Tina Milford (9 of Hearts, South Carolina)

It was close to 3 a.

M when Levis Smith Jr. pulled into the parking lot of Lil Cricket Convenience Store for a cup of Joe. The store sat right by the on-ramp of I-85 North in Anderson, South Carolina. But it wasn't too busy at this hour.

In fact, his was the only other car in the parking lot, aside from the one lone station wagon, probably belonging to the overnight employee. Except when he stepped inside, no one was up front ready to serve him some much-needed caffeine. Now, you probably figured the sole attendant had just gone to the back or something. So I imagine he called out, listening for someone in the shadows of the storage room, maybe a shout in return, a shuffle of feet.

But there was still nothing, just eerie silence. His spidey senses began to tingle, or should I say, his deputy senses, because, though he was retired now, Levis used to be a sheriff's deputy.

So he scanned the store lights on, door unlocked register secured. No signs of a struggle, but still, the unnerving silence swayed Levis to pick up the phone and call police anyway, better safe than sorry. Deputies with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene within a few minutes and searched the store and surrounding area. For any sign that something was actually wrong. Here. They too quickly came to the same conclusion as the retired deputy.

There definitely was no cashier left in the building, but it was clear she must have been working earlier that evening. Because at the store, they found a pair of women's shoes, socks, a flannel shirt and a pocketbook. It seemed most likely that robbery would have been their first thought if what they were dealing with was some kind of foul play, but that was soon set aside. The cash register was locked, the top door of the safe was unlocked but closed. And even then, it still contained over $2,000, plus that pocketbook that they'd found still had cash inside.

But where was the cashier? Officers were able to get in touch with a woman named Tammy, who was the second shift clerk at that store, to see if she could clue them in on what was going on here. Now. We couldn't find anything specifically noted in the case files about whether or not investigators found an ID inside that purse. Or if Tammy was the one who told them who had been working at the store overnight. But either way, by this point, it was clear their missing cashier was Tina Milford. Here's Anderson County Sgt.

Kendall Cash reading from Tammy's statement.

10 a.

M And that no one was in the store. When she left, however, she had left enough money in the register to open up on.

We couldn't find any mention in the investigative reports that Benjamin had seen Tina outside using the broom. But admittedly, and as witnessed by deputies, he'd been sleeping. So she very well could have been outside at some point. But he did say that he saw her inside at around 1.30 in the morning when he'd gone in to buy a drink. When he left, he said he noticed two white men still inside the store chatting with her, and, before you ask, two white men. Is as detailed as the report gets on their description. At that point, officers contacted Tina's parents, Janie and Leon Hunter, to let them know that their adult daughter wasn't at work as she should have been.

I think they were hoping maybe her mom and dad could offer some kind of insight, like, was it possible she could have just taken off? But they didn't have a good answer for detectives. They just knew that there was no way that she would have just abandoned post. I mean, forget the fact that her car, purse and her shoes were right there.

And the shoe thing wasn't odd she was known to work barefoot, but if she had left on her own, she surely would have put her shoes back on anyways. They knew how responsible their daughter was, they knew she couldn't afford to lose that job.

And Janie had just been talking to Tina a few hours before, and she hadn't indicated anything about leaving. She told police that while they were on the phone, they'd just been casually chatting, probably just checking in with one another. Until sometime around 1.30 in the morning, when Tina had to cut the call short because a customer walked up, it seems like that was all detectives needed to hear. They were now working under the assumption that Tina had been kidnapped. So Ebola was put out for a 23-year-old white female with long, brown hair.

Now, the motive for this crime was still puzzling. Tina was clearly the target, but was this a crime of opportunity? Someone who just took advantage of the vulnerable position? Tina was in alone in the wee hours of the morning. I mean, it actually wouldn't have been the first time.

It had happened earlier that same year at another location, the spot Tina used to work at. It was actually the reason she had moved to what was called the Liberty Highway Store in the first place. Here is Anne Hollingsworth, Tina's older sister.

