Family fights for answers in unsolved murder of teenage boy

In this episode of Crime Watch Daily Updates: The nearly 40-year-old unsolved murder of 16-year-old Erik Cross.

The night before Erik died, he went to his friend’s house for a “kegger,” where several people gathered to drink cheap beer for hours on end. Erik reportedly indulged in the drinking and got very drunk.

On June 26, 1983, Erik’s father walked outside to pick up his newspaper when he saw his son’s body on the side of the road. Erik suffered rope burns and cuts all over his body.

At first, police thought he was killed in a hit-and-run. Then, they theorized he had been “hood surfing” that night, which means he was tied to the roof of a car that swerved down the road, and he fell off and got hit.

As detectives dug into the case, it seemed Erik’s death was not accidental. They believed he had been tied up and dragged by a car.

Investigators honed in on a “core group” of teens they believed were involved in the alleged crime, which included a man named Brent Spaulding and his girlfriend, Amber Thomas. There were rumors that Brent allegedly bullied Erik at the party and later admitted to one friend that he killed Erik, but there wasn’t enough substantial evidence to arrest him.

Detectives still believe Brent drove the car that killed Erik, and over 35 years after his death, Erik’s family is still fighting to get justice.

In 2017, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office sent charges to the prosecutor’s office and requested murder charges against five suspects, including Brent and Amber.

In 2019, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office announced they would reopen the investigation, but in January 2020, said there was not enough evidence to charge any of the suspects. Brent, however, has been in and out of jail on unrelated charges.

Let’s take a look back at the case of a teen who was killed on a summer night in Michigan, whose death remains unsolved all these years later.