SAN DIEGO — For Scott Meineke, closure arrived on Nov. 13, 32 years after the grandmother he never knew, Grace Hayden, was raped and murdered in her San Diego home.
Hayden’s case broke in 2018, when DNA led to the other side of the country.
Tony Johnson, a San Diego County District Attorney’s Office investigator who reopened the cold case, was the one who contacted Scott Meineke, and told him of the break in his grandmother’s case. She was killed on May 20, 1987.
Kevin Ford, who was living on N.C. 20 just outside of St. Pauls with his wife, was convicted of the crime on Nov. 13 in San Diego.
“I was really grieved,” said Meineke, who was not aware of his grandmother’s fate.
It took some detective work for Johnson to find Hayden’s relative.
Using Ancestry.com, Johnson located a photo of Scott’s father, John Meineke, that matched the one in Grace Hayden’s living room. The family tree feature of the website offered him the ability to reach out to Meineke’s niece Charnella Rojas, who told him Scott had been using genealogical records to try to find his grandmother.
Meineke had posted the same photo on his Facebook page to honor his late father, who served in the Navy in World War II, on Veterans Day in 2018.
“It turns out he had been trying to locate his grandmother for years,” Johnson said.
At the time of her death, investigators were unable to find any of Hayden’s relatives.
“Back then, the tools just weren’t available,” Johnson said.
Meineke said that although the news brought him grief, it also brought him a sense of closure to know his grandmother received justice.
“It’s all about justice, you know what I mean?” Meineke said.
He and his wife attended Ford’s preliminary hearing in November 2018.
”It was pretty brutal,” he said of Hayden’s murder.
Hayden lived alone in a single-bedroom home at 4400 36th St. in the Normal Heights area of San Diego.
The 79-year-old was seen routinely by a nurse, social worker and a home health-care provider, which explained why her door was left unlocked on the day of her attack, Johnson said.
Hayden’s vision and hearing had deteriorated over the years and she had suffered the loss of two children earlier in her life.
“Somebody like that needs to be left in peace for her final days, not brutally murdered,” Johnson said.
Hayden was found dead in her home by the home health-care provider, Johnson said. Evidence provided details of Hayden’s rape and murder.
It would take 31 years to identify the person who murdered her. A fingerprint left on her stove eventually led to Ford. The fingerprint was first entered in to the national crime data base in 2015 by Robeson County sheriff’s Deputy John Blount, who processed the St. Pauls man for communicating threats at a pharmacy.
“That was the door that opened everything up,” Meineke said.
But the fingerprint was not enough to convince him that Ford was the killer, Johnson said. He needed DNA to either confirm Ford’s involvement or eliminate him as a suspect.
Erich Hackney, who at the time was an investigator with the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office, was contacted to help. After a week and a half of following Ford, Hackney said he was unable to obtain DNA from Ford.
So a search warrant was ordered, which compelled Ford to give law enforcement samples of his DNA.
“I handed them to Mr. Johnson who had flown in from California,” Hackney said.
Ford’s DNA matched the DNA found inside Hayden, he said. That was the moment Hackney knew it was over, and satisfaction sank in.
Ford was arrested in July 2018.
Johnson said Ford claimed that it was a consensual sexual encounter with Hayden.
“The story did not make any sense,” he said.
Hackney agreed.
“I was disappointed that he claimed this was consensual given that he was 31 and she was 79 years old and could hardly see or hear. But if you have no other defense, I guess you will come up with anything you can,” Hackney said.
Ford will be sentenced on Dec. 13, according to Johnson, who expects life without the possibility of parole. Ford has said he was homeless and a drug addict living in San Diego on the date of Hayden’s murder.
Meineke said he did not feel the death penalty was necessary.
“I said no,” Meineke said.
The lengthy process of capital punishment was not worth it, he said.
“He’s 63. He’s not healthy,” Meineke said. “I thought that was enough.”
Meineke, who now lives in Las Vegas, was unable to attend the trial because of health reasons, but did get updates from the District Attorney’s Office. He does plan on attending the sentencing.
Hackney commended Deputy Blount for taking fingerprints. Fingerprints are not usually taken in low-grade misdemeanors, he said.
Blount told The Robesonian in July 2018 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had instructed officers to begin fingerprinting cases of domestic violence, communicating threats, assaults and other crimes that could lead to more serious charges later.
“And had he not taken fingerprints, Mr. Ford would be sitting in the comfort of his home right now,” Hackney said.
