True Crime Author Reflects On Cold Case

Steve Jackson

Woman’s Powerful Courtroom Statement About Sister’s Murder Shows Slow Justice Still Important To Families

As I listened this afternoon to a weeping woman explain as best she could the impact the unsolved murder of her sister thirty-five years ago had on her and her family, I reflected once again on the fact that justice is not always about punishment.

It is also about people such as that woman, and her family, having their day in court and through her tears and the words that seemed almost torn from her throat expressing her gratitude that this day, “a day I never ever thought would come,” had at long last arrived. That the long wait, the years of unanswered questions and fear of an unknown monster, were over.

Sometimes I hear people wonder why police detectives and prosecutors pursue old crimes, cold cases, especially when the suspect is already behind bars for life. They ask what is the purpose of more punishment, more years added on? I have to believe those people have never sat in a courtroom listening to someone like this woman get to say what she has longed to say for thirty-five years. Or they would know that this, too, is justice.

It was a theme I wrote about in my true crime bestselling book BOGEYMAN, and I’ll be writing about this story as well in early 2015. I hope I’ll capture what she had to say as powerfully as she said it.