Cold Case Files - A Killer Slips Away

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Lily and Alonzo knock on Anna Mae's door. They've come to take their elderly sister shopping. Instead, her door flies open and a young woman runs past them - covered in blood. Alonzo tries to grab her but she literally slips through his fingers. Inside, they find Anna Mae dead on the floor. Who was this mysterious young woman? Why did she kill an innocent senior? And what does it all have to do with a jar of mayonnaise? Support cellular defense and repair with TRU NIAGEN! Visit www.TRUNIAGEN.com and use code “COLDCASE” to receive $20 off any 3+ month supply, live from now until 6/30/2020! Treat your hair with MADISON REED! Get 10% off plus FREE SHIPPING on your first Color Kit with code "COLDCASE" at www.madison-reed.com  Get a quote online at www.Progressive.com in as little as 5 minutes and see how much you could be saving!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. We brought her to the city. She comes to Ohio and she gets killed. She was covered in blood when she ran from that apartment. She just slipped out of his hands. On a quiet Sunday morning in Columbus, Ohio, in 1987, Anna Mae Florence was waiting at home for her sister, Lily, and brother-in-law, Alonzo.

Just according to plan, Lily and Alonzo arrived on their elderly aunt's doorstep with plans to take her shopping. Someone came to the door, but it wasn't Anna Mae. A woman covered in blood burst out of the home and attempted to shove past the couple. Alonzo grabbed the woman by the wrist and held on tight. Alonzo struggled with her for a few seconds, but she was slick with blood and her hand slipped from his grasp. She ran and Alonzo chased after, down the street, gaining on her, not stopping, until she threatened to shoot him.

There are 120,000 unsolved murder cases in America. Each one is called a cold case, and only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare cases. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. When Alonzo got back to the house, he had no choice but to let the killer go. What he and Lily found was horrific. The place was a mess. There was blood everywhere, on the floors and sprayed across the walls. Anna Mae lay in her front room in a pool of her own blood. There was a cord around her neck. She'd been beaten. She'd been stabbed several times.

Here's Jim McCoskey, the original detective on the case. It's apparent that there had been an extensive struggle. There was some overturned furniture and then the amount of blood and the blood spattering. The knife wounds near her neck. There's going to be probably arterial gushing, squirting all over the place as she is struggling with the assailant. This was a horrible homicide. But Anna Mae wasn't quite gone yet. Lily and Alonzo got to her before she lost consciousness. She was broken and bloodied, but she was still breathing.

Alonzo begged her to tell them who had done this to her. She managed to get out that she had been robbed, but she didn't know the woman. Then, she was gone. Here's Anna Mae's nephew, Larry. She's been stabbed. She's been beaten. She's been murdered. Just like if she's gone. They've taken her away from us.

Who could have committed such a brutal, horrific crime, viciously murdering a helpless old woman in her own home. Who was this woman who had literally slipped through their fingers? Even though they'd seen her, neither the Florence family or investigators would find that woman's identity for another three decades. What exactly makes a case go cold? Where do you draw the line between a tough but solvable case and a cold case? How do you make a call to put a case on the shelf, even if the answer seems so close? By all accounts, investigators were close to solving this one right off the bat.

They had an eyewitness who not only saw the killer, but held her in his grasp, caught her red-handed. Through the course of the investigation, officers would discover an informant with intimate knowledge of the crime. They'd find a bloody fingerprint at the crime scene. And yet,

Anna Mae's murder spent almost three decades as a cold case. Investigators were so close to a resolution, so close to delivering justice, and yet they were so far from the end of this case. Anna Mae Florence lived her whole life in the backwoods of Alabama. She was one of 14 children, and her family described her as always having a story to share and a smile on her face. When her husband died, Anna Mae's family wanted to move her up north to be closer to them. She wasn't ready to leave Alabama, but they convinced her.

They moved her to a nice seniors building in a safe neighborhood. No one could have anticipated what happened, but that doesn't keep her family from agonizing over their decision in hindsight. Here's Linda Perry, Anna Mae's niece. We brought her to the city to give her a different look of life. And she comes to Ohio and she gets killed. Investigators started with the scene of the crime, Anna Mae's home, and the area around it. The detectives back then, they used what they had to work with.

