Twenty-seven days into the new year will be the anniversary of the death of three murder victims in Atlanta, Texas. The ensuing investigations, court proceedings, hard feelings, and heartaches are documented in the previously published columns on the following pages. Don't count on anything. After the 1998 report that DNA found under the mother's fingernails didn't match the main suspect, any faint glimmer of hope of ever solving the murders probably faded away. Only a handful of Jessica Butts' friends gathered in 1999 at what had become an annual candlelight vigil and prayer memorial for the victims of the unthinkable crime.
Time is no friend to unsolved murder cases.
Memories and momentum are lost with each turn of the calendar page. But I refuse to forget. Three members of our little town were murdered and the killer or killers are still among us. This summer I received a letter from a friend of Jessica Butts. Now I have graduated from high school, and I still think about it often.