Terrance “Konomi” Plummer (Ace of Spades, North Carolina)

Summary

Podcast: The Deck
Episode: Terrance “Konomi” Plummer (Ace of Spades, North Carolina)
Host: Ashley Flowers / Audiochuck
Date: July 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode tells the story of the brutal 2010 murder of Terrance "Konomi" Plummer, a young sex worker in Fayetteville, North Carolina. For years, the case haunted lead investigator Lt. Jeff Locklear, who refused to let it go cold despite countless setbacks. The episode reveals how a simple change in forensic database procedure finally led to the identification and arrest of the killer, Joshua Aaron Richardson, over a decade later. The episode deftly explores themes of perseverance, community trust, the violence faced by trans and sex worker communities, the evolution of forensic technology, and the importance of dedication in law enforcement.

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Detailed Breakdown & Insights

The Crime Scene and Initial Investigation

[03:54–08:56]

• Locker describes arriving at the abandoned duplex during a scorching North Carolina Memorial Day weekend.

• The apartment is filthy, filled with trash, beer bottles, cigarette butts, and no electricity; the odor of death is overwhelming due to the heat.

• Plummer's body is found face down, partially clothed, with catastrophic injuries indicating a prolonged, brutal attack.

  “Death has a smell… the copper taste, it’s like putting a penny in your mouth. That’s what you get at a really bloody crime scene.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [04:24]

• Evidence includes a bloody knife (often kept hidden for protection by those using the room), blood-soaked bedding, condoms, beer cans, and about $100, ruling out robbery as a motive.

• The attack appeared to start in the bathroom and continued to the bedroom, with injuries indicating torture: severed Achilles tendons (to prevent escape), cut eyelids (forcing the victim to witness the torture), multiple stab wounds, and a fatal chest wound making it impossible for Plummer to scream.

Community Engagement and Obstacles

[08:56–14:54]

• Locklear’s approach is hands-on and empathetic; to earn trust, he brings breakfast to the local sex worker community, making it clear he's there to solve a murder, not to harass or criminalize them.

  “I’ll talk to a stop sign, right? If it'll stand still long enough, I'll have that conversation.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [08:56]

• The community paints a bleak picture: violence from clients is a daily reality, too routine to narrow down specific suspects.

  “Man, we deal with that every day, multiple times a day.”
  – Anonymous sex worker to Locklear, [11:44]

• Locklear learns about a man posing as a security guard, rough clients, and specifically follows up on a man who had argued with Plummer the night before the murder.

• Forensics identify a crucial bloody palm print at the crime scene—not Plummer’s—which becomes Locklear’s main lead.

  “Hearing that the palm print didn't belong to the victim and that it was in the victim's blood was almost like an early Christmas gift.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [15:34]

Years of Frustration & Technological Hurdles

[17:35–22:44]

• Despite initial confidence, the palm print yields no matches in any database, and Locklear faces years of dead ends.

• The case becomes his “white whale”; colleagues and Plummer’s family regularly press him for updates.

• The latent print examiner becomes as obsessed as Locklear, even dreaming about the palm print.

  “She could literally [see] the ridge detail… it was burned into her mind. She wanted it solved almost as much as I did.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [21:52]

• Locklear refuses to let the case be archived as cold, keeping the file close at his desk for over a decade.

Breakthrough: Rerunning Prints in New Databases

[23:01–27:30]

• In 2022, after presenting the case at a conference of homicide investigators, Locklear receives a critical tip: forensic databases have changed. Many old prints, if entered years prior, may have only been checked locally, not nationally.

• Locklear re-enters the palm print, which is now compared against a vastly larger national database.

  “Just simply take it out… re-enter it, and then that way it’ll go nationwide. It won’t just query against prints from your region.”
  – Andy Parker (CCBI), as recounted by Lt. Jeff Locklear, [24:40]

• Almost immediately, there’s a match. The killer is identified as Joshua Aaron Richardson, a former Fort Bragg soldier with a history of violence and drug-related arrests.

