Do you know who killed Charles Newton Powell in 1992? In the warm desert night of Yuma, Arizona, on June 25, 1992, a construction foreman named Charles Newton Powell was in town for a job. His work had brought him to the Hacienda Motel on Fourth Avenue, a place that would become the final scene of his life. Just after the stroke of midnight, a sequence of events unfolded that would leave a lasting mystery.
A witness at the motel reported a knock on their door from an unknown individual.
Shortly after, this same person was seen interacting with Powell. The mundane quiet of the night was shattered by a sound that the witness initially mistook for a slamming door, but was, in fact, a single, fatal gunshot. Peering out again, the witness saw a figure fleeing the scene.
Yuma Police officers were called to the motel, where they found Charles Powell, a male victim of a homicide. Investigators were able to create a composite sketch of the person seen running from the motel, a fleeting image of a potential killer. Despite questioning several individuals in the wake of the murder, law enforcement never gathered enough evidence to make an arrest. For decades, the case of who killed Charles Newton Powell has remained cold, the suspect a shadow in a witness's memory.
