TX TX - Virginia 'Ginger' Freeman, 40, Brazos County, 1 Dec 1981

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http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/bcso-releases-new-images-of-suspect-in-1981-cold-case/432425513
April 19, 2017
BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas -- The longest unsolved murder case in Brazos County is getting another look.


Virginia Freeman, a real estate agent, was killed on December 1, 1981 after meeting a man who said he was looking to buy property off of Greens Prairie Road, south of College Station.

More than three decades later, Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk revealed two new composite pictures of Freeman's alleged killer at a press conference on Tuesday.
Freeman's murder was the first crime scene Sheriff Kirk worked with the Brazos County Sheriff's Office (BCSO). He photographed the "traumatic scene," recalling that it was a "heinous crime."

Freeman's husband reported his 40-year-old wife missing three hours after she didn't return home. He later found her lifeless body behind the vacant home. An autopsy report showed that the mother of two had been stabbed multiple times, strangled and bludgeoned with a four pound rock.

The BCSO use of Snapshot to help solve Freeman's case will be featured in an episode of National Geographic Explorer in June 2017.


If you recognize the person in the pictures or know anything about Freeman's murder, call the Sheriff's hotline at (979)-361-4986. You can also leave an anonymous tip by calling Crime Stoppers at (979)-775-TIPS (8477).

The company used DNA found under Freeman's fingernail to generate a sketch of the alleged killer in 1981 and, using age progression, also created an image of what the suspect would look like today.
that%20killer%20from%20the%2080%27s_1492573665632_9252779_ver1.0.jpg
 
http://www.dps.texas.gov/TexasRangers/UnsolvedHomicides/Details.aspx?&id=172
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Virginia Freeman
On December 1, 1981, forty year old Real Estate Agent Virginia “Ginger” Bradford Freeman was murdered behind a rural vacant residence in Brazos County, which she was showing a potential buyer. Virginia had been assigned a telephone call at the real estate office where she worked. The unknown male caller was interested in property in the Bryan/College Station area, saying he had cash to invest. Virginia gave the caller directions to a rural property listed for sale and made arrangements to meet the caller at that location. The victim left the real estate office at about 3:00 PM and stopped at her own residence, where she told her children about the potential sale.

Sometime after 7:00 PM, Virginia’s husband, Charles, reported Virginia missing to the Brazos County Sheriff's Office. Charles and one of Virginia’s co-worker’s husbands began searching for Virginia and found her vehicle parked at a residence for sale on Greens Prairie Road. They found Virginia’s body behind the vacant residence. An autopsy revealed that at approximately 3:30 PM, Virginia had been struck on her head, strangled, and stabbed.
 

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http://wtaw.com/2017/04/18/new-suspect-composite-drawings-released-unsolved-1981-college-station-murder/
The sheriff says DNA used in the sample was taken from under Freeman’s fingernail.

According to a news release from the Texas Department of Public Safety, anyone can submit information to the Brazos County Crime Stoppers hotline at 979-775- TIPS (8477), through the Texas Ranger Cold Case website or call the DPS missing persons hotline at 1-800-346-3243


Composite of a 25 year old suspect in the Virginia Freeman murder courtesy of the Brazos County sheriff’s office.

 

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Thank you dotr for starting this thread! I live here in Bryan and actually sold real estate for a very short time in the late 90"s. Our office would not let any of the women realtors meet an unknown client at a property because of Ginger's murder. The customer had to meet at our office and leave a copy of their driver's license. There are some long time residents that believe the murderer is still local.

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Thank you dotr for starting this thread! I live here in Bryan and actually sold real estate for a very short time in the late 90"s. Our office would not let any of the women realtors meet an unknown client at a property because of Ginger's murder. The customer had to meet at our office and leave a copy of their driver's license. There are some long time residents that believe the murderer is still local.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

Very scary glad you stayed safe, it seems there were a number of attacks on female realtors, wondering if the same guy was responsible for any other attacks?
For a young guy, he seemed familiar with the type of thing to say to get an appointment, imo, maybe he has a family member involved in the real estate business?
Hoping that this guy is recognized by somebody, he was particularly brutal. imo, speculation.

http://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/12/03/Real-estate-agents-warned/9629376203600/
Dec. 3, 1981
COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Real estate agents were warned today to take extra precautions because of the strangulation and stabbing of a woman realtor lured to a rural meeting with a man who said he had $73,000 to invest in a house.

