hawkins texas murders 1986 hawkins texas murders 1986

Avon In September, worried that Feazell would subpoena him so he could be questioned about his work on the lake murders, Dannen packed up the Blazer with his keyboard, a kitten hed named Calvin, his clothes, and all his hard driveswhich held transcripts of the seven hundred interviews hed conductedand left the country, driving to San Miguel de Allende, where a friend had offered him a place to stay. The teenager finally got her wish when she was in the eighth grade and her family agreed to move from Arlington to Hawkins to escape big city crime and get closer to extended family. She had been. Then, in August, the journalist visited Washington in prison; he too agreed to provide blood. Desperate to keep the case open, Owen and Schonemann filed a motion to amend the judgment, and four months later the court granted them an evidentiary hearing on the cases exculpatory evidence. The two victims were laid to rest in separate ceremonies a few days after their bodies were located. Her body was left in a wooded area near a local grocery store. He and Melendez drove the bodies to Speegleville and dumped them there. Even Feazell was won over. Associates of Cook also reported to authorities that she possibly sold and used cocaine, Ratliff said. He was executed before he could ever be added to the system. The woman survived and identified her attacker, a young man named Benny Carroll, who had been dating her granddaughter. The intruder had not taken anything of valuethe TV was still therebut had ransacked the front bedroom, opening several boxes and scattering papers everywhere. There are no volunteers for this cemetery. In October 2018, they found a match. In 2009, Portland police sent old evidence to the state crime lab to see if new DNA techniques might turn up any leads. County Line Cemetery. All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. Instead she, along with three other WPD cops, testified for the defense to say how untrustworthy the informants were. When Melendezs mother died of cancer a couple of years ago he became even closer with Thompson. Blum felt strongly that it wasnt safe for Dannen to continue his reporting on the lake murders, at least not in Waco, and advised him to stay in New York. Now Simons, with the help of Stowers, ordered one and had it installed. It's been 30 years since some of Hawkins' best and brightest young people were murdered, yet many in the community are still coming to terms with the loss. LOPEZ Jr. Robert Anthony Unfortunately, however, the odontologists took a long time completing their assessments, and as the October 1993 deadline for the depositions approached, the TRC team realized the full odontology report was going to be late. CORWIN, Javier In the spring of 1997 Fredric Dannen had just returned to New York City after a month of reporting in Hong Kong for a magazine article on organized crime. The former Haskell, Texas, oil field worker dropped out of school before completing junior high, and by 19 was married to a girl, who was 15. It was around six-thirty on a summer evening in 1982, and the 39-year-old officer had just returned to his squad car after visiting his wife, Judy. Drag images here or select from your computer for Gena Lee Turner memorial. Is my mother with you? Sixteen months after White was murdered, Hunt and Fuller filed Spences direct appeal with the CCA. As Scott would later recall, Simons said he would solve the case in a week. One of these was a woman named Angela Miles, who had been serving time for burglary. In his long career, he had discovered that he could often feel the violence in the air at a crime sceneand later use that sense to connect the perpetrator to the deed. Two decomposing bodies were discovered May 10, a Saturday, about eight miles from the first, lying together in a deep watery ditch along Farm Road 1649, about a mile east of Ore City. He grabbed a stick and dug deep into the leaves. Sitting calmly nearby, Simons would tell him to let it all out. "I looked and said, Oh my God, that's her watch.'". "They asked me, Would you recognize her watch?'" Cliffside Path LOT 384, Hawkins, TX 75765. Spence, in fact, was about to become the face of a national debate over capital punishment in Texas. ASHBROOK. Outside the majestic McLennan County courthouse, news crews set up cameras on the lawn; inside, the third-floor courtroom was jammed with spectators, who crowded into seats, stood in the aisles, and even sat on the floor. SONNIER, David Wayne Im really getting tired of this shit, Spence whispered to his father, Edwin, before being sent to the Ellis Unit, outside Huntsville. White rushed the letter over to Russ Hunt, Spences trial lawyer. She also reasoned that though a couple of jailhouse informants may have lied, such revelations would not have changed the outcome either. Perhaps Simonss informants knew what they were talking about. I killed them. Though he then apologized and said he was joking, Kelley felt certain he was not. Find lakefront properties, listings, lots, land and acreage in the nearby city of Hawkins. Simons told the chief that Kelley had also said that Deeb was about to flee the state because the bank was foreclosing on his store. He didnt know a lot about the death penalty, yet when he read the writ, the inmates conviction didnt make sense. He was officially charged with capital murder for Suzanne's death and transferred from Wood to Upshur County where he was denied bond. Deebs trial, which began on February 25, lasted twelve days and featured forty