Police seek new leads, ‘Duckie’ in 1990 slaying

Norman Rich was at home with his girlfriend on the morning of March 28, 1990, when she told him she was heading out, the girlfriend reportedly told police. Shortly after she left, two people came looking for Rich, police said. The 34-year-old father of three was later found lying facedown in bed, still wearing boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. He had been shot four times, and the room looked as if it had been searched.

Memories of that day still resonate for Sekeithia Tyler, Rich’s sister. She was working with her aunt at a Howard University dormitory near Meridian Hill when she found out what happened.

“I screamed and shouted. They had to pull me off the floor,” she said.

Her cousin picked them up and drove to Rich’s house, where the extended family had gathered.

“My mother was devastated,” Tyler said. “It took everything out of her, because she just couldn’t understand why it happened.” Helen Rich died a little over a year after her son.

Police said both Norman Rich and his girlfriend were involved in the city’s illegal gambling scene, and investigators believe that link factored into Rich’s killing.

But there was never enough evidence for an arrest to be made, and little has changed since. D.C. police Detective Jim Trainum said the case had no potential to re-examine forensic evidence, which can sometimes revive an old investigation.

Instead, police are hoping that eventually someone who knows what happened will decide to talk. Trainum said that a strange nickname, “Duckie,” kept coming up in the investigation. Police think “Duckie” was one of the people who came to Rich’s door the day he was killed but have never figured out who that person is.

Tyler, who now works with victims of domestic violence in the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, has not given up hope. She is in constant contact with D.C. police, even though there is little they can do with the case except to wait.

“I have all the time in the world,” she said. “It’s already been 19 years.”