SHELBY, N.C. -- After more than 40 years, the family of a murdered 11-year-old could finally see a man tried for her death.
A Cleveland County judge will likely decide Tuesday if there is enough evidence to try 80-year-old Thurman "Soupy" Price for the murder of Brenda Sue Brown.
Brown never returned home from taking her younger sister Patricia to school in July 1966. Her naked body was found later in the woods. She'd been beaten with a rock.
Price was arrested in 2007 after the granddaughter of an alleged accomplice told police her grandfather told her he and "Soupy" had dragged the girl from the road and planned to rape her.
Lori Lail testified in court Monday that her grandfather, Earl Parker, told her they were on a drunken bender after visiting the bootlegger the night before.
Parker was sick with cancer in 2002 when he allegedly told Lail. He died soon after. Lail did not come forward with the story until 2006, when she testified that she saw an article about the Brown case and "put 2 and 2 together."
Lail said she was sick with her own cancer at the time, and her conscience compelled her to come forward, "cause if I died, I'd be the only one who knew the truth about that man [Price]," she testified.
Price's attorney, David Teddy, suggested that Parker was confused due to his illness. He also questioned Lail's memory, pointing out several inconsistencies with the story she first told police and the one she told in court.
Much of the physical evidence in the case was lost, and several investigators have died. Parker's body was exhumed in 2006, but could not be connected to the crime.
Price and Parker both did some time in jail in the 1950s after they were convicted of the attempted rape of a 12-year-old prostitute in 1954.
Brenda Sue Brown's family fought to have the case reopened in 2006. They had long-suspected another man, who is now in prison for an unrelated crime. Parker's version of events, according to Lail's testimony, suggests that man was a witness to the crime.
Brown's sisters struggled with the graphic testimony in court.
"It was just like it was yesterday. It was all so plain, all over again," Patricia Burr said.
"I can see her going down the sidewalk, and I can see her putting up a fight," Mary McSwain said, crying. "I pray, God, please break him. Just to tell the truth. Please break him."
Price is out on bond. His attorney predicted that the judge will make a decision about a trial Tuesday.
