The Crimes: Double homicide
The Victims: Christine Landon and Bob Dickinson
Location: Midwest
Original Theory: Pedophile committed aggravated murder
I returned to the Midwest. This town was so small that when I asked for a good place to eat, I was told to go back to wherever I came from.
The sheriff’s office was in the nearest “big” town. The sheriff had the same look on his face as the detective in the Hoover murder.
“Don’t tell me,” I guessed. “Problems with the case files?”
The sheriff was disgusted. “The judge won’t release them.”
“What? But isn’t it an open case?”
“I know. It’s ridiculous, but he sealed them.”
Politics. Had to be politics.
Luckily, I had access to a few police reports and interviews and one autopsy out of two. But no photos, no evidence reports, no forensic reports.
At least I had a really nice sheriff. And a fascinating case.
ON JULY 5, 1986, a lazy summer night in a tiny Midwestern town, Marshal Bob Dickinson was sitting in his easy chair when he got a late-night call from a panicked man, Hugh Marshall, Christine Landon’s boyfriend. “Get on down to Christine’s house! I was talking with her and she started screaming! Hurry!”
Stuffing his feet into his slippers and slapping on his gun belt, the marshal took only half a minute to make the three-block drive to Christine’s house. The phone rang again as soon as he left.
“Tell Bob we’re on the way!” the sheriff’s office advised Bob’s wife. But it was too late to stop Bob.
Ten minutes later, patrol cars screamed into the eight-block town to the front of the Landon residence. The house was dark. Dickinson ’s car was parked haphazardly at the curb, the driver’s door hanging open. No one answered the door. Around back the police officers discovered the sliding door open. Entering the house, they saw Christine Landon on the kitchen floor, half-naked, tied hand and foot, a dozen stab wounds to her chest, and her throat slashed.
They called out to Bob; no answer. The house was eerily quiet. Moving up the stairs to the second floor, they found the marshal, folded over at the top of the stairs, shot to death with his own gun.
Horrified police officers and citizens tried to come to grips with the brutal double murder in their peaceful town. They vowed this killer would be brought to trial. Wanting to go the extra mile, the sheriff’s office reached out for expert assistance, something few police departments are willing to do.
What started as an exemplary effort by the local law enforcement to ensure justice for the victims of these vicious homicides soon careened out of control. Big egos, ambitious politicians, and a desire to win without regard for the truth aborted the rules of fair play and the law, tearing apart the town and the lives of all who became involved; all except the real killer of Landon and Dickinson.
The players in this story stopped at nothing to achieve their goals.
FBI agent John Douglas, the criminal profiler and a twenty-year agency veteran who was then working at the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy, profiled the crime as a sexual homicide and identified Curtis Cox, the babysitter, as the suspect. Though there was no physical evidence linking Cox to the crime, Curtis Cox was arrested. The prosecutor believed he could get a conviction using the FBI profiler’s testimony and psychological profile. A police psychic was brought in and he came up with details of the crime, and the man he said did it looked and acted just like Curtis Cox, an unpopular character in town. The families were comforted that there was no question as to who killed Bob and Christine, and the right guy was going to trial. Oddly, when I read over the police reports, some of them were word for word what the psychic had claimed. Either that psychic had visions of the police reports or someone had slipped him the files.
Without a shred of evidence, the sitting duck suspect, Curtis Cox, was arrested. The defense attorney raised hell, complaining to the judge that the case ought to be thrown out because there was zero physical evidence and the entire case was based on the egregious use of criminal profiling, presenting psychological and behavioral theories of the crime and then claiming Curtis Cox was a sexual psychopath and therefore must have done it. The judge dismissed the case and then-for reasons unknown to me-sealed the case files.
For fifteen years, the case remained untouched by law enforcement.
One day, the daughter of Bob Dickinson tried once again to honor her father by bringing his killer to justice. She contacted me and I went to the town to review what information existed at the sheriff’s office. I interviewed and investigated some of the key players, profiled the crime, and disagreed with John Douglas.
The murderer was not Curtis Cox.
It was not even a sexual homicide.
The defense attorney was right; Cox was railroaded.
DICKINSON ’S DAUGHTER CALLED me because her family wanted me to confirm that Curtis Cox was guilty, and that the FBI profiler was right. But there were doubts.
