Awesome - 38 Years After This Man’s Mom Was Murdered, DNA Evidence Pointed To Someone He Never Suspected

 

Tim Slayton’s mom, Linda, was brutally murdered at the home she shared with her two sons in 1981, and for almost four decades, it seemed that the person responsible for the heinous crime had evaded justice. However, in 2019, new DNA technology LG discovered that the most likely suspect had been known to Tim all along. Hello, wonderful people. I’m Scott Leffler for Waterbot. In today’s video, we’ll tell you about 38 years after this man’s mom was murdered, DNA evidence pointed to someone he never suspected before.

Brothers Jeff and Tim have fond memories of their mother, Linda. They remember taking them to a concert that Kiss and Van Helen played in their hometown of Lakeland, Florida, when they were just kids. Furthermore, they cherished precious photographs of their childhood with Linda, which was cut all too short. Before her death, Linda had enjoyed a lust for life and loved both of her sons dearly. She liked to venture off to the beach or the park and was resourceful with her means, even making her own clothing.

Put simply, her son Jeff told Oakle Lakeland newspaper The Ledger in 2016, she enjoyed life. In August 1981, Linda had moved with her sons, Jeff and Tim, to an apartment on Brunelle Parkway in Lakeland. However, the family would be in their new home less than a month before tragedy struck. That’s because on September 4, 1981, Linda was found dead in her bedroom following a violent murder. In the years following Linda’s passing, Tim and Jeff have relived the hours leading up to it.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the latter recalled returning home hungry after football practice, only to find that there wasn’t a lot of food to eat. He later rode his bike over to his grandparents home and they brought him back to the apartment at approximately 09:30 p.m.. However, when Jeff returned home, he found that the house was empty. Then, at about 10:00 p.m., Linda apparently stopped by the apartment and explained that she and Tim were hanging out next door and playing cards with some neighbors. Then they eventually returned home around 11:00 p.m..

The Tampa Bay Times said that Jeff’s last memory of Linda was seeing his mother washing dishes at their apartment that night after Tim had already gone to bed. She retired to her bedroom soon after, while Jeff stayed up, later turning off the TV at about midnight before calling it a day. Little did he know the horrors that would await him the following morning. Tim’s recollection of Linda’s last evening reportedly began with him being collected for football practice by his coach, Joseph Mills. Known to him as Joe, the man would regularly pick the boy up and drop him off because Linda didn’t have a car.

He returned him home at some time around eight or 830, and the youngster had dinner before going to play cards with his mother next door. Tim remembered returning home with Linda around eleven or 11:30. P.m. He saw Jeff watching television in the living room before going to sleep in his bedroom. Like his brother, Tim would tell police that he heard nothing during the night.

But while the boys slept, someone murdered their mom in the same apartment. Linda’s body was discovered the following morning by her sister, Judy Butler. She would later explain to cops that she’d gone to Linda’s house to see if she wanted to grab a coffee with her. Judy got no answer at the door, so she decided to return home. However, on the way back to her apartment, she noticed that something was amiss.

As Judy passed by Linda’s bedroom, she noticed that a window screen was missing, and when she looked through the gap, she witnessed a truly horrifying sight. Her sister’s strangled body was lying on the bed with the murder weapon, a wire clothes hanger still around her neck. Given what she’d seen, Judy screamed so loudly that she caught the attention of Lakeland Housing Authority maintenance worker John Allen. It was he who first alerted the police to the awful scene that Judy had discovered at Linda’s apartment. Dialing 911 at roughly 08:35 A.m..

When police personnel arrived at the grim scene, they found Linda’s body. She’d been strangled with a hanger and was partially naked. Her dress had been pulled to expose her breasts and genitals. There was also some evidence to suggest that Linda had been sexually assaulted. Police could find no signs of a struggle in Linda’s bedroom or on her bed.

However, they did note that the southernmost window in the room was unlocked and that the screen had been removed. Investigators subsequently moved Linda’s body from the crime scene in order to gather evidence. At Lakeland General Hospital, an autopsy was performed on Linda’s body. A sexual assault kit was carried out, which included the taking of vaginal swabs. During the examination, sperm was found in Linda’s body cavity.

