DNA leads to charges in 25-year-old cold case
Raymond Nash has been waiting a long time — almost 25 years now — to confront the man who stabbed his mother to death.
“I thought I was going to go to my grave not knowing,“ the 71-year-old Liberty County man said recently, relieved that authorities have finally charged a man in the death of Lillian Gertrude Nash.
The woman was stabbed at least 20 times in the chest when she was found on Sept. 30, 1985 at her home in a southeast Houston apartment complex, the Dorchester Apartments, 4011 Old Galveston Road. The 66-year-old woman was the manager there.
Houston police cold case detectives said trace DNA evidence entered into a national crime database led to Race Burdine, 42, a registered sex offender. He was charged Sept. 14 with murder and now sits behind bars in an Illinois jail awaiting extradition to Texas.
Burdine's name came up during the initial investigation as a local troublemaker with a history of past run-ins with Nash. But police had no hard evidence at the time to connect him to the crime.
Burdine didn't live at the complex but had friends who did. Police said Nash – the apartment manager for about 10 years – regularly chased him off the property.
“She tried to keep it (the apartments) clean and keep the riffraff out,“ Raymond Nash said.
Even with their prime suspect in custody, Houston police said they have yet to determine the motive for the brutal slaying.
“I guess it was just hard feelings between (them),“ said Sgt. Mike Peters, with the Houston Police Department's cold case unit. “He just went in there to kill her.“
There were no signs that Nash struggled with her attacker, police said.
Raymond Nash said his mother left cash on the nightstand next to her bed and had about $80,000 worth of jewelry within easy reach.
“Nothing was touched,” he said.
The day before she died, Lillian Nash attended Sunday morning church services, then spent the afternoon chatting with friends on the telephone. Other residents told police they didn't hear any disturbance coming from her apartment later that night.
Nash's killer slipped into her ground-floor apartment after removing a back window. He made his way to her bedroom and stabbed her at least 20 times, police said.
Houston police found Nash lying in her bed after a concerned employee at the apartment complex said she didn't show up for work.
Raymond Nash recalls the rage that passed through him when HPD investigators told him that his mother had been murdered.
“I told the police when it first happened, that they better get him before I do,” he said.
Nash – a former police officer in Atlanta – did his own investigative work in the case. At one point, he heard rumors that her killer may be in Dallas.
“I went looking for him, but I could never find him,” he said.
A Southern belle
Police said Burdine remained in the Houston area for about four years before moving back to Decatur in central Illinois, where his family is originally from.
Court records there show he was sentenced to 30 months probation after being found guilty of sexual assault.
Lillian Nash was originally from Georgia and in 1942 moved with her family to Texas. With her grace and refined manners, family members said she could have passed for a character in Gone with the Wind.
“That's what she was – a typical Southern belle,” Raymond Nash said. “She was the most kind-hearted person I ever knew. She was always helping people.”
Even as the leads dried up and his mother's slaying was moved to the cold case file, Nash said he never lost hope that an arrest would be made.
“I knew eventually that he'd be caught ... but I didn't know when,“ the son said. “I didn't know if it would be in my lifetime.”
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