Fighting for closure: Unsolved murders haunt Hoover police, families

Brian Smith still vividly remembers the day in 1980 when Hoover police detective Harold Murdock sat down across from him in his grandmother’s living room and told him his mother had been murdered.

Smith was 6 years old at the time and was sitting in his grandmother’s lap when Murdock broke the news.

“I jumped out of her lap, ran down the hallway into the last door at the end of the hallway, slammed the door and basically lost it,” said Smith, now 44 years old.

His mother, 24-year-old Barbara Smith, had been missing for about seven weeks when her decomposing body was discovered in a wooded area on an old dirt road near the intersection of Sulphur Springs Road and Shades Crest Road on March 25, 1980. 

She had been stabbed five times in the chest and left in a pile of debris with tree limbs and stumps, according to police reports.

Nearly 38 years later, Barbara Smith’s murder remains unsolved. It is one of six unsolved killings in Hoover’s 50-year history, five of which are designated as unsolved homicides and one that the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office labeled the cause of death as undetermined but as a “probable homicide.”

All of the “cold cases” have been reopened at least once for further investigation over the years, and some of them were reopened more than once, said Hoover Police Capt. Gregg Rector, who now oversees the investigations division.

Some victims’ families may feel like police have not done enough to solve the cases, but Rector said often with cold cases detectives have done everything they know to do.

In at least five of these cases, detectives say they believe they know the person who committed the murder, but “knowing who committed a murder and being able to prove it are two different things,” Rector said.

Across a 50-year period, Rector said it’s remarkable that Hoover only has six unsolved homicides.

“That’s an unbelievably small number of people we have not been able to hold accountable for extreme violent acts,” he said.

But that doesn’t always make a difference for the family members of those who were killed.

“They don’t care that we’ve only had five unsolved murders [and one unsolved probable homicide] in 50 years,” Rector said. “They care about their family member. They care about their loved one, and they’ve got a right to feel that way.”

Rector said despite the age of these cases, “there’s probably not a week that goes by that they don’t pop up in my head in some small way,” he said. “I don’t know why they torment me like they do.

“It haunts me that we have unsolved homicides, period, in this city,” Rector added. “It haunts me that we can’t bring closure to these cases that we’ve not been able to arrest anybody for. … I’ve still got hope that we might solve one or two of them eventually.”

Here’s a closer look at the six killings Hoover police have been unable to solve:

Barbara Smith: February-March 1980

Barbara Smith, a 24-year-old registered nurse, was reported missing Feb. 3, 1980, after she left her boyfriend’s apartment on Carson Road in Birmingham to pick up her 6-year-old son from her ex-husband’s house in Pleasant Grove. Rector said police don’t believe she ever made it to her ex-husband’s house.

Her car, a 1978 blue MGB sports car, was found abandoned in an alley behind the Roebuck J.C. Penney, in the 9100 block of Parkway East, the next morning with the keys still in the ignition and her purse in the car. Police also reported they found several black-market amphetamines in her car.

Seven weeks later, a woman walking on a dirt road off Sulphur Springs Road found Smith’s partially decomposed body dumped in a pile of debris and reported it to police. “The body had been there for quite some time,” Rector said. The coroner’s office determined she had been stabbed five times in the chest.

Records indicate that detectives actively worked the case for at least three years with no significant progress or leads. 

Then in the early 1990s, investigators reopened the case. Eddie Braden, who was then the sergeant over crimes against people, and Detective Peyton Zarzour spent four hours questioning a man who had confessed to killing other women in the Birmingham area and who was eventually executed for one of those murders.

Braden and Zarzour, who are now investigators for the Alabama State Board of Pharmacy, said the suspect was very eager to see pictures of Smith’s body, though they didn’t let him, and encouraged the investigators to believe he might have killed her. The man never would confirm that he killed Smith, saying he didn’t want to embarrass his family any more.

They said he likely was Smith’s killer – they just couldn’t prove it and his subsequent execution makes it harder to ever get the proof they need. Smith was killed during the time period the suspect was killing other women, and her car was found in an area where the suspect said he frequently drove around looking for victims, Braden and Zarzour said. Also, this suspect typically stabbed his victims in the chest and left them in trash piles, they said.

Rebecca SuzanneWalker: Oct. 16, 1983

Charles Mobley was walking his Labrador retriever in a wooded area off Al Seier Road on Oct. 16, 1983, when the dog ran off and started digging in the ground, according to a police report. Mobley went to retrieve his dog and found the dog had unearthed a human skull, but the report said he was going out of town and forgot to report the finding until Oct. 22.