However, the DNA didn’t match with any samples on law enforcement databases. Back in 1981, Linda’s case went cold in the years following her brutal murder. Jeff was 15 years old when his mother was killed while Tim was just twelve. The younger brother had the misfortune of seeing his mom’s dead body the morning she was found, and the awful memory has haunted him ever since. Jeff and Tim grew up not knowing who had killed their mother, they both went on to have children, set themselves up in careers, and took on pastimes.

However, no matter how far they made their lives, there was still room for painful memories and nagging questions that remained unanswered throughout the years. Speaking to The Ledger in 2016, around 35 years after Linda’s death, Jeff said of his mom, Sometimes I try to remember what her voice sounded like, and I can’t. He added. Sometimes I get worried. I’ll take my last breath and die without knowing who killed her.

Meanwhile, Jeff can’t help but wonder why he didn’t hear his mom’s killer when he was sleeping so close to her bedroom. He’s haunted by the thought that he might have been able to help Linda. If he’d only woken up, Jeff told the Publication. I would have died that night trying to save my mom. Naturally, Tim and Jeff’s lives were forever changed in the wake of their mother’s murder.

Even so many years after the crime, the former admitted that he still slept with the light on and kept a gun beside his bed. Furthermore, both brothers said that they checked their houses for intruders whenever they enter home, but Jeff and Tim both remained hopeful that they would one day find justice for their mom, the former told The Ledger. There’s got to be someone out there who knows something and needs to come forward. Do it for my mom. Do it for us.

Do it for my mom’s grandkids. As the years passed, almost two dozen detectives had worked on Linda’s murder case. Jeff and Tim regularly visited the Lakeland Police Department to hear about any developments in the investigation. Their lives were so embroiled with the Hunt for their mom’s killer that Jeff even named her son after a Detective who’d worked particularly hard on the case. In the years following Linda’s murder, the greatest lead that investigators had remained the DNA that had been collected from her body.

They believed that this evidence had the potential to lead them to her killer, and all they had to do was match it. So detectives were hopeful that one day they’d solve the crime. But that day couldn’t come soon enough for Jeff and Tim. Knowing that their mom’s killer may still be out there even though police had evidence to link him to Linda’s murder was frustrating for the brothers, Tim explained to The Ledger. To have DNA in 35 years later to not solve it with the technology they have, it’s just wrong.

However, Jeff and Tim didn’t have too much longer to wait before detectives finally made a breakthrough in their mum’s case. It all began in November 2018, when Tammy Hathcock, a Detective with the Lakeland Police Department, received a call from Lori Napolitano. The latter worked at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and was reaching out to various agencies to let them know about new DNA technology. Napolitano asked Hathcock if she wanted to submit the DNA that had been collected in Linda’s case. If the Detective agreed, the sample would be sent to Parabon NanoLabs, a testing company that uses genetic genealogy to match DNA.

Half got consented, and in December 2018, it was sent off for analysis. Genetic genealogy uses data from public genealogy databases, which are made up of DNA samples that are voluntarily uploaded by people. It uses these vast collections of data to compare against unknown DNA evidence, and according to ABC News, the process has already been described as a game changer in solving cold cases. The test results from the DNA and Linda’s case came back in June 2019, and they finally matched the evidence to a likely suspect. However, the identity of this potential killer would come as a surprise, not least to Linda’s son, Tim.

That’s because the man now suspected of his mother’s murder was his old football coach, Joe Mills. At the time of Linda’s death, Joe had been a coach for the Lakeland Volunteers football program and also worked at the public’s dairy warehouse. He was previously interviewed by police telling them he only met Linda on one occasion. That meeting occurred the evening prior to her death, when Linda had apparently approached Joe’s car to thank him for bringing him home from practice. Joe told detectives that he had subsequently driven off and never returned to Linda’s apartment.

However, the 2019 DNA results suggested otherwise. In its report, Paramount speculated that Joe was Linda’s most likely killer. It read, Joseph should be strongly considered due to the fact genetic connections were found to both sides of his family tree, and he was living in close proximity to the scene of the crime in 1981. In July 2019, the Lakeland Police Department started monitoring the trash from Joe’s residence in the hopes of collecting DNA from the suspect. They obtained a plastic spoon, two cotton swabs, and two adhesive patches used from colonostomy bags.