Man faces murder charges 30 years after Marion killing

MARION, Ind. – A man faces murder charges nearly 30 years after he was first questioned about an attack in which another man was shot in the head and had his throat cut.

Alfred Solomon, 67, was arrested this week at his home in Cumberland County, Ky., and was arraigned Thursday in a Grant County court for the 1979 killing of Terry Headley of Marion.

Grant County Prosecutor Jim Luttrull said he decided to file the murder charges after his chief investigator had reviewed the case. He declined to discuss what led to the arrest but said the break came from the “accumulation of evidence over time.”

“We do not give up,” he said. “We do not forget these crimes.”

Luttrull said he did not believe anyone else was involved in the attack.

A judge entered a not guilty plea Thursday for Solomon, who was jailed without bond.

A message seeking comment was left for his defense attorney, Robert Rittman.

Court documents say police first considered Solomon a suspect in the weeks after the 1979 attack as an acquaintance of his told detectives Solomon seemed exceedingly interested in Headley’s death. Solomon denied knowing anything about the murder.

The death remained unsolved even though Solomon’s ex-wife, who divorced him in the early 1980s, told investigators in 1990 that he had told her he killed Headley.

Debbie Solomon’s account was that her husband had gone to Headley’s apartment to get marijuana and returned with blood on his hands, saying that he had killed a man. Court records say that she saw Solomon burning his clothes and coat the next day and that he threw the handgun into a lake.

Julie Cox, who was Headley’s girlfriend and discovered his body, said she had often worried about whoever committed the killing coming back for her.

“He’s been out evading police for 30 years,” Cox said. “I just can’t understand how people don’t have a conscience.”