JusticeWillBeServed
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More than 60 Years Later, Justice Still Elusive in Bonnie Huffman's Murder
Unsolved cases: Bonnie Huffman
'Someone got away with murder': Six decades later, identity of Bonnie Huffman's killer remains unknown
Hope fades for solving 1954 Delta, Mo. murder
Find a Grave
Bonnie Huffman, a tall, 20-year-old brunette who had graduated valedictorian of her high school, spent the night out at the movies with a friend and the woman's husband in Delta, Missouri. The group later visited several dance halls in search of Bonnie's longtime boyfriend. The two had recently broken up, family members say.
Around midnight, Bonnie hopped into her grey 1938 Ford to drive the eight or so miles to the home she shared with her mother and half-brother, authorities said. At the time, Bonnie was teaching at a nearby one-room schoolhouse and was to soon start a job at the Missouri Utilities Company.
The following morning, her car was found abandoned along Highway N just outside the town of Delta.
It would be another two days before searchers would come across the grisly discovery of her body in a ditch about a mile away from where her vehicle was located. Bonnie's neck was broken, her jaw dislocated, and her skirt was torn. Her underwear was missing, authorities said. According to newspaper reports at the time, authorities first thought she had been raped, but an autopsy could not confirm or dismiss it.
Unsolved cases: Bonnie Huffman
He still believes that a 2004 letter sent from Florida contained such detailed description that it had to have come from someone who had been at the scene of the killing that night.
The writer recalled driving back from a dance that evening and seeing a car stopped at the curve of Route N about a half-mile from Delta.
"Back then, people would stop to help someone. I did," the person wrote.
When the writer pulled over, two men began hollering for that person to get out, and one tried to grab the driver and pull them out of the car, the letter said.
"Why I tried to help I will never know, because without the help from God I would have been killed," the person wrote.
While the men struggled to get into the car, the person managed to get the clutch in and shift, only to have the two assailants rush to their car and try to block the road.
The letter included a roughly drawn but accurate map of the area near where Huffman's body was found. Friedrich noted that it had been mailed to 40 S. Sprigg St., the address of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, where Huffman's body was taken after its discovery.
Most of what was it the letter was "right on the money," Friederich said, including the fact that there had been a dance nearby in Ancell that night.
'Someone got away with murder': Six decades later, identity of Bonnie Huffman's killer remains unknown
Hope fades for solving 1954 Delta, Mo. murder
Find a Grave