New DNA Evidence Released In CMPD Cold Case Murder of Kim Thomas

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Has a high-profile cold case in Charlotte finally been solved?

A prominent local attorney says newly-released evidence clears his client in the 1990 murder of Kim Thomas.

But the victim’s sister says she’s not so sure.

Thomas was found stabbed to death inside her home on Churchill Road in July of 1990.

Monday, attorney David Rudolf declared the murder solved after a judge required CMPD to release new DNA evidence at his request.

The evidence points at handyman Marion Gales, who had done work in Thomas’s home in the weeks prior to her murder.

Rudolf’s client and Thomas’s husband at the time, Dr. Edward Friedland, had been indicted in the murder in 1994, before charges were later dropped.

In a news release, Rudolf accuses CMPD of trying to cover up what he calls a “mishandling of the early investigation” and “…their failure to follow or disclose evidence that would have cleared Friedland’s name decades ago.”

But not everyone agrees.

Monday, Kim Thomas’s sister Lynn told WCCB Charlotte she believes the DNA results are inconclusive, saying, “I believe if police had enough evidence to indict Gales they would have done so,” and “I urge detectives on this case to investigate it more aggressively.”