Glendale Police Detectives Solve 26-Year-Old Murder Mystery

GLENDALE, Ariz. – On August 31, 1981, Glendale Police Officers and Detectives went to 5200 W. Phelps where an adult female had been found. The female was a victim of an obvious homicide.

The victim, Frances Sawyer, originally appeared to have been sexually assaulted and had been strangled to death. According to her husband, Raymond Sawyer, she was on her way to Metrocenter Mall. That lead as well as others were pursued, but the case remained unsolved.

The case was reviewed periodically through the years but nothing new came up. Glendale Police Department “Cold Case” Detective, Roger Geisler, traveled to Arvada, Colorado to re-contact the victim’s husband in an attempt to develop new leads. During the interview, Raymond Sawyer, the victim’s husband at that time, broke down and confessed revealing details he had never revealed before that only the murderer would have known.