REVISITED: The Friends

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Ilya D'Ambra, and this fall, we want to try something new on the Park Predators feed. Every Thursday this month, we'll re-release an episode that features a crime that took place in the summer, and these cases happened all across the United States. They are some of the most compelling crimes that I've covered on the show. From mysterious missing persons to unsolved homicides, I cover it all. And don't worry, on Tuesdays, you'll still get your new episode, as always. I'm your host, Ilya D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today is one that I feel in my gut is solvable if the right person would just come forward with information. It's the story of two friends who met in a popular park on a summer evening in 2019 and never made it out alive. Their deaths still puzzled their families and law enforcement. But I don't think it has to stay that way forever. The case takes place in Rocky River Reservation, which technically has acreage in several townships of Northeast Ohio. According to ClevelandMetroparks.com, the area is known for having lots of trails that meander through forests, meadows, and beneath shale cliffs. The Rocky River is the primary feature of the recreation area, and it winds for miles along Valley Parkway, a scenic road which has a bunch of spots you can pull off and find a nice plot of grass. Most people walk, bike, or jog on paths by the river, but others just come to take in the park's sights and sounds while sitting on a bench. In June 2019, the latter was what 40-year-old Carnell Sledge and 33-year-old Catherine Kate Brown were doing when someone brutally shot them to death and disappeared. The sheer brutality of their murders prompted federal authorities to get involved in the murder investigation in the hopes of finally unmasking them. Unmasking a merciless killer who stole two lives from loving families, literally in the blink of an eye. This is Park Predators. Around 5.20 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, a man and his girlfriend parked their car on the side of Valley Parkway inside Rocky River. The summer evening was a balmy 75 degrees, and there were people walking and biking throughout this section of the park. But almost as soon as the man got out of his car, before he could even start unpacking his kayak gear, he stopped because he saw something odd straight ahead of him further off the roadway. It was a man slumped over, lying next to a park bench near the water's edge. Fearful the guy on the ground might need some medical attention, the kayaker decided to go to the park bench and park his car. The kayaker decided to go to the park bench and park his car. In minutes of receiving the call from the kayaker, officers from the Cleveland Metro Parks Police Department arrived on scene and discovered exactly what the 911 caller had described. Two bodies laying out in the open in one of the most trafficked corridors of the park. Right away, officers could tell the first victim they'd reached had been shot at least twice in the head. He was a black man who appeared to be middle-aged and was laying in the grass near the park bench. A few feet in front of him, slightly down an embankment on the river, was a woman who looked to be in her 30s, and she'd been shot once in the back of her head and was lying face down, partially in the water. Fox 8 News reported that near the bodies, officers located several spent shell casings and collected them as evidence. Not far from both victims, authorities found two cars parked in a small lot, sort of like a pull-off, just north of what's called the Lorain Road Bridge, which, if you look at a map or picture of this area, the bridge is a large, metal structure that runs perpendicular over Valley Parkway. The vehicle's authorities found in the small lot were a Toyota and a Mazda. The source material isn't clear on how exactly authorities identified the victims. Like, I don't know if they had IDs on them or what. But shortly after finding them, Metro Parks police detectives realized the man and woman were 40-year-old Carnell Sledge, who was from the nearby town of North Olmstead, and 33-year-old Catherine Kate Brown, who was from the city of Fairview Park. Cleveland 19 reported that the parked Toyota belonged to Carnell, and the Mazda was registered to Kate. According to Peter Krause's reporting for Cleveland.com, detectives notified Carnell's parents, Carl and Darlene, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 5th, and Kate's parents, Tom and Kim, got word around that same time. Later, Wednesday morning, investigators released the names of the two victims to the public. And the day after that, Thursday, June 6th, the Cleveland Metro Parks Detective Bureau and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office held a joint press conference to announce more information in the case. But officials' remarks were brief, and they didn't take any questions. The only pertinent information that came out of the announcement was that Carnell had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his head, and Kate had been shot once in the back of her head. Both of their deaths were being considered homicides. During the presser, the chief of the Cleveland Metro Parks Police Department said that all the evidence detectives had gathered so far pointed to the murders being the result of an isolated incident, and that no one should feel unsafe in the park. But as you can imagine, that statement was little comfort to members of the community, who by that point were already gripped with fear. I mean, two people had just been gunned down in