Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Til Death Do Us Part

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Just two years into their marriage, Chuck Hall finds his wife, Cheryl, murdered in their home. Although Cheryl’s family is certain they know her killer, the authorities aren’t as convince...d. After decades, a DNA match erases any lingering doubt.IQBAR - Get 20% off all IQBAR products plus free shipping by texting COLD to 64000Marathon: Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. Marathon, where fun runs on full!Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode contains descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised. Sharing Chuck's love story, it was like something I had never seen. He just loved her so much. They just had a happy marriage. Two weeks before she was killed, she told me she was going to make me a grandma. She never got to have the grandbabies.
Starting point is 00:00:23 She didn't get to live her life. I miss everything about her. As a mother, I felt like I should have known something. Something should have clicked somewhere. I felt like I let her down. If I would have known, I would have been there, most definitely. I told Sherry, going to find out who did this to her, and that I would never give up until I did.
Starting point is 00:00:45 There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. There's an autumn chill in the air in Aurora, Illinois, on September 9, 1981. It's Wednesday, and 20-year-old Cheryl Lynn Hall is at home in the house she shares with her husband of two years, Chuck. As she does every week on her day off, Cheryl begins cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and preparing meals for the rest of the week. The high school sweethearts live in a townhouse in a quiet neighborhood of the Chicago suburb.
Starting point is 00:01:47 Chuck's sister Jackie and Cheryl's mother Garnet recall the young couple's love story. Chuck and Cheryl met through a mutual friend and just hit it off right away. They were just made for each other. I think it's the first time she fell in love. I mean, she had other boyfriends, but she knew Chuck was the one. All she wanted to do was get married and start a family.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Just a few weeks after graduating high school, Cheryl and Chuck tied the knot. October 6, 1979, Chuck and Cheryl were married. I was the flower girl. I got to wear the pretty dress. My brother, I had never seen him happier. Cheryl Lynn was absolutely beautiful. She was like a princess.
Starting point is 00:02:25 She never stopped smiling the whole day. Cheryl is close to her sister, Lisa, and she can't wait for her life with Chuck to begin. She was excited about the new chapter in her life, being married, getting a new home, planning for children. As long as I can remember, that's what was important to her.
Starting point is 00:02:47 Having a family, having her own children, and living a happy life. Cheryl and Chuck settle into their new home in the quiet neighborhood, where young children play happily on the street, and they look forward to one day having their own kids. Their candle was super, super nice. They would have friends over a lot. We started hanging out more together.
Starting point is 00:03:10 Her favorite group was the Eagles, so we would always listen to music and just, you know, have some time together. By September 9, 1981, the couple of the couple of the couple of them, has settled into a routine. Chuck comes home from work on his lunch break to eat with Cheryl. And when he leaves to finish his shift, Cheryl talks to her sister Lisa on the phone for a while. On this day, Chuck arrives home after work at 6 p.m. There's no sign of Cheryl, and there's laundry knocked over in the hallway. He calls out for his wife, but she doesn't answer. Chuck runs up the stairs in search of Cheryl.
Starting point is 00:03:50 As he got to the top of the stairs, he saw her hanging from the doorkn up with an iron cord around her neck. He attempted to do CPR on her. And then he ran downstairs and he ran to the neighbor's house. The neighbor was a nurse. And they called an ambulance or the police. He continued to do CPR on her until the paramedics arrived. Officers from the Aurora Police Department are dispatched to the scene. Deputy Chief Matt Thomas describes,
Starting point is 00:04:23 they were faced with. After the calls received, the officers and medics arrive on scene. They check the upstairs bedroom and locate Cheryl Hall. It looked to be a very brutal murder. The cord was still wrapped around her neck. The other portion of the cord was wrapped around the door knob. There are strangulation marks around Cheryl's neck, and there's nothing paramedics can do. She's pronounced dead at the scene.
