Around 3 am on September 5th 1981, a woman drove through a housing development in Lakeland Florida.
She was with two of her friends who had agreed to spend the night with her at her duplex.
And this was a huge relief to this woman, because yesterday there had actually been a violent murder in their neighborhood.
But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right show, because that's all we do.
So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Follow Button's house and hide open cans of tuna fish in all their vents and then turn the heat on full blast.
Okay, let's get into today's story.
Just before 8 pm on September 3rd 1981, 31-year-old Linda Slayton stood in her kitchen in Lakeland Florida staring into her cupboard.
It was almost completely empty, except for a few cans of beans and a bag of flour.
And seeing this gave Linda a pit in her stomach because she knew she would somehow have to turn these sparse ingredients into a meal for her kids.
Linda was a single mother of two boys, Jeff, who was 15, and Tim, who was 12.
And Linda didn't have very much money.
And so, in order to take care of her kids, she had to be resourceful, like you know, finding a way to make food with whatever ingredients she had.
And she also would like make her kids their own clothing, anything to save money.
Now, up until a few weeks ago the family had lived in Alabama, but Linda had moved to Lakeland specifically because she had a lot of family and support there.
And so Linda had hoped that, you know, because of that support that you know, her and her son's lives would, you know, improve quite a bit.
It wouldn't feel like such a struggle all the time anymore, but so far the move to Lakeland had just been more of the same.
You know, Linda couldn't find a steady job, so she and the boys had been relying on government assistance and food stamps, which never seemed to be enough to keep these two teenagers well fed.
And tonight Linda's youngest son Tim, was about to be dropped off after being at football practice, And historically he was very hungry after practice, and so she really wanted to have dinner ready for him.
And on top of that, Linda was hopeful that Tim and her other son Jeff, would eat fast enough that they would have enough time to make it to a neighbor's housewarming party later that night.
So all the neighbors around Linda were basically as new as she was, since the complex they lived in had only been open for about three weeks.
It was the sprawling development with about 80 one-story duplexes.
They were technically government-subsidized housing, but it felt more like classic suburbia, since the units were on cul-de-sacs with neat lawns where all the kids would go outside and play.
Now, Linda's sister also lived in this complex, so Linda already knew at least one person.
But to Linda, you know, making friends of her own was also pretty important to her.
She was an outgoing person by nature and also she was newly single and wanted to take her mind off her ex-boyfriend.
Until recently, Linda had been dating this guy named Brendan Fowler, who had been great at first and was even the one who told her about this apartment complex.
But he started to get really controlling and possessive.
And just two days ago, Linda had finally ended things.
But believe it or not, Linda actually felt sort of hopeful.
You know she had believed that by leaving Alabama and moving to Florida, into this complex, that that would sort of be the refresh that she and her kids desperately needed.
Truth was, you know, it sort of seemed like actually the true reset had been the breakup with Brendan just a couple of days earlier.
Like it.
All needed to happen, all this big change, in order for their lives to really get on the right track.
And so, feeling optimistic, Linda looked into the cupboard at her limited ingredients and suddenly realized she could actually do a quick bean casserole with just these couple of things.
So she grabbed the cans and the flour and she got started.
About a half an hour later, Linda pulled a beautiful golden brown casserole out of the oven and set it on the counter to cool.
And that's when her older son, Jeff, wandered into the kitchen to see if dinner was ready.
Linda told him it was, but they needed to wait for Tim to get home from football first.
And when she said that, Jeff sort of blew up at her.
He said he was really hungry right now and there was basically no food in the house, and so he couldn't even eat anything else to tide himself over, like come on, let me eat.
Now, Jeff's reaction made Linda pretty mad, but at the same time, it didn't really surprise her.
I mean, Jeff had been talking back to her a lot lately and the two of them seemed to fight all the time.
Linda knew he was sort of just being a typical teenager and he was really hungry, you know, and so he's testing her limits, but she was just getting really sick of it.
And so, before she could even really think about it, she snapped back at him and said well, if you don't like it here, you can leave.
