Retired Norwood Lt. Steve Crowe watched with satisfaction Monday as a judge sent Givens to prison for killing Naomi Miller.

"I'm glad to see it come to a close," said Crowe, who retired four years ago, but never let go of the case.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker convicted Givens on a charge of voluntary manslaughter, and then sentenced him to spend 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole after seven years.

Givens, 62, entered an Alford plea, which means he didn't admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.

Givens took the long way before arriving in Hamilton County's justice system.

Norwood officers found Miller's body May 11, 1986, decomposing on the floor of her Station Avenue home. Officials never determined how the 75-year-old woman died. She had a broken jaw, broken ribs and a broken hyoid, which is the U-shaped bone at the root of the tongue, but there were no obvious signs of violence.

At the time, officials hypothesized she either fell or suffered a heart attack.

Case closed. Or so they thought.

Six years later Givens called Norwood police from a Wisconsin jail and confessed to killing his mother. He told authorities he strangled his mother and left her dead in her home.

He came forward hoping to avoid extradition to Canada, where he was wanted on charges that he sexually molested an elementary-age girl and tried to kill the girl's mother with rat poison when she threatened to go to the police to report the sex abuse.

Crowe and Norwood Det. Bob Gatto flew to Wisconsin, interviewed Givens and took a taped confession.

But the confession didn't get Givens out of the Canadian charges. Before coming back to Ohio, he first had to be tried in the Canadian case. He was convicted there in 1995 of attempted murder, administering a noxious agent and sexual assault. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In the meantime, Norwood police reopened the case. They presented evidence in 1993 to a Hamilton County grand jury, which indicted him on a charge of murder.

Then Norwood police waited.

Givens was released from Canadian prison this year. Authorities dropped him off at the border, where New York State Police picked him up. The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office took over from there.

Shortly after the indictment, Givens recanted. He said he confessed only in hopes of avoiding the Canadian charges.

"I appreciate justice being served," Dinkelacker said. "Everyone did their job."

E-mail scoolidge@enquirer.com