Emily Coleman was 69 years old when someone walked into her home on Warren Avenue in Franklin, Ohio, and shot her four times in the back of the head as she slept. That was on Aug. 27, 1968. Nearly six decades later, no one has ever been arrested, and her granddaughter is still asking Franklin police to find out who did it.
Cindy Hubbard was 13 years old at the time of the killing, according to WKRC, which reports that Hubbard's 16-year-old sister discovered Coleman's body the day after the shooting. Franklin police say nothing was missing from Coleman's home, and a door had been left open — details that have never fit neatly into a motive. Hubbard has described her grandmother as a woman devoted to God, church, family and community, the station reports.
Accounts of the earliest investigation differ. WHIO reports the initial probe lasted about two weeks before investigators ran out of evidence and had no suspects, while the WKRC report, attributed to Capt. Brian Pacifico, says police worked the case for several weeks before it stalled without leads that could establish a suspect's guilt. Either way, Franklin police investigated Coleman's murder but never made an arrest, per WHIO.
A Case Reopened Again and Again
The Coleman file hasn't stayed closed. Pacifico, who has 30 years with the Franklin Police Department, says the case has been reopened three times during his tenure, including about two years before the WKRC story published this week. WHIO reports that in 2024, Franklin Police Detective David Hatfield reopened Coleman's murder case; that timing aligns with Pacifico's account. The department hasn't offered a public explanation for why the case keeps getting a second look, and none is available in the record.
What investigators lack is the kind of forensic material that drives most modern cold-case breakthroughs. Pacifico told the station there is no DNA, no hair fibers and nothing recoverable from the scene itself, forcing detectives to lean on decades-old sketches, black-and-white photographs and old interviews with area residents instead. A handful of fingerprints recovered from the scene have already been identified and ruled out, according to WHIO. Pacifico also said the detective assigned to the case has maintained a personal relationship with Hubbard as the investigation has dragged on.
One Family's Grief, Compounded
Hubbard's family absorbed more than one loss that year. She has said her mother died seven weeks after Coleman, something her father believed was from a broken heart, and that her sister, now 74, still grieves their grandmother's murder. Coleman's case is far from an isolated gap in Ohio's crime-solving record — more than 2,500 unsolved murders sit in the Ohio Attorney General's Cold Case Unit database alone, according to State News.
That same reporting notes that around 80 students are enrolled in Tiffin University's Cold Case Fellowship, where participants review police reports, witness testimony and autopsies in search of fresh leads on files like Coleman's. A comparable university-police partnership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has already identified three Jane Does and secured charges against one offender within four years, State News reports — a reminder that old cases can still move, even decades after the evidence trail goes cold.
For now, Coleman's killing remains open. Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers; WKRC lists the number as 513-352-3040, while WHIO lists it as 1-888-352-3040.