Authorities said they were investigating reports of attacks on real estate agents in San Antonio, Austin and Houston and interviewing Mrs. Freeman's co-workers to see if she mentioned the name of the man she was to meet. They also warned realtors throughout central and southeast Texas to be wary of meeting clients alone.

Sheriff Bobby Yeager in nearby Bryan said the agency where Mrs. Freeman worked, The Real Estate Mart, received a telephone call about 3 p.m. Tuesday from a man who said he had recently sold his home in another part of the state and was interested in investing his $73,000 profit in a home in the country
.
 
This realtor took precautions and escaped, but not quite unscathed.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/real-estate-agent-survived-attack-man-showing-home/story?id=28865934
[h=1]How a Real Estate Agent Survived Attack By Man She Was Showing a Home to[/h]
  • By ELISSA STOHLER

  • ALEXA VALIENTE
Feb 12, 2015

Selling a home isn't all about mortgage rates and gourmet kitchens. For real estate agents, it can sometimes be downright dangerous.

San Antonio real estate agent Janice Tisdale once found herself in a perilous situation with a client -- and barely escaped with her life

Tisdale took some precautions in the moments before meeting Maldonado. She removed her diamond jewelry and opened the doors of the house so she would have an escape route. Even though she'd shown him several homes in the recent months, she felt inexplicably uneasy around him.

As Tisdale and Maldonado toured the vacant house, Tisdale said her instincts were telling her to bolt.
"The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I just was feeling really uncomfortable," Tisdale recalled. "And finally I said, we really need to go

Tisdale was lucky. In the last decade, more than 20 real estate agents were murdered, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Women make up 60 percent of the real estate agent population, and as agents they are required to market themselves relentlessly to perfect strangers.
 
Brazos County investigator traveling out-of-state to interview witnesses for cold case

http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Brazos-County-investigator-travels-outside-of-Texas-for-answers-on-cold-case-421937273.html

Brazos County Sheriff's Office investigator Kenny Elliot recently traveled to Arizona and South Carolina to interview witnesses in a homicide investigation.

"I can confirm the last two weeks we had items on the commissioner's court agenda approving the expenditures of travel of a homicide case we've been working. And I'll confirm it is the Virginia Freeman case," said Brazos County Sheriff, Chris Kirk.

Sheriff Kirk said since the investigation is ongoing, he can't discuss more about the out-of-state interviews.
 
http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/...cle_b7a60940-5529-11e7-8389-47fc6f9093ec.html
June 19 2017
The documentary series National Geographic Explorer will air tonight its segment on the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office’s search for the man who killed a real estate agent in rural College Station in 1981.


Virginia “Ginger” Freeman died on Dec. 1, 1981, a half-hour after taking a call at Bryan’s Real Estate Mart from a man with a “country-sounding accent,” according to stories in The Eagle’s archives. The man had told Freeman he was interested in buying a home on Greens Prairie Road, then a rural part of College Station, and could pay with $73,000 in cash


In April, Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk released two facial composites of the killer, created using DNA found under Freeman’s fingernails. The composites were created using Snapshot DNA Phenotyping, a state-of-the-art DNA analysis tool. Nat Geo Explorer fronted the cost of the $3,600 analysis in exchange for permission to create a television show documentary about the sheriff’s office’s investigation.That documentary airs tonight on the National Geographic Channel at 9 p.m. The short description for the show states that viewers will “witness how new DNA analysis techniques are beginning to allow investigators to create modern mugshots and reopen cold cases.”

http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/...cle_25b05d58-55db-11e7-a963-6f44544f40ae.html
Those who have any pertinent about the case are encouraged to call 361-4986 or 775-TIPS.


