Student Carolyn Nevins was murdered in 1955.
Carolyn Nevins, a 20-year-old student, was shot Dec. 9, 1955, near today's Arts and Sciences Hall while waiting for her father to pick her up.
Two bullets of a .32-20-caliber pistol pierced her upper arm, one hit her left shoulder and another one hit her in the chest. Nevins died hours later in the 17-degree winter night.
Her killer was never found.
The murder of Carolyn Nevins set off one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the Omaha Police Department.
Within the first month of the investigation, police officers test-fired more than 300 .32-20 revolvers area residents had turned in. Ninety-two persons were given lie detector tests in the first six months of the probe.
At times, as many as 30 detectives and uniformed police officers worked on the case. The university hired Samardick and Company private investigators to assist with the case, who, in turn, called to help expert criminologist LeMoyne Snyder from Michigan.
Detective Don Ficenec, who works on cold cases at the Omaha Police Department, said the department would not be able to do today what it did back then. With between 30 and 40 homicides in the Omaha area every year, he said the department just wouldn't have the resources for such a manhunt.
Yet in spite of the huge investigation, police found few clues that could lead to the arrest of Nevins' killer. In the years of the investigation, they went up many blind alleys. They received many tips, including leads from a woman who claimed to have extrasensory perception and hints from people who said they had visions.
None of the tips proved to be helpful.
In October 1956, the case seemed to be resolved when a man from Long Beach, Calif., confessed to the murder. He gave a detailed confession, but police found many holes in his story and let him go. The case remained open.
After almost five decades, it is considered a cold case and is not actively investigated, Ficenec said.
The only time the case is opened up again is when a clue comes up during another investigation or when somebody comes forward with new information, he said.
The most recent entry Ficenec could detect in the case file was in 1982 when the OPD did comparison testing on some bullets.
In all 47 years, the murder weapon was never located. Neither was the prime suspect.
On the night of Nevins' murder, several people had reportedly seen a dark, slender, tall man standing next to Nevins at a bus stop on Dodge Street, 300 feet from Arts and Sciences Hall.
"Get the man who was at that bus stop and you have solved the case," was the word around the police station in 1956, according to a Feb. 12, 1956 article in the Omaha World-Herald.
A study of several Omaha World-Herald articles that followed the case over the years paints the following picture of the night of Dec. 9, 1955:
Arthur Nevins was supposed to pick up his daughter after she got off her job as a library assistant at the university at 10 p.m. However, he was delayed by other errands and didn't arrive until about 11:25 p.m.
Around 11 p.m., Nevins must have decided to take the bus home. A teacher who knew her saw her sitting at the bus stop at 10:55 p.m. and offered her a ride, but she declined.
Between 11 and 11:15 p.m., four people saw her sitting at the bus stop. The first person, who drove by shortly after 11 p.m., saw her alone. Three others saw a dark, tall, slender man standing near by.
With no witnesses, few clues and an unidentified suspect, only theory can explain what happened from here on.
After investigating the facts, Snyder concluded the shooting took place near the former Administration Building, between 11 and 11:30 p.m. The motive could have been an attempted sex assault.
Nevins, who was shot after resisting her killer's advances, probably fell unconscious and in deep shock, but revived two hours later and tried to get to Dodge Street. She made it 40 yards before she collapsed in a ditch along today's University Drive East, where she may have lived for another 30 minutes before she finally died.
A delivery truck driver found her body, covered by the falling snow, at 4:10 a.m. on Dec. 10, 1955.
The headline from the Dec. 16, 1955 Gateway read, "Nevins Held High Record," and told how Nevins was involved in a number of campus organizations and was an outstanding student and member of the community.
Alfred Sugarman, Nevins' speech teacher and debate coach, summed it up by saying in the Gateway article, "Once in a great while humanity is blessed with a spirit that comprehends and reflects the great values which move man forward in his struggle and stay upon the earth. Such a spirit was Carolyn. Her selflessness, her eagerness to learn, her desire to help and to build are symbols of man's highest qualities."
Ficenec said the chances of solving a crime such as this one are a lot better today than they were 47 years ago. But even in spite of modern resources such as online searches and databases, there are still some unresolved homicides every year at the OPD, he said.
As time goes by, the odds of solving those cases decline, Ficenec said. Witnesses die or move away or their memories of the events decay. Evidence may disappear. The perpetrator may die.
In Nevins' case, the perpetrator, if still alive, may be well over 70 and health-impaired by now, which poses the question whether such a person is still a threat to society, Ficenec said.
"There are lots of considerations that make it less and less likely, as years go by, that it's ever going to be solved," he said.