Grandmother Helen K. Vogt

Helen K Vogt was born in Rochester, Monroe New York to Frederick "Fred" Vogt (1892-1938) and Helen K Furhmann (1891-1958) and had three siblings. She married George W. Francis (1915-1997) on April 18th 1941 in Rochester and they had two children Thomas Allen (1949-1995) and Suzanne Francis. On July 23rd 1988 at her apartment in the 2800 block of Zimmerman Road, police were called when neighbors saw someone wrapped with a towel around their head take her Buick LeSabre car and speed away. See 77-year-old killed in Erie. Neighbors went to check on Helen and found her brutally beaten and stabbed 51 times. Police found two knives and a two-prong fork that were used during the attack inside the apartment and some of Helen's belongings missing. Her car was found the following month in Dayton Ohio and according to investigators it was the 'first break' they had since the murder. It had been stolen by a few boys who lived in an orphans' home when the boys discovered the car near a Greyhound bus station. See Slain woman's car found in Ohio for more details. Investigators, including Lt. William Serafini, Dominick DiPolo, and Hames Washburn of the Erie Police Department's Detective Bureau were unable to find a suspect to the murder. See Car linked to Erie murder recovered in Urbana. The killing of the 76 year old Helen became a 'cold case' for nearly exactly 34 years, until on July 26th when police announced the arrest of Helen's grandson Jeremy C. Brock. Thanks to advancements in DNA, investigators were able to use a washcloth in Vogt's bathroom and compare it to samples retrieved as part of a search warrant. Jeremy was 21 at the time of Helen's murder, and 55 years old at the time of arrest.