Retired Bay County, Florida Sheriff Frank McKeithen has volunteered to investigate a Jackson County cold case murder from late January 1989.
Robert Franklin McRae and his wife Kathryn were shot to death in their home in Graceville, Florida, their bodies found in their kitchen after two neighborhood children discovered and reported evidence outside the residence suggesting that something was wrong at the McRae home.
McKeithen will look into the case free of charge for his friend, Jackson County Sheriff Lou Roberts. Roberts and McKeithen made the announcement at a press conference Thursday afternoon at the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office as the 28th anniversary of the murders approached.
At that same event, Roberts announced that another old homicide will be submitted to the Florida Sheriff’s Association for a fresh look by that organization’s cold case team. Roberts wants them to look at the 2007 shooting death of Fred Gilbert at the hand of thieves.
Formed about 18 months ago, the cold case unit will be in Bay County soon to review cases submitted by Panhandle law enforcement agencies and determine which to pursue. This is the team’s first time focusing on this area of the state, Roberts said. Current Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford will host the group, and Roberts is taking some of his investigators there to help convince the team to take it on.
Roberts is optimistic that they’ll take hold of the Gilbert shooting, and indicated there’s been some recent movement in the case that gives him fresh hope it could soon be solved.
He spoke in particular about advances in technology that could help in shedding new light on evidence already collected, both in the Gilbert case and the much older McRae murders.
“Back then,” he said in speaking of the McRae case, “cell phones…that was Dick Tracy.” And DNA testing in crime cases, he said, was not a reality, either.
Improved technology, he pointed out, helped solve a local quadruple murder in 2005, the year Danielle Baker and her three young children were killed in their Marianna apartment.
And technology has advanced by leaps and bounds even since then.
Roberts said McKeithen will be asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look again at some of the evidence collected in the McRae case—there’s lots of it, he said, and that re-processing with advanced techniques may take some time. Neither man is expecting a quick resolution but both are very optimistic that the answers will come, perhaps buried now in the thousands of documents and the evidentiary material kept in a massive case file.
The surviving members of the McRae family have offered a $50,000 reward for significant information leading to the killer or killers in that case. That commitment, Roberts said, could help inspire someone with key information to step forward.
Others at the gathering included Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza. Roberts said Valenza’s agency was one of many area law enforcement bodies that have played a role in the investigations. For instance, Roberts and his team continue to compare notes with authorities in Tuscaloosa, where an elderly couple was killed in 1989, with some circumstances similar to those in the McRae killings.
Roberts is convinced that people exist who know more than they’re telling in both the cold cases that have now moved front and center for local law enforcement.
The Gilbert case and the McRae case are separated by many years and are not related, but they do share a one circumstances in common—both took place on State Road 2 in Jackson County. They suffered, and their families suffer on.
At the McRae scene, there were no witnesses left behind to tell their story, but officials say they each were shot once in the head and that Mrs. McRae was restrained with an unusual object. A custom-made ring was stolen from her, and money is believed to have been taken from her husband. But officials are not saying whether they think robbery was the primary motive for the killing of the well-to-do couple.
They’re not saying much, either, about the new evidence/information they hinted at or specifically how advanced technology may help in the old cases. They’re being cautious as they move forward, so as not to compromise what could be a final resolution for both families.
