Cold Cases

Cold Case File

Lockport detectives still hope for breaks in three mysterious cases

By April Amadon
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

Six cardboard boxes, each filled to the brim with paperwork and evidence, sit on a top shelf in the Lockport Police Department’s Detective Division, a constant reminder of cases left unsolved.

Even as the years go by, detectives are still doing all they can to make sure the cases are eventually solved.

“You get busy,” Lockport Police Detective Capt. Larry Eggert said. “The recent cases start to take precedence over these. So it’s not that they’re neglected, but they just get to the point where there’s nothing more you can do with them. It’s very frustrating to sit here and look at them and know that there’s not a darn thing you can do.”

The six boxes are tied to three cases in particular that stand out for city detectives: One missing person and two homicides, the oldest of which goes back 16 years.

There is always hope, however, as seen in the recent arrest of a suspect in the Bike Path Rapist case — a case that stretches more than two decades.

“You just chase down every lead, and you work on it as often as you can, and if anything new comes up, review it,” said Lockport Police Detective Lt. Rick Podgers. “We’re the only people that speak for the victim. Whether or not they’re good people, bad people or what they are.”

The more exposure a case gets, the better, Eggert hopes.

“It’s nice that once in a while we can reach out to the public and maybe just jiggle somebody’s memory, or maybe just hit that right day when they’re just feeling kind of low and the conscience starts to kick in and you start to feel a little guilty,” he said. “Because that’s all it takes. Just that one little plug that’s holding all the water back, and if you pull that cork out, the whole thing comes at you and you solve it.”

Anyone with information about one of the following cases is asked to call the detectives division at 439-6722 or 439-6666.



A lack of closure

Almost nine years after she disappeared without a trace, Roger Bulmer remains optimistic that his daughter Cindy will be found.

Roger has printed out “Missing” posters with Cindy’s picture, advertising a $27,500 reward for information about her disappearance, posting them not only locally but in other states like Florida, Nevada and California.

“Someone could see it and know something,” Roger said. “I hope that something comes out of it. I hope they find something.”

Cynthia Bulmer, who would now be 40, has been missing since March 26, 1998. She’s described as 5 feet 9 inches tall with blue eyes and brown hair.

Eggert said she was last seen that night at having drinks at the Redmen’s Club in the City of Lockport, where she wrote her name in a sign-in book.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t reported missing for a few days after the fact.

“The investigation didn’t even start until the case was already starting to grow cool,” Eggert said.

Police say Cindy, a former employee at Harrison’s, had become involved in drugs and prostitution, which may have had something to do with her disappearance.

Despite her father’s optimism, police suspect the worst for Bulmer.

“She probably is not alive,” Eggert said. “We’re assuming foul play.”

Police have even begun to consider Cindy’s disappearance may be tied to the Bike Path Rapist, though there is no evidence to connect the crimes.

“Depending on how the case goes in Amherst and Erie County, we’ll probably want to touch base with them to see,” Eggert said. “You never know.”

One suspect police considered was James McPhail, a former Lockport man who was convicted of killing Robin Dye Coleman after a DNA sample connected him to the crime in 2001.

Cindy’s DNA, which investigators collected from her hairbrush, was entered into VICAP, a national database for DNA samples and other information. In the event her body is found in another state, the DNA match will be made through the database.

Roger remembers his daughter as a dancer and skater who loved her dogs. At the time of her disappearance, she was living on Ontario Street with her dog Gizmo.

“She was nice,” Roger said, smiling.

The $27,500 reward includes contributions from Roger, the UAW/CIO and Cindy’s siblings.

“The hardest thing for the families in this unsolved stuff is the lack of closure,” Eggert said. “This woman here, this is even worse because we don’t have a body.”



A mysterious killing

In the early morning hours of May 5, 1991, a visitor at 317 Washburn St. was walking to the front porch of the home when he stumbled over a dead body in the grass.

Panicked, the visitor flagged down a passing police car, and the investigation began.

The dead man was Michael Brolinski, a 36-year-old self-employed painter who lived at 321 Washburn St., just a couple of doors down from where he was found, face-up, bruised and beaten on the lawn.

There were no outward signs of trauma on the body, but it appears Brolinski was beaten to death.

“The autopsy showed he had multiple contusions and abrasions, like he was punched and kicked,” Eggert said. “He died, I think, from trauma to the neck area that caused him to suffocate.”

Blood was found on his shirt and evidence was collected from around the area.

Eggert said the Brolinski beating is probably the oldest unsolved case detectives have. The evidence has been re-examined in the past few years, but nothing conclusive has been determined.

“We had a list of people of interest, but we never came up with that little bit of evidence that put it over the top for us to make an arrest,” Eggert said.

Brolinski, who attended Newfane High School, lived on Washburn Street with his brother, Shawn Johnson. He reportedly left home just a few hours before the body was discovered. According to a May 8, 1991, article in the Union-Sun & Journal, witnesses reported seeing nothing unusual outside the house the night of Brolinski’s death.

Because there was no extreme violence involved, the fight may have not attracted a lot of attention.

City detectives were joined in the investigation by investigators from the Niagara County Sheriff’s department, as well as police from Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda.



A lack of witnesses

On a warm summer night in 2003, gunfire shattered a North End neighborhood.

In what was the city’s first homicide in over two years, Daniel G. Tomlinson, 40, was shot in the driveway of his North Transit Street home on July 29 while his wife looked on.

Neighbors described seeing a a black man, 5-foot, 10-inches tall, weighing between 150 and 160 pounds, running from the scene. He wore his hair in corn rows or dreadlocks and was wearing a short-sleeved, blue plaid collared shirt. He was seen running west on Green Street shortly after the shooting.

Eggert said police believe Tomlinson had ties with the local Jamaican community, possibly with a group of Jamaicans who were importing marijuana to the area.

Tomlinson was facing drug and weapons charges in Niagara County Court at the time of the shooting, stemming from a raid that was conducted on his home in December, 2002. Police reportedly found eight pounds of marijuana in Tomlinson’s basement during the raid, as well as a 9mm Smith and Wesson handgun that had been stolen from a Niagara Falls Police Officer.

Tomlinson was charged with second-degree criminal possession of marijuana, fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He was out on $2,000 bail when he was killed, just over two weeks before his next scheduled court date.

The suspect was reportedly waiting outside Tomlinson’s home, in the shadows of a neighbor’s house, before the shooting. A neighbor told police he’d asked the man if he needed any help, and the man said no.

When Tomlinson returned home, “The guy asked him his name and shot him in the face,” Eggert said.

This case has been especially baffling for detectives, as cooperating witnesses have been hard to come by.

“The Jamaican community is very close-knit, and coming from Jamaica, they have a tendency not to trust police,” Eggert said. “Without that person or persons coming forward, it’s like screaming into the wind. You can’t do a whole lot.”

Podgers said detectives will keep working the case until it’s solved, no matter how daunting it is. In the Tomlinson case, it’s especially tough because “people of interest that we’re looking for have apparently left the country,” he said.

“It’s frustrating when specific members of the community won’t assist you, won’t give you information,” he said.

Eggert echoed that frustration.

“Usually, murders, people take them seriously, because they could be sitting in the box here,” he said, motioning to the box of paperwork and files marked with Tomlinson’s name. “A lot of people can relate to that, so they’ll talk to us. But in this case, we didn’t get all that much.”

http://www.troopers.state.ny.us/Wanted_and_Missing/Missing/