February 18, 2025
On April 24th, 1979, the bodies of a mother and son were found inside their home on 4264 Binney Street in North Central Omaha.
Deroshia Matthews, 26, and her son, Kamal Matthews, 7, were found with ropes tied around their necks, their home ransacked, papers strewn around and drawers and cupboards open.
A witness said the front window was pulled up and the T.V was still on when police entered.
Oddly, there were no signs of a struggle, leading police at the time to speculate that the killer may have been known to the victims.
Deroshia was found in the basement, laying partially clothed on a waterbed, a length of rope laying over her neck. Kamal's body was found in his bedroom on the main floor of the home. He was clad in pajamas and his arms and legs had been bound.
Deroshia was close with her mother, Pinky Foster, and kept in contact with her frequently. Foster had heard from her daughter on Monday, but on Tuesday there was radio silence, which was unusual. She had called them multiple times and even went to the home, but received no answer.
Kamal had failed to show up for both his morning paper round, as well as his classes at the nearby Clifton Hill Elementary School, prompting Foster to go to the neighbours home and ask for the spare key.
When they entered the home they made the tragic discovery and contacted police.
Foster Burchard, Homicide Lt. on the case at the time, estimated that the mother and son had been murdered the day before. He told newspapers that he couldn't be sure if the front door to the home was actually locked when officers, friends, and relatives arrive, however the backdoor to the home was dead bolted from the inside.
A preliminary autopsy showed that Deroshia died as a result of strangulation and suffocation, while Kamal died from strangulation.
Despite the best efforts of investigators, the case went cold- until an arrest in 2004.
Twenty-five years after the slayings, a 46-year-old man named Louis M. Walker was arrested. Walker also goes by the name Abdulmalik Husain.
Back in 2004, police spokesperson Cathy Martinec told reporters that Husain had been a suspect from the start, but there was not enough evidence to make an arrest. New information was received in 2003, allowing police to arrest Walker, who was in Aurora, Colorado at the time.
Walker was an acquaintance of Matthews; the pair had met at a community event in 1975.
In January 2004, Omaha World-Herald reported that the Matthews murder case marked the first homicide case to be solved using federal grant money. It was awarded to the Omaha Police Department and Nebraska State Patrol in 2003.
The grant totalled almost $200,000, which investigators utilized to reexamine evidence collected at the scene in 1979. It also allowed them to enter DNA into CODIS, a national FBI DNA database.
Back in 2004 Walker was arrested on charges of burglary unrelated to the 1979 double homicide.
His DNA was entered into CODIS and matched the DNA profile found at the Matthews crime scene. He was subsequently arrested on two counts of first-degree murder.
In a devastating blow, the charges were dismissed by the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office due to a clerical error.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine told First Alert 6: “the prosecutor at that time, it seems, thought there was an issue with regards to some of the evidence and the production of that evidence.”
Lt. Nicholas Andrews said of the new evidence: “There was an item that was still in our evidence and in 2021 we retested that item with new technology, and we determined that item was sufficient evidence to present to the county attorney's office.”
According to CNN, in 2021, the evidence was once again analysed with the benefit of advanced forensic technology and enough new information was obtained to present the case to the Douglas County attorney, who in 2005 allowed for the case to be refiled if any new evidence was obtained in the future.
Walker was arrested and has appeared in court.
Abdulmalik Husain was arraigned as Louis Walker, the name he used at the time of the double homicide in 1979 and a robbery in 2004.
He has been denied bond. Walker / Husain will appear in court for a preliminary hearing within 60 - 90 days. The preliminary hearing will be held in Douglas County District Court.
At the time of writing, police have been unable to trace and contact living members of the Matthews family to relay the news of Walker’s arrest.
In a statement, Chief Todd Schmaderer said of the arrest: “Murders are never forgotten, and justice has no expiration date. The depraved nature of this double homicide—one victim being a child—was bound to receive our utmost attention. Our commitment to these victims and their family never wavered.”
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