Starting point is 00:05:00 Chuck's world crumbles around him. He's the one to break the news to Cheryl's family that night. About 8 o'clock, the doorbell rang over and over and over and over. So I go to the door and Chuck standing there. And the look on his face was something I have never seen before. And I said, what's wrong? And he said, it's Cheryl. She's dead.
Starting point is 00:05:25 And I said, what? He says she's dead. Somebody killed her. I don't remember a whole lot after that happened. I was only 16 at the time. Chuck and my mom came to my dad's house and told me that something happened to Sherry. My mom just hugged me and said it's Sherry.
Starting point is 00:05:48 She's gone. We were just so in shock. Cheryl was my daughter, my firstborn. I called her Sherry from the time she was born. She was always a mama's girl. She wanted to be with me all the time. I would never forget the dress she had on. her first day of school. She looked adorable. And then when I left her, she started crying. She wanted to come back with me. She was just perfect. She made me proud to be a mom. And then when
Starting point is 00:06:18 Lisa came along, she was just the best sister ever. We were about four years apart. We always got along, even though there was a big age gap. She would play Barbies with me. We were really close. She was so sweet. I don't really think there was a mean bone in her body. When Cheryl married Chuck, She became close to his younger sister, Jackie, too. Cheryl was very much like an older sister to me. She always made time for me. She never treated me just like a little kid. Even though she was living her own life,
Starting point is 00:06:51 Cheryl made sure she still spent one day a week with her mom and sister. Every weekend, the three of us, Sherry, myself and my mom, would go shopping and spend the entire day together. It was the highlight of our week. the week before Sherry was killed, the three of us went shopping. And she bought all of these new clothes for her job. And she was so excited. That was the last time we got to go shopping a week before it happened.
Starting point is 00:07:21 I mean, we were so close, the three of us. Now we're not three anymore. After Cheryl is found dead in her home in September 1981, the Aurora police investigators begin trying to narrow down the suspect list. Chuck was the one of the last ones to see Cheryl alive. So he was one that we wanted to speak to. You have to look at the husband first because he's the closest one. And that's tough because they're grieving at the loss of a loved one.
Starting point is 00:07:58 So you have to use a lot of compassion, letting them to know that we're just doing our job. Family members live under a cloud of suspicion, something that is the cruel reality. in many murder investigations. Until someone is charged, no one can be completely excluded. Chicago Tribune columnist Denise Crosby explains. Not only was Chuck his spouse,
Starting point is 00:08:23 he was also the last person to see her alive, and he was the one who found her body. So he fit all three criteria of what would make the number one suspect. Chuck is questioned for hours after his wife's murder, but Cheryl's family never doubt his love for her. It never crossed my mind that Chuck ever hurt her. Never crossed my mind.
Starting point is 00:08:46 Even, you know, though they interviewed him for a long time, I never suspected that Chuck ever hurt her. I had people ask me, what do you think? And without a doubt, I knew that Chuck had nothing to do with it. He loved her. He would never have hurt her. Investigators are able to confirm Chuck was at work at the time the murder occurred. And once he's ruled out, they begin to scour the... the crime scene for clues.
Starting point is 00:09:16 Crime scene technicians look for evidence of latent prints on door handles, Cheryl's purse, and other items that are at the scene. A lot of the prints are smeared or smudged, so they're unusable. But hair, fibers, and trace evidence are collected. While Cheryl's family grieve the immeasurable loss, investigators asked them to assist in piecing together a timeline of the hours leading up to Cheryl's murder. Her sister said that she last spoke with Cheryl at 3 p.m. that day on the phone, and then at 3.30 neighbors of the adjacent apartment heard a door slam,
Starting point is 00:09:52 and then they heard several loud thuds, and then at 6 p.m. is when Chuck gets home and finds her. So the timeline was basically 3 p.m. to 6 that we were looking at. Cheryl's body is brought for an autopsy, and the pathologist discovers abrasions on her hands, knees, and torso, indicating she struggled and fought desperately against her attacker. During the autopsy, fingernail clippings are taken and scraped to determine if Cheryl's killer's DNA could be found on a bloodstain beneath her nail.
