REOPENED: The Final Fare

Summary

Cold Case Files: REOPENED – The Final Fare

Podcast aired October 9, 2025
Host: Brooke Giddings (A&E / PodcastOne)
Focus: The 1961 murder of cab driver John Orner, the decades-long investigation, and the eventual resolution through faith, persistence, and forensic science.

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the tragic murder of John Orner, an elderly cab driver in South Carolina whose case went unsolved for over 40 years. Through first-hand accounts, investigators’ insights, and family testimony, listeners are guided through the original investigation, its dead ends, and the remarkable twists that reignited hope—eventually identifying Orner’s killer using advancements in forensic science and a touch of what many involved considered “divine intervention.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of the Crime

• Victim: John Orner, a cab driver in his 60s, went missing March 1, 1961 after accepting a late-night fare (00:03).
• Immediate Family Response:
  • Tom Joyner (Orner’s son-in-law) recalls the panic when Orner didn’t return home as expected (00:56).

    “He usually finished up around 11 o’clock...everyone knew that something had to be wrong for him not to come in.” —Tom Joyner [00:56]

• Discovery of Evidence:
  • Orner’s abandoned taxi found with blood spots and his wallet scattered—indicators of foul play (01:25).
  • Sand under the car’s fender traced to the Carolina Sandhills (01:34).
  • Orner’s body found three days later, gunshot to the head, pockets emptied, and dumped in the sandhills (02:35).

    “It was a sad sight. I wouldn’t have done a dog that way...” —Detective Harmon [02:35]

2. Early Investigation & Frustrations

• Ballistics & Pawn Shop Lead:
  • Ballistics identified copper-coated lead ammunition, likely from a .32 caliber Harrington & Richardson revolver (03:14).
  • Pawn shop records tracked sale of matching weapon to Army Private Edward Freiberger, who went AWOL the night of the murder (03:25-04:09).

    “Don’t have to be a Scotland Yard detective to put two and two together here.” —Investigator Carl Craig [04:09]

• Freiberger Apprehended:
  • Trooper Don Meredith recounts stopping Freiberger hitchhiking, discovering a loaded gun (04:53).

    “I encountered this hitchhiker...he said he was in the army...and he was AWOL.” —Trooper Don Meredith [04:53]

• Critical Ballistic Analysis:
  • The gun could not be conclusively matched to the bullet fragments, so the DA declined prosecution (06:27).

    “They had the gun and they had the man. Should have been prosecuted. That’s all I’ll say.” —Detective Harmon [06:54]

3. Decades Later: Faith, Serendipity, and Cold Case Persistence

• Family’s Faith & New Attention:
  • Tom Joyner credits a divine nudge during church to seek renewed action (10:33).

    “It came to me while I was in church to do something...gave me a feeling that something is going to happen.” —Tom Joyner [10:33]

• Reopening the File:
  • Captain Bill Brown from the sheriff’s department joins forces with cold case investigators Carl Craig and Brian Metz (11:07).
  • All original major players dead, and no immediate trace of key evidence, notably the murder weapon (12:29).
  • Amazingly, SLED’s firearms lab (Ira Parnell) still has both murder weapon candidates and the original bullet fragments (12:57).

4. Forensic Breakthrough

• Modern Ballistics Testing:
  • Two in-house forensic tests are still inconclusive (13:54).

    “It was very close. If I had anything else to support it...I might well have gone with a positive.” —Ira Parnell [13:54]

• Independent Review with New Technique:
  • Gun and bullets sent to seasoned examiner John Caton, who uses a novel cleaning process on bullet fragments (15:13).

    “There was still some blood and tissue on the bullets and I cleaned that.” —John Caton [15:13]

  • After cleaning, Caton finds reproducible matching patterns—finally a forensic match to Freiberger’s gun (15:55).

    “There was sufficient, identifiable, predictable, reproducible pattern...matching it to the test bullet that I’d fired.” —John Caton [15:55] “He called my chief and says, ‘You have the murder weapon.’” —Investigator Carl Craig [16:19]

• Conviction:
  • In August 2002, 41 years after the crime, Edward Freiberger is convicted of murder (16:56).