Freeman’s story makes up a portion of the 60-minute episode of the show. The segment — called “The New Face of Crime” — runs from about the two-minute mark to 17:10. Provided you have valid login credentials, you can watch the episode at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/explorer/episodes/s10-ep16/.
 
The sketches seem very similar to the Atkinson/Henry sketches.

I am curious. Did they ever compare to Debardeleben?
 
Amazing and lengthy link, lots of pics and detail.
http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/...cle_edb28f82-077e-529e-9a41-b688b1b3fd08.html
'It gnaws on you'

[h=1]Virginia Freeman's unsolved 1981 killing remains priority for original investigators[/h]
Thirty-five years later, Travis Bryan III remains haunted by her eyes.


He had been Brazos County's top prosecutor for just over three years when Virginia Freeman -- a mother of two, real estate agent and community volunteer -- was killed. And though it was far from his first crime scene, what he saw Dec. 1, 1981, in the back yard of a home up for sale is impossible to forget.


"The main thing I remember was the stark look of terror in her eyes. [They] were wide open," Bryan said, using his hands to stretch his own eyes to illustrate what he saw.

"I'll never forget the look," he said during a recent interview in his office at the Brazos County Courthouse, where he serves as a district judge. Bryan had traveled with Freeman's body to San Antonio, where he witnessed a medical examiner perform her autopsy.


Freeman had been stabbed in the neck 11 times, suffered a broken neck resulting from strangulation and was hit in the head with a 4.5-pound piece of concrete. Her body had been left outside, behind the locked house she was showing to a new client. Scratch marks dug into the dirt on the ground told detectives that the 40-year-old put up a mighty fight.
They've asked for help from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers and the Sheriffs' Association of Texas. According to stories in The Eagle's archives, they've analyzed Freeman's clothes for fingerprints. They've compared DNA to the CODIS database, which contains a registry of DNA from known offenders who committed violent crimes, but there was no match, meaning it's possible her killer was never convicted of a crime.
 
I know from researching some other cases that some felons DNA was not entered into CODIS. DeBardeleben was arrested in 1983, and I dont know the laws of the various states in which he was convicted. If they only entered info from inmates as they entered, or if he was convicted of a sexual felony in the state he was being held in.

This murder does seem similar to Jean Upshaul's murder. And in that case he claimed to have been an investor from Midland TX.
 
Just came across a live video on Facebook for this case. It’s still streaming KAGS TV

Brazos County Sheriff announces suspect in decades-old murder of Virginia Freeman

Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk announced that James Otto Earhart was the prime suspect. He was a resident in Brazos County at the time of the murder.

Earhart was executed in 1999 for another crime, a kidnapping and murder.
Great news, thanks for the update and once again, hooray for DNA!
"Sheriff Kirk says the information comes from DNA that was analyzed for ancestry information. DNA database found second cousins and great grandparents of the suspect, which is how suspect was identified.

The DNA was then matched to Earhart's son, called a confirmed parent-child match. Sheriff Kirk called this "clear" evidence that Earhart killed Virginia Freeman."
Brazos County Sheriff announces suspect in decades-old murder of Virginia Freeman
 
Texas investigators use DNA evidence to crack 37-year-old cold case (with clip)

"BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas - Texas investigators say they've solved the 37-year-old murder of a Brazos County realtor using DNA evidence.

Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk announced that James Otto Earhart was the prime suspect in the 1981 murder of realtor Virginia Freeman. He was a resident of Brazos County at the time of the murder.

Earhart was executed in 1999 for another crime, the kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Kandy Kirtland in 1987.

Sheriff Kirk says the information comes from DNA that was analyzed for ancestry information...."

Texas investigators use DNA evidence to crack 37-year-old cold case

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Authorities exhume body of suspected killer in 1981 case

Investigators are one step closer to solving a murder mystery that has plagued Brazos County for nearly 40 years.

earhart+exhumed.JPG

Wednesday, the body of the man investigators believe killed a local real estate agent was exhumed from his grave Huntsville.

Monday we learned new DNA and ancestral results pinpointed James Otto Earhart as the likely killer in the brutal murder of Virginia Freeman in Brazos County.