And at that, Jeff literally stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind him.
Linda went to the window and watched her son pick up his bike and pedal off down the road.
After that, Linda sighed and walked over to her phone and called her mom.
She assumed, you know, Jeff, her son, would go to her parents' house since they lived nearby.
And when Linda's mother picked up, Linda warned her that Jeff might be there soon and he'd likely want to eat.
Her mom said that was fine and they would drop him back off after dinner.
Then her mom said she actually was glad that Linda called because another letter came.
And as soon as Linda heard that, she felt this wave of anxiety come over her because she knew what kind of letter she was talking about.
So Linda's ex-husband and Tim and Jeff's dad, Frank Slayton, live back in Alabama.
He was a violent, abusive alcoholic, and they'd been divorced for seven years.
But Frank... had never stopped harassing Linda after they broke up.
And since Linda and the boys had moved to Lakeland, he had been mailing threatening letters to Linda's parents saying that Linda had ruined his life.
And so now Linda was thinking like, no matter how many fresh starts she started, that Frank was always going to screw them up.
He was never going to go away.
And so after taking a calming breath, Linda told her mom on the phone to just rip the letter up.
She didn't even want to read it.
Not long after she hung up, her younger son, Tim, came in the front door.
He was all sweaty and dirty from football practice.
And right away, Linda asked him, hey, did you thank your coach for giving you a ride home?
And Tim said, yes, I did.
So Linda, she didn't have a car because she couldn't afford one.
And so Tim's coach always had to give him a ride.
But Tim said, you know, I thanked him like always.
And so Linda told him to hurry up and eat because they had to go next door to the neighbor's party.
Hours later, after 11 pm that evening, Linda and Tim walked home from the party through the dark apartment complex.
There were seven other people who had been at the party, and it had been a lot of fun.
Everybody just drank iced tea and played cards while they talked about the perks of living in this great new complex like the great business district across the street and how responsive the maintenance team was.
So Linda was glad they went.
She was also exhausted, and her sister always came over for coffee in the morning, and so she needed to go to bed now, or she would never wake up.
However, when she and Tim got back to their unit and opened up the door, Linda froze because there was already somebody inside.
For a second she thought it might be an intruder, but then she realized it was actually just her older son Jeff, who had come back.
He was standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a sort of I'm sorry expression on his face.
Tim saw the situation and immediately disappeared into the second bedroom to give his mother and brother some space.
Linda went to join Jeff in the kitchen, but Jeff didn't say anything.
So Linda spoke first and reminded him that it was not good to go to bed angry.
However, Jeff still didn't say anything.
And Linda knew from experience with her son, you know, it was better not to force Jeff to talk.
So she decided she would just give Jeff a minute and she began washing the dishes.
Finally, after a few moments, Jeff mumbled that he loved his mom and Linda smiled.
She felt relieved they could just move on from this.
She said it was all good and that she loved him too.
Then they both said goodnight and Jeff went over to the cot in the living room where he slept, and then Linda wrapped up in the kitchen, turned off the lights and headed into her own bedroom, closed the door and she went to bed too.
The next morning at 8.30 a.m., Linda's sister, Judy Butler... walked up to Linda's duplex.
They'd had coffee together every morning since they moved to the neighborhood, so Judy expected to knock on her sister's door and go right in, like she always did.
But this time after she knocked, nobody answered.
So Judy waited and then knocked again.
And when there was still no response, Judy reached down and tried to open up the door, but she found it was locked.
This had never happened before.
Linda always answered the door or at least called out in response.
But Judy wasn't really worried.
She just assumed, you know, that Linda must have overslept or something.
So Judy decided she would just go home for now and let her sister have a few minutes.
And eventually she would call to check in on her and make sure she was okay.
However, as she walked away from the home, she noticed something strange on the side of Linda's house.
One of the back windows was missing a screen.
And Judy knew that that particular room was Linda's bedroom.
And it hadn't been like that yesterday.
So seeing it now made her feel kind of uneasy.
And so she went over to look inside.
