For anyone interested in reading about the trials and tribulations of LE while on the hunt for child murderer, this is a fascinating account of the heinous murders of the Rogers Family - a mother and her 2 teenage daughters.
It is well worth the read, for any Websleuther.
It gives the perspective from all angles - the family, and what LE had to go through with the mass amount of tips, and how LE used the media to further the case and the tips.
Angels & Demons
On June 4, 1989, the bodies of Jo, Michelle and Christe were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable.
http://reprints.longform.org/angels-demons
I wholeheartedly agree with Wondergirl who posted this.
Any of you who have the time to read this, it is truly remarkable. It is quite long, an article written for the St. Petersburg Times. Once I started reading it, I couldn't stop.
There are some striking parallels of how the investigation into the murders of a mother and her two daughters in Florida in 1989 seems to be following this case of Libby and Abby. A reward was offered, lots of tips were called in, many branches of LE involved, they did use bill boards, there was an FBI profile done. This all took place in the early 1990's. At one point after the case had gone quite cold, they did receive a tip that started making the case; at that point LE decided to use billboards to get the evidence out there, hoping someone could provide the tip they needed. This went against all the training of LE that they should keep things close to the vest, but at this point in time they figured they didn't have anything to lose.
There were no eye witnesses to these murders, just as there are no eye witnesses of Libby and Abby's. The prosecution had to present an avalanche of evidence to secure the conviction in 1994. They knew who committed the crime but did not bring him in right away; he was under surveillance for quite some time. They had to gather a lot of other evidence before they finally arrested him.
IMO I believe LE here is doing the same thing. They may not have a suspect yet, but they are working on building the case as well as trying to identify the suspect.
Because there is NO WITNESS to the actual murders (even the cell phone pic and audio are circumstantial evidence in a court of law - although we the public don't really know what all was recorded - I suppose there can be something of the audio that might be considered "eye-witness", like a voice match), if and when there is an arrest, the trial may be won by a massive amount of circumstantial evidence, gathered by all of these dedicated officers.
In the Chandler trial, the jury took an initial vote to see where they all stood. All 12 voted guilty, and this took just 15 minutes, but they agreed to discuss it further and didn't actually produce a final verdict for an hour and a half. The prosecution left no reasonable doubt that Chandler had committed these murders. This was all done without a single eye witness.
Oba Chandler was convicted in November of 1994 for the murders of Jo, Michelle and Christe Rogers, and was held on death row in a Florida prison until his execution on November 15, 2011, seventeen years after his conviction. He never had one visitor during his incarceration.
I looked up additional info on this crime and found the following quote regarding the death sentence that was imposed. It was given by a juror to local media:
"They need to do this swiftly. The man is a mutation of a human being and needs to be destroyed." Chilling words from someone who sat in that jury box, day after day, listening to evidence, watching the defendant sitting at the defense table, and observing him as he testified in the witness chair. If you read Angels & Demons, it will chill you and provide the background on how this juror was able to utter these words.
I believe those of us here may well feel the same way this juror did about the murderer of these two innocent girls when that day comes. And please, don't take this as support for capital punishment and spawn a debate here. I am in no way endorsing CP. I only have brought it up as this was the outcome for this particular crime in Florida.
As a side note, in 2014, an unsolved murder of a 20 yr old Florida woman in November 1990, was linked to Chandler, who at this time had already been executed. Detectives were assigned to review that cold case in August 2013. They sent the DNA that had been collected in 1990 to be re-evaluated to see if it matched anyone in the system. They got lucky because DNA held that long can degrade and be useless. Chandler's DNA (which was entered into the system in 1994) came back to be a complete match. (BTW, it took until February 2014 to get the results from the submission of the DNA in the fall of 2013.) So thankfully the family of that girl finally knew who was responsible for her death 23 years earlier and they at least know that he could no longer hurt another person.
Again, the Angels & Demons article is first rate. I encourage every one to read it. I no longer am going to be impatient with how this case is progressing. We have to trust that LE is doing everything they can and when it counts, all the waiting will be worth it. IMHO
