Remains identified in serial killer cold case dating back 40 years

A family finally has some closure after remains found in a backyard in 1981 have been positively identified.

The remains were identified as Theresa Caroline Fillingim, who is part of a 40-year-old cold case. Fillingim was originally reported missing to the Tampa Police Department by her sister, Margaret Johns, who currently lives in Cape Coral.

Johns describes her younger sister Theresa as your typical, rebellious teenager when she came to live with her in the Tampa area in 1980.

“I said, ‘Well, if you do that, you’re gonna get a job,'” Johns said. ‘”You’re gonna toe the line.’ And she promised that she would, because she wanted to be with her sister.”

But after a couple of job interviews, Theresa never came home.

“And that was it,” Johns said. “I never heard from her again.” Despite reporting her missing to the police and doing a lot of searching themselves, Johns and her family heard nothing for 42 years.

Last July she got a call from the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office. “George dropped the bomb on me and said that we think we might have your sister’s remains,” Johns said.

Those remains were found in 1981 along with those of three others in the backyard of convicted serial killer Billy Mansfield Jr’s family home. It wasn’t until last year that Theresa’s remains were identified.

“I was just, I was floored. I think after I got done talking to him and paced around the house, well, I didn’t know what to do next,” Johns said.

While the news delivered the closure she and her family have yearned for so long for, Johns admits it’s very bittersweet, because most of her family died without knowing what happened to her.

“That seems like the cheating part of it for me that they got cheated out of what I was able to get,” Johns said.

Johns hopes her sister’s story may bring hope to those with missing loved ones while serving as a warning to everyone else.

“She’s just a young kid that knew nothing, that got taken advantage of by a predator,” Johns said. “And if I can prevent somebody else from falling prey to somebody like that, I accomplished something.”

Theresa’s killer, Billy Mansfield Jr., is currently serving time in a California prison. He’s up for parole this year. Johns said if she has to fly out there and testify herself to keep him from getting out, then that’s what she’ll do.