cold blood, and whoever had pulled the trigger was nowhere to be found. News like that was shocking to people who frequented Rocky River Reservation. News 5 Cleveland interviewed a bewildered visitor to the park shortly after the crime, who told the news outlet, quote, Who would ever imagine it would happen in such a beautiful place like this? Who would ever imagine? No one, certainly not me. This is such a well-visited place and such a beautiful place that I can't believe that something like this has happened here, end quote. Because law enforcement labeled the murders the result of an isolated incident, that left a lot of room for speculation and rumor. People in Northeast Ohio found themselves asking, were Carnell and Kate targeted? Were their murders related to something personal? Was there more than one person involved? Was a serial killer on the loose? No one knew the answers. And to make matters even more puzzling, law enforcement initially refused to release how Carnell and Kate even knew one another, or why they were together when they died. Some of the victims' family members and friends, though, knew exactly why the people who murdered the pair would have met in the park. Carnell and Kate were good friends who'd been hanging out on a regular basis for at least a decade, according to most sources. But despite their closeness, Carnell and Kate were not in a romantic relationship. The two just enjoyed catching up and spending time together. And according to reporting by WKYC 3 News, Kate often visited that area of the park to jog, meet up with her friends, or spend time with her mom playing cards. Law enforcement released very little information on the case during those first few days of the investigation. And one week after the murders, Carnell's family held a vigil at the bench where he and Kate had been killed to hopefully keep the story in the forefront of everyone's minds. News 5 Cleveland reported that dozens of people showed up to that vigil with flowers, signs, and stuffed animals to make a temporary memorial. Many of the people who attended the event were Carnell's extended family members, and some were people who'd been friends with Kate and her family. Around that same time, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI got involved with the case, and the feds announced a $20,000 reward for information. Now, when I first started reading the source material for this episode, I had to pause for a minute because I couldn't quite figure out why the FBI seemed to take such a public-facing role in this investigation early on. Typically, the feds don't investigate homicides from local jurisdictions unless there's a federal element to the crime or victims, but in this case, agents from the Bureau's Cleveland office really jumped on this investigation full throttle. And according to Cameron Justice, Joe Donatelli, and Devin Marty's reporting for News 5 Cleveland, the FBI's reason was because the murders were so brutal and occurred in a public area. Basically, the feds felt like they could be helpful due to the nature, location, and circumstances of the crime. The FBI's special agent in charge, a guy named Eric Smith, told the press, quote, "I don't believe it was random, but we do not know if it was targeted. Someone did this in a very brave way." in way, a very specific way, end quote. There's no source material that specifically says that Cleveland Metro Parks Police Department wasn't equipped to handle a murder investigation this large, or that the department lacked the experience needed to solve a double murder. But I think reading between the lines, it's safe to say the agency really needed the FBI to help. News 5 Cleveland reported that according to the Metro Parks chief ranger, the last time anyone had been murdered in a park that fell within Cleveland Metro Park Police's jurisdiction was in the 1990s, 20 years before Carnell and Kate were killed. So yeah, there wasn't a big track record for this kind of thing. Anyway, about a dozen tips came in after the FBI made its initial announcement about the reward money, but unfortunately, as authorities ran each of those leads down, they got no closer to figuring out who killed Carnell and Kate. A big part of the heavy lifting in the investigation was figuring out the timeline of both victims' lives leading up to their murders. Shortly before the crime, Carnell had been at work. According to reporting by Cleveland.com and News 5 Cleveland, he was employed as an audiovisual technician for a company called Crescent Digital. This business specialized in installing audio and camera equipment. According to Carnell's co-workers who spoke with investigators, he'd normally leave his job any time between 4 and 5 o'clock on a weekday. No one who interacted with him during his shift on Tuesday noticed he was behaving strangely or seemed distressed in any way. In fact, one worker told Cleveland.com that he'd had a conversation with Carnell just hours before his murder about an expense report, and while they'd been talking, Carnell wasn't acting out of character. Ed Gallick reported for Fox 8 that Carnell had organized a family dinner at his grandmother's house for that Tuesday evening. He said, And when he didn't show up shortly after 5 o'clock, like he was supposed to, his grandmother texted him asking him where he was, and then pestered him to let him know the food was getting cold. None of the source material I found goes into detail about Kate's whereabouts on that Tuesday. Like, I don't know what she was doing before getting to the park, or if she was supposed to be somewhere after she met Carnell. And police have also never released if they've