DNA wasn't around yet. Fingerprints, interviews, and that's all they had. The original detectives thought that the suspect lived in that neighborhood, so they canvassed the area. That's Ralph Taylor, one of the cold case detectives. He knows just what the original investigators were up against. The original detectives got nowhere talking to neighbors. There were other witnesses who saw a well-dressed woman going door to door asking for money on the day of the murder, but nobody had any names to offer.

So it came down to what they could find in the apartment itself. They did a detailed inspection of the apartment, collecting anything they thought might lead them towards identifying their mystery woman. They collected a fan, a chair, several large items of property. Out of all the evidence that they collected in that place, the real evidence was a single bloody print. In order to analyze the bloody print, detectives cut out a portion of the wall. They brought it into the lab and tested it extensively, but they didn't find a match. In fact, it wasn't even a full print.

Still, the family and investigators remained hopeful. Detectives rounded up several young women who matched the killer's description. They interviewed them. They took fingerprints. But they came up with nothing. Not one match. Not one solid lead. What felt like such a close resolution was getting further and further away as evidence and leads evaporated. They were left with just a ghost of a murderer, a nameless, faceless woman who seemed just out of reach. At this point, there's nothing. We just wait for that one piece of evidence, that one phone call.

There was a tip called in. This tip had some valuable information. An informant, somebody who seemed to have some real knowledge of the murder, called in and started talking to the police. Here's a recording of that call. The day after it happened, I was over to some friends' house. He told them that she stabbed the lady. She stabbed the lady in the neck.

Stabbed her two or three times. When I heard her talking about it, she had scratches on her hands and stuff. You know, I guess when somebody had been grabbing her, and she had a couple bruises on her arm. The only reason I'm doing this is because, you know, I have people that live over there. Well, we need all the help we can get. Do you want to give us your name at this time? No, not really.

At first, the informant was hesitant and suspicious of the police. He didn't want to give up his name for fear of becoming a suspect. But officers assured him that he was not a suspect in this case. So he gave up his name. Okay, my name is Odell. O-D-E-L-L. And his own name isn't the only one that Odell gave up. I know the person that did the crime. Okay. Do you know her name? Yeah. Anita Campbell. Could this finally be it?

Were investigators finally going to close in on the woman who had slipped through their fingers? Officers brought Odell in to question him in person. And his story checked out. He said that he knew Danita pretty well. They'd gone to school together for three years. That's when investigators had an idea. Afraid she might disappear again, detectives wanted to use Odell to get close to Danita. They asked Odell if he'd be willing to make contact with Danita and if he would be willing

to wear a wire. Odell agreed and it seemed like the investigation was finally at a tipping point. Investigators started planning the undercover operation, but they didn't get very far. Unfortunately, Odell disappeared. He decided he didn't want to be involved, and detectives lost all contact with him. I learned about something new today. Have you heard about the new trend in NAD boosters?

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simply because cells have to expend more energy to function. Visit trunigen.com to support cellular defense and repair with TrueNiagen. And Cold Case listeners receive $20 off any three-month supply from now until June 30th, 2020 by entering the code COLDCASE. That's code COLDCASE. Podcast One presents, this is a collect call from Sing Sing. My name is John J. Lennon. I'm locked up for selling drugs and committing murder. I'm also a contributor for Esquire magazine and the Marshall Project. So I'm a writer and I'm a prisoner. Imagine trying to stay focused and talk about issues of substance,

of geeks slamming, prisoners screaming, and PAs blaring in the background. Get new episodes every Wednesday on Spotify, Podcast One, and Apple Podcasts. podcasts. I would say half the time informants disappear. Their world just doesn't coincide with law enforcement's world a lot of the times. Just like that, their best lead was gone, and so was Danita. Another lead, another disappearing act, another frustrating close call. But investigators were determined to track her down with or without Odell's help. If Odell had grown up with Danita and had been at a party with her shortly after the murder,

chances are she was still in the neighborhood. Here's Kathy, another cold case detective. There was plainclothes officers looking for her. And once they had located Danita driving around in her vehicle, a traffic stop was conducted. She was removed from the vehicle. Her prints were taken right there on the hood of her car. The detectives took the prints to the fingerprint unit, and they compared those fingerprints to that fingerprint on the wall.

