Murder of WWII veteran solved – 56 years after being shot | US News

The murder of a Second World War veteran has been solved – more than 50 years after he was found shot to death.

Hiram ‘Ross’ Grayam became a milkman after facing the “horrors of the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of two concentration camps,” the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said.

He was delivering milk in Florida in April 1968 when he was unable to return home from work.

Police began a search and his body and milk truck were spotted on a plane in the Vero Beach area.

When those looking for him arrived at the scene, Grayam was “lying next to the milk truck with gunshot wounds, dead execution style,” said Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers.

“Despite exhaustive efforts, her killer escaped justice,” the sheriff’s office said.

Decades later, “that fateful night still lingered in detectives’ minds,” with a cold case team searching for clues.

A witness told police he saw Mr. Grayam talking to two men who were walking on the side of the road, WPEC-TV reported.

“She said Mr. Grayam talked to them and announced he would be back soon,” Flowers said.

The three men left in the milk truck, he added.

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“Through determination and the cooperation of witnesses, new leads emerged,” the sheriff’s office said.

Thomas Williams, who died in 2016, confessed to murdering Mr Grayam, it emerged.

As early as 2006, there were rumors that Williams might be involved in the crime.

He wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper “saying he had been accused of the murder but denied having any knowledge of it, that he was not involved,” the sheriff said.

The case went cold again.

However, after Williams died, his ex-wife and a friend of his sister came forward.

Flowers said the witnesses — none of whom knew each other — told investigators that Williams had already confessed to them that he had killed Grayam.

Both witnesses said they considered Williams a threat to them and their families while he was alive, Flowers said. “But the fact that he was dead gave them the courage to come forward.”

Detectives hope anyone who knows the identity of the second man seen with Mr Grayam will get in touch.