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Unresolved slayings with cold trails may get their endings

A team of volunteers led by a detective is the newest proposal to crack some of the 155 mysteries lingering at the Sheriff's Office.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published April 11, 2005

TAMPA - The stories of their untimely deaths fill dozens of three-ring binders in a small, drab room at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

The grisly details are in crime scene reports, detectives' hastily scribbled notes, medical examiners' unflinching photos, in witness accounts.

Sonja Ray Ratliff, shot in the chest outside a northwest Hillsborough bar in 1971.

Cheryl McMullen, a restaurant manager, murdered inside a Bennigan's restaurant on N Dale Mabry Highway in May 1990.

Johnny Kim-Foo Sing, shot in his Town 'N Country driveway in June 1997 by a man who took off with Sing's duffel bag and would later discover there was no cash inside.

Mary Duff, a crack addict and sometime-prostitute, found partially submerged in a culvert along the west side of 14th Street NW in Ruskin in March 1999.

All their stories lack now is an ending.

Months, years, in some cases decades after they were murdered, their homicides remain unsolved.

There are 155 of these mysteries lingering at the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office. They date back to 1956, when a young man named Carl Delong Jr. was violently beaten and left to die after an evening at a known gay bar in downtown Tampa.

Detectives are frustrated. Victims' loved ones wonder : Who did it?

Sheriff's detectives hope to answer that question for some families with the creation of a cold case team. The sole mission of the mostly volunteer group will be to revisit and solve murders that have frustrated generations of investigators.

Detectives regularly review unsolved cases to look for anything they might have missed, evidence that can be tested with new forensic technologies, or reluctant witnesses who might not be so resistant anymore.

But they juggle old cases with roughly 35 fresh homicides a year. In the mid '90s, two detectives assigned to take a closer look at unsolved cases eventually found they had no time.

"Newer cases came in and took priority," Hillsborough sheriff's Col. Gary Terry said. "We just couldn't sustain it."

The new cold case unit won't have that problem.

Sheriff David Gee plans to hire a part-time detective, likely a retired former sheriff's or police investigator, to lead a small group of community volunteers chosen for their unique expertise.

They might be retired CEOs, former private investigators, maybe even biologists, mathematicians and chemical engineers.

"We're looking for people with a different perspective," said Terry, a longtime homicide detective who serves as president of the International Homicide Investigators Association.

"We want them to analyze these old case files, discuss them and work with the officer to generate new leads.

"You never know what a fresh set of eyes can find."

Gee got the idea for the cold case unit while watching television one night shortly after the November election to his first term.

The Discovery Channel program highlighted the Cold Case Cowboys, a squad of retired volunteer cops who solved two cold cases in Douglas County, Ore.

As Gee watched the show, he thought about all the retired cops living in Hillsborough County and all the eager, well-educated retirees he has met over the years in communities like Sun City Center.

"I thought, "We could do that here,"' Gee said. "It won't cost much. A part-time salary, some office space and some supplies."

* * *

When Col. Terry drives along Interstate 75 in southern Hillsborough, he sees from the highway the Ruskin home of Marca Nanne Baysinger.

She has been dead for nearly 20 years, but Terry can't forget her. He knows that so far, her killer has gotten away with murder.

"There are some cases," Terry said, "they just stay with you."

Baysinger was only 19, a wholesome-looking East Bay High graduate who attended Southside Baptist Church with her grandmother.

She had no criminal record. She worked at a local Wal-Mart.

At 10:30 a.m. July 5, 1988, her mother, a church secretary, went out. Baysinger stayed home that Tuesday morning to sunbathe in the yard at 1721 27th St. SE.

When Elaine Baysinger returned, her daughter was sitting in a chair in the Florida room. She still had her bathing suit on, but someone had shot her once in the upper torso with a 9mm bullet.

Neighbors in the quiet rural area reported seeing a red '70s-model El Camino with a white stripe between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

"We stopped hundreds of red El Caminos after that," Terry recalled. "I never knew there were so many."

Investigators did not find the gun, and their talks with El Camino drivers never resulted in an arrest.

Over the years, different detectives went back at the case when they had some free time. Their notes and failed leads fill nearly two dozen three-ring binders.

"These are the hardest cases," said Detective Sgt. Mike Willette. "Some people, you know they were into drugs or some other trouble. She was just an innocent girl."

* * *

Edith Converse, killed in 1958. Clarence Edward Deablo, 1972. Ronald Neil Heinlein, 1983. David Addison Neel, shot earlier this month as he drove his pickup truck along I-75 toward Plant City.

The Sheriff's Office clears most of the homicides that happen in unincorporated Hillsborough each year, but those victims are among the dozens whose murders have yet to be solved.

The victims' names are printed on white sheets of paper, attached to the filing cabinets where their case files are stored. The names don't mean anything to most people, but some longtime detectives go down the list and remember being at the crime scene or helping to process evidence.

They remember sitting down with victims' families, consoling them even as they peppered them with questions vital to the investigation.

Capt. Craig Lattimer, deputy commander of the Sheriff's Office's criminal investigation division, knows the cold case unit won't solve every case. It won't find answers for every grieving wife, husband or parent.

But the team will tackle cases one by one, first going after those that have the "highest solvability," he said.

"We'll certainly start by going after the ones where we have evidence, witnesses," he said.

And maybe, just maybe, the detective and his volunteer helpers will find a few killers.

"That's what it's all about, right?" Sgt. Willette said. "Finding out the truth."

--Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 11, 2005, 01:17:31]