UNION TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A Union Township woman spent more than 40 years wondering who murdered her friend, but an announcement from the Hamilton County prosecutor Thursday brought her closure.
Joe Deters, along with the Loveland Police Department announced the posthumous indictment of Ralph Howell, the man they say raped and strangled Cheryl Thompson to death.
“I really am grateful — thank you guys, finally that you got him,” said Laura Bressert, a friend of Thompson's.
Bressert has saved newspaper clippings about Thompson's case for decades.
“Cause she was my friend, I wanted to know who did that to her,” she said.
She said she remembers Thompson as someone who had a good heart. They were the kind of friends who shared clothes and went out dancing on the weekends.
“We would dance together which would throw people off, like, ‘Huh?’ And it’s like we’re just having fun, just out there dancing together,” Bressert said.
It was when Thompson didn't return from a night out at an Oakley disco that her family reported her missing. Bressert said she had planned to go with her to the disco, but changed her mind.
“I begged her on the phone not to go because I had a bad feeling,” she said. “It’s driven me crazy for 40-something years because I wondered what happened?”
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Thompson is not the only one who could not stop thinking about the college freshman murdered and found on the banks of the Little Miami River.
“Law enforcement never forgot about her and her family and what they had to endure,” Deters said.
The Loveland Police Department along with other agencies continued to investigate the case for decades as technology allowed for new ways to look at the evidence. DNA technology is what finally solved the cold case, allowing investigators to match the DNA collected in Thompson's rape kit to DNA from Howell's jaw.
“She was a really good person, she didn’t deserve something like that,” Bressert said.
Deters said Howell was a serial killer believed to be responsible for the unsolved murders of multiple young women, including 17-year-old Charmaine Stolla, 18-year-old Nancy Ann Theobald and 24-year-old Victoria Hincher.
Bressert said she will continue to remember those nights spent dancing with her friend, but now she knows who was responsible for this crime that ended a life decades too soon.
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