The day a school's perfect attendance award was set to be given, instead ended in tragedy. This case is about a terrible murder, unbreakable determination and justice long delayed. View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/my-name-is-gloriaCan’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
Chapter 1: Who is Yvonne Pointer and what happened to her daughter Gloria?
So until 29 years, I didn't even get to grieve. When I say grieve, I mean just have a good cry. My name is Yvonne Pointer. They said you murdered Gloria. If you did, would you just let me know so that I could please put an end to the wanderings?
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anna Siga-Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murder.
Mother knows best. It's a phrase that many believe to be true. Perhaps no one more so than mothers themselves.
When Yvonne Point's daughter was murdered in 1984, she knew that eventually she would find her daughter's killer. It wasn't just a hope or a wish. It was a promise, a vow made in the depths of unimaginable grief and one she intended to keep no matter how long it took.
As years stretched on with little progress made, Yvonne's vow began to feel impossible. But a mother's promise and determination is a powerful force. And in this case, it proved to be unshakable.
For today's episode, Yvonne shared her journey of loss, resolve, and the relentless pursuit of justice for her daughter. Born as one of 10 siblings in Cleveland, Ohio, family was always a dominant force in Yvonne's life.
I was a product of 10 children in one family. six boys and four girls. So needless to say, growing up was quite noisy. It was always loud and it was always disagreements and it was always food cooking on the stove. And it was just a house that I wouldn't trade for anything.
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Chapter 2: How did Yvonne Pointer cope with her daughter's tragic death?
From a detective's perspective, beyond the clear effort to connect these crimes through physical evidence, location, or similar attack patterns, there's another layer that demands Anastasia some attention, the psychological profile. And that's where things get really interesting.
There's compelling data and behavioral analysis suggesting that some serial sexual offenders don't just strike once and retreat. In fact... Certain offenders, particularly those driven by compulsion, may attack multiple times in a single day.
When their first assault is so-called successful, it may reinforce their behavior, heightening their sense of control and fueling their drive to strike again. And here, they also looked at a potential connection between Broom and the murders of another young woman from around the same time.
It occurred just a few months earlier in the same area as the attempted kidnapping of that 11-year-old child.
In that case, another 14-year-old, a young girl named Trina Middleton, was walking home from a football game with two girlfriends.
And this car pulls up, grabs one of them, throws her in the car and takes off.
After Trina was taken away in the car, her two friends ran to a neighbor's house and called for help. And while they were able to describe what the kidnapper and his car looked like, it was too late.
Just two hours later, Trina's body was found in a parking lot. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. In the months that followed, Trina's friends looked at hundreds of police photos attempting to identify the man from the car.
No one in the pictures stood out until they saw a photo of Rommel Broom. The friends were certain this was the man who had grabbed Trina during their walk. Broom, who was awaiting trial for the attempted kidnapping, was also then charged with the aggravated murder of Trina Middleton.
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Chapter 3: What were the initial investigations and potential leads in Gloria's case?
And, you know, as you just said, Anastasia, some theories are worth to be left just with the investigators as theories kept in the squad room. Unless you're trying to obtain confirmatory evidence, I could see any family, would struggle with this kind of information. And personally, I believe it lends absolutely nothing, nothing at all, to finding a killer.
And be as outraged and hurt as Yvonne clearly was and still is when she thinks back to that time. And according to Yvonne, police continued to pursue Rommel Broom as a suspect in Gloria's case, despite the lack of evidence connecting him to it.
So that's the way that investigation flowed. We got to find somebody she was sexually active with so we can put this on Romel.
Yvonne found the entire theory deeply offensive. She was vocal about questioning the direction the investigators were headed.
Why is this the way this investigation is going? Why are you trying to find someone she was sexually active with? Why are you trying to smear and tarnish her? Let's find the killer.
Frustrated with the still open investigation, Yvonne Poynter decided to take matters into her own hands. If police were so certain that Rommel Broom was behind her daughter's murder, then Yvonne would do what seemed to her like the most obvious thing in the world. She would go ask him herself.
One day, Yvonne Pointer picked up a pen and paper and wrote Rommel Broom a letter in prison.
And I would say, Romel, my name is Yvonne Pointer. They said you murdered Gloria. If you did, would you just let me know so that I could please put an end to the wondering?
One letter turned into many. Broom never responded. But that did not stop Yvonne from continuing to be proactive. If the police weren't able to find Gloria's killer, perhaps she would be able to. She decided to search in the one place that she believed that most killers eventually lived, prisons.
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