Cox was a bit creepy. He was a skinny, effeminate fellow, very soft-spoken, who had never married. He liked to make friends with women who had young children. He was a friend of both Christine Landon and her ex-husband, Craig, and they frequently allowed their two young daughters, ages eight and eleven, to visit him at his home. He also came to their home quite often to babysit the girls. Christine gave him a key to the house.
Cox had access to the home, he was comfortable there, and he was weird. But he had no record. So did he commit this crime and, if he liked children so much and was a suspected pedophile, why would he choose to attack a grown woman?
The police report includes this description of Cox’s actions while babysitting the girls:
When visiting Cox the girls would play among themselves or with Cox, occasionally shop at the drugstore across the street from Cox’s home, and once traveled with Cox to a K-Mart in another town. Cox and the girls played several different games, including the “rug game,” in which Cox would wrap the children up in a rug, tie a rope on one end and drag them around the floor. In a variation on hide-and-seek, a person was tied and had to get loose in order to find the other players. Cox would untie the girls if they were unable to do so themselves.
Some of Cox’s other activities with the girls were of an overtly sexual nature. On at least one occasion he showed X-rated videotapes, and explained to the girls what was happening in the films. At times while watching the videos, Cox’s hands would be down his pants. On other occasions, Cox would walk through his house in a bikini swimsuit or bikini underwear, and would sometimes have his hands down his pants. Cox also showed [them] Playboy magazines, and allowed the girls to make audiotapes of themselves uttering sexual language. There has been no testimony that Cox ever touched the girls in a manner which constituted sexual contact.
The sheriff gave me what he still had in terms of police reports and the autopsy of Marshal Bob Dickinson. The sheriff tried his best to get the crime scene and autopsy photos released to me, but they remained sealed by the prosecutor’s office and thus unavailable for inspection. The evidence should have been accessible. The sheriff’s department couldn’t fight whoever was in the power seat.
I visited the actual house where the murders occurred. Strangely, Christine Landon’s estranged husband, Craig, had kept it and moved back in as soon as the police tape was down, eventually raising the couple’s two daughters in the house where Christine was murdered. He eventually remarried and continued living there with his new wife.
When Craig came over from the side of the yard to meet me, the lawnmower backfired and he pretended to stumble as if he were shot. Then he laughed.
He brought me into the house and proudly showed me pictures he took of the crime scene after the police let him back in. The blood was still there on the kitchen floor, as were all the fingerprint powder and bullet holes in the walls. His pictures helped me reassemble that scene. Why he gave them to me still mystifies me.
WITH THE INFORMATION available, I came to the following conclusion: the likelihood of Curtis Cox committing the double homicide of Landon and Dickinson was extremely low.
There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, so the focus on Curtis Cox as the killer in this double homicide was based on erroneous conclusions: first, that the motive for the crime that resulted in the death of Christine Landon was sexual and, second, that Curtis Cox’s fantasies would lead him to the behaviors exhibited during the commission of the crimes of that evening.
My view is that the killer or killers had no intention to commit a sexual crime on the premises. The only crime that I believe was supposed to have occurred at the Landon residence was the abduction of Christine Landon. There was no way to prove motive of anything but abduction from what I saw at the crime scene. Even the court trial record from Curtis Cox’s almost-prosecution stated:
The murder scene contained no direct evidence which indicated that the killings were sexually motivated. Landon’s body was found clad only in a shirt, but there is no dispute that the attacker surprised Landon after she had quickly emerged from the shower to answer the telephone. Landon’s body was not sexually mutilated.
So there was no conclusive proof at the scene that this was a sexual homicide. There was semen found in the vagina of the victim but it turned out to be that of her boyfriend, with whom she had spent the evening. The FBI profiler claimed that the stab wounds to Christine’s breast area were sexual in nature, but if you want to be sure someone is dead, you stab them in the heart, and for women, the heart just happens to have a breast covering it. The only true possible support for this being a sexual crime would be the ropes tying Christine’s hands and feet. This could be a sign of bondage, but I couldn’t jump to this conclusion. I would have to see how all the evidence fit. I needed to do a thorough crime reconstruction and “see” what actually occurred that night at the Landon residence.
There were three possible suspects-Curtis Cox, Craig Landon (alone or with assistance), and an unknown suspect (alone or with assistance)-that I could theorize as responsible for the deaths of Landon and Dickinson. I examined each without benefit of access to proper crime scene information.
