On September 20, 1986, 45-year-old Cecil Branch was found face-down on the floor of his Miami-Dade County home. He had been bound and gagged with strips torn from bed sheets, stabbed at least 25 times, and one ear had been severed. Investigators lifted a latent fingerprint from the doorframe that was later matched to former NFL defensive end Robert Rozier, then a member of the Nation of Yahweh.

Earlier that day Branch reportedly shoved a female Yahweh follower who was canvassing his neighborhood for donations; witnesses said she and two companions shouted Yahweh! Yahweh! while noting Branch’s license-plate number. Rozier later said sect members viewed the altercation as requiring retribution and that he returned to the residence where the fatal assault occurred. The killing was listed by federal prosecutors as Racketeering Act 14 in a later RICO indictment tied to a campaign of violence directed by Nation of Yahweh leader Yahweh ben Yahweh.

Rozier was arrested soon after the killing and in 1988 took a plea deal—22 years in prison and entry into the federal witness-protection program—in exchange for testimony about several murders, including Branch’s. Federal RICO prosecutions followed, and a 1992 Miami jury acquitted Yahweh ben Yahweh and three followers in the state murder trial. No other suspects have been charged in Branch’s stabbing. Does anyone have information about Branch’s life, the neighborhood at the time, or leads that were never followed?