On Sunday, September 3rd, 2000, seventy-five-year-old Mary Rearden was shopping with her daughter Charlotte; the older woman purchased some tulip bulbs she planned to plant in her garden the next day, which was Labor Day.
On Monday morning, Charlotte called her mother as she usually did, but became concerned when there was no answer after multiple calls. At around ten a.m., Charlotte went to her mother’s house on Second Street in Opelika, Alabama, and to her horror, found the woman dead of an obvious homicide.
Police opted to keep many details of the crime out of the media in order to weed out false leads. They did eventually reveal that Mary had died of blunt force trauma, multiple stab wounds, and ligature strangulation. They also stated that robbery was the most likely motive.
In 2003, Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible, but as of this writing, no arrests have been made.
Crime Immemorial 