ILLINOIS 1993 Cold Case Solved – A Dark Pickup Held the Clue for 33 Years 

Tonight, a three decades old cold case is solved in Madison County, Illinois. Investigators say new DNA technology helped track down a murder suspect. So, they announced charges today. The victim’s son says he spent nearly 33 years wondering who killed his mother. And Megan Kernan joins us in studio with reaction.

 On the evening of November 9th, 1993, several people saw a woman walking through Granite City, Illinois. At around 8:00 that night, one witness saw her get into an older dark-coled pickup truck. The truck headed along Rock Road toward Route 3. After that, there were no more confirmed sightings of her.

 Less than 4 hours later, at around 11:45 p.m., property owners in a rural area outside Granite City contacted the Madison County Sheriff’s Office. A woman had been found in a field near Hanfelder Lane. She had suffered severe blunt force injuries. By the following day, authorities knew who she was. What they did not know was who had been driving the pickup she entered only hours before she was found.

 For more than 30 years, that question remained unanswered. Then, investigators returned to evidence preserved from 1993 using forensic methods that had not existed when the original investigation began. An unidentified male DNA profile that had failed to produce a match for decades could now be approached in a different way.

 Eventually, investigators were led to a man whose name had apparently never been at the center of the original investigation. So, why had the DNA failed to identify anyone for so long? What finally led investigators to a specific man more than three decades later? And what happened when detectives finally sat down with him? But before we go back to that November night, subscribe to Root of Crime, where we follow cold cases from the moment they begin to the evidence and investigative work that finally bring answers.

 At the center of this case was Randy Gale Spirino. Randy had been born and raised in Granite City, and by 1993, she was a mother and a grandmother. Her son Wesley, known as Wes, was 15 years old when she was killed. The public record says little about Ry’s everyday life. It does not give a complete picture of her work or routines, but Wes has shared a few memories of the relationship he had with his mother.

 He remembered waking up as a child and seeing Randy quietly watching him sleep. Not long before her death, he told her that when he turned 18, he wanted to come and live with her for a while. At 15, that plan was only a few years away. He never got the chance to carry it out. In November 1993, Randy was back in Granite City visiting her father.

 On Tuesday, November 9th, several people saw her moving through the area on foot, and their accounts allowed investigators to reconstruct at least part of her final known movements. Randy was seen walking from the downtown area across the overpass and into West Granite. As the evening went on, that trail narrowed. By around 800 PM, investigators were left with what would become the last confirmed sighting of Randy alive.

 A witness saw her get into an older darkcoled pickup truck. The witness saw the pickup leave along Rock Road in the direction of Route 3. After that, Randy was not seen again. Less than four hours later, the investigation was no longer about where she had gone. It was about who had killed her. At around 11:45 that night, property owners in a rural area outside Granite City contacted the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

 They had discovered a woman in a field near Hanfelder Lane. Randy had suffered severe blunt force injuries. By the following day, authorities identified her as Randy Gale Spirino. Only a few hours separated Ry’s last confirmed sighting from the discovery of her body. Detectives knew where she had been walking, had a description of the pickup she entered, and knew the general direction it traveled.

 What they did not have was the identity of the driver, or a clear account of what happened after Randy disappeared from public view. Investigators began working outward from the people, places, and movements they could verify. They interviewed witnesses and examined the area where Randy had been found.

 They also looked for anyone who might have seen the pickup or known who had been with her that night. Over time, hundreds of people would be interviewed in connection with the case. The witness accounts and truck description were important, but investigators also had something that would become even more significant as forensic science advanced.

 Biological evidence recovered during the investigation contained the DNA profile of an unknown man. As DNA testing improved, investigators could compare that profile against people they considered relevant to the case. But those comparisons eliminated possibilities without identifying the man.

 By the late 1990s, the profile could also be searched through Kodis, the national law enforcement DNA database. If the unknown man was already represented in the system, investigators might finally get a name. They kept checking. No match came back. Cotus could only help if the right profile was already in the database. So the years continued to pass.