5. Reflections on Faith and Justice

• Divine Intervention:
  • Both investigators and family reflect on powerful roles played by persistence and faith.

    “I call it a divine intervention case...because it happened in church.” —Investigator Carl Craig [17:25] “Oh yes, definitely. Divine intervention. I definitely believe so.” —Tom Joyner [17:36]

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Memorable Quotes

• Tom Joyner on the Family’s Immediate Suspicion

  “Everyone knew that something had to be wrong for him not to come in.” [00:56]

• Detective Harmon on Finding the Body

  “I wouldn’t have done a dog that way, but...just throw him out there on the side of that road.” [02:35]

• Investigator Carl Craig on Obvious Evidence

  “Don’t have to be a Scotland Yard detective to put two and two together here.” [04:09]

• Detective Harmon’s Frustration at Inaction

  “They had the gun and they had the man. Should have been prosecuted. That’s all I’ll say.” [06:54]

• Carl Craig on Divine Intervention

  “I call it a divine intervention case...” [17:25]

• Tom Joyner on the Role of Faith

  “Definitely divine intervention...Carl, you are right on the money.” [17:36]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:56: Family describes realization something was wrong
• 01:25: Discovery of the cab and first forensic clues
• 02:35: Detective recounts finding John Orner’s body
• 03:25: Pawn shop records lead to suspect Edward Freiberger
• 04:53: Trooper Don Meredith apprehends AWOL Freiberger
• 06:27: Ballistic evidence inconclusive; case goes cold
• 10:33: Tom Joyner’s faith triggers a new push for justice
• 12:57: Remarkable rediscovery of preserved evidence
• 13:54: Second forensic reexamination yields no match
• 15:13: John Caton cleans bullet fragments for improved analysis
• 15:55: Forensic breakthrough—bullets matched to murder weapon
• 16:56: 41 years later, Freiberger convicted
• 17:25-17:36: Reflections on faith, fate, and closure

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Summary & Takeaways

This episode paints a moving portrait of the dogged pursuit for justice and the hope carried by victims’ families. Despite early frustrations, lost evidence, and dismissals, the persistence of investigators and a family’s unwavering faith ultimately close the book on a decades-old murder. The blend of personal narrative, forensic innovation, and the unexpected recovery of evidence provides a compelling conclusion—reminding listeners that answers can emerge even decades after a case has gone cold.

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For more details, join the discussion on the Cold Case Files Facebook group or explore bonus material at aetv.com/realcrime.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

An A and E original podcast.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. In February of 1961, John Orner was in his 60s and worked the evening shift as a taxi driver. On March 1, the company that he worked for, State Cabinet, dispatched him to the Officers Club right outside Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It was near the end of his shift, so he likely believed it would be his last fare of the night. He wasn't wrong. It was the last fair of the night. It was also his last fair ever. From A and E, this is Cold Case Files.

[Tom Joyner]

He usually finished up around 11 o', clock, sometime like that, around that time at night and he would come on home and he didn't come in. And so everyone knew that something had to be wrong for him not to come in. And he hadn't called in or anything.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

That was Tom Joyner, John Orner's son in law. The morning after John disappeared, his taxi was found abandoned in downtown Columbia.

[Tom Joyner]

They found his cab and there were blood spots on the front seat of the cab. That's when they knew that something had happened to him.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The investigators searched the car and besides the blood spots, they found the contents of John's wallet scattered in the backseat. Outside the car. They found pieces of mud stuck under the fender. So they took some samples. The samples were then sent off to be analyzed by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Commonly known as sled. When the mud was looked at under a microscope, it turned out to be a grainy sand, a huge lead in the case because that particular type of sand was only found in one place, the Carolina Sandhills. Three days after the cab was found abandoned, a group of police and volunteer searchers found john's body about 30 miles from Columbia in the Carolina Sandhill region. He had been dumped in a ditch alongside a country Road. Detective L.B. harmon was part of the search group.

[Detective/Investigator]

It was a sad sight. I wouldn't have done a dog that way, but I had to kill him for some reason. Just throw him out there on the side of that road and down the back.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

His body was face down, fully clothed, but his pockets had been turned inside out. He had a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. During the autopsy, the medical examiner was able to extract three bullet fragments. The fragments were sent to the ballistics department and identified as a specific type of bullet. Copper coated lead ammunition. Detective Harmon asked ballistics if there was a way to identify the type of gun.

