993, and Jennifer Persia, a 16-year-old girl found in her family's home in Magnolia in April 1994. The man the prosecutor's office named was Francis T. Schooley of Mantua Township. He had died in 2000, at the age of 39.
Schooley was never arrested, never charged and never tried. No jury heard the evidence and no court ruled on it. What exists is a probable cause statement written by the prosecutor's Homicide/Cold Case Unit, which concluded that there was "sufficient probable cause" to show that Schooley was the source of an unknown man's DNA found on Welsh's clothing and at the scene of Persia's death. The office said he "would be charged in both of these cases, were he still alive." This page sets out what the prosecutors said, what the evidence they described does and does not show, and what is still unknown, including most of what can be said about the two people at the center of it.
Marebeth Welsh was 24 years old and lived in Woodlynne, a small borough beside Camden. According to the probable cause statement, she was estranged from her husband at the time of her death and was living with two men in a house on the 200 block of Cypress Avenue in Woodlynne, where she had a bedroom on the second floor at the back. NJ 101.5 described the house as a couple of miles from where she was found.
The sources available for this page say little else about her life: not where she grew up, what work she did or what the people closest to her remember of her. The prosecutor's office said in April 2026 that its work had brought "answers to two families who have waited decades for justice," and members of the victims' families were invited to the press conference. The office did not release statements from Welsh's family, and none was found in the reporting fetched for this page.
At about 4:24 on the morning of Sunday, November 14, 1993, Camden police officers found a woman lying face down on the sidewalk along the 300 block of Jackson Street in Camden. She was later identified as Marebeth Welsh. Blood was coming from her nose. She was wearing a black and red checkered long-sleeve thermal shirt and pink and blue checkered pants. She had no shoes. There was a sock on her right foot and none on her left.
It had rained that night until about 3:30 a.m., yet the back of her clothing was dry. According to the probable cause statement, the scene "strongly suggested she had been placed at that location following the homicide." In other words, investigators believed she had been killed somewhere else and her body brought to Jackson Street. She was pronounced dead at 6:28 a.m.
The same day, Dr. Robert Segal of the Camden County Medical Examiner's Office performed the autopsy. He found that she had died of strangulation, ruled the death a homicide and found signs of sexual assault.
Jennifer Persia was 16 and lived in Magnolia, a borough in Camden County. Her home was on the 100 block of Jefferson Street. Her stepfather was part owner of a business called Sterling Auto Shop, a detail that would matter three decades later. Beyond that, the sources fetched for this page give few facts about her own life: her school, her friends and her plans are not described in them.
What the sources do show is how much her death meant to the place where she lived. "Jennifer's murder deeply stunned the entire Magnolia community," Magnolia Police Chief John Huston said in April 2026. "The Borough of Magnolia and the Magnolia Police Department have remained committed to honoring Jennifer's memory." A gazebo in Albertson Park in Magnolia is dedicated to her. Huston called it "a place where the community can gather, reflect, and keep her memory alive."
At about 8:45 on the evening of Monday, April 4, 1994, Magnolia police officers were sent to the house on Jefferson Street on a report of an unconscious female. They found Jennifer Persia lying on her back on the living room floor. She had multiple stab wounds, and there was a cloth ligature around her neck. She was taken to the Camden County Medical Examiner's Office, where Dr. Segal pronounced her dead at 11:53 p.m.
Dr. Segal, the same medical examiner who had examined Marebeth Welsh less than five months earlier, determined that Persia died of multiple incised wounds to the neck and chest, ligature strangulation, and multiple sharp and blunt injuries. He ruled the death a homicide.
Welsh's case belonged to Camden. Persia's belonged to Magnolia, with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, which handles homicides across the county, working alongside the local police in both. Nothing in the sources indicates that anyone connected the two deaths at the time. They happened in different towns, about five months apart. One woman was found outdoors, apparently moved after her death; the other was found inside her own home.
In the Welsh case, investigators took a comforter from her bedroom in the Cypress Avenue house. It later tested positive for blood in a presumptive test, a screening test that indicates blood may be present. The New Jersey State Police Forensic Science Bureau analyzed the evidence and found sperm cells on Welsh's shirt, on her underwear and on swabs taken from her body.
