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The Murder of Linda Slaten
● Case Closed
Cold Case Homicide
Lakeland, Florida
September 1981 — Solved 2019
01
Victim Profile
Linda Patterson Slaten
Linda Patterson Slaten
Victim, Age 31
Linda Patterson Slaten
Linda Patterson Slaten was born on March 8, 1950. She was 31 years old and a single mother of two sons, Jeff, 15, and Tim, 12, at the time of her death. In 1974, she had divorced Frank Slaten, the boys' father, after nine years of a volatile marriage. She raised her sons largely on her own, relying on government assistance, making her own clothes to save money, and getting by without a car. The family had moved to Lakeland, Florida, just weeks before she was killed.
Her sister Judy Butler lived nearby in the same apartment complex. Her sons later described her as doing the best she could under difficult circumstances. She was full of life and loved her family. Jeff Slaten said at sentencing: "She was a good person. It was rough living on government housing and welfare, but she was doing the best she could."
Linda was found dead on September 4, 1981. Her sons, who were asleep down the hall when she was killed, spent the next four decades not knowing who had taken their mother's life. Tim Slaten, who inadvertently saw his mother's body when a police officer opened her bedroom door that morning, carried that image for more than 40 years before her killer was brought to justice.
01
Overview
What We Know
On the evening of September 3, 1981, Joseph Clinton Mills, then 20 years old and the youth football coach for Tim Slaten's Lakeland Volunteers team, drove Tim home from football practice and dropped him off at the apartment on N. Brunnell Parkway. When Tim arrived, his mother Linda came out to the car and thanked Mills for the ride. Mills later told investigators he then left and did not return.
Investigators believe Mills returned to the apartment later that night. He entered through Linda's bedroom window, which was unlocked, removing the screen. Both boys were asleep in their rooms and heard nothing. Linda was sexually assaulted and strangled with a wire coat hanger taken from her own closet. She was found lying crosswise on her bed, partially unclothed, with the hanger wrapped around her neck.
On the morning of September 4, Linda's sister Judy Butler arrived at the apartment for their regular morning coffee. She found the bedroom window screen torn open, looked inside, and found Linda dead. Police were called. Jeff Slaten, 15, was woken and told to go outside. Tim, 12, followed and inadvertently saw the full crime scene when an officer opened the bedroom door as Tim passed in the hallway. He saw his mother's body with the coat hanger around her neck. Both boys were taken from the apartment without being told immediately that their mother had been murdered.
After his arrest in December 2019, Mills initially denied any knowledge of the killing. Once confronted with the DNA evidence, he changed his account and claimed the encounter had been consensual, stating Linda already had the coat hanger around her neck when he arrived and that she died during sexual activity. Prosecutors rejected this account. The physical evidence showed the use of a foreign object in the assault and lacerations consistent with Linda struggling to remove the hanger from her neck, not consistent with a consensual encounter.
02
Chronology
Case Timeline
September 3 to 4, 1981
Linda Slaten Murdered
Joseph Mills drives Tim Slaten home from football practice on the evening of September 3. Linda comes out to thank him. That night, Mills returns, enters through the unlocked bedroom window, sexually assaults and strangles Linda with a wire coat hanger while her two sons sleep down the hall. On the morning of September 4, Linda's sister Judy Butler discovers her body. Police are called. A rape kit is collected and a palm print is lifted from the windowsill by Sgt. Edgar Pickett.
September 5, 1981
Mills Contacted by Phone — Not Followed Up
Investigators conduct a brief phone interview with Mills, one day after the murder. He confirms he drove Tim home from practice and that Linda came out to thank him, then says he left and did not return. Investigators do not interview him in person and do not consider him a suspect. The case focuses on other individuals. The semen from the rape kit does not match anyone in law enforcement databases. The case goes cold.
1981 to 2014
38 Years Unsolved — Slaten Brothers Never Stop Asking
Jeff and Tim Slaten grow up not knowing who killed their mother. Mills continues to drive Tim to and from football practice after the murder. He periodically asks Tim if there are any new leads in the case. Tim keeps a football team photo on his bedroom wall showing the whole team, with Mills standing directly behind him. Neither son suspects their former coach. Over the following decades, more than 20 Lakeland PD detectives work the case. The Slaten brothers visit the department regularly asking for updates. Det. Brad Grice serves as lead investigator for 17 years.
2014 to 2017
Cold Case Unit Established; Case Reviewed
Lakeland PD establishes a dedicated cold case homicide unit in 2014. In 2017, a detective begins a new review of the Slaten case file. Detectives Tammy Hathcock and Russell Hurley take over the active investigation.
