A 75-year-old woman was killed in 1995. A man is now charged in connection to her death.

A Florida man has been charged in connection to the death of a woman who was found dead inside her home 30 years ago.

Riviera Beach Police Chief Michael Coleman made the announcement Monday at a press conference, calling the arrest justice “after 30 years.”

Willie Rogers, 57, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 75-year-old Earnestine Mortimore. She was killed inside her home on April 28, 1995, according to the Palm Beach Post, part of the Paste BN network. He is currently serving time for an unrelated case and has an anticipated release date of May 15, 2032.

According to a detective who worked on the case, authorities believe Rogers, who was 27 at the time, was trying to rob the woman.

Previously, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office ruled that she died of strangulation and multiple injuries due to blunt trauma.

The case went cold until 2023, when detectives from the police department’s cold case unit reopened the investigation. Investigators used advanced forensic technology to identify Rogers as the suspect, the chief said.

The state attorney's office reviewed the findings and found that there was enough evidence for a grand jury to indict Rogers with a murder charge on Jan. 30, the chief said.

DNA testing is ‘very expensive,’ detective says

John MacVeigh, a cold case detective who worked on the case, said it has been “too long” since Mortimore lost her life.

“I feel very successful that we've identified who did this,” MacVeigh said. He added that DNA testing is “very expensive,” and it was the city manager who helped secure funds to research the case. The department also had grant funding to help with the investigation, he said.

He said Rogers lived in the same neighborhood as the victim and she was killed inside her own home.

“We suspect that it was probably some type of burglary or robbery, maybe that went bad,” MacVeigh said.

Investigators solved the case using blood samples collected among people in the neighborhood back in 1995, MacVeigh said.

Rogers was one of the people they collected DNA from and neighbors identified him and another man as possible perpetrators, the Palm Beach Post reported. Both men denied they were involved and were released. Detectives weren't able to gather any additional evidence or prove that he was involved, and the case went cold, the newspaper reported.

When the case was reopened in 2023, the team combed through the evidence collected at the crime scene, searching for items that may not have been tested or needed to be retested. The team then sent the samples off to Bode Technology, a company that does DNA evidence analysis.

The testing led back to Rogers, MacVeigh said.

Online court records for Rogers show multiple charges and sentences in the 1990s, including sexual battery and burglary.

Back in 1995, investigators mainly tested for blood because DNA testing hadn’t become popularized, MacVeigh said.

He said there are “too many murders in this town that just went cold for years.”

“You're going to start losing witnesses because people are dying off,” MacVeigh said. “We were fortunate in this case that everybody's still around.”

‘She didn’t need to go like this’

MacVeigh said the victim, Mortimore, helped everyone she could.

“She didn't need to go like this,” he said. “Everybody in the neighborhood had nothing but good things to say about her … For someone in her neighborhood to do this to her is just horrible.”

When her family found out her killer had been caught, they were “joyful,” he said.

“When I first called and told them about it, they were shocked that (the case) was even being looked at,” MacVeigh said. 

Shatonda Stewart, Mortimore's granddaughter, told the Palm Beach Post that her grandmother helped raise her. She'd often wake her up in the morning to get prepared for school. The family is relieved her grandmother's case her been solved.

"I just never thought the case would be solved, even though we deep down inside know what happened and why," she said.

'"The early bird gets the worm.' That's what she used to always tell us," Stewart told the Palm Beach Post.

City Manager Jonathan E. Evans spoke and said police would pursue justice no matter how much time has gone by. He reflected on the suffering the victim's family has endured and apologized for it, reminding community members that their family missed out on birthdays, anniversaries and more.

“I can imagine that when you did get that call from us, it showed you that somebody still cared,” Evans said. “We will stand in that courtroom with you, and we will make sure that justice is served.”

He thanked the officers and attorneys involved in the case as well.

“Thank you for your commitment to be the sheepdogs,” Evans said. “To be out there, to help us track the wolves down because if we don't, they will kill and terrorize our community indiscriminately.”

He also issued a warning to criminals.

“We may not get you today, but you better believe it, 30 years from now, it may not be me, but it'll be another city manager saying that we're coming.”

This story has been updated to add new information and correct a misspelling.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on Paste BN's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.