[Detective/Investigator]

Wasn't long before he was certain it was from a.32 caliber revolver. Harrington and Richardson gun Because he had a gun just like it at the time.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The investigators visited all the local pawn shops and used gun dealers looking for a Harrington and Richardson revolver. After a few days, they found a log from a pawn shop called the Capital Loan Company that included the sale of the same type of gun and also the same type of ammunition. On February 28, the afternoon before John went missing, the purchase had been made by Edward Freiberger, an army private at Fort Jackson. The investigators contacted the CID Criminal Investigation Division of the army at Fort Jackson. Unfortunately, Freiberger had gone AWOL the night John Horner had gone missing. This is investigator Carl Craig.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

If you buy a weapon at three o' clock in the afternoon on the 28th of February, 1961, Mr. Orner takes missing. That night, Private Freiberger bought an identical weapon. And when you start to look for him, he's awol. Don't have to be a Scotland Yard detective to put two and two together here.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Private Freiburger was the only suspect in John's murder, and no one knew where he was for about a month. On March 29, 1961, Tennessee trooper Don Meredith was working the late shift when he noticed a man hitchhiking. Here's Trooper Meredith.

[Trooper Don Meredith]

I encountered this hitchhiker just east of town and I stopped to check him out just to see who he was and what the situation. And he said he was in the army. And he proceeded to talk. And determined he was awol, Meredith took.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The man into custody and patted him down for weapons. Discovering a gun.

[Trooper Don Meredith]

It was loaded and he told me he just bought it in a pawn shop in Knoxville.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Trooper Meredith learned that the hitchhiker was a man named Edward Freiberger. And not only was he awol, he was also a suspect in a murder. Meredith also realized the gun he confiscated could have been the murder weapon.

[Trooper Don Meredith]

So the sheriff in Richland county called me to see if I had this certain gun and he wanted to know if he could get it. Was wanted in a murder case and I said certainly.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Freiberger was locked up in a military stockade and his gun was sent to South Carolina to be examined by SLED's ballistic team. The gun arrived in Columbia on April 20, and a quick check of the serial number proved it was the same gun sold by the capital loan company to Freiburger. The next step was to connect the bullet fragments collected during the autopsy to the gun.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

The sheriff took it to Mr. Kate, who examined the gun along with several other guns. He eliminated several weapons, but did not eliminate this gun.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The examination couldn't eliminate the gun as the possible murder weapon. It also couldn't conclude that it was likely the murder weapon. So while the discovery of the gun was compelling, it was not direct evidence. The district attorney chose not to pursue murder charges despite Meredith and Craig's thoughts.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

I don't know why it didn't happen. I think anyone would agree that that's very strong circumstantial evidence.

[Detective/Investigator]

They had the gun and they had the man should have been prosecuted. That's all I'll say.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

He wasn't prosecuted though. And it took 40 years for another lead to be discovered.

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[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Tom Joyner and his wife went to church every Sunday to pray for answers in his father in law's case. In September of 1999, Tom felt a change.

[Tom Joyner]

It came to me while I was in church to do something and it just, it gave me a feeling that something is going to happen. And it happened.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

What happened was that Tom ran into an old friend, Bill Brown, who was a captain at the sheriff's department.

[Tom Joyner]

So I asked Bill if he could find out what the status of that case was. And he said, I'll see what I can find out for you.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

In Columbia, there was a three man team dedicated to solving cold cases. Captain Brown paid a visit to the team after speaking with Tom Joyner. This is investigator Carl Craig.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

Bill Brown stopped by my cube and asked me specifically if I had remembered a murder taking place at Fort Jackson of a cab driver in 1961. And I said yes, I do. His name was Arner and the suspect was named Freiberger.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Craig was the only officer who remembered John Horner's murder. Detective Brown explained that he went to church with John's only living relatives and that they still prayed for the case to be solved.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

He told me that he went to church with the only remaining relatives of Mr. Horner. And he asked me if I would take another look at the case. I told him I would.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Craig and his partner, investigator Brian Metz, pulled out the Orner case file for the first time in 40 years. This is investigator Metz.

