DNA, OKC Victim's 'Fetish' Photos May Lead To Break In Murder Case

DNA evidence may help investigators solve a 17-year-old murder case that involves sex, lies, and photographs.

And it was the victim's fetish for taking pictures of men's biceps that may help those investigators identify his killers.

Scott Penny was found dead in January 1996 inside his home at 2613 N.W. 121st Street. According to a search warrant, Penny took Polaroid pictures of the men he had sex with, and he had a thing for men with big biceps.

Investigators claim one of those men pictured had a unique tattoo, and that person is most likely responsible for the murder. They also have DNA evidence from a used cigarette butt that they found at the crime scene, bringing them one step closer to possibly solving this cold case.

"It really hurt when we lost him" said Carol Briscoe, who lives two doors down from Penny's old home and still remembers that day as if it were yesterday. "He was very kind. He seemed to be an awfully hard worker."

5/16/2013 Related Story: Police Look For DNA Evidence To Connect Man To 1996 Murder Case

Penny was an aerospace engineer who worked at Tinker Air Force Base, and lived alone in his northwest Oklahoma City home. Court records state Penny was beaten and stabbed to death. His truck was stolen and his house ransacked.

Inside the ransacked home, investigators found more than a hundred Polaroid pictures of naked and half-naked men flexing their muscles. One man in a photo had a unique star tattoo. That star tattoo led investigators to Dwayne Edmondson, who lived in Oklahoma City at the time of Penny's homicide, Edmondson was charged with first-degree murder last month.

"In my heart of hearts I just thought he befriended someone that he met and it was the wrong person, and that was my logic to give myself some peace about it. Be careful who you befriend," Briscoe said.

DNA from a cigarette butt found in Penny's garage has also connected Leslie George Mathis to the murder. Mathis is a career criminal who is currently in the Oklahoma County jail on a drug charge. He denies any connection to the murder, but a CODIS hit suggests otherwise. Right now, DNA swabs taken from Mathis while he was in jail are being tested.

No charges have been filed against Mathis yet, but it may be just a matter of time.