And when she looked inside, she saw her sister fast asleep in bed.
And for a second, Judy was relieved, you know, because this confirmed that this is all this was.
Her sister had overslept, that's that.
But then Judy realized there was something off about Linda.
Like the way she was positioned just seemed wrong.
And when everything clicked for her, she staggered backwards and began to scream.
By 9 am on September 4th 1981, a crowd of reporters and police officers surrounded the duplex in a Lakeland Florida housing complex where a woman had reported seeing a dead body.
In the middle of all the activity, Sergeant Edgar Pickett of the Lakeland Police ducked under some crime scene tape and headed to the home's walkway with a bag of equipment slung over his shoulder.
So Pickett was actually just a year away from retirement after two decades as a detective.
And for the last few years he'd been the head of Lakeland's crime scene unit, which meant he oversaw the collection and documentation of evidence at crime scenes.
And so he wasn't the lead investigator on this case, But when it came to forensic analysis and fingerprint collection, he was the best they had.
He'd already been briefed on the situation and knew that this was very likely a homicide and the victim had been identified as 31-year-old Linda Slayton.
Linda had been found in her bedroom by her sister, who had asked a nearby maintenance worker to call 911.
Pickett also knew that when the first responder got inside the house they found that Linda's two kids were still asleep and appeared to have no idea.
Their mother was deceased in the next room, which Pickett knew would give investigators somewhat of a timeline to start with.
Linda was clearly awake when her kids went to sleep and must have died sometime during the night while her kids were still sleeping.
As Pickett walked up the walkway, he passed by two teenage boys sitting in their pajamas on the ground.
He assumed these must be the sons, and one of them just sort of stared ahead seemingly in complete shock, while the other sort of sobbed into his brother's shoulder.
Pickett wasn't sure if anybody had spoken to them yet, but he knew they would likely be really helpful in focusing his search for evidence.
Since they lived in the house, they'd know the habits and patterns of everybody who lived there and might be able to tell him if anything seemed out of place.
So Pickett made a mental note to make sure to check in with the investigators inside about that.
Then he looked at the house... and took a deep breath.
Pickett liked to get a sort of first impression of the crime scene before he did any actual collections.
So before he would go in, he would walk around the entire house and sort of assess the building.
He had been told that all the doors were locked when the police first got there.
And, from what he could see, the bedroom window with the missing screen was the only sign of a potential break-in.
So he took out his kit, and spent some time dusting around that window area for prints.
But he didn't find much there or any noticeable shoe impressions in the dirt outside.
And then, when he finally headed inside, Pickett quickly moved past all the officers and detectives that were already in there and went straight to the bedroom.
And the first thing he saw when he got inside was Linda's body on the bed with a metal coat hanger wrapped around her throat.
The sheets around her were covered in blood and she was shirtless and the bottom of her dress was pulled up.
And when Pickett got closer, he saw where the blood had come from.
There were long, very deep scratches on Linda's neck which he guessed were from her nails, as she tried to pry the hanger away.
He'd have to wait for the autopsy, but it was clear from her wounds that the hanger had been used to strangle her.
And considering she was partially naked and the positioning of her clothes, he guessed she had also been likely sexually assaulted.
Pickett stepped back and looked around the room, trying to decide where to start.
He needed to find as much forensic evidence in this room as possible, so the first thing he did was try and guess what happened and how the killer might have interacted with the crime scene.
That way, he could follow their sort of imagined path with more intention.
He figured the killer must have come in through the open window, since that was the only entrance into the house.
That was obviously tampered with.
Linda's purse and jewelry were still on the dresser and the drawers were all closed as opposed to open and rifled through, so it didn't seem like the killer had touched any of that stuff, which also meant this likely was not a robbery gone wrong.
In fact, it seemed like the first and only thing the killer had done was come in through the window and attack Linda.
Because aside from the bloody bed, Pickett didn't see any signs of a struggle.
So Linda was likely caught off guard by a very fast attack and unable to really fight back quickly.
Because if she did, the room would be a huge mess.