Starting point is 00:10:27 It seems like a crime of opportunity. The murder weapon is something that was close by, and the strangulation was brutal. Cheryl was such a tiny little thing fighting for her life. She had to have fought so hard. She did not go down easily, but she had to have gone down in sheer terror. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration, and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar Protein bars, IQ Mix, IQ Mix, and IQ Joe Mushroom Coffee's are the delicious,
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Starting point is 00:13:21 fundraiser. Gofundme.com. This is a commercial message brought to you by GofundMe. Still reeling from the horrific murder, Cheryl's family and friends gather to say goodbye. We needed to get something special for her to be buried in. It had to be something that covered her neck. So I went to the mall and I found a really pretty light blue turtleneck for her to wear. I was only 16
Starting point is 00:13:55 and that was a really that was a hard thing to do. I remember seeing her laying there never in a million years when I've ever dreamed I would be looking at her like that. And I made it through somehow. I don't even know how I made it.
Starting point is 00:14:15 I held her hand and just told her how much I loved her, how much I miss her. Chuck just stood at the casket for hours and hours. I remember him trying to take her out of the casket. He didn't want to leave without her. And I was rushed away quickly after that.
Starting point is 00:14:44 Former Kane County state's attorney Joe McMahon recalls the impact the murder had on the Aurora community. This looked like a very brutal, randomized act of violence. And if it happened to Cheryl in her home, I think there was a real fear that this crime could be repeated or a similar crime could occur again somewhere else in that community. Detectives look for a potential connection between Cheryl's murder and a string of burglaries in her neighborhood. Part of their initial investigation was to determine whether somebody had encountered Cheryl Lynn at home
Starting point is 00:15:27 when they were attempting to burglarize her home. Cheryl and Chuck recently installed a deadbolt on their door, and it's found to be intact. Nothing within the home is disturbed and nothing of value is missing. This did not appear to be a burglary. This appeared to be a very personal crime. murder committed by strangulation is a very intimate crime. It's one where high emotions factor into that killing. So it was clear that it was someone that Cheryl either knew or had some level of trust with to allow them into the residence.
Starting point is 00:16:10 Two days into the investigation, detectives find out about a recent visitor to Cheryl and Chuck's home. Two weeks before her murder, Cheryl was home alone when there was a knock at the door. It was Larry Galloway, a man who worked at the same cable company as Chuck. Larry had known Cheryl since high school, and he and his wife would socialize with Cheryl and Chuck. They kind of became casual friends. I think she always thought of him as a little bit odd. The unexpected visit lasts for around 20 minutes, and it makes Cheryl uncomfortable enough for her to tell her friends about it.
Starting point is 00:16:49 She said that he just made her really nervous. She just got really bad vibes from him. 12 days after Cheryl's murder, Larry Galloway is brought in to police headquarters. Mr. Galloway answered questions about his whereabouts, his relationship with Cheryl Lynn Hall and her husband, his whereabouts on the day of Sherilyn's murder. He advised them that he was not involved. He had no knowledge of her murder. Between the hours of the murder, he was at his parents' home mowing the grass.
Starting point is 00:17:24 Larry Galloway establishes an alibi, and he explains to the police the reasons why he had visited Cheryl's home before the murder. He wanted to talk to Chuck about some union business, as Chuck was a union steward. Larry Galloway had been fired from his position at the cable company, and my brother was able to save his job through the union. There was another time that my brother was unable to save Larry's job. And so I think that they may have been looking at him early on for that aspect. You know, was he holding a grudge? Larry Galloway was questioned by law enforcement, never excluded, but never able to really collect sufficient evidence to bring charges. They weren't able to get any more information from Galloway, and there were no other leads for them to follow.
