FL - Charlotte Kelley, 25, murdered in her Plant City home, 17 Sept 1979

Dan Sullivan of the Tampa Bay Times reports that:

'A Tampa man has been charged with the 1979 killing of a young Plant City mother, solving the city's oldest cold-case murder, police said Tuesday.'

'Charlotte Kelley disappeared from her home on Sept. 17, 1979. Neighbors who heard her two young children crying that day went to the home and discovered that she was missing. Her body was found in a nearby canal two days later.'

Plant City, Florida Police Chief Edward Duncan said.:

'Nathaniel Bigbee, 63, was arrested Monday in Columbus, Miss., where he was visiting a relative...He remained jailed in Mississippi Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge. While police suspected Bigbee early on, there was not enough evidence over the years to charge him.'

http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...ty-police-make-arrest-in-1979-killing/2194711

'Kelley, 25, was killed in 1979 in her Plant City home. According to law enforcement, someone sexually assaulted and strangled her, dumping her body in a ditch behind the home.

She was discovered two days later.

The home no longer stands at 514 S. Knight St., but DNA evidence still exists on bloodstained bed sheets.'

Bigbee is in custody, awaiting transfer to Florida.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/r...ty/tampa-man-arrest-in-1979-plant-city-murder

This is wonderful news. It cannot bring Charlotte Kelley back but it can bring justice for her two children who had to grow up without their mother.
This is proof that the Police never give up. I hope Ms. Kelley's two children are feeling a sense of Justice with this arrest.

That's fantastic!! What a great day of justice for that family!

Wow. Thank you so much, Zwiebel.

January 2017:

Decades after Plant City strangling, man admits guilt but goes free

For more than three decades, the brutal killing of Charolette Kelley stood as the city's oldest unsolved homicide. That was until 2014, when new DNA evidence led authorities to arrest Bigbee and charge him with first-degree murder.

On Friday, Bigbee, 65, admitted guilt to a reduced charge of manslaughter in exchange for a lesser sentence: three years in prison, plus five years' probation.

But with credit for time served, plus gain time awarded based on 1979 rules, the remainder of Bigbee's prison sentence has expired, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

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For Orthneil Kelley, who was 4 years old when his mother was killed, the outcome was a disappointment.

"I was issued a life sentence by losing my mother," Kelley, 42, said Monday. "And I feel like he should have been given a life sentence."

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