New Evidence in 10-Year-Old's Slaying?
Police are searching for the person who abducted, killed Amy Mihaljevic in '89.
March 31, 2009— -- In the nearly 20 years since Amy Mihaljevic was abducted and killed, Bay Village, Ohio, police say they and the FBI have interviewed nearly 20,000 people and investigated more than 7,000 potential suspects.
But the case, one of Ohio's most frustrating unsolved murders, remains a mystery. Police have not named a suspect.
Now, a witness says he may have seen the person who lured the 10-year-old girl away from a local shopping plaza.
Rick Burns, the owner of a service station near the spot where Amy was last seen alive, now says he believes he saw the girl's killer. He said a man with a young girl in the back seat of his car asked for directions to the highway around the time Amy was abducted.
Shown a series of photographs by ABC News affiliate WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland, Burns identified a man who was previously interrogated by police as the man who asked for directions. But he said he could not be sure that the girl in the back seat was Amy, who was kidnapped Oct. 27, 1989.
"That was him and he took her," Burns said. "I always remember a face. He looked like he wasn't from here. He looked like a school teacher from the country."
Lt. Det. Mark Spaetzel of the Bay Village police downplayed the importance of Burns' information, but James Renner, a reporter and author of a book about the case, called it the best new clue in the case in the past 20 years. He also criticized the police.
"When you find an eyewitness to the abduction who hasn't been interviewed since 1989, I have to question that," Renner said. "I'm disappointed."
Spaetzel said he believed Burns, who was interviewed by investigators shortly after Amy was abducted, was confusing two separate incidents he had reported to police earlier, but had never actually seen Amy's abductor.
He said photos of the man identified by Burns were available on the Internet.
"I think he's trying to be a helpful citizen but I think he's misremembering two events and putting them together as one," Spaetzel said. "It really is nothing new."
Spaetzel said police have spent "a lot of time" investigating the person Burns identified, who did not return a phone message seeking comment and is not being identified by ABC News because police have not named him as a suspect.
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