But then Pickett caught a glimpse of Linda's closet and he noticed the clothes were all hanging on metal hangers that looked identical to the one that was around Linda's neck.
And that's when it hit him.
The killer must have at some point been in the closet, hiding.
He supposed the killer could have broken in first and then grabbed a hanger once the attack started.
That would have taken too much time and also given Linda a chance to get off the bed or fight back or yell out and maybe wake her sons up.
It was much more likely that the killer had broken in earlier, hid in the closet and then waited until Linda was in her bed asleep to come out and attack.
If Pickett was right about that, this became definitely a premeditated, thought-out murder, which meant the killer must have either known Linda personally or had been watching her, since they would have known when to sneak into the room and not be detected.
At this point, Pickett took out his gear and began thinking how he was going to begin looking for evidence.
He figured he would start at the window and spend some time there, and then he would go to the closet.
Those would be his two primary areas.
And so once he had that plan in mind, he went to the window and he began looking for evidence.
And sure enough, after only a few minutes of dusting, he smiled because there on the ledge was a very clear, well-defined handprint.
The following afternoon, over 24 hours after Linda's body had been found, Pickett sat in the precinct's fingerprint lab comparing two sets of prints with a magnifying glass.
He'd been at it for hours already, so his head was pounding.
After processing the crime scene yesterday, Pickett had gone back to the station to review the evidence he'd collected.
And while he was there he decided he would go check in with the detectives to get an update on the case.
And what they would tell him is they had spoken to the neighbors, as well as Linda's family, and they did have a few solid leads and a timeline.
According to Linda's kids, the older son Jeff, got dropped off at home at about 930 pm after being with his grandparents.
And Tim, the younger son, and Linda had gotten back from a neighbor's party just after 11 p.m.
They all went to bed around midnight and neither of the brothers heard anything until the police woke them up the next morning.
And all of this had led the investigators to agree with Pickett's initial interpretation of the scene that Linda's attack was very fast.
It seemed like she had not been able to even scream or it would have woken up her sons.
The autopsy report had also come in and it confirmed Linda died from strangulation and was sexually assaulted.
The medical examiner had also been able to collect semen from Linda's body, which meant they were definitely looking for a man here.
And since this was now clearly a sexually motivated crime, it meant that anybody Linda had been romantically involved with was now suddenly a top suspect.
After speaking with Linda's family, the detectives discovered that Linda had two serious ex-partners.
She had her ex-husband, Frank Slayton, and an ex-boyfriend named Brendan Fowler.
Frank apparently had abused Linda when they were married and still sent her very threatening letters.
And Brendan was apparently very possessive, with a bad temper, and Linda had broken up with him just two days before her murder.
And so some officers were already out looking for both of these men, and Pickett was eager to get both of their prints.
But for now, Pickett was actually more focused on Linda's neighbors.
When the detectives had done their canvas.
Initially, the neighbors they spoke to had confirmed that Linda and her younger son Tim, were indeed at that party.
And since these neighbors were some of the last people to see Linda alive, they weren't just witnesses, they were suspects.
And so Pickett had collected fingerprints from all the men at that party who didn't have an alibi for the period of time after Linda went home.
And that's what he was working on now, comparing those prints to the print he had found on the windowsill.
So far none were a match, but they had also gotten blood samples from the neighbors, and so Pickett would have to test those as well.
So in 1981 DNA testing didn't exist yet, but investigators could figure out somebody's blood type through bodily fluids.
So Pickett and his team could test those samples against the genetic material found on Linda's body and rule out suspects that way.
But Pickett had another reason for wanting to be diligent when it came to testing the people who lived in the complex.
It was because after Linda's murder, like in the last 24 hours, there had been signs that the killer might actually still be in the area.
At 3 am that morning one of Linda's neighbors had called in to say a stranger had broken into her house.
And even though that person was gone by the time the police arrived, they could see her back door had clearly been forced open.
And then another neighbor had called in to say that the screen on their window was probably open as well.
None of them were violent assaults like Linda's.
The timing was very suspicious and it made pickett wonder if there was a serial predator living in the complex.
