Suspect Takes His Own Life After DNA Evidence Identifies Him as Suspect in 1987 Murder of Navy Veteran

Just days after providing Glendale Police Department cold case investigators with a DNA sample in connection with the 1987 murder of Orison James “Jim” Chafin, Gary Wayne Billups took own life last month.

Billups, 68, of Wittmann, took his own life on June 24, 2026, five days after he provided the DNA sample to investigators. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office investigated Billups death.

Laboratory analysis subsequently confirmed that Billups’ DNA profile matched DNA recovered from evidence at the murder scene nearly four decades earlier.

According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 8, 1987, a group of four people driving through Resthaven Cemetery saw a midsize sedan stopped with its headlights on in the northwest section of the grounds. As they approached, the vehicle fled across the dirt and sidewalk onto Northern Avenue, heading west. Witnesses reported seeing two men in and around the car before leaving.

Where the car had been parked, witnesses observed the body of a man lying in the roadway. This body, later identified by Glendale police, as 54-year-old Chafin, a Navy veteran of the Korean War who lived alone in a trailer park in the West Valley. Chafin had been discovered with his throat cut, wearing only socks; the rest of his clothing was never recovered. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide.

Investigators learned that Chafin had spent the previous afternoon and evening at Critters Lounge near 59th Avenue and Glendale Avenue. Witnesses placed Billups and two others at the bar that evening with Chafin.

Detectives collected beer bottles and cigarette butts from the scene which later through forensic testing produced three male DNA profiles from that evidence. These profiles were entered into the national CODIS database. No DNA match or arrest have ever been made until recently.

In 2025, the Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the case alongside Glendale PD Investigators and re-examined the original file, re-interviewed surviving witnesses, and identified Billups, who had lived in Glendale in 1987 but was never interviewed by police at the time.

Investigators first attempted to contact Billups in March 2026, but he declined the meeting request. On June 19, 2026, investigators located him in the West Valley. Billups voluntarily accompanied investigators to the Surprise Police Department for an interview, during which he denied knowing Chafin and denied living in Glendale in 1987, despite arrest records placing him in the city in 1986 and 1987. He provided the DNA sample and was released.