Buried in the Bluegrass — Episode 1

Linda Marie Rutledge: Solved After 27 Years

On a November morning in 1998, Lexington firefighters responded to what appeared to be a routine business fire. Inside the Nixon Hearing Aid Center, they discovered a woman dead in a hallway.

Her name was Linda Marie Rutledge.

For nearly three decades, her murder remained unsolved. There were no arrests, no public suspects, and very little information released. But the case was never closed.

In this episode of Buried in the Bluegrass, we examine how evidence preserved for 27 years—one shell casing and one DNA profile—eventually connected Linda’s murder to a violent offender in another state. Using modern forensic science, investigators finally identified the person responsible, l ...