Computer Helps Catch Suspect Fingerprint Match Leads To Arrest In 9-Year-Old Strangulation Case

Nine years after Rochelle English was found strangled in a north Spokane apartment, the alleged killer is behind bars.

A computer match to a fingerprint on a beer can found near her body led authorities to Robert Daniel Clark, 58, of Escondido, Calif. He’s being held in the Grant County Jail on an unrelated probation violation.

This week, Spokane Police obtained an arrest warrant charging Clark with first-degree murder.

“Any time we get leads on any open case, we follow them up to the greatest extent possible,” Police Lt. Jerry Oien said. “We’re just elated.”

English, who had a history of prostitution, was found dead in an apartment at 1221 N. Monroe. That day - April 21, 1987 - she had been seen with a number of people.

Several days after the murder, police started searching for a man in his 30s seen with English at the Sundowner Tavern at Boone and Monroe.

The couple bought beer to go about 3 p.m. Then English, 22, apparently forced the lock of her friends’ apartment, a couple of doors up the street. English had been helping her friends move into the apartment.

Her friends found her body on the floor almost three hours later. She had red marks on her neck and blood on her face. There was no sign of sexual assault.

Nobody at Pepe’s Tavern, formerly the Sundowner Tavern, remembered English on Wednesday.

She was released from jail 10 days before she was killed. She had been serving time for one of two prostitution convictions.

Police told Jim English, her father, about Clark’s arrest on the murder charge Wednesday morning.

“I feel good about that,” said English, who lives in Homer, Alaska. “It’s been about nine years now.”

It’s been about eight years since Spokane County’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System has been up and running. That’s about the same time that Clark was convicted on forgery charges in 1988 in Grant County.

Fingerprints from that case were dumped into the state’s fingerprint database.

The County/City Identification Unit, which runs the fingerprint computer system, is backlogged by about three months on matching prints, said Julie Combs, a senior-ranking identification officer. There’s little time to run matches on old cases, she said.

“We had a little break where we had some time, so we decided to go back and do some older cases,” Combs said. “We’re usually so far behind.”

The computer kicks out 25 possible matches for each fingerprint the department runs. Of those, identification officers have to manually compare fingerprints.

“The computer helps us find a lot of matches we’d never find,” Combs said.

In January, police found a match in English’s case.

Clark was later tracked down in Southern California. Spokane police and the Grant County Sheriff’s Department worked together to bring Clark to the Grant County Jail on a probation violation stemming from the old forgery charge. In that case, he allegedly failed to pay a court-ordered fine and report a change of address.

At the time of his arrest, Clark was living in his truck and working at the Salvation Army in Escondido. He had unloaded trucks for the Salvation Army for about four months before Escondido police walked into the thrift store and arrested him.

Clark held his head down as he left the store.

“He was a nice guy, he tried to be decent,” clerk Rebecca Greene said. “We were shocked.”

Spokane Police detectives have interviewed Clark at the Grant County Jail about English’s death. Based on his statements and evidence from the scene, police obtained the first-degree murder arrest warrant.

Clark will be returned to Spokane when Grant County’s charge against him is settled. He’s scheduled for a probation hearing at 1 p.m. Friday.

, DataTimes