The web site of the OWH now has the full story posted, here it is:
Dundee slaying victim's dad: 'Keep this case alive'
BY JOHN FERAK
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
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Dr. William Hunter III had just one hint that something was amiss when he arrived home from work last March 13: His housecleaner's white Ford Taurus was parked in the driveway.
Tom HunterShirlee Sherman usually finished work about 4:30 p.m., so Hunter wondered for a moment why she still was there an hour and 15 minutes later. With his wife, Dr. Claire Hunter, out of town, Bill Hunter planned to spend the evening with his 11-year-old son, Tom.
Hunter had no idea of the horrific discovery he was about to make.
Moments after he walked in the back door, Hunter stopped to take off his coat. As he reached toward the coat rack, he saw Sherman's body slumped on the floor of a hallway.
The doctor yelled for his son. Tom didn't answer. Hunter ran downstairs, where he found his son's Xbox game system on pause. Hunter then ran back upstairs and into the dining room, where he found his son's body sprawled on the floor, covered with blood.
Tom and Sherman had both been fatally stabbed.
Last week, Hunter gave his first interview. He told The World-Herald he fears that the nearly year-old investigation has reached a standstill, and he wants to encourage people to share any information they might have with police. The family of Sherman, who had worked for the Hunters for about two years, shared similar concerns.
"Somehow we, the families, as well as the public, need to keep the pressure on to keep this case alive," said Hunter, 64. "It is just killing us as a family, not knowing who and why."
The daytime slayings jolted the historic Dundee neighborhood and the Omaha community. The stabbings claimed the lives of a sixth-grader at King Science and Technology Magnet Center and a 57-year-old woman who was a mother and grandmother.
Despite following up on hundreds of leads, authorities have made no arrests.
Omaha Police Lt. Kerry Neumann, who oversees the homicide unit, said the case remains "very much an active investigation."
Because of the ongoing investigation, Neumann declined to discuss many details of the case, including possible suspects and leads still being pursued. However, he said he does not consider the slayings to be a cold case.
"I have got my best people working on this thing. Sometimes these investigations take awhile before they are solved," he said. "This is still a workable case."
The FBI is assisting in the investigation, and a $25,000 reward has been offered for information that leads to an arrest.
Neumann said the Hunter family has been extremely cooperative, and no family members are considered suspects.
He said a big obstacle for detectives has been an inability to locate a man whom neighbors reported seeing outside the Hunter home on the afternoon of the slayings. The man reportedly was driving a sport utility vehicle with no front license plate.
A neighbor reported that the vehicle moved conspicuously down the street, starting and stopping as if the driver were looking for an address.
Because no neighbor wrote down the rear license plate number or called 911 when they saw the car, finding the vehicle has been difficult, Neumann said.
"Where do you start without a license plate?" he asked. "It's a general vehicle, and there are literally thousands of those."
Neumann said it remains important to locate and question the man.
"It is never too late to give information. We are following up on all leads," he said. "There is a very dangerous person still out there."
Hunter has spent the past 11 months trying to figure out who that dangerous person is. He remains baffled why anyone would want to kill his son.
He said no valuables were taken from the home. Sherman's purse was on the kitchen counter with $800 cash inside - money her family believes was from her cleaning business and a rental property. A new digital camera and lenses were in the living room, Hunter said.
"Was (Tom) in the wrong place or was it deliberate?" he asked. He also asks himself whether Sherman was the target.
"It's just devastated us. We're not sure what happened. Both Claire and I had a very uneventful, good life until this."
Hunter said Omaha detectives told him that they have found no evidence that the family was targeted. The Hunters also have three adult sons, ages 26, 23 and 21.
"We don't have gambling debts," Hunter said. "We have not been the targets of any threats."
Bill Hunter is a professor and the residency program director for Creighton University Medical Center's department of pathology. Claire Hunter is an associate professor of medicine and director of Creighton's cardiovascular fellowship training program.
Claire Hunter was in Hawaii for a conference when she heard from a friend that police were at her house. She reached her husband on his cell phone as he met with detectives. Bill Hunter gave his wife the dreadful news, and she immediately caught a flight to Omaha.
Bill Hunter said investigators probed his family's financial records, computers, e-mail accounts and phone records.
The Hunters and other Creighton faculty provided detectives with the names of a half dozen former medical residents and students who may have left the university disgruntled, Bill Hunter said. Police tracked residents to locations as far away as Mexico and Canada, he said.
Police identified the people who played online video games with Tom and checked on his school bus drivers.
Detectives reviewed delivery drivers and workers who had done remodeling or repairs to the family's house.
None of the leads panned out, Hunter said.
"Everyone, from the school principals to the teachers to the police . . . everyone says there was no reason to harm Tom," he said.
Brad Waite of Omaha, one of Sherman's brothers, said detectives also looked into Sherman's background.
Police questioned several of her relatives and acquaintances, according to Waite, but detectives told him nothing had come of those interviews.
In recent months, detectives inquired about possible romances in Sherman's life, Waite said. But Sherman, who was divorced, had not dated for more than 10 years, he said.
Sherman's family asked for a meeting with Omaha police last week. They, too, want to see more attention put on the case and asked if there was more they could do.
"We're obviously discouraged," said Dan Waite, another of Sherman's brothers. "Shirlee didn't have any enemies."
With more questions than answers, the Hunters still struggle to come home to the house they have lived in for 25 years. Still, they have no intention of moving.
"Even though they desecrated the house we loved, I am not afraid of living there," Bill Hunter said. "We have a lot of good memories of the house and our neighborhood. What do we do? Just disappear?"
As they try to move forward, Hunter said, family, neighbors and colleagues are a source of strength.
Hunter said he thinks the homicide unit is doing everything possible to solve the slayings.
"I trust them. They've been very kind and supportive and done a good job," he said. "As each month goes by, it gets more frustrating. Obviously, we are desperately seeking closure. Maybe a motive would go a long way in closure. I don't want it to be just random, but I know things like that happen."
Hunter said he misses terribly the life he shared with his youngest son.
The parents no longer have their son's beloved pet rabbit, Mopsy. One of his classmates agreed to take the pet after Tom's death.
On Saturday mornings, Hunter liked to watch Tom shoot baskets in YMCA basketball games. Afterward, father and son often went to Arby's or another restaurant for lunch.
In 2007, Tom vacationed with his parents in Europe. Family snapshots capture Tom smiling with his mother in England at the Tower of London and standing outside Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.
In between homework and video games, Tom rifled through the family's pantry for snacks.
"He was a junk food junkie," his father said. "He loved Doritos and Froot Loops."
Gone are the days of Tom peppering his parents with questions about his homework. Science was his favorite subject.
"Our house was hopping all the time," Hunter said. "Now it's just quiet."
Contact the writer: 444-1056,
john.ferak@owh.com