November 2018
DNA Submitted to Parabon NanoLabs for Genetic Genealogy
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement contacts Det. Hathcock to ask if the department wants to submit DNA from the Slaten crime scene to Parabon NanoLabs for genetic genealogy testing. Investigators agree. Parabon's chief genetic genealogist CeCe Moore uploads the DNA to GEDmatch and begins building a family tree by linking distant relatives through birth certificates, marriage records, and social media.
June 2019
Parabon Identifies Mills as Primary Suspect
Parabon analysts notify police that Joseph Clinton Mills is the most likely suspect, based on genetic connections found to both sides of his family tree and his proximity to the crime scene. Det. Hathcock pulls the original case file and discovers that Mills had in fact been briefly interviewed by phone in 1981. He had never been considered a suspect. Investigators begin surveillance of Mills.
Summer 2019
DNA Collected from Trash; Fingerprints Matched
Under surveillance, investigators collect DNA from Mills' discarded trash, including a piece of used adhesive tape. The lab confirms the DNA matches the semen from Linda Slaten's 1981 rape kit. Investigators also pull fingerprint records from Mills' 1984 grand theft arrest. Sgt. Pickett's 1981 palm print from the windowsill is compared to Mills' 1984 fingerprints. It is a perfect match.
December 12, 2019
Joseph Clinton Mills Arrested
Mills, now 58, is arrested and charged with first-degree murder, sexual battery, and burglary with assault and battery. He initially denies any involvement. Once confronted with the evidence, he claims the encounter was consensual and that Linda died accidentally during "wild sex." Lakeland PD holds a press conference. Tim Slaten, now 50, addresses reporters and states Mills was the last person on his radar and that he had ridden alone in the car with him many times after the murder, never suspecting him.
February 9, 2022
Guilty Plea — Four Consecutive Life Terms
Mills, now 61, pleads guilty to all charges in a Polk County courtroom before Judge Kevin Abdoney, avoiding the death penalty. The Slaten brothers, Judy Butler, and other family members deliver victim impact statements. Mills does not respond to any of their questions and addresses the court only briefly, saying: "I am a good person. I'm not that person that they're painting me out to be." Judge Abdoney sentences Mills to four consecutive life terms in Florida State Prison without possibility of parole.
03
Law Enforcement
The Investigation
When Lakeland Police responded to the Slaten apartment on September 4, 1981, the first responding investigator, Sgt. Edgar Pickett, processed the scene thoroughly. He lifted prints from every surface, including the floor, ultimately collecting a partial palm print from the windowsill where the killer had entered and exited. A rape kit was collected at autopsy, preserving semen samples. Both pieces of evidence would sit in storage for nearly four decades before the technology existed to use them.
In the days following the murder, investigators interviewed numerous individuals connected to the Slaten family and the neighborhood. Mills was among those contacted, reached by phone on September 5. His interview was brief and conducted remotely rather than in person, and he was not fingerprinted or considered a serious suspect. Over the following years, more than 20 Lakeland PD detectives worked the case across different periods, and the Slaten brothers visited the department regularly to ask for updates. Det. Brad Grice served as the primary investigator for 17 years and maintained a relationship with the family throughout that time.
The breakthrough came through genetic genealogy. In November 2018, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement contacted Det. Tammy Hathcock of Lakeland's newly formed cold case unit to ask if investigators wanted to submit the crime scene DNA to Parabon NanoLabs. Parabon's chief genetic genealogist, CeCe Moore, uploaded the DNA to GEDmatch and spent months building a family tree from distant relative matches through birth certificates, marriage records, and social media. In June 2019, Parabon told police that Joseph Clinton Mills was the most likely suspect due to genetic connections found on both sides of his family tree and his documented proximity to the crime scene in 1981. Investigators pulled the original case file and discovered that Mills had in fact been briefly interviewed by phone one day after the murder. Det. Hathcock later said she ran down the hallway to her sergeant with the original interview record saying she had found him.
Tim Slaten's team photo — Mills directly behind him
Investigators placed Mills under surveillance in the summer of 2019 and collected his discarded trash, which included a piece of used adhesive tape. DNA from the tape matched the semen from Linda's 1981 rape kit. Separately, investigators located Mills' fingerprint records from a 1984 grand theft arrest. When those prints were compared to Sgt. Pickett's 1981 palm print from the windowsill, they matched. The case that had been open for 38 years had a confirmed suspect.
The original investigation's failure to focus on Mills has been examined in the years since. Case file records and later accounts document that in 1981, investigators were directed to compare the palm print to Black men, in part because of reported suspicious activity in the area involving Black individuals. Investigator Pickett, who is Black, later acknowledged that the racial assumptions of colleagues had influenced his own investigative approach at the time and said it had been on his conscience ever since. Mills, who is white, was given only a brief phone interview one day after the murder and was never fingerprinted, despite having had direct contact with the victim's household on the night of the murder. The case was prosecuted by ASA Mark Levine under State Attorney Brian Haas of the 10th Judicial Circuit.
