ST ANN, Mo. — Former St. Ann Police Department Chief Bob Schrader can sleep easier at night after hearing someone was charged for the 1993 murder of Angie Housman.
"It was the best news I had had in a long, long time," Schrader said from his home in St. Ann.
Twenty-six years ago, Schrader took a call for a missing girl as the 37-year-old chief of the St. Ann Police Department.
"It's something you can't get out of your mind especially when it happened on your watch," said Schrader.
Nine-year-old Angie Housman went missing from her bus stop on November 18, 1993. She was found dead nine days later in the August A. Busch Wildlife area in St. Charles County.
Investigators said she was sexually assaulted, tortured and left alive to die in the snow. Prosecutors said Angie’s cause of death was hypothermia.
For the next several days, Schrader and a team of investigators tracked leads across two counties.
"It was like leave no leaf unturned, and we still couldn't come up with the right guy," Schrader recalled.
For the next 20 years, Schrader and other investigators followed leads that went cold.
He believes closure finally came on Wednesday.
The St. Charles County prosecutor said DNA evidence tested with new technology was enough to charge Earl Webster Cox.
Asked if he'll sleep easier after the charges Schrader said, "Absolutely."