May 4, 2009 11:04 am US/Pacific
60 San Leandro Murder Witnesses Who Saw Nothing
SAN LEANDRO (CBS 5) ―
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Elzie Winston, Jr. with his daughter.
CBS
Email CBS 5 Investigates or Anna Werner directly with your cold case tips and ideas. Tell us what case you'd like to see investigated.
There is a $5000 reward in the case of Elzie Winston's murder. If you have information, call the Anonymous Tip Line at 510-667-3622. To learn more, check the Alameda County Investigations Unit website.
Teenagers in East Oakland call it the "Safe Zone"-- the era they'll reach at age 25 if they can survive living in these neighborhoods. And everyone thought Elzie Winston had made it, with a steady job, a three-year-old daughter, and close family and friends.
"He was just playful, real playful all the time," said his friend, LaTonya Chambers.
"He always had you laughin'," said Germaine Bardwell, another friend.
Which is why his parents can't believe what happened on that Friday night, June 17, 2005.
"As he was walking out the door," recalls his father, Elzie Winston, Sr., "I normally hold my hand up. And you know, he grabs my hand, our way of saying good evening. And I just tell him to always be safe kid."
Around midnight, Elzie and a couple of friends were at the Sports Bar in San Leandro, a small club at the end of a strip mall.
"And he's havin' a good time," said Sgt. Scott Dudek, who runs the Alameda County cold case unit. "He's dancin', he's hootin', he's hollerin'."
But as Elzie was leaving the bar, Sgt. Dudek said he bumped up against a man coming in.
"There's some words exchanged," said Dudek, as he revisits the scene almost four years later.
"Then there's a wrestling match, fist fight, wrestling match in this area right here," Dudek added as he pointed to the walkway just outside the entry of the club. "The suspect ends up on top of Elzie, because he's a big man, the suspect is. He's 5-foot-8, 5-foot-9, 300-plus pounds."
Elzie quickly finds himself on the losing end of the fight, so he gets up and runs into the parking lot.
"And exactly where the white car is," said Dudek, pointing into the wide gravel lot, "that's where Elzie's car is. And this location right here is when the first shot was fired from the suspect."
The bullet hits Elzie in the back.
"As he makes it to the white car, he tries to kind of regain his balance, there's another shot that goes out. Elzie then stumbles into the middle of the street over there, and he falls down."
"The world just turned upside down after that," said Elzie's mother Sandra, who remembers being awakened in the night with the news.
"It's like when you have dreams," said Elzie's father, "and your legs go out from under you in your dream and you can't move anymore but you need to move. It was the longest walk of my life, walk up there to have to look down in that casket at my son, layin' there dead."
Adding to the family's grief was the feeling of helplessness when they found out about all the witnesses.
"When I got here an hour an a half after the actual shooting," recalled Dudek, "this place was still packed with people."
More than 60 people, he said, held for questioning. But no one would take the risk of talking.
"Did they see it? Absolutely," said Dudek. "Are they comin' forward? No, they're not comin' forward. And because of that, this person, this animal, is still out there doin' whatever he wants to do."
How does he know? Sgt. Dudek believes he knows who did it, who murdered Elzie. But to arrest his suspect, he needs a witness.
"He needs to be stopped before somebody else gets killed," said the sergeant. "There's just absolutely no other way to put it. This person will kill again. And there's going to be other Elzie Winstons out there."
Other Elzies -- with friends, and children, and parents -- all mourning their loved one, and waiting for justice.
"Hopefully one day," said Elzie's father, "someone will have the courage and the compassion and the strength to come forward and tell what they saw."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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