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1990 Richardson, Verna July 7 1990; Fort Myers Fl 48 YO
Topic Started: Sep 14 2008, 10:00 PM (533 Views)
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Lee County cold cases date back to 1965
By RACHEL MYERS • rmyers@news-press.com • September 14, 2008


No one has seen Verna Richardson for 18 years.

The married mother of 10 was 48 when she vanished from her Fort Myers home July 7, 1990, under a cloud of suspicious circumstances involving an ex-boyfriend.

A police report was scrawled out. There was a short story in The News-Press. But it wasn’t long before leads shriveled drier than winter’s brush, and Verna’s trail iced
over.

Her family believes she is dead. They wish they could be sure.

“There wasn’t nothing she wouldn’t do for us,” granddaughter Trilla Johnson, 30, said. “And there isn’t nothing we wouldn’t do to find her.”

Throughout the county, there are 193 cold cases involving unsolved homicides or missing persons. The oldest dates back to 1965.

In recent years, the number of unsolved cases has piled higher than ever before, but there is also a greater number of homicides overall. Murders spiked 55 percent from 153 to 237 in the past five years, compared to the five preceding years.

And while cash resources are stretched thin, the area’s law enforcement agencies have been more vigilant and creative than others in channeling energy into uncovering the truth.



Searching for clues
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has committed two full-time detectives to dig through its cold case load, compared to the Miami-Dade Police Department, which has four detectives to dig through almost 600 old cases — and those date back only to 1998.

Fort Myers police use area college students to help, and Cape Coral police hired a detective to work solely on the Robin Cornell/Lisa Story case, one of its most haunting, unsolved double-homicides.

Lt. Kevin Ferry, supervisor of the sheriff’s homicide unit, said cases turn cold when information stops coming in, and there is nowhere else to go with what they have.

“Time is everything in any case,” said Detective Sgt. Bill Kalstrom, one of the sheriff’s cold case investigators. “The longer it goes on, the less you have. It usually works against you. But at the same time, relationships change, attitudes change, and that can sometimes be to your advantage.”

Law enforcement agencies do work together to generate new leads through state, national and even international databases that include everything from passport information to DNA.

Still, cases like Richardson’s continue to frustrate.

The facts of her case are filed in a cardboard box on a gray shelf with 21 other active missing persons cases in a sheriff’s office closet. Richardson’s disappearance isn’t considered an unsolved homicide because her body has never been found.

Her granddaughter, just 12 when she disappeared, calls the sheriff’s office several times a month, hoping for even a sliver of new information.

Families like the Richardsons, investigators say, drive them on days when it seems every stone has not only been turned, but smashed and scattered to dust.

“If you struggle with anything, it’s knowing how those folks grieve,” Kalstrom said. “If there’s anything that motivates you, that’s it.”

Placing puzzle pieces
Most of the unsolved cases are more recent. So far this decade, there are 90 cases that remain unsolved, compared to 55 from the 1990s, 29 in the 1980s and 15 that are from 1979 or earlier. That partially reflects the population boom, and the subsequent struggle of law enforcement agencies to conquer the swelling wave of cases. It’s also because more cases are solved as time goes on.

At the sheriff’s office, Lt. Kevin Ferry, supervisor of the homicide unit, pushed hard for the founding of a unit dedicated solely to cold cases.

Major crimes detectives did work cold cases when they had time, but that was a precious commodity as new cases increased.

The major stumbling blocks were money and manpower. But, in January 2007, Sheriff Mike Scott allocated two of the existing major crimes detective positions to create a cold case unit. Since then, the unit has solved seven cases.

“They’re cold for a reason,” Kalstrom said. “It’s an issue right from the beginning to wrap your head around all the facts that are already there in the case, and then find out, ‘OK, so what else is there?’”

An investigator dusting off an old file usually spends at least two weeks becoming familiar with the case, Kalstrom said. Through a hallway lined with the names and faces of the slain whose killers are free, the detectives hole up in an interview room.

They pore over transcripts, tapes and photographs.

“It’s not the same as when you’re the first one on the case,” Ferry said. “It’s like reading the book versus watching the movie — picturing it in your mind versus actually seeing it.”

And the key to breaking each case is different, Kalstrom said. Some are DNA cases that would require a “hit” from one of the national databases. Others need just one person to come forward with a clue.

Getting creative
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement got creative in spurring leads by distributing 100,000 decks of cards to some 93,000 inmates. It has resulted in 66 tips.

The Nov. 14, 2004, Fort Myers murder of James Foote, 53, was the first to be solved through the effort. Foote was found shot to death in a parking lot on Grove Avenue.

The card tip led to the arrest of Derrick “Dollar Bill” Hamilton, now 28, who is awaiting trial.

As technology evolves and science continues to open doors, it is that kind of creativity that continues to propel cases forward. Fort Myers police Sgt. Jennifer Soto has found a unique way to use the most valuable resource: people.

Working with experts from Florida Gulf Coast University shortly after the skeletal remains of eight males were uncovered last year (another unsolved case), Soto realized there were many students hungry for experience — and she could use the help. Since then, five criminal justice majors have completed unpaid internships that have had them busy reviewing cases, updating contact lists and creating databases.

It helps the eight detectives in the violent crimes unit stay organized, Soto said.

Five minutes before her interview for this story, she had been on the phone with Lisa Roberts, mother of 16-year-old Laura Roberts-Stewart, who was gunned down while playing video games April 23, 2002. Her killer has never been found.

“Emotionally and physically, these are the most taxing cases,” Soto said. “It’s really been my personal goal not to ever let one of these be forgotten. I don’t want these sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust.”

