Brenda Sue Brown

Brenda Sue Brown (May 15, 1955 – July 27, 1966) was an 11-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered.

Her body was found by rescue workers in a wooded area near downtown Shelby, North Carolina.

With no leads and insufficient evidence to make an arrest, the murder became a cold case.

People theorized that Roseboro may have been protected by a local crime syndicate which dominated the town of Shelby in the 1960s.

"We just didn't have enough evidence on him. We had to let him go," Smith said.

He said that he and other investigators believed Roseboro had killed Brenda Sue.

At 11:30 a.m. on June 22, 1968, a woman and her daughter arrived at Mary's Cannon Towel Outlet.

This was Mary Helen Williams's business, located on Dixon Boulevard in Shelby.

There they saw a "CLOSED" sign hanging in a window.

The daughter looked in the window and saw a woman lying on the floor covered in blood.

Shelby police were called to the business, where Robert Roseboro walked out with his hands in the air.

Mary Helen Williams was found nude, with her body beaten and stabbed by a pair of scissors.

The county coroner later said that, though Mrs. Williams was found nude, she had not been raped.

In the store's restroom, police found Mrs. Williams's dress and underwear.

At the time of Williams's murder, racial segregation was intense in Shelby.

Rumors of the Ku Klux Klan threatening to harm Roseboro were taken so seriously that he was secretly transferred to a jail in a nearby county until his trial in 1969.

During the two-day murder trial, a pathologist testified that blood found on Roseboro's clothes was type "A," which matched Mrs. Williams's blood type.

Roseboro denied killing Mrs. Williams, saying that police lied about the investigation and that he would have had no motive for the murder because there had been no rape or robbery.

The case remained cold until a series of newspaper articles 40 years later brought forth new evidence in the spring of 2006.

After a morning of arguing over a powder-puff compact with her younger sisters, Brenda Sue was asked to walk her 6-year-old sister, Patricia, two blocks to a Head Start class.

This was the last time Brenda Sue was seen alive.

At 10:15 a.m. Brenda Sue's mother, Gladys Brown, began a door-to-door search.

Brown drove through her neighborhood, asking neighbors and passing motorists if they had seen the girl.

An hour later, a search team was formed by members of the Shelby Rescue Squad.

At 6:45 p.m. Brenda Sue's nude body was found in a wooded area 150 feet from South Lafayette Street and not far from her home.

Her body was covered with freshly cut tree limbs, leaves, and brush.

The red and white dress she had been wearing was folded neatly and placed atop the brush.

A bloody rock was found nearby.

Authorities determined that Brenda Sue had been beaten to death with the rock found nearby.

Her skull had been fractured in twelve places.

Police reported that, although the body was nude, she had not been raped.

Police believed the killer was on foot because, due to heavy traffic on South Lafayette Street, he would not have been able to get out of a car and force the girl into the woods without being seen.

At the time, police had several suspects.

These included an unidentified bald white man who had exposed himself to Brenda Sue's sister a few days earlier, and a 13-year-old, mentally disabled, black boy named Robert Roseboro.

The unidentified white man who exposed himself could not be found.

Robert Roseboro was briefly questioned by police.

When officer Harold Smith questioned him, Roseboro remained silent.

"He wouldn't answer. He just sat there. Roseboro´s silence made him more suspicious," Smith said.

According to Smith, the fact that Roseboro lived a few hundred yards from where Brenda Sue's body was found and refused to answer questions made him a suspect.

The public was baffled as to why Roseboro, who was seen in the area on the morning of Brenda Sue's murder, was not interrogated further by police.