He approached the man leaning against a building on the 4200 block of University Way Northwest in Seattle, Washington.

To anyone casually glancing over at the interaction, it would have appeared random, inconsequential.

Nothing to note. It was an area known for criminal activity, but this was benign, just a simple cigarette and chewing gum survey.

Any takers would earn $5 for their participation.

Except the survey had all for their

except the survey had ulterior motives and the man armed with the three packs of cigarettes and three packs of gum

didn't work for any distributor of the two products. He was a

plainclothes detective executing a creative plan to collect the evidence

authorities needed to close out an unsolved main homicide from 35 years in the past.

He only hoped that the sole participant in the survey was game to make five bucks.

The murder of 70-year-old Augusta resident Blanch Kimball in 1976

remained a cold case for decades until a new tip, new DNA technology, and a clever

idea brought all the loose ends together.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Blanch Kimble on Dark Down East. The 70 year old Blanche Kimble lived in Augusta, Maine in 1976.

She was three years retired from her job at Togas Veterans Administration Center, where she worked as a dental technician and practical

nurse. Much of Blanch's life is a mystery. She was born in Albany, Maine, to her parents Elliot and Fanny Bell.

Blanch never married and had no children.

I get the sense that Blanch had a small family, a sibling who passed away in 1916, a half-sister born when Blanch was 10 years old,

and two aunts with a handful of cousins who lived out of state as of the 1970s.

Glanche lived on State Street in Augusta, a stretch that is now lined with gas stations and

car dealerships and a few apartment buildings on either side of the four-lane road.

The Kennebeck Journal described Blanche Kimball's home as a large two-floor wooden frame

...