Starting point is 00:18:15 the cops really had no choice but to move on. With no leads and no suspect, the cloud of suspicion and grief that hangs over Chuck Hall darkens day by day. There were still people out there who truly thought that my brother had committed this crime.
Starting point is 00:18:39 Chuck, more than anyone, his life was impacted the most by the murder of his wife. The fact that people looked at him as a suspect was almost as crushing to him as losing his bride. He had promised her family
Starting point is 00:18:55 that he was going to take care of her and then this terrible thing happens. And he felt like he didn't protect her. He didn't keep us promised. He didn't know who he was anymore without her. As Chuck struggles with losing Cheryl, investigators look for connections between Cheryl's murder
Starting point is 00:19:14 and a killing that happened nine months earlier. Susan Jebsinsky was murdered in her home close to Aurora in a similar way to Cheryl. There was such rage in whoever murdered her, and I think that same rage was absolutely displayed with Sherilyn as well. Two young women, very similar in age, very similar in lifestyle, are murdered in a very similar fashion, just a few miles apart. Of course, that's going to give the impression of something really bad going on,
Starting point is 00:19:45 like a serial murder. That was probably a pretty scary time for people in this area. to have this going on. Five weeks have passed since Cheryl's death, and investigators are unable to draw a definitive connection between the murders. So with no new suspects, they take another look at the people
Starting point is 00:20:09 they have already spoken to. Initially, the investigator spoke with Larry Galloway, and he gave his alibi and said he had no knowledge of the murder. Again, his name kept coming up as someone that could have possibly been involved. There were several people that were. were asked to take polygraph tests, including her husband, Chuck Hall, and all of them agreed, and Larry was the only one that did not.
Starting point is 00:20:35 Larry Galloway refuses to cooperate with the investigation moving forward. The investigation has come to terms with understanding that refusing a polygraph is not an admission of guilt. It is a constitutional right. Detectives continue to work every angle, but the case stalls. They interviewed everybody at the bank, all the neighbors. around her, her friend that lived next door, they interviewed her as well. With Cheryl's husband effectively ruled out as a suspect, and with Larry Galloway's refusal to cooperate,
Starting point is 00:21:09 the case goes cold by the one-year anniversary of Cheryl's death. There was one officer that actually told my brother, unless somebody comes in, we will probably never know who did this. That was very hard for my brother to hear. The first anniversary after she was taken from us, it was a little bit of her. It was a very hard for really hard. So many emotions, sad, anger that, you know, this person is out there just living their life. Her life was taken away. There was very little investigative activity, and I can imagine that was incredibly painful for the whole family and for the community. There began to be doubt that this case was going to be solved, but I felt connected to the family, and every time I saw them,
Starting point is 00:21:56 I just saw their pain fresh again and their frustration and their unwillingness to give up. Garnett and her family, they never let the police department forget Cheryl Lynn's name. They were like, please don't forget Cheryl Lynn. We know her murder can be solved. Cheryl's mother, Garnett, won't give up on finding justice for her eldest daughter. And she pleads with the investigators to solve the case. But she has her own mother's intuition about who is responsible.
Starting point is 00:22:34 We would go down to the police station, like once a month. Have you made any progress? You know, what's going on with this? They would talk to us about what they had done, but it wasn't going anywhere. It was eating at me. Every day that went by, so I called Larry, and I said to him, Larry, and he said, yes. I said, you're going to get what's coming to you one day. And he said, bring it on.
Starting point is 00:22:59 and hung up. It was like an explosion inside of me. He just didn't seem to care what happened to her. And that just broke my heart. I did feel like Larry Galloway had done that at that point. Because if he had not done it, he would have said, I didn't do it, or I'm sorry what happened to her. He never said anything. It was just bringing on. At Marathon Gas Stations, every stop is the start of fun. Like the awesome fuel savings you can get with Marathon rewards, Join Marathon Rewards today and start earning rewards on every gallon of gas. You can redeem rewards at any time, saving up to $1 per gallon.