The department had ordered some patrols in the area and pickett was supposed to get fingerprints for whoever they got calls about.
So he was working with this radio right next to him.
Pickett leaned back in his chair to give his eyes a rest.
He knew he was getting pretty tired and would need a break soon.
But just seconds later a detective barged into the lab and told Pickett they needed him on standby for fingerprinting because they'd just brought Linda's ex-boyfriend Brendan, in for questioning.
Moments later, Pickett was standing outside of an interrogation room listening as some detectives spoke with Brendan Fowler inside.
Even though he couldn't see Brendan Pickett could tell by his voice that he was not happy to be here.
He sounded argumentative and defensive.
As he insisted he really had nothing to do with Linda's death.
And when he was asked about where he was the night she died, he had an alibi.
He said he was at home with his family and he stayed there the whole night.
He even gave detectives his mom's phone number and said they should call her to confirm it.
Pickett heard the detectives confer in hushed voices.
Then they asked Brendan if he'd be willing to take a polygraph test and let them take his fingerprints.
And to Pickett's surprise, Brendan said, yeah, go ahead.
And as soon as Pickett heard that you know based on experience he went right inside the room and and got Brendan's fingerprints before Brendan could change his mind.
On September 11th, so one week after Linda's murder, Pickett sat down at his desk and opened the newspaper.
And what he saw made him cringe.
The Lakeland police chief had just given an interview where he admitted they would not be making an arrest now or in the next few days.
Reading that in print reminded Pickett of just how little they had in this case.
None of the neighbor's prints had been a match to the one.
Pickett had lifted off the windowsill and they'd tracked down Linda's ex-husband Frank, but found that he was in Alabama on the night.
Linda was killed.
As for Linda's ex-boyfriend Brendan, he had seemed pretty guilty at first because during his polygraph the results had been inconclusive and his alibi didn't check out.
His family had said he was home.
At one point on the night Linda was killed, but they all went to sleep and couldn't say for sure if maybe he left or not.
But when Pickett had looked at his prints, he had no choice but to clear him because they clearly were not a match.
So now Pickett knew the entire investigative team was scrambling for leads, which was why Pickett was not surprised by what he saw when he looked up from his paper.
He saw a detective leading a suspect out of a precinct interrogation room after clearly questioning him, and it was Linda's own 15-year-old son, Jeff Slayton, and he was obviously crying.
Pickett had heard that Jeff was being looked into as a suspect in his mother's murder and had already been questioned a few times.
Detectives had started getting interested in him.
When a few of Linda's family members mentioned that, you know Jeff and Linda had been fighting a lot before she died.
And when investigators looked back at the crime scene photos, they realized Jeff's cot in the living room shared a wall with Linda's room.
So it was strange he hadn't heard anything on the night she had died.
But as far as Pickett knew, Jeff had a reasonable explanation for all of this.
He had said that he and his mother's fights were not that serious.
You know, and they did fight the night she died, but it was over some dumb argument over what time dinner was.
And he said he had no idea why he didn't wake up when she was attacked.
Because he wished he had so he could have gone in there and helped her.
And also Jeff had taken and passed a polygraph test.
But for some reason, it seemed like the investigative team was not done with Jeff.
And Pickett just sort of felt bad for the kid.
Because he thought it was very unlikely at this point that Jeff was his own mother's killer.
Pickett had kids of his own.
And from his own experience, the fights Jeff was having with his mom just seems sort of like typical teenage behavior.
No squabbling with their parents.
It's pretty normal.
And it also just didn't line up with the evidence.
Pickett was absolutely certain that the attacker broke in through the window, which didn't make sense for Jeff if he was sleeping right next door in the living room.
And Pickett had personally checked Jeff's prints against the one he lifted from the window and he knew it was not a match.
As the days turned into weeks, Pickett was starting to become convinced that the killer might be somebody without a personal connection to Linda.
Maybe it was even a stranger.
He knew that murders by strangers were much more rare than murders committed by a relative, partner or friend, which was why he assumed the detectives weren't pursuing it.