Arrest, Justice, and Reflections

[28:03–33:47]

• Richardson was living unhoused in Texas and admitted to being at Fort Bragg and in the area but denied knowing the victim until confronted with undeniable forensic evidence.

  “Well, physical evidence says otherwise. Right. His palm print is in my victim's blood in that bathroom. So that story went out the window really quickly.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [29:51]

• Richardson, when told about the evidence, resignedly said, “Well, I guess you got me. Do what you gotta do.” [30:05]

• He ultimately takes a plea deal for second-degree murder and enters North Carolina’s prison system in 2024 with a projected release in 2038.

• No other murders have been linked to Richardson, but Ashley Flowers notes the brutality makes this “hard to believe.”

Closure for Plummer’s Family and Lessons for Law Enforcement

[32:17–End]

• Locklear makes the call to Plummer’s father:

  “Mr. Plummer, I'm calling you to let you know that we have the person in custody who took your son's life.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [32:17]

• Mr. Plummer replied:

  “I'm glad you didn't give up on my son's case. I'm glad that you didn't forget. That was always our concern, the family's concern. Thank you for never forgetting.”
  – Mr. Plummer, as recounted by Lt. Jeff Locklear, [32:29]

• Locklear reflects on the card deck motif: these are not just cases of loss, but “a deck of possibilities”—reminders that persistence and fresh eyes can break even the coldest cases open.

  “If I lived to be 100 years old, the crime scene and this kid's picture, I would probably remember them even if I lived to be an old, old man… It’s a deck of possibilities.”
  – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [32:49] & [33:03]

• Locklear ceremonially writes "SOLVED" across Plummer’s Ace of Spades card.

• Mr. Plummer shares a deeply personal, faith-filled statement, emphasizing forgiveness, peace, and the ongoing pain of loss. He urges families to keep pressure on law enforcement, to ask for new testing, and to be “the squeaky wheel.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Death has a smell… the copper taste, it’s like putting a penny in your mouth." – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [04:24]
• "I’ll talk to a stop sign... If it'll stand still long enough, I'll have that conversation." – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [08:56]
• “Man, we deal with that every day, multiple times a day.” – Neighborhood sex worker, [11:44]
• "Hearing that the palm print didn't belong to the victim and that it was in the victim's blood was almost like an early Christmas gift." – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [15:34]
• "She could literally [see] the ridge detail… it was burned into her mind. She wanted it solved almost as much as I did." – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [21:52]
• "Just simply… re-enter it, and then that way it’ll go nationwide." – Andy Parker (CCBI), [24:40]
• "Well, I guess you got me. Do what you gotta do." – Joshua Aaron Richardson, as recalled by Lt. Jeff Locklear, [30:05]
• "If I lived to be 100 years old, the crime scene and this kid's picture, I would probably remember them..." – Lt. Jeff Locklear, [32:49]
• "Until then, I choose faith over bitterness, love over hate, and trust in God's plan even when I do not understand it." – Mr. Plummer (statement read by Ashley Flowers), [34:00+]

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Key Timestamps

• [03:54] – Discovery of Terrance Plummer’s body, scene description
• [04:24] – Lt. Locklear on the visceral details of the crime scene
• [05:18] – Initial findings, evidence, and ruling out robbery
• [08:56] – Community outreach and sex worker perspectives
• [11:14] – DNA/fingerprint evidence collection challenges
• [14:54] – Bloody palm print as a critical piece of evidence
• [17:35] – Forensic stalemate; the palm print doesn’t match any records
• [21:52] – Latent print examiner’s obsession with the case
• [23:01] – Suggestion at homicide conference to re-enter palm print
• [24:40] – Discovery that forensic databases now search nationally, not just locally
• [27:07] – The print match and killer’s identification
• [28:03] – Joshua Aaron Richardson’s arrest, plea deal, and prison sentence
• [32:17] – The closure call to Plummer's father and his heartfelt response
• [32:49] – Locklear's reflection and the ceremonial act of marking the case "solved"
• [34:00+] – Mr. Plummer’s statement about loss, faith, and gratitude

