Forty years after his father worked as a detective on the original murder investigation, a police officer has now solved the cold case and arrested the suspected killer.
On November 3 1981, John Blaylock, 51, was found beaten to death in the bedroom of his apartment in Griffith, Indiana.
He was naked from the waist down with blood splattered all over the room, according to court documents seen by Fox56. Broken shards of pottery containing Blaylock’s hair and tissue were by his body and there was traces of blood in other rooms of the home.
The 51-year-old was last seen alive at John’s Place bar, in Griffith, with a witness saying she spotted him standing at the bar with a man, the documents state. The man was described as being aged 20 to 23, around 5 ft 8 tall, with “straggly dirty blonde hair.”
Griffith Detective John Mowery Sr was among the officers working on the original investigation.
But Blaylock’s killer remained a mystery and the case went cold for more than four decades.
Now, 43 years on, Gregory Thurson, now 64, of Eugene, Oregon has been arrested and charged with Blaylock’s murder – thanks to Mowery’s son, Detective John Mowery Jr.
In 2018, Mowery Jr was tasked with reopening the investigation.
He scoured old case files and re-interviewed witnesses as well as detectives who worked on the original case – including his own father, who is now retired, Griffith Indiana Police said in a press release.
Mowery Jr also sent a blood sample from Blaylock’s bathroom for re-examination to a private genetic genealogy company.
Police said they believed the blood “most likely [belonged to the person] responsible for the homicide.”
In 2023, genealogists managed to get a match, whittling down the blood sample to three members of the same family.
One of them was living in a nursing home and died six weeks later, Fox26 reported. Investigators were then able to take a hair sample and eliminate him as a suspect.
A DNA sample was then obtained from the second family member with the help of officers from the Burnham, Illinois Police Department, who pulled him over for a traffic stop and collected a cigarette he discarded.
Testing of the cigarette ruled out him as well – leaving investigators with one suspect.
Thurson was arrested on October 29 and extradited to Lake County to face charges.
He is being held in Lake County Jail. Thurson’s next court date is set for November 20.