They thought it had to be a match. It had to be Donita. But if it was a match, they couldn't prove it. The partial print on the wall just wasn't good enough to match with the prints they had from Donita. And officers were again looking for a ghost. For the second time, the suspect had seemed to be within their grasp, only to slip away.

I can only imagine what that does to the investigator's morale, and also to Anna Mae's family. I imagine it's a little bit like when you need to sneeze but can't. It's frustrating and painful, and all you want is relief. Now, imagine holding on to that feeling for nearly 30 years. For Detective Jim McCoskey, the investigation had hit a standstill. His informant had vanished. His best lead was a dud. When your information dries up, you come to an abrupt halt. Anna Mae's case went to the edge of the desk, and we had to move on to other cases. And that's how it happens. With no fresh leads, the case can't be a priority. So it moves to the edge of the desk and stays there

and stays there until finally it's considered a cold case. To Anna Mae's family, though, that just wasn't an acceptable answer. My dad, he just couldn't handle that. He was angry. Every week he was calling a detective. Find that girl who killed my sister. That's Becky, Anna Mae's niece. Becky's father, Robert, was especially devoted to finding his sister's killer,

but he never found justice, and that was a regret he took to his grave. Before he passed, he made me promise that I would find that girl who killed his sister. I knew that I had to do it. For decades, Anna Mae's family wondered and waited for justice to be served. They endured so many stops and starts, so many close calls.

But close just wasn't good enough. Finally, in 2012, 25 years after Anna Mae's murder, Becky's promise to her dying father saw some movement. Because Becky found detective Kathy Justice. I know, I know, a detective named Justice helping to find justice for long-waiting families. Sometimes fact really is stranger than fiction. I was at my desk and the phone rang. I asked her, who's working on the case? She's talking. I'm punching the computer, pulling this up, making sure we actually do have a case. When I saw the details that led up to the homicide, you're sitting there thinking this is a true victim. Anna Mae Florence, church-grown woman in her own home, and somebody just came in and just tore that family apart. Senseless. These people need answers to their case. Kathy started in on the case from a unique angle, one that, frankly, I've never seen before.

For me to get a feel for Anna Mae, I had to go to the cemetery itself. And it just makes it more real for me. It may not work for another detective, but it works. It works for me. She also brought in Detective Ralph Taylor. And while Taylor may not be quite as cool of a name as Justice, they both had the same point of view. Treat the cold case like it's not. The evidence may be old, the people may be older,

but to us, it's new. It's just happened. They started reviewing the case file, everything that was found, collected, and investigated. As I was reviewing the case, my focus was that we needed a new angle. I wanted to look back into evidence, witnesses, prints, and the crime scene. Try to find anything missed in the original investigation. Unfortunately, after a quarter of a century, not everything can be viewed like it just happened. Everything happened inside the apartment.

That's where the story is. That has since been torn down, and new houses have been built on that site. The crime scene was torn down after this murder. So Ralph and Kathy had the evidence that was collected. And that was it. People either remember, they don't remember, they lie or they don't lie. But your evidence never lies.

In cold case, your job is to find out what happened to the victim. And a lot of times you're turning back time. We knew this was going to be made on prints. So we're trying to look at this evidence for prints, any identified prints, anything they missed. The crime scene was really bloody. You know, we knew that the suspect had touched certain things. We've got to find something else as a clue. Before we've got to keep going here.

As I was going through every piece of evidence, we had found some tapes. Tapes that revealed a second interview with the original investigation's key informant, Odell. And remarkably, after 25 years of sitting in storage, the tapes still played. Are there any other details that you can recall from that conversation? She also said that the lady had associated the check. She didn't take the check? No, she didn't take the check on the first. Knowing about the check meant that Odell had information that only the police and the killer would have.

That meant Odell really had spoken to the killer, who he claimed was Danita Campbell. But even when an informant's story gets stronger, as Odell's just did, without evidence to back it up, it's still just a story. Ralph and Kathy needed more than just a story if they were going to arrest Danita. They needed facts. They needed proof. If we could find a better fingerprint, I could put her inside that apartment. If this is sounding familiar, it's because the original investigators went down this same road. Remember? They tracked down Danita, pulled her over for a traffic stop,

and took her fingerprints right there on the hood of her car. They compared Danita's prints as thoroughly as they could to the smear of blood they cut from the wall of the crime scene. And it was close, but they didn't quite have enough to say for sure that it was a match. Detective Justice knew she was on the right track, though. So she went back to the well. What other evidence do we got? I have to use those photos from 25 years earlier to piece things together. I want to see it.