gone through her or Carnell's phones to determine who they might have communicated with leading up to their murder. And so, if they've gone through her or Carnell's phones to determine who they might have communicated with leading up to their murder. In fact, authorities have never even said if Kate and Carnell's devices were even found with their bodies. There's just a lot of missing information like that because investigators have kept so many details under wraps. Anyway, despite keeping so much info close to the vest, in late June, almost a month after the crime, the FBI and the Cleveland Metro Parks Police held another press conference to reveal a few more details and plead with the public to help them find whoever had killed Carnell and Kate. In the announcement, the agencies disclosed that detectives had narrowed down the window of time they believed the murders happened in. According to reporting by News 5 Cleveland, authorities said Carnell and Kate had driven to the park separately and arrived at the pull-off where their cars had been found around 5.04 p.m. They then sat on the park bench for a few minutes before whoever had attacked them shot them between 5.08 p.m. and 5.15 p.m. The kayakers who discovered their bodies called 911 at 5.18 p.m. So that left roughly a 10-minute window from when police thought Carnell and Kate were killed to when they were found. Due to the amount of people who'd been traveling on Valley Parkway or who were exercising inside the park during those crucial minutes, investigators felt confident someone had seen something important, but maybe they just didn't know it. The investigating agencies asked anyone who might have been in the park, near the crime scene, between 4.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. on June 4th, to come forward and speak with them. But no one contacted detectives with information. By July 4th, one month after the murders, things were looking bleak. Carnell and Kate's families were hopeful all the resources and time authorities were putting into the investigation would mean that the killer or killers would be caught. But nothing in the investigation seemed to be progressing. A little over a week passed, and Carnell and Kate were able to get to the police station. Carnell's family even held a commemorative walk at Rocky River Reservation in his and Kate's honor. But it just seemed like things kept grinding to a halt. That is, until a new bit of information emerged. Information that, at first glance, felt really promising. Turns out, Carnell and Kate's murders were the first of several violent encounters people reported to police in Rocky River Reservation in the summer of 2019. According to News 5 Cleveland and Fox 8 News, between 2017 and 2019, six incidents of assault inside the Rocky River Reservation were reported to Cleveland Metro Parks Police. Which, if you think about it, for a two-year time span, that seems like a fairly low number. But at least two of those events that happened in 2019 were reported to Cleveland Metro Parks Police. got the attention of law enforcement investigators working Carnell and Kate's case. Ed and Peggy Gallick reported for Fox 8 that in late July 2019, so this would have been almost two months after Carnell and Kate's murders, a woman had reported being robbed at gunpoint by two men. According to the incident report for that crime, one of the assailants had worn a ski mask, and when he and his accomplice approached the victim, one pressed a gun to her head until she complied. The second incident was reported one day after that robbery, when a park employee and his mother were driving. The victims said a passing driver flagged them down, and when they pulled up, a person in the passenger seat of the other car flashed the muzzle of a gun at them. Thankfully, this victim who was driving was smart enough to speed off as soon as they saw what they thought was a gun. Initially, the FBI and Cleveland Metro Parks Police told the press that the two July reports would be considered as part of the overall investigation into the Carnell and Kate murders. But by August, the agencies kind of walked that statement back. Fox 8 News reported that a spokesperson for Metro Parks Police said that after vetting the July incidents further, it appeared the other reports weren't relevant to the murder investigation because there wasn't enough information to prove, one way or the other, they were connected to whoever murdered Carnell and Kate. Now, I know what some of you are probably thinking, and I'm totally tracking with you. Other gun-related violent crimes, reported so close to a double murder, it seems like a huge red flag, right? But for whatever reason, these incidents were just not a focus for homicide detectives. I don't have any source material that states why. They just weren't. What authorities did have to work with was learning as much as they could about their victims. Investigators figured maybe somewhere in Carnell and Kate's backgrounds, they could find a clue as to why they'd been murdered, or if they'd been specifically targeted. But no matter how hard they searched, police kept coming up dry. Neither one of them seemed to have any enemies. News 5 Cleveland spoke with one of Carnell's friends who said the 40-year-old lived his life in service to others. He regularly volunteered with Applewood Centers to help improve the lives of children, and he worked with special education students in Westlake City School District for a few years before his death. He was also very involved with his own family and enjoyed volunteering as a youth sports coach at a program he'd been doing for a long time. He was also a