Man charged in cold case of woman stabbed to death in Ramsay in 2007

A 29-year-old man has been arrested in Edmonton and charged in the 13-year-old case of a woman who was stabbed and left dead in a street in the southeast Calgary neighbourhood of Ramsay.

Tara-Anne Landgraf, 37, was found by a passerby at about 5 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2007, in the 2000 block of Burns Avenue S.E.

Landgraf was stabbed to death and police believe she had been sexually assaulted.

Male DNA was identified from forensic evidence at the time, but police did not have a match in the National DNA Data Bank or the Crime Scenes Index, and investigators ran out of leads.

However, Calgary police said in a press release on Monday that advances in forensics — and an ongoing commitment to solve cold-cases — led police to reexamine the case in late 2019.

They identified a potential suspect in September 2020.

He was arrested last Friday and charged with one count of first-degree murder. 

The suspect cannot be publicly identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was 16 when the homicide occurred.

"We never stop in our pursuit of justice for murder victims. As technology advances, we are continuously reviewing unsolved homicides to see how new techniques can be applied to find new leads and bring answers to families of murder victims," Staff Sgt. Colin Chisholm of the Calgary Police Service homicide unit said in a release Monday. 

"Investigators have been in touch with Tara-Anne's loved ones and they are relieved after all this time to have answers in her tragic death."

The suspect will appear in court in Calgary on Feb. 16.