witnesses, many of whom had testified against Spence, including one jailhouse informant. According to Dannen, Reaves, and Bernadette, after a nearly three-hour meeting, Wiley appeared convinced that Melendez was possibly innocentand that Spence might have been too. Despite some qualms about Simonss methods, he included the deputy on his team, along with the two cops most familiar with the case, Salinas and Baier. Guys getting their faces shot off. That October, a second trial for Spencethis time for Kenneths murderwas just as straightforward. The two men could not have been more different. Thompson was making a chocolate cake, and Jill, who had recently lost a lot of weight, asked for a slice. (Raylenes family chose not to attend the trial, and later they refused to comment on the case.) June 14th, 2022 . Hed driven that road many times, and as he crossed the reservoir, he looked out over the water. That night, the officers got a huge break when a panicked Kelley called Simons at one in the morning. There was no time to lose, and the group feverishly got to work. MARTINEZ, Ireneo This spike in executions began to attract the kind of attention for Spence that had eluded him in life. I love yall and I miss yall. He spoke as if he were getting ready for battle. This is where they say those three teenagers were killed, he said Spence told him. Suspects were grilled and released. Our feeling of being satisfied, of getting justice, was taken away., In the summer of 2013, Thompson stopped talking to Dannen. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. Use the links under See more to quickly search for other people with the same last name in the same cemetery, city, county, etc. We used to fight. Vic Feazell was taking over the case and appointing Truman Simons as his investigator. Larry Pack (Texas. I know theyve spent time and money on the case, and they keep telling me theyre confident they can prove I wasnt there. "I tried to spend every waking minute there," he said. It had been fifteen years since Dannens initial book contract, and most peoplejournalists, editors, his old friends in Wacohad given up on ever seeing his research in print. hawkins texas murders 1986army records office address. Hed had a real crappy childhood, Driggs remembered, and probably had a lot of anger, but I never read him as a dangerous guy, unlike some others we worked with. There was no reliable forensic evidence that Spence had killed the teenagersand to all his lawyers, he had consistently maintained his innocence. Many of the wounds were shallow, suggesting they had been tortured. Are you sure that you want to delete this memorial? The population was 1,331 at the 2000 census. The task force now gathered momentum as investigators found witnesses who told of suspicious things Spence had said the previous summer: that he thought he had killed somebody, for example, and that he had raped two girls at the lake. Could he be more specific? I was very fond of David, Schonemann told me. At a pretrial hearing in 1984, Spences lawyers Russ Hunt and Hayes Fuller had requested that all evidence in the states files, even documents the prosecution did not consider exculpatory, be turned over to Judge George Allen for an in-camera inspection in his chambers. Kenneth told his father that they were going to Koehne Park, which was directly across the lake from Speegleville Park. Former classmate James Graham still has his class yearbooks from his days at Hawkins High School, but rarely looks at them. A juror who convicted Alex Murdaugh on Thursday told ABC News in an exclusive interview that the piece of evidence which convinced him the disgraced lawyer was guilty, was the cellphone video . If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. She also had marks on her skin that looked as if theyd been made by teeth. Price began to work the murder, but within days, she learned that someoneeither from the sheriffs office or the DAs officehad been making calls to the Dallas County crime lab, where Whites body had been sent, to ask for the preliminary autopsy results. In early January, the deputys patience paid off: an inmate named Kevin Mikel told him that Spence had bragged about killing the teenagers. It continues to be a landmark cold case for me from a scientific perspective, that we can get a profile from evidence that is so, so old.. There was an error deleting this problem. The siblings not only shared a home but they both also worked at a nearby McDonalds, where Anna Marie Hlavka had gotten off a few hours earlier. A soft-spoken, patient woman who kept journals about the Lake Waco investigation, Thompson had attended Spences aggravated sexual abuse trial in 1983, as had Franks; it was there, she told Dannen, that Franks had unexpectedly mentioned to her a phone call hed received the night of the murders that made him think something was wrong out at the lake. I was absolutely crushed, he told me. (When Deebs lawyer asked him if the store owner was still a suspect, Simons retorted, You bet your ass hes still a suspect.) He called the sheriffs office and asked if there were any openings as a jailer. We cannot tell which are gun wounds and which are knives.'