The Eastburn Family Murders
Three murder trials and advances in DNA finally brought the killer to justice over 20 years later.
When the police officer arrived at the Eastburn’s home on Summer Hill Road, he could hear the youngest daughter, Jana, screaming inside the house. She was just hours away from death by dehydration and starvation, and she was covered in dirt and faeces.
The toddler would be the only one in the house found alive.
The Eastburns were a military family and were about to move to England for husband Gary’s new role in the Royal Air Force. He held the rank of captain and was at a training facility in Montgomery, Alabama, 500 miles away from his family in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The family spoke on the phone every Saturday, but when Gary called his wife Katie, for the couple’s morning call, she didn’t pick up. But back in May 1985, there was little else Gary could do but wait by the phone for his wife to call him back.
The Eastburn’s neighbour, Bob, had noticed the newspapers piling up and assumed that Katie and her daughters, Kara who was five, Erin who was three and little Jana who was just under two, had gone away, but their car was still in the driveway.
He rang the doorbell and there was no answer, but he could hear the baby crying…