Police and forensic investigators went to the scene and found the skeletal remains of Rebecca Suzanne Walker, who was 28 years old when she disappeared from her Birmingham apartment complex on months or years earlier.

Her remains were found near a dirt road off Al Seier Road and about a quarter-mile off Sulphur Springs Road, according to reports. It was less than a mile from where Smith’s body was dumped three years earlier, Rector said.

Braden and Zarzour said they suspect the same man for both Smith and Walker’s killings. Walker had been abducted from her apartment complex off Rugby Avenue in east Birmingham, and this suspect had once done work at that apartment complex, Zarzour said.

William Stephen Wilson: June 8, 1985

William Stephen Wilson, 35, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head, laying on his couch at his home in the 3100 block of Paradise Parkway, when his wife returned home from working an overnight shift at a hospital.

Detectives believe someone with access to the home came into the house in the middle of the night on June 5, 1985, and shot the victim while he slept on the couch. Some guns that Wilson owned were missing from the house, but due to other details of the case, Rector said he was never convinced that theft was the motive for the killing.

A primary suspect was identified, but an arrest was never made due to a lack of evidence, Rector said.

“I believe Stephen had information that the suspect wished he didn’t know and that Stephen wouldn’t be able to talk about that information if he were dead,” Rector said.

Rector said this investigation has been reopened twice and he has always considered it solvable. A little over 10 years ago, Zarzour and another detective spent a full year working this case and even went to New York and Oregon to conduct interviews related to the case, but they eventually ran into dead ends.

“Detectives still believe there is more than one person who has knowledge of this crime and they still reside in the Birmingham/Homewood metro area,” Rector said. “I still consider this to be a solvable case if the right person is willing to do the right thing and come forward.”

Tezrex Robinson: March 31, 1991

Tezrex Robinson, an 18-year-old senior at Fultondale High School, was shot to death in the parking lot of the Sneakers teen club at 3439 Lorna Road just before midnight on March 31, 1991.

He and a friend were approached by three unknown male suspects who opened fire with handguns, according to police reports. Robinson was shot in the back and pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m.

The shooting reportedly was linked to an altercation inside the crowded club earlier in the night. Zarzour and Braden both investigated this case and heard from a tipster that the shots were fired by people from Alabaster related to that altercation, but that was never confirmed.

Zarzour said it’s also possible that Robinson got caught in crossfire and was shot accidentally by someone that was with him. One young man, who was with Robinson the night he was shot, was beaten up by Robinson’s friends at his funeral, they said. Investigators thus far have not been able to pinpoint who fired the shot that killed Robinson, though they believe numerous people likely know the shooter and are unwilling to break their silence.

Robert Robson: March 9, 1993

Robert “Bob” Robson, the 45-year-old manager of the Snap-on Tools business at 2195 Parkway Lake Drive in Riverchase, was found dead in the lobby of his business by another employee arriving for work about 6:50 a.m.

Robson was lying face down in the foyer with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, according to police reports. The doors to the business were locked, and there was no sign of forced entry. Robson’s wallet was still there, and there was nothing missing from the business, so robbery was not a likely motive, investigators said.

“Whoever killed him had a key — either theirs or one they could have taken off the victim,” Rector said. “We believe this was someone that knew Mr. Robson and wanted him dead.”

Robson was an English citizen in the United States on a temporary visa that was about to expire. He lived in the Heatherwood community.

His wife reported that she brought her husband a sandwich to his office because he was working late the night before. She reported he was on the phone the whole time she was there and that someone else arrived as she was leaving about 5:30 p.m.

Rob Puckett II: April 7, 2004

Rob Puckett II, 43, was found dead from gunshot wounds on his sofa in his home in the 500 block of Shades Crest Road about 8:20 p.m.

Puckett, who owned the Thrifty Nickel publication, had not shown up for work that day, and several colleagues and friends had shown up at his house concerned about him, Rector said.

One of those friends, former Birmingham police officer Quentin Dunn, broke into the house to unlock the door for the police, according to reports.

Puckett was an avid gun collector, and several guns were missing from his home. During the course of the investigation, detectives learned that Dunn had several of Puckett’s guns. Some of those guns were fully automatic and required special permits to possess, but Dunn did not have those permits and spent several years in prison on federal firearms violations, Rector said.

Puckett’s murder was never solved but, as with Wilson’s killing, “in all likelihood, there’s someone out there who knows who killed Rob Puckett and maybe knows some details,” Rector said.

Bringing closure and justice

Braden and Zarzour said they frequently think of these unsolved cases when they hear about other cases that are similar.