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Starting point is 00:24:28 It's 1997 now and 16 years have passed. Sheryl's family turns to the media in a desperate attempt to keep the case alive. They reach out to Denise Crosby at the Chicago Tribune. I have been a columnist for the Tribune newspapers for close to three decades. That phone call came in from the family saying, hey, we want to talk to you about our daughter's case. Her death left such a hole in the fabric of that family. We felt like we were kind of backed into a corner until we met Denise, and she just took it from there.
Starting point is 00:25:07 She was our voice. The article Denise Crosby writes gives Cheryl's family a ray of hope. And the public interest it generated prompts the police to take a fresh look at the cold case. In 1997, a new investigator looked at the case start to finish. All the evidence that was collected back in 1981
Starting point is 00:25:32 to identify whether there was something that was overlooked by the original investigators. The investigators focused their attention on Larry Galloway. The investigators start re-interviewing witnesses. Some give information that discredits his alibi. Some of the witnesses feel Larry would be capable of committing a violent crime like this. He had made comments that he could kill someone and it wouldn't bother him. At the time, they felt like they had enough probable cause to get his DNA standards to compare them.
Starting point is 00:26:09 to some of the trace evidence and the suspected bloodstain under her fingernails. DNA analysis was steadily evolving in 1997. But even all these years later, Galloway still refuses to cooperate in this investigation and will not give the police a DNA sample. He says he didn't do it. So if you didn't do it, give up the hair. Give a blood sample. Take a polygraph.
Starting point is 00:26:37 That's all we needed. And he just absolutely refused. Prosecutors take the case to a grand jury, which issues a subpoena, ordering Galloway to provide a DNA sample. His lawyers appeal the order, and a judge rules that there is insufficient evidence to force him to provide a DNA sample.
Starting point is 00:27:04 It's incredibly frustrating for Cheryl's mother and loved ones. He got away with not given his DNA. I was saying, if I could just get my hand, on you. Our hopes were once again just absolutely shattered. There was nowhere else for it to go without the CNA to either prove that he did or didn't do it. After 16 years of waiting for something to happen,
Starting point is 00:27:27 the case goes cold once more. It's impossible for Cheryl's loved ones to live peacefully within the community when the prime suspect in her murder continues to live there. Larry becomes active with the school, becomes active with his church, becomes active with boy scouts. People like this guy. That certainly wasn't how Cheryl's family felt about Larry. There was just so much pain. Grief is one thing, but grief without justice. The whole gets bigger, and the bitterness
Starting point is 00:28:05 gets more intense. And I think that's what was happening with this family. Chuck was dealing with guilt and grief and anger. Lots of really deep anger. Chuck, I believe, wholeheartedly suffered from PTSD. He would just start crying for no reason. It could be the smallest thing and it would just bring a flashback of him finding her body. Chuck is haunted by the thought of people suspecting him as being his wife's killer. He tries to move on with his life and remarries. Chuck and his second wife have two little boys together, and he loves them with all of his heart. But the trauma of Cheryl's death plagues him. He was just battling so many demons, and I know his wife was frustrated because she felt like she was competing with a ghost. He would visit her grave so often, and I think it really,
Starting point is 00:29:12 obviously it hurt the marriage and they ended up breaking up, and his life of loneliness just continued. Another decade goes by, and in 2007, 26 years after Cheryl's murder, Aurora Police Detective Matt Thomas joins the investigation. I had 10 years of law enforcement experience when I began looking into Cheryl Hall's murder case. As I'm going through the case file,
Starting point is 00:29:41 I was going to let the investigation and the facts steer me, and it pointed me in the direction of Larry Galloway. In my mind, there's only one person that knows what happened, and that person is Larry. The case is reopened, and Cheryl's mother is confident that they will finally get justice for Cheryl. I was more determined then than ever,
Starting point is 00:30:08 that you will pay for this somehow, you will pay for this, and I'm not giving up until you do. DNA science has dramatically advanced in the 26 years since Sherylson. was killed. And detectives are eager to test Galloway's DNA, but they'll have to get it first. I felt our only option was to set up a surveillance detail, and so I met with the state's attorney and let them know kind of what our plans were. We tried to identify a way to creatively collect evidence from Mr. Galloway that would exclude him or really solidify him as a suspect.
