The woman charged in a decades-old murder case in Warner Robins is now in the Houston County jail. Madison Cavalchire spoke to murder victim Cheryl White's cousin who says he's waited 42 long years for this day to come.
"Things like that didn't happen in this town," said Cheryl White's cousin, Joel Jones.
In November of 1975, Warner Robins Police found White dead with multiple stab wounds.
"It couldn't have been anybody that I knew, or a friend, so I thought maybe a stranger," Jones said.
But the person charged with his cousin's murder wasn't a stranger, or someone he remembers being called a suspect at the time.
Law officers charged 59-year-old Mary Jane Stewart with White's murder two weeks ago in San Antonio, Texas and charged her with felony murder and probation violation.
On Monday, officials with the Houston County Detention Center say Stewart was booked into the jail just before 6 p.m.
Stewart was 18 at the time of White's murder.
Jones says he knew of Stewart from Warner Robins High School. He says although he didn't think Stewart was an original suspect, the family wasn't surprised when she was charged with White's murder.
According to a news release, Warner Robins Police found White's body at the Parkway Apartments on Crestview Drive shortly after 1 a.m. back in November of 1975.
Jones says as far as he remembers, his cousin and Stewart were only acquaintances through their time together at Warner Robins High School. He says he believes the two ended up living together in an apartment after 16-year-old White moved out of her parents' home.
He says he believes White had originally moved in with a different roommate, someone she considered a friend, but when that roommate moved out, Stewart moved in.
"It wasn't a good idea, as we know now, for Cheryl to have had anything to do with Mary Jane," Jones said.
Jones says his cousin's cold case brought with it, even colder emotions, but with Stewart now behind Houston County bars, he's hoping for some closure.