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The final episode of Oxygen's Exhumed: Killer Revealed was released on June 26, 2022. It covered the harrowing murder case of a Texan wife, mother, and real estate agent Virginia "Ginger" Freeman. The case took more than 35 years to solve and required exhuming the body of the killer to confirm the DNA evidence.
Executive produced by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, the true crime series usually revolves around the exhumation of victims' bodies. However, the final episode of Season 2, titled Unearthing a Killer, examined the digging up of the killer's body as the case was solved 20 years after he was executed for a different crime.
Exhumed: Killer Revealed Season 2, Episode 10: The murder of Virginia Freemen
Virginia "Ginger" Freeman, a 40-year-old realtor from College Station, Texas, was known for her energetic persona and deep connection with her community. On December 1, 1981, she visited a ranch on Greens Prairie Road, in a rural part of College Station, to meet a potential buyer who was interested in the property.
According to records, the buyer had called Freeman's realty office that afternoon. As per former colleagues, the caller had a "country sounding accent." He said he had $73,000 in cash and wanted to buy property far from town, as reported by ABC13.
Virginia's husband, Charles Freeman, got worried when his wife did not come home after work. He contacted the authorities and made the shocking discovery of his wife's death. Virginia was found murdered at the vacant Brazos County residence she was showing to a potential buyer.
The medical examiner's report revealed that Freeman was stabbed 11 times in the neck, strangled, and bludgeoned in the head with a rock. She endured extreme violence and her hyoid bone was found broken. Wounds on her hand indicated that she died fighting for her life. No signs of s*xual assault were found.
In the Exhumed: Killer Revealed episode that aired on June 26, retired Detective Dick Gulledge of the Brazos County Sheriff's Office, said,
"The viciousness of the attack on a woman really got to me. We call it overkill."
Exhumed: Killer Revealed Season 2, Episode 10: It took over 35 years to identify Freeman's killer
Due to the lack of sophisticated technology, Freeman's case remained cold for over 35 years. The victim's fingernails had been scraped for possible DNA samples of the killer.
It was only in 2018, with the evolved DNA technology, that the investigators sought the help of a private lab to match the DNA collected from Freeman's fingernails with that of a suspect named James Otto Earhart.
Then 44-year-old Earhart was an appliance repairman who had already been convicted of killing a nine-year-old Bryan girl less than 10 miles from the Freeman crime scene. He was executed for the crime in 1999.
In 2018, Earhart's body was exhumed to get his DNA. His body had been buried in a cardboard box instead of a coffin and was found completely skeletonized. However, forensic scientists managed to secure DNA from the femur bone.
On August 30, 2019, after Earhart's DNA was analyzed at a lab in Austin, it was found to match the scrapings from Virginia's fingernails. This provided the authorities with the much-needed confirmation to close the case and bring Freeman to justice.
Viewers can watch the final episode of Exhumed: Killer Revealed on Oxygen.
