July 25, 1995. Lincoln, Nebraska. 18-year-old university student Tina

McMahon, they also show up for a shift at work and her body is found inside her apartment

bedroom later that night. Tina has been sexually assaulted and stabbed seven times and the

apartment is ransacked. Nearly one year later, DNA testing links a suspect named Gregory

Gabel, who a strand of hair found in Tina's hand and he is subsequently charged with her

murder. However, before Gabel can go to trial, a second round of DNA testing excludes him

from being the source of the hair so the charges against him are dismissed and Tina's murder

is never solved. After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host

Robin Warder and today we're going to be covering a cold case from Nebraska, the 1995

murder of Tina McMahon. This story involves the brutal death of a university student and

was originally suggested to me over a year ago by a listener named Samantha. Back when

I did my Q&A episode at the end of 2020, I was asked a question about whether there were

any states where I had not yet covered a case on the trail went cold and since Nebraska

was one of them, I thought now would be an ideal time to do this episode. Now this is one

of the more unusual murder cases I've ever done because it features a suspect being

simultaneously implicated and cleared by DNA testing. When Tina McMahon's body was found,

he had a strand of hair clutched in her hand which likely belonged to her killer and

the hair's DNA would eventually be matched to a man named Gregory Gabel. This might seem

like an open and shot case, but DNA testing in the 1990s was nowhere near a sophisticated

as it is today. When a second round of DNA testing was performed on the hair, it actually

excluded Gabel so the authorities no longer believed they could bring him to trial for

...