Timothy Widman confessed in 1986 to killing his girlfriend's daughter, Nicole Bryner, on March 9, 1982. With the child's mother, the late Melody Childs, he buried the body in a wooded lot in Brookline, he told police. Police searched unsuccessfully for the body, and without it prosecutors could not pursue the case.
Mrs. Childs insisted from the day of Nicole's disappearance that her daughter had been abducted from a South Side supermarket.
Mrs. Childs was charged with hindering apprehension and lying to police in 1986. Her charges also were dismissed. She died in June 2001 following back surgery in a Texas hospital, her family said.
Until the day she died, Mrs. Childs maintained her daughter was abducted from the Giant Eagle, Mrs. Childs' family said.
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The new case against Mr. Widman, 51, appears to have been built not on new information, but rather on case law that has changed since Mr. Widman was originally arrested in 1986.
At that time, prosecutors could not charge someone with murder unless a body was found.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06271/725734-53.stm