THERE WAS NO solid evidence that I knew of that connected Curtis Cox to this crime.
The prosecution and police cited the following reasons as probable cause for the arrest and prosecution of Cox in the murders of Landon and Dickinson.
1. Access to the house. This was the strongest element in the prosecution’s case. I was told that Cox did have access to the house.
2. Cox acted in a strange manner. This was not evidence. This was simply interesting.
3. A witness identified Cox. This was questionable, as the witness did not have a clear view of the man seen and there was also reason to believe the identification was not particularly reliable.
4. Cox had an alleged history of sexual deviancy. This information was actually not proven. When I studied the police records I found that this information was elicited from Christine’s estranged husband, Craig. Right after the crime he was brought in for questioning and during the interview, he and his children told the police of disturbing behavior by Curtis Cox when he was around children.
5. If Craig Landon’s and his children’s stories about Cox have any validity to them, Cox would be even less likely to have chosen an adult female as the target of any attempted crime or sexual encounter. Cox would have an interest only in children as the objects of his sexual endeavors. True pedophiles do not change sexual preferences from children to adults. If the information that I received from those who knew Cox was accurate, he was too weak and lacking in confidence to approach an adult, especially a fully functioning (physically and emotionally) adult. If Cox were a pedophile and the stories about him were true, he would have used a totally different MO. He would have enticed children, then slowly introduced them to sexual activities with him, all in a nonviolent manner. Whoever attacked Christine Landon was aggressive and violent. It should also be noted that some of the stories of Cox’s behavior came from Christine’s children, who may have been coached by their father or someone else prior to their interviews with the investigators.
6. The “Power List.” There was a piece of paper found in Cox’s trash that had the names of some of the women in town, their husbands, and their children, and Christine Landon’s was among them. One of the women’s names had a sexual comment next to it, but what that comment was or meant, I had no idea. But no words were written next to Christine’s name, so there would be no way to say Cox was targeting her. The FBI profiler imagined what this paper might mean to Curtis Cox and decided it was a list of women over whom he would like to have power. The prosecutor and the FBI profiler claimed this was an indication of Cox’s ideation and plan for the abduction and sexual assault of Christine Landon. There was no proof that the list had any such meaning except in the creative minds of the profiler and prosecution.
7. Cox’s disappearance and faked suicide. Cox’s life had definitely taken a bad turn. The woman for whom he babysat was murdered, the police were hounding him and insinuating he had something to do with it, and he was growing tired of caring for his sick father. One day he drove his car to a lake and left a suicide note stating he couldn’t deal with anything anymore. His body, however, was not found in the lake but just down the road in a cheap motel-still moving about quite well.
8. The prosecution claimed this was evidence of a guilty conscience, but all this bizarre behavior proved was that Curtis Cox was a weak man who couldn’t handle pressure. Cox burned some materials at a campfire while he was “on the run,” before he was found at the motel. The district attorney claimed he burned evidence, although he couldn’t come up with what the evidence was. It was possible Cox had another reason to have put material, kindling, and wood together. Many people do that. It is called building a fire.
There was zero evidence to support a theory that Cox planned or carried out any crime against Landon and Dickinson. There are, however, a number of reasons to believe that he did not commit the crimes:
1. Cox had an unusual interest in children, even being accused of being a pedophile.
2. In abducting and killing Christine, Cox would have severed his connection to the children and thwarted his own desires.
3. Cox would have had to exhibit an incredible change of behavior to go from an ineffectual individual to one who had the guts to abduct a full-grown woman, violently assault her, and also shoot a police marshal.
4. Christine Landon immediately screamed when she saw the offender in her house. The fact that Christine knew Cox well and had no noted fear of him indicated to me that even if she saw Cox, suddenly standing in front of her with a rope and a knife, she would be more likely to respond with disbelief as in “What the fuck are you doing?” The immediate scream indicated to me that Christine was frightened of her attacker.
5. Cox had no history of violence (of which I was aware). The crime scene showed a man who did not hesitate to take violent action. The offender either had a history of violence or was extremely angry at his victim, or both.
There was also little evidence to label the assault on Christine as a sexual crime.
