After 40 Years, Can Dian Fossey’s Murder Be Solved?

Forty years after the horrendous murder of trailblazing primatologist Dian Fossey, her killer remains a mystery.

Fossey—an American zoologist and former occupational therapist who dedicated her life to gorilla research and conservation—was 53 years old when she was slaughtered by an unknown attacker wielding a machete at her cabin at the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda, where she had worked for 18 years. Her body was found there on December 27, 1985.

Fossey was buried in the graveyard behind her cabin at Karisoke alongside the gorillas she loved, including close companion Digit, who was killed by poachers in 1977.

Her murder has never officially been solved, but her legacy lives on, as seen in the 1988 movie Gorillas in the Mist starring Sigourney Weaver, an adaptation of Fossey's book of the same name.

There was evidence of forced entry in Fossey’s murder but no signs that robbery had been the motive.

Although Ph.D. candidate and colleague Wayne McGuire was convicted in her slaying and sentenced to death by hanging in absentia by a Rwandan tribunal, he escaped back to the United States in July 1986 before he could be prosecuted, according to the BBC, and there is no extradition treaty between the United States and Rwanda. Authorities alleged McGuire was driven to kill so that he could get his hands on Fossey’s research. He denied any involvement, claiming to The Oklahoman that investigators used him as a "sacrificial lamb."

Emmanuel Rwerekana, a fellow worker at the research center, was accused of being McGuire’s accomplice and was also charged with Fossey’s murder, but he hung himself in his jail cell in August 1986 before he could be tried, the Rwandan government said, according to The New York Times.

In 2001, businessman Protais Zigiranyirazo, the brother-in-law of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, was arrested on suspicion of ordering Fossey’s murder. Zigiranyirazo was sentenced in December 2008 to 20 years in prison for organizing the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. However, the ICTR Appeals Chamber reversed his convictions the next year, and he was acquitted.

Despite the allegations of local authorities, it’s been widely speculated that the activist was targeted by the poaching community over her fervid anti-poaching stance.

“My guess is it’s probably some type of disagreement, an altercation murder, a quarrel in the heat of passion,” Joe Kennedy, retired NCIS agent and cold case expert, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “I don’t think this was a planned event.”

It was no secret that Fossey led an aggressive crusade against poachers who targeted her beloved gorillas and that she had made several enemies in the Virunga Mountains during the 20 years she called Rwanda home. She ordered the burnings of poachers’ properties and placed bounties on their heads, The Guardian reported. She also rallied against tourism in wildlife habitats.

“I think she had disagreements with some folks over there, so I’m seeing this as being a sudden quarrel that led to her demise,” Kennedy speculates.

People claimed Fossey had become isolated and disgruntled in the time leading up to her murder, according to HISTORY.com. “Her assignment was in isolation. She's out there with primates, not humans—that takes a toll on you. So that may lead to impulsivity,” Kennedy says of Fossey’s alleged behavior.

Solving Fossey’s decades-old murder depends on a number of factors, but one of the biggest obstacles, Kennedy asks rhetorically: “What is left?”

Kennedy says the solvability of the case relies heavily on the state of the case file and how well evidence has been kept over the past 40 years.

“If they maintained her clothing right, we could process that for trace DNA,” he says of advancements in investigative technology, adding that if the machete remains untainted, “it's very possible for us to reprocess it and get an epithelial cell or skin cell.”

Modern latent fingerprint analysis could also be key to identifying the killer.

But, if standard law enforcement procedures were not in place at the time of the murder, that may add a level of perplexity to the case.

“There's only three ways to solve a murder: We have to have physical evidence, we have to have witnesses or we have to get our suspect to confess,” he continues. “When people commit murder, it has a profound effect on them, not only mentally, but physically. One of the coping mechanisms is that they will tell someone they did it— whether that's a week, a month or a year later. They also try to cope with alcohol and drug use. You'll see these folks are also impacted in terms of maintaining normal relationships with others, maintaining regular employment, and they tend to move residences a lot.”

With the amount of time that’s passed, however, Kennedy confesses the chances of holding the guilty party accountable for Fossey’s slaying has significantly dwindled.

“The older the case, the harder it is to solve,” he admits. “Witnesses die; evidence is lost.”