[Detective/Investigator]

I was amazed. Finding a file like that sometimes can be the hard part. And, you know, that was not a hard part for us. We had it.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The hard part was going to be finding the people who wrote the reports in the file and the evidence that those reports were describing.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

I found that all nine people who touched this case were dead. I looked for the evidence and I couldn't find any. The gun was gone. Where was it?

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

The cold case detectives found the reports of the firearm testing that was conducted at sled. And even though they knew it was a long shot, they decided to contact them to see if they still had the gun. They spoke with Ira Parnell, the supervisor in the firearm lab.

[Detective/Investigator]

And when they called, I said, you're not going to believe this, but I have the evidence basically in my hand and it's in very good condition. And they almost came through the phone.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Needless to say, Metz was shocked that the long shot had paid off.

[Detective/Investigator]

I mean, I had to ask him again, you have what? And yeah, we had to. We have the guns.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Parnell found the bullet fragments pulled from John orner's skull and two identical.32 caliber Harrington and Richardson pistols, one of which was the gun taken from Edward Freiberger in 1961. The cold case investigators asked Parnell to re examine the evidence to see if a match might now be possible. He compared the test fires with the bullet fragments pulled from John skull. Like the previous ballistic examiner in 1961, Parnell concluded that the evidence was close, but not quite a match. Here's Parnell again.

[Detective/Investigator]

I was very close. If I had had anything else to support it on another section of bullet, then I might well have gone with a positive.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Unfortunately for the investigators, they were in the same place where the original investigation had come to a standstill. This is investigator Craig again.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

So we still have this weapon. It's gone through two examiners now. It's inconclusive. They won't say it is, and they can't say it isn't the weapon that killed Mr. Horner.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Disappointed, but also determined, the investigators decided to try something a little different.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

It was decided that let's go outside to an independent firearms examiner and see what they say. If they say it's inconclusive, we can wrap this thing up and put it back in the box once it came.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

In February of 2001, the investigators contacted John Caton, who was a criminalist and a firearm tool mark examiner. He had worked for the Kansas City Police Department for 31 years and then opened his own forensic lab. This is John Caton.

[Detective/Investigator]

The bullet was in three pieces. It was fragments. In examining the bullets, there was still some blood and tissue on the bullets and I cleaned that.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Cayton hoped that cleaning the bullets might reveal more of their surface so there would be more visible rifling marks, scratches on the bullet made when it exits the gun. He soaked the fragments in a solution of warm water, saline and soap. Then he used a sonic agitator to loosen any remaining bits of tissue. When he was finished, the fragments were examined once again to see how they compared with the test fires from Freyberg's gun.

[Detective/Investigator]

There was sufficient, identifiable, predictable, reproducible pattern on the question bullet, matching it to the test bullet that I'd fired.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Simply put, it was a match. Cayton called the investigators to let them know the results. Here's investigator Craig again.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

He called my chief and says, you have the murder weapon. The Freiburger murder weapon is the weapon that fired these three fragmented projectiles.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

In the third examination of the bullet fragments, the cleaning had made the difference and a forensic match possible.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

The procedure that John Caton used was a lot different than sled used. He cleaned the projectile in a manner which hadn't been done before. That was the crucial point in identifying it.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

In August of 2002, a jury returned the verdict. Guilty of murder in the first degree. 41 years after the fact. Edward Freiberger was found guilty of killing John Orner. Investigator Carl Craig had worked the case for free, volunteering his time to the Cold case unit. Tom Joyner believed that his family's faith in a higher power was was an essential part of solving the case.

[Investigator Carl Craig]

I call it a divine intervention case. I don't know how many people believe in divine intervention and I say divine intervention in this case because it happened in church.

[Tom Joyner]

Oh, yes, definitely. Divine intervention. I definitely believe so. And when Carl mentioned that fact to me as the case was over, I said, Carl, you are right on the money. You are there, my friend.

[Narrator/Brooke Giddings]

Cold Case Files, the podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey, Lin and Steve Delamater. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast one. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me brookegettings on Twitter and brookthepodcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold case [e-mail] or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the AE Real Crime blog at aetv.com realcrime.

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[Tom Joyner]

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