Press Conference — Arrest Announcement
Lakeland Police Department press conference, December 19, 2019. Announcing the arrest of Joseph Clinton Mills in the 38-year-old cold case murder of Linda Slaten. Tim Slaten speaks publicly about learning his former coach was his mother's killer.
Watch Press Conference (YouTube) ↗
04
Convicted
The Accused
Joseph Clinton Mills
Youth Football Coach — Lakeland, Florida
Age at Time of Offense: 20
Age at Arrest: 58
Age at Sentencing: 61
Hometown: Lakeland, Florida
Role in Victim's Life: Youth football coach for Linda's younger son Tim; Lakeland Volunteers program
Prior Record: Grand theft arrest, 1984 (unrelated; fingerprints from this arrest matched crime scene)
Charges: First-degree murder; sexual battery; burglary with assault and battery
Arrested: December 12, 2019
Plea: Guilty — February 9, 2022
Sentence: Four consecutive life terms without possibility of parole
Sentencing Judge: Hon. Kevin Abdoney, Polk County
Current Status: Reception and Medical Center, Union County, Florida
Case Disposition
Joseph Clinton Mills pleaded guilty on February 9, 2022, to first-degree murder, sexual battery, and burglary with assault and battery in the 1981 rape and killing of Linda Patterson Slaten. He entered the guilty plea to avoid the death penalty, on the advice of his attorney. He was sentenced by Judge Kevin Abdoney to four consecutive life terms in Florida State Prison without the possibility of parole. Mills addressed the court briefly before sentencing, saying he was a good person and not the person being described. He did not respond to any of the questions put to him by the Slaten family. He is currently incarcerated at the Reception and Medical Center in Union County, Florida. The case was prosecuted by ASA Mark Levine of the 10th Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office under State Attorney Brian Haas.
Forensic Breakdown
Criminal Investigative Analysis
Developmental History
The publicly available record on Joseph Mills' childhood and early development is limited. He was born in approximately 1961, grew up in Lakeland, Florida, and was 20 years old at the time of the offense. He was active as a youth football coach for the Lakeland Volunteers program at a young age, placing himself in a role of authority and routine access to children and their families. His only documented prior criminal record before the murder was a 1984 grand theft arrest, which was unrelated to sexual or violent offending. No documented history of prior sexual assault, childhood behavioral precursors, or other indicators was established in the publicly available case record. His developmental history, beyond what is noted above, is not available in public sources.
Pre-Identification Profile
Before Mills was identified, the evidence supported specific deductions. We know the offender was almost certainly male and known to the household, because the method of entry was through an unlocked bedroom window of an apartment he had visited just hours earlier and knew the layout of. We know he had a pre-existing relationship with the victim's family, because the absence of signs of forced entry or a protracted struggle indicate the victim was caught off guard rather than engaged in a defensive fight with a stranger. We know he was likely young and physically capable, because he entered and exited through a window without waking anyone. We know he was embedded in the victim's social environment, because the timing of the offense directly followed a routine contact with the household through the son.
Confirmed Offender Profile
Once identified, Mills matched every element of the deduced profile precisely. He was a 20-year-old male in a position of routine, trusted access to the Slaten household through his role as Tim's football coach. He had been in the apartment complex and at the apartment on the evening of the murder, giving him direct knowledge of the layout and the household's routines. He lived close to the crime scene. The genetic genealogy result, which identified him through connections on both sides of his family tree, was corroborated immediately by the physical evidence: both his DNA matched the rape kit and his fingerprints matched the windowsill palm print collected in 1981. The only deduction that did not survive confirmation was the racial direction given to investigators in 1981, which was factually wrong and cost the case decades.
Victimology
Linda Slaten was a 31-year-old single mother living in an apartment in a working-class neighborhood, recently relocated, without a car, and without a partner. Her social world was limited and her access to support networks was narrow. Her vulnerability in this case was created by her son's participation in a community football program, which placed a man she did not know well into a position of regular, trusted contact with her household. Mills gained access to Linda not through a direct relationship with her but through his institutional role relative to her child. Research on violence against women by acquaintances consistently identifies this indirect access pattern, in which the offender's relationship to a child creates proximity to the parent, as a recognized pathway for predatory contact.
