GREAT FALLS — The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office has closed out what they believe may be the oldest "cold case" in the country after more than 65 years.
Through the use of forensic genetic genealogy, they say Kenneth Gould is the most likely suspect in the rape and murder of Patty Kalitzke and the murder of her 18-year-old boyfriend Duane Bogle in Great Falls in early 1956.
On the evening of Jan. 2, Kalitzke -- who was a junior at Great Falls High School, and Bogle, a Malmstrom airman -- ventured to a spot west of Great Falls near Wadsworth Park along the Sun River.
The next day, three kids found Bogle’s dead body, with a gunshot wound to the head, face down next to his vehicle.
The following day, a county road worker spotted what was identified as the body of Kalitzke about five miles away to the north on Vinyard Road near what is known as Hill 57. She had also been shot in the head.
The investigation revealed semen in her body, indicating she had been raped.
Beginning in 2012, Sergeant Jon Kadner led the investigation to solve the murders.
Through DNA testing, he was able to eliminate several rape suspects, including notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger who had actually been in the area and had been arrested for rape in 1951.
Another suspect whose DNA didn’t match was Edward Wayne Edwards, who was arrested for burglary in Montana in 1956 and served time at the Montana State Prison.
Edwards, the subject of a book by former Great Falls Police Detective John Cameron, was linked to "Lover's Lane murders" in Ohio and Wisconsin.
In 2019, through a company called Bode Technology, detectives began coordinating to have more testing done on the semen collected from Patty’s body.
The process tested and uploaded DNA from unknown sources.
Three people were found to be genetically compatible, and included in that trio was a link to Gould. Although Gould died in 2007 and his body was cremated, his children consented to submit DNA samples resulting in a match.
At the time of the murders, Gould lived about a mile from Patty and worked corralling horses just blocks from her residence on the southwest side of Great Falls.
Gould had no known criminal history before or after the killings. During interviews, family members said they had no idea of any criminal behavior on his part.
Just over a month after the killings, Gould sold the family property and moved to Tracy southeast of Great Falls, and in July he and his family were living in Geraldine. They lived in Hamilton from 1958 until 1967 when they moved to Alton, Missouri.
