Harris County Sheriff’s Office investigators say they have solved a 23-year-old murder mystery involving the shooting death of a Tomball man.

Norma Jean Clark, 62, was arrested in Tennessee last week and charged with murdering her husband, Edmund High Clark in 1987.

According to investigators, at approximately 4 a.m. on April 22, 1987, Edmund Clark was shot twice, once in the head and once in the back, in the bedroom of his home in the 22900 block of Laurelwood Lane in north Harris County.

Norma Clark claimed at the time that she was asleep in a nearby bedroom and when she heard the shots, she fled to a neighbor’s home and called the police. Deputies arrived to find Edmund Clark dead in his bedroom.

His murder remained unsolved until last week. In 2010, the Sheriff’s Office Cold Case unit re-initiated the investigation into Clark’s death and began to focus more closely on his wife as a suspect.

Sgt. Eric Clegg explained that physical evidence from the scene, including Norma Clark’s clothing samples, were examined and determined not to be consistent with her original statements.

Among the items analyzed were clothing that showed “high velocity impact blood splatter.” Clegg also said that witness statements were inconsistent with Clark’s stories.

He added that the investigation into Edmund Clark’s murder had never been closed and that the Sheriff’s Office had kept the physical evidence since the initial investigation. Now, Clegg said, new technologies utilized by the Cold Case Unit allowed investigators to re-examine that evidence.

Once investigators identified Norma Clark as the alleged killer, Clegg said database searches revealed that she was living in Tennessee, where she had relavites.

“We contacted the authorities up there and they were able to do a little groundwork for us,” Clegg said. “She’s been up there for a few years, kind of living under the radar.”

Norma and Edmund Clark were married in 1983, but Clegg said Edmund had expressed an interest in obtaining a divorce.

“We believe the marriage was dissolving and that was really something she didn’t want to happen,” Clegg said. “He had made it clear to many people he was going to seek a divorce.”

At press time last week, Clark was awaiting extradition to Texas. She was scheduled to have a hearing on extradition last week. She was arrested on Feb. 16 and was being held in the Franklin County Jail in Winchester, Tenn.

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