. PORTLAND, Oregon The Portland Police Department in Oregon says a notorious East Texas convicted killer is responsible for the murder of 20-year-old Anna Hlavka, who was found dead on July 24,. I am a peacemaker, he told the books author, Carlton Stowers. To use this feature, use a newer browser. Fred would call now and then and say, Im almost ready, remembered Thompson. Wed work ten hours a day, and I didnt have a car, so Id stay a week at a time. I live with this case every day, he said. They met with Pardo, who eagerly shared his files. Krauss, the odontology expert that Schonemann and Owen hired for their first writs, had suggested back in 1991 that the TRC set up a blind panel of odontologists and do a two-part study: analyze the autopsy photographs for marks, then compare the marks with dental molds from Spence and four other subjects. Reaves had agreed to represent Melendez pro bono too. Those kids didnt deserve to die, June told me. To their relief, the federal district court granted both. HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The Harris County Sheriff's Office announced a breakthrough in two unrelated cold case murders Thursday morning. This story examines the case through the viewpoint of five people: a patrol sergeant who investigated the crime; a police detective who became skeptical of the investigation; an appellate lawyer who tried to stop the execution; a journalist whose reporting has raised new doubts about the case; and a convict who pleaded guilty but now vehemently proclaims his innocence. He was a little twitchy, she told me. Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. Furthermore, in her view, the evidence that Simons had gathered was not very impressivethe blood on the sweatshirt, it turned out, was barely a drop, and the sneakers did not match the shoe print from the front door. Truman Simons (far right) helping carry the body of the teenagers out from the brush in Speegleville Park on July 14, 1982. After closing arguments, in which Feazell likened the store owner to Judas Iscariot for his dirty hands in the killings, Deeb was found guilty in less than two hours. 'We are not certain of the cause of death,' he said. Barber assisted in the search area after the victims were reported missing. (There were times I thought I was going to be ambushed at my house, she told me.) The brothers were set to testify against Muneer Deeb at his retrial, in December 1992 in Fort Worth, and both had been promised help with their paroles if they did. The twelve jurors found Spence guilty in less than two hours. On October 16, fourteen hours before Spence was scheduled to die, Owen and Schonemann filed a 164-page writ in each court, in which they stated that in only six weeks of investigating theyd discovered strong indications of astonishing state misconduct in the case against Spence for the Lake Waco murders. He had been working on the lake murders in his spare time, he told his boss, and he wanted permission to take over the case. McLemore sent out copies of the TRCs brief to journalists, trying to get attention for Spence; he also made a case for the inmates innocence in the March 1997 issue of Pardos monthly political newsletter, Capitol Watch. Dannen then arranged for a series of DNA tests, beginning with one of the beer cans. We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. The bedroom, Price discovered, had been Spences. Then, just when it seemed things couldnt get worse, in September 1995 the TRC found itself forced to shut its doors. Frye had been reported missing on Oct. 10, 1983, when she was 25 years old. A dragnet involved some 1,200 officers before McFadden was caught. In the end, Jerry Walter McFadden, 38, a three-time convicted rapist, was arrested for the slayings. For days, the departments phones rang nonstop as people called in with leads, most of which amounted to nothing: someone claimed that members of a biker gang known as the Scorpions had bragged about the killings; someone else reported having given a ride to an extremely nervous man with blood on his pants who had been walking along a nearby highway on the morning after the bodies were found; one caller reported that someone had been doing Indian rituals near the crime scene; another said that there was a devils cult operating in the area. I didnt have any idea, Gilbert said in the deposition. We feel the angels have been with us, a fragile-looking Nancy told news reporters at the close of the trial. His hair is cut close to the scalp, and his close-set eyes are dark with worry. Simonss plan had been forming ever since hed first learned about Spence. ", The day she and Gena disappeared wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I would always get the girls mixed up, Melendez recalled, and hed point at his head so I knew we were talking about the one with black hair., It was Gilbert who persuaded Tony not to testify before Deebs retrial. If he succeeded at these things, even for a while, the cash-strapped Texas penal system would be spared the cost of feeding and housing him. This Hawkins County Tennessee Most Wanted List posts the top 50-100 fugitive criminals on the run. But the police can't be sure whether to believe him or not until he locates a body and shows them some polaroids. On May 1 a woman who lived a few blocks from White was violently attacked in her home. DUNN, Martin Gonzalez She had been stabbed repeatedly and was naked except for a bra that was tied around her right leg. It would be several gut-churning days before the bodies of all three young people were discovered, sparking a murder investigation and manhunt of historic proportions, the likes of which East Texas had never seen. Local schools suspended classes for the day, allowing students who wanted to attend the funerals to do so. These peoples whole lives were based on lying, Price told me. More than 800 mourners gathered at Hawkins High School to say goodbye. We remember