Police Detective Discusses Cold Case

It's not every day that law enforcement is able to potentially solve a twenty year old cold case, but for Morgan County police, that day may just be today.

At waay tv dot com thanks for joining us tonight -- i'm najahe sherman.

And i'm dan shaffer.

It's not every day that law enforcement is able to potentially solve a crime that's more than two decades old.

It's even rarer when that ending comes in the form of a dying man's confession.

That's exactly what happened when johnny whited called decatur police on wednesday.

He told them he killed a man in 1995.

Police arrested arrested him and charged him with murder.

Waay 31's breken has been following this story and joins us live from morgan county.

She spoke with the detective who took the phone call from whited, breken?

Detective sean mck-adam said he was at his desk here at the decatur police station when dispatch called and said they had a guy on the line who said he killed someone and wanted to get it off his chest.

Mukkadam- it's not a call you normally get.

Mck-adam said johnny whited didn't know the victim christopher dailey.

It seemed to be an almost random killing.

Police pressed whited for details.

Mukkadam- i asked him very specific things so we could narrow it down to research what case it was.

Stand up : in 1995 two leaf hunters were in a wooded area here off of george russell road and that's when they discovered christopher dailey's body a few days later decatur police tell me they found his partially submerged car in the tennesee river.

Mukkadam- they did surveillance on people.

They did everything they possibly could to solve this case and it just got to a point where there were no more leads and no more avenues to go.

Mck-adam said this case was a real 'who done it'.

Until whited confessed he is the one who shot dailey.

Mukkadam- he's terminally ill and my opinion is he's going to meet his maker soon.

And he was ready to confess and close all the doors and give the victim's family some closure.

Closure and answers mck- adam got to deliver to daley's sister.

Mukkadam- i told her every bit of details about the investigation and i could see how grateful she was after 25 years.

Police said whited told them why he did it but they're not disclosing the motive because whited will have a preliminary hearing that hasn't been set yet.

He is being held in the morgan county jail on a 15,000 dollar bond.

While in jail or if he is found guilty and goes to prison it will be tax payers who will pay for his medical expenses.

Live in decatur bt waay31.

Happening now -- huntsville police are looking for the gunman reponsible for killing a teenager during a shooting in north huntsville overnight.