Friends waited nearly five years for an arrest before preserved DNA and a discarded cigarette led police to Edwin Newlander.
TACOMA, Wash. — For nearly five years after Kalyn “Penny” Smith was found dead beside an East Tacoma roadway, the people who knew her had no public answer about who might have killed her. The September arrest of Edwin Lee Newlander finally gave them a suspect, but not an end to the case.
Smith was 30 when police found her body in a ditch near McKinley Park on Oct. 12, 2021. Investigators preserved male DNA recovered from her fingernails, but the evidence did not immediately identify anyone. The case stayed unresolved until developments in later sexual-assault investigations led detectives back to the profile. Police say DNA from a cigarette Newlander discarded during a June 2026 traffic stop ultimately connected him to the genetic evidence. Newlander has denied harming Smith, and a court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
For Smith’s longtime friend Destiny Fann, the arrest carried emotions that did not fit neatly into a single reaction. Speaking with KIRO 7 after Newlander appeared in court, Fann said part of her felt happy that someone had finally been arrested while another part felt angry. She said she and Smith had known each other since they were 13 and had helped one another through difficult stretches of their lives. Her account shifted the focus from DNA profiles and court filings to the person at the center of the case, a woman whose friends had spent years living without a resolution.
The investigation began early on a Tuesday morning. Police were called to the 3100 block of East M Street at about 7:30 a.m. after a body was reported beside the road. According to court records described by local and national news organizations, a witness had seen a dark SUV and encountered a driver who pointed out that someone was lying nearby before driving away. Darkness prevented the witness from giving police a detailed description. The Pierce County Medical Examiner later identified Smith and determined that she died from asphyxia caused by compression of her neck.
What investigators could preserve from the scene became more important than what witnesses could describe. Fingernail clippings from Smith contained male DNA mixed with other genetic material. Detectives submitted the profile through CODIS, the national DNA database system used by forensic laboratories, but no identifying match emerged at the time. Court records later indicated that more than one DNA contributor may have been present. Police had evidence of contact, but they did not yet have a name that could turn the genetic material into a suspect.
The breakthrough did not begin with a new examination of Smith’s case. Instead, it emerged from the investigation of another woman’s report years later. In December 2025, a woman identified in court records as J.H. reported being sexually assaulted and underwent an examination. Investigators said DNA connected with that case matched the genetic evidence recovered from Smith. The same profile also had an association with evidence from a separate rape investigation opened after another woman reported an assault in October 2019. The cases were separated by years, but forensic evidence gave detectives a reason to consider them together.
Months later, J.H. gave investigators information that moved the inquiry beyond an anonymous DNA profile. During a May 2026 interview, she identified one alleged attacker by the first name “Ed” and provided a physical description. Court documents say investigators believed the description matched Newlander, then 59. Police still needed evidence that could associate Newlander himself with the genetic profile, but for the first time they had a person whose name and appearance could be checked against the forensic links among the three investigations.
J.H. did not live to see the September arrest. She was found dead at a gas station on June 9, 2026. Authorities determined that her death was caused by an overdose. Court records cited in news reports said surveillance video showed a pickup truck associated with Newlander in the parking lot within about an hour of her death, but the available reports do not allege that he caused the overdose. Her death nevertheless meant that another woman whose account had helped move the Smith investigation forward was gone before prosecutors brought the homicide case to court.
Police obtained their comparison sample a week later. On June 16, officers stopped Newlander while he was driving. Authorities said he discarded a cigarette, which officers recovered and submitted for DNA testing. The Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory reported that DNA from the cigarette was linked to genetic evidence in Smith’s homicide and the two sexual-assault investigations. The discarded item transformed the investigation because police could now associate the recurring forensic profile with a known person, according to the court records and news reports describing the case.
Detectives interviewed Newlander on Sept. 2. His statements placed him with Smith before her death, according to investigators, although he denied killing or injuring her. Police said he first described picking up a woman he believed was Smith and claimed she attacked him before leaving his vehicle. Investigators said he later gave another account in which he acknowledged spending time with Smith on multiple occasions and said he drove her toward McKinley Park on the night she died. Detectives also said he described clothing consistent with what Smith was wearing when she was found. Newlander maintained that he had not harmed her.
The competing accounts will matter only to the extent prosecutors can establish their reliability and legal significance in court. A criminal charge is an accusation, and the prosecution bears the burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt. DNA can establish an association between biological material and a person, but its meaning depends on where the material was found, how it could have been transferred, whether mixtures were present and what other evidence establishes the timing and circumstances of contact. Newlander’s reported acknowledgment that he knew or encountered Smith may also shape how each side explains the genetic evidence.
There is a notable discrepancy in published descriptions of the charges. Several national reports, including Law&Crime and The New York Times, described Newlander as charged with second-degree murder and said the two rape cases remained under investigation. A Tacoma News Tribune report republished by AOL said his arraignment involved one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree rape and one count of first-degree kidnapping. The same report later stated that he had not been charged in the rape cases, creating an internal tension in the public reporting. It said a court commissioner entered a not guilty plea for Newlander and set bail at $1 million.
For Smith’s friends, those procedural questions are part of a process that began long after their personal loss. Fann remembered Smith as someone with whom she shared years of history, not as a set of initials in a probable cause statement. That distinction matters in a case whose public narrative has largely centered on forensic science. Investigators may have reached Newlander through a chain of DNA comparisons, but the reason those comparisons mattered was a homicide victim whose death had remained unresolved while the evidence collected from her was preserved.
The arrest also did not erase the years between Smith’s death and the filing of charges. During that period, the DNA from her fingernails existed without an identified suspect. A later rape investigation supplied a matching profile. J.H.’s account supplied a possible name. A traffic stop supplied a cigarette. Police said the laboratory result then provided the direct comparison they needed. Seen from Smith’s family and friends rather than from the laboratory, the same sequence is a nearly five-year wait in which a case that once had no named suspect slowly acquired one.
No final disposition of Newlander’s case was established in the sources reviewed through Oct. 20. He remains presumed innocent unless proved guilty in court, and the allegations tied to the separate sexual-assault investigations must be judged independently under the evidence and charges actually before the court. For those who knew Smith as Penny, the arrest marked a major change in the case, but the legal answer they waited years to reach has not yet become a verdict.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 20, 2026.