According to news accounts at the time, Tracey, from Point of Rocks, was an honor student at Brunswick High School. She wrote and published poetry and hoped to study accounting and go to law school. She had two part-time jobs and drove a 10-year-old Pontiac Grand Prix she paid for herself.
On the night she died, she was working alone at the Aileen Ladies Sportswear store in the Westridge Square Shopping Center, on U.S. 40 west of downtown Frederick.
Most of the plaza's stores closed at 9 p.m. When a security guard saw the lights at Aileen's were still on at 10:50 p.m., he went inside. He found Tracey's body in a rear storeroom. Police said she had been stabbed several times in the back and chest. There was no evidence of a sexual assault. The door had not been forced open, and $60 remained in the cash register. Tracey's purse was missing.
A man waiting in the front parking lot for his wife or girlfriend told police he saw nothing unusual. But investigators found blood drops in a rear hallway leading to the loading dock and trash bins. No weapon was ever recovered.
Two suspects developed over the years remain "viable," Martyak said. But while "it's plausible either one of them could be the killer, in both instances it falls short of having the last piece of the puzzle that's missing to corroborate that [either one] actually committed the crime."
In 1989, DNA technology was comparatively crude, and "very cost prohibitive," Martyak said. It was not until 1998 that a sample was submitted for testing. It was insufficient to develop a genetic profile of the killer, as was a second sample submitted in 2003.
But technology has advanced to where analysts can extract a DNA profile from no more material than is left by a touch. So Frederick police several weeks ago submitted "touch samples" from the case to a private contractor for the Maryland State Police. "We think this may be our best shot to get some other type of DNA, other than hers, from the crime scene," Martyak said. Test results are not expected for several months.
Police already have DNA samples from both of the suspects. Detectives check on them periodically.
In the meantime, investigators have presented the Kirkpatrick case file to two "cold case review panels," one national and another for the Mid-Atlantic region.
A relatively new concept and a first for Frederick, Martyak said, these independent panels of police investigators, evidence analysts, crime scene and forensic experts comb case files and suggest new leads or new technologies the local police might not have considered. "We expect this case to be reviewed by both panels sometime this year," he said.
Martyak said police continue to receive information about the case. "It's never too late," he said. "Even if they think the information they have doesn't help, call us anyhow and let us decide.
"If we can keep it fresh in people's minds, maybe - just maybe - we can get that one piece of information we need to bring closure to the case ... for the family," Martyak said.
Anyone with information about Tracey Kirkpatrick's murder is asked to call Frederick Police Detective Jerry Morales at 301-600-1226.
