SUWANNEE COUNTY, Fla. — A podcaster, an investigator and a son’s confession about his father have led to the closing of a decades-old case in Suwannee County.
According to police reports, on Sep. 18, 1983, two people were canoeing on the Suwanee River near the I-10 bridge when they made a horrific discovery.
They found the body of a man floating in the river.
The victim had been in the water for some time, possibly weeks, and his hands and feet were bound with rope. Two sandbags were wrapped around his neck, perhaps in an effort to weigh his body down.
It was later determined he had been shot nine times with a .22 caliber weapon.
After the man’s body was found, a police dive team discovered clothing and camping items in the river, along with a .22 caliber Winchester semi-automatic rifle.
The rifle would later be discovered as being reported stolen, along with a hunting knife that was also stolen.
The knife and rifle led investigators to a home in Dowling Park, about 20 miles away, that had reportedly been burglarized weeks earlier. But the homicide case went cold. The unidentified man would be buried in a pauper’s grave at Eastside Cemetery in Live Oak, FL.
Twenty seven years later, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a tip from a prisoner named William Clayton Sapp, saying he had information about a homicide that occurred in 1983 near the Suwannee River.
Sapp was serving time at the federal prison in Jessup, GA, and said his father, William Clyde Sapp Junior, was involved in the 1983 homicide.
His father was already dead.
(Editor's Note: It is worth clarifying that William Clyde Sapp Junior is the father of William Clayton Sapp, despite the names suggesting the opposite)
FDLE Agent Robert Shotwell began looking into the claim and found several individuals who said they'd heard Sapp Jr. had killed someone in the early 1980s with a .22 rifle and thrown him in the river. There was only one homicide like that during that time, but the victim still remain unidentified.
A partial print from the victim was sent to the FBI for analysis, and in June 2012 it came back with a name, Reginald Ward.
Records indicate Ward had run away from the Dozier School for Boys, a now-notorious facility where young boys were abused and even killed. Family at the time thought he may have gone to Ohio.
But the investigation hit a hitch.
Incarcerated William Clayton Sapp changed his story when speaking to the FDLE, saying the victim he was referring to didn’t match the description of Reginald Ward.
A supplemental police report from 2021 states, “[Special Agent] Shotwell’s reports indicated that Sapp provided detailed information about the case, including that Sapp stated his father killed a man in the Dowling Park area, weighted the body with sandbags and threw the body into the river near the I-10 bridge. Sapp also knew the victim was shot with a .22 caliber firearm but did not know anything else. Sapp was not able to identify Ward from a picture that Shotwell had…. Shotwell attempted to speak with Sapp again prior to his release from prison, however Sapp was not as cooperative and stated he did not know Ward and did not recognize him.”
The case went dormant again.
Then, in June 2021, podcaster Jason Futch, creator of the Suwannee Valley Unsolved podcast, saw a listing on Project: Cold Case’s website about the 1983 case. He began looking into it, finding old newspaper clippings from the Suwannee Democrat, and reaching out to the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office for more information.
He reached Sgt. Wayne Kelly.
A supplemental report written by Kelly reads, “I asked Futch to send me the newspaper clippings and advised him that I would request the old case files and begin looking into the case.”
Piquing Kelly’s interest, he began looking into the 1983 homicide. “It just seemed important to me to find some closure for family or any loved ones that may still be out there,” told Sgt. Kelly.
Attached to the original case file was a sticky note.
“I was able to obtain the original case file from 1983 which contained a sticky note and Faxed Report from the Jacksonville Medical Examiner’s Office,” reads the supplemental report.
"The M.E. Report showed that the victim in this case who was listed as a John Doe was identified in 2012 through latent prints from 1983 and using the AFIS system. The prints identified the John Doe Victim as, B/M Reginald Ward of the Quincy, FL, area.”
The supplemental report says Sgt. Kelly began re-investigating the case. He could not re-interview William Clayton Sapp, who'd died in 2020, but learned that the man had spoken of his father’s involvement in the murder to other family members over the years.
A report written by Sgt. Kelly goes on to say that the incident was kept like a “deep, dark secret until recent years.”
Darryl Gaymon, the brother of Reginal Ward, gave thanks in a statement provided to the Suwannee Valley Unsolved podcast.
”We, the Rivers Family, would like to extend our gratitude of thanks and blessing upon each of you for the very hard work and committed efforts in bringing necessary attention to the cold case file of our beloved family member Reginald Ward. We would like to thank Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office and Detective Wayne Kelley for solving this cold case. With your due diligence and skillful investigation, our family can now begin the much-needed healing and grieving process.”
Nearly 40 years later, the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office now considers the Ward murder case closed.
Though William Clyde Sapp Jr died in 1996, he is considered the main suspect in this case due to statements from family.
“It is what we are here to do, I mean that is what we are supposed to do,” tells Kelly. "Follow up with this and try to find the truth.”