Modus Operandi
Mills used an unlocked bedroom window as his point of entry and exit, leaving no signs of forced entry. The wire coat hanger used as a ligature was taken from Linda's own closet rather than brought to the scene, indicating the choice of murder weapon was situational rather than planned in advance. The timing of the offense, within hours of dropping Tim off at the apartment and making contact with Linda, indicates the decision to return was made that same evening following that interaction. The absence of noise sufficient to wake two sleeping children suggests the attack was rapid and the victim was quickly incapacitated.
Signature Behavior
Mills' post-offense conduct included a sustained, long-term pattern of maintaining contact with the victim's surviving son. After the murder, he continued driving Tim to and from football practice, picking him up from his grandparents' house. He periodically asked Tim if there were any new leads in the case. He sustained this behavior for months after the killing. This ongoing contact with the victim's child is not operationally necessary for concealment; it reflects a behavioral dimension that goes beyond practical self-protection. Whether this represents sadism, compulsion, a need to monitor the investigation, or something else is not established in the public record, but it is documented and is one of the most distinctive post-offense elements of this case.
Geographic Profile / Anchor Point
Mills committed the offense in a location he had direct knowledge of and had visited within the prior 24 hours, specifically the apartment of a family he interacted with regularly through the football program. He lived close to the crime scene. The offense was committed in his own familiar social and geographic territory, consistent with a marauder pattern. Unlike offenders who select targets in unfamiliar areas to reduce the chance of identification, Mills operated within his own community network, which reduced his short-term detection risk given his familiarity with the family but ultimately placed him in a category of persons known to the household that investigators should have examined more carefully in 1981.
Risk Assessment
Mills accepted a moderate level of personal risk by returning to an apartment where he was a known and recent visitor, leaving physical evidence including a palm print on the entry point, and committing the offense within his own social network rather than against a stranger. That risk was substantially mitigated by the investigative failure in 1981, in which racial assumptions directed evidence collection away from him and a brief phone interview substituted for an in-person examination of a person who had been with the victim just hours before her death. The victim's risk profile was elevated by her isolation as a single mother in a new community with limited resources and no partner in the household. The case remained unsolved for 38 years not because of the quality of the original physical evidence, both the palm print and the rape kit survived intact, but because that evidence was never compared to the right person until genetic genealogy made it possible to identify who that person was.
In Memoriam
They Are Not Forgotten
Linda Patterson Slaten was 31 years old. She had gotten herself and her two sons out of a difficult marriage and was building something on her own, on very little, in a new town. She made her own clothes. She couldn't afford a car. She was doing the best she could and Jeff said so, in a courtroom, forty-one years later, when he finally got to look at the man who killed her.
Tim was twelve years old when he walked past his mother's bedroom door and saw her body. He slept with a switchblade under his pillow for years afterward because he did not know who had done it. Jeff said he was always scared to death he was friends with the killer and had been looking over his shoulder his entire life. They were right to be scared. The man they were afraid of was someone they knew and had been in a car with dozens of times.
Tim had a photograph of his football team hanging on his bedroom wall for years. Mills was standing directly behind him in it. He had been carrying a photograph of his mother's killer and had no idea. That fact alone captures something about what this case took from these two boys.
Linda's sister Judy found her that morning. Judy has been carrying that too. She stood in that same courtroom and asked Mills directly if he had any soul and if he had any remorse. He said nothing. He will never answer. Linda Patterson Slaten was 31 years old and she is not forgotten.
Sources
CBS News / 48 Hours — "Linda Slaten case: Decades-long search for Florida mom's killer ends with arrest of Joseph Clinton Mills" (December 2019; updated 2023) | ABC News — "Son's former football coach arrested for mom's 1981 murder" (December 19, 2019) | CNN — "A single mother was killed in 1981. Her son's youth football coach is now the suspect" (December 20, 2019) | WFLA — "Genetic genealogy leads to arrest in 1981 cold case murder of Lakeland woman" (December 2019) | Bay News 9 — "DNA Technology Helps Lakeland Police Solve 38-Year-Old Murder Case" (December 19, 2019) | WTSP — "Lakeland man sentenced to life in nearly 4 decade-old cold case" (February 9, 2022) | Oxygen.com — "Joseph Mills Convicted of Linda Slaten's 1981 Cold Case Murder" (February 2022) | Law and Crime — "Family Members of Cold Case Murder Victim Confront Killer in Court" (February 2022) | State Attorney's Office 10th Judicial Circuit — Press Release: "Cold Case Murder Prosecution Leads to Four Life Sentences for Lakeland Man" (February 15, 2022) | The Cinema Holic — "Linda Slaten Murder: Where is Joseph Clinton Mills Now?" | Forensic Tales — "Linda Slaten" (October 27, 2025) | CeCe Moore (Parabon NanoLabs) — Twitter/X statement, February 9, 2022
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