No murder charge in cold case frustrates Omaha victim’s family

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - A cold case has heated up, and detectives are close to solving an Omaha woman’s shooting death from three years ago.

6 News learned that Omaha Police have a person of interest identified as the alleged killer, but the victim’s family is frustrated that a murder charge hasn’t been filed.

On the first night of a second job, 41-year-old Andrea Georgeson took a break in her car. That’s when a robber shot and killed her.

“She’s working hard for her money, and she’s not going to give anything away or let anyone take it from her,” said Aleah Rogers, the victim’s sister. “So yeah, I’m sure she fought.”

The victim’s siblings are struggling with the pace of justice after reading texts from a detective.

“They have a suspect who is locked up for other crimes,” Rogers said.

They are not charged with their sister’s murder.

“And we want to know why. We want to know when — we want to know the whole deal,” said Alan Georgeson, the victim’s brother. “We want it put behind us. We want everything figured out and solved and someone charged with the crime.”

The OPD Criminal Investigations Bureau is led by Capt. Jeremy Christensen.

“I feel very, very confident that this case will see a courtroom,” he said.

He confirmed they have a strong suspect and want to make sure legally they have a strong case.

“We’ve got some very interesting evidence we’re looking into, and unfortunately these things take time, and that’s unfortunate for the family,” he said. “We feel just as strongly as the family does about getting this case charged; but at this juncture, we don’t want to make sloppy mistakes either.”

The suspect is behind bars on a federal indictment for several armed robberies, and Chief Deputy Douglas County Attorney Brenda Beadle said that affects the timing of a possible state murder charge.

“He’s not walking the streets, which is one of our main concerns,” Beadle said. “So we are kind of strategizing and working with the feds to make sure he’s handled on another of other cases.”

When a homicide charge is filed, the motive for murder will likely be that Andrea Georgeson was a target of opportunity

Both homicide detectives and family members believe the killer’s real target was a convenience store he intended to rob, but it that was no longer open that time of night.

Family believes Andrea was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“When this happens, you get a whole bunch of brotherly rage,” Georgeson said. “Self-righteous anger you want to John Wayne, you want to march into town and figure this bleep out, but you can’t.

Aleah said she often visits the scene of the crime.

“This is the last place her soul was, so on holidays, I’ll just come and park here and just journal,” she said.

But the murder victim’s sister is ready to take that journal with her when the justice system gives her a seat in court.

Last year, OPD released security camera photos of a man near the murder scene, but now that they have a suspect identified, they asked 6 News not to show those pictures as they will be evidence in any future trial.

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