No answers 40 years after woman’s murder

Still seeking justice for Sadie

AMHERST, N.S. — Forty years ago, someone broke into an Amherst home and brutally murdered its lone occupant, an 80-year-old housekeeper named Sadie Rogers.

The identity of her killer is just as much a mystery today as it was in September 1981, when Rogers was last seen alive by a neighbour.

“The investigation is ongoing, and we ask if anyone has any information to contact their local police,” Cpl. Lisa Croteau of the Nova Scotia RCMP said in an email.

One of the biggest issues with a 40-year-old crime is the passage of time. It makes it more of a challenge to find answers as memories fade and potential witnesses become harder to locate because they have moved on or died.

But Amherst residents still wonder: What happened to Sadie?

“A TERRIBLE TIME”

Donnie Davis grew up next door to Rogers’ home on Cordova Street. While his memory is clouded by time, he does remember the days after her body was discovered inside the home. He said the neighbourhood was alerted that something was wrong when all the police cars arrived at the home.

“It was a terrible time, stuff like this didn’t happen in Amherst,” said Davis, who was 18 years old and attending vocational school at the time.

“There was a lot of shock. There were all kinds of rumours about this guy or that guy. No one really knew who was responsible.”

He remembers seeing a person from the neighbourhood looking in the windows of Rogers’ home. He said the person may have been a handyman who had done work for Rogers, but he said the person could have been there for another reason, such as checking on her.

“I didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me, but it sure interested the RCMP,” he said. “Their lead investigator came to see me at school but I don’t think what I saw was very helpful.”

Davis said most of his memories of Rogers were good ones, although he admits she

used to get angry with him and other children when they raided her apple tree.

“She’d come out and put the run to us,” he said. “We did it when we were 10 or 11. We stand there along the fence and pick apples off the tree. We’d see her come out and we high-tail it out of there.”

NEVER SOLVED

The murder remains one of Amherst’s biggest cold cases. No one knows who murdered Rogers or why.

Davis said there were lots of rumours in the days after her body was found and there was plenty of finger-pointing at who may have been responsible.

Police never had enough evidence to warrant arrests or charges, however.

“I’m surprised it was never solved,” Davis said. “I thought that maybe they knew who was responsible but didn’t have the evidence or couldn’t get them to confess.”

He has his suspicions as to who is responsible but has no way of proving it.

“As time goes on, I’m afraid we’ll never know,” he said.

“I still think someone out there knows something or knows who did it but has kept quiet. There were two people we always thought were responsible. We thought someone associated with them would come forward, but no one ever did.”

BRUTAL STABBING

A neighbour last saw Rogers on Sept. 26, 1981. Mail delivered to her house two days later had not been retrieved from the mailbox. Nearly a week later, neighbours were becoming concerned they hadn’t seen her or an activity at her home. They contacted police, who on Oct. 2, found her body inside the 112 Cordova St. home.

She had been stabbed multiple times.

“The story was it was a horrible scene,” said Davis. “It was just awful, she probably suffered a lot. No one should have to go through that. No one knows why it happened - did she have a lot of money

stuffed away or was it just because?”

Over the years, there has been little activity with the file. There were some tips and leads over the years, including a pair of pencil-written letters to the Amherst Daily News in 2006 and ‘07, but all has been quiet since 2011 when RCMP Northeast Nova major crime issued a press release looking for tips.

In an interview in September 2006 with the Amherst Daily News, Rogers’ niece, Dorothy Snowden of Sackville, N.B. said she remembers when her aunt was murdered.

“To this day, I keep asking myself, ‘why would someone do this?’ She didn’t deserve to die like that. She had every right to live,” Snowden told the newspaper.

Snowden said the family believed the culprit was someone who knew her aunt and believed it was someone who knew the layout of the house from the way they went in — taking the glass out of the front door and reaching in to unlock the latch.

In the same 2006 article, former editor Doug Harkness said the motive was believed to be robbery.

Rogers’ case was added to the Nova Scotia Justice Department’s major rewards program and anyone providing information leading to an arrest and conviction is eligible for a reward of up to $150,000.