JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It was a normal afternoon that quickly turned into a nightmare.
On May 8, 1991, investigators say Sherry Ross had just picked up her daughter, Graylyn, from school and brought her to their home on Thomas Street in the Lackawanna neighborhood of Jacksonville.
Six-year-old Graylyn told police she was in her room when she heard a strange man's voice in the house.
“The man is demanding items or money or gold from the house and she [Graylyn] hears her mother scream,” tells Det. Ray Reeves with the Cold Case Unit at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
At first, Graylyn says she hid under the bed before going into a closet. She told police she could see the commotion through the feet and shadows under the door, and heard her mother fight for her life. When the house became quiet again, Graylyn came out and followed a trail of blood to find her mother in her bedroom, stabbed to death with a knife from the kitchen.
She ran to get help from neighbors who called police. One neighbor said they saw a strange person in the neighborhood that day and provided a composite sketch.
He was described as a white or Hispanic male with a Spanish or Cuban accent, around 5’8” and about 135 pounds with no facial hair and shoulder-length hair. He's also described as having a tan or olive complexion and likely in his 20s.
Det. Reeves says they believe the motive was robbery, and a lot of effort was put into this investigation in 1991.
“At the time detectives had confidential sources, they were putting the word out there, and they moved through the narcotics department in case there was someone trying to pawn the stolen items for drugs.... so there was a myriad of other detective units, not just homicide, working on this,” he explains.
Investigators also found two different blood types at the scene, Sherry’s blood and the blood of someone else. With the major advances in DNA technology, Det. Reeves says genetic genealogy is a strong factor in this case and with a suspect possibly in his 20s in 1991, there's a chance he is still alive and could be prosecuted.
“We are hoping that putting this out with you all and with the community, somebody will remember back to this day and this time," he says. "Somebody may have said something, talked about it, maybe they were out on Thomas Street and maybe they talked to investigators It may be something that seems trivial, but it could be what we need to solve this case.”
If you lived on Thomas Street on 1991 or know anything that could help solve the murder of Sherry Ross, contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477)
For a look at the Project: Cold Case database, visit www.projectcoldcase.org