The FBI later carried out further DNA analysis. It compared the DNA profiles from cuttings of Welsh's shirt and underwear with blood samples from five men. The five included her estranged husband and the two men she lived with. The FBI concluded that none of the five could have contributed the DNA on her clothing. The sources do not identify the other two men, and they do not say when the FBI testing was done.
In the Persia case, investigators from the prosecutor's office and the Magnolia police found blood that, when tested, did not belong to her. It was on her socks, on a lower-level door toward the rear exit of the house and in the master bedroom closet. The FBI Laboratory analyzed it and found that it came from an unknown male. The profile was later entered into CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, the FBI-run database that compares crime-scene DNA with profiles from offenders and from other unsolved cases. It produced no match.
So by the time both cases went cold, each had a male DNA profile that did not belong to anyone investigators had identified. Neither profile had been tied to a name, and, as far as the sources show, the two profiles had never been compared with each other.
In February 2021, the prosecutor's office sent a sample of the DNA from the Persia scene to Parabon NanoLabs, a private company that does investigative genetic genealogy. The method compares a crime-scene profile with the DNA of people who have uploaded their own results to genealogy databases that permit police searches, finds distant relatives, and then uses family trees to work toward the person who left the DNA.
On April 2, 2021, Parabon reported that the closest match it found was at the distance of a second cousin once removed or a third cousin. Parabon also gave investigators the name of a possible contributor. That man had died. Detectives interviewed his siblings and one of his children and took cheek swabs from them. The FBI Laboratory ran kinship tests on those samples and found that the man Parabon had suggested could not have been the source of the DNA.
The prosecutors' account of this step matters for anyone weighing the 2026 announcement. Genetic genealogy can point in the wrong direction, and in this case it did once. The name produced in 2021 was tested against relatives and excluded before any public accusation was made.
According to the prosecutor's office, detectives in its Homicide Unit had always worked old cases "as time allowed." In January 2024 the office set up a full-time Homicide Cold Case Unit, assigned to cases that might be moved forward by advances in DNA testing and genetic genealogy. Prosecutor MacAulay credited two members of the office by name for the Welsh and Persia work: Sergeant Dennis Convery and Detective Daniel Crawford.
In August 2025, Marebeth Welsh's shirt and underwear were sent back to the laboratory, now called the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences, for more DNA analysis. Using a portion of the stains and testing the sperm fraction, the lab identified one unknown male contributor. That profile was entered into CODIS.
A CODIS hit came back soon afterward. The DNA from Welsh's clothing matched the unknown male profile from the blood found in Persia's house in 1994. For the first time, investigators had evidence that the two cases were linked: according to the laboratory results, the same man had left semen on Welsh's clothing and blood at the scene of Persia's death.
The match did not by itself give investigators a name. It told them that the unknown man in one case was the unknown man in the other.
According to the probable cause statement, a suspect was "developed and tentatively identified" as Francis T. Schooley through investigative genetic genealogy and further interviews. By then he had been dead for about a quarter of a century.
Very little about Schooley's life appears in the public record fetched for this page. The prosecutor's office described him as a Mantua Township man who died in 2000 at the age of 39. It released two photographs of him, labeled as taken around 1985 and around 1991. It did not give his date of birth, his occupation in full, the date, place or cause of his death, or any criminal history. No obituary for him was found.
The interviews detectives conducted turned up connections to both women. According to the statement, Schooley had done construction work at the home of Jennifer Persia's stepfather and at Sterling Auto Shop, the business her stepfather partly owned. Schooley was also part owner of a mini race car that Sterling Auto Shop sponsored. The statement does not say when the construction work was done, whether Schooley knew Jennifer, or whether he was ever in the Jefferson Street house before the night she died.
The link to Marebeth Welsh came from Schooley's own family. Detectives showed one of his siblings a photograph of Welsh. That sibling, according to the statement, reported having seen Welsh and Schooley together in the past. The statement does not say when, where, or how often.
Some reporting stretched these points. FOX 29 wrote that Schooley "had connections to both victims through past work and acquaintances." The probable cause statement is narrower: a work connection to Persia's stepfather and his business, and one sibling's recollection of seeing Schooley with Welsh.
