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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nGary Gross started his career in law enforcement as a jailer at just 18 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt the time, I was the youngest jailer that the city had ever hired,\u201d Gross said. His nickname was \u201cBoy Jailer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were a lot of times on the evening shift, you were the only jailer and you had 100 inmates,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gross went on to spend 32 years at the Lakeland Police Department, working on investigations as a sergeant and retiring as public information officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He retired four years ago, but recently got a phone call from Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe reached out to me and asked if I\u2019d be interested in coming back as a civilian cold case investigator and I said, \u2018yes, absolutely\u2019,\u201d Gross said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a part-time job. Gross will be working 30 hours a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are times that I\u2019ve jumped into one case and you want to keep going. You just don\u2019t want to stop. It can certainly take on a life of its own,\u201d said Gross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike detectives, Gross will not be taken away from his work by active investigations or violent crime calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not subject to any call-out. I\u2019m gonna focus strictly on this case and again, work it as far as I can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his first two weeks on the job, Gross has zeroed in on one case from over 10 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is not sharing which one, in order to protect his investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt involves 38 witnesses, and right now, I\u2019ve spent the last two weeks reading all those witness statements, all the police reports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In late 2019, DNA submitted to public genealogical databases was used to solve a cold case from 1981, the murder of a Lakeland mother Linda Slaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been rough for me my whole life. Not knowing who it is. Always scared to death I was friends with him,\u201d Slaten\u2019s son, Jeff Slaten said at a press conference announcing the arrest of her killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, Joseph Clinton Mills pleaded guilty to the crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Gross, it\u2019s an example of how, with fresh eyes and cutting edge technology, cases can move from cold to solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith Linda Slaten case, they didn\u2019t know about DNA so it was perceived differently. Luckily they had some evidence that they could use so I\u2019ll have to look at all that as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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