The investigation into a 47-year-old double murder cold case involving a Sanford woman may be heating up again thanks to new technology.
Patricia Mann, a Sanford native, and Jesse McBane, her boyfriend at the time, were brutally murdered on the night of Feb. 12, 1971, in a rural area near the Durham-Orange County line. At the time, Mann, 20, was a nursing student in Durham and McBane, 19, was studying at N.C. State.
Little is known about the killer, but that may change soon. A new technique for analyzing evidence may allow investigators to get the killer’s DNA from ropes that were used to tie up the victims.
The break in the case comes just weeks after technological advances allowed investigators to use DNA evidence to track down the Golden State Killer, who had raped more than 50 women and killed 12 in the 1970s and 1980s in California.
The murder may have been James A. Stone of Lee County