‘Terrifying’: Man suspected in DC cold case murder released due to medical issues

September 29, 2026 Clara Wilson

Details in this report are disturbing.

A relative of a woman who was stabbed to death in her Capitol Hill home in 1999 was disturbed to learn the accused killer was released from jail this month before his trial.

Susan Cvengros’ case went unsolved for decades. Last year, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department announced that DNA evidence finally led them to a suspect: her neighbor, George Mudd.

Mudd, who was charged with murder, requested to be let out of jail, citing health issues including neuropathy and sciatica. Prosecutors did not object, and the judge agreed to grant his release.

“Mr. Mudd is not some springy 35- or 40-year-old. This man is – no offense Mr. Mudd – this man is, like, over 70 years old, walks with a cane and has a multitude of medical issues,” the judge said.

Cvengros’ cousin Sarah Powers called Mudd’s release terrifying.

“I’m just not quite sure why he’s currently out. And it’s also very terrifying to me that he could potentially do this again. Yes, he’s a 71-year-old man, but I don’t know what is in his heart that would have made him do this initially,” she said. “And it just really scares me for the women of the D.C. area that he’s currently free.”

Cvengros was a role model and a magnetic force who lit up a room, Powers said. They spent summers together and were like sisters.

“She was kind of my hero,” Powers said. “She taught me how to care for people and to have compassion and to look at different people with beauty and respect.”

In May 1999, someone killed Cvengros in her home. Court documents describe a brutal murder scene, saying, “Susan Cvengros was alive when her throat was cut because there was froth, indicating that she was still breathing, drowning and conscious and that she could have been sexually assaulted after she was killed.”

The case went unsolved for nearly three decades.

“Kinda broke my trust in people for a long time. I was afraid of people,” Powers said. “I wanted to see who it was that had done that, to see what type of monster who could have done something like this, not just to my cousin, but to a woman in general.”

DNA evidence eventually led police to Mudd. Police had his DNA because he was convicted in a different attack on another neighbor, in which he stabbed her in the neck and tried to sexually assault her.

Mudd told investigators he used crack cocaine and had paid many women for sex, but he denied raping or killing Cvengros.

Mudd’s attorney declined to speak on the record with News4. His trial is scheduled for October 2027.

Court documents show Mudd sent a handwritten letter to the judge in June, saying his public defender wasn’t doing enough and that he hadn’t received a copy of the indictment against him. He then received a new public defender.

News4 reached out to U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro’s office to ask why they agreed to Mudd’s release. We have not heard back.