Suspect in cold case killings of Marebeth Welsh and Jennifer Persia identified after yearslong investigation

Pictured are 24-year-old Marebeth Welsh of Woodlynne and 16-year-old Jennifer Persia of Magnolia. (Camden County Prosecutor's Office/KYW via CNN Newsource)

Warning: Graphic Content.

New Jersey (KYW) -- More than 30 years later, a suspect has been linked through DNA evidence to the previously unsolved killings of two young women in Camden County, New Jersey, in the 1990s.

Francis Schooley is believed to have killed 24-year-old Marebeth Welsh and 16-year-old Jennifer Persia, Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay announced in a news conference.

The work to find a suspect in Welsh’s and Persia’s killings took years and was only possible thanks to investigative techniques that utilized the DNA evidence found at each crime scene and carefully maintained over the years.

Investigators believe Schooley killed Welsh on Nov. 14, 1993, at a home where she was living in Woodlynne, and later dumped her body on Jackson Street in the city of Camden. Almost five months later, on April 4, 1994, Persia was found stabbed to death in her home in Magnolia.

Schooley died by suicide in 2000. He was 39 years old at the time, according to MacAulay’s office. Investigators who spoke at the news conference say the evidence they have is strong enough that, were he alive today, Schooley would be charged in both murder cases.

“We recognize that identifying Schooley as responsible for the deaths of Jennifer and Marebeth cannot restore these young women to their families, who have endured the profound loss of their loved one for more than 30 years,” MacAulay said. “However, we hope this development offers a measure of justice as well as some comfort to their families.”

In January 2024, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office created a full-time Homicide Cold Case Unit, with investigators finding cases that can make use of recent advances in DNA testing and genetic genealogy.

Analysis by the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences in August 2025 found that spermatozoa and blood found on Welsh’s clothes, and blood found at the scene of Persia’s murder, matched the same DNA profile belonging to an unknown male, later discovered to be Schooley.

A parent and a sibling of Schooley submitted DNA samples that were then analyzed and found to closely resemble the DNA found at both crime scenes, an indicator that the unknown male was Schooley.

Schooley also had a connection to the suspects, detectives learned: he had performed construction work for Persia’s stepfather and at an autoshop the stepfather owned. He was also a part-owner of a race car sponsored by the auto shop.

Additionally, one of Schooley’s siblings was shown a photo of Welsh and said she had been seen with Schooley in the past, officials said.

By Stephanie Ballesteros, Joe Holden, Joe Brandt, Sean Tallant.