While I previously said I didn’t believe this was a sexual homicide, there were several reasons why the prosecutor called the death of Christine a sexual homicide:
1. Christine Landon was naked from the waist down. Nakedness does not necessarily indicate motive of a crime. Some victims are simply found in this state when the crime begins. In other cases, offenders remove clothing to delay identification or to eliminate evidence. In this case, I believe Christine was not fully dressed because she was showering and preparing for bed.
2. Christine was tied up. Tying up a victim does not necessarily indicate sexual intent. In bondage scenarios, yes, the victim would be tied. However, the limited restraints on Christine do not indicate a well-developed bondage scenario of a sexual sadist. The restraints on Christine were more indicative of control-control of the victim while removing her from the premises, control while placing her in the trunk of a vehicle, and control by keeping her restrained in the vehicle while driving.
3. Christine was stabbed in the breast area. The location of the stab wounds may make it appear that the assault was sexual. However, the heart is located underneath the breast and the breast can be just in the way when the offender attempts to kill the victim.
4. Semen evidence at the scene. Semen evidence proves only that the victim had a sexual encounter with somebody.
I believe the only crime the attacker intended to commit inside the residence was an attempt to abduct Christine Landon. The abductor wanted Christine to appear as though she never arrived home, or that she went back out again.
Since there were no other vehicles noted by Christine that concerned her, no vehicle noted earlier by the neighbors, nor was any vehicle seen leaving the scene after the murders were committed, the only car available for transporting a bound person was the victim’s own car. And since a sex crime or a homicide could be committed most easily in the victim’s house, there had to be a good reason to remove her. This was most likely so that the offender would not be identified as having some kind of relationship with Christine and so that a stranger might be suspected of abducting and attacking Christine elsewhere. The abduction would also have served to delay the discovery of the crime so that the body and other physical evidence would not be found too quickly. The delay in discovery would also aid the offender in establishing an alibi. Lastly, it was also possible that the abductor did not want the house to become a crime scene or “get messed up” with blood and other unpleasant emissions.
Christine had had company over on previous evenings so there was no way for an abductor to know if she would have company with her when she arrived home. It would therefore be unlikely that the offender would have hidden in the house awaiting her arrival. It would be far safer to observe the house from a safe location (in an abandoned residence next door or from another nearby secret location). The offender would be able to clearly observe the arrival of Christine in her car and to note that she was alone. The offender may have waited a bit longer just to be sure no one else followed her home. It was also possible that the offender arrived after Christine came home and, seeing no other vehicles or visitors, quickly entered the residence. If the offender had hidden in the house, it would be extremely unlikely he would have allowed her to get out of her clothes, take a shower, and, especially, answer the telephone call from her boyfriend before attempting to abduct her.
There were only two entrances into the house: through the front door and through a sliding glass door in the back. Entering the house through the front door could be accomplished either by knocking or with a key. Christine did not tell her boyfriend when he called that she had opened the door to anyone since arriving home, so the killer entered the house without her assistance. She had installed a chain lock on the front door. It would make sense that when she arrived home, she would have placed the chain back on the door. There was blood on the chain, indicating some possibility that the killer removed it to allow the marshal in.
Also, the killer would not want the neighbors across the street to see who was entering the house. This makes entering the house through the back more desirable. If someone had a key to the house, he could have entered the house earlier in the day and unlocked the sliding back door. The killer may have relocked the door after entering.
Shortly after her arrival, Christine took a shower in the downstairs bathroom. The phone rang and she left the shower, threw on a sweatshirt, and went to answer the phone. It was not clear whether the phone she answered was in the kitchen or the upstairs bedroom (although the upstairs phone is more likely considering Christine did not hear the offender enter the house nor would it appear the offender knew Christine was on the phone).
The crime scene behaviors indicated that the initial assault took place away from the location where the victim answered the phone, most likely in the upstairs hallway and quickly moving to the first floor.
The caller, Hugh Marshall, with whom Christine had just spent the evening, stated that during the conversation with Christine, he encouraged her to check the house (front and back door) to make certain it was secure. Hugh said Christine said she was uncomfortable with her estranged husband coming and going in the house and believed he had been there earlier that day. Christine put the phone down and went to check the house. She quickly encountered an intruder. She screamed and possibly said something more, but this was not confirmed. Marshall then hung up his phone and called Bob Dickinson. He followed that call up with one to the sheriff’s department.
