Accused of a crime he didn’t commit, Jay Bass fled Osceola County, Florida 30 years ago. The only times he returned, Bass arrived late at night to visit his dying mother and departed before dawn. Continue reading after the jump.
For years, he was a suspect in the brutal 1979 murder of Norma Page, a local minister’s wife. No one would rent to him or hire him. And locals attacked him at least once.
“My children were beat up. My husband was beaten up. It was really not a safe time for us,” his wife, Ginny, said of fleeing St. Cloud in 1981 to live on a remote ranch. “It seemed like he found a place where he could hide and people couldn’t ostracize him anymore.”
Last week, St. Cloud police called Bass’ family on what would have been his 54th birthday to say he had been cleared. Bass died five months ago from pancreatic cancer.
DNA ultimately exonerated Bass — and led to the arrest late last year of Steve Bronson Jr., a sex offender with a violent history who had never been questioned in the original investigation. Shortly before Bass died, police told him they believed he was innocent.
“Jay was glad they came up to let him know they finally found the one who did it,” said Ginny Bass, who asked that her location remain secret. “Everybody will know now what I’ve known for 32 years: My husband was innocent.”
On Wednesday, St. Cloud police Chief Pete Gauntlett said the cold-case investigation was finally closed.
“We honestly believe Mr. Bass had nothing to do with this case,” Gauntlett said.
After DNA identified Bronson as the likely killer last year, Gauntlett and the investigating detective, Christian Anderson, began questioning how it was possible that Bass’ fingerprints turned up as the only evidence linking him to one of Central Florida’s most intensely investigated murders.
Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ruled a thumbprint inside Page’s car that had originally linked Bass to the murder wasn’t his. Two remaining prints identified as Bass’ on the exterior mirrors of the car are now in question.
“We have asked FDLE to conduct a detailed examination on those mirrors to provide us conclusive evidence one way or other,” Gauntlett said.
How did Bass become suspect?
How Bass came to be the only suspect for decades in the 1979 murder remains in dispute.
His family claims the St. Cloud Police Department framed Bass over a feud he had with Sgt. Bill Grinnell, who became the lead investigator in the Page murder.
Nothing substantiates the claim but records of the cold-case investigation show Grinnell kept that conflict of interest — which would have disqualified him from investigating the case after Bass was considered a suspect — a secret.
Grinnell had been living with Bass’ ex-wife before the murder, according to court records and recent interviews with police. He never mentioned the relationship to investigators from the Kissimmee Police Department and the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office assigned to help him solve the case.
“I’m sorry to know we were so wrong and [Bass’] name was drug through the mud so long he had to leave town,” former Kissimmee police Lt. Charles Cecil said upon learning Bass had been exonerated. “Was there someone willing to plant evidence to point to a suspect? Your guess is as good as mine.”
Back in 1979, police said they found an incriminating print on the interior rear-view mirror of the car Page, then 28, drove when she and her two young sons were abducted from her St. Cloud home before the murder. That was the print FDLE ruled out last week.
Bass’ palm prints were also found on the exterior mirrors of Page’s car — but police say they don’t know how those prints got there.