member of a youth sports club called the "Empower Sports." Kate was employed at a jewelry store, and despite having a few ups and downs in her life leading up to 2019, by all accounts her family said she was doing well at the time of her death. Her parents told reporters that Kate was the person in the family who everyone could depend on. Shortly before her death, her father Tom said she'd gotten really into fitness and was rebuilding many relationships in her life. He told Tracy Carlos for News 5 Cleveland, quote, "Kate struggled. She had a few demons. She was two years sober. In fact, she'd just gotten the coin a couple weeks ago before this happened. She had gotten on a health kick, lost over 100 pounds. She was at the top of her game. She was enjoying life," end quote. Her brother-in-law told reporters for News 5 Cleveland that Kate was a doting aunt who brought tremendous joy to both her close family and extended family. He said that she was a gifted rider and really loved animals. "I'm so grateful to have been a part of this. I'm so grateful to have been a part of this. I'm so grateful to have been a part of this," end quote. In 2019, about four months after the killings, the FBI and Crimestoppers increased the reward for information to $25,000 and $5,000, respectively. Still, no one came forward. The lack of participation from the public frustrated investigators and the victims' families. One of Kate's sisters told Fox 8 News, quote, "If you know the person who did this, you're in danger yourself. If somebody was capable of murdering two innocent people, you need to turn them in," end quote. Updates in the case went quiet for the rest of 2019. Months passed, and the new year came and went with still no news as to who was responsible for killing Carnell and Kate. Then, in February 2020, Kate's family decided to add to the reward money with the hope that more funds would entice someone with information to come forward. News 5 Cleveland reported that the Brown family donated $70,000 of their own cash, plus an additional $5,000 from the FBI, which bumped the total reward of out to $100,000. Kate's sister Alex told the news outlet, quote, our family's lives were changed forever the moment we learned our beloved Kate was brutally murdered. We wake up every day not only ridden with grief, but constantly questioning how and why two wonderful people had been gunned down. Our family has pledged to keep Kate and Cornell's story alive until the person or persons responsible are brought to justice, end quote. On the one-year anniversary in June 2020, the FBI told news publications that the lack of progress in the case was discouraging, but federal agents and investigators with Cleveland Metro Parks Police were not giving up hope. A special agent working on the case told News 5 Cleveland that since the crime happened, the FBI had investigated hundreds of tips related to the murders, but nothing had panned out. To mark the anniversary, Cornell and Kate's families gathered again at the spot by the river where they'd been killed. In the months leading up to that event, several people who frequently visited the park told news publications that they'd stopped going by to view the makeshift memorial for the victims. They thought that because Kate and Cornell's killer was still at large, it was too dangerous to be in that section of Rocky River Reservation alone, and so they'd avoided the area. At the anniversary event, one of Cornell's cousins told News 5 Cleveland that the families felt like the murder investigation was no longer a priority for investigators. She said that agents had stopped calling and checking in with family members, and updates about what Leeds authorities were following had ceased. Kate's family echoed the same thing and said they wished investigators were doing more. Her father, Tom, later told WKYC 3 News that he feared two detectives who'd recently left the Cleveland Metro Parks Police Department would mark the end of any momentum his daughter's case had. There was also some evidence that the murder investigation was no longer a priority for investigators. Something else that happened that upset the families. All the signs they'd made and posted in the park as reminders for people to come forward with information had been taken down. Yeah, someone had ripped them right off the posts and trees the families had mounted them to. And that someone behind the removal was none other than Cleveland Metro Parks personnel. According to reporting by WKYC 3 News, in the spring of 2021, so almost two years after the murders, Cornell and Kate's families noticed that all the signs they made and hung at various locations along Valley Parkway and throughout Rocky River Reservation were gone. They went to Cleveland Metro Parks Police to ask what had happened, and the department told them that the signs violated park rules, so staff had to go to the police station. This news shocked the families because they thought, surely the agency responsible for investigating Kate and Cornell's unsolved murders would make an exception to some blanket sign ordinance rule. But they were wrong. The families went out and posted new signs, but within a matter of days, Metro Parks took them down again. Cornell and Kate's relatives were super upset by this because they felt like the only way they were going to get park visitors attention about the case was to get them to go to the police station. So they decided to go to the police station to get them to go to the police station. So they went to the police station to get them to go to the police station. He said it was disheartening to know that Cleveland Metro Parks Police staff