So if this wasn't a roaming predator who just happened to be at the right place at the right time to take her, then it had to be someone close to her. Someone who knew that she would be there, knew that she moved stores, knew that she picked up that shift, and that pool of people was small. When our reporter Madison spoke to Tina's longtime family friend Susan Holly over the phone, she said that she didn't even know Tina had moved stores, much less picked up an extra shift.

And he said One up on 85.

And the only thing I could think of to say was, Thank God, thank God, because I knew that's not where she worked. She worked out on Pemonderry Road. So I knew that it had to be somebody totally different until that evening when I heard that she was missing.

Here's Coroner Greg Shore. Since around 2009, he's taken it upon himself to dive into Tina's case files during his spare time. Since Anderson County doesn't have a designated cold case unit yet.

They did note that she had a gunshot wound to the head.

Later autopsy results would state that there was no sign of sexual assault. But that doesn't necessarily rule out a sexual assault nor a sexual motive for the crime. And that is what investigators kept coming back to, over and over motive if detectives wanted to figure out who, they needed to find out why. So they started by trying to track Tina's movements from the day before she was taken from her workplace.

Maybe that would bring them more insight.

Investigators learned that during the day on June 23rd, before she went into work, Tina had bought drugs from a guy named Jimmy Golden, a known dealer in Anderson. According to her friends, since meeting her husband Tony, it seemed like Tina had started hanging out with a rough crowd and had maybe gotten involved in drugs. At least off and on.

But what stands out to me even more so is why would Tina help Tony buy drugs if they were in the midst of a nasty divorce battle?

She was actually at Tina's parents house, often because Mrs Hunter would watch her son while she was at work.

I said, No, it's not OK, it's not OK, because I know when someone is hitting you, that's not all they're doing to you. I had heard rumors about her hiding under a car from him when she was pregnant to get away from him and the abuse. I heard that. But to know that she was being physically burned with cigarettes, I had no idea that he burned her with cigarettes.

I had no idea.

But when detectives went and actually spoke to Tony, there was no mention of marital turmoil or abuse. Instead, he said that he and Tina were still living together. He claimed that they were going to try to stay a couple and they'd been working on reconciling their relationship. He said he did have contact with her that morning before she left for work, but it was just about transportation and child care, he said. About an hour before Tina's shift was set to start. She called Tony and told him that she'd been having car trouble and she was worried that it was going to make her late to work.

He told her to take their daughter to his mom's house, and then Tina could borrow her mother-in-law's station wagon. So that explained the car that was left in the parking lot at the store that night. And it also spelled out something else investigators found pretty interesting. Tony was likely well aware that Tina was going to be working overnight. That made him an obvious target for investigators to zero in on.

But it was far from the only thing.

Our reporting team obtained written evidence that shows Tina found out about at least one of Tony's affairs sometime before she died. In Tina's case file, there was something we thought was worth sharing. It's a letter from Tina to Tony. It's not dated. And we can't be sure she's specifically referring to Kelly, the girlfriend he'd been with that night. But it had to have been fairly recent, like before her murder, within the last 18 months or so, because Tina mentioned Tony being a father to their baby girl.

We're going to have a voice actor read a portion of the letter.

Tony I really don't know why I'm writing, I just have to tell you how I feel. Although you probably won't even read this, I wanted to tell you that I think you're the sorriest son of a bitch I have ever met. Last night I found out about your girlfriend, as you probably know now, and I started asking people if they knew and guess what?

Every person I asked knew about her, but no one could tell me until after I found out for myself. The saying is absolutely true. The wife is the last to know. When investigators spoke to Tony's girlfriend, Kelly, she seemed to verify his alibi. For the early morning hours when Tina was likely taken from the store, according to the two of them, they had been at her place between four and four.

Thirty in the morning, Tony left to go see some guy named Russell about 20 minutes away in Belton. Eventually, Kelly confirmed that he made his way back home sometime between five and six in the morning. But there was really no way to corroborate his whereabouts for the entire time period. However, back in 1983, the next best thing to proof was, you guessed it, a good old lie detector test. Now. At first, Tony agreed to taking one, but then he changed his mind after speaking to an attorney.

