Timothy Meinch

tmeinch@dmreg.com

A Des Moines man’s spontaneous confession to a slaying 14 years ago and 1,500 miles away has solved a long cold murder mystery, Florida detectives said Thursday.

Richard Busey’s beaten body was found dead in his Wilton Manors, Fla., apartment in April 2002.

Police in the Fort Lauderdale suburb had long since exhausted any leads in the case before the unexpected confession arrived last month.

Joshua Odom, 38, was arrested Aug. 25 after he sought out Des Moines law enforcement to confess to the murder. Authorities with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office transferred Odom this week to Florida, where he faces first-degree murder charges.

Odom was living at the Bethel Mission homeless shelter on the north side of Des Moines at the time he confessed.

He told Des Moines police that God told him to reveal the details he could recall, according to detectives who interviewed him.

“It doesn’t happen often to have somebody come in and confess to a murder that he actually did and have all the details,” said John Curcio, a homicide detective with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

“Give credit to God, because that’s why (Odom said) he wanted to come in and confess.”

Des Moines police deserve the bulk of the credit for taking the confession seriously and investigating, Curcio said.

Details from the Aug. 11 confession were blasted out by Des Moines police to law enforcement agencies across southern Florida. The report jogged the memory of a Wilton Manors police detective.

Odom’s confession aligned with the 2002 crime scene at Busey’s apartment, a case that hadn’t seen a viable lead in more than a decade, according to Ricky Libman, a detective with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office who flew to Des Moines to interview Odom after obtaining an arrest warrant.

“If it wasn’t for Des Moines detectives who went into great detail (interviewing Odom),” Libman said, “it probably would have never been picked up.”

Odom told authorities he was invited to Busey’s apartment for drinks and sex.

He then decided to murder and rob the 70-year-old man to buy crack cocaine. Odom used a vase or pot to strike him in the head after choking him, according to statements shared with police and documented in an arrest warrant last month.

Since the confession, fingerprints collected in 2002 from Busey’s apartment have been matched to Odom. DNA samples from the scene also will be tested.

A tipster’s call in May 2002 described a suspect named “Josh” and a large tattoo on his chest, who was seen in Busey’s apartment. Josh Odom has a tattoo on his chest. Authorities said they followed the lead at the time but were unable to pin down a suspect for charges.

Odom told police he couldn’t recall the time or exact location of the killing in his confession, although he remembered the apartment, according to authorities.

But one key memory tied him to Wilton Manors in April 2002.

He remembered getting arrested in the area the following day for stealing a case of beer.

Wilton Manors police have records of this April 5, 2002, arrest, which note Odom had “swollen and discolored” hands. He was released shortly after on a $500 bond for the misdemeanor theft with a scheduled court appearance. He promptly fled the state, according to the Broward detectives.

Investigators described Odom as a drifter who is originally from Texas, where he likely relocated after the arrest in Wilton Manors.

He then migrated north into Indiana and eventually Iowa. Libman suspects he was in Iowa for a year or two. A search of his name shows no results in Iowa court records prior to the August confession.

Officials at the Bethel Mission said they do not comment on specific clients who stay at the facility. The emergency shelter on Sixth Avenue allows individuals to stay up to 120 nights in a one-year period.

Des Moines police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek described the cooperation between Florida and Des Moines authorities as a “needle in the haystack” scenario. “The report was one of dozens of emails received daily by detectives in the region,” he said.

Detectives said there are thousands of unresolved cold cases across the country and it’s a challenge to match them with random confessions, especially ones made years later and states away.

“A lot of people come in and confess to a lot of things. It’s not typical that an arrest and a record puts them in the right place at a certain time,” Curcio said.