State attorney sets up tip line for leads into Cape Coral store manager’s killing

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Al Griffiths. (Credit: via Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers)

Wednesday marks six years since the unsolved murder of a Cape Coral store manager.

Investigators are renewing their call for tips into the death of 54-year-old Alfred Griffiths, who was shot the evening of Nov. 18, 2014, while he was sitting on a bench outside the T.J. Maxx store on Del Prado Boulevard.

Griffiths was shot in the head by an unknown suspect. Dozens of people were in the shopping center’s parking lot at the time, but the killer managed to get away.

The State Attorney’s Office on Wednesday announced a new tip line in an effort to solve Griffith’s murder and other unsolved crimes.

Anyone with information can call 833-987-2611. All callers are anonymous unless they choose to provide their information for contact, the SAO said.

For Griffith’s family, it has been six years of suffering.

“The pain really doesn’t go away,” said his sister Pam.

Six missed birthdays, years of missed holidays.

“Every anniversary is tough.”

Six years with no answers.

“Is this case still being thought about? Looked into? It just seems like we haven’t heard really,” Pam said.

“I just don’t understand how someone could get away with murdering my brother at quarter ’til nine or whatever time it was a week before Black Friday, the busiest shopping day and the parking lot was filled with people.”

Trish Routte with Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers said detectives worked the case hard, and in the last six years, collected more than a thousand tips – but nothing pointing toward Griffith’s killer.

“Everything happened so quickly that nobody really had a good account,” Routte said.

“I know at one point there was a sketch that was going around of who we thought was the person; detectives later determined that sketch was probably not the guy.”

But detectives still believe that time might be on their side, “because people who may have had information and they didn’t come forward at the time, people change, relationships change,” Routte said.

Pam is holding onto hope – and holds onto a flourishing flower her brother planted, keeping a piece of him and his memory alive.

“You know, you slowly get your life back but you always have this heavy heart with anniversaries, birthdays, you know, not being able to see my sister’s kids, not being able to paint in the garden or do his favorite things, it’s heartbreaking.”

There is currently $28,000 in reward money from Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers available for information leading to an arrest in Griffith’s death.

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