Crime & Justice

Florida Cops Crack 20-Year-Old Cold Case Thanks to Job Application

FINALLY

Man arrested, charged with first-degree murder after applying for job that required fingerprints.

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Stephane Mahe/Reuters

A Florida man who police say evaded justice for two decades was arrested and charged with first-degree murder Wednesday after applying for a job that required fingerprints as part of a background check, the Sun-Sentinel reports. Todd Braket, 51, of Brandon, allegedly left a trail of clues—including blood, fingerprints, and DNA—at the scene of Sondra Better’s murder in 1998. But police say he managed to disappear until January, when prints taken as part of a job application turned up as a match for the ones submitted to a national database at the time of the killing. “Our detectives worked years trying to find the killer in this case,” Acting Delray Beach Police Chief Javaro Sims said Wednesday. “We had fingerprints, we had blood, we even had a possible description from a witness. But the person responsible for this heinous case seemed to just disappear.”

Read it at Sun-Sentinel

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