The first suspects investigators considered in the 1999 murder of Kathleen Cotton were Jason Scott Dew and Billy Ray Aaron, two North Carolina men later convicted of theft and breaking and entering in connection with break-ins at several homes in the region, according to Star-News archives.
Dew and Aaron later were convicted in the murder of Donald Barton, 39, a street sweeper in Ormond Beach, Fla. According to former Florida state attorney John Tanner, who spoke to the Star-News in 1999, Dew told Wilmington detectives that he shot Barton in the head behind a Kmart in Florida and stole his credit cards and driver’s license.
In 2001, Dew, then 18, was sentenced to life without parole, and Aaron, then 20, was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for his involvement in the Barton murder, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
Both men are still incarcerated in Florida. They were never charged in Cotton’s death.
Further into the Cotton investigation during 1999, the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office sought to question Thomas Gordon Roundtree, then 43, about his possible involvement in the murder, according to news reports from that year. Roundtree also was wanted on criminal charges for failure to appear in court and probation violation.
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