An anonymous tip led to two arrests in a pair of 6-year-old Richland County cold cases.Deputies have charged Christopher Trice and Tomasina Miller, both 23, with murder, armed robbery and kidnapping after the department’s cold case investigations unit received a CrimeStoppers tip that implicated them in the shooting death of Joseph Richardson at his Garners Ferry Road apartment Nov. 12, 2006, and an armed robbery at the Dollar General at 4045 W. Beltline Blvd. on Aug. 26, 2006. Trice and Miller were both teens when the crimes were committed.Lott said the anonymous call broke both cases years after the trail had gone cold.
“That anonymous call through CrimeStoppers has allowed that family to stand up here with me today and take that next step toward recovery that they need so much,” Lott said at a press conference Thursday.
Deputies responding to a shooting call at an apartment building in the 7000 block of Garners Ferry Road found the door to Richardson’s apartment forced open and the man laying unresponsive on the ground with a gunshot wound to his upper body. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The case was investigated, but few leads turned up, Lott said. What leads deputies had dried up quickly, and the case went cold. It wasn’t until the tip came in that deputies determined that Richardson was killed when robbers targeted his home by mistake.
