BREMERTON, Wash. - Tonight a Bremerton family is asking for the public to help solve their mother's murder. Fifty-eight-year-old Pam Long was found dead in the burnt wreckage of her own home.
"She had a whole collection of red glassware and this is it," says Myle Garcia, Long's daughter, as she showed us the few small possessions left of their mother's life. "I mean that's what we got, this is what we have of her life."
The morning of Halloween, Pam Long's adult children got the phone call: Long's trailer had caught fire and their mother was dead.
"I got the call from the coroner's office that it was ruled a homicide. There was no smoke in her lungs or her throat. That she was dead before it started," says Garcia.
Pam Long had a vivacious spirit. Her family says she was a former Miss Teen Bremerton. She was also known for years as the lead singer of a local country music group called "Whatta Band."
But to her family she was best known as a loving mother and grandmother. She recently took her five grandkids camping, and taught them to play musical instruments.
"That's what hurts me the most because I know how much they loved her," says Tory Ryen, her son, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.
"In her little trailer she had pictures of her grandkids and her family. Somebody had to walk by those things, somebody poured firestarter doused it, " says Garcia.
In recent years, Long worked as a bartender at the Sons of Norway in Poulsbo. The night before she died went there to celebrate Halloween. After visiting with friends, her family says she went to bed around midnight. Police won't say how Long was killed, but her body was found in her bedroom where the fire started.
"I would really like to see someone come to justice for this whoever did this to my mom. But it's not going to bring back my mom," says Ryen.
Crimestoppers is now offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest for Long's murder. Tips should be called in to 1-800-222-TIPS.
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