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CNN Live At Daybreak

Police Meet to Discuss Unsolved Cases

Aired August 14, 2001 - 08:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: We get started now with some real-live mysteries -- unsolved cases in police departments right across the country. Several hundred detectives will meet in Maryland today, and they are going to share experiences on tracking and solving cases that have run cold.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve now looks at one case that took 30 years to crack.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where she died.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is a park bench on the grounds of Maryland Statehouse. She was 19-year-old Anne Bradley, murdered in 1968.

After several years of investigation, the case was labeled inactive.

DAVID CORDLE, MARYLAND STATE ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: All the leads dried up. No more information was coming in. There was not a lot of forensic evidence.

MESERVE: But in 1992, Anne Arundel County formed a special cold case unit. The Bradley file was one of those pulled off the shelf, re- opened and re-examined. And in 1995, the case was solved. Alonzo Henry Johnson, Jr. was named as the shooter 27 years after the murder and 12 years after his own death from a drug overdose.

The passage of time had not made Dave Cordle's search for Anne Bradley's killer more futile, but more fruitful, because a key witness had grown older and perhaps wiser.

CORDLE: He had carried this knowledge for over 25 years at the time, and he was in his middle 50s by now. And he felt it necessary -- he wanted to get the information off of his chest and give it to someone.

On the corner here is where Candy Kitchen was when she went in to get the pizza. She went into the shop. She had a couple of pieces of pizza, and there she...

MESERVE: This week, Dave Cordle retraced the events of 1968 with a couple of Anne Bradley's young relatives. Recounting how she took the rest of her pizza to the nearby bench, was accosted and shot.

CORDLE: She was seated here sitting on this bench. The pizza box was found underneath after she was shot.

MESERVE: Cordle says bringing some peace to Anne Bradley's family has been a great satisfaction, but he is nagged by the photos that hang behind his desk of two other young women slain years ago -- cases still open and still cold.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Annapolis, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NELSON: All day long here on CNN, we're going to be looking at some unsolved cases from some very big ones to ones that you may not have even heard about.

In about ten minute's time, we're going to show you how the FBI's Most Wanted List has gone high tech, and how it is helping to track some of the country's most dangerous criminals.

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