Family demands DNA testing after daughter mysteriously killed in her home, fears suspect still on loose
Megan Drumhiller, a 31-year-old Michigan woman, had just returned home after spending three weeks with family for the holidays when she was found dead on Jan. 28, 2022.
More than two years later, her homicide case has seen little movement, and Drumhiller’s parents are offering a $100,000 reward for any information that could lead to an arrest.
“Megan was very open with us. We had access to everything — passwords, her medical records, her credit card statements, her telephone, her phone records,” her mother, Lynette Drumhiller, told Fox News Digital. “[Authorities] had so much within 24 hours. I was so naive.… I really believed there would be an arrest within days.”
The family is still waiting for crucial items collected from the crime scene in Drumhiller’s Carrollton Township home to be processed for any DNA evidence.
The 31-year-old died of asphyxiation, a spokesperson for the family told Fox News Digital.
Drumhiller’s parents believe her suspected killer or killers could be walking freely among civilians.
The case has presented one issue after another.
First, the Carrollton Township Police Department and Michigan State Police, which took over the investigation hours after first responders arrived, failed to interview all possible eyewitnesses and look into all possible camera evidence directly after Drumhiller was found dead, her parents said.
Then, the lead detective on the case apparently worked remotely “four or five months” into the case due to COVID-19, rarely visiting the crime scene in person, the family said.
At one point, police called the Drumhillers to mistakenly report a second woman’s DNA discovered at the crime scene.
“There was a misdiagnosis made along the way, and there was a period in which they told us there was unknown female DNA at the scene,” Tim Drumhiller said. “And it was such a major event that we got calls from the detective, we got calls from everybody involved, and they told us it appears as though that another female was involved in this crime.… And we went into shock.”
Later on, a detective called and apologized to the family, telling them that the DNA was not, in fact, a second female’s but Drumhiller’s DNA that had not immediately been isolated.
The Saginaw County Sheriff’s Office is currently the lead agency on the case.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Carrollton Township Police Department and the sheriff’s office for comment.
The Michigan State Police (MSP) said its “Crime Lab and detectives were asked to assist Carrollton Township Police with the Drumhiller homicide investigation,” and the agency is “confident there was no mishandling of evidence.”
The Drumhillers’ biggest concern is finding out what happened to their daughter, but another concern is their belief that other families of homicide victims could be experiencing similar difficulties with solving cases.
“Things like this are happening on a national level,” Tim Drumhiller said, noting that the U.S. homicide clearance rate stands at less than 50%, according to the FBI. “But frankly, when it’s happening to you, that’s all you care about.… At times, it has felt like the deck was stacked specifically against us.”
Lynette Drumhiller said it feels like she is “nagging or bothering” authorities at times.
“But this is our daughter,” she said.
Drumhiller was a lighthearted, quirky, intelligent woman who loved to dance and write, her parents previously told Fox News Digital.
She worked in retail at the time of her death and lived in a somewhat rural area in a neighborhood with lots of families.
Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Office Hotline at 989-790-5423 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-422-JAIL.
