Case closed

A horrific Palm Beach County crime has been solved.

WEST PALM BEACH -- (AP) -- A man who died in New Jersey two years ago has been linked to the 1985 rape and murder of a little girl, police said.

Kizzy Ann Broom, 5, was raped and killed in an industrial area of West Palm Beach. The case has remained unsolved until now.

Authorities said new DNA tests linked William Barrow to the killing. Barrow was suspected early on, and was arrested in 1996 for the crime. The charges were eventually dismissed because of a lack of evidence and Barrow was released.

He died a free man at the age of 68 in New Jersey, according to West Palm Beach police. Authorities used newer technology to match hairs found on the girl's body to Barrow.

''We're closing the book,'' Palm Beach County sheriff's Sgt. William Springer said Thursday. ``The angel of death beat me to him. . . . It's over.''

The little girl's mother, Julia Anderson, who still lives in West Palm Beach, said the new information brings some relief, but there will never be closure.

''I am happy but my heart is still the same. My heart still hurts,'' Anderson said.

Barrow's sister, Margaret Coulter, said Friday she never knew her brother to be violent.

''Not like that, no way,'' said Coulter, 65, who lives in Elmer, N.J. ``But I'll put it to you this way, you don't know what someone has done or didn't do if you weren't there. I can't tell you whether it happened or didn't happen. I don't believe that it did.''

TFM knows how Julia Anderson feels and God bless her. I've lost a child too.

As for Ms. Coulter she is in a state of denial. DNA testing can place a person somewhere there is no other proof of it being so. Her dead brother was most likely a murderer, and I'm sorry she misses him but not sorry at all that William Barrow is dead. May he rot in hell for the crime he did.

LInked- Pirate's Cove, Pursuing Holiness, Woman Honor Thyself,