CLEARWATER, Fla. – This year, Thanksgiving means nothing to John Wolf and his sister Noel Devine.
Seven weeks after their mother and her husband were found murdered in their Clearwater home, police still have not found the killer.
“I have nothing to celebrate,” said Wolf. “I’m just too distraught. I can’t wrap my head around any of it, I need an answer, so I hope somebody out there can help us. It would sure help me, you know?”
Mina, 80, and David Swan, 88, were found dead in their home on Sept. 29. Now, police are hoping billboards advertising a $25,000 reward may give them the tip they need.
“There’s been a lot of people we’ve had to track down and talk to and there’s a great deal of forensics evidence in this particular case too," said Clearwater Police Det. Brian Kanicki. “That takes time. It’s not like it is on TV, unfortunately,
"This is still a very active investigation; we are working on this every single day. We’ve interviewed over a hundred people, we’ve got hundreds of pieces of evidence that we continue to analyze and by no means is this a cold case.”
But time is a luxury Wolf doesn’t have. Living with incurable, inoperable Stage 4 cancer, he’s desperate to find some closure before he gives in to the disease.
“I can deal with cancer, there’s nothing there, just a bunch of chemo and you get sick all the time, that’s livable. But I can’t live with what happened to mom. I can’t,” said Wolf. “Car accident, you could accept, disease, you could accept, heart attack, you could accept. A lot of things you could accept, but not murder. That’s unacceptable, especially when it happens to someone so kind and caring and giving.”
“I need them to wrap it up before it kills me,” he added. “I’m confident with the detectives' abilities and I’m a big believer in science, so I’m confident they’re going to catch somebody, but sometimes you need a little help.”
With an additional $3,000 reward from Crime Stoppers, the total reward for an arrest and conviction in the case is now up to $28,000.
Clearwater Police say Outfront Media Inc. donated the space on the billboards for the ads. Anyone with information for police can call the Clearwater Police Crime Prevention Unit at (727) 562-4141.
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