On the night of September 9, 1999, 28-year-old Marlys Harper was shot in her Elkhart, Indiana home on West Lexington Street and later died at a hospital. Her young son, Crispin, was asleep on the couch and woke to the sound of a single gunshot; he found his mother slumped by the kitchen back door and ran to a neighbor for help. A neighbor attempted CPR before police and medics arrived.

Early investigation considered Marlys’s boyfriend at the time, Tommy Rees, but his out-of-town alibi was verified by police. Investigators also looked into a possible connection to a 1993 shooting at a party, where Marlys and a cousin had testified; the cousin received a threatening phone call she believed was linked to that earlier case, but no charges were filed in relation to Marlys’s murder. The case has passed through several investigators and became a cold case that remains open as her family continues to seek answers.

Did anyone in Elkhart around 1999 see or hear anything that might help bring new information to light?