But through his forensics Pickett had now eliminated pretty much everybody in Linda's life who had a motive or opportunity to kill her.
And Linda was a very attractive young woman who was very outgoing.
You know Pickett thought it was possible the killer could be a stranger who had only interacted with her once and then sort of became fixated on her.
It seemed possible.
And so after Pickett watched Jeff leave, he tried to go back to the newspaper, but he kept thinking about Linda.
He'd been sure this case would be solved quickly by forensics, but now he wasn't sure if it would be solved at all.
And that worry only got stronger and stronger as the months went by and fewer and fewer leads came in.
And before long, a whole year had passed and it was actually time for Pickett to retire.
And when he left the precinct for the last time he sort of had a pit in his stomach because he had a feeling that without him Linda's case was gonna get put on a shelf and forgotten.
One afternoon in the fall of 2001, so two decades after Linda Slayton was murdered, Detective Brad Grice sat in his office at the Lakeland Police Department reading over Linda's cold case file.
For the last four years, Grice had been sorting through the department's cold cases and choosing which ones to reopen.
And this had been a really slow process because he had to do that and juggle his active caseload.
So, even though he'd technically been working on Linda's case for years, he was just now starting to really dig into it.
But the delay didn't worry him too much, since the whole reason this case appealed to him was because he was sure he could solve it quickly.
Because it had DNA evidence.
So back in 1981, when the murder actually happened, the genetic material that was found on Linda's body was only good for eliminating suspects through blood type.
But now, in 2001, Bryce could use that same material to create a full DNA profile of Linda's killer.
And he intended on reaching out to everybody involved in the original investigation to get their DNA to test against this new profile.
But before he did this, he wanted to familiarize himself with the suspects from 1981.
So there was Linda's ex-husband, Frank Slayton, who had abused Linda repeatedly during their marriage.
And even though they had been divorced for years, he was apparently still sending her all these threatening letters around the time of her murder.
And then her more recent romantic partner, Brendan Fowler, was known to have a bad temper and seemed very controlling of Linda.
And they broke up only two days before her murder, so he could have still been furious about it.
The neighbors at the party Linda had gone to were also suspects.
Everybody in that group knew when Linda was heading home, so somebody could have maybe followed her and then snuck into her bedroom before she went to bed.
And then finally, Jeff Slayton, Linda's oldest son, was actually innocent in the house during the murder.
His brother Tim, had been too, but Jeff actually admitted to getting in a big fight with Linda earlier that same day.
Now, all of these suspects had been cleared through fingerprints, alibi, or polygraphs.
But Grice knew that DNA testing was way more accurate than any of those methods of elimination.
And so basically, even if they'd been ruled out for one of those three things, DNA overrode that.
And so he wasn't gonna let these previous eliminations cloud his judgment.
He had already decided that you know basically no matter what, he was just gonna focus on whatever the forensics told him, and not be biased.
But for now, he just wanted to kick things off by speaking with the two people who'd known Linda better than anybody else her sons Tim and Jeff.
A few days later, Grice walked into a meeting room at the precinct where he'd been told Jeff and Tim Slayton were waiting.
And as soon as he saw the brothers, he just started laughing because he realized he knew Jeff Slayton.
They had bowled together for years, but it hadn't occurred to Grice that this Jeff was that Jeff.
And Jeff recognized Grice at the same time.
So they spent a while talking and laughing about what a crazy coincidence this was.
And so when Grice finally sat down with Jeff and with Tim at the same time You know, Grice's first line of questioning was actually just pretty emotional
It just was like, hey, how are you guys holding up after this horrible thing?
And for the next few minutes the mood got pretty heavy, as the two brothers spoke honestly about how terrible the last 20 years had been.
After their mother had been killed.
They both said they were terrified that you know they were going to get hurt too, because the killer was never caught.
They felt like, you know, who's next?
Jeff said he slept with a knife under his pillow and he eventually got so depressed that He dropped out of high school.
And Tim admitted he also struggled, but he took a different path.
