Bumbling cops immediately decided it was a neighborhood kid, because he had a bad word written on his Converse All-Stars.
The cops spent three decades literally hounding this poor fellow before DNA testing showed who the real murderer was.
That innocent kid who was only guilty of bad manners was Jeffrey Womack who later worked in the kitchen at the Jolly Ox steak restaurant in Green Hills. The police sent a detective to work in the kitchen of the Jolly Ox to befriend him and try to milk confidential case information from Womack. But the effort led to nothing.
The more serious bumbling of the case involved ignoring the crime spree around the Vanderbilt and Belmont campuses and the failure to consider the possible link to the Trimble murder. Six crimes were attempted/committed in February and early March of 1975. The little girl scout was taken on February 25th.