Sheriff's Office Closes 31-year-old Cold Case

                                                                                                              NEWS RELEASE #: 16-173 - SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Allen_Schultz-Sherwood
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office closed a cold case more than 30 years in the making.

In 1985, Doris Walker was beaten and subsequently rendered paraplegic, after her boyfriend, Allen Schultz, severely attacked and stomped on her neck. Schultz was initially taken to jail and later released on his own recognizance. An arrest warrant was obtained for Schultz for Aggravated Battery but to date, investigators have been unable to locate him.

In 2004, Walker died of medical complications which would have elevated Schultz's charge to Homicide. Investigators with the Fugitive Apprehension Unit, U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force and Criminal Investigation Section, continued to conduct a worldwide search for Schultz. The sheriff's office released an age progression photo of Schultz in 2014 garnering national media attention and reaching hundreds of thousands of people across the world.

Through investigative means, investigators learned that a man named Allen Sherwood had been arrested in 1988 in Collier County; three years after the incident took place. Sherwood's date of birth and social security number we're similar to Schultz' and when investigators compared booking photos, they were identical. Investigators tracked Sherwood to Henderson, North Carolina, where death records confirmed he died from cancer in 2003. Since Sherwood's body was cremated, latent print examiners compared fingerprints from Schultz' 1985 arrest and Sherwood's arrest in 1988. The fingerprints were a positive match. Sheriff's Office detectives reopened Doris Walker's case and closed it with the confirmed death of Allen Schultz.

"This is a huge break in a case that's been lingering for more than 30 years," said Sheriff Knight. "The investigators in this case worked tirelessly to seek resolution and bring closure to Doris Walker's family and today, they've done just that. I am immensely proud of the work that went into this investigation."