Elderly woman’s murder was unsolved since 1994. DNA technology led police to her killer’s grave

Lillian DeCloe was awaiting a visit from her niece in April 1994. However, when her niece arrived at DeCloe’s Pompano Beach home, the 89-year-old wasn’t there to greet her.

Someone had broken in, sexually assaulted and killed DeCloe. Now, after almost three decades, police have finally tracked down who was responsible for her murder.

When detectives revisited DeCloe’s cold case murder in 2019, they dug through case files and evidence. A DNA database led them to the grave of a former Marine and Vietnam veteran who lived a few houses away from DeCloe at the time of the murder.

Johnny Mack Brown, who died in 2010, was responsible for the elderly woman’s slaying, Broward police say. His family said he struggled with PTSD and addiction.

“Justice has no expiration date,” Sheriff Gregory Tony said at a Tuesday press conference. “We’re going to continue to push forward...to make sure we can bring closure to so many families who’ve been waiting for decades.”

Testing, technology tied Brown to murder

Since 2019, police have tested semen the killer left on DeCloe’s nightgown and developed a suspect profile. They subsequently turned to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct a familial search through its DNA database.

FDLE’s database connected the DNA from the killer to a close relative of Brown who had spent time in a Florida prison.

Broward detectives then obtained a court order in August to exhume Brown’s remains from the South Florida National Cemetery in Palm Beach County.

After investigators collected tissue samples from Brown’s remains, testing matched Brown’s DNA to the hereditary material left at the crime scene in 1994.

After 28 years, DeCloe’s family — finally — feels a sense of closure.

“We can move on,” said June Nicholas, DeCloe’s niece. “We can die in peace because we know that it wasn’t a murder that was unsolved.”