Starting point is 00:30:50 A surveillance operation begins at Larry Galloway's residence. And after two and a half hours of waiting, the investigators see him leave the house with another man. They follow Galloway to a Chili's restaurant and maintain a visual on him while he's eating his meal. As soon as Galloway left the restaurant, the investigators collect his straw, utensils, and napkin from the table. Mr. Galloway left this evidence for anybody to collect.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Once it was there in the public, we could go preserve it and then submit it for analysis. Forensic specialists test the straw Galloway used and discover a match to the DNA found in the bloodstain collected from Cheryl's nails. It's the break they have all been waiting for. With the DNA match, a judge grants an arrest warrant for Larry Galloway on July 31, 2008. At this point, Galloway is a judge-grant's an arrest warrant for Larry Galloway. working as a train conductor in Chicago.
Starting point is 00:31:58 So the investigators wait at the train station. When Galloway arrives on the platform, the officers advise him that he is under arrest for murder. Galloway is expressionless and compliant, as he is handcuffed and taken to the station for questioning. The arrest is welcome news for Cheryl's family. 12.30 at night, the doorbell rang. And when I got to it, I saw the detectives with
Starting point is 00:32:31 these huge smiles on their faces. And they said, we got them. I could not believe it. I said, finally. I was so happy. I thought, okay, now, maybe he's going to pay for what he did. That was the first time I had seen the light of my brother's eyes. I got to witness him with Lisa and Garnet.
Starting point is 00:32:53 And they were just hugging each other. And they're like, we did it. We finally did it. We had gone to the police department. and he was handcuffed and it was the best thing I've ever seen. I didn't know where it was going to go from there. All I knew is they had him. The DNA evidence is just one piece of the puzzle.
Starting point is 00:33:17 The investigators need more in order to secure a conviction. And they hope an interview with Galloway will provide what they need. Galloway denies any involvement to the murder, despite the DNA linking him to the crime. And although he has no reaction to the arrest, the community is stunned. Everybody really thought he was just such a good person. It made me sick. He had everybody fooled.
Starting point is 00:33:43 The people on the train stood by him, even after all this happened. All the people that rode the train with them thought he couldn't have done that. He's a nice guy. But no, he's a monster. Prosecutors prepare for trial and quickly realize that their case is far from airtight. The volume of DNA recovered has been wiped out by testing, and the original investigator and evidence technician passes away as the trial approaches. In a case that is built on DNA, any inconsistency is a major concern. With a possible acquittal looming, the prosecutors decide
Starting point is 00:34:26 to offer Galloway a deal. We made a decision to resolve the case by way of a plea agreement, to hold him as accountable as I believe that we could based on the evidence. We took the plea deal because we're not gamblers. Justice for Sherry was definitely not worth gambling because it'd been too many years and she deserved justice of some sort. So we were not willing to take that chance. My brother had a lot of emotions going on. Anger, sad, happy, relieved.
Starting point is 00:35:00 Something was better than nothing. A jury trial could have gone the other way, and I don't think anybody in the family would have done well with that. Cheryl's family looks on as Larry Galloway pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter in April 2012. As part of his plea agreement, Galloway must admit that he murdered Cheryl Hall. But he doesn't have to say why he killed the young woman. There were several theories about what happened, the fact that he killed. Larry lost his job, and Chuck was a union steward.