But they got Kelly to move forward with hers, and the results, as well as subsequent interviews with people who knew Kelly, were very telling.

He's covered in blood.

Abuse, they don't, they don't.

So if this wasn't a paid murder for hire plot, what could Tony have had on someone that would have convinced them to kill? We know there was that known drug dealer, Jimmy Golden, but it seemed like he and Tony were more enemies than friends. At least around that time. So it wouldn't really make sense for Jimmy to help Tony in any way. When detectives actually went and spoke to Jimmy, he claimed that he was good friends with Tina. But by the time they were talking with him, he couldn't provide an alibi. Couldn't recall where he was, what he was doing, or who he was with that night.

But even if someone else was responsible for pulling the trigger, investigators still had a hunch that Tony at least had some type of involvement. But at best, all they had still was hearsay. However, the witness statements they had that were piling up made him look pretty bad. Someone told investigators that while Tina was missing, Tony and two of his buddies were out riding around looking for Tina. When Tony suddenly stopped at a payphone, made a phone call, came back, jumped into the truck and said they found Tina and then drove straight to the scene.

But down the line, this case would receive a burst of energy from a rather unexpected source someone outside of law enforcement.

In 2009, an impromptu partnership between a coroner and a constable was born.

And I was like, you know, I'm going to have to do something about this, I'm going to have to do something about this. And he and I were chatting one day and I asked him about that, and he said, You know, let's look at it. So we started looking at the case and we just started talking to people that were listed in the case file.

And an interesting associate of Tony's was from Honeyapath. And we talked to him on July, the 29th of 2009, and we asked if he would talk with us about Tina Milford. And he agreed. But he didn't want to do it on record, due to his concerns for his life, states that Tony Milford and Broadus Baldwin were involved in that case. He stated that Broadus always carried a 25 caliber automatic gun in his pocket.

It was white handled and chrome plated. After Tina's death, he traded that gun to Chick for drugs, and Chick sold it to Maxie.

He was asked, Do you think Tony Milford would be capable of killing his wife like that? BrOADUS Yes, sir. he's a very wild person. Do you know of any problems that he and his wife might have had at the time? Broadus No. They were divorced from the time.

I think that, like I said, I quit associating with him. He was pretty wild back then. So I just, I'm not a violent person and I wouldn't be around people like that. That's about all I know. But the interesting thing about it is that. We talked to another witness, Jen, who states that a couple of days, a day or so after Tina was missing. He was over at Broadus House and he got in the back seat of the car. They were going to go somewhere, and in the floorboard was a picker stick, something that's used in the mill.

And Jed said that he picked it up and it had blood and long, reddish brown hair, just like Tina's on that picker stick.

Now we've said it before Tina was shot, but something I haven't told you yet is that Tina's autopsy did find a crack on her skull. So it's possible that she could have been hit with this picker stick or something like it.

Supposedly, before it was even public information that Tina had been taken from her job. Someone had observed Broadus in public practically announcing that Tina had been kidnapped. But when face to face with detectives more than 25 years later, Broadus denied it all.

Response is No, were you there? And he says, No. He did not exhibit indicators of tell a lie.

Now they filed this motion. But according to Sergeant Cash, it seems like the court only found enough reason to grant the motion for Tony Milford to provide DNA. And so he did. He thinks at least Broadus was probably asked to voluntarily give a sample at some point, but it doesn't appear that he ever did. Now, a year later, in 2011, one of the case's original witnesses came back into play. That guy Dean. The one who said he came across two men who were looking for the little cricket the night that Tina went missing.

Well, now he came forward again with some more details about what went down. And to be clear, he had already told a deputy about this early on, like right after he heard about the kidnapping. I'm not sure if it was a news segment or what that prompted Dean to contact authorities again, close to 30 years later. But he did say that whoever talked to him back in 1983 hadn't seemed too interested in his story. And he didn't write anything down when they spoke.

The car had some speakers hanging in the back. He specifically remembered the car mate because he had one that he was trying to fix and get running. The driver was a white male, appeared to be in his late 20s. He had long, scraggly hair with tattoos up and down both arms. The passenger is a white male, who also looked to be in his late 20s.

He had shoulder-length blonde hair, and I think he also had a couple of tattoos on his arms. They were asking where Little Cricket was and they both had come inside the store to ask that question. And I guess he told them where it was. But he felt kind of weird about it. And he said that. One of them said, What was you looking for in the store? and he said he was looking for the girl that worked there.

And he said something about he was going to beat that girl's ass if she did not have his.

He said it was a guy with the nickname Onion, but that the other person with him, he had no idea who that guy was. Until about a year after Tina's murder, when he recognized this person out in public.

Tony was in the drug game, everybody said he was in the drug game, he owed some money. The only question I would have about that is, Why are you asking where it's at? You're from Anderson County.

You know where your ex-wife works, you just supposedly live with her. She's borrowed a car from your family member to go to work. Why would you need to ask?

So it would take almost another 10 years for another Chance event to put them on the right path forward. One day, in early 2020, Coroner Greg Shore was working with an investigator randomly pulling evidence boxes from Tina's case, checking out the contents inside to see what all was left. When all of a sudden, they spotted it, a suspicious stain on Tina's blue.

Decades too late, maybe not too late for the cutting edge technology at Othram Labs in Texas. So in March of 2020, just as COVID-19 cases were rapidly developing, they sent the piece of denim there, and not too long after the results came back.

That does not rule out Tony Milford, it does not make him the suspect or rule him out. It just said, there's not enough.

When's the last time someone tried to talk to Tony?

Then the destination is on your right.

Milford are you, Tony?

Hi, my name is Madison Cavalchieri. This is Coroner Greg Shore. We're doing a story about a cold case about Tina Milford, and we know he were married to her back then. So we wanted to see if you would mind us asking you about Tina Milford's case. We're asking you a few questions at this point. Tony asked us not to do any recording.

So for the rest of this, we're going to do our best to sum up how this conversation went. While Tony sat there on a makeshift bed in a small shed behind his mother's house, Madison and Coroner Shore stood in the doorway and talked with him for about 45 minutes or so. A sign reading Only God shall judge Thee on the wall above him. Tony started out seemingly transparent, openly admitting to the fact that he was not a good guy back then. He spoke about his substance use, the rough relationship he had with Tina and his criminal life. All of which he thought were contributing factors to why law enforcement went in on him so hard for Tina's murder.

He admitted to the cheating, even fighting, but claimed there was never any physical abuse. He rejected the notion that Tina ever had to go to the hospital as a result of a beating from him.

He only found out about it the day that Tina's body was found. That's when he was apparently served official papers. If he was innocent, we probed, then who did he think was responsible for his wife's murder? Tony brought up two of their former friends as possibilities, David Ridgway and Tony Hawk, who, he said were both now deceased. By the way, and he never really made it clear what their motives would have been, just that both he and Tina were struggling with substance use.

So maybe something to do with that. And then that's when he made mention of also being suspicious of Jimmy Golden. But when asked, he said he didn't think Broadus Baldwin was capable of killing Tina. Tony also claimed that he thought Tina may have been fooling around, with both Jimmy and Broadus seeming to hint that maybe that could have had something to do with what happened to her. Madison and Coroner Shore asked Tony if he'd be willing to come to the Anderson County Sheriff's office for a formal sit down interview with a real detective. And if he would volunteer to take a polygraph?

But he expressed frustration with the fact that he is still being considered a suspect. And he claimed that there wasn't anything he could do now to change anyone's mind about him. Tony says he prays and hopes his high school sweetheart's case will one day be solved. Towards the end of the interview, he said Quote If there is a God in heaven, if there is a God in Heaven. And I done it, I know who done it, I had it done or was connected in any kind of way. I hope I fall off this couch dead as a doornail.

Right now, Tina's friend Susan holds on to the hope of justice, even if it's beyond the grave, just like Tony suggested.

You can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word start to eight, eight, seven, eight, eight.

The Deck is an audio check production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit The Deck Podcast dot com. So what do you think, Chuck, do you approve?