it sometimes takes a special eye to look at a crime scene and spot the one thing that s out of place, the clue that will crack the case. in this story, that thing appeared so inconsequential, no one even knew what it was let alone what it meant. it took almost two decades, a team of determined investigators, and a detective with an unusual background to find out. here s keith morrison with the night before halloween. it was the night before halloween, october 30th, late, midnight approaching. it happened in one of the middle-class suburbs that sprawl across the los angeles basin inside a fast food franchise closed for the night. a frantic scrambling, running feet, then silence. the next morning, not far away, the hoynes family daughters prepared for a favorite celebration. kim was the eldest, then robin,
dinner. yvonne seemed credible, never wavered in supporting marshall s story. it was a solid alibi. maybe the marshall idea was a dead end. as they were leaving the cops had one more question, though, did she know anything about that mysterious piece of foam found at the crime scene? and they brought out this thing, had a funny shape, funny color, and said, do you know what this is? i said, no, i ve never seen that before. so what could they do? they let william marshall go. the cops had nothing on him. robin hoynes funeral was a big event in this part of town. and because robin was well known and so well liked, much of the neighborhood attended, and friends and colleagues, except for one, cheryl, the girl who had switched shifts with robin the night the murderer came to call. i had heard that they were really upset with me and that
they closed the door, turned out the light. just the word halloween unleashed a wave of grief. the investigation into robin s murder was stalled even though police had a suspect in plain sight. william marshall. and the family groped. we had to take comfort in that because we really were probably never going to see any resolution in this. they didn t have enough evidence. years passed. there were other cases to solve, new priorities, of course, and for detective lancaster, retirement. there are case that is stay with you after your retirement, probably for the rest of your life, at least for me. this was one of them. the hoynes family struggled to move on without robin. there were high school graduations, marriages, children, but the hole never goes away. there are times you need to have a tissue handy?
the first words out of her mouth are, you re lying to me. you re lying to me. she couldn t, you know, she couldn t believe that. so once she realizes really that i m telling her the truth, we know we have to talk to my dad. we called him and told him, and he said, okay, i ll meet you at the house. wendy, the youngest, heard at school that robin had been stabbed. my immediate response was, did she die, because i want her to still be alive, but she said, no, she s dead. tricia didn t hear a thing until she got home from work. i had dressed up for halloween as well, and i was wearing robin s flagster costume and i see that i m in her clothes, and i lost it. i was like, get it off me. i was screaming that i needed to be out of i just freaked out.
tricia and wendy. excited because this was halloween, one of the best days of the year. i loved it. we would trick-or-treat and then sort the candy and we would be trading what we liked. a halloween morning long ago, it was 1984, the morning after the incident in the fast food place. it started warm and sunny, that bubble of innocence, before anyone knew a thing. wendy donned her halloween costume, wore it to school, as did tricia who wore hers to work. kim, the eldest, left early for her job at the nearby mall. robin wasn t home. after working late, she told her family, she had arranged a sleepover at a girlfriend s place. she was due home any minute, as wendy remembers. she was good about reporting in, telling us where she was going to be and when she was going to be home. robin was 21 years old. she was a redhead, pretty,