So I'm trying to place things where it had been documented. Kathy used the evidence and photos to help her visualize every detail of the crime scene. Anna Mae's purse was laying there, right by the kitchen counter, in close proximity of where Anna Mae was found on the floor. There was a lot of blood. It was a violent scene. It was a lot. You could tell that there was a big struggle. She was trying to place herself there. Anna Mae must have turned her back. The suspect struck her in the head with the phone. Anna Mae could have possibly grabbed a knife from the kitchen in self-defense. The suspect would have overpowered Anna Mae,

taken the knife from her, then proceeded to stab Anna Mae. To visualize the entire scene in her mind's eye. Then somebody came to the door, which would have been Anna's brother-in-law, Alonzo. We know that she went over and she stood next to the window by the front door, because that's where she had left a bloody fingerprint. And find that one missing piece.

I'm looking through the photographs, and there was a sense that there's something wrong. Something seemed out of place. The details she'd missed, that everyone had missed. There was a jar of mayonnaise sitting on the chair by the front door. That's right. Mayonnaise. In all the mess and chaos of this wrecked and bloodied apartment, Detective Justice zeroed in on a jar of mayonnaise.

It just kind of stood out. It just seemed in a weird location. and bloodied apartment, Detective Justice zeroed in on a jar of mayonnaise. It just kind of stood out. It just seemed in a weird location. Probably wouldn't have paid too much attention to it if the mayonnaise was on the kitchen counter. If she made the sandwich for lunch, that mayonnaise jar wouldn't be sitting on the couch, it'd be in the kitchen. Maybe Donita touched the mayonnaise jar. Kathy started pouring through the evidence log to see what was collected from the scene. The fan, the phone, the knife, and then she found it. The mayonnaise jar. Kathy took the jar to Kim Sherrick, a latent print examiner.

Quick side note about fingerprints. There are three types of prints that investigators look at. Patent, impressed, and latent. Patent prints are easily visible to the naked eye and usually show up in ink, oil, or blood. Impressed fingerprints are made by pressing down in soft materials like clay. The third kind, latent prints, are not visible to the naked eye. They're created by the tiny particles of dust, sweat, salt, and oil that our fingers naturally collect throughout the day, and traces of them are left behind on all kinds of hard surfaces. Which brings us back to Kim Sherrick, an expert in finding and examining these latent fingerprints. Kim used new technology, stuff they couldn't even dream of in 1987, to see what she could find on the mayonnaise jar. That jar was brought back to

this lab and it was processed by super glue fuming. They use super glue and they put it in a little metal tin with some water and the heat and it will fume and it adheres to all the sweat that was left behind. I looked at this over and over and over again with my magnifier and I really examined the whole entire thing and then right where the rim is there was a fingerprint. Kathy was surprised. Holy crap. She actually found one. After 25 years in storage, she found a print on this mayonnaise jar, and she says, this is a good print. Funny thing about this fingerprint. Think about how you'd hold a mayonnaise jar. Picture where you'd grip it with one hand before twisting off the lid with the other.

Got it? Now flip it. Because this print was facing the wrong direction. This fingerprint was just like that, as if the mayonnaise jar was held upside down, maybe as a weapon. Probably when the person knocked on the door, she panics and picked this up. At that point, everything started making sense. Let's just compare Danita's prints to that fingerprint on the mayonnaise jar, and then we got her. They already had Danita's prints on file from that traffic stop

during the original investigation. So Kathy went to pull them out of evidence, knowing she was possibly moments away, inches away from finally putting this case to rest. One problem, though. Danita's prints case to rest. One problem, though. Danita's prints weren't there. They'd gone missing. We found out that the detectives lost the fingerprint card. Unbelievable. So they needed to get Danita's fingerprints again, which meant they needed to track down Danita again. You know, luckily there had been a warrant out for Donita,

a real, real light warrant. It pays to write people for jaywalking. You know, I don't know how many cases, you know, you saw by just someone being issued a warrant for something so small. So they arrest Donita, bringing her in and taking her fingerprints. And immediately the detectives are on the clock. Ralph brings me this fingerprint card and says, Kim, you need to do it quick. Compare that to the known print off the mayonnaise jar. Because it's a light warrant, they can only hold Danita for a few hours tops.

