On Dec. 21, 1995, one or more people entered the trailer of Lloyd Bedford, 55, and Barbara Murray, 55, at 72145 East 11th St. in Lacombe, and brutally murdered the couple by stabbing them repeatedly.

Until last week, the case has never been solved. Detectives had suspicions of who did it, but they did not have evidence to arrest the suspect.

At a Friday afternoon press conference, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain announced that because of a tiny spot of blood, his detectives had served an arrest warrant on a prisoner at Angola March 9, charging him with two counts of first-degree murder.

Ronald Bickham

'��The detectives worked tirelessly to solve this,'�� Strain said.

Ronald Bickham, 67, who lived at 72151 East 11th St. at the time of the murder, is serving a 60-year sentence for a 1997 Slidell carjacking.

On March 9, Bickham was transferred to the St. Tammany Parish Jail and booked for the double murder.

He was returned to Angola the same day.

He was scheduled to be released in 2057 for the carjacking conviction, but with two murder charges hanging over his head, Bickham will probably never leave prison, Strain said.

The double murder case has been handed down by St. Tammany Parish Sheriff detectives to other detectives for several years.

Detectives have scoured the evidence trying to link Bickham to the murders.

Lt. Joe Picone of the department'��s Major Crime Unit said the initial investigators suspected Bickham was the culprit, but they could never get any evidence on him. Bickham was a neighbor of the murdered couple, and he has some cuts on his face when detectives talked to him.

Then in 2004, one detective was going over photographs of the murder scene when he spotted something. Amid the extensive gore and blood spatters, the detective noticed one small drop of blood on the victim'��s clothing that did not match the rest of the blood.

'��It was a one in 10 billion chance that he saw it,'�� Strain said.

The detectives got out the clothing of the victims, found the drop of dried blood and sent it off the DNA forensics lab in Jefferson Parish.

Two St. Tammany detectives went to Angola and got a blood sample from Bickham. The DNA of the blood spot matched Bickham'��s blood.

But instead of arresting Bickham immediately, the detectives held off until March 2008.

Strain explained that detectives believed Bickham was not the only suspect in the case. He would not go into detail, but hinted that more arrests are to be made.

'��We are not ruling out additional suspects,'�� Strain said.

He said events that occurred between 1995 and 2004 made detectives believe there was a link to other suspects.

Detectives did not want to scare off other suspects so they kept quiet about Bickham. After all, Bickham was not going anywhere for the next 60 years.

Strain said his department was also working on several high profile cases at the time, and he could not spare the men nor equipment.

'��We chose to wait four years,'�� Strain said, adding that after an arrest warrant is approved, there is a time limit for the police to do all the paperwork and arrest the suspect. '��It was beneficial for us not to serve the warrant at that time, but we truly believe there are more suspects.'��

Strain said the Sheriff'��s Office knows robbery was the motive for the murders, but he would not say if anything was taken from the trailer.

Strain did commend the tenacity of his detectives for sticking to the case until it was solved.

'��We don'��t give up on murder cases,'�� Strain said. '��Murder has no statute of limitations, so we keep going until we solve them.'��

Strain said the same dedication is being used to investigate the Interstate 12 double homicide and last'��s year'��s murder in Sun.