FL: Unsolved Murders Haunt Families...
Slimpickins
Old slayings hard to solve
By Susan Jacobson | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 18, 2001
KISSIMMEE -- Thanksgiving used to be a favorite holiday for Linda Mills.
But ever since her mother, Bertha Hemminghaus, 79, was killed 12 years ago
at Good Samaritan Village, the day is tinged with sadness.
What makes the loss even more painful is that no one was ever arrested for
the bludgeoning death. No one is sure why someone killed the spry
grandmother who, shortly before her death, played pinochle with her three
sisters who also lived at the retirement village.
"I probably go over it every day in my mind," said Mills, 54, of Georgia,
who hasn't made plans for this week's Thanksgiving holiday. "I have often
thought of pursuing it. I just don't know if I'm strong enough to do it.
It's just very hard when you don't have any answers."
Mills is not alone. Families of two dozen other homicide victims who were
either slain in Osceola or found dead here are left to wonder who killed
their loved ones and why.
Unlike on TV or in the movies, where the most complicated whodunits are
solved in an hour or two complete with motive and confession, real-life
homicides are often left unexplained.
"On TV, the police solve 80 percent of the crimes," said Frederick Shenkman,
a professor of criminology and law at the University of Florida. "In real
life, they solve 20 percent. The public has extremely inflated expectations
of the police."
Arrest not always possible
Unraveling a murder mystery becomes even more difficult after the first 12
to 48 hours, experts agree, when evidence is more likely to be destroyed,
weapons to be tossed away and witnesses to scatter or have memory lapses.
That means even though investigators think they know who committed a
homicide, they can't always make an arrest.
"The longer you go, the colder and colder your resources and your contacts
get," said Sgt. Andy Lang, who heads the violent crimes unit at the Osceola
County Sheriff's Office. "We have good suspects in a lot of cases, but that
doesn't mean we will take them to court. The goal is conviction. So it's got
to be a good case."
The oldest of the 25 open cases in Osceola dates to 1953, when a gambler
named Ed Milam was shot to death and his body dumped at the Polk-Osceola
county line.
No Osceola law-enforcement agency has a cold-case squad. But the Sheriff's
Office and police departments in Kissimmee and St. Cloud review older case
files periodically themselves. They sometimes consult with the FBI or the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Often, a new investigator will be
asked to cast a fresh eye to see if the original detectives missed
something.
"It takes a lot of time, and it also takes a lot of luck," said FDLE special
agent supervisor Dave Donaway.
St. Cloud police Sgt. Vinny Shepard, who heads criminal investigations, has
spent more than 500 hours on the Julia Sue Wilbanks case. Between 200 and
300 people, including some out of state, have been interviewed. Blood has
been analyzed. Shepard has consulted with a medical examiner in Pinellas
County in an effort to figure out who killed Wilbanks, 27, a prostitute and
crack cocaine user, in 1991.
"We want it to be solved because we want to give her parents some kind of
closure," Shepard said. "It's hard enough to know your child was murdered,
let alone not know who did it. And if the person's out there, they're always
a danger to someone else."
Especially haunting crime
Some crimes haunt investigators years after they are committed. The case of
Norma Page, a 28-year-old minister's wife, still nags at Donaway. Page was
stabbed 34 times in 1979 in the St. Cloud parsonage where she lived with her
husband and their two young sons. The boys, ages 2 and 4, were in the next
room when Page was hit in the head with a two-pound glass ketchup bottle,
stripped, bound, gagged and knifed in the back and neck.
A suspect's fingerprints were found on the interior and exterior of Page's
car, and several witnesses swore they had seen the man in the neighborhood.
Nonetheless, the State Attorney's Office said there wasn't enough evidence
to prosecute.
"There's probably not a week that goes by that I don't think about that
case," Donaway said.
St. Cloud police, who had several people hypnotized before they were
interviewed, originally handled the investigation. They also consulted with
a psychic who visited the homicide scene.
The FDLE took over the case and, at the request of Page's family, Donaway
reopened it in 1993. FDLE agents hoped DNA testing, which was not available
in the late 1970s, would lead them to the killer. A note in the file says
"case shows excellent potential and is perfect for violent crime team."
Yet despite hours poring over photos, evidence, witness statements and
reports, the FDLE was unable to make an arrest.
"Some of our witnesses are no longer alive," Donaway said. "We ran into a
lot of dead ends."
DNA testing, while so sophisticated now that a portion of a single hair can
be tested yet remain intact as evidence, is no magic bullet, experts point
out.
DNA degrades if it isn't stored correctly. Sometimes it wasn't collected
properly in the first place because, at the time, no one knew the technique
would be available.
"When you don't prepare it the right way, some of the old evidence is gone,"
said Shon McGuire, an investigator with the Volusia-Flagler State Attorney's
Office who supervises the homicide task force and works unsolved Volusia
County murders.
Bodies get dumped here
Small towns have a better record of solving homicides because so many people
tend to know the victim, the killer and each other, said Jack Levin,
director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern
University in Boston.
Murders are becoming more difficult to solve, he said, because they
increasingly are being committed by strangers. Motives are less obvious than
in a killing by a friend or family member, killers are growing more skillful
at covering their tracks, and bodies are frequently dumped and not found for
months, he said.
"The police are left with skeletal remains," Levin said. "No fiber or
fingerprints remain. They're lucky if they can identify the victim, let
alone the killer."
Because Osceola has so much rural land, it has been used as a dumping ground
for its share of bodies. The most recent was Sean Cousins, 34, a pilot from
South Florida whose remains were discovered in May in a creek not far from
the Brevard County line. Investigators, who still hope to solve the puzzle,
think Cousins was killed elsewhere.
In 1995, Kissimmee police went to the unusual length of exhuming the body of
Bonnie Goodson to obtain hair samples, which investigators said originally
were collected incorrectly by another agency. Goodson, 34, was savagely
beaten in the head in November 1992 at the truck parts store where she
worked. Her killer remains free.
Next month, investigators plan to discuss the Goodson case with forensics
expert Henry C. Lee, who gained fame as a defense witness during the O.J.
Simpson murder trial and also consulted on the homicide case of 6-year-old
beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.
"DNA has come a long way," said Kissimmee police Sgt. Dan Burkard.
"Technology might help us solve this case."
Goodson's brother Alan Chalker is less optimistic even though he wants
investigators to keep trying.
"With each passing year, your hope diminishes that they're ever going to
make anything happen with it," Chalker said.
Making peace with loss
Although the relatives of victims say they want justice, some have made
peace with their loss.
Nine years ago, a customer found the body of Antonio Zuco, 50, at the
discount attractions booth he ran on West U.S. Highway 192. He had been
beaten in the head and robbed.
His son Arthur Zuco, 25, said he has gone from being consumed with thoughts
of seeing his father's killer punished to accepting the situation,
remembering his dad with love and moving on.
"It would be great to have that stamp of 'closed' on it," said Zuco, who now
lives in Virginia. "But it's not as if I'm not going to be able to carry on
with my life. He wouldn't want it that way. I certainly don't want it that
way."
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