Georgia investigators crack 1972 cold case murder of Debbie Lynn Randall who vanished while walking home from laundromat
Georgia authorities have figured out the culprit in the 1972 murder case of nine-year-old Debbie Lynn Randall.
This week, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office named William B. Rose as the suspected killer more than 50 years of Debbie’s abduction, rape and brutal murder.
‘I learned over the years that it does you no good to hate or hold grudges,’ her brother, Melvin, said at a Tuesday press conference.
Melvin Randall is the only family member alive who heard the news. Debbie’s mom died of leukemia in 2018 while her father died last year.
‘I would like to say that I wish my mother was here, but I know she knows in heaven now that it’s finally over and we just want to say we thank all of you for what you’ve done to make this day come to pass,’ he said.
Debbie was walking home from a laundromat on January 13, 1972, in Marietta, Georgia, late at night when she was kidnapped and murdered. Fifty years later, police say they have solved her cold case
‘I learned over the years that it does you no good to hate or hold grudges,’ her brother, Melvin, said
‘After a while… I blamed myself for it because I was her big brother, and I battled with it for a while, but then I realized that there was nothing I could have done, and it just happened, and it wasn’t my fault. I’m just grateful for the community .’
Debbie was walking home from a laundromat on January 13, 1972, in Marietta, Georgia, late at night when she was kidnapped.
At the time, 4,000 people started looking for her and her body was found 16 days later near an intersection of Windy Hill and Powers Ferry Road.
Two young locals said a dark pickup truck backed up in a parking lot near the Debbie’s house and drove away quickly. All that was left in the parking lot was laundry detergent.
An autopsy determined she died by strangulation. While the case has baffled investigators for decades, crucial pieces of evidence, namely a hair and a piece of cloth with a flowery design, from her body had been kept safe.
This week, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office named William B. Rose as the suspected killer more than 50 years of Debbie’s abduction, rape and brutal murder
An autopsy determined she died by strangulation. While the case has baffled investigators for decades, crucial pieces of evidence, namely a hair and a piece of cloth with a flowery design, from her body had been kept safe
Thanks to DNA testing, the piece of cloth was sent to a lab in 2015 which resulted in a profile of an unknown man.
Further DNA testing in 2023 brought up Rose, who was 24 years old at the time of killing and lived in the same apartment complex.
Rose died by suicide two years after Debbie’s death.
Cobb County District Attorney Flynn Broady said in the same conference: ‘It may take us some time but with the new technologies that are coming out every day, we’re going to do everything we can to solve our cold cases, to make sure we bring people to justice.
‘The answer we are providing today won’t bring her back. We can’t extract justice from the perpetrator, but I know he must answer to a higher power.’
Ron Alter, a cold case investigator with the district attorney’s office said Rose had previous arrests for alcohol-related incidents and possibly killed himself due to fear of being caught by the police at the time, even though he was not a suspect.
‘If he drove by, I’m sure he saw her. I believe that was a crime of opportunity. He saw her by herself and abducted her,’ Alter said.
The investigator confirmed investigators used ancestry websites to find familial matches to Rose from distant relatives and narrowed their suspect list from there.
The process is known as genetic genealogy and allows investigators to use family members DNA to help identify a suspect or the identity of a cold-case victim. It was a process made famous when it was used to catch the BTK killer in Kansas.
Crediting modern technology, Morris Nix, a retired detective with the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office who worked the case told WXIA: ‘Technology does not get old, it does not retire, it does not get sick. And it doesn’t quit. Technology was seeking William Rose and it found him in the grave.’
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