 The file moved from one investigator to another. Leads were revisited. People who had once been easy to locate became harder to find. Some witnesses from the original investigation did not live long enough to see where the case would eventually go. That included the person believed to have been the last witness to see Randy alive.

 Years later, Sheriff Jeff Connor learned that the witness who had seen Randy get into the dark pickup was one of his own relatives. The connection added a personal dimension to a case Connor had already known for decades. He had been working as a Granite City detective when Randy was killed in 1993. Although he was not assigned directly to her investigation, Connor remembered passing information along to the detectives who were handling the case.

Decades later, he would return to the same investigation from a very different position. By then, Ry’s case had been open for more than 20 years, and Wes had grown up with it. Still, no one had been charged. As the case grew older, Connor began paying closer attention to forensic methods being used in other cold cases.

 By the late 2010s, he was looking into approaches that had not been available when Randy was killed. He also stayed in contact with Wes. The investigation still did not have a name, but the evidence preserved since 1993 could now be approached differently. In May 2025, investigators sent evidence from Ry’s case to Aram, a forensic laboratory in Texas that specializes in difficult DNA samples and long unsolved cases.

 This was different from simply running the same profile through COTUS. Again, investigators wanted a DNA profile suitable for forensic genetic genealogy, a method that could lead them through genetic relatives, even if the unknown man himself had never appeared in a law enforcement database. Aram was able to develop a comprehensive SIT profile from the preserved evidence.

 The genealogy work generated new family leads and investigators began working through those names alongside what they already knew about Ry’s case. Eventually, one name drew their attention. Albert Lee, Buddy Ziggler. Ziggler’s name had not surfaced publicly as a focus of the original 1993 investigation.

 Once detectives began looking at him, they went back through the old case with his name in mind, and details investigators had carried for more than 30 years began to take on new significance. Prosecutors later pointed to several of them. They said Ziggler had lived close to the area where Randy was last seen and had also lived near the place where her body was found.

 They also said he had a pickup truck similar to the older dark-coled vehicle a witness had seen Randy enter on the night she disappeared. For the first time, the old truck description could be compared with a specific person. The locations, the pickup, and the genealogy lead gave detectives reasons to investigate Ziggler, but none of those things by themselves proved he had killed Randy.

 Investigators still needed direct evidence connecting him to the biological profile preserved from the case. They also had to work through an enormous investigative record. Over more than three decades, Ry’s case had accumulated reports, handwritten notes, witness statements, recorded interviews, and other investigative material.

 More than 2,000 pages in all. The Madison County Sheriff’s Office began using a system called Centerline AI to help organize and search that material. The technology did not identify Ziggler, and it did not replace the genealogy or DNA evidence. Its role was narrower. Investigators could use it to search old reports more quickly, rebuild timelines, compare witness information, and locate details buried in records created decades apart.

 Detectives still had to verify anything the system helped them find. By early 2026, investigators had a specific man whose background could be compared against evidence preserved since 1993. The next step was to approach him directly. In April 2026, detectives questioned Ziggler and sought a DNA sample. The circumstances of those encounters later became disputed.

According to his defense attorney, Ziggler was in a hospital recovering from a serious heart attack when investigators first approached him. The defense later questioned whether Ziggler fully understood what investigators were asking and raised concerns about the circumstances of the questioning. At a later detention hearing, prosecutors described what they say happened next.

They said investigators spoke with Ziggler more than once and that he initially denied knowing Randy Spirino. He also denied killing her. Detectives eventually left him with a telephone number. Several days later, according to prosecutors, Ziggler contacted investigators again. According to prosecutors, the conversation was different this time.

 Prosecutors alleged that Ziggler admitted he had picked Randy up while she was walking that night in 1993. They further alleged that he described an encounter that ended with Randy being struck repeatedly and left in the field where she was later found. That is the prosecution’s account and it has not been tested at trial.

 His alleged statement was significant, but investigators still needed forensic confirmation. According to prosecutors, a direct DNA comparison provided it. They say Ziggler’s DNA matched the unidentified male profile preserved from the biological evidence in Ry’s case. The genealogy had pointed detectives toward Ziggler, and prosecutors say the direct comparison then tied his DNA to evidence preserved after Ry’s murder.

