Arrest made in 1990 Kim Thomas killing in Charlotte, a case that haunted the city
Police arrested a longtime suspect Thursday in the 1990 killing of Kim Thomas in her Charlotte home — a high-profile homicide that has haunted the city for decades.
Suspect Marion Gales was a 28-year-old handyman when Thomas, a 32-year-old women’s rights activist, was found handcuffed with her throat slashed in her Cotswold home in southeast Charlotte.
Police credited new DNA technology with linking Gales to the crime.
“We have direct criminal evidence linking Mr. Gales to the location and the victim,” CMPD Deputy Police Chief Ryan Butler said at a news conference Thursday. “This case highlights the fact that our work never stops.”
Butler said Gales was arrested Thursday at a Charlotte residence.
DNA evidence in the Kim Thomas case
DNA evidence connecting Gales to the crime was suggested four years ago by prominent North Carolina attorney David Rudolf in a court filing. Rudolf previously represented Thomas’ doctor husband, Ed Friedland.
Rudolf said in the filing that an unnamed CMPD detective told him about the DNA evidence. Gales had been in prison for killing another woman who was pregnant at the time. He was released in 2025 after serving more than 20 years.
Gales was reportedly homeless and occasionally worked on the house where Thomas lived with her 10-month-old son and the other suspect in her murder — Friedland.
Friedland was arrested and charged four years after his wife’s murder, but the charges were later dropped and never refiled. He has spent decades trying to clear his name.
In 1997, a jury awarded Friedland $8.6 million in his wrongful-death lawsuit against Gales. And in 2010, CMPD said new evidence emerged and was that police were investigating a “person of interest, who wasn’t the doctor.”
Rudolf, who has represented such high-profile murder defendants as former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth and Durham author Michael Peterson, tried to get courts involved when CMPD declined to release the DNA evidence four years ago. Rudolf requested a judge order CMPD to release the DNA evidence.
In 2024, a judge ordered that the DNA results be released. The results showed both Gales and Friedland were in the vicinity of where Thomas died.
Gales’ DNA was found in several places, including on a comb investigators used to collect Thomas’ pubic hair. Friedland’s DNA was also found.
Butler declined to say Thursday if Friedland was cleared as a suspect. Butler also declined to specify the nature of the relationship between Thomas and Gales at the time of the murder.
CMPD criticized about handling of Kim Thomas case
Rudolf has been critical of CMPD for not looking into Gales more seriously as a suspect, especially after Friedland was accused of having an affair with a nurse.
“They completely ignored Marion Gales after that,” Rudolf said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer in 2022. “They have mishandled this case ever since.”
Having an affair doesn’t make a person a murderer, Rudolf has said. In fact, the attorney said in the same 2022 interview, Gales’ own family suspected he was the killer from the start.
Rudolf has said more evidence pointed to Gales’ guilt.
He had a history of attacks on women and police; lived a five-minute walk from the Friedland home; had done odd jobs for the couple in the weeks leading up to Kim’s death; and was burglarizing homes to steal jewelry and buy cocaine. Gales also owned a pair of handcuffs, identical to the ones on Kim Thomas’ body, and was seen near the Friedland home the morning of the homicide, Rudolf has said.
“They had all this evidence against Gales,” Rudolf said. “They were pursuing that evidence, and then they just stopped. Why just drop it?”
Police did not address on Thursday any of the criticisms that Rudolf had raised in years past about their investigation. Instead, they focused on how new technology led them to Gales’ arrest.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect first name for attorney David Rudolf.
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Arrest made in 1990 Kim Thomas killing in Charlotte, a case that haunted the city."