Her name was Samantha Olson, and anybody who ever set eyes on her was sure to fall in love with this 31-year-old mother of one who was shot to death in August 2013 for no apparent reason. That's the part of her story that still mystifies her friends, family and the North Little Rock police--who aren't about to call her death a closed case. "Samantha Olson was totally innocent," as Captain Brian Scott of that city's police department puts it. "She was just driving down the road, just like anybody else could be driving down the road."
Cases like Samantha Olson's usually fall into a common pattern: An angry lover turns on an old flame who's been seeing somebody else, a jealous husband or wife takes revenge outside the law, or a drug deal goes bad. When the cops investigate, the usual suspects are interviewed, the usual reasons reviewed, and some motive turns up. But it's been some four years now, and nobody seems to have an answer to the question: Why would anybody kill Samantha Olson? Nothing in her past provides a clue to why someone in a maroon Ford pickup with a toolbox in the back would want to kill her.
The police tracked down more than 1,000 maroon trucks and interviewed witnesses who saw her car come to a complete stop at the busy intersection of McCain and JFK Boulevard before the bullets started flying. Three to six of them, as if the shooter were acting out of some homicidal rage directed specifically at Samantha Olson--for her car window, cracked open, was unbroken, and her year-old daughter Linnea was unhurt, safely strapped into her car seat. After the hail of bullets, Samantha's car went through the light and came to rest near a Starbucks at the southeastern corner of the intersection, too late to save her.
She was always there for friends and family and even the stranger she might serve as a waitress before she decided to quit her job and study accounting. "My sister really was the rock in our family," as her younger sister April well knew. "Everybody called Sissy, everybody. Bad day? We'd just call Sissy, text Sissy. It's just what you did."
Samantha accompanied her mother to chemotherapy sessions even though Mom kept telling her it wasn't necessary. But come along she did, as Aimee Dickerson, her friend since childhood, recalls. "She didn't listen to Mom, she just did what she needed to do. She always made me want to be a better person."
"All she ever wanted was to be a mom," her kid sister recalled, "and she finally got it. Linnea was like the happiest, sweetest little baby. [Samantha] hated going back to work, but she'd come back during her lunch break."
Now Samantha is gone, and her once happy family is still devastated by their loss and the mystery surrounding it. "I don't know how a family is expected to cope and move on and accept and forgive," says her sister, "if there isn't any closure on it."
Captain Scott and his team aren't about to give up the search for Samantha's killer. And when will Samantha's be considered a cold case? Not till he and his partner, Sergeant James Dancy, say so. "You can solve 200 homicides out of 201," says Captain Scott, "and in your mind you're a failure. I feel like a failure with this case hanging over me."
His team still gets emails, phone calls and Facebook messages from folks who believe they've spotted the pickup connected with Samantha's death. They arrive at a rate of about one a month. Every tip is acted on. How will it all end? "Somebody's going to talk," predicts Captain Scott, "and when that day comes, we'll have our answers."
"I hope I live to see it," adds Sergeant Dancy.
Anyone can help if they believe they have a lead by calling North Little Rock's police investigations unit at (501) 680-8439. Justice, justice, says the Good Book, thou shalt pursue. And the chase is still on.
Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 09/17/2017