I could not determine if the offender knew the caller was still on the phone when Christine encountered him. However, it would seem odd that, realizing she was screaming for help to a phone that was off the hook and that someone may have been calling the police to help her, the offender would take the time to tie her up and attempt to abduct her. I would expect the offender to either run out of there or immediately kill the victim and then clear out of the house. It was more logical to conclude that when the offender encountered Christine, he did not know she was even on the phone. Not until after she was tied up was the phone discovered off the hook and the receiver put back in place. It would also be nonsensical to tie up the victim after the murder of Bob Dickinson, because the first murder would eliminate any point in removing Christine from the house. Tying her up and carrying her out would slow down the killer’s escape. Christine must have been tied up immediately upon the offender and Christine’s meeting. This would mean the offender brought the materials along with the intention of tying up the victim.
Christine was tied up immediately upon encountering her attacker, and she had to be in the kitchen at the time Marshal Dickinson arrived at the front door. At that point, it was likely the abductor was in the process of leading Christine out of the kitchen toward the back door, her feet hobbled, hands tied, and a knife at her throat. The killer stopped to get the keys from her handbag on the desk, evidenced by the items that spilled out of the purse.
Christine was not gagged and she was on her feet at the time she was brutally attacked-demonstrated by the blood found on the bottom of her feet. Why did Christine’s attacker start his assault on her then? Most likely, the marshal had just knocked on the door and shouted out, “Christine? Are you in there, Christine?” The natural response for Christine when she heard the police marshal yelling her name would have been to scream for help. It was then the natural response of the offender to put his hand over her mouth.
Continuing with my hypothesis, from this point on, there would be no way to abduct the victim without wasting too much time and allowing the offender to be caught in the act by the police. Christine would need to be eliminated as quickly as possible at that point.
The offender stood behind Christine, with his hand over her mouth; her body faced the west wall and living room doorway, away from the refrigerator. This position explained why more of the kitchen did not have cast-off blood.
It can also be noted that while there were numerous stab wounds in the left upper quadrant of Christine’s body, all the defense wounds were on her right arm and hand. If the attacker were facing her, we should have seen wounds on both arms and hands. However, it was most likely that the victim’s left arm was trapped against her body as the killer clamped his hand over her mouth.
If Christine had then attempted to push the attacker’s arm away from her so she could call for help, her right arm would have been brought directly in front of the left quadrant of her body. I believe her hands must have been tied in front of her body, because if they were behind, there would have been less opportunity to inflict defense wounds unless she obtained them in the process of being tied up, which was again unlikely. However, none of the reports to which I had access stated if the victim’s hands were tied in front or in back.
The killer was also most likely right-handed. When Christine finally collapsed, he finished the job by cutting her throat. Again, with the victim’s head facing the floor, cutting her throat from behind eliminated any arterial spurt onto the walls and onto the offender (the blood simply pooled beneath her neck on the floor). It is likely that the killer committed this homicide with relatively little blood spraying onto his person. For this reason, he would be able to answer the door without having the police marshal immediately notice something was amiss. He may also have been wearing gloves that he removed before allowing the marshal into the residence. What is clear to me is that at the point he let Bob in, Christine was already dead. He undid the chain on the door, leaving a speck of blood on it, and invited Bob inside.
After leading Bob upstairs to where he said Christine was either sick or injured, the offender grabbed for Bob’s gun as he approached the door of the rear bedroom, and after gaining control of it, he shot Bob again and again until Bob collapsed near the top of the stairs. By this point, the sheriff’s department was undoubtedly on the way and he may have heard sirens. It is likely he ran into the bedroom to look out the front window to determine if any other police or witnesses were out there. This was where a bit of blood was found on a pillowcase on the bed right next to the window. Even a tiny bit of blood in a room with no other signs of a struggle has a meaning if only we can figure out what it is.
There seemed to be little time between the gunshots being fired and the neighbor across the street stating he witnessed a tall, dark-haired man coming between the Landon house and the vacant house next door with a bag and a five-foot stick or piece of wood in his hand. It made no sense that a killer leaving the scene of a crime would take a long stick or piece of wood with him. This object would make him more noticeable as he tried to run away, slow down his escape, and lack usefulness unless he was removing something with evidence on it. This was unlikely. It is more likely that the long “stick” was a rifle.
Then, according to this witness, the man ran down the street toward town and the abandoned railroad tracks. As a tarlike material was found on the floor tile of the victim’s home in two partial impressions, it would have been useful to compare that substance to any coal tar creosote that might have been used as a preservative on the old railroad tracks to determine if there was a match. If there was, then the killer would have had to come from the tracks to the home before returning in that direction.
