‘I will get justice’: How a deck of cards may help solve South Florida cold cases
The king of diamonds shows the face of a young man shot and killed in Sunrise just hours before his 21st birthday. On the four of diamonds is the rendering of a woman whose remains were found in Palm Beach County in 1980, whose name is still unknown. The queen of spades tells the story of a woman whose sister said she still believes that it is only a matter of time until those responsible for her murder nearly two decades ago are caught.
Five people from South Florida whose cases remain unsolved are included in a newly revived initiative from Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office that aims to use decks of playing cards to generate tips from those who are holding them — people incarcerated in county jails and prisons throughout Florida.
More than 5,000 decks of playing cards with photos of 52 men and women and facts of their cases are being rolled out in 60 county jails and 145 Florida Department of Corrections facilities. Moody, at a recent news conference along with the Florida Sheriff’s Association, the Florida Association of Crime Stoppers and the Florida Department of Corrections, said they started distributing the cards in early June.
In Florida alone, there are more than 20,000 unsolved murders, according to Moody’s office. The Office of Statewide Prosecution launched a new Cold Case Investigations Unit earlier this year, and the office is investigating some of the cases included in the cards.
South Florida in recent years has seen breakthroughs in multiple cold cases as DNA testing methods have continued to advance over the years. Suspects’ names have been revealed in multiple cases where authorities have worked with Othram, a company based in Texas that performs a more advanced type of testing, called Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing, that creates a complete genetic profile from the evidence, oftentimes giving detectives matches of possible relatives of suspects.
This April, the suspect in the 1983 killing of Gayla Ann McNeil in Palm Beach County was identified, though he died by suicide in 1987. Othram has also identified previously unnamed victims using the more advanced testing, including the name of a man whose remains were found in the woods in Palm Beach County in 1985.
Other cases to see recent developments are the 1975 murders of teens Barbara Schreiber and Darlene Zetterower in Broward County, where one suspect was identified last August through DNA testing, and the identification of a 1984 “Jane Doe” who was murdered in Davie as Lori Jane Kearsey.
Earlier versions of the cards have worked before in Florida and elsewhere, officials said at the news conference. In 2007, the ex-boyfriend of Ingrid Lugo, who was found floating in a retention pond in 2004 in Bradenton, was charged with her death after three inmates saw Lugo’s card, Moody’s office said in a news release. He was sentenced to life in prison in Lugo’s murder in 2012, Florida Department of Corrections Records show.
One of the South Florida cases included in the cards is the 1986 murder of Billy Halpern. Miramar Police announced recently that his killer has been identified as Harry Collier, who was killed in 1987. The case was solved prior to the launch of the playing cards.
Any future editions of decks would be updated if cases are solved, Florida Association of Crime Stoppers Vice President Trish Routte said in an email shared with the Sun Sentinel through a spokesperson.
Young lives lost in drive-by shootings
Two of the Broward County cases included in the deck are believed to be drive-by shootings that claimed young lives. Mendell Butler-Lebel was killed a day after his 17th birthday. Tarrance Geter was killed one day before his 21st.
On. Oct 23, 2020, a shooter fired into a pick-up truck near the intersection of Nob Hill Road and Northwest 44th Street in Sunrise, killing 20-year-old Geter, who was riding in the passenger seat. He is featured on the king of diamonds.
The driver of the truck Geter was in unintentionally cut off another driver, and when the two cars reached Northwest 44th Street, bullets flew, police previously said. Geter was shot in the head.
Geter’s co-worker was driving them home from work that night when the shooting happened and drove to a nearby 7-Eleven to get help. Sunrise Fire Rescue took Geter to Broward Health Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Sunrise Police released photos of the shooter’s truck years ago. Officer Megan Santana said in an email this week that “no further information has come to light” in Geter’s case.
Chiquita Moore, Geter’s mother, told the Sun Sentinel that she has no more answers or information than she did four years ago. The years without progress in solving her son’s murder have “mentally drained” her, she said, and she’s grappling with anxiety and depression.
Moore described her son as a “sweet and humble kid” and a homebody who loved to joke. She got her son his first job where she worked, at Phoenix Package Logistics LLC in Sunrise. She remembered at first he was reluctant but eventually grew to like the financial independence it gave him and had a goal to get a job making more money in the future, she said.
