Post by Scumhunter on Oct 1, 2021 1:40:20 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: firstcoastnews.com)
From firstcoastnews.com:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Fourth of July is a time of celebration for many, but for Betty McDuffey it is the anniversary of the worst day of her life. A day she lights a candle for her children and prays their murderer is brought to justice.
Around midnight on July 4, 1987, Betty McDuffey says she left her two children Bilalian and Yvonne Pinkney, ages 10 and 14, at their home on Brook Forest Drive in the Gulf Brook neighborhood near 45th and Moncrief. She was picked up by a few acquaintances and went to a house in a nearby subdivision to play cards.
“I was set up,” McDuffey said. ”I was truly set up.”
She says one of the male acquaintances left the house for more than an hour, then returned and offered to walk her back home. McDuffey says she as she approached the back door, she saw something was wrong.
“I saw the window with the screen ripped,” McDuffey recalled.
She walked in and found both Yvonne and Bilalian dead in separate bedrooms.
“I started screaming, ‘Somebody killed my kids! Somebody killed my kids,’” she remembered.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office asked First Coast News not to reveal how the brother and sister were killed, saying that detail is crucial to the investigation, but a 1987 news article describes the crime as ‘savage’.
“What really got me was when I saw the picture of the two kids,” Detective Glenn Warkentien of Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's Cold Case Unit said.
He explained they are resubmitting evidence for additional DNA testing and re-examining latent prints left at the scene.
McDuffey says she has shared her suspicions with investigators about who killed her children, but no suspects have been publicly named.
“There’s a couple of rumors going around that were checked out and obviously no leads were developed enough to give them [investigators] a suspect or suspects,” Det. Warkentien said.
McDuffey says she regrets ever leaving the house that night and will never understand how someone could murder innocent children.
“They were beautiful kids. They loved going to church; they loved going to school,” she remembered. ”We loved each other.”
Det. Warkentien said they never give up on a case, especially one involving children.
“Every little thing could help us solve this and this one needs to be solved,” he said.
If you know anything about the murder of the Pinkney children, please call the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-845-8477 and you can remain anonymous.
www.firstcoastnews.com/mobile/article/news/crime/unsolved/jso-spotlights-1987-cold-case-bilalian-and-yvonne-pinkney/77-6297e2cf-f134-40ff-bc61-2fc60de56630
Thoughts?
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