He relied on his football team and friends for support and kept pictures of all of them around his room to remind himself to stay positive.
After that, the brothers shared what they could remember about the night their mother had died.
But it was obvious to Grice that you know Tim and Jeff didn't really have any information he didn't already have inside the case file.
So instead of continuing to question them about details of the case...
Grice explained that this murder was going to be solved through DNA.
And because of that, he needed to collect samples from every person involved, in this case, which included both of them.
The brothers looked surprised for a moment, but then said, of course.
So Grice stood up and said he would send a tech inside.
But before he left he promised them that he would find their mom's killer and he was not going to retire until he did.
Later that month Grice sat in front of a screen in the station's computer lab reading a police report from 1982.
Since speaking to the two Slayton brothers, Bryce had collected DNA from dozens of people who were involved in the case from 1981.
Jeff, Tim, and also Linda's ex-husband, Frank Slayton, and her ex-boyfriend, Brendan Fowler.
He'd also tested the blood samples that the original investigators got from Linda's neighbors, but none of them matched the DNA profile for Linda's killer, which was disappointing because it meant that Grice had to basically start from scratch.
But when he had gone back to the case notes he noticed the mention of break-ins around the complex shortly after Linda's murder.
And it made him wonder if Linda was killed by a serial predator who was in the area at the time.
And if that was true, then this person would not have just hurt Linda, they would have other victims too.
So Grice had run the killer's DNA through the FBI's database.
And when it didn't match anything in there, he had reached out to the county sheriff's department to see if they could send him any cases that you know felt similar to Linda's.
And they had sent over the report that he was reading right now.
And it felt incredibly promising.
So in 1982, a year after Linda's murder, a man named Jimmy Ulmer was arrested for climbing through a 10-year-old girl's bedroom window, then assaulting and strangling her.
And according to his file, Jimmy had this long history of home invasions and very violent behavior.
And as soon as Grice finished reading the report, he jumped up and went to go find one of his officers.
He wanted to dig up as much information on Jimmy as he possibly could and see if maybe they could go track him down.
About a month later...
Grice sat at his desk, staring at his phone in anxious anticipation.
He was waiting for an incredibly important call, one that would confirm whether Jimmy Ulmer was Linda's killer.
After doing a background check on Jimmy, Grice had found out that Jimmy actually knew someone who lived at Linda's complex and was literally staying with them when Linda was killed.
Now Jimmy was not alive anymore, but they had gotten in touch with his mother and who gave them her DNA, which they were testing now.
So this DNA would not be an exact match to the killer's DNA, but it would show if she was at least a relative to the killer.
And as Grice waited for the lab to call, his heart was pounding.
Because for the first time since he'd picked up Linda's case, everything finally made sense now.
Jimmy was this violent serial home invader who had probably seen Linda while staying at his friend's house and maybe stalked her until he saw an opportunity to attack.
And then, after he killed her, he must have compulsively kept breaking into other homes to find more victims.
Just then the phone rang and Grice picked it up and he could feel his mouth going dry.
As he heard it was the lab on the other side.
He was going to get an answer here.
But just a second later, they told him it was not a match.
Grice's stomach dropped, but he thanked them anyway and he hung up.
He couldn't believe it.
Despite all the suspects and forensic evidence that they had, this case was once again at a dead end.
Still, Rice kept pushing forward.
As the months passed by, he would regularly find new suspects and eventually clear them.
He also kept sending the killer's DNA profile to the FBI to run it through their database in case any new additions were added in.
That could be a match.
But eventually, over a decade passed by and Christ still had not been able to match anybody to the killer's DNA.
And in 2015, his own health began to decline and he finally had to make the call he hoped he would never have to make.
He picked up the phone and dialed Jeff Slayton's number.
And when Jeff picked up, Christ said he did need to retire and he still had not found his mother's killer.
In June of 2019, Four years into retirement, Grice sat on the deck of his Florida home reading a newspaper.
He was deep in an article when his cell phone rang.
And when he looked at the ID, he was surprised to see it was from the Lakeland Police Department.