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Lessons & Takeaways

• Technological progress in forensic science means cold cases can now be solved with fresh database searches—rerunning old prints is crucial.
• Repeated community and family pressure on law enforcement helps keep cases alive and prioritized.
• Empathy, persistence, and community trust are key for detectives working “invisible” cases among marginalized groups.
• Violence against trans people and sex workers, particularly in military-adjacent communities, is routine but under-investigated; systemic change and understanding are needed.
• Reframing a cold case deck as “a deck of possibilities” encourages hope and creative thinking among investigators.

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Final Thoughts

This episode exemplifies the narrative and advocacy power of true crime podcasts: it not only tells a powerful story of justice and perseverance—the literal act of writing “SOLVED” on a cold case—but also gives practical advice to law enforcement and families. Through the voices of Locklear and Plummer’s grieving father, listeners are reminded both of the ongoing trauma of unsolved crimes and the possibility that, with time and tenacity, answers can be found.

Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

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[Ashley Flowers]

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[Rachel Brown]

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[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

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[Ashley Flowers]

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[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

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[Ashley Flowers]

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[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

This was in May, and It was about 95 degrees that day, and there's no power at this place, so it was really hot, really humid, and the place was covered in trash, and it's got a lot of old beer bottles and that kind of stuff, and the place was just filthy. You go into that room, and one of the things that you learn real early as a homicide cop is death has a smell. And that was readily evident in only 24 hours because of the heat. That smell had permeated the whole room. It the other things you smell is blood, and there's a lot of it in this case. And the best way I can describe that to you is to put a penny in your mouth. That sensation you get from that copper taste is kind of when you go into a really bloody crime scene, that's kind of what you're dealing with.

[Ashley Flowers]

As Lieutenant Locklear stepped into the stifling room, his eyes fell to the victim's body, laying face down, wig displaced and bra still on, but naked from the waist down and positioned a few feet from a mattress that was on the bedroom floor.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

As we walked over, a little closer to his the victim's body, the amount of injury even before we moved the victim was evident. There's cutting, slash marks throughout. Legs, hands, arms, face. And again, you know, I don't want the crime scene folks yelling at me. I don't want to move anything around, but I'm trying to really take a look at what I have.

[Ashley Flowers]

Part of what he had right from the top was what he suspected could have been the murder weapon. A bloody knife laying next to the

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

body, trying to paint you a picture. And this is common, what we see and what we describe as a trap house or a flop house. There's a mattress on the floor. It's not in a bed frame. It's just a mattress on the floor. The comforter was covered in blood. A lot of clothing and stuff laying around. A lot of cigarette butts. And again, it's 95 degrees in there, right? So we hadn't been working 30 minutes and we were already soaking wet with sweat. That becomes an issue too, because you don't want to drip sweat or contaminate your evidence or whatever. And then you got three or four people in a room working. So that adds the heat. You know, it starts building up even more. So I don't remember the exact number of pieces of evidence, but we collected a significant amount.

[Ashley Flowers]

Along with the blood soaked bedding and cigarette butts, there were a number of condoms and beer cans around the room, along with something that ruled out at least one motive.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

There was actually some money on the floor in the bathroom. I think there might have been over 100 bucks total, which kind of made me think, okay, well, this wasn't a robbery.