Researchers only needed to recover a clay-covered bone from Earhart to retrieve a tissue sample.
 
https://www.theeagle.com/news/local/a-visual-timeline-of-the-james-otto-earhart-capital-murder/article_a53bff2a-7950-11e8-a5be-9beeb846196c.html

A visual timeline of the James Otto Earhart capital murder trial and execution
A visual timeline of the 1987 investigation into Kandy Kirtland's kidnapping and murder, and the subsequent capital murder trial of James Otto Earhart.

Earhart was named as the likely suspect in the murder of Virginia Freeman in 1981 by the Brazos County Sheriff's Office on Monday.
 
Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk announced that James Otto Earhart was the prime suspect in the 1981 murder of realtor Virginia Freeman. He was a resident of Brazos County at the time of the murder.

Earhart was executed in 1999 for another crime, the kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Kandy Kirtland in 1987.

Sheriff Kirk says the information comes from DNA that was analyzed for ancestry information...."
I am curious, if Earhart was the "prime suspect", why did it take so long to test his DNA? Especially since he was executed in 99, well past the time that LE was using DNA techniques.

Some of the articles seem to make it appear as if Earhart's name came up unexpectedly, and then the quote above says something different.

How many executed killers, or killers who died behind bars, before the mandatory DNA samples were taken, are there? This case could have been solved years ago.
 
@Dewclaw

If you read this article from April, 2017, previously posted, I don't think Earhart was a "prime suspect" way back when.

'IT GNAWS ON YOU'
Virginia Freeman's unsolved 1981 killing remains priority for original investigators

"...Investigators have followed leads extensively in the 35 years, four months and three weeks that have passed, but the killer has never been found.
The mystery was tethered to former Texas Ranger Bob Connell, who tried to track down the man responsible for more than a decade before he retired in 1992.

"We ran out of every lead we had," he said.

The retired Ranger said he never talked to a possible suspect who, after he questioned them, he thought was a good match for the slaying. ...

...Despite hard work over the years to try and find the killer, Kirk said, "we never found the suspect to put all this together."...

Authorities have questioned many potential suspects since 1981. They've put potential witnesses under hypnosis and questioned them about suspicious people they saw on the day of the slaying. They've sent investigators across state lines and throughout Texas. They've asked for help from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers and the Sheriffs' Association of Texas. According to stories in The Eagle's archives, they've analyzed Freeman's clothes for fingerprints. They've compared DNA to the CODIS database, which contains a registry of DNA from known offenders who committed violent crimes, but there was no match, meaning it's possible her killer was never convicted of a crime....

Kirk said this may not be the only unsolved killing in the county -- off the top of his head, he can remember five -- but it is the one for which his office has the most DNA evidence. Despite having no way of knowing future scientific advances -- DNA analysis was still several years away -- authorities in 1981 collected evidence after the murder and properly preserved it until technological developments could advance the case through DNA analysis. During the autopsy, Freeman's fingernails were cut, and years later they were determined to contain an unknown person's DNA...."

Virginia Freeman's unsolved 1981 killing remains priority for original investigators
---

BBM I don't believe they collected DNA from Earhart when he was in prison.

Found this article to confirm this:

Bryan murderer exhumed to confirm DNA evidence he was responsible for another decades-old cold case

"...He refused to give DNA samples in his 11 years on death row....

The DNA ancestral analysis identified two of Earhart's female second cousins, then determined the great-grandparents who would likely be shared by the suspect, Kirk said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety's Austin lab indicated a match with a DNA sample provided by Earhart's son in April 2017....

Police think DNA may also connect Earhart to a third victim, a 51-year-old woman who was kidnapped from Bryan and killed in February 1986, The Eagle reported.

Investigators collected saliva and semen samples from the remains of Ruth Richardson Green, who was stabbed, shot and left in a dumpster. The samples were not tested at the time because police did not have access to the technology. "

Bryan murderer exhumed to confirm DNA evidence he was responsible for another decades-old cold case | Crime | Dallas News
 
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