September 4, 1981 was the day these males say their childhood ended. Jeff Slaten and his youthful brother, Tim, had been woke up by Lakeland, Florida, cops, and informed their mom had been murdered. Police hustled the boys outdoors, however Tim, nonetheless in his pajamas, caught a glimpse of his mom. She had been raped and strangled.
"I noticed the entire crime scene proper then and there as a 12-year-old child," Tim Slaten tells CBS Information chief investigative and senior nationwide correspondent Jim Axelrod. "You possibly can't unsee that," says Axelrod. Tim, with tears in his eyes, says he "nonetheless sees" the picture of his lifeless mom, and is aware of he at all times will.
To this present day, the Slaten brothers really feel grief and guilt, for not listening to anythingthat night time, for not coming to their mother's rescue. "I would have died that night time tryin' to save lots of my mother," Jeff Slaten says. "However I did not hear nothing. And it is so arduous to reside with that."
"48 Hours" and Axelrod report the story of the brothers' seek for justice in "The Betrayal of Linda Slaten" airing Saturday, Dec. 3 at 10:01/9:01c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Instantly after the homicide, Jeff and Tim moved in with their grandparents. For these first horrifying days, your complete household slept in the identical room. It was their grandfather who hardly ever slept. He was standing guard all night time with a shotgun.
Just a few weeks later, the boys have been again in class, and Tim was again taking part in soccer, his favourite sport. "Simply attempting to reside life once more," he says. His teammates and coach, "Coach Joe," have been at all times supportive, at all times rooting for him. Coach Joe, 20 on the time, was a younger man Tim had appeared as much as. He usually drove Tim to and from soccer observe — a routine that had began properly earlier than the homicide.
For years, Tim Slaten proudly hung his staff soccer picture in his bed room, taken only one month after the homicide. The picture was additionally a reminder, he says, of one thing his mother had taught him: to maintain transferring ahead and by no means quit.
After the homicide, Lakeland investigators had collected a rape package and lifted a palm print from Linda Slaten's bed room window, the place the killer had entered. Detectives had questioned a slew of suspects, like Linda's abusive ex-husband, Frank Slaten. Even her personal son, Jeff, grew to become an individual of curiosity, telling Axelrod, "Lakeland Police, they was interrogating me on a regular basis."
However nobody was charged. Earlier than lengthy, the case went chilly and stayed that approach for almost 4 many years. Jeff Slaten says, he thought for positive he'd take his final breath with out figuring out who murdered his mother.
However exceptional advances in DNA know-how renewed hope, and that fastidiously saved rape package revealed an unlikely suspect, Joseph Clinton Mills — Coach Joe.
Now these automobile rides to observe took on new that means. So did Tim's staff soccer picture, which sickens him in the present day. As a result of standing immediately behind Tim is the person he as soon as trusted and admired, Coach Joe. He would usually ask Tim how the case was going. Was there any information? Had been there any new leads? Coach Joe was speaking to a 12-year-old boy, attempting to maintain tabs on a homicide investigation by way of the son of the murdered lady when he knew precisely who did it.
"I have been carrying the killer's image in my home this entire time and by no means had a clue. "He is a cold-hearted monster, that is for positive," Jeff says.