[Ashley Flowers]

The money might have confirmed that this wasn't a robbery. But I don't think anyone really believed at any point that that was the motive here. It appeared to Locklear that the attack started in the bathroom where Plummer was first stabbed in the upper thigh. And you could tell that because of the arterial blood that had been sprayed on the bathroom wall. It then seemed that Plummer moved or was moved to the bedroom, and that's where the rest of the attack took place. When I say attack, I am not just talking about a frame, frenzied knife attack. This was torture. And this next part, it's a lot to take in, mostly because it reads more like a horror movie than a crime scene. But it is also important. I believe it speaks to the killer's mo, Their state of mind and what they're capable of doing. Plummer had multiple stab wounds, including one between the collarbones to the top of both lungs. According to law enforcement, this made it so that Plummer couldn't scream. Their Achilles tendons were severed so that Plummer couldn't run, and their eyelids had been completely cut off, so that Plummer likely had to watch everything that was happening. Ultimately, the cause of death was determined to be exsanguination. As in, Plummer bled to death from the Multiple injuries inflicted by the very knife that was found near their body. The sheer brutality of this case only fueled Locklear to get out on the streets and talk to anyone that he could.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

I'm the kind of fellow that I'll talk to a stop sign, right? If it'll stand still long enough, I'll have that conversation.

[Ashley Flowers]

But talking to someone and getting someone to give you information are two very different things. And Locklear knew that in order to solve this case, earning the trust of the community was the only way to get people to speak with him.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

I even tried several times. Stop by early in the morning with some McDonald's coffee and some breakfast. I went out there several times like that, and I would just show up in the neighborhood, stop by McDonald's, get 10 or 15 biscuits, a couple cups of coffee, park my car, set that stuff on the trunk, and the people in the neighborhood would swing by. My last name is Locklear, so for short, they call me Locke. It's Detective Locke. What's up, man? You know, you pass out the stuff to see if anybody had information or whatever. They knew I weren't out there to shake them down for what they did or, you know, pat them down for any drug paraphernalia, whatever. I'm trying to solve a murder here. I don't have time for those kind of crimes, Right? I didn't care.

[Ashley Flowers]

The Mickey D's worked. It drew a woman to Locklear who knew a whole, whole lot about the room that Plummer was found in, because she said it was kind of a shared space with a bit of a if, you know, you know, kind of secret.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

So she's sitting there, just kind of leaned against the seat, just talking to him and everything. And she opened up real quick as far as information goes. She said, hey, my DNA's in that room. You're gonna find my fingerprints in that room. She said, I was just in there two nights ago. There's probably some condoms in there. And she's the one that initially brought up the knife. And she said, hey, there's a knife in there that we always kept hid underneath the mattress. And everybody that used the room knew that that knife was in there. If you had a date go bad, you know, and somebody's trying to be weird with you or trying to hurt you or whatever, you know that there's a knife in there. So I had her describe it to me. I even showed her a picture of it, and she was like, yep, that's it. That's the knife.

[Ashley Flowers]

So their Murder weapon was something shared, but who knows by how many people. That, plus all the condoms, beer bottles, and cigarette butts in that room that was used by so many people was gonna make for a real game of DNA whack a mole.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

So we're loading that database up, right? Everybody I talk to, I try to stick a Q tip in their mouth and get them to give me their fingerprints. We identified a lot of other sex workers in the room as well, with fingerprints.

[Ashley Flowers]

Locklear was depending on this community of sex workers to explain who might want to do this to Plummer. Did someone have it out for them in particular? Were there any violent clients that they knew of? Well, it turned out Lt. Locklear had a lot to learn.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

It didn't take long for us to start talking to some of the other folks in the neighborhood who were sex workers. And immediately, you know, we start asking them, can you guys think of someone who stands out, that you've dealt with, who's rough or who's in the twisted stuff, who has tried to hurt people in the past? Can you guys point any of those out? And they kind of looked at us funny. And I. I remember some of them. I was like, well, you're looking at me funny. Why is that? And they're like, man, we deal with that every day, multiple times a day, right? And I was like, oh, okay. Well, all right. Rank them then, right? Who should I go look for? Who. Who was the victim with?

