National show helping in Sandusky County cold case - WTOC-TV: Savannah, Beaufort, SC, News, Weather & Sports

For 25 years, a cold case in Sandusky County has gone unsolved. The murder of a local wife and mother has puzzled investigators, but now a national television show is shining a new light on her death.

Isabel Cordle was found dead at her home on West Main Street in Bellevue. Her murderer has not been found, but that could change now that the case has been reopened.

"A husband woke up in the early hours of January and found his wife had been murdered on the front couch in the living room," said Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer.

Cordle was struck in the head with a hatchet. Pictures of the home-turned-crime scene have been pulled out of storage at the sheriff's office.

"I was only 14 years of age then," Overmyer said. "My father was working here as a deputy, as well, and he was one of the first responders on scene that day."

Producers of the TNT show "Cold Justice" reached out to the sheriff's office to help with the investigation. The show looks at unsolved murders in small towns across the country.

"I think a lot of times, like any investigation, people are reluctant to want to come forward initially and talk to the authorities, and provide them with that information we need to make a case," said Detective Sean O'Connell, from the Sandusky County Sheriff's Office. "Then, when time starts to lapse, people realize, ‘You know what? Maybe I should have done something that I didn't do back then that I need to do now.'"

The sheriff's office says the show has helped them dig deep, narrowing down a list of suspects from eight to one: Cordle's husband Richard, who married a coworker eight months after his wife's death.

The story of Isabel Cordle will air October 15 at 10 p.m. on TNT.

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