Justice Delayed (Vickie Lynn Belk)
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I'll explain the reason why I showed you her picture. August of 1979, her body was found in Brian's ribs. When I say her body, she was deceased. Okay. She was sexually assaulted and she was shot in the head.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murph.
The pain and trauma that a violent crime inflicts on a victim's family can be not just life-changing, but multi-generational in its lasting impact.
But the one thing we don't talk enough about is how sometimes a tragedy can be the impetus for positive change or the driving force behind a life mission.
Whether that means becoming a victim's advocate, starting a charitable organization, becoming a police officer, or even going to law school, sometimes surviving can also mean thriving.
Vicki Lynn Belk was a child of the Civil Rights era. As a third grader in 1960, she had actually been among the very first group of African American students to integrate the school system in her hometown of Alexandria, Virginia.
Vicki went on to become the first person in her family to graduate from college. And by 1979, when she was 28 years old, she had a promising career.
But Vicki was a college graduate. She worked as a program analyst at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., and she was a single mother. She split time between her family's house in Alexandria, and she had a boyfriend at the time, James Hill, who lived in Siouxland, Maryland, which is in Prince George's County.
Sergeant John Elliott is a 28-year veteran of law enforcement who got to start patrolling the boardwalks of Ocean City, Maryland, before eventually joining the sheriff's office in Charles County, just southeast of D.C.
And as a member of that county's cold case squad, John was also an integral part of not just keeping Vicki's story alive, but helping to write its stunning conclusion.
The Monday morning of August 27th, 1979 started like it does for many Washington area commuters, with Vicki and her boyfriend James leaving his house in Maryland and crossing the border into D.C. to make their way to their respective jobs downtown.
Her and James Hill drove James Hill's vehicle to a parking lot located in Washington, D.C., which was at RFK, which is still standing there. It's where the Redskins used to play. It was a commuter lot. They would park the car there and then they would get on a metro train, take that downtown to the Department of Agriculture where they would go to work.
According to her boyfriend, James, who also worked at the Department of Agriculture. Vicki wanted to use his car to run some errands during her lunch break, and so she stopped by his desk on her way out.
Vicki got the keys from James Hill to return to the car, and then the plan was for Vicki to get James Hill's car and then come pick him up later at work when he was done.
But as the clock hit 5 p.m., there was still no sign of Vicki.
She never showed up to work to pick James Hill up. James Hill returned to the parking lot at RFK, didn't find his car, and couldn't find Vicki.
According to co-workers, Vicki had never returned from her lunch break. And while this was the age before cell phones, and it was not unheard of to be out of touch for a few hours, it was completely out of character for Vicki, who was known to be both reliable and punctual.
And so her boyfriend James started making phone calls. His concern was growing by the hour.
He looked throughout the night, checking with family in various places where she could be, but just wasn't able to locate her.
By the next morning, Vicki still hadn't shown up at either his home in Maryland or her family's home in Virginia. So James decided it was time to call police and report her missing.
The indication is very unusual for her to be gone and no one know where she is. That was extremely unusual. She was very dependable, reliable, had a nice government job. No identifiers or indications of any type of high-risk lifestyle or questionable behavior. Nothing.
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