6 years ago
University of Maryland students are wrapping up finals week, but there is one test that has proven too tough to crack for fifty years.
Back in 1954 a much-beloved University leader was murdered in her own bedroom. Now as 9 News' Emily Schmidt reports this textbook police case remains a cold case.
Thousands of District of Columbia murder investigations are in storage, those that are unsolved. "Those stick in your craw because you can't figure out what's missing," Detective Sgt. Michael Farish said.
One such case is the murder of Alma Preinkert who was a University of Maryland Registrar in the 1950s. Preinkert was responsible for 22-thousand students' transcripts, her Northwest Washington murder made headlines.
Anne Turkos: "She and her sister had gone out to play bridge, they came home at one in the morning, parked the car. Ms. Preinkert, Ms. Alma Preinkert, had a premonition something was wrong," Anne Turkos, an archivist at the University of Maryland recalled.
All seemed safe, but as Preinkert went to sleep a prowler pulled a ladder up to the 58-year-old administrator's second story window.
"[He} went into the bedroom, throwing things about. Evidently when she awoke and startled the guy, he jumped on the bed and began stabbing her," Turkos said.
Every detective in Washington worked the case. "There was a very intensive investigation: at one point, they talked to 2500 individuals," Turkos said.
Though the killer left behind a tie clip all leads proved futile. "They made some arrests, they brought people in for serious questioning, but they never solved the case.
"The police right from the beginning were baffled, I think they were baffled," David Preinkert a distant cousin of Alma Preinkert said.
David Preinkert is Alma Preinker's only remaining family. "Very kind, thoughtful person, very gracious lady," he said. The distant cousin remembers with regret each decade the case stays cold. "As the years slip by: 54', 74', go through clippings and think, gee what a shame."
When the university dismissed classes for Alma Preinkert's funeral an overflow crowd stood outside in driving rain to pay their respects.
Today, the registrar's story is mostly forgotten. "50 years is a long time. I'm hopefully, maybe by going back over the police record and other clues that exist, maybe something will turn up," Turkos said.
After half a century, the University of Maryland registrar's murder remains only a study in unsolved history.
The Preinkert family offered a 15-hundred-dollar reward at the time of the murder it went unclaimed.
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Written by Emily Schmidt