[Ashley Flowers]

But the problem wasn't narrowing people down. The problem was that there were too many people to count. And again, while we don't know how Plummer identified transgender people are targets for violence in outsized numbers. The Human Rights Campaign foundation found that since 2013, 84% of known transgender homicide victims in the United States were people of color, and nearly 74% were black trans women. Things get a whole lot murkier when it comes to trans sex workers near military bases. But a RAND study found that certain military installations were hotspots for sexual assault, with some bases reporting more than 500 assaults in a single year. If you heard our recent episode about Jimmy Jamie Riddle, then you know that this level of violence near a military base is not uncommon. But even still, there were a few specific people that came on Locklear's radar.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

There's a guy who. He wouldn't dress like a cop, but he was in a security guard uniform, and he would kind of portray himself as a cop, they said would come up there all the time and, like, would. Especially with the less experienced sex Workers, you know, he would stop them, you know, and tell them to get against the wall, and he would pat them down really rough or whatever. Just a kind of a weird, weirdo kind of guy. And I told my partner at the time, all right, we're literally gonna start every name that they give us, we're gonna start writing that name down when we find them.

[Ashley Flowers]

And that's exactly what Locklear did. He ran down every name he'd been given, including a man that Plummer had, according to witnesses, had an argument with the. The night before the murder. Someone who was historically known to be rough with sex workers. And while Locklear was knocking on all these people's doors, getting fingerprints and DNA swabs, he got his first piece of good news. They actually had something that they could compare those things to, or at least the print. A bloody palm print was recovered from the scene in Plummer's blood.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Luckily, that palm print was on the sink, which is a very smooth surface, almost glass, like so. It was perfect and it was in blood. So my initial concerns were that that palm print belonged to my victim. You know, he tried to. After he was injured, he put his hand over it or whatever, got some blood on his hand, and then he deposited that palm print. So that's the first thing that I had our latent examiner check. Hey, make sure that doesn't belong to the victim.

[Rachel Brown]

It didn't.

[Ashley Flowers]

Which meant that no matter who else came and went from that place and went, this had to be their killers.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Hearing that the palm print didn't belong to the victim and that it was in the victim's blood was almost like an early Christmas gift, because I knew that that's the key piece of evidence in this case.

[Ashley Flowers]

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[Rachel Brown]

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[Ashley Flowers]

in the mind of then detective Jeff Locklear. Once he heard that he had the killer's palm print in the victim's blood, he was sure it was going to be case closed in no time. Locklear may have been just seven years into his career, but by then he had already had a reputation for getting results.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Up until this point in my career, I'd never had an unsolved case. And that was a. It was a point of pride for me, I guess, right? And I kind of walked around like I was 10ft tall and bulletproof, and I wasn't concerned at all at this crime scene. I'm like, get this thing figured out. You know, we'll be done by the end of the week. We'll have this thing figured out. The sink, there's a bloody palm print that's solid gold right there for me. I'm like, I thought I had it right. We brought that bloody palm print back and we ran it through our databases, and I didn't get a hit.

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, sh. T. That was the first moment that Locklear felt not so tall and not quite so bulletproof.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

So now we're months into the investigation, and nobody that I had talked with so far, none of those folks palm print matched the palm print that was taken from the scene. We didn't have any other crimes that mirrored that crime. Nothing else to make us believe that we had somebody was going around chasing down sex workers to murder them. So it's a little frustrating. You get a little depressed about it because you got this key piece of evidence Here. That's a. What better evidence than a print? And I couldn't match it. It weren't hidden in any of our databases.

[Ashley Flowers]

There's no way Locklear could forget about this case. Because even if he tried, the community wasn't going to let him.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

As the weeks and days went on, if I was just driving through and I stopped at a stoplight and one of those folks saw me from that neighborhood, they would scream it out, you told us you were gonna solve it. Don't lie. Don't be a liar. And that also became a burr in my saddle, if you will. Cause I had made my mind up that just to show us Grits his grocery. I was gonna solve this case. This was my white whale case.