 By May 2026, investigators believe they had enough to move toward an arrest. Their case now included the old pickup description, Ziggler’s connection to the area, the DNA comparison, and what prosecutors described as his admission. On May 21st, 2026, Albert Lee Buddy Ziggler was arrested. The following day, Madison County prosecutors filed two counts of firstdegree murder against him in connection with Randy Spirino’s death.

 It was the first time since 1993 that anyone had been formally accused of killing her. For Wes, who had spent most of his life watching the case pass through generations of investigators, the moment was deeply personal. Sheriff Jeff Connor had kept in contact with him over the years, assuring him that the investigation had not been forgotten.

More than three decades after Randy was killed, Wes received the call he had once wondered if he would ever get. He later remembered hearing the words, “We got him!” Wes said the news overwhelmed him. He and his wife Wendy traveled from California to Illinois as investigators prepared to announce the arrest publicly.

 On May 26, Sheriff Connor stood alongside members of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office and State’s Attorney Thomas Hayne. Together, they explained how the investigation had finally reached Ziggler. Wes was there as well. For most of his life, his mother’s case had been an unsolved homicide. Now, investigators were standing before the public with the name of the man they believed was responsible.

 But an arrest was not the end of the case. The next morning, Wes would see the man accused of killing his mother inside a courtroom. On May 27th, 2026, Ziggler appeared before Associate Judge John Hackett for a pre-trial detention hearing. Wes and other members of Ry’s family were in the courtroom. Wes later said it was emotional to see the man prosecutors accused of killing his mother, but he said he managed to hold himself together as the hearing went forward.

Prosecutors summarized the evidence they said connected Ziggler to the case, including the DNA comparison and what they described as his eventual admission. After initially denying that he knew Randy, the defense pushed back. Ziggler’s attorney again raised concerns about the circumstances of the questioning, including the fact that investigators had approached him while he was recovering from a heart attack.

The defense also pointed to Ziggler’s health, citing heart problems, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia, and his attorney argued that he should not remain in jail before trial. Judge Hackett rejected that request. Ziggler was ordered to remain in the Madison County jail while the case moved forward.

 A little more than two weeks later on June 11th, a Madison County grand jury formally indicted him on two counts of firstdegree murder. Both counts concern Ry’s death and reflect different firstdegree murder theories alleged by prosecutors. The indictment does not establish guilt. As of September 1st, 2026, Ziggler has been charged and indicted in Randy Spirino’s death, but he has not been convicted.

The prosecution remains pending. For Wes, the wait had lasted most of his life. He was 15 when his mother was killed. The plan he had made to live with her when he turned 18 never happened. He grew older while the investigation remained open. The dark pickup became an old witness description.  After all these years, nearly 33 years, the crime is finally solved.

 It’s been nearly 33 years since she was taken away from my family. And I never thought that this day would come.  I had tears of joy coming out of my eyes. And I was laughing cuz I couldn’t believe that this is happening.  I’ll finally get closure. my family. I finally know who did this.  The biological evidence became an unidentified DNA profile.

 People connected to the original investigation aged and some died, but the evidence remained long enough for investigators to examine it in ways that had not been available in 1993. By May 2026, Wes was no longer wondering whether anyone would ever be arrested. He was sitting inside a courtroom looking at the man prosecutors now accuse of killing his mother.

 More than three decades after Randy was found in that field outside Granite City, her case is no longer only a cold case file. There is now an accused man before the court. There was the DNA, the genealogy, the dark pickup, the old witness statements, more than 2,000 pages of records. But behind all of it was always the person at the center of the case.

Randy Gail Spirino, a mother, a grandmother, a woman whose family waited more than 30 years for investigators to reach this point. This is the case of Randy Gale Spirino. Until the court decides what comes next, that is where her story stands today. for more carefully researched cold cases where old evidence, new technology, and persistent investigators bring long unsolved cases back into the light.

Subscribe to Root of Crime.