BY KELLI STOPCYNSKI, SUZANNE SPENCER,
WSBT Reporting Staff

CENTERVILLE, MICH. — More than 1,000 tips, countless interviews, and DNA sampling led police to 65-year-old Daniel Furlong, who was arrested and charged in the cold case murder of 11-year-old Jodi Parrack.

The girl’s body was found by her mother in a Constantine cemetery in 2007. She had been strangled to death. Parrack disappeared while riding her bike to a friend’s house after school. The cemetery was just down the street from the family’s home.

Furlong was not an initial suspect in Parrack’s death. But after Furlong was arrested in a case involving another little girl in August of 2015, police looked into his past. In the August case, the 10-year-old girl said she was riding her bike when Furlong persuaded her to go into his garage and attacked her with a knife. Furlong was charged with “knowingly restraining a child” and “assault with a dangerous weapon.”

He was arraigned, entered a not-guilty plea, and is in jail without bond. He’s scheduled to be in front of a judge on both cases later this month. Furlong does not have a felony record, according to the prosecutor.

For an in-depth article and video on the Parrack case, visit WSBT.com.