So Kim needs to get her analysis as quickly and carefully as possible. She gets to work comparing Danita's fingerprints with the print pulled off the mayonnaise jar. Meanwhile, the two detectives interview Danita. Here's Detective Ralph Taylor. Kathy can be a bull. She's wanting her to admit that she killed that woman, but she won't. The only problem was, we only got a certain amount of time. It's a jaywalking warrant. It's not a murder warrant. We can't keep her here for 12 hours for something like this. If you're interviewing your suspect, and this is your one and only interview, and you throw something out there that they know is crap, you're done.

At this point, this case is 26 years old. And finally, detectives have their main suspect sitting in an interview room in the police station. If they can get her to confess, they'll have everything they need to put Danita away for Anna Mae's murder. Even if they can't get a confession, which they don't, they still come out on top if they can just buy enough time for Kim to confirm that it's Danita's prints on the mayonnaise jar. There's one teeny tiny little problem, though. I'm looking at the print, looked at the mayonnaise jar, but it's not Danita.

The prints did not match. I'm looking at the print, looked at the mayonnaise jar, but it's not Donita. The prints did not match. Kim, Ralph, and Kathy had come so close with Donita and the fingerprint on the mayonnaise jar. But that feeling of being close turned out to be an illusion. Anna Mae's family was all too familiar with that feeling, how closeness can betray you. Here are Anna Mae's nieces, Becky and Linda. When Anna Mae's husband died, she didn't have no kids. My father insisted that she come here to Columbus.

My aunts, sisters and brothers, they felt as though had they left her in Alabama, she would have still been alive. Anna Mae's siblings moved her to Columbus to be closer to the family. But by bringing her closer, they ended up losing her forever. As Kathy got to know the family better over the course of the investigation, she also got to know that certain family members blame themselves for what happened to Anna Mae. The family didn't deserve that. This woman didn't deserve that. Kathy had hit a huge roadblock, but that wasn't the end. She wasn't about to let that roadblock stop her.

And there was one big lingering question left after Danita was cleared. Why would Odell implicate Donita? Either he was in on it or he knew who was involved. Our world is changing fast. I can push a few buttons on my phone and get anything my heart desires delivered to my doorstep. But you know what hasn't changed? Coloring your hair.

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But using modern records and a driver's license database, Ralph and Kathy are able to find Odell's new address. So they go pay Odell a visit and try to find some answers. In his interview in the 80s, he'd known things that only somebody who had spoken with the killer would know, and he'd said the killer was Danita. But it wasn't Danita. So now what does he have to say? They sit down with Odell and ask him what the deal is. And Odell said he didn't know what the heck detectives were talking about. He didn't remember this murder. He didn't remember calling in to talk to the police. He didn't know what the heck detectives were talking about. He didn't remember this murder. He didn't remember calling in to talk to the police. He didn't remember going in to be interviewed or pointing the finger at anyone. Kathy and Ralph were ready, though.

They'd come armed with the original recording of Odell, which they played for him. And we said, Odell, we have to straighten this out. Okay, my name is Odell. Okay. O-D-E-L-L. Uh-huh. That is you on that tape. 65, Ettenburg.

That's E-D-E-N-B-U-R-G-H. And he said, yeah, that's my address. That's my social security number. But that's not my voice. The detectives were floored. I mean, the boldness of that. The audacity. And I was livin'.

I've had it. You know, this is on tape here. You know, they recorded you back then. Who else would it be? He said, that's not me, I'll tell you why. Yeah, that's my previous address. But the way that guy's spelling Edinburgh, I couldn't have spelled that like that. He says, I can't read and I can't write. It kind of shocked me, but it hit me with, he's telling the truth.

