Arrest and court appearance
Officers took Tibbett into custody Wednesday while executing a search warrant at his home in Spokane's Whitman neighborhood. Public records indicate he had lived there for nearly 30 years. He remained in custody on $1 million bond, with another court appearance scheduled for October 27.
The Spokane Police Department announced the second-degree murder charge in an October 21, 2026 news release. At Thursday's hearing, Court Commissioner Eugene Cruz also examined Tibbett's prior criminal record.
"And this is from the 1971 arrest... as a sexual psychopath," Cruz said. Court records date the arrest to 1970 and list charges including assault and attempted rape. The case was subsequently amended to one count of second-degree assault. Tibbett was committed to Western State Hospital for treatment and received a sentence of up to 10 years.
From fingernail evidence to a returned envelope
The recent breakthrough began with evidence collected from the fingernails of Turner's left hand. Investigators submitted it to Othram for forensic genetic genealogy in September 2025. Results delivered on January 13, 2026 identified Tibbett and his two deceased brothers as possible sources of the DNA.
Othram, a Texas laboratory, uses DNA sequencing to analyze degraded samples. Spokane police had worked with the company before: In November 2021, they announced that they had solved the 1959 rape and murder of 9-year-old Candy Rogers.
To obtain a comparison sample without approaching Tibbett directly, detectives turned to an unrelated stolen vehicle case. Police said they mailed him a self-addressed stamped envelope on February 4, 2026, with a request to confirm that his recovered vehicle was no longer stolen.
Court records say the envelope came back sealed on February 12 and was submitted to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory for testing. Cruz described the collection method during the hearing: "Apparently the assigned detective to this case... under a ruse apparently was able to obtain a DNA sample from a self-addressed stamped envelope that was sealed and returned to the Spokane Police Department."
A laboratory report dated March 11, 2026 compared two possible explanations for the fingernail evidence. It found the DNA profile obtained from the envelope was 4.3 million times more likely if Turner and Tibbett had contributed to the fingernail sample than if the contributors were Turner and an unrelated person. Police said that comparison supplied the support investigators needed to make the arrest.
The investigation's early leads
Turner, 32, was found dead on November 4, 1986, in Spokane's East Central neighborhood. Her body lay in an alley south of 110 South Ivory. According to court records, she was partially nude, there were signs of a struggle, and investigators believed a scarf around her neck had been used to kill her. An autopsy classified the death as a homicide caused by asphyxia from neck compression.
Witness accounts gathered that November placed Turner getting into a bronze-colored, two-door car near First Avenue and Magnolia Street before her death. Detectives also received tips about a man subsequently identified as Tibbett and a bronze Ford Elite registered to him.
Those leads did not produce an arrest at the time. Investigators continued interviewing witnesses and pursuing information over the years, but lacked DNA evidence identifying a suspect. Tibbett's arrest this week was the first in the case.
Turner's life and family
A 2023 profile in The Spokesman-Review reported that Turner was looking for her runaway daughter, 16-year-old Manieka, when she was killed. Manieka was later found in Seattle and attended her mother's funeral. Turner's body was flown to Sacramento, California, for burial.
The profile also described Turner's childhood in California. She entered foster care at 11 after her mother had a mental breakdown. A year later, her father died after being struck by a train.
Other unsolved killings in Spokane
Turner's case was among the unsolved deaths of 18 women dating back to 1984 that a Spokane task force examined in 1998, according to the 2023 Spokesman-Review profile.
The newspaper reported that her killing followed the deaths of two other Spokane sex workers in the 1980s, Debbi Finnern and Ruby Doss. DNA evidence tied former Pasco police officer Richard Aguirre to Doss's killing. He was convicted in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 25 years in prison. No arrest has been made in Finnern's 1984 stabbing death.