“When you’ve seen the horrors we’ve seen, everything kind of sticks in your mind,” Zarzour said. “For me, it sticks with you your entire life. It’s something you never get rid of. … You want to do a good job, and you want to solve all your cases and get closure for the families, but sometimes, when a case goes unsolved, it’s unfinished and it eats at you a little bit that you weren’t able to finish.”

Braden said he frequently finds himself wondering if there was something else he could have done or someone else he should have interviewed to get answers. But sometimes there is just not enough evidence to charge a suspect, or witnesses aren’t willing to come forward with information, he said.

Still, the families of the victims deserve closure, and the offenders need to be brought to be justice, Braden said. 

Tezrex Robinson’s mother, Barbara Taggart, said she kept in touch with police for a long time about her teen son’s murder, but she has not been able to get that closure.

“There was never any resolution to what happened — who did it,” she said. “Over the years, I’ve just learned to live with it.”

Taggart said her son was a people person who was very athletic. He played basketball at Fultondale High School and dreamed of playing basketball in college, she said. He had just been fitted for his prom tuxedo right before he was killed, she said. If he were still alive today, he would be turning 45 on Feb. 10, she said.

She has always hoped that some of those young people who knew who killed her son, now more mature in their 40s, would feel the need to speak up, she said.

“I just can’t imagine anybody could live with the knowledge that they knew something about who killed somebody and didn’t tell anybody,” she said.

She keeps a picture of her son on the mantel over her fireplace and thinks about him frequently, she said. Her daughter’s 16-year-old son reminds her of Tezrex a lot, she said.

“It’s hard not to think about it. There is no end to it,” she said. “Losing a child — I can’t explain it to you. It’s beyond pain almost. It’s tough.”

Disappointment for families

Barbara Smith’s son, Brian Smith, and her mother, Ida Sellers, now 85, both said they were disappointed police never solved Barbara Smith’s murder. Both felt police were not good about returning calls or sharing information and, except Detective Harold Murdock, didn’t seem interested in the case.

Sellers described her daughter as a bubbly, gullible young lady who loved to dance. She was small — 4 feet 11 inches tall and 98 pounds — and would have struggled to defend herself against an attacker, her mother said.

Barbara Smith was a single mom who had put herself through nursing school by working multiple jobs. When she was killed, she had just started working at a weight loss clinic in Hoover, and she also worked as a waitress at the Hungry Fisherman restaurant in Riverchase. 

“She was doing everything she possibly could to better her life and raise her son,” Brian Smith said. “She made me the center of her world.”

She would take him to work with her, and she bought him a 13-inch portable TV for him to watch while she worked, Brian Smith said. He cherishes that black-and-white TV to this day and spent more than $100 to have it repaired a little over 10 years ago just because it was a gift from her, he said. He also held onto her nursing pin, nursing ID and any trinket he could find to help him remember her, he said.

But he doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day. “Mother’s Day is just another Sunday to me. I don’t observe it,” he said. “I do call my grandmother and wish her a happy Mother’s Day, but that’s about as far as it goes.”

Growing up without her probably has made him a harder person than most people, he said. Close friends and family also know not to bother him on Nov. 20, his mother’s birthday, and Feb. 3, the day she went missing. 

“Up until I was 6 years old, I believed the world was a nice place where everybody cared about you and it was wonderful,” Brian Smith said. “At 6 years old, I learned what the world really was.”

Sellers said she thinks about her daughter a lot and talks to a portrait of her frequently. She also remains hopeful that police will one day solve her daughter’s murder, she said. “That would be wonderful. It would be a closure.”

Her grandson is more skeptical. “I don’t think they’re ever going to solve it,” he said. “A 38-year-old cold case — very unlikely.”

Not giving up

Rector said police haven’t given up on any of the cases, but after decades have passed, “the chances aren’t really in our favor that we’re going to bring the cases to a successful closure, but you just never know.

“It eats at you to know that there are people who have gotten away with murder and not been held accountable, and it eats at you even more when you know who some of the people are,” he said.

It typically takes a new piece of evidence or new testimony to trigger the reopening of a cold case, he said. He hopes that, as time passes and people mature and may not have the same allegiances to people they once did, they might be willing to break their silence if they know who committed these murders.

There are only a handful of people left in the Hoover Police Department who even remember these cases exist, Rector said. While other officers could pursue them in the future, Rector said he worries that the loss of a personal connection to the cold cases damages the chances of solving them. It adds to the urgency he feels to find the answers for these six victims and their families.

“When the four or five of us [officers] are gone, these cases are dead forever,” Rector said. “I’m not quite ready to give up just yet. I may be dreaming, and I may just be heaping more frustration on myself, but I’m not giving up yet.”