PARMA, MO (KFVS) -
Fifteen years ago a southeast Missouri woman was found dead in her home. But to this day no one has ever been arrested. It's a cold case that has her family asking for your help to solve. Most of all, her kids want to know why someone would kill their mother.
Dorothy Broozer smiles in a picture with her brother. But beyond Broozer's smile lies many questions as to what happened to her so many years ago.
"We always have a hard time this time of year," Geraldine Claytor, Broozer's mother said. "The kids ask questions on a regular basis did they find who killed my mother yet."
At the time Broozer had three children, the oldest just four years old. Once Broozer died, Claytor took on the task of raising her grandchildren.
"We always talked about it," Broozer said. "That was okay for me because I wanted to know more about what they had to say."
Broozer's children are now in their teens. But tell Heartland News they still remember trying to wake their mom up on the couch of their Parma Missouri home. They were asleep in the next room when she died.
It's a day Broozer's sister says she also can't get out of her head.
"It was a day of terror, like a horror movie, like this is unbelievable, never ever would I have imagined," Deanna Boozer-Cohen said.
"There are some cases that really stick with you as an investigator, as a police officer and this one really does with me," New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens said.
At the time Stevens had been on the job just weeks when his deputies responded to a gunshot call. Steven says over the years they followed up on several leads but never solved the case.
"There's been things that have presented itself over the years that we have pursued out some as far as the state of Wisconsin, but nothing that has presented itself that's been fruitful," Stevens said.
Stevens says they have also had suspects but never enough evidence for an arrest.
Still in a town of just over 800, Broozer's family believes someone in Parma knows what happened to Dorothy.
"I want to be able to get on with just celebrating her life. It's like a mixture; we can't just celebrate her life. It has to be mixed with this, who did it," Broozer-Cohen said.
Sheriff Stevens says the case is still open and won't be closed until someone is arrested. Broozer's family asks if you remember anything about the night Dorothy was killed to call the New Madrid County's Sheriff's Office.
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Dorothy Broozer smiles in a picture with her brother.
At the time of Broozer's death, she had three children. The oldest was just four years old.
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