“He said, ‘I want to start taking care of you now.’ My son never got that chance. He never got the chance. He was shot hours before his 21st birthday,” Moore said.
Of the deck of cards including her son’s murder, Moore said: “I have strong faith that something soon will happen. I will get justice or some answers.”
“I know I can’t bring my son back, but for me to get justice, I want that. I really want justice,” Moore said. “And if somebody can help me with this case, I want the help. I want the help.”
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Mendell Butler-Lebel, 17, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the 3100 block of Foxcroft Road in Miramar on July 2, 2018. He is featured on the nine of diamonds.
He went to a food store with a friend and was caught in a spray of bullets when he returned to the parking lot of a condo complex. Butler-Lebel was shot in the back.
Detectives believe the shooters were in a silver four-door car with dark tinted windows, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 2020 when the reward for tips that help solve the case had increased to $100,000.
“There is no update to the case at this time,” Sgt. Tiffany Roy, a spokesperson for Miramar Police, said in an email. “We are still requesting the help of the community to provide us with anything they know.”
Tiffany Nelson
Tiffany Nelson was 20 when she was murdered. On Oct. 29, 2012, her remains were found in a garbage bag in front of an abandoned house in the 1300 block of South L Street in Lake Worth Beach.
Nelson’s mother, Kathy Nelson, previously told the Sun Sentinel her daughter was working as an exotic dancer at clubs in Palm Beach County.
Hannah Reny met Nelson while working at one club in West Palm Beach together, when Nelson was about 19. Nelson had gone down a troubled path by the time Remy met her, but “she was so much more than that,” Reny said.
She described her as a “beautiful, beautiful” girl who was a “sweetheart” and “never said a bad word to anybody.” Reny was several years older than her when they met. She looked after her when they worked together and “saw myself a lot in her.”
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Reny said she heard by word of mouth that Nelson got into a car on Dixie Highway, possibly with multiple people inside, and was not seen again. She questioned how it’s possible for the suspect or suspects to get away with such a crime “in this day and age.”
“I pray to God it gets solved because honestly she really deserves to be served justice. That was a tragic way to die at a very young age,” Reny said.
Woman found in canal
More than four decades have passed since a woman was found floating in a canal off of State Road 7 in a southern part of the county on June 3, 1980. PBSO detectives are still trying to find out who she was.
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Featured on the four of diamonds, the woman was Hispanic with brown or black hair and brown eyes, in her mid-20s, weighed 120 pounds, stood no more than 5-feet-4-inches tall and had a slight overbite.
She had been stabbed in the chest multiple times and in her forehead, and her fingertips were cut off, the Sun Sentinel previously reported.
Cynthia Moffett
On a rainy spring day nearly two decades ago, Cynthia Moffett, 52, was murdered in a robbery at the Forest Oaks Golf Club west of Lake Worth in Palm Beach County. She is featured on the queen of spades.
A friend found Moffett outside the club, where she worked in the golf store, on March 23, 2006. She had been shot twice in the chest. Detectives in 2007 said they believed robbers entered the shop as it was closing down that evening, that Moffett likely fought with them and was shot in the store, then walked outside.
Detectives believed at the time the robbers fled on foot, possibly indicating they were familiar with the area. Her playing card says the robbers left with $300 in rolled coins.
Moffett’s relatives told the Sun Sentinel in 2014 that detectives had new leads at the time and multiple people of interest.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit Det. Jeff Weissman told WPTV-Ch. 5 this March possibly up to three people were involved in the robbery and that as DNA technology has advanced, latent fingerprints and DNA swabs that were collected from the club house are being re-tested.
Teri Barbera, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said in an email that both the investigations of Moffett’s and Nelson’s murders remain open and that they “continue to review and submit evidence collected from these cases for further DNA testing.”
“That’s exactly what we’re praying for — that this testing, the DNA that they did gather at the crime scene … that the testing that they’re doing now, we’ll find someone that’s already in the system,” Julie Moffett Coker, one of Moffett’s sisters, told the Sun Sentinel.
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She described her sister, who family called Cindy, as a loyal person and a “giver.” She was someone the family could call for any reason and know she would be there for them, her sister said.
“She would do anything for anybody, at a drop of a hat,” Moffett Coker said.
Moffett Coker said she and her family are “all on board for this,” of the new deck of cards.
“We think it’s a great idea … The bottom line, right, — somebody knows something,” she said.
Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.