[Ashley Flowers]

Plummer's family was knocking down Locklear's door, too. We reached out to Terrance Plummer Sr. And he didn't want to be interviewed at this time. So Locklear told us about his calls with the Plummer family.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Every time I talked with them, they always just wanted to remind me, look, don't forget about this. This is a human being. And regardless of where that person was at in their life, he made some mistakes, got on the wrong road, but they loved that person, right? And they reminded me of that.

[Ashley Flowers]

Locklear didn't forget about this case. And even though this was his white whale, he had other murders that landed on his desk, other murders that demanded his time. Pulling him away from the one case that he couldn't solve.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

I don't know that a day went by that I didn't think about it. And the guys in the office, every chance they got, reminded me that I had that unsolved. And it was really frustrating to know that I had the. One of the most sought after identifiers in the case, and it hadn't identified anyone. That was tough.

[Ashley Flowers]

Whenever he had a moment to revisit the Plummer case, Locklear did. He was turning over every possibility that he could think of. Throwing out theories, chasing leads, seeing what might stick. He was even calling other military installations to see if maybe they had similar cases. He presented the case at conferences. He reached out to homicide detectives outside of his department, hoping that someone might see what he couldn't. At one point, Locklear even asked the Latent Print examiner if he could be totally mixed up questioning his own investigation. But the Layton examiner assured him that the palm print is exactly what they needed to nail their guy. And she became nearly as obsessed with this as him.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

She said that she had actually dreamed about that palm print, she could literally. The ridge detail and everything was ingrained into her brain. She could identify that print not even looking at it. It was just burned into her mind that way. She wanted it solved almost as much as I did.

[Ashley Flowers]

As years went by, Plummer's case would have should have been in a new home, the cold case room. But Locklear refused to move it. Not even when he switched desks and got a promotion to sergeant in 2019. Plummer's big old box remained in front of him the entire time. And as it turns out, Locklear's relationship with Homicide was a lot like his relationship with Plummer's case. No matter how far he wandered, he always found his way back. By 2022, he was in his old stomping grounds again.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

I eventually found myself back in charge of the Homicide unit. And the first week, the first day I'm back up in the homicide unit, of course, my mind immediately goes back to this case. Now that I'm back up in Homicide, I'm going to solve this case.

[Ashley Flowers]

For Plummer's case, Locklear was a dog with a bone. And just as he was settling back into the homicide unit, one of the detectives mentioned the Mid Atlantic Cold Case Homicide Investigators association meeting. He said, hey, why don't you go and present this case? And at this point, Locklear was willing to do anything, so why not now? The folks at this conference are the best of the best. They are retired FBI agents, homicide detectives, SBI agents, DNA experts. You get the picture. And all at one meeting for Locklear to shoot his shot again.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

And I presented the case to them, they, you know, wrote some notes down, threw some ideas at me. And a friend of mine who is actually in charge of a big chunk of CCBI in Raleigh, the City County Bureau of Identifications. His name's Andy Parker. Catches me in the hallway after I presented the case and makes a suggestion.

[Ashley Flowers]

Blink and you'll miss it. Because that was it. Just one moment in a hallway that changed the trajectory of this case.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

And he was like, look, I'm not trying to insult you here. But he was like, when you put that print in every night, it's consistently comparing other prints automatically. He said, you put that in in 2010. And I was like, yeah. He said, buddy, you might want to go back and check because the systems have all changed since then, and now they communicate.

[Ashley Flowers]

I'm sorry, what?

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Back then, all that was in its infancy, especially with palm prints. But he said, you want to make sure that your print's just not querying against just the prints that's in your local area. And I had, I said, well, I didn't know that, had never thought of that. So he said, just simply take it out or have your latent examiner take the print out and then re enter it. And then that way it'll go nationwide. It won't just query against prints from your region.

