More than 50 years after the body of a 9-year-old girl was found in the East Cobb area, the Cobb District Attorney’s office said it has determined who killed her.
Debbie Lynn Randall went missing from her Marietta home in January 1972, prompting a massive search that galvanized the community.
She was found three weeks later in an area on Powers Ferry Road near Windy Hill Road, raped and strangled to death.
At a press conference on Monday, District Attorney Flynn Broady said investigators from his office’s Cold Case Unit confirmed that the girl’s killer was William Rose of Mableton, who was 24 at the time.
The DA’s office said Rose knew people who lived at a Marietta apartment complex where Randall and her family were residents.
On Jan. 13, 1972, Randall, who was a student at Pine Forest Elementary School, didn’t return home from a nearby laundromat. Police said she had been abducted and discovered spilled detergent across the street from her home, the only clue at the time.
The search grew to more than 4,000 volunteers who fanned out around Marietta and Cobb. Students from Southern Technical Institute (now part of Kennesaw State University) found Randall’s body, but Marietta Police investigations that followed turned up thousands of leads but no suspect.
B
roady said Monday that new technology helped solve the case. The DA’s office got the case in 2015, and sent evidence for advanced DNA analysis in the Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS), but without any results.
The advancement of genetic genealogy technology produced further information, helping investigators develop what’s called a familial DNA profile.
The body of Rose, who committed suicide in 1974, was exhumed, with DNA tests confirming him as the killer, according to the Cobb DA’s office.
Randall’s mother died in 2018 and her father in 2022.
“The loss of a loved one, especially one of such a tender age is difficult to comprehend,” Broady said. “This family has waited for decades for an answer. This information will not replace the pain of losing Debbie Lynn.”
He thanked Cold Case Unit Detective Ron Alter and other agencies “to provide some closure to this case.”
They included Marietta Police, Randall’s family, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, DNA Labs International and Rose’s family
(Photos provided by Cobb District Attorney’s Office.)
Related:
- Cobb Police searching for suspect in Delk Road apartment murder
- Register officially appointed as Cobb public safety director
- Cobb Police K9 dies in hot patrol car after A/C malfunction
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