Hope Solo's Dad Was Once a Person of Interest in a Murder Case — Here's What We Know

In an August 2012 interview with NPR, soccer star Hope Solo described what it was like being raised in a troubled home. Unfortunately, both parents were absent in their own ways, whether it was emotionally or physically. She and her younger brother Marcus were often caught in the middle of an often cantankerous situation.

She revealed that her mother was an alcoholic who, despite her struggles with addiction, kept their family together. "She provided us with a roof over our head. She always worked," explained Hope. "My father was never around." Beyond being at odds with his own family, Jeffrey Solo had his own demons to fight. In fact, Hope Solo's dad was once involved in a murder case. Details to follow.

Solo became a person of interest in the 2001 murder of a respected Bellevue, Wash. real estate agent named Mike Emert. According to Business Insider, Solo was homeless at the time the killing occurred. He would later tell police, "I've been in the street for five years. I've been mean. But I did not kill this guy. I didn't even know who he was."

In September 2011, a break in the case cleared Hope's dad's name. Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff's office found DNA from the crime scene matched that of a former Seattle police officer named Gary Krueger, who retired from the force in 1980, reported KIRO-TV (by way of The Columbian). Krueger had drowned six months earlier.

A year after Krueger was linked to Emert's murder, Hope spoke with KGW8 while rehearsing for Dancing With the Stars. She told the reporter that the implication that her father was involved in Emert's death, plagued him until his own death in 2007. She wanted to publicly clear his name and revealed that the King County Sheriff's office never informed her or anyone in her family that he was no longer a person of interest. "I just wish he could have lived in peace his last years," she said.

The story of Emert's death was featured in Season 12 of Unsolved Mysteries, with host Robert Stack laying the groundwork for a truly baffling case. It begins on Jan. 3, 2001, the day before Emert was killed, in a parking lot in Kirkland, Wash. A new client contacted Emert about viewing a specific property in Woodinville, about 10 miles north of Kirkland. He met this eager client in the parking lot of a grocery store and drove to check out the house.

Emert would later describe this man to his wife, calling him odd. Evidently, the possible home-buyer was about to come into a large amount of money by way of an inheritance. This wasn't very strange, but the whole scenario struck Emert as off. The next day at work, Emert told a co-worker he was off to meet a "weird dude." In his ledger, Emert wrote the name "Steven." No one in the office had spoken to this man, as he only contacted Emert directly.

Emert and Steven once again met up at the same parking lot, and headed back to the home they viewed the previous day. This was around 11:30 a.m. A little over an hour later, the home's actual owner, Gail Garland, returned to find her front door ajar. Garland cautiously entered her house and immediately heard running water coming from upstairs. She saw blood on the stairs and was shocked to find Emert in her bathtub, dead. The shower was running. An autopsy would later reveal he had been stabbed 19 times.

Emert's car would later be found abandoned, but several stolen items from his person were never recovered. Authorities soon zeroed in on Hope's father as a potential suspect, as he often hung around the parking lot where Emert and Steven met. Police said he also matched the description of the odd man Emert met with. He was extremely cooperative with police, and was cleared in March 2001. Perhaps he was never told by police that he was no longer a person of interest.

For more on this story and the possible motive behind Krueger allegedly killing Emert, you can stream his episode of Unsolved Mysteries on Prime.