2024-04-15 06:53:00
Hiram Graham, a World War II veteran/Indian River Co Sheriff’s Office
2024.04.15 Mon posted at 15:53 JST
(CNN) The 1968 murder of a milkman in Florida has been solved for the first time in 56 years. It was the oldest unsolved case in Indian River County.
According to the county sheriff’s office, the key to solving the case was testimony from two people who said the suspect had confided in them about the incident.
Hiram Graham, a World War II veteran (47 years old at the time), was murdered on April 11, 1968, while working as a milkman.
His son, Larry Graham, who was 16 at the time, said his family was devastated by his father’s murder and said the resolution of the case left him with mixed feelings.
Investigators said in a statement Wednesday that Grayam was speaking with two men when she was last seen. The two then got into Graham’s truck.
The next day, Grayam’s body and the truck were found in the woods. The sheriff’s office described it as a “horrific scene.”
As of April 1974, investigations into this case had been conducted 16 times intermittently.
In 2006, the investigation was restarted at the request of the family. After the family spoke to the media, suspect Thomas Williams wrote a letter to a local newspaper stating that although he was suspected of murder, he had no involvement in the incident.
“At this point, no one was marking him. In a sense, he jumped in and became a suspect,” the victim’s son Larry said at a news conference.
Williams died in 2016. However, two people have come forward who say that before he died, the suspect had confided in him that he was the one who killed Grayam.
In February 2022, an inmate serving a sentence at the prison provided information to investigative authorities. The inmate, who was a relative of the Williams family, testified that Williams had confided in him about the incident.
The ex-wife of the suspect, who was located by investigators based on this information, also confessed that Williams had confided in her about the incident.
The two witnesses said they did not know each other and were unable to come forward because they had been threatened by Williams. Williams had previously been arrested and charged in other cases.
“We believe Thomas Williams was the shooter in this incident, but there is another person who knows what happened that day. We know who that man is. “If anyone has more information, please come forward,” said Sheriff Eric Flowers.
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