David W. Malcom appears in a photograph shared by law enforcement after he was murdered in 1987; his murder was solved in 2023. (Ithaca Police Department)
David W. Malcom was all of 26 years old and a student at Cornell when he was killed while working at a Red Cross center in Ithaca, New York, back in 1987. Now, over three decades later, police say they have finally determined who was responsible for the cold case murder.
But they’re not saying who.
On Friday, police in upstate New York announced that with the help of DNA evidence, they discovered the murderer’s identity, and that justice will remain elusive because the killer died in 2019.
Malcom was stabbed to death on Feb. 12, 1987, while working at the Red Cross Emergency Shelter on West Court Street, the Ithaca Police Department said. Immediately, officers focused on a male coworker as their prime suspect. However, the case went cold in 1988 and was continuously investigated until being shelved in 2010, according to a report by Elmira, New York-based NBC affiliate WETM.
In September 2015, the investigation began again, using a combination of “DNA and investigative leads” in search of some finality. By May 2016, over 100 leads were harnessed in the investigation, and several witnesses were interviewed in multiple states, the IPD told The Post-Standard of Syracuse.
This past week, the long befuddling case was solved, the IPD said. The killer was the ex-boyfriend of a teenage girl who had sought the Red Cross Emergency Center for help the day before the victim’s body was found, the day Malcom had worked a 24-hour shift.
The girl sought refuge at the shelter following a domestic incident in the Town of Newfield, the IPD said, because she wanted help to move away from her ex-boyfriend, the Ithaca Times reports.
The ex-boyfriend showed up at the Red Cross after the girl arrived and demanded to know where she was. Malcom, who was there then, refused to give the ex-boyfriend any information, police said, and he was killed while protecting the girl from would-be harm.
“Malcom’s heroic actions for not disclosing the whereabouts of the young teen sadly cost him his life,” police said Friday. “His death caused pain to Malcom’s Family and friends due to his tragic death and for not knowing why he was killed and by whom.”
In 1987, one of the victim’s friends recalled the man she knew, loved, and lost too soon in comments to The Post-Standard.
“The sheer gentleness of the man made him very special. He also had a wonderful sense of humor,” Nina Miller told the paper after he died. “He was the best of what young people can be. He was idealistic, sensitive, warm, very bright. He was a wonderful role model for kids. He was really wise beyond his years.”
Federal, state, county, and local law enforcement agencies helped with the investigation over the past seven-plus years, police said.
Ithaca Police Deputy Chief Vincent Monticello recently met with Malcom’s family and apologized for not solving the case sooner, a press release obtained by various local media outlets says.
“Many of the tools, training and resources used today to solve homicides were not available to Investigators in 1987,” the IPD wrote in the release. “This was a challenging case for Investigators in 1987 who were working the case with limited resources.”
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