weren't even willing to help the families make signs that better complied with the rules. Instead, the agency was leaving the family no option but to give up. In the end, the city of Fairview Park permitted Cornell and Kate's relatives to post reward signs near the entrance and exit of the park, outside of the Cleveland Metro Parks jurisdiction. A few weeks later, in May, Fox 8 News reported a new development that launched Cornell and Kate's case back into the limelight. According to reporter Ed Gallick, Cleveland Metro Parks Police released footage from the officers who'd initially responded to the crime scene back in June of 2019. What's wild is that in the video, like literally as the responding officers are pulling up in their cruisers, you see Cornell and Kate's cars parked in the pull-off area beneath the Lorain Road Bridge, along with several other vehicles, one of which has a kayak on top, which I assume probably belonged to the 911 caller and his girlfriend. Anyway, the footage also reveals that officers spoke with at least two other witnesses on scene who were in that section of the park at the same time as the crime. One guy who talked to the officers said he was doing paperwork in the park, and another woman who provided a statement told officers she was a nurse. In addition to those folks, you also see a lot of people in the video riding bikes, walking, or jogging, literally all around this crime scene, which to me only makes it that much more unbelievable that no one seems to have seen or heard anything suspicious in those critical few minutes that Cornell and Kate were shot to death. Like, how is that possible? In my heart, I don't think it is possible. I think someone did see something important, and they just haven't come forward, out of fear or because they could be involved somehow. I don't know. It's so troubling, though. And something else that's happened in the past, though, is that a lot of people didn't know anything about it. They didn't know anything about it. Shortly after the crime, an anonymous person wrote a letter to the news station's I-team claiming to know who killed Cornell and Kate. The letter writer alleged that a woman had murdered the couple after verbally getting into it with Cornell at the park bench. The handwritten note reportedly went into a lot of detail about what the woman looked like and what she said to Cornell before shooting him and Kate. The source material isn't super clear, but it appears the news station kept the existence of this letter on the down-low after immediately turning it over to FBI agents to follow up on. But by May 2021, nearly two years after receiving it, the news station had gotten zero information from law enforcement about if the letter's contents were being considered credible, or if any investigator had pursued it as a lead. When they questioned Cleveland Metro Park's police, the department's response to whether the letter had been investigated was that it had been and FBI agents had spoken with the person who'd written it. According to Ed Gallach's reporting, authorities said the author ended up not being an eyewitness to the crime, but was just somebody who claimed to have a, quote, vision about how the crime occurred. And unfortunately, that is where the case remains today. No closer to resolution. No closer to justice. Going so long without answers has taken its toll on Cornell and Kate's family, Kate's father told Fox 8 that living without her has been, quote, torture. And her sister said that it's hard not to go out and think that every person they run into might be the killer. According to reporting by Alexa Maslowski for Spectrum News 1, Cornell's family has tried to honor his memory by starting a foundation he always dreamed of creating. It's called Sledges Helping Hands, and it aims to help at-risk kids get a head start in to succeed. The logo is Cornell's handprint. His mother, Darlene, told the news outlet that pulling together the foundation with some of her son's friends was one way they could all remember Cornell and ensure his legacy and case are not forgotten. She said, quote, I want to be around to see justice for my son. I do. I just miss him so much, but he's right here in my heart. He's right here. So I carry that with me, and that's what keeps me going. End quote. In the summer of 2022, Fox 8 News reported that Cleveland Metro Parks Police and the FBI reconvened to review the case with a few new members of law enforcement. But what came out of that meeting remains unknown. One of Cornell's friends and Kate's brother-in-law, who both spoke with News 5 Cleveland, said that despite the horrific nature of what happened and the fact that there's still been no justice, Cornell and Kate would not want those who love them to let their deaths consume them. Cornell's friend told the news outlet, quote, He would not want us to get angry. He would not want us to stop living our lives. End quote. And Kate's brother-in-law said, quote, You would be hard-pressed to find two people that loved as much as they did. So please, spread love. End quote. If you have any information about the murders of Cornell Sledge and Catherine Brown, please call the Cleveland FBI field office at 217-325-4222. or the Metro Parks Police Dedicated Tip Line at 440-331-5219. You can also call Crime Stoppers at 216-252-7463. Those who provide tips can remain anonymous. Park Predators is an Audiochuck production. You can view a list of products at parkpredators.org. You can also view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow us on Twitter at parkpredators.org. Follow Park Predators on Instagram, at Park Predators. I think Chuck would approve.