Deborah Lynn Polinsky at age 20 (Photo from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office)
PORT SHELDON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office is asking for tips from the public as the cold case team investigates a 1977 homicide.
Officials say 20-year-old Deborah Lynn Polinsky was found stabbed to death on July 26, 1977 at her rented farmhouse on New Holland Street near 152nd Avenue. A coworker found her body after she failed to show up for work at Depree Chemical Company on Monday, July 25.
Investigators are looking to identify a woman who they believe was at the home at the time of Polinsky’s killing. No other information about the woman was released.
“There is no known motive for her death,” the sheriff’s office said in a release.
According to a release, the cold case team has been investigating the murder for a year and a half. In that time, investigators say they’ve interviewed more than 180 people and “have sent 40 DNA samples to the lab for comparison and over 600 latent prints have been analyzed.”
Polinsky was known to frequent Holland and Saugatuck and attended Holland Public Schools, according to a release. She was frequently seen in a red VW Beetle and was often around her German shepherd Thor, officials said.
She worked second shift at Depree Chemical Company.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call investigators at 616-738-4022 or Silent Observer at 1-877-88-SILENT (745368). Tips can also be submitted online.
