AUSTIN, Texas — These days, police have more access to advanced technology than ever before.
But that definitely wasn't the case five decades ago, when law enforcement primarily relied on the community to try to solve crimes.
"Well, back in 1977, you had fingerprints and the type of blood that you have, and that's it. There was no video surveillance. There was no DNA," said Det. Guillermo Salinas with the Austin Police Department (APD).
Witnesses were all you had. And in the murder case of 23-year-old Victoria "Vicky" Palmer, they're still what police and her family need.
"It was awful. She was my little sister," Rebecca Fazende said.
She said she still feels the pain and the guilt.
"Why wasn't I there? But we weren't living in the same town," she said.
It was Tuesday, June 7, 1977. Palmer was working as a bookkeeper at Tiger Corporation, a waste management company located on Shoal Creek Boulevard.
Just before 11:30 a.m., she left work complaining of a bum knee. In actuality, she was going home to South Austin to change for a job interview.
The next hour is when police say things get muddy.
At 12:15 p.m. a next-door neighbor saw Palmer arriving home at 410 Park Lane.
Five minutes later, that same neighbor allegedly thought she saw Palmer leaving her apartment – but the woman she saw had her face covered with a brown bag and Palmer's car was still in the parking lot.
Twenty minutes after that, at 12:40 p.m., neighbors smelled smoke. Someone had intentionally set Palmer's apartment, Unit 103, on fire. The neighbors began pounding on other apartment doors.
The Austin Fire Department was on the scene three minutes after getting the call. Inside the apartment, they found Palmer's badly burned body.
"Autopsy results showed that there was no smoke inhalation on her. That means that she was deceased prior to the fire being started," Salinas said.
Investigators say this case has taken different leads.
"Something was going on with somebody, and they were upset. I just don't know who it was," Fazende said.
There was no evidence of rape. And after speaking to friends and ex-boyfriends, investigators still don't have a possible suspect.
But there could be a work-related motive. Prior to her death, Palmer was doing some investigating of her own.
"She actually found some discrepancies, financial embezzlement. And she was looking into it because she would have been one of the persons blamed for it because she was in charge of it," Salinas said.
Fazende thinks perhaps that's the motive someone needed to keep her quiet.
"She was really smart, and she was outspoken. She did not suffer fools very easily. She could be kind of cutting if she thought you were being stupid," Fazende said.
At the time of Palmer's murder, Fazende was living in Dallas. She said she traveled to Austin every weekend for years to get answers, but there was simply not enough evidence in her sister's case.
If you have any information you think could be useful, call Capital Area Crime Stoppers at 512-472-TIPS. You can remain anonymous and a tip could lead to a $1,000 reward.
KVUE Daybreak's Yvonne Nava is shining a spotlight on several Central Texas cold cases as part of a monthly series called KVUE Crime Files.