A genealogy lead is not proof of identity. To test it, detectives went to Schooley's family. On January 27, 2026, they met with one of his parents and took several cheek swabs. On January 30, 2026, they met with a sibling, identified elsewhere in the statement as Schooley's brother, who also gave swabs. The samples went to three laboratories: Parabon NanoLabs, the FBI Laboratory and the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences. Their reports were reviewed during the week of March 9, 2026.
The three labs approached the question in different ways, and their results differed in strength.
Parabon reported that Schooley's parent shared more than 3,500 centimorgans of autosomal DNA with the unknown man. A centimorgan is a unit of genetic measurement; a parent and child typically share between 3,300 and 3,700. Parabon reported that the amount in this case was "exclusively consistent with a parent/child relationship." In plain terms, the unknown man was a child of Schooley's parent.
The State Police lab found it at least 4.8 million times more likely that the source of the crime-scene DNA was a child of Schooley's parent than that the two were unrelated. It also found it at least 150,000 times more likely that the source was a full sibling of Schooley's brother than unrelated to him.
The FBI Laboratory's kinship analysis was much weaker. It found it approximately 170 times more likely that the source was a child of Schooley's parent than that the two were unrelated.
The prosecutor's office did not explain the gap between the FBI figure and the State Police figure. Likelihood ratios depend on the genetic markers a lab tests and the statistical models it uses, and the sources do not describe those choices for any of the three labs.
The kinship results point to a son of that parent and a full brother of the sibling who was tested. They do not by themselves distinguish between brothers. The prosecutors' identification of Francis Schooley in particular rests on the kinship results combined with the genealogy work and the interviews. The statement does not say how many sons the parent had, or whether any other brother was excluded, and none of the news reports fetched for this page addressed that question.
After reviewing the reports, the Homicide/Cold Case Unit concluded that there was sufficient probable cause to show that Francis T. Schooley was the source of the unknown male DNA found at the scene of Persia's death and on Welsh's clothing. Probable cause is the standard for filing a criminal charge, not the standard for a conviction, which in New Jersey, as elsewhere in the United States, requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt before a judge or jury.
The prosecutor's office issued a media advisory on the morning of April 9, 2026, and held its press conference at 11 a.m. at the Governor James J. Florio Center for Public Service, its building on Federal Street in Camden. Those listed as attending were Prosecutor MacAulay; Magnolia Police Chief John Huston; Camden County Police Deputy Chief Janell Simpson; members of the prosecutor's Homicide Unit; personnel from the New Jersey State Police laboratory and the FBI; and members of the victims' families. Citing "the sensitive nature of both cases," the office asked the press not to livestream the event.
"Thanks to remarkable advances in DNA technology and diligent detective work, we have finally been able to bring answers to two families who have waited decades for justice," MacAulay said. "These cases never left the minds of our investigators, even as the years passed." She added: "No matter how much time passes, we will continue to pursue justice for every victim."
Chief Huston spoke for Magnolia. "Our hearts are with her family, and while the results of this investigation cannot bring her back, we hope it offers them a measure of peace," he said. He said residents "can take some comfort in knowing that both the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and the Magnolia Police Department remain steadfast in their pursuit of justice and will continue working tirelessly until cases like this are solved."
The story ran that day and the next on Philadelphia-area television and radio, including NBC10, FOX 29 and NJ 101.5. Most of the reporting followed the prosecutor's release closely. NBC10's headline read "Detectives link two 1990s murders to suspect through DNA evidence"; NJ 101.5 wrote that Schooley "would face murder charges if he were still alive."
Schooley had been dead for more than twenty-five years when prosecutors named him. A dead person cannot be charged or tried, so the case against him cannot be tested in court: no defense lawyer will cross-examine the analysts, challenge the genealogy or question the sibling who remembered seeing Schooley with Welsh. The prosecutors' statement that they would have charged him is the furthest the legal process can go.
That has two consequences. For the families, there will be no trial, no verdict and no sentence. For the public record, the identification of Schooley stands on the prosecutor's office's own account of its evidence, summarized in a four-page release. That account is detailed, and it includes the earlier wrong lead and the differing laboratory figures. It remains the account of one side, which no court has reviewed.
Established by the medical examiner in 1993 and 1994: Marebeth Welsh died of strangulation, with signs of sexual assault, and her death was a homicide. Jennifer Persia died of stab wounds, ligature strangulation and other injuries, and her death was a homicide.
