Hunt for Capitol Hill staffer’s killer continues after 40 years

This week marks 40 years since someone killed Capitol Hill staffer Sally Heet. The cold case mystery of who was her attacker remains unsolved.

Heet, who worked as the press secretary for then-Sen. Daniel Evans of Washington state, was found stabbed to death in her home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on April 17, 1986. She was discovered after she didn’t show up for work. She was 35.

Forty years later, her niece and a D.C. cold case detective told News4 how the search for Heet’s killer continues.

Heather Means was 15 and living in Ohio when she learned the awful news about her aunt and godmother.

“I was just with her and I couldn’t really believe it. It felt surreal to me,” she said.

Means recalled standing at her aunt’s grave.

“Just having this thought in my head that’s rolling around and around which was: Who did this to her? Was it someone that she knew? Was she waiting for help that didn’t come? That’s the thing that really haunted me,” she said.

A few years ago, Means designed a website to bring attention to the case. Who Killed Sally Heet? is filled with photos and details, plus a number of news articles published at the time of the brutal murder.

Police found blood by the back entrance of the building. One article said it was a hard-to-find back door that only someone familiar with the building would have known about.

What blood evidence and an open mailbox could reveal

Todd Williams is a cold case detective for D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department. He has worked on Heet’s case for a few years.

“Sally had been stabbed several times. She was found on the floor of the living room. There was a lot of blood, as you could imagine,” he said.

Based on the evidence, police believe she was killed the night before her body was found and that she may have encountered the killer at the mailbox just inside the building’s front door.

On the morning of April 17, 1986, her stepbrother and a coworker went to her apartment and found the door to her mailbox open.

“She was found nude, and there is clearly a sexual component to the crime because of the nature of how she was found,” Williams said.

The only thing taken from her apartment was her raincoat, which the killer may have used to cover blood that undoubtedly would have been on his clothing, he said.

“There was blood evidence in the apartment, there was blood evidence in the hallway and then there was blood evidence at the back door that led out to 6th Street,” he said.

Neighbors told detectives they heard screams that night but did not call police.

So far, detectives have not been able to obtain a DNA profile in the case, Williams said, but testing continues.

“The information that could help this investigation at this point is, the person who did this may have told somebody and at the time, the person who heard the information may not have thought it meant anything or may not have believed it,” he said.

In the days after Heet’s death, Means found a postcard in the mail that her aunt sent her, raving about a wonderful cruise she had just taken.

“The person that killed Sally, if they are still alive, they have had 40 years of family and friends and life experiences and Sally got stabbed to death in her own apartment and they took her away from all of the people who loved her and that’s the thing, it just goes round and round in my head sometimes,” Means said.

She and Williams both say they believe the case still can be solved all these years later.

Susan Cvengros was found stabbed to death in 1999 in her apartment near Union Station. People who knew her said they’re grateful to hear police have now arrested a suspect, but still upset by how she was characterized at the time. News4’s Jackie Bensen reports.