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DNA Names a Dead Man as the Suspect in the 1993 and 1994 Killings of Marebeth Welsh and Jennifer Persia

Camden County prosecutors say Francis T. Schooley, who died in 2000, was the source of the DNA in both New Jersey cases and would be charged if he were alive.

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Illustration: dNA lab bench with pipettes and sample tubes

For more than thirty years, the two killings sat in separate files. Marebeth Welsh, 24, of Woodlynne, was found before dawn on November 14, 1993, lying face down on the sidewalk on the 300 block of Jackson Street in Camden, blood coming from her nose. Jennifer Persia, 16, was found on the evening of April 4, 1994, on the living room floor of her home on Jefferson Street in Magnolia, stabbed many times, with a cloth ligature around her neck. On April 9, 2026, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office announced that DNA had tied the two cases together and to one man: Francis T. Schooley of Mantua Township, who died in 2000 at the age of 39. He was never charged.

"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," said Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay.

Two scenes

Welsh had been strangled, the medical examiner found, and there were signs of sexual assault. She had no shoes and only one sock, and though it had rained until about 3:30 that morning, the back of her clothing was dry. Investigators concluded she had been killed somewhere else and left there. The FBI later tested the DNA on her clothing against five men, among them her estranged husband and the two men she lived with, and excluded all of them.

At the Persia house, investigators found blood that was not hers, on her socks, on a door near the rear exit and in the master bedroom closet. The FBI determined it came from an unknown man. The profile went into CODIS, the national DNA database, and matched no one. In 2021, a genetic genealogy firm offered a name, but kinship testing ruled that man out.

The break came in August 2025, when Welsh's shirt and underwear were sent to the New Jersey State Police lab for new testing. It produced a male profile, and when that profile went into CODIS it matched the unknown man's blood from the Persia scene. The two killings, less than five months apart, had the same source.

The name

Genetic genealogy and further interviews then pointed to Schooley. Detectives learned that he had done construction work at the home of Jennifer Persia's stepfather and at Sterling Auto Shop, which her stepfather partly owned, and that he had co-owned a mini race car the shop sponsored. One of Schooley's siblings, shown a photograph of Marebeth Welsh, said they had seen the two together.

In January 2026, a parent and a sibling of Schooley gave DNA swabs. The kinship reports, reviewed in March, found the unknown profile consistent with a child of Schooley's parent; one lab put that at least 4.8 million times more likely than the alternative. Prosecutors concluded there was probable cause that Schooley was the source of the DNA in both cases, and said he would be charged with both murders if he were alive. News reports said he died by suicide.

In Magnolia, a gazebo in Albertson Park is dedicated to Jennifer Persia's memory. "It was very unexpected," said Melody Beth Welsh, Marebeth's daughter. "But grateful for all their hard work."

Schooley died in 2000, was never arrested or charged, and cannot be tried; the finding that he was the source of the DNA in both cases is the prosecutors' probable-cause conclusion, not a court's verdict. The investigative details come from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office's probable cause statement of April 9, 2026.

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