Wisconsin senior gets 10 years for 1986 killing, county’s oldest unsolved case

A Racine man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for the 1986 killing of a young woman whose body was found in a swamp at a Green Bay nature area.

Lou A. Griffin, 67, pleaded no contest Jan. 27 in Brown County Circuit Court to a charge of homicide by reckless conduct, and a judge found him guilty.

Griffin originally was charged in October 2020 with first-degree intentional homicide in Lisa Holstead’s killing. Her body was found in August 1986.

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Holstead’s slaying had been Brown County’s oldest unsolved murder case.

Investigators said that at the time of her killing Griffin lived within a few miles of where her body was found.

Griffin was identified as a suspect in Holstead’s slaying after Green Bay police sent DNA evidence found on her body to a company that performs forensic genetic genealogy testing. That testing provided information on the suspect’s heritage and possible relatives.

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Griffin was eventually placed under police surveillance and DNA that was collected from cigarettes and beer cans he had discarded matched the DNA collected in the murder case, police said.

Griffin told investigators he might have had sex with Holstead but denied killing her, police said.