Adopted Son Charged With Elderly Parents' Heinous Murders 12 Years After Killing

Police have recently arrested an adopted son in the cold case murders of an elderly husband and wife, who were shot dead at their Tennessee home over a decade ago in 2010.

The suspect, William Roger Campbell, 63, has been indicted by a grand jury on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his adoptive parents William and Ina Campbell, 82 and 81, respectively, according to a news release from Clarksville Police Sergeant Charles Gill.

Police found the elderly couple dead in their beds at their Clarksville, Tennessee, home on Jan. 29, 2010, with a single gunshot wound to each of their heads. Their home had also seemingly been ransacked by the perpetrator, Fox News reported.

Their neighbor Daniel Champagne, who treats the elderly couple as his second mom and dad, found the bodies. He told police that he used his spare key to the home to check on the couple after another neighbor reportedly tried to call them to apologize for running over their mailbox. However, the calls were left unanswered.

“The drawers were torn out, and the kitchen cabinets were all open,” Champagne recalled, before lambasting the assailant’s state of mind. “How could somebody do something like that and walk away and never think about it?”

The 63-year-old Campbell, who was the adopted son of the victims, was long known to be a person of interest in the case. However, he never materialized as a suspect until as of late after Clarksville Police Department Special Operations Homicide Unit Detective Keenan Carlton began to pore over the cold case again after some ten years, according to Law&Crime.

"These were innocent victims," Carlton lamented. "These were people who were beloved by their community. They lived in their neighborhood for a number of years. Their neighbors loved them and they’re all happy to see some resolution."

He commended detectives who worked tirelessly on the case a decade ago for laying the groundwork in his probe. Carlton said a recent review of the evidence paved the way for detectives to crack the case, leading to the subsequent arrest of Campbell.

Deputies with the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office in Georgia apprehended Campbell at his home in Lowndes County, Georgia on June 21 before the suspect was extradited to Clarksville and booked into the Montgomery County Jail on Saturday, Clarksville Now noted.