Morning Brief: Louvre Thieves Arrested, DNA Links Former Soldier to Virginia Cold Case Murder, Maduro Say US is Forging a War with Venezuela

Those answers started as a few cells on evidence swabs. Detectives had DNA from day one, but CODIS returned nothing, and the file cooled. Years later, Fairfax investigators teamed with Parabon NanoLabs, the outfit known for genetic genealogy and DNA phenotyping. Building a family tree from the old profile pointed them to a former soldier named Stephan Smerk, living quietly in upstate New York. At the time of the murder, he served at Joint Base Myer Henderson Hall, a short drive from Lawrence’s neighborhood. Detectives knocked on Smerk’s door. He consented to a cheek swab without argument. Then he did something you do not see often. He called back and said, “I want to talk, and I want to talk right now.” The lab soon reported a match to blood found on a washcloth from the scene. The science and the words lined up. The confession filled in the rest. In November 1994, Smerk left his barracks intending to kill someone, a target not yet chosen. He broke into Lawrence’s home, stabbed her 49 times, and tossed the weapon into the water. He did not know her. He knew the area because a friend lived nearby. He had no prior criminal record. The brutality was deliberate and without a personal motive. In 2024, Smerk pleaded guilty. In March 2025, a judge handed down life in prison, 70 years for first-degree murder. The Lawrence family finally heard the verdict that had been missing from their lives, and Fairfax detectives closed one of their longest-running cold case files. This matter shows what modern genetic genealogy brings to the table. It does not replace police work. It gives it a map. Old evidence, new tools, patient detectives, and a suspect who decided to talk. That combination turned a silent file into a solved homicide and gave a name to the horror that began in a quiet house in West Springfield.   Virginia authorities used DNA to track down a possible suspect in a decades-old unsolved murder. Then, a 911 call from that same suspect led to a stunning admission in an interrogation: “I just had to kill somebody.” pic.twitter.com/RW9TwXVITx — 48 Hours (@48hours) October 25, 2025 Maduro Cries Wolf as Carrier Group Steams Near Venezuela Nicolás Maduro says Washington is writing a script for war. He paints a picture of the United States building a case with loud rhetoric, a show of force, and a ready-made villain in Caracas. The headline claim is simple. President Donald Trump sent the USS Gerald R. Ford with its strike group toward Venezuelan waters as part of a plan to destabilize and intervene. Maduro’s pitch leans on familiar lines. He calls it a manufactured conflict, an invented narrative sold with what he describes as crude falsehoods about drug trafficking and organized crime. He points to Tren de Aragua, a prison gang with regional reach, and argues it is being inflated into a cartel level threat to justify a military buildup. He says Venezuela is not a key link in the cocaine trade. He says the White House is hiding a regime change play behind talk of Transnational Criminal Organizations, counternarcotics flights, and maritime patrols. He goes further. Maduro points out that U.S. forces have destroyed drug-running boats off the Venezuelan coast and killed dozens of Venezuelans. He calls those actions proof of undeclared hostilities rather than law enforcement at sea. That claim lands with shock value, which is the point. It frames every American move as part of a slow-motion invasion. The political theater runs both ways. Washington highlights a carrier group, maritime patrol aircraft, and a message about pressure on criminal networks. Caracas answers with emergency decrees, troop movements, and talk of a state of emergency that places utilities and the oil sector under military control. In the middle sit ordinary Venezuelans who know that once soldiers guard power stations and refineries, rolling that back can take time. Maduro also trains fire on his domestic opponents. He labels figures like Leopoldo López as traitors and floats legal measures aimed at passports and citizenship. That is classic regime playbook material. Create an external threat, define internal enemies, and rally the base under the banner of national defense. Here is the bottom line for a military reader. A carrier strike group is a flexible tool. It can signal, collect, interdict, or hold options on the table without crossing a border. It is a Swiss Army knife with jets. Whether this turns into a sustained maritime counternarcotics push or a pressure campaign with political goals, the platform gives the White House time and space. Maduro says the United States is fabricating a war. What he cannot control is how long that carrier lingers, what it sees, and what doors it opens if Washington decides to walk through them.   Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the U.S. of “fabricating a war” in the hours after the Trump administration announced the deployment of a carrier group to the Caribbean. MORE: https://t.co/NDiAWPndyh pic.twitter.com/w54zM0HX2G — NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) October 25, 2025