Police search for more potential victims after suspect linked to 2 Michigan cold case murders
(FOX 2) - Investigators are looking into whether a suspect in two Michigan murders in the 1980s is linked to more crimes.
Last year, DNA connected Charles David Shaw, who is now dead, to the 1983 murder of 19-year-old Christina Castiglione. That DNA then helped tie him to another murder that happened a year prior.
Castiglione was found dead in the Oak Grove State Game Area in Livingston County's Deerfield Township on March 29, 1983, eight days after she was reported missing out of Redford Township.
DNA leads investigators to now-dead suspect 40 years after Michigan murder
DNA was used to link a Livonia man to a 1983 Livingston County murder four decades after a woman was found dead in a wooded area.
Advancements in DNA led investigators to Shaw. His identification was confirmed by three separate familial DNA comparison tests because he was dead by the time the case was reopened.
This DNA was entered into CODIS.
At the same time, investigators were working Castiglione's case, police and Michigan State University criminal justice students were reviewing the murder of Kimberly Louiselle. The 16-year-old South Lyon girl was found dead off a wooded trail in the Island Lake Recreation Area in Green Oak Township on April 14, 1982, a few weeks after she disappeared in Livonia.
In June 2023, the MSP Forensic Science Division located DNA on evidence resubmitted in Louiselle’s case. The sample was entered into CODIS and matched DNA in the Castiglione case, linking Shaw to physical evidence recovered from Louiselle.
Oakland County murder solved after police, Michigan State students link DNA from another cold case
A now-dead suspect has been connected to two Southeast Michigan murder cases that were cold for 40 years. DNA linked Charles David Shaw to a Livingston County murder and an Oakland County murder.
Shaw's family told investigators that he was a sex addict with a disturbing life who struggled with mental illness and his gender identity. He had several interactions with police that started at a young age, including an arrest in 1981 for the attempted abduction of a woman in the Fowlerville McDonald's parking lot.
Now, police are working to determine whether Shaw was responsible for other crimes between the early 1970s and when he died in November 1983.
Anyone with information is asked to contact MSP D/Sgt. Larry Rothman at 313-407-9379.