A `Surreal' Murder Scene
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A `Surreal' Murder Scene
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Slain Girl's Friend Recalls Finding Ice Pick In Body
New Dna Evidence Brought Guardian's Ex-boyfriend To Trial In The 1986 Killing.
On a Sunday afternoon 17 years ago, Tina Roberts returned home and found the 13-year-old girl who lived with her dead, an ice pick poking through her chest.
More than 14 years went by and Orange County investigators couldn't make an arrest. On the barometer of cold cases, Mollie Pittman's murder had hit the frozen mark.
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Then two years ago, authorities armed with new DNA evidence charged one of Roberts' ex-boyfriends with the rape and first-degree murder of the quiet, red-haired teenager who loved horses and attended Lockhart Junior High School.
On Tuesday, Franklin Lee Reed went to trial, and Roberts was placed in the difficult position of winning justice for Mollie and testifying against a former lover.
"I'm relieved to see closure for Mollie," Roberts said after she told jurors about her grisly discovery on the afternoon of May 11, 1986, at the home she shared with Mollie on Needles Drive. "I'm disappointed that it [the defendant] is a friend."
Reed had always been a suspect in the killing, but he frequently cooperated with investigators and even passed a polygraph test, according to his lawyers.
Though DNA testing could not implicate Reed in the mid-1980s, the technology has advanced significantly since then.
By early 2001, investigators said Reed's DNA matched the sperm found on Mollie's body.
"It will be clear that, in fact, Mollie Pittman was sexually battered and murdered," Assistant State Attorney Linda Drane Burdick said Tuesday. "The question is: Did Franklin Lee Reed do it? It was Franklin Lee Reed's sperm on that vaginal smear taken from Mollie Pittman's dead body."
Reed's lawyers are arguing that even the latest science cannot always prove guilt. Assistant Public Defender Jenifer Davis called the state's case "a horrible accusation by the prosecution."
Davis told jurors: "Everyone wants someone to pay. However, Franklin Reed did not cause this. Franklin Reed did not kill her."
Burdick today is expected to call medical and scientific experts to help explain the DNA evidence that holds the state's case together. Orange Circuit Judge Stan Strickland is hearing the case.
Jurors were told Tuesday that the processing of a crime scene in 1986 was much less sophisticated than today and that authorities found no fingerprints on the ice pick.
They also heard about Reed's relationship with Roberts before and after the slaying.
Roberts was 20 at the time and said Reed was her "occasional boyfriend," living a few houses away. Reed, in fact, had slept in Roberts' bed the Wednesday before the girl was killed.
She said Reed knew Mollie, who had been staying with her since March of that year, but she said she was not aware if he had a sexual interest in the girl.
Mollie's mother, a family friend, was sick and needed someone to care for the girl. Roberts said she considered herself the girl's "guardian." The woman has since died, and Mollie never knew her father.
On Saturday, May 10, 1986, Roberts returned home from work and had dinner with Mollie. Roberts then went to a movie and spent the night with her boyfriend, Cleve Loveland.
When she arrived home the next afternoon, she found the front door locked, which she said was unusual. Inside, she found the girl's clothes scattered near the doorway and heard a radio playing in the background.
Roberts then moved toward her bedroom and found the girl's body.
"I think I just stood at the door. It was very surreal," Roberts said. "I didn't go in to the room once I saw the ice pick."
One of the people she sought for support was Reed, but Roberts testified she could not find him until the next day.
Davis, Reed's lawyer, said her client on Saturday night went to a bar where he met a woman with whom he spent the night.
"He hadn't seen her before that day and hasn't seen her since that day," Davis said.
Later that year, Roberts said she resumed her relationship with Reed, but that ended and Roberts eventually married.
Roberts, who was introduced in court by her married name of Ruohonen, said in an interview later that she preferred to be identified by her maiden name.
The unsolved murder of the girl, who would be 30 today, has continued to haunt Roberts.
"I hope that this is it," Roberts said. "I hope that this is the end."
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