As I have said, I believe this was an abduction gone awry. It is likely that the killer parked his own vehicle some distance from the house, came in on foot, and planned to take Christine bound and gagged from the house in her car, and then dispose of her (or leave Christine dead in her car and leave in his own vehicle). This would have allowed the offender’s car to go unseen, allowed him to leave the victim’s car someplace unrelated to the offender’s home, and allowed the offender to get rid of the body where he wished and still have a way to get back home.
Although there was technically a possibility of two offenders, there was no evidence that established this to be true. If there were two offenders, it was more likely the police marshal would have been killed immediately upon entering the house; there would be little reason to get him upstairs in order to put him off guard and find an opportunity to kill him. It was also unlikely two men would feel the need to hobble a small woman when they could more quickly abduct her without bothering to tie her up. Also, only one person was noted running from the scene.
Marshal Bob Dickinson clearly knew his killer, as he willingly walked upstairs, his gun still holstered and the perpetrator behind him. Therefore, it is likely that Christine knew him as well. These were not stranger homicides. This was also a premeditated crime. If we eliminate Curtis Cox as a suspect because he lacked motive and capability, we must look for someone else known to the victims who had motive and capability.
The police investigated Craig Landon as he was upset about their divorce and losing custody of the children and stood to financially gain from Christine Landon’s death. My theory that the murder was to have taken place away from the home supports my supposition that it could have been the ex-husband. Craig would not have wanted the house messed up, because he wanted to move himself and the children immediately back into their home. Several people told me that they noticed that his behavior changed dramatically following the crime. He suddenly became real friendly to the neighbors-neighbors he didn’t have the time of day for before.
Craig also had a history of threatening his estranged wife. The marshal had been called to the residence a number of times to investigate domestic violence complaints when neighbors heard arguments sounding like they were growing out of control. That doesn’t prove he killed his ex-wife, but it does mean the police should have looked at him.
Christine would have screamed immediately upon seeing Craig in her hallway, brandishing a knife, and one witness claimed Hugh Marshall told her that after hearing Christine scream, he thought he heard her say, “No, Craig, no!”
Soon after the murders, Hugh Marshall said that he thought Craig was guilty of the double homicide. He was afraid Craig would come after him with a gun. And speaking of guns, Craig would certainly know if there was a shotgun or rifle under the bed.
My own interview with Craig made me wonder about the man.
He seemed to be taking pride in and enjoying showing me the pictures he took of the crime scene and the blood found there.
Craig was the first suspect in this case because, as we have all seen in many, many cases, a woman is usually killed by someone she is romantically involved with-a husband, a boyfriend, an ex-husband, an ex-boyfriend. After the police discovered the bodies and secured the scene, they drove straight to his temporary apartment, which, coincidentally, was not too far down that railroad track, and Craig Landon was a runner. When they got there, they found the engine of his car still hot. They brought him in and found gunshot residue on his hands. He claimed it was just residue from the fireworks he had been shooting off for his children the day after the Fourth of July.
He must have been convincing, or his lawyer and friend must have been since he gave Craig an alibi and said they were together that night. Still, doubts lingered, and in his four-year battle to exonerate his client, Curtis Cox’s lawyer in court claimed that Craig was the killer.
THE LAST POSSIBILITY was that neither Curtis Cox nor Craig Landon was involved in the crime.
However, there was little evidence to point to any other party having motive to abduct and kill Christine Landon, or to any other party having access to her house. The only exception to this would have been a hired hit by Craig Landon. Another Craig, Craig Bright, was acquainted with Christine and later convicted of the sexual homicide of a coworker in a state down south. He was someone who should have at least been eliminated as a suspect. Supposedly, Christine had known him for a short period of time due to her work, but Craig Landon reportedly did not have a relationship with this other Craig or even know him.
This case should have been reopened and reinvestigated with open minds and new investigative avenues. I finished my profile and told the sheriff that they should reopen the investigation and take a hard look at Craig Landon just as Cox’s lawyer asserted. The physical evidence pointed to him, the behavioral evidence pointed to him, and the motive pointed to him. But the case files are still locked up and the killer, whoever he is, remains free. I can only hope one day justice will prevail.