your smile. And, simply, We remember you., One letter in particular moved Thompson. I just dont believe he had anything to do with the murders. Melendez has written Thompson a stack of letters, and he recently began calling her at home every week to discuss the impending DNA results. Beasley, 29, of Hawkins, was charged in the June 15, 1986, shooting and stabbing deaths of his father, Paul Owen Beasley Sr., 71; his mother, Ruth J. Beasley, 62; and his sister, Linda Birkinbine, 37, of Euless. I dont know how he does it, said one of his fellow officers around the time of the investigation, and I dont want to know. (Simons declined to be interviewed for this story.). Dannen wondered if the answer lay in another detail Thompson shared with him. For the next five days, the Tyler Morning Telegraph plans to re-examine the case that ripped away the innocence of a small town and traumatized a region. The word closure is overused, but having some answers to give them, its a good thing., #ImWithKap: How Colin Kaepernick dominated Super Bowl conversations without taking the field. It was her late niece's absolute favorite meal and the item most requested for family get-togethers. cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. Cold Cases, Missing and Unsolved Crimes. He always told me hed be dead before the truth came out, remembered June. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph), The front page of The Journal, the hometown newspaper in Big Sandy, remembers the lives of Suzanne Harrison, Bryan Boone and Gena Turner who were killed by paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden in 1986. I was hoping their verdicts would get overturned and they would be tried again so all the details about the investigation would come out.. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph). But his most revealing tattoo is largely hidden under his prison shirt. On Valentine's Day 2015, a 24-year-old El Paso woman named Karyna Rodriguez was killed while unconscious during a similar sexual assault. But the judge ruled the evidence irrelevant to the case against Spence and refused to allow it. He thought he could outsmart Simons, she said, and used the jailer to get phone call privileges with Juhl. No one had heard any screams. The interview went smoothly, so the two were surprised when, as they got up to leave, the conversation took a turn. Id say, David, if you did this, you deserve to die, she told me when we talked last May. A conservative who favored the death penalty, Pardo had asked to see his hometowns most infamous killer, expecting to find a monster. I wouldnt doubt that he started saying the police thought he did it, or he might have said he did it, to make himself look like a badass. He was especially struck by one detail: after Spences second trial, Dannen told them, Carlton Stowers, the author of Careless Whispers, had bought Gilberts truck and towed it to Simonss property. 'It was somewhat of a blood bath,' Roberts said. Hes one of the bravest people I ever met, Dannen told me. Dannen was preoccupied with his article but asked the publicist to messenger it over. Simons thought the inconsistencies were likely due to Melendezs drug- and alcohol-addled memory, but the changing statements, plus the fact that Melendez claimed it had been Spence alone who did all the raping and killing, made other investigators suspicious. At Reavess request, the DAs office arranged for four envelopes from Whites rape kit to be sent to the medical examiner; to Dannens horror, they were empty. Welcome to r/Funny, Reddit's largest humour depository. According to TDCJ records, McFadden was executed for the abduction, rape, and murder of 18-year-old Suzanne Denise Harrison. General Freight. Mrs. Lane said. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.. Clear skies. Simons, a man of intuition, couldnt always explain his methods, but everyone knew they got results. Hed robbed a Fort Worth convenience store with a hatchet at 21 and served fifteen months. Instead, immediately call the Hawkins County Sheriff's Department at 423-272-4848. To make matters worse, seven hours after the officers finished searching Whites home, they received a call to return to the scene: the house had been broken into again. Simons, an observer in the courtroom, was flabbergasted. The results, as they came in, proved astonishing. One said the photos were of such poor quality that he refused to compare them against the molds. They told my mom and my girlfriend that they were killing me by not getting me to plead out. (Melendezs mother recalled this too. For the first time in years, Thompson felt calm. I was afraid to die, he told. Finally, on Labor Day, with 45 days until his execution, Owen and Schonemann were assigned the case. "Where she was found was open to the public. See pricing and listing details of Hawkins real estate for sale. In July New York Times op-ed writer Bob Herbert dedicated three columns to Spence and the death penalty. He had had such an obviously unfair trial, he told me. He would later point out that the only thing the DNA proved was that neither Washington nor Williams had raped White; it did not exclude them from the crime scene. plans and enthusiasm The only friend Ive got, he told Simons that night, is the guy whos trying to kill me on this lake case.. Background details that you might want to know about Larry include: ethnicity is Caucasian, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; and religious views are listed as Christian. McFadden was the principle suspect in all three murders, but