Earnest Riddle isn’t the only one seeking “justice” in a 25-year-old murder case.

The accused killer’s latest legal filing, in which his attorneys claimed that Riddle should be granted an immediate re-trial or set free because of alleged violations of his Constitutional rights, was met with a sharp reply from the family of the victim in the case.

“The victim’s family has been living with the brutal, heinous murder of their loved one every single day,” Dayna McCraw wrote to The Gaffney Ledger after it published details of Riddle’s latest legal filing. “As far as Constitutional Rights, where were the victim’s rights as well as her family’s rights?”

Riddle was initially convicted and sentenced to death for the Aug. 8, 1985, stabbing murder of elderly grandmother Abbie Sue Mullinax inside her home at 205 Concord Ave. in Gaffney.

She was killed during a nighttime burglary.

Riddle’s sentence was twice overturned, and reinstated, following subsequent appeals. In 2006, however, the state Supreme Court overturned Riddle’s conviction altogether, setting the stage for a re-trial.

Riddle’s defense attorneys are demanding a re-trial be held soon or that he be freed. They further claimed prosecutors have been failing to bring the case, which the defense claims to be “fragile,” to trial.

“The state doesn’t have the ability to file a motion for a speedy trial,” countered McCraw, who is the great-granddaughter of Abbie Sue Mullinax and who serves as a family spokesperson. “The state has, in fact, requested a date to be set on numerous occasions as well as the family has sent a letter to the court and the Honorable Judge Cordell Maddox, Jr. to have a date set.”

McCraw also responded to defense claims about alleged evidence in the case that points to someone other than Riddle as the killer.

“Let’s remember,” she wrote, that 36 “upstanding law-abiding citizens” serving as jurors had all reached the same conclusion.