CLEVELAND — It’s a question that remains a mystery in Cleveland: Who killed Stephen Halton Jr. on Jan. 11, 2014?
As Thursday now marks 10 years since the deadly shooting, authorities are calling for new tips from the public in an effort to finally solve the cold case.
“Even the smallest detail could be the key that unlocks justice for the victim and his family,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a press release Thursday morning. “Tell us what you know and help make this the year that answers finally come to light.”
Yost’s office says Halton was found dead that day with a single gunshot wound at a bus stop in Cleveland.
“The 30-year-old anesthesia technician, a married father of two, had planned to ride a bus to his job at the Cleveland Clinic on the morning of Jan. 11, 2014,” according to a press release from Yost’s office. “Halton, who worked on an organ-transplant team, was scheduled for a 6 a.m. procedure. He left home before dawn and headed for a bus stop near the intersection of Lakeshore Boulevard and Grovewood Avenue. At roughly 4:50 a.m., as Halton waited for the bus, someone shot him and fled. People nearby reported hearing a commotion followed by a gunshot.”
In 2021, the Cleveland Division of Police asked the Cold Case Unit at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) “to take a fresh look at the case.”
“BCI’s investigators continue to pore over evidence from the crime in pursuit of new leads,” according to the press release.
According to special agent Lindsay Mussell with the BCI's Cold Case Unit, investigators rely on information from the public.
“You never know what that small detail is in the grand scheme of things and what’s already known in the investigation," she said. "So if there’s something that’s been on someone’s mind or they heard through the grape vine, we’d like to hear it.”
Halton's father, Pastor Stephen Halton Sr., posted on Facebook to mark the anniversary of his son's murder. "On this day 10 years ago, our son Stephen Halton Jr was murdered. We are still praying, hoping and asking for help to solve this horrific crime on Lakeshore Ave. Please pray for me and my family today," Halton Sr. wrote.
3News later spoke to Halton Sr. personally, and he emphasized that the family doesn't want anyone "to go through the pain that our family [has] been going through for over the last 10 years."
"We just have a great hope that it's going to come to a climax in some kind of way that somebody is going to say something," Halton Sr. added.
Halton Jr.'s two children are now teenagers, but they also have questions about how their father died.
"He said, 'Who killed my dad?'" Halton Jr.'s sister Tanesha Moss told us of Halton Jr.'s son, her nephew. "He said, 'He was my dad.' He said, 'It just makes me angry.' He said, 'He was my dad, I just want to know who did it.'"
Anybody with information about the case is asked to call 855-BCI-OHIO. Tips can also be e-mailed to Crime Stoppers of Cuyahoga County at crimestoppers@cuyahogacounty.us.
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