Robert A. Creter lived quietly in Winnipeg without leaving much of a footprint.
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That ended on Monday when homicide detectives in New Jersey arrested the 60-year-old and charged him with a 1997 cold case murder.
“Tammy Tignor is the victim here. She was 23 years old when she was killed,” Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Michael McLaughlin told reporters. “It has been 27 years, as I said, 9,885 days since her body was found. And I want to thank our office, Bridgewater, and all the law enforcement agencies who worked this case because they never gave up. They never gave up in their relentless pursuit for justice.”
Cops say the body of 23-year-old Tignor — a resident of Newark — was found in Bridgewater near Washington Valley Park. She had been strangled to death.
At the time of her murder, the petite woman’s life had spiralled into the dead end of drugs and she reportedly had track marks on her arms, indicating she was a heroin user. In addition, she was allegedly working as a prostitute to support her habit.
Tignor had been living with friends and at low-rent, hot-sheet motels.
Her final hours alive were reportedly spent at a Newark soup kitchen. There she showered, was given clothes and had something to eat.
Investigators determined that Tignor had climbed into an orange van in Newark on Nov. 3, 1997. Her body was discovered the next day on a dirt-access road.
Creter owned an orange van around the time of the murder, according to the prosecutor’s office. Cops say it wasn’t clear if Creter and the victim knew each other or what their relationship may have been.
According to detectives, enhanced DNA techniques helped them zero in on Creter, who was born in Canada but adopted by an American family.
Creter was arrested by Canadian cops in June on the New Jersey warrant. The United States Marshal’s Service accompanied the suspect back to Jersey on Nov. 26 after extradition proceedings.
But for decades the Tignor investigation was ice cold.
In January 2023, a state-wide cold case task force decided to resubmit forensic evidence that had been collected at the time of Tignor’s murder. That April, cops hit paydirt.
During a search of CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), members of the State Police Laboratory’s Office of Forensic Science were able to generate a high stringency match for Creter based on the resubmitted evidence.
Now, they had a name. Further investigation into Creter and the circumstances surrounding Tignor’s slaying was conducted by detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey State Police Cold Case Unit.
It was determined that Creter had moved to Winnipeg in 2002. In May 2023, police issued a first-degree murder warrant for his arrest.
Creter is currently caged in the Somerset County Jail awaiting a Dec. 4 detention hearing.
Prosecutor Michael McLaughlin alleged: “Mr. Creter, his purpose was to kill Tammy and he knew he was going to kill her.”
@HunterTOSun