Single strand of hair helps solve 25-year-old homicide in Orange County, N.Y.

A single strand of hair helped police solve a 25-year-old homicide in Orange County.

Nancy Smith was savagely murdered at the New Windsor home she had just purchased back in 2001. Despite a massive investigation, every lead came to a dead end.

"We never stopped pursuing evidence in this case," New Windsor Police Chief Dan Valeri said.

Valeri said in 2023, investigators submitted a single hair found on the victim for new state-of-the-art DNA analysis. It eventually led them to Robert Young, who knew Smith through a Hudson Valley music venue called The Chance.

Police tracked Young, now 58, to Myrtle Beach and interviewed him in April of this year. Days later, Young died by suicide.

"Substantial evidence was developed identifying this individual as the primary person responsible for Nancy Smith's death," Valeri said.

"Her killer, when confronted with the fact that he would be arrested for her murder ... took his own life, obviously unable to face what would lie ahead for him," said Smith's sister Barbara Stolfe.

Police still don't have a motive.

Smith's heartbroken parents died within weeks of each other in 2024. Her sister said it's bittersweet they didn't live to see this day.

"While I remember my sister with her beautiful smile, my parents' last image of their child was covered in blankets, dead on her living room floor," Stolfe said.

Three generations of this family were left to cope with the loss. Smith's nephew was 2 years old when his aunt was murdered.

"We'd go to my mom's house. [He'd ask,] 'Why isn't Naynay here? She doesn't love us anymore?'" Stolfe said. "What do you tell a 2-year-old? I told him that a monster took Naynay away."

The family said they are grateful for the relentless search for answers.