Ashley Flowers

But that didn't mean he was off their radar by any means.

In fact, just eight days later, he put himself front and center for police.

A couple of things here.

First, Vernon is just a little over 10 miles from East Hartford.

And second, the risk of injury to a minor charge came because when George kidnapped this woman, her child was in the backseat of her car.

But this time, George couldn't just pay a fine and walk away.

He was convicted and sentenced to five to 10 years in prison.

Now, George's conviction was a good news, bad news situation for the East Hartford PD.

Good news was that he was off the streets.

Bad news was that this didn't move the needle in Janet's case.

they still had nothing to connect George to Janet's murder.

And by the end of 1974, there were still no new leads or new evidence.

And nothing changed even after George was released on parole in 1978.

Not even as decades passed by and the department tried to go through old evidence that they collected at the scene to see what was maybe viable for this brand new thing that was all the rage called DNA testing.

That was pretty much where Janet's case stood through the new millennium.

Police tried here and there to see if updated technology would help, but every time, no dice.

But as fate would have it, in May of 2021, another case changed everything for Detective Johnston, who had inherited the case a few years before.

Avon is just under a half hour from East Hartford.

The department had identified George after a hit on his DNA in CODIS.

It started in Massachusetts back in 2019.