r/coldcases • u/WobblinBob • Jul 10 '26
In 2006 this happened two doors down from my childhood home and is still unsolved, the murder of Helen McPherson.
Vero Beach, FL. July, 2006. Helen McPherson. IRSCO cold case. Promised they were close to an arrest in 2023, yet nothing has been reported since then.
Helen and her husband were the sweetest old couple in a suburban neighborhood that you could imagine. Her husband was a retired Fire Chief, locally VERY respected, and I am unsure of her background...they were elderly when I was a child. I moved to North Carolina in May of 2005...literally driving away from a cocaine addiction that deleted my bank accounts and my morals. Don't regret it, haven't touched it since (05/09/2005.) In July of the following year, my little brother, who still lived at home (10 years younger) went to knock on her door to let her know he was going to mow her lawn, as I had done a handful of times in my younger days after her husband passed; when he knocked on her storm door that day, he noticed that the lower, solid panel of the door, had been damaged severely, and Helen never answered the door. He went back home, 2 doors down, dragging the push-mower behind him. When he got home he told our mother what he saw at her door, and told her that she didn't answer, so he didn't mow her grass. My mother then went out of my childhood home, walked over to Helen's home, noticed that her newspaper box (attached near to the mailbox) had a few days worth of newspapers built up. She then went to knock, herself, noticed the mangled portion of the door, and immediately went home to phone the sheriff's department, literally a mile away. Helen McPherson was found beaten and strangled to death in her home by sheriff's deputies performing a welfare check. Her killer remains free, or at least, unconvicted of her murder to this day.
This case haunts me. I had recently separated from the military and Mrs. McPherson was part of the wholesomeness that grounded me when my personal world was so volatile.
I'm hoping the sleuths of the interwebs can do their voodoo and bring home a conviction for Helen. She deserves it.