Update on Case: Police may be close to solving
http://wcbstv.com/local.avenue.five.2.1015230.html
Uncovering Mystery Of The 'Clinton Avenue Five'
Family Members Of 5 Boys Who Disappeared 31 Years Ago Have Renewed Optimism Cops Will Crack Case ReportingJohn Slattery NEWARK (CBS) ―
Authorities believe they are finally closing in on solving a 30-year-old cold case in Newark that resulted in the unsolved disappearance of five teenagers.
CBS
Police are hopeful they can crack a major cold case that's gone unsolved for more than 30 years. Five teenagers vanished on a summer day in 1978. And now, as CBS 2 HD has learned, the family members of those missing have new reason for hope.
Over the last 30 years, Helen Simmons has saved every newspaper clipping she saw on the case, storing them in rolls of protective plastic. They're clips that tell of a mystery never solved, that claimed her nephew, Michael McDowell.
"After 30 years, you're no longer grieving, but you're wondering," Simmons said.
Also wondering is Lillie Williams, who has never gotten over the disappearance of her son, Melvin Pittman.
"All these years, I'm just waiting to get an answer about whether he's dead or alive. I'm quite sure he's not alive," Williams said.
It was on a hot summer day in August 1978 when five teens, 16 and 17, who'd never been in trouble, disappeared from their own neighborhood. They came to be known as the "Clinton Avenue Five."
"It's probably the most sensational case this city had in the past, in its history," Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said.
Suddenly gone were Randy Johnson, Michael McDowell, Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor and Alvin Turner. That day, the five had played basketball at a local park. Some of them then went to their homes to change their clothes before meeting up again at Clinton Avenue and Fabyan Place. They were to help a local contractor, Lee Evans, who was moving. Evans claims they helped him load up his truck with boxes and deliver them at his new house.
Evans said he then brought the five back here where he'd picked them up. But police say no one ever saw them return. They vanished.
"There's never been any evidence, no remains recovered, and at this point, this case is still being carried as five missing kids," McCarthy said.
Evans said he was given a polygraph test, which he passed.
"Yeah, I passed it," he said.
But as for the details of that day, Evans did not want to talk on camera.
"No, I just don't want to talk in public," Evans said.
None of the five had fingerprint records. Their social security numbers were never used.
"Thirty years later, we're still working on that case. Our cold case unit is working on that case as we speak," McCarthy said.
Not only are they working on it, but Newark Mayor Cory Booker said this cold case is heating up.
"We've made a lot of strides. We found a lot of solid evidence and we're engaged in it right now," Booker said.
Police will not say what advances they've made, whether its bodies they've located or suspects about to be charged. Whatever it is, the families are suddenly hopeful for a resolution.
"They've just given us indications that they are close; that they do have leads; that they're following up on leads," Simmons said.
Detectives have recently met with the families. Angela Williams is Melvin Pittman's sister.
"You think they will get an arrest? "I know they will [make an arrest," Angela Williams said.
Whatever the news, and whenever it breaks, the families are not expecting good news.
"They were murdered, pure and simple," Simmons said.
But it now seems the final chapter of this long-running mystery may soon be written.
The search for the five missing teens prompted investigators to search far and wide. They reviewed lists of victims in the Atlanta serial killings in the late 1970s and early '80s; the mass suicides in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978; and the Chicago serial killings of John Wayne Gacy.
The missing five were not among them.
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They could have dumped their bodies in Hudson County. Bergan County is some what nicer. Jersey City is also in Hudson County. I don't think the police worried too much about this case because they were black. People there were a lot more prejudice and they still are. I have a good friend that got killed in Newark years ago. He owned a college book store there. They never robbed him. They shot him execution style. We will never know why either.
