TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – It took almost 36 years, but justice finally caught up with Steven Koon. Thanks to modern forensic analysis, Grand Traverse County investigators linked him to the 1989 murder of 41-year-old Linda Meteer – a case that once seemed destined to remain unsolved.
Meteer’s body was discovered on April 27, 1989, in Hoosier Valley by mushroom hunter, Stanley Saxton. The cause of Meteer’s death was blunt force trauma, and while investigators interviewed Koon multiple times in 1989, he repeatedly denied knowing Meteer or giving her a ride home from Spike’s Peak bar the night she vanished. His alibi? He left alone, got into his 1976 Cadillac, and went straight home.
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That story didn’t hold up in 2024.
A forensic breakthrough decades in the making.
According to a felony complaint from the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office, detectives revisited the case last year, zeroing in on fibers collected from the crime scene and Koon’s Cadillac.
The Michigan State Police had originally collected the evidence, but it wasn’t until Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Detective Jason Polzien sent the fibers to Microtrace, a forensic lab in Illinois, that the real breakthrough happened.
Jason Beckert, a forensic scientist specializing in microscopic and instrumental analysis, compared fibers from Koon’s Cadillac to those found at the crime scene. His conclusion? The purple fibers were indistinguishable from one another, meaning they either came from the exact same source – or from sources so identical that the difference was negligible. In other words, those fibers put Meteer in Koon’s car, a direct contradiction of his repeated denials.
The night that changed everything.
April 19, 1989, started as a typical night out. According to investigative documents, Meteer and her fiancé, Charles Manville, were at Chumley’s Bar, but when he went home, she stayed out with friend Sally Horton. The two dropped off Horton’s kids and went to Spike’s Peak, where they drank until near closing time.
Horton left before last call, but Meteer, heavily intoxicated, stayed behind. Bar worker Carol Taylor recalled seeing Meteer fall down at one point and noted that a man who had worked on their roof – Koon – was also at the bar that night. That was the last confirmed sighting of Meteer alive.
A lie that didn’t age well.
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Despite three interviews in 1989 and another in 2024, Koon stuck to his story that he didn’t know Meteer, never gave her a ride, and left the bar alone. But forensic evidence now suggests otherwise.
Investigators believe Koon left Spike’s Peak with Meteer that night, and the fibers in his car strongly indicate she was inside.
Subsequently, Koon was arrested and charged with Meteer’s murder.
Lisa Haney, daughter of Linda Meteer, spoke to 9&10 News recently and said, “We’re just hoping for a short trial. I mean, really, it’s real unrealistic, probably to think that. But we’ve been 36 years, of not knowing. And, now we do know. And years of a trial which we are preparing ourselves for could possibly happen. Nothing’s going to bring her back. No reason why is ever going to be satisfactory because to take somebody’s life in that capacity. There’s just no excuse.”
Haney went on to say, “I don’t care what the reason is. You did a heinous thing to somebody, and you should be in prison for the rest of your life. Just plain and simple as this.”
The next court date for Koon is scheduled for March 4th at 2 p.m. for a probable cause conference.
