Today, I wanted to bring attention to get another unsolved murder in Florida which has received little attention since it occurred.
Name: Amanda Griffin
Date of Birth: November 29, 1978
Date Missing: August 4, 1984
Age: 5 years old
Location: Titusville, Brevard County, Florida
Date Body Found: August 7, 1984
Location: Titusville, Brevard County, Florida
Details: Amanda disappeared from her apartment complex located at 515 Rock Pit Road in Titusville, Florida on August 4, 1984 sometime after 5:45 pm. She was last seen playing with a frog when she mysteriously vanished without a trace. Her mother initially assumed she went fishing with her father but he returned home at 8:00 pm and said she never went with him. At this point, neighbors and her parents began to search for her. She was reported missing soon afterwards.
Despite an extensive search by police and volunteers, no trace of Griffin was found. She was last seen wearing a light blue t-shirt with a Mickey Mouse emblem and a pair of blue shorts. Police suspected that Amanda was abducted by a stranger.
On August 7th 1984, Amanda’s decomposing body was found lying in a water-filled ditch near the Sunshine Auto Salvage Co. on U.S. Highway 50 by an employee cutting grass. Her body was identified through fingerprints. Amanda had gone to a chain grocery store and got her fingerprints taken as part of a “missing child” program which many other parents had their children do around the United States. They were used to identify her.
Amanda’s cause of death was found to be suffocation and she had been sexually abused as well. Additionally, alcohol was found in Amanda’s system and her blood alcohol level was twice the amount the state of Florida considered drunk. Despite an extensive investigation into her death, no suspects were ever found or arrested in the case.
Police still don’t know how Amanda even disappeared. They speculate someone in a vehicle abducted Amanda as she played near her home that evening. It’s also possible she was abducted from a nearby supermarket. Her mother said it was possible she walked to the store via a dirt path in the woods behind the apartment complex.
Police cleared Amanda’s parents of any wrongdoing in her disappearance early on in the investigation. Still, neighbors spread many nasty rumors about them. Some of these rumors included that her parents took out an $85,000 life insurance policy on her and then killed her to get the money. They continue to hope for her killer to be found and have never stopped hoping for closure.
Police did name two or three suspects in the case, one of whom was previously convicted for sex crimes against other children. In 1990, detectives looked at the possibility that a man arrested in Chicago, Illinois could be connected to the case. Gary Kerpan, 40, was arrested and charged with a child murder and claimed to be responsible for more. It was found Kerpan lived in Orlando, Florida at the time of Amanda’s abduction but they never found any evidence to tie him to the case.
Anyone with information regarding the unsolved 1984 abduction and murder of Amanda Griffin is asked to contact the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office at (321) 633-8413 or contact CRIMELINE at 1-(800)-423-TIPS.
Note*: I did this write for Amanda on my Facebook Page for Martha Jean Lambert with newspaper clippings as sources but I don’t want to violate any rules so I won’t link it but I wrote what’s in this post. <modsnip: removed screenshot and added clipping>
Clipping found in The Orlando Sentinel published in Orlando, Florida on 8/5/1986.
www.newspapers.com