He had not gotten a call from them in years, so he immediately picked it up to see what they wanted.
And when he did, the person on the other end introduced himself as the detective who had taken over the Linda Slayton case.
The detectives said they knew Grice was retired now, but they figured he would want to hear this.
They said they had hired a genetic genealogist to track down family members of the killer based on the DNA profile that Grice had ordered.
And through that process, they had finally been able to get a match.
And after they did, they also managed to get the suspect's fingerprints.
And those prints did match the palm print that the head of the crime scene unit, Sergeant Edgar Pickett, had taken at the original crime scene 38 years earlier.
Grice sat up and listened intently as the detective finally told him who Linda's killer actually was.
And when he heard the name, he couldn't believe it.
That suspect had been so close the whole time.
Based on DNA forensic evidence and 38 years of police investigation.
Following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Linda Slayton in the early morning hours of September 4th 1981.
The house was all quiet as the killer waited patiently inside of Linda's closet.
Hours earlier, when Linda was out, the killer had removed that screen from her bedroom window and crept inside.
Then they had hid in this closet until she had come home.
The killer had been watching Linda for a while now and finding ways to get close to her and her family, but Linda never really acknowledged them or paid any attention to them at all.
Tonight, though, the killer was determined to show Linda that she was not the one in control.
They were.
And now the killer stood in the dark closet, holding their breath as their heart pounded and as they listened to Linda open her bedroom door and walk inside.
And the killer continued to wait anxiously as they listened to the sound of Linda getting ready for bed and getting changed.
And then eventually, they heard the sound of the springs of the bed compressing as Linda laid down to shut her eyes for the night.
And then, after the killer was sure Linda was in bed, the lights are off.
It's quiet in the room.
They waited even longer just to make sure Linda was asleep and her children were asleep.
And then finally, when the killer felt like they had waited long enough, they grabbed a coat hanger off the hook in the closet and then burst out of the door.
And then, before Linda could do anything, make a sound, even react.
I mean she's totally caught off guard.
The killer was on top of her and had wrapped the coat hanger around her throat.
Linda struggled and clotted her throat to try to get this thing off of her.
But the killer was so much stronger than her and there was nothing she could do.
Didn't take long for the killer to have their way with Linda.
And then after they were done, they strangled her until she was dead.
And once the killer was done, they hopped off the bed and just climbed right back out the same window they'd come in through and wandered off into the night.
And the killer would get to replay this crime over and over in their head all day the next day, until it was time for football practice.
It would turn out Linda was murdered by her son's football coach, Joseph Mills.
Joseph was a fixture in Tim's life and would drive him to and from practice every day, because Linda didn't have a car.
But while Tim saw Joseph as a mentor in his life, Joseph had apparently just developed a total fixation on his mother.
And during all those trips to her house to drop off her son Joseph was planning out how and when to attack her.
Back in 1981, Joseph was interviewed by police over the phone a day after Linda's murder, but he was never really considered an actual suspect.
Instead, after Joseph murdered Linda, he just continued to drive her son Tim, to and from football practice.
And Tim would even, very tragically, begin to rely on Joseph, for you know emotional support, you know grieving the loss of his mother.
But it's to her killer.
He just didn't know.
And then, even more tragically, as time went on and Linda's case went cold.
One of the pictures that Tim hung in his bedroom to remind himself to stay positive was of his football team.
Tim had no idea that his mother's killer was literally standing right behind him in the back row in that picture.
In December of 2019, Joseph was charged with first-degree murder and sexual battery and and was eventually sentenced to life in prison, without parole.
The Mr Ballin Podcast Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr Ballin.
Our head of writing is Evan Allen.
Our head of production is Zach Levitt.
Produced by Jeremy Bone.
This episode was written by Kate Murdoch.
Story editing by Karis Pash Cooper.
Research and fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan.
Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Eare.
Audio editing and post-produced by Wit Lacascio and Cole Lacascio.
Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham.
Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain.
Production coordination by Samantha Collins.
Production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley.
Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner.
Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden.
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