He can't read and write. And he gets all emotional, tearing up, crying, and he gets scared. Because whoever's on this tape is providing officers with his name, his social security number. Clearly, this interview had taken a pretty unexpected turn. The detectives thought they were going to get tough with this guy, go hard and get him to admit the truth. And in a way, I guess they kind of did. But a teary confession of illiteracy was definitely not the kind of confession they were hoping for. So the next question to him is, who do you know that knows that much about you? And he listened to the tape several times and said, you know who that sounds like? My cousin Chris. Back in 87, Odell used to apply for jobs at an unemployment office.

His cousin Chris would always go with him and his cousin Chris would fill out his applications. Turns out the original detectives had never talked to Odell. They'd never met with Odell. They had met with Chris. Back in 1987, Chris is the one who came to headquarters and saying he was Odell. The original detectives didn't look at a picture ID. How stupid is that? Now, Ralph and Kathy need to track down Chris and confront him about what he really knows. I want to meet Chris in person. I want to look at him. I want to talk to him. I mean, not over the phone. I want to sit across the table from him. And I want to look him in the eye.

If there was one person that could tell us the truth as to what had happened, it was Chris. Kathy and Ralph get to digging on Chris. They find a cell number for him and are able to get him on the phone. He lives out of state now and travels around a lot since he works as a long-haul truck driver. Chris denies being the informant, but admits to knowing Danita. After hearing his voice on the phone, though, Kathy is sure that Chris is the

one speaking on that tape. Finally, she gets Chris to admit that he comes through Columbus every now and then to visit his mom. It takes a few months, but eventually the detectives are able to catch up with Chris at his mom's house during one of these visits. Now comes the hard part, getting Chris to talk. If you called in that tip back in 1987, you're not thinking that 20-something years later, you're going to be sitting across from a couple of detectives, and they're going to hit you with the facts. That would make me nervous. Explaining to him, we're trying to find out who killed this woman,

and good cop, bad cop stuff, forget that. You got two homicide detectives sitting in your house, and I want to know what's going on. He denied anything about a tip. He denied it. So I said, you're the one that initiated this. You're the one that started this back in 1987. We're just trying to finish this up. Chris, family members are calling,

and they want to know what happened to their aunt. If something happened to your relatives, would you want us to be doing this? And he continued to deny it. We were at a point where, okay, he's not going to admit it. What can we really do? I'd have to say the turning point was his mother. I had Chris's mom listen to that cassette tape,

and I said, do you know who this voice is? We need Chris to tell us the truth. She told her son, you tell them detectives what you know. Too much time's gone by. You be honest with them. There was some trembling in his voice. He said that he did call on the tip. He does admit to knowing Danita.

He said, she's innocent. Somebody else did it. Finally, after 26 years, Kathy and Ralph had found the informant who disappeared. The one person, other than the killer, who knew what really happened. They were finally going to learn the truth. Then he told us what some other girl had told him back in 1987, the day after the homicide had taken place. He said, we were just friends. She came over and sat on my porch, and she had to tell me something.

She said that she owed a drug dealer some money. And she was going door to door asking for money. Anna Mae had given her a couple dollars. She saw that there was more money in that purse. That's what took over. This is all we need from you. We need a real name. And he says, Zena Roberson.

And he says, I've held on to this for all these years just because she was my friend. He had posed as Odell because he wanted somebody arrested for that homicide. He just didn't want Zena. And he had heard that Donita was involved in some illegal activity, thought that, okay, she'll go to jail for this and I'll feel a lot better, you know, knowing I kept my secret with Zena. For 26 years, you keep that secret. The family didn't need 26 years of unknown. If we had not confronted him, he would never have said anything.

The detectives now knew the killer's name, but had no idea where to find her. Using the information that she lived next door to Chris in 1987, they were able to find records of a driver's license Zena had got when she was 16. That then leads them to a shoplifting charge in Georgia, which meant she'd been arrested. So her prints are on file. They sent a request to Georgia for Zena's fingerprints and waited. For Kathy, this was it. As close as she had come and as close as she was going to come. She'd run out of leads, run out of suspects, and run out of time. It had as she had come, and as close as she was going to come. She had run out of leads, run out of suspects, and run out of time. It had to be Zena, or it would have to once again go cold.

Zena was the last suspect that we had to go on. This is my last chance. Kathy said, Kim, if this isn't her, you're not going to look at any more people. This is it. I'm done. These prints are going to put her in that house or the case goes back up on the shelf. I'll call Becky up and say, hey, Becky, we gave it the best shot we had. I have nothing further to burn with. Got that, Kim? No pressure. Just the entire past, present and future of this investigation.

