Lack of help from witnesses makes solving homicides difficult, Orange County deputies say

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — There have been 11 homicides in Orange County in 2017 and of those, seven remain unsolved, officials said.

The problem in general is not a lack of investigation, but a lack of cooperation from witnesses who may have information vital to making an arrest, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.

Lilcliff Dunlap, 27, was the youngest child in his family with two older sisters.

He was shot and killed in 2014 during a home invasion at Millennium Palms Apartments on Texas Avenue.

“His smile is just the light in the room, or the light of our universe,” his mother, Wini Jones said.

She couldn’t understand why the killer remained on the loose so many years later.

“My son’s murder was eyewitnessed,” Jones said. “There were people in that condominium that were unharmed that saw what happened to him.

“So, there’s a lot of question marks with us as to what happened to Cliff that evening.”

A sketch was released by investigators, but it never led to a suspect.

“The composite sketch is a fantastic tool, and when it works, it really works well. But we are working with some challenges,” Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeff Williamson said. “In this particular case, I will tell you that we have had some uncooperative witnesses. We have people we would have hoped would come forward to give us good information.”

Jones, though, still has hope that someone will come forward with information on her son’s killer.

“The memory of my son, it can never die,” she said. “I would never let it die.”

Cox Media Group