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