Furniture shop owner mysteriously shot dead in 2010, AL cops say. Man now charged
A man has been charged in the death of a 69-year-old woman who was mysteriously shot dead 15 years ago at a furniture store she owned, Alabama police said and news outlets reported.
The woman — whom Dothan police identified as Grace Bell Bridges — died March 17, 2010, after a customer found her unresponsive at about 2:15 p.m., WSFA reported at the time.
Responding officers said she had been killed by a gunshot wound in her torso, the outlet reported.
In a recent review of the case, detectives found enough evidence to file an indictment against a 32-year-old man in connection with Bridges’ death, the Dothan Police Department said in an April 9 news release.
Police did not reveal the name of the man who was charged with murder because he was a minor at the time of the crime, according to the release.
The shooting happened during an attempted robbery, police said.
“While the case had gone unsolved, investigators never gave up in trying to identify Grace Bridges’ killer and bring them to justice,” Police Chief Will Benny said in the release. “It is our hope that Grace Bridges’ family can finally feel some semblance of peace knowing her killer has been identified and charged even though we know nothing can bring Grace back.”
Bridges was remembered as “compassionate” and “professional” in an online memorial.
“She was an amazing wife, business partner, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother,” loved ones said in the memorial. “She would do without just so others could have what they needed.”
Dothan is about a 100-mile drive northwest from Tallahassee, Florida.
