GRANDKIDS SPEAK OUT ON 1988 HOMICIDE COLD CASE

S.E. Ritchey was attacked outside his Williamson County home.

Two granddaughGEORGETOWN — ters of a man whose 1988 homicide in Williamson County remains unsolved spoke out publicly Monday for the first time about what it was like to live with the pain of his death.

“I was the one who answered the phone that night my grandmother called, and I went around the corner at 9 years old and saw my grandpa covered in blood,” said Jennifer Ritchey, one of the granddaughters of S.E. Ritchey.

“That is something that stuck with me and knowing there was never any closure and seeing how it changed our family,” she said. “The anger that was there, the not knowing that was there.”

Jennifer Ritchey spoke at a news conference at the Williamson County sherif f’ s office on the 30th anniversary of the assault on her grandfather, who was 77.

He was attacked in the driveway of his eastern Williamson County home at 2150 County Road 479 in Thrall while unloading groceries with his wife on March 5, 1988. He was hit with a blunt object and died 17 days later after undergoing surgery for a fractured skull. His wife also was attacked and was unconscious when first responders arrived.

Whoever attacked the couple took cash from them and Ritchey’s wallet with the initials S.E.R. on it. The Ritcheys had returned from a laundromat they operated at 218 W. Fifth St. in Taylor when the attack happened.

“My grandfather was a simple Christian man who would never have hurt anyone,” said granddaughter Carla Ritchey Scruggs. “If these people would have said, ‘Give me your wallet, old man,’ he would have given it to them. He didn’t deserve to die like this.”

There were no witnesses except for Ritchey’s wife, Ethel. She could not remember what happened, but after her husband died she was “never the same,” Scruggs said.

“She started putting bars on her windows and doors,” Scruggs said. “I stayed with her for months; she was scared to be alone.”

Ethel Ritchey died in 2000.

The sheriff said investigators had some evidence that was not new but had never been sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Sheriff Robert Chody said his cold case unit has interviewed 20 “people of interest” in the case.

He said investigators had some evidence that was not new but had never been sent to the Texas Department of Public Safety for testing so they sent it in.

“Things are going in a positive direction,” Chody said. He declined to say what the evidence was.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call cold case unit Detective John Pokorny at 512-943-3739 or by email at coldcasetips@wilco.org.

RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL / AMERICAN-STATESMAN Jennifer Ritchey (left) and Carla Ritchey Scruggs, granddaughters of S.E. Ritchey, look on as Sheriff Robert Chody speaks during a press conference on Monday about the unsolved murder of S.E. Ritchey in 1988. It is the 30th anniversary of when S.E....

RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL / AMERICAN-STATESMAN Carla Ritchey Scruggs said her grandfather “was a simple Christian man who would never have hurt anyone.” Sheriff Chody said 20 “people of interest” have been interviewed in the case.