More from this article by reporter Amber Hunt, who also does Accused podcast:
Lesley Sparrow, killed in unsolved '79 murder, to get proper tombstone
"What should happen: Whenever I read about investigators having zeroed in early on a suspect in a cold case, I can’t help but wonder if the initial belief was off base. Was jealousy really the only motivation to consider?
Sparrow had amicably divorced in 1975, and her ex-husband had since remarried and moved out of state. What if the motive had something to do with her job?
Hear me out, because I see this as a two-prong possibility. First, Sparrow’s job was as an employee-relations supervisor, a role that sometimes can translate to conflict. Second, the company for which she worked has baggage. Beginning in the early ‘80s, some of its parent company’s properties started becoming Superfund sites – a federal designation given to land that’s been contaminated by hazardous waste and is considered a risk to human health.
Plus, there’s this, taken from the Courier-Journal story that quotes Ebert:
Ebert said Richfield’s policy of offering rewards for information when an employee is violently killed is part of a two-year program that appears to be working. He said the company has found that women who transfer from city to city are particularly vulnerable to violent crimes, “having moved away from families and friends.”
Just how many employees had to be “violently killed” to spark a reward program? Were any of these other violent killings compared with Sparrow’s?
For Sparrow, the end was gruesome. After she’d been beaten and repeatedly shot with a .25-caliber weapon, her body was shoved into the trunk of her own 1978 Monte Carlo. The car was abandoned in the parking lot of a motel, where a maid spotted blood and called police.
It's heartbreaking to think her life meant so little that her body was discarded twice – once in her trunk, then again in a forgotten cemetery overrun by weeds and vines.
If you’ve listened to Season 3 of Accused, which centers on an employee dying at a different superfund-site-to-be, you won’t be surprised that we’ve requested this case file."
Lesley Sparrow, killed in unsolved '79 murder, to get proper tombstone
"What should happen: Whenever I read about investigators having zeroed in early on a suspect in a cold case, I can’t help but wonder if the initial belief was off base. Was jealousy really the only motivation to consider?
Sparrow had amicably divorced in 1975, and her ex-husband had since remarried and moved out of state. What if the motive had something to do with her job?
Hear me out, because I see this as a two-prong possibility. First, Sparrow’s job was as an employee-relations supervisor, a role that sometimes can translate to conflict. Second, the company for which she worked has baggage. Beginning in the early ‘80s, some of its parent company’s properties started becoming Superfund sites – a federal designation given to land that’s been contaminated by hazardous waste and is considered a risk to human health.
Plus, there’s this, taken from the Courier-Journal story that quotes Ebert:
Ebert said Richfield’s policy of offering rewards for information when an employee is violently killed is part of a two-year program that appears to be working. He said the company has found that women who transfer from city to city are particularly vulnerable to violent crimes, “having moved away from families and friends.”
Just how many employees had to be “violently killed” to spark a reward program? Were any of these other violent killings compared with Sparrow’s?
For Sparrow, the end was gruesome. After she’d been beaten and repeatedly shot with a .25-caliber weapon, her body was shoved into the trunk of her own 1978 Monte Carlo. The car was abandoned in the parking lot of a motel, where a maid spotted blood and called police.
It's heartbreaking to think her life meant so little that her body was discarded twice – once in her trunk, then again in a forgotten cemetery overrun by weeds and vines.
If you’ve listened to Season 3 of Accused, which centers on an employee dying at a different superfund-site-to-be, you won’t be surprised that we’ve requested this case file."
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