Starting point is 00:35:37 I don't know if there was any hard feelings there. I've had thoughts myself that Larry Galloway was interested in her. He might have made a pass, and it went very wrong. Why would you do that to her? Why would you harm her? If I could just know why, then I think maybe I could live with it a little better, but I don't even know why he did. What happened that day?
Starting point is 00:36:04 Was it intentional? Was it an accident? We don't know. But a light definitely went out the day that he took Cheryl's life. The judge Hans Galloway, a 10-year prison term. But under 1981 laws, he will only have to serve half of his sentence. The unanswered questions and lenient prison sentence are hard to come to terms with for Cheryl's family. Just three and a half years.
Starting point is 00:36:35 years into Galloway's sentence, they are down to another blow. We got a call saying that Larry Galloway was out of jail. And I'm thinking, how could he be out of jail? He hasn't even served his five years. It was shock, absolutely shock, especially that time of year. We didn't have her to celebrate Christmas with. And then to know that he got out right before Christmas to, to what, spend it with his family? That was tough.
Starting point is 00:37:01 At that time, I really didn't understand, okay, 10 years, but he's only going to serve half of it. Why? I still don't understand it. I don't understand it. How some people can be put in jail for the rest of their lives, just like that. But how was it that it was five years? And then he didn't even serve that.
Starting point is 00:37:24 There is no justice. There was no justice for my sister. He's still the monster he was. And they let him out in less than five years. I don't understand it. And I'm sure it's probably a letdown to the detectives for all the hard work they went through to get him, and that's all he served. It's not justice. Galloway is released in December 2015, a year and a half early, under a program to ease prison overcrowding.
Starting point is 00:37:59 He also has credit for good behavior behind bars. Galloway's release is a source of frustration for the state's attorney, Joe McMahon. Mr. Galloway was released without any input from either Cheryl Lynn Hall's family or my office. It was difficult for them to accept. It's difficult for me to accept. Just a few months later, the family faces another heartbreak. Cheryl's widower, Chuck Hall, succumbs to the lung cancer he had been battling for years. Chuck passed away on April 12th of 2016.
Starting point is 00:38:36 Larry Galloway had already had almost five months of freedom at that point. He had surgery, but the surgeon came out and told me that the cancer had spread, and they really had just closed him back up at that point. He did do chemo and radiation. Chuck caught some type of infection, and his body just couldn't fight it off. The chemo, it just took everything from him. But we had had a conversation, and he knew that he was going to be with Cheryl again. That did absolutely bring him comfort. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to
Starting point is 00:39:12 leave his grandkids. He didn't want to leave his kids. But he also knew that he was going to be with Cheryl again. And that made it less frightening for him. We were all there when he passed. Lisa, Cheryl's sister, Garnett, myself, Chuck's other siblings were also there. And it was very peaceful. We knew where he was going to go and who he was going to be with, so it made it a little bit easier. My brother got to die, knowing that the world knew that he was not a murder, and that brought peace to him and to me. And losing my brother was very hard, but he was going to be with his wife, with the love of his life. Life was never the same for Cheryl's loved one. after her horrific murder in 1981.
Starting point is 00:40:08 But they kept her in their hearts and in the eye of the public for years until her killer was finally caught. After it happened, went to her grave every week, and I took flowers. And we still do that. We'll never stop going there. Cheryl Lynn's favorite flower were yellow roses.
Starting point is 00:40:27 I still go and get her a bouquet of yellow roses, and I take them out to the cemetery. The world lost a beautiful soul. and they lost Cheryl. I miss Sherry dearly. I'm constantly thinking about what we would be doing, just having a sister to talk to. I don't have her anymore.
Starting point is 00:40:46 I don't have that. And it's just not fair. Sherry made me happier than anything that's ever made me. There's a part of me that I can never get back because she's not there. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barrows. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson.
Starting point is 00:41:16 Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher, and our supervising producer is McCamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Mai Te Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more cold case files, visit AETV.com. Thousands of free movies.
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