In June of 2008 Cecil Zachary, Jr., a paraplegic veteran, was found bludgeoned to death in his home. It took 17 years, until February of 2025, for officials to be able to identify and arrest the killer, Jeffrey Roberson. The murder weapon was a wooden log (similar to the one pictured,) which was swabbed but that only yielded a partial profile. It was later M-Vacced which provided a meaningful profile and led to the defendant being apprehended and brought to trial. He was convicted in August 2026. It is another example of a case with evidence with an unusual substrate that didn't yield a sufficient amount of DNA until the M-Vac® was used.
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