And the family's last best shot at getting justice for Anna Mae. I'm looking at these fingerprints, pulled out Zita's fingerprint card. I look down on my desk with my magnifier and make that right thumb. I look at it, kind of raised up. So I look at it again. And I said, oh, got her. We got her, Zima. After 26 years, detectives have a fingerprint match to the crime scene. They know who killed Anna Mae. Now they just have to find Zena and make the arrest.

They knew where Zena had been arrested, and their best guess put her somewhere in the area around Rome, Georgia. So, Ralph and Kathy went to Rome and started working with the Rome PD. Here's Ralph. They said that what we normally do for stuff like this, they have a Facebook. So they took the picture of her, put it on their Facebook page. They didn't say what for, but they just said, has anybody seen this woman? I don't think it was two minutes they got a response. A person answered and said, this is a lady I see at the bus stop at this intersection every morning. And we went, wow.

They used the Facebook information to find Zena and go pay her a visit. Ralph and Kathy are on high alert, ready for anything. The door opened and I wasn't even sure right off the top my head that was her. She answered the door. She could have slammed it in our faces but she didn't. You know and I said you know we're homicide cold case detectives from Columbus, Ohio. You could kind of read it on her face. It was kind of like between shock and relief. Kind of like, I knew you were coming. I didn't know when, but I knew this was going to happen.

She invited us in, and she reached to the ledge of the couch, you know, to ease herself into the seat. And I've never seen anything like it. But every pore on her body opened up. And I mean, it looked like a river coming from the top of her head all the way down. You describe it as a poison. And it poisons your system and it poisons your whole life because you're you're not running but you're not turning yourself in either nothing needed to be said it was just body language you know she kind of

looked down she knew I know why you guys are here she says I used to live in Columbus but I don't know anything about homicide. And I said, well, you're going to have to, you've got to come with us. We knew we had her. Ralph and Kathy place Zena under arrest for the murder of Anna Mae Florence and take her into the station. Zena, like I mentioned, I'm Kathy. This is where I kind of cut you off guard this morning. We start the interview, and of course, right away, we want to get through that rights waiver.

Anything you say can be used against you. Get that out of the way. If you're unable to pay a lawyer, a lawyer will be appointed for you. A lot of our suspects, they want to know how caught they are, and once they realize they're caught, they don't want to play anymore. You can almost hear her thinking. Are you willing to talk with us and at least hear what we have to say? Yes, I hear what I have to say.

Okay. The real element we needed was her to admit she had never been in that apartment because we knew we had evidence putting her there. But the one in that apartment we legally could possibly be self-defense. But the only one that can tell us that is you. Once the word lawyer comes out of their mouth, your interview's over. However they say it. You think I need a lawyer? Will somebody call me a lawyer? And I'm just getting a feeling that she's going to say the word here in a minute. So I pulled out a picture of the victim. How about this woman here? Did you know her?

I kind of wanted to shock her into this. You ever been to her place? You may be never in her apartment. You don't know who she is. We had her in an apartment. We have two separate fingerprints from Zena inside Anna Mae's apartment. You can help yourself out here, okay? I'm being truthful. She said it three times, I believe.

She had never been inside Anna Mae Florence's apartment. Zena, tell us what happened. What do you mean, how? Tell us what happened. I don't want to be in the way. All right, Zena. apartment. Between the fingerprints taken off the mayonnaise jar and the testimony from Chris, prosecutors have a rock-solid case against Zena. They charge her with aggravated murder, which gets lowered to murder through a plea deal. On August 25, 2014, 27 years after Anna Mae Florence was murdered, Zena Roberson was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Anna Mae's family waited a long time for justice, sometimes feeling that they were so close to finding the killer, the one that had literally slipped through her brother-in-law's fingertips. Other times, they thought that justice might never come. Turns out, close can be a well-defined position or a terrible gray area. Close means comfort, like when you're close with your family. But it can also be isolating, like when your life has unresolved questions and you're so close to finding the answers. Fortunately for Anna Mae's family, though,

close didn't last forever. Thanks to Ralph and Kathy, close finally turned to closure. Thank you.