One case in particular that haunts her is that of Bryan Dos Santos Gomes, or Baby Bryan, the 4-week-old who was snatched from his mother’s arms at knifepoint Dec. 1, 2006. Neither he nor his abductor has been found.

“The biggest frustration is that we know there are witnesses out there,” she said.

“There are people with direct knowledge who still, after all this time, will not come forward.”

Coping with similar frustration is Sgt. Lorrie Reaves, head of the sheriff’s missing persons unit. In any given month, she and her assistant juggle 70 to 100 new cases.

Most are runaways, and they’re usually found within a week. But a small percentage, like the Richardson case, becomes cold.

After 90 days, unsolved missing persons must be forwarded to a national database and DNA needs to be collected. It would seem easy to lose them in the onslaught of the day to day. But Reaves stays determined.

She works closely with the cold case unit to determine which of her older cases might need a fresh set of eyes. She recently set up an e-mail blast database. With a few clicks, she can have missing posters slapped up at every hospital, grocery store and mall in the county.

Still, she fiercely guards the details of her cases. After 18 years, she says, she can’t risk revealing even minor snippets of the Richardson case, because it could later turn out to be crucial evidence.

Missing Verna
Shadows and light mark the passing time. They move slowly across the front room of the small purple house at the end of the South Meador Court cul-de-sac.

A black metal-framed screen door creaks outward to welcome visitors shuffling up the cracked concrete drive.

Every Sunday, the adjacent grassy yard used to spill over with games of touch football among cousins and brothers. In the kitchen, Verna Richardson stirred steaming plates of salted collared greens with dressing, sticky fried chicken and grainy, homemade corn bread. Her robust laughter was contagious.

“She was very fun-loving and outgoing,” said Johnson, her granddaughter. “Family was very important to her.”

But it’s been almost two decades since Richardson warmed that Fort Myers kitchen.

If it wasn’t the ex-boyfriend who killed her, it was her diabetes, her family said; she needed her insulin shots to survive, and the medication was left at the house the night she disappeared.

Johnson and Richardson’s son, Eric Watson, 43, disclosed the following details because they believe someone can fill in the blanks:

• Richardson, during a rough patch in her marriage to Joseph Richardson began dating a man named Alexander Smith, at the time 34.

• She broke it off with Smith some time in mid-1990 to repair her marriage.

• Smith came to the house on South Meador Court the night of July 7. Johnson was in her grandmother’s room, but was told by Richardson to move to another room.

Richardson called Watson to ask if he could come over. He said he would, but ended up falling asleep, something for which he has never forgiven himself.

• Richardson left with Smith, her family believes involuntarily. Her diabetes medicine was left behind.

• The next day, Richardson called her close friend Elsie Milton, now deceased, saying she was at a pay phone at a Hardy store near Lake Okeechobee. She said she had been tied up by Smith, who had stopped at the store to buy Schlitz Malt Liquor. She said she would call right back. She never did. Watson said the clerk remembers Richardson entering the store in her nightgown. It was the last time she was seen alive.

• A week later, Richardson’s son, Adrian, ran into Smith in Fort Myers. Smith was driving Richardson’s car, and said she was at a local hotel room. He offered to let Adrian follow him there. On the way, he flipped the car on I-75 and was arrested for drunken driving. Her purse was in the front seat.

Watson said Smith was detained by police for four hours and released. It’s not known where he is today.

A skeleton was found in Collier County last year that Sgt. Reaves thought could be Richardson.

Further tests revealed it wasn’t her.

The wait continues.

“It’s really the not knowing,” Watson said. “I know she would be here if there was any way she could be, but I just wish I knew what really happened. We’re all still close, but there’s a hole in our hearts.”
http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl...NEWS01/80914025
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Verna Marie Richardson
Missing since July 8, 1990 from Fort Myers, Lee County, Florida
Classification: Endangered Missing



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Vital Statistics

Date Of Birth: June 12, 1942
Age at Time of Disappearance: 48 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'8"; 180-225 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Black female. Brown hair; brown eyes.
Clothing: A flowered nightgown and checkered green night-coat, both sleeveless.
Medical: She is partially paralyzed on her left side and is a diabetic who requires daily doses of insulin. Richardson was receiving three kidney dialysis treatments a week.
Dentals: Missing two upper front teeth.


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Circumstances of Disappearance
Verna Richardson, a married mother of 10, vanished from her Fort Myers home July 7, 1990. Richardson, during a rough patch in her marriage began dating a man named Alexander Smith. She broke it off with Smith some time in mid-1990 to repair her marriage. Smith came to the house on South Meador Court the night of July 7.
Richardson called her son, to ask if he could come over. He said he would, but ended up falling asleep.
Richardson left with Smith. Her diabetes medicine was left behind.
The next day, she called her family collect from a pay phone at the Eastend Service mart on State Road 70 East, and told her sister that her boyfriend had beaten her, tied her hands behind her back and broken her glasses. She said she would call right back. She never did. The clerk remembers Richardson entering the store in her nightgown. It was the last time she was seen alive. Her family went to Okeechobee but could not find Richardson.
A week later, Richardson’s son ran into Smith in Fort Myers. Smith was driving Richardson’s car, and said she was at a local hotel room. He offered to let the son follow him there. On the way, he flipped the car on I-75 and was arrested for drunken driving. Her purse was in the front seat. Smith was detained by police for four hours and released. He has been listed as a person of interest in the disappearance of Verna Richardson.




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Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Lee County Sheriff's Office
800-780-8477
Or
Crime Stoppers
800-780-TIPS

Agency Case Number: 90-68534

Source Information:
The News Enterprise
FDLE
The Palm Beach Post



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