February 29: The unsolved murder of Clifton Walker
Plus: youngest school shooting victim, college student murder plea deal, and more.
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2016: Jesse Matthew accepts deal in college student murders
On February 29, 2016, prosecutors released a statement to news outlets announcing that murder suspect Jesse Matthew had accepted a plea deal and would plead guilty to the murders of 18-year-old Hannah Graham and 20-year-old Morgan Harrington, both college students in Virginia.
Harrington disappeared after becoming separated from a friend at a concert on October 17, 2009. On January 26, 2010, her remains were discovered in a remote area by a farmer.
Graham was reported missing on September 13, 2014. Her body was located about five weeks later at a site some five miles from where Harrington was found.
Surveillance footage from the night she disappeared showed Graham leaving a bar with Matthew. Police searched Matthew's home, and on September 24, 2014, the suspect was arrested in Texas.
As per his plea agreement, Matthew was sentenced to four life sentences for the two murders and other crimes he committed.
Today, he's incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia.
Dive Deeper
Read: ‘Seems like yesterday’: 5 years later, remembering murdered U.Va. student Hannah Graham (WTOP)
Listen: Save the Next Girl – Part 1 (Anatomy of a Murder)
2000: Kayla Rolland becomes youngest school shooting victim
Kayla Renee Rolland was fatally shot by one of her classmates at Buell Elementary School, near Flint, Michigan, on February 29, 2000.
The most shocking and senseless aspect of the crime was that both Kayla and her killer were just six years old.
The shooter, a male classmate, had been living with his mother and brother at his uncle’s crack house. The boy’s father was in jail. The child was able to get ahold of a loaded weapon at his uncle’s house, then took it with him to school.
Until the 2012 Sandy Hook incident, Kayla Rolland was the youngest recorded victim of a school shooting. Her killer is still the youngest school shooter on record.
Because of his age, the boy was not charged with Kayla's murder. He and his brother were placed in the care of a responsible relative, and his uncle was sentenced on an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Dive Deeper
Read: 20 years after Kayla Rolland: The fatal first grade shooting that sparked a national gun debate (MLive)
Listen: Murder in the 1st Grade (Apple for the Teacher)
1972: the disappearance of Debora Sue Lowe
Thirteen-year-old Debora Sue Lowe left her home in Pompano Beach, Florida, around 7:30 a.m. on February 29, 1972, to walk to Rickards Middle School, less than one mile away. She never made it to her school.
Police initially labeled Lowe a runaway, but her family didn’t believe this. She had never acted erratically or impulsively, and hadn’t taken any belongings with her.
The Lowe family has their own theory about what happened to Debora: they believe she became a victim of serial killer Gerald John Schaefer Jr.
Schaefer was later convicted of murdering two young women in the early 1970s, but he has been linked to several other missing persons cases and unsolved murders in the 1960s and 1970s.
One chilling detail makes it entirely plausible that Schaefer was responsible for Lowe’s abduction. Schaefer worked with Debora Lowe’s father and had been to the family’s home before the girl’s disappearance.
In 1995, Schaefer was killed in his jail cell by a fellow inmate.
Dive Deeper
Short read: Florida Jane Doe IDed after nearly 48 years may be victim of serial killer cop Gerard Schaefer (KIRO 7)
Long read: American Ripper: The Enigma Of America's Serial Killer Cop, Patrick Kendrick
Watch: The Sadistic Serial Killer Who Became A Cop (Sommer Sanchez)
Listen: To Protect and Serve...and Murder: Gerard Schaefer (Our True Crime Podcast)
1964: the unsolved murder of Clifton Walker
In the early morning hours of February 29, 1964, Clifford “Clifton” Walker drove home following a few drinks after work.
On the way, he was shot multiple times in his car on a road not far from his home in Woodville, Mississippi. It was a close-range shotgun blast to the head that killed him.
There were no witnesses to the murder and little evidence to go on; although three “persons of interest” were named, the case was quickly closed.
In 2009, the FBI reopened the investigation of Walker’s murder and more than one hundred other unsolved murders from the Civil Rights Era, thanks to the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.
The FBI believed that the White Knights of the KKK, who were active in the area at the time, and were infiltrating Walker’s place of employment, had carried out the ambush attack.
They believe that Walker, who was 37 years old at the time of his murder, was targeted because he was African American. The FBI theorized that Walker’s murder was the first of ten killings in the area orchestrated by the White Knights of the KKK.
Despite these theories, there have been no arrests in Walker’s death. Nearly all of the potential witnesses and persons of interest have passed away, and the FBI has reclosed the case.
Dive Deeper
Read: Clifton Walker: Un(re)solved (PBS)
Listen: Clifton Walker (BHM Series) (The Lost Crimes Library)
1908: the murder of Pat Garrett
On the morning of February 29, 1908, 57-year-old Pat Garrett — the former lawman who had killed Billy the Kid in 1881 — was shot and killed on his way to Las Cruces, New Mexico, from his ranch in the Organ Mountains.
A ranch hand named Wayne Brazel, who leased property from Garrett for sheepherding, claimed to have killed Garrett, but details of his story didn’t quite add up.
In Garrett's circles, it was widely believed that Garrett was instead killed by notorious hitman of the West, Jim “Killer” Miller, who may have been paid to dispose of Garrett when he wouldn’t give up valuable land he owned in New Mexico. It was said that Miller took the job only if a third party—Brazel, allegedly—took the fall.
Brazel went to trial for the murder but was acquitted; he stuck to his story for the rest of his life, despite Miller reportedly confessing to the crime before he was hanged by vigilantes in 1909.
Dive Deeper
Read: Report uncovered by county staffer confirms who shot Pat Garrett, Las Cruces Sun News
From the Headlines
Delphi man met two teens on Snapchat then took them to woods – just a mile from scene of infamous murders (The Independent)
Idaho murders case: Bryan Kohberger hearing focuses on genetic genealogy. Why that may be important. (6ABC)
Prison escapee captured after alleged role in killing Americans during boat hijacking in Caribbean (Fox News)
Things to know about Idaho’s botched execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech (Associated Press)
Texas executes death row inmate despite Kim Kardashian bid to spare him (The Independent)
A pregnant Amish woman was killed in her Pennsylvania home. Police have no suspects. (USA Today)
A key witness in the Holly Bobo murder trial is recanting his testimony, court documents show (Associated Press)
A woman who was wrongly identified in a police lineup struggles to reclaim her life (NBC News)
Media Roundup
'Only Murders In The Building' Season 4: Release Date, Spoilers, Cast, Trailer And Plot (ELLE)
New Podcast Homegrown: OKC Dives into the Legacy of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Listen To the Trailer (Oxygen)
Murder On Campus: The Case Of Laken Riley (The FOX True Crime Podcast w/ Emily Compagno)
Framed: Mysteries Where the Sleuth is Wrongly Accused (CrimeReads)
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