Murder On The Cape

A Woman Is Killed And Almost Everyone Could Be A Suspect

(CBS)  In the three years police were searching for Christa Worthington’s killer, an uneasy peace settled over Cape Cod, as the investigation dragged on.

Only the random DNA round-up got much public attention.

"It’s just needle in a haystack kind of stuff. It did seem to smack of some desperation," Williams remarks.

Meanwhile, whole books were being written about this unsolved murder; investigators, under intense pressure, still would rule no one out, including Tony Jackett.

Little Ava, his daughter with Christa, was sent to live with a friend, Amira Chase, whom Christa had named as a guardian in her will. Jackett was allowed to see his daughter only one afternoon a week.

Jackett decided to fight for custody but lost to Christa’s friend. And Tony thinks he knows why.

"Well, being a suspect definitely cost me custody, more than anything else, custody of my daughter," he says.

Jackett was also getting used to another reality. "We were just going to have to live with the fact that the perception of my being a suspect is going to stay."

But then, on April 7th, investigators caught a stunning break, when the crime lab had a hit -a match for DNA found outside and inside Christa’s body.

"It was just a bombshell. A huge bombshell," Williams remembers. "We were just like electrified. Couldn’t believe they’d come up with a match."

Ssuddenly, there was a match, a suspect and an arrest, all announced to the world by District Attorney Michael O’Keefe, three and a half years after the crime.

"Last night at approximately 7:15 p.m. detectives from the Massachusetts State Police arrested Christopher A. McCowen for the 2002 murder of Christa A. Worthington," the DA announced.

A lot of people had no idea who McCowen was.

Christopher McCowen had been Christa Worthington’s garbage man. Truro was astonished and relieved and it seemed like a done deal.

Police picked up a docile McCowen at his rooming house, lying on the bed, watching cartoons; marijuana and an open bottle of prescription pain killers were on the table nearby. Incredibly, he’d been right under their noses from the start.

Interviewed twice, both times he had denied knowing Christa Worthington. Also, he had given police his DNA - voluntarily - more than a year earlier.

When detectives took him in for questioning, McCowen waived his right to a lawyer. Detectives say he again denied knowing Christa.

"And then he’s presented with a fairly strong piece of evidence that he’s lying," O'Keefe says, referring to the DNA evidence.

Police say that’s when his story changed. "He admits that, yes he went there on Friday night, yes he had sex with her and yes, he beat her. But he doesn’t want to bring himself to admit that he killed her. So he blames the worst part of it on someone else," O'Keefe says.