Investigators still search for Kelly’s murderer

By Carrie A. Mizell

It’s been two years since the brutal murder of a 78-year-old local farmer sent shockwaves through Gilchrist County, and the case remains unsolved.
Gilchrist County Sheriff Daniel Slaughter says that his investigators are still actively working the murder case of A.M. “Junior” Kelly, Jr. and will continue to do so as long as he is in office.
Slaughter even went so far as to hire Bill Davis, a retired investigator who worked 33 years with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), with the sole purpose of finding the person or persons responsible for Kelly’s murder.
Once Davis took on the case, he went back over the case file, conducted more interviews, and took time to look over all the evidence taken from Kelly’s home after his November 2008 murder. Davis even re-submitted some evidence to the FDLE crime lab, citing an improvement in DNA evidence technology over the last two years, which might provide more answers to investigators.
As the county’s fiscal year ended in September, Davis’ part-time position with the Sheriff’s Office changed from three to four days spent working the case each week to just one day a week due to what Sheriff Slaughter calls financial constraints.
“Now he works when we can afford to pay him basically,” Sheriff Slaughter said in a telephone interview on Monday.
Though Lt. David Aderholt, investigations commander at the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office, said that his investigators continue to work the case day in and day out, he also said, “we tend to rely on Davis.”
As Davis pointed out on Tuesday morning in a telephone interview, the ball rests squarely in the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office court at this point. Since FDLE has closed their case on Junior Kelly’s murder, it is now up to local law enforcement to solve the heinous murder.
“I plan to work the case as long as I can,” Davis said. “But it’s a matter of how much time I am permitted to spend on it.”
In his experience with FDLE, Davis said that some cases took 10 to 15 years to solve, but investigators stayed at it, because walking away was not an option.
Kelly was found dead inside his home on County Road 341 in what then-Sheriff David Turner called, “An apparent home invasion that took place in the middle of the night.”
The victim of at least five burglaries between June 5, 2007, and November 19, 2008, Kelly feared for his own safety.
At no time was his fear more evident than in a Letter to the Editor printed in the July 24, 2008 issue of the Gilchrist County Journal, when Kelly stated that a number of items had been stolen from his home.
“Although the loss of money and stolen items is troubling, the real and most damaging loss is my peace of mind,” Kelly stated in the letter. “At 78, I should not have to deal with waking up at night, lying in my bed and listening for an intruder.”
Kelly’s foreboding words, which included the following statement, “The boldness of the criminals heightens my concern,” were meant to serve as a warning to the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office that action must be taken to protect not only himself, but all citizens of Gilchrist County.
Though his concerns for safety were aired in 2008, friends and family members of Junior Kelly would say that no one is safe until the person or persons responsible for his murder are brought to justice.
Anyone with information on the crime should call 463-7867; a reward of $5,000 is being offered.