On August 5, 1965, a body was discovered floating in the Ohio River. When it was retrieved, police were quickly able to identify it as local attorney and prosecutor Alberta Odell Jones. According to Jones’ mother, Jones had left the night before to meet with a friend about a legal issue (via The Lineup). She never made it back home. At some point on the night of August 4 or early in the morning of August 5, Jones was beaten in the head with a brick until she was unconscious (per The Washington Post). Her body was then dumped into the Ohio River by her assailant(s). Her official cause of death was drowning.
Though a witness would later say that three men were seen throwing what looked like a human body off of the Sherman Minton Bridge, police believed that whoever put Jones’ body into the river had done so from a boat ramp. No matter how her body wound up floating in the moving waters of the Ohio, police did recover the rental car Jones had been driving. There was blood on the inside, leading investigators to the conclusion that she had been attacked after she had stopped. Was her killer in the car with her, or was she followed and forced to stop before she was attacked?
Three years later, a purse was found hanging from the bridge that she may have been thrown from (per Blackpast). For many years after, the case went cold.
