Daughter hopes for justice in decades-old, hit-and-run murder of mother

EATONVILLE, Fla. – Willetta Harmon feels robbed of a mother and cheated of a childhood.

“I don’t have the opportunity to make a phone call and ask somebody like mom can you tell me this,” Willetta Harmon told FOX 35 News on zoom from her Buffalo, NY home.

Her mother, Pamela Harmon, was killed on January 24, 1982. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was a hit-and-run. A newspaper clipping from back then said it happened on Kennedy Blvd. near the old Rainbow Club in Eatonville. Pamela was only 24 years old at the time.

“Her body was flat, her body was run over multiple times,” said Willetta. “She had a closed casket funeral.”

Since then, Willetta grew up and had children of her own, but there’s a void in her heart. Along with a few pictures, she has a trading card. It’s from Project: Cold Case. The non-profit aims to solve unsolved murders. It makes decks of playing cards, with the names, faces, and details of cold cases across Florida. 

The cards are handed out to different businesses and jails. The hope is that with more people seeing the cards, more information will come out.

“A lot of times families start to feel like their loved one is forgotten and that no one else cares,” explained the founder, Ryan Backmann, “and that’s a really, really bad and sad place to be while you’re grieving.”

Forty years later, Willetta is still grieving, hoping one day she’ll get answers and justice.