Reported by the laboratories, according to the prosecutor's office: the male DNA on Welsh's clothing and the male blood at the Persia scene came from the same man. Kinship testing found that man to be a child of Schooley's parent, at likelihood ratios ranging from about 170 to at least 4.8 million, depending on the lab.
Concluded by prosecutors, never tested in court: that Francis T. Schooley was that man, and that the evidence would have supported charging him in both deaths.
Reported by witnesses to detectives: that Schooley had done construction work for Persia's stepfather and at the stepfather's auto shop and part-owned a race car the shop sponsored; and that one sibling had seen him with Welsh.
Not established by anything in the sources: how either woman came to be with her killer that night; where Welsh was killed; whether Schooley knew Jennifer Persia personally; any motive; and whether Schooley was connected to any other crime. FOX 29 noted that authorities had not detailed a motive or said whether he might be linked to other unsolved cases. The prosecutor's office has not said either way.
The DNA evidence also has limits of its own. Semen on Welsh's clothing shows sexual contact and fits the medical examiner's finding of sexual assault, but by itself it does not establish who strangled her. Blood in the Persia house shows that the man who left it was bleeding there; the release does not say when the blood was deposited or how. Prosecutors read the evidence together, with the timing, the locations and the connections their interviews found, as probable cause for both killings. A defense at trial would have been entitled to argue otherwise. There was never a trial.
Francis T. Schooley died in 2000 and was never arrested, charged, tried or convicted. On April 9, 2026, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office named him as the person it said was the source of the DNA in both cases and said he would be charged with both deaths were he alive.
The office's public list of press releases, checked for this page on October 14, 2026, showed no later release about the Welsh or Persia cases; the most recent release on the list was dated October 6, 2026. Nothing in the sources fetched for this page suggests that anyone else is being sought in either case, and FOX 29 reported in April 2026 that it was unclear whether any additional suspects were being sought. No public statement from the prosecutor's office says that either case has been formally closed.
Jennifer Persia's memorial is the gazebo in Albertson Park in Magnolia, which the borough's police chief pointed to in April 2026 as the place to pay respects. Members of both families were listed among those attending the press conference. The prosecutor's release did not include statements from them, and no family statement was found in the reporting fetched for this page.
The cases were among the first public results of the full-time cold case unit the prosecutor's office created in January 2024. MacAulay presented them as evidence for that approach: old evidence retested with newer methods, the national DNA database searched again, and genetic genealogy used and then checked against family DNA before a name was released.
November 14, 1993 (Sunday): Camden police find Marebeth Welsh, 24, of Woodlynne, on the 300 block of Jackson Street at about 4:24 a.m. She is pronounced dead at 6:28 a.m. The medical examiner, Dr. Robert Segal, rules her death a homicide by strangulation and finds signs of sexual assault.
After November 1993, date not given: the State Police lab finds sperm cells on Welsh's shirt, underwear and body swabs. The FBI later excludes five men, including her estranged husband and two housemates, as the source.
April 4, 1994 (Monday): Magnolia police find Jennifer Persia, 16, in her home on the 100 block of Jefferson Street at about 8:45 p.m. She is pronounced dead at 11:53 p.m.; Dr. Segal rules her death a homicide. Blood from an unknown man is found at the scene, and a profile later goes into CODIS without a match.
2000: Francis T. Schooley of Mantua Township dies at 39. He has not been identified as a suspect.
February 2021: DNA from the Persia scene is sent to Parabon NanoLabs for genetic genealogy.
April 2, 2021: Parabon suggests a possible contributor, who is dead. FBI kinship testing of his relatives excludes him.
January 2024: the Camden County Prosecutor's Office creates a full-time Homicide Cold Case Unit.
August 2025: Welsh's shirt and underwear are retested by the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences. The new male profile goes into CODIS and matches the unknown profile from the Persia scene.
2025 to early 2026: genealogy work and interviews lead to Schooley.
January 27 and 30, 2026: detectives collect cheek swabs from a parent and a brother of Schooley.
Week of March 9, 2026: kinship reports from Parabon, the FBI and the State Police lab are reviewed.
April 9, 2026: the prosecutor's office names Schooley, says it has found probable cause that he was the source of the DNA in both cases, and says he would be charged in both if alive.
October 14, 2026: the prosecutor's public press release list shows no later release on the cases.