Dateline: Promise To Gloria - 5 harrowing details about Gloria Pointer's tragic fate, explored

Dateline Season 32, Episode 22, titled Promise to Gloria, followed the 1984 Gloria Pointer murder case. The official synopsis of the episode reads,

“A mother searches for answers in the unsolved murder of her 14-year-old daughter until new DNA technology changes everything.”

It took the law enforcement officials 30 years to solve the case with advanced DNA matching technology. In 2013, Hernandez Warren was found to be the criminal and was taken into custody.

Let us now explore some of the most shocking details of the murder case of Gloria Pointer, as shown in Dateline.

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5 harrowing details of the Gloria Pointer murder case

Gloria Pointer was going to school on the day of her murder

On the morning of December 6, 1984, Gloria Pointer got ready for school like any other day. She had started early that day because it was a special day for her. She was to be given an award for her perfect attendance at Cleveland’s Harry E. Davis Junior High School.

She was so excited for the day that she took a shortcut, which her mother Yvonne did not like as she told Dateline,

“I didn’t like the road because she was going through the back way.”

However, despite calling out to her, Gloria continued through the back way, and that proved to be her end.

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The killer followed Gloria before she was murdered

A number of eye witnesses confirmed seeing Gloria on her way to school. However, what else they confirmed was a black man following her. Wearing a knit cap and a brown coat, the man was seen to be grabbing Gloria’s arms before they disappeared.

Lamar Thomas, one of Gloria’s classmates, also confirmed this man’s presence with Gloria that day, as he said to Dateline,

“They went up a side of a house and it seemed like they was just goofing off and about to come, you know, a few minutes later they would be in the school.”

However, she never made it to school and when she did not come up to receive the award even after announcing her name multiple times, the Principle had let her parents know of her absence.

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Gloria’s body was found at a fire escape stairwell’s bottom

After Gloria’s school informed them that she never reached there, an anxious Yvonne went to the police, and after a few hours, around 10:30 AM, Gloria’s body was discovered at a fire escape stairwell’s bottom. She was clothed only partially and, as it was later revealed, she was sexually assaulted.

Gloria was killed as a result of multiple blunt force trauma that affected her head and upper body. The murder weapon was an 8-pound angle iron.

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Gloria’s killer was caught after 30 years

After Gloria’s murder, the case remained unsolved for 30 years. While law enforcement officials did try to find the killer, they remained unsuccessful until 2013 when, because of the emergence of some new evidence, the case was opened again.

This time, after taking some DNA samples from Gloria’s clothes and using the new and improved DNA testing and matching facilities, the police finally zeroed in on Hernandez Warren, a previously convicted rapist and robber.

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Hernandez Warren was given life sentence for killing and raping Gloria

After the police reached to arrest Hernandez Warren, he did not deny the charges and mentioned that he was high on drugs on the day the murder happened. He also said that while he did remember raping and killing the girl, the reason he did that was not even clear to himself.

Hernandez Warren told the police that he was leaving only after raping Gloria but when he saw she was following her, he decided to murder her. In 2014, after his trial, Warren was given a life-time prison sentence with the possibility of getting parole after 30 years.

Dateline can be streamed on Peacock.

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