MCGEHEE, Ark. — In 1989, Julia Golden was a McGehee school teacher and mom to a three-year-old when her life was cut short.
Now, 35 years later, her daughter Vanessa Howell is back in Arkansas, hoping to find justice.
"Throughout the years, I just felt like I kept having to relive it over," Howell said. "I just thought... it's time."
Howell, back in Arkansas for the first time in over three decades, is now hanging up flyers of her mom, determined someone will come forward to help solve the cold case.
"My family doesn't know what happened," Howell said. "They were very fearful, so I've always searched. I just never made that jump to come back here."
But the journey back to her hometown came with heavy emotion.
"Anger, sometimes upset," Howell said. "She wasn't at my wedding. She didn't get to see her grandkids... to leave a three-year-old little girl to find her mother. I think that has to be a pretty evil person."
Howell's search for closure brought her back to the doorstep of her childhood home in McGehee, which is also the last place she saw her mother alive.
"I think that's the part for me that is most troubling," Howell said. "A crime scene of that magnitude [and] no one saw anything? Everyone was so close."
Julia Golden was killed on September 24, 1989, and at three years old, Howell remembered running to her.
"I said, 'Mommy, mommy, wake up,'" Howell said. "She wouldn't wake up.
After realizing something was wrong, Howell ran to a neighbor's house, who called 911.
"[Golden] had been stabbed repeatedly," Howell said. "Throat had been slashed. Clothes were ripped off. [Police] said she was stabbed over 100 times."
According to police documents, investigators believe the killer likely "knew Golden well." Authorities have questioned at least five initial suspects and more than a dozen witnesses.
Investigators said Golden was likely killed with a knife and an ice pick by two people, steering detectives toward duos that included Wayne Harris, a married man Golden was rumored to have had an affair with, and his brother-in-law.
During an interview with Harris, he claimed he was home with his wife at the time of the murder. However, Harris did admit to having an affair with Golden, but said he hadn't slept with her in years.
"My brain starts working in a million different places," Howell said.
Learning of Golden and Harris' relationship led Howell to take a DNA test in 2020, proving Harris was her dad.
"It also brought together some different stories and things that I've heard," Howell said.
Police never arrested Harris for anything concerning the case, and he was never charged with a crime. Court records show another pair of initial suspects, Golden's coworker, Anette Thomas, and her girlfriend, Jody Matthews.
"It was said that there were two women that questioned my mother," Howell said. "If she was involved romantically with someone else... with one of them."
Additionally, court documents explained how the state believed Golden was jealous of Thomas' friendship with Golden, bringing them to her apartment that night. The McGhee Times reported that during the trial, a detective claimed Thomas confessed to watching Matthews stab Golden, an alleged confession that Thomas later recanted.
None of the conversation was recorded on tape, and newspapers said the officer's trustworthiness was questioned.
"One person pulls out a knife, stabs over 100 times, and the other person is supposed to have helped status or with an ice pick," Howell said. "There was a bloody scene, and everybody walked away."
Police brought this theory to trial, arresting Thomas and Matthews for capital murder.
At trial, the state told jurors that police found an ice pick in Thomas' car, the same vehicle neighbors spotted at Golden's apartment the morning she died. Thomas said she didn't have anything to do with the murder.
"I remember coming here for a trial and seeing myself on TV," Howell said. "I was in a hotel room, and the news station was airing the story on the case."
The jury found Thomas guilty as she was thought to be an accomplice in Golden's murder. After the verdict was announced, Thomas appealed, and the judge ruled that evidence wasn't properly introduced.
Three years after her arrest, the case was tried again, ending with Thomas being found not guilty.
Meanwhile, Matthew's charges were dropped as newspapers said there wasn't enough evidence.
"I went to state police," Howell said. "I was told Jody's case is sealed."
Even with at least five potential suspects and dozens of interviews with witnesses, Howell is left without an answer regarding who killed her mother.
"It's just a lot of information to separate all the different things," Howell said. "All of it can make sense. It's just which one is really the truth."
And 35 years later, Howell is still searching for that truth.
"I'm not a three-year-old girl anymore," Howell said. "I want to get to the bottom of this, and I just decided that I'm either going to win or I'm going to lose. I'm not going to lose in life."
Through her efforts, Howell hopes to bring closure for her family and everyone still waiting for justice.
I also don't want another little girl to have to suffer that way," Howell said. "I couldn't walk to the mailbox by myself. I would like to know what happened that night. No matter what, that would be closure for me and my family."
According to newspapers at the time, Thomas' lawyer argued that the police chose not to test a Caucasian hair sample as they investigated two Black women as suspects despite a hair never being mentioned in the police file.
Because of this story and Howell's efforts, McGehee police said they have reached out to Arkansas State Police to see if the case can be reopened.
Howell said anyone who may remember something about the case should call McGehee Police or Arkansas State Police.