[Ashley Flowers]

Take a beat here and make sure what he just said fully sinks in, especially for anyone in law enforcement listening. Because I didn't know this. Locklear, the bulletproof homicide detective with a stunning stellar solve rate, didn't know this. The latent print examiner that he worked with didn't mention this to him. So I have to think that other people out there don't know this too. And I get why. Because trying to get to the bottom of this has been super confusing and complicated. The question I went around asking everyone is, does APHIS continually run unidentified prints against new ones or not? And the answer I think I'm getting back, at least from the Fayetteville PD and Kristen Slapper, a forensic scientist, is no question mark. And the question mark is only coming from me because when I look at state agency websites, some of them very clearly say that queries are continually being rerun. So I get why everyone's confused. It seems like there is a difference in the state and national databases and even state to state that don't treat rerunning prints the same. I am determined to try and get a source of truth on this and be able to explain it in a way that a novice like me can, like, wrap my head around. But I need a little more time. Stay tuned until then to be safe. If you have a cold case, take Locklear's advice. Rerun your prints. There is a chance that when you ran your prints, they were only compared to your local database, not a national one. And even if it was run against a national database at some point, if that was more than like a day ago, there are likely new prints to compare it to. Rerun your old prints. That might be the only thing standing between one of your cold cases becoming solved or not. Because guess what happened when Locklear reran his.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

My latent examiner calls me, asks me if I'm in the office. I tell her I am. She comes into my office and she said, I got some information. And I was like, well, hit me with it. And she said, she slides this piece of paper over on my desk and she said, that's the person that murdered Terrence Plummer.

[Rachel Brown]

For years, a deranged man in Wichita known as the Poet stalked Ruth Finley. He sent her letters, gifts, and poems. But no one could have guessed how this would end. From Sony Music Entertainment and New Metric Media, this is the Poet. I'm Rachel Brown. The Poet is available now on the binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcast to start listening Today, subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad free.

[Ashley Flowers]

After more than 13 years, Locklear finally had the answers that he'd been searching for. A name. And his latent print examiner took it one step further and included a photo.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

And I actually got to look at that person. I knew what he looked like. Now, you always think you got some idea of what the bad guy looks like. And in this case, I didn't. That's not what I expected. It's just a normal looking dude, right? Nothing special, nothing over the top. It just looked like another Joe. We're sitting there looking at one another, and there was a moment. We're just kind of like, this dude has haunted us for all these years and now we're sitting here looking at him. We know who he is. We know what his name is. We know where he's from.

[Ashley Flowers]

The man's name was Joshua Aaron Richardson. In 2010, he was a 28 year old soldier at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. But shortly after the murder took place, he had been chaptered out of the military for disciplinary reasons. He went on to have a significant criminal history. Records reveal six arrests for charges related to drugs, trespassing and assault, most of which took place after he'd gone back home to Texas. By the time Lt. Locklear was looking at his photo in 2022, Richardson was living in an unhoused camp for veterans. Locklear told our reporter, Annie Roderick Jones, that It took until 2023 for the Fayetteville PD and the Houston PD to solidify a plan of action. But when they got Richardson in for an interview, he admitted to being a soldier at Fort Bragg during the time of Plummer's murder. He even said that he'd been to some strip clubs around the Bonny Doone area. But he said that he didn't know the victim.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Well, physical evidence says otherwise. Right. His palm print is in my victim's blood in that bathroom. So that story went out the window really quickly.

[Ashley Flowers]

And then what did he do when you told him that you had the evidence to show that he was the

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

one comment was made almost like, well, I guess you got me. Do what you Gotta do. So at that point, the decision was made to go ahead and swear to a warrant back here in North Carolina, which we did. And then he was taken into custody in Houston. And then the extradition process started.

[Ashley Flowers]

Richardson was indicted, and instead of going to trial, they offered him a plea deal.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

He was charged with first degree murder, and they took a plea for second degree. He is now in the custody of the Department of Corrections for the State of North Carolina.

[Ashley Flowers]

Richardson went to prison in 2024, and according to his inmate detail page, the minimum term of his sentence is 14 years and 11 months, and the maximum term is 18 years and 8 months. His projected release date is February 4, 2038. What's wild to me is that in all the time since his arrest and incarceration, Joshua Aaron Richardson has never been connected to any other murders. One of the reasons I felt it was important to include the details of what happened to Plummer is because I find that so hard to believe. That was Richardson's first. First and last murder. Richardson never gave a statement or a motive, even when a different detective interviewed him. But Locklear says that he feels pretty confident that there aren't any other victims of Richardson out there. But who knows? Maybe someone out there listening will rerun some old prints one day and get the same shock that Lieutenant Locklear did. So here's your reminder again. Rerun those prints. Locklear is constantly on the receiving end of calls. Not just from law enforcement, but from families. On Christmas, Thanksgiving, he always picks up the phone when they call about their loved ones. And over 12 years after Plummer's life was taken, he was the one to make the bittersweet phone call to their father.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Mr. Plummer, I'm calling you to let you know that we have the person in custody who took your son's life.

[Ashley Flowers]

And to that, Mr. Plummer replied.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

I'm glad you didn't give up on my son's case. I'm glad that you didn't forget. That was always our concern, the family's concern. Thank you for never forgetting.

[Ashley Flowers]

Lieutenant Locklear held Plummer's card in his hand during the interview with our reporter Annie. And he told her this.

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

If I lived to be 100 years old, the crime scene and this kid's picture, I would probably remember them even if I lived to be an old, old man.

[Ashley Flowers]

Anything next for this case? Or is it case closed?

[Lieutenant Jeff Locklear]

Case closed. This case file actually has already been put in storage. I had to pull it out of storage to do this interview with Ju. This podcast is called the Deck, and it's called the Deck for a reason. This deck of cards, some people could look at it as a deck of there's a deck of losses, right? Those are cases that you didn't solve. But I try to tell these young detectives coming up now, it's a deck of possibilities because you can take one of the cards out of this deck and possibly put some new fresh eyes on it and solve it, and then you can take that card out and you can do what I'm about to do.

[Ashley Flowers]

What Locklear did was take out Plummer's card, the ace of spades, and he scrawled one word across it diagonally in thick black marker. Solved. While Plummer's father didn't want to be interviewed for this pun podcast, he did have a message for families out there dealing with the same thing. He said, keep checking in with law enforcement, Ask about retesting, ask about science, be diligent, because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He also provided our reporter with a heartfelt statement about Plummer that I'd like to read. Losing my son to murder is a pain that words can never fully describe. For a long time, I carried hurt, anger, and questions that seemed impossible to answer. But I realized that if I held onto hate, it would only destroy me from the inside. I made the decision to give it to God because I could not carry that burden alone. Through prayer, God has helped me find peace, even in the midst of unimaginable loss. I pray for the person who took my son's life. I pray that somehow he will find his way to God, seek forgiveness, and allow God to change his heart. That does not erase the pain, but it frees me from being consumed by bitterness. There are still days when I wonder what my son's life would have been like if it had not been cut short. When I see the accomplishments of my friend's children, I'm genuinely proud of them and celebrate their success. Yet I cannot help help but think about what my son might have accomplished. What dreams would he have fulfilled? Whose life would he have touched? What kind of man would he have become? How many people would he have helped along his journey? Those questions will always remain in my heart. While I may never know the answers, I thank God for the time I had with him and for the memories that can never be taken away. I trust that God has my son in his case, and I look forward to the day when I will see him again. Until then, I choose faith over bitterness, love over hate, and trust in God's plan even when I do not understand it. The Deck is an Audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com I think Chuck would approve.