About a week before she was murdered, Marlys Mae Sather spent one last joyful day with her loved ones.
It was her son John's 32nd birthday and the family had gathered at his Orlando-area home. The family feasted on homemade chicken and dumplings and cheesecake before it was time for Sather to drive more than an hour back to her home in Palm Bay, on Florida's east-central coast.
"I said, 'I love you, Mom. And she said, 'I love you too, John,'" John Sather, now 68, recently told USA TODAY in a tearful interview. "Those were the last words I said to my mom."
On Sept. 5, 1990, Marlys Sather walked in on a neighbor burglarizing her home. The neighbor, then-24-year-old Chadwick Willacy, decided to leave no witnesses, according to court documents.
Willacy bludgeoned, strangled, and robbed Sather before setting her on fire while she was still alive, court records say. The 56-year-old grandmother's autopsy showed that she died of smoke inhalation.