he was only charged with Suzanne's death. It was only after she had described the bracelet to police that it was found, she told Dannen. The two had become friends after working one summer in Atlanta on death penalty cases with the American Civil Liberties Union, and they had developed a passion for representing the doomed. This is a carousel with slides. White, the investigators learned, had gotten off work the previous night at nine-thirty, after her shift at Uncle Dans Barbecue, where she bused tables and washed dishes. He had a plan. On instinct, he kept returning to Jill, who he sensed had been the main target. "She was that kind of person she's with her Father, the one she designed her life after.". On May 4, 1986, Suzanne Harrison, 18, and Gena Turner, 20, decided to visit Lake Hawkins in Wood County, Texas. Pardo was intrigued. Feazell had called the charges a smear campaign brought on by the big boys in Austin because of the Lucas case; now the convictions in the Lake Waco murders offered irrefutable proof of his commitment to the law. 0 cemeteries found in Yoakum, DeWitt County, Texas, USA. The first body was found on April 6, 1984, when the family dog of Heidi Frye brought her skeletal remains to her home on Ervin Street in League City, Texas, League City Police Chief Gary Ratliff told reporters at a news conference Monday. "She had already been accepted to A&M," Mrs. Lane said. ANGLETON, Larry Its not that I thought he was innocent, but I thought, They cant execute him based on this record.. Though it was supposedly key evidence, the truck then sat outside for more than two years before Simons sold it to a junk dealer, who scrapped it. Though he had money from his book advance and a few movie options on his magazine stories, paying for the DNA tests had exhausted his savings. All his time went to investigating the case, circling back to his sources over and over again in the hopes of uncovering new information. Youve convinced me that somethings seriously wrong with Waco law enforcement, one of the aides told him, but you havent convinced me that Spence is innocent., If we could conclusively prove innocence, replied Schonemann, we would be asking the governor for a pardon, not a life sentence. 48 days on Zillow. Now 24, Spence had become more and more unpredictable and violent. He still thought was going to get out, she says. A connection between all four murders has not been determined yet, other than the location of where their remains were found, said League City Police Lt. Michael Bluffington. He never would have risen to the level of a suspect.. Thirty years after 18-year-old Suzanne Harrison's death, when Mrs. Lane reaches for the potholders to extract the bubbling dish from the oven, she remembers the teenager's gleeful anticipation: the dancing eyes and smacking lips. Editor's Note: This is the first in a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden's murderous 1986 crime spree that t, PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) A convicted murderer called the "Animal," who was executed by the state of Texas in 1999 has been identified by DNA as t, Editor's Note:This is the first in a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden's murderous 1986 crime spree that t, Editor's Note: This is the third in a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden's murderous 1986 crime spree that t, Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden's murderous 1986 crime spree that , Editor's Note: This is the last of a five-day series recalling paroled sex offender Jerry Walter McFadden's murderous 1986 crime spree that te. HAWKINS On a clear May 4, 1986 evening, Suzanne Harrison, 18, and her best friend, Gena Turner, 20, waved goodbye to their families, jumped in the car and headed out on an ill-fated ride around Lake Hawkins. Spence had, however, been informed that he was a suspect by then. She shares stories about East Texas through her Behind the Wheel column. He had a mold taken of Spences teeth, then personally delivered it and the photos to Homer Campbell, a forensic odontologist in Albuquerque who had helped solve the Amarillo case. or don't show this againI am good at figuring things out. This, Schonemann felt, was Spences last good shot at a new trial. Schonemann also cant escape the past. It would mean a cut in pay and status, but Simons didnt care. These kids, he felt sure, had been killed somewhere else. Winona (9 miles) Big Sandy (9 miles) Owentown (14 miles) He had recently left his position at the New Yorker to work as a freelancer, and he thought Spence might be his next story. Former Wood County Sheriff's Deputy and retired constable David Barber is pictured where he worked a roadblock on Farm-to-Market 2659 during the manhunt for Jerry McFadden in Hawkins. Pardo set up a war room at his corporate headquarters and hired additional investigators. In early 1999 he obtained a copy of Whites autopsy report, which noted the presence of semen. Copyright 2020 KLTV. On May 4, 1986, 20-year-old Gena Turner, 19-year-old Bryan Boone, and 18-year-old Suzanne Harrison were on a day trip to Lake Hawkins, about 100 miles east of Dallas when a savage murderer attacked them. He said one of them had some big tits, Gilbert told his lawyers. I wish you could get the rage from your hearts and you could see the truth and get rid of the hatred., Brad was having none of it. Dannen wasnt fully convinced of Spences innocenceas a veteran journalist, hed made a career out of being skepticalbut hed learned enough to know he had the makings of a great story