Peggy Cox would have turned 74 on Monday. Instead, her last birthday was also her last day on earth, Feb. 1, 1991.
The only unsolved murder in Franklin history happened a little before midnight on a Friday night at, of all places, the drive through at Hardee’s on 96 East where she worked.
Peggy was working the drive through window. She took an order for a roast beef combo, speaking those which would be utterly mundane if they were not her last. The customer, the murderer, had a normal, unremarkable, man’s voice. He pulled to the open window.
Her son, Jude, who was working that night with her, saw her back away and heard a couple pops.
Peggy lay dying, shot through the head, her killer disappearing under the cover of night. And now, time.
On Monday morning, 25 years to the day after that man, that murdered, disappeared into the night and left a family shattered, at the Franklin Police Department the team investigating this cold case murder and her children Jude and Desiree exhorted the public for help.
“We are completely reinvestigating this thing,” Franklin Police chief Deborah Faulkner said. “Some one out there could have important info.”
“We want to know if you know it.”
Faulkner was there. As was Detective Darren Barnes, a cold case investigator with the FPD and assigned to the FBI violent crimes task force, and Special Agent David Volk, FBI.
There are several ways to let the team know what you might know. The dedicated hotline is (615) 550-8404. There is also a Facebook page, here.
As of now there is a $25,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of her killer.
“We want to know how he seamlessly killed her. Her kids want to know and we will not rest until we have the info to close the case that saw a member of our community violently taken.”
“We want to thank the FBI, Franklin and the state of Tennessee for helping raise the reward money.”
Here is some more info on the killing.
