44-Year-Old Cold Case FINALLY Solved in 2022

Thompson was a UC freshman when she disappeared in 1978. her body found in Loveland on the bank of the Little Miami River on March 24 1978 19 year old University student Cheryl Thompson went missing after she left her parents home to meet her boyfriend at a disco in Cincinnati Ohio two weeks later her decomposing body was found along the bank of the Little Miami River in Ohio so what exactly happened to Cheryl did she drown while swimming or did she suffer a far worse fate hi and welcome back to mysterious hook

friends today we are looking at the 37 year old Cold Case of Cheryl Thompson but first about 93 percent of you are still not subscribed to the Channel please consider subscribing as it motivates us to create more intriguing content for you so without any further Ado let’s Dive Right into this mystery today’s case will take us to the third largest city in Ohio Cincinnati it was founded as a town in 1788 and currently boasts a population of more than 300 000 people Cincinnati is home to the Hamilton County government seat as well as the

oldest baseball team in America in addition to these the Central and economic Hub is also famous for its art and unique Mediterranean inspired chili the city is also the hometown of the American movie director writer and producer Steven Spielberg Cheryl grew up with her parents and two brothers Bill and Dan Thompson in the city of Cincinnati Ohio everyone who knew Cheryl described her as a smart kind-hearted and fun-loving teenager in addition to this she also had a cheerful nature and this made people easily warm up to her

she cared about everything animals people she was everyone’s best friend Bill Thompson Cheryl’s older brother said to the media when Cheryl was 19 she got admitted to the University of Cincinnati to study nursing for her it was a dream come true nursing was a profession she had always wanted to study since her school was in the same city where her parents lived it was easy for her to shuttle between the two places you always knew she was going to be the one that would grow up in a job of helping other people it’s just the way she was Bill had said

Cheryl also had a friend by the name of Laura bressert Laura was someone Cheryl was comfortable sharing her secrets and fears with anyone could instantly notice that there was a strong bond between the two friends among other things the two also shared a similar interest and this was going to the Disco every weekend to dance we would dance together which would throw people off we were just having fun just out there dancing together Laura had said Cheryl was living a Carefree life without any worry but things would soon take a dark turn

in the spring of 1978 the University of Cincinnati closed for spring break and Cheryl decided to spend this well-deserved time at her parents house located in Wooster Pike Cincinnati at the time Dan and her parents were the only ones at home her other brother Bill was studying at a police academy in Austin Texas on March 24 1978 Cheryl made plans to meet with her boyfriend at the Gatsby disco located at 3225 Madison Road Oakley they planned to meet later in the evening that same day she also let Laura in on her plans and

Laura agreed to join her at the Disco it was all set to be a fun-filled evening however Laura soon called her back and told Cheryl that she had changed her mind about going to the Disco it was unexpected and Cheryl was not pleased by this I begged her on the phone not to go because I had a bad feeling Laura said Cheryl however did not listen to the pleas of her friend she had made up her mind to go to the Disco and nothing was going to stop her or ruin her plans at around 10 30 PM she said goodbye to Dan and stepped out of the house

she got into her car and made for the Gatsby disco that was the last time anyone saw her alive meanwhile Cheryl’s boyfriend had arrived at Gatsby’s disco and proceeded to patiently wait for her by midnight he had grown extremely worried because Cheryl had still not shown up many thoughts flash through his mind he soon stepped out of the building to search for her when he looked around he immediately saw her car it was parked a short distance away from the Disco building this surprised and at the same time alarmed him

he moved closer to the vehicle and tried to open it but discovered that it was locked to be sure that Cheryl was not back at the Disco and also looking for him he made his way back to the building but after searching for several minutes and seeing no sign of her he slowly came to the realization that something was horribly wrong he decided to go to her parents house when he got there he met Dan and explained everything to him he also grabbed a spare key for Cheryl’s car and made his way back to the Disco upon getting to the Disco he moved

Cheryl’s car to a legal parking space and then continued his search for her but there was no sign of her it was as if she had parked her car and then decided to take a long walk into the night after a fruitless search the worried and upset boyfriend made his way back to where he had parked Cheryl’s car to his surprise he saw the car being driven Away by an unknown man and he immediately gave Chase however he could not keep up with the speed of the car and soon lost it his day just kept getting worse first his girlfriend had disappeared

Without a Trace and now her car had been stolen by daylight the news of Cheryl’s disappearance had spread like wildfire she was reported missing by her family and authorities immediately began their search for her officers from the Cincinnati Police Department as well as Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies combed through wooded areas and vacant buildings to cover more ground a helicopter was donated by the Ohio highway patrol and it was used in the search however none of this yielded any results as Cheryl was nowhere to be found

surprisingly Cheryl’s car was found the following day after her disappearance it was discovered on box Street several blocks from the Disco after the car was found officers began going door to door to ask if anyone had seen anything that could help them in their investigation a description of her was also released to the public with the host that someone might have seen her but it was all to no avail it was as if Cheryl had vanished off the surface of the Earth days turned into weeks and Cheryl remained missing

it was an agonizing period for her family and friends and they feared the worst on the morning of April 8 1978 a game warden by the name of Mike who worked at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources was walking along the bank of the Little Miami River in Loveland this area is only a few minutes away from Cincinnati while checking the fisherman’s licenses He Came Upon something entangled amongst the shrubs down an embankment on moving closer he realized that it was the decomposing body of a dead woman the woman who appeared to be in her early

20s was particularly clothed and was lying about 20 feet away from the river she still had on shoes socks and jewelry but her undergarment looked like it had been tampered with there were also bruises on her neck was horrified by this he immediately went back to his vehicle and notified the Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies in a matter of minutes officers arrived at the scene and secured the area a closer look at the body revealed no sign of stabbing or gunshot wound and the officer’s first thought was that she

had drowned the body was soon transported to the Hamilton County coroner’s office for identification and autopsy the body was identified through Dental charts as Cheryl the result of the autopsy revealed that she had been raped strangled and had also been hit on the head with an unknown object no one knew exactly when she had died but the coroner who conducted the autopsy believed that she had been dead for about three days before her body was found a rape kit was collected as evidence and stored at the Hamilton coroner’s office

and since the technology available at the time was not Advanced enough to carry out any analysis there was little detectives could do when Cheryl’s family was told about her death they were devastated and bitter it’s got to be some completely insane person who’s lost it Dan had said at the time of Cheryl’s death someone who just doesn’t know where his head is at since detectives had no leads the case soon went cold years went by and Cheryl’s family and friends bore the pain that her death brought them her parents died without getting to know

who had senselessly killed their daughter but her brothers Bill and Dan held out hope that their sister’s murder would one day be solved in 2010 detectives from the Loveland Police Department and Ohio Bureau of criminal investigation decided to analyze the DNA evidence from Cheryl’s case the evidence was sent to the lab and the result produced was a partial DNA profile when the profile was checked against the database it did not return any match it wasn’t something detectives had expected and they were left scratching

their heads for answers more than 10 more years would go by before detectives finally got the answer they were looking for in 2022 detectives sent semen from Cheryl’s rape kit to a third party genealogy company the company made use of genetic genealogy which involves using DNA to determine the relationship between individuals the results identified a family tree three people were singled out from the family and they were a brother cousin and uncle all three were located by the authorities and were told the reason why

they were being investigated the three individuals gave authorities their full cooperation and even agreed to submit semen samples for further testing when the result of the test came out it showed that none of their DNA matched the DNA of the unknown person who had raped and killed Cheryl detectives were astonished by this however the three men gave detectives a piece of Vital Information and this was that they had a brother by the name of Ralph Howell who had died in his mid-30s in a car accident back in 1985. with

this information detectives had a new lead they decided to dig up Ralph’s body which was buried at the Rest Haven Memorial Park in Evendale on getting to the burial site Ralph’s body was exhumed and his Jawbone was removed and sent to the lab for forensic analysis all that was left was to wait for the result of the test when the results finally came out it was what detectives hoped for the DNA taken from Ralph’s Jawbone matched the one that had been recovered from Cheryl’s body detectives were Overjoyed by this breakthrough after

more than four decades the case was finally solved we couldn’t have done this without science said retired detective Steve moster who worked on the case Bill and Dan were contacted and given the news by detectives it was all a surprise Bill told the media everyone goes down the path of making their own ideas about what happened and it was a complete surprise to me that it was a complete unknown person with no previous history to Cheryl apparently a closer look at Ralph’s past showed that before his death he worked as a newspaper

delivery man for a newspaper company known as the Cincinnati Enquirer it was also revealed that Ralph was a man with a Criminal past in 1983 just five years after Cheryl’s death he had tried but failed to abduct a woman according to reports he had stopped the woman by the side of the road and offered her a ride home in his newspaper delivery truck the woman had initially been reluctant to accept the offer but he remained persistent and she had eventually gotten in to the woman’s horror Ralph told her that he wanted to

have sex with her he immediately placed a rope around her neck and began to strangle her she had put up a fight and after much struggling he had eventually stopped the truck and let her go Ralph was eventually arrested and he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint it’s not clear if he spent any time in jail for the crime apart from this detectives also believe that Ralph might have been responsible for the death of three other women the three women had all died between 1976 and 1978.

they included seventeen-year-old Charmaine stolla 18 year old Nancy Ann Theobald and 24 year old Victoria hincher they had all been found raped and strangled just like Cheryl however unlike Cheryl’s case no DNA evidence was obtained from the three murders the tireless work of the Loveland Police Department and BCI should be commended they never stopped searching for Cheryl Thompson’s killer and now over 40 years later Cheryl’s family has closure Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph dieters said about the case I have prosecuted multiple serial

killers in my time as prosecutor my office firmly believes he is another he added even though Ralph was dead detectives met with Cheryl’s family and told them that they could present the evidence to the jury if they wanted further closure the family agreed to this on November 17 2022 Ralph was indicted for one count of aggravated murder and one count of rape although there would be no trial the indictment of Ralph provided Cheryl’s family and friends with closure on the matter for me it helped finalizing it knowing that a

person had been charged with the murder of my sister Bill said whether he was dead or not it really didn’t matter to me Laura was also grateful that her friend’s murder was finally solved she was a really good person she didn’t deserve something like that Laura had said I really am grateful thank you guys finally that you got him she added what happened to Cheryl was heartbreaking she had her whole life ahead of her but never had the opportunity to live it many young women like her have suffered a similar fate and sadly many of their

Killers remain at Large hopefully the long arm of the log catches up to them soon but do you think Cheryl would have been alive today if she had listened to Laura’s please and not gone to the Disco let us know your thoughts in the comments section don’t forget to like comment share and subscribe foreign