More than 50 years after a decorated World War II veteran-turned-milkman was murdered in an “execution-style” manner on his route, the killer’s ex-wife testifies The incident was resolved. cold case.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said in a Thursday news release that Hiram “Ross” Graham was found in the woods in Vero Beach, Fla., in April 1968 when investigators searching the scene by plane found him deep in the woods. They found his milk truck and said he had been shot multiple times.
The Purple Heart recipient witnessed the liberation of two concentration camps and survived until he was shot during the Battle of the Bulge. CBS reported.
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Hiram “Ross” Graham, who settled with his family in Vero Beach, Florida, and became a milkman after serving in Europe during World War II, was shot multiple times while on duty on April 11, 1968. He was shot “execution style”. (Indian River County Sheriff’s Office)
Graham’s murder remained unsolved until this year, when a friend of Thomas J. Williams’ ex-wife and sister confessed to the murder to Florida authorities before Williams died in 2016. He said he was doing it.
“They said, ‘As long as he was alive, we would never have told you because he was a threat to me and my family.’ But the fact that he died , they need the courage to come forward,” Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said at a news conference this week.
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The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said Thomas J. Williams confessed to his wife and sister’s friend that he killed Graeme. (Indian River County Sheriff’s Office)
“Two independent witnesses both say this man confessed to killing the milkman independently of the other, but (they) don’t know each other,” Flowers said.
In 2006, rumors spread that Williams was responsible for a locally notorious cold case. In a letter to the editor of a local news outlet, Williams wrote that he “has been charged with murder, which he denied knowing about.” He was not involved,” the sheriff said at a news conference.
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Police are continuing to search for a second man believed to have been involved.
Shortly after Graeme’s disappearance on April 11, 1968, witnesses told deputies that the milkman saw two men walking along the road before leaving together in a Borden Milk Company truck. He testified that he witnessed him talking to her.
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“She said Mr. Graeme got them into a conversation and told them he would be right back,” Ms Flowers said.
Graham’s son Larry, who was 16 when his father was murdered, recalled being shocked.
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“A deputy came to the door and told my mother that my father had not returned to the Fort Harrison yard in his Borden Milk truck and was talking to my mother. He then asked to speak with the children. I was the oldest there,” Graeme’s son told FOX News Digital on Friday.
“We went outside to the garden. He wanted to know if there was a good relationship between my mother and father. They wanted to know if my father had flown away somewhere. “I wanted to make sure,” he said.
“When I was 16, I called him an idiot,” recalls the younger Graham. “I said, ‘If he’s going to run away, do you think he’s going to run away in a yellow and black and white truck and not in his own truck?'”
Larry Graham, 72, speaks during a press conference about the 1968 murder of his father, Hiram “Ross” Graham, at the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office on April 11 in Vero Beach, Florida. (Kyla Jones/TCPALM/USA TODAY NETWORK)
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“They knew he had the cash. Most people paid the milkman in cash back then. They knew he would get it,” Graeme said. The son spoke about the killer’s potential motive. “Initially, they thought armed robbery… it was [also] About a week after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, racial tensions were at the highest level I had ever seen. ”
Detectives are now asking residents of Gifford, the town where Graham was last seen by witnesses, to come forward if they know anything about the second man or his final movements.
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“The Cold Case Unit continues to pursue all new leads,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Armed with the latest technology and new partnerships, they will be a beacon of hope for families like the Grahams, ensuring victims are remembered and crimes go unpunished.”
Graeme’s son said of finding the second suspect: “We’re hopeful, but even if further evidence comes forward, it’s doubtful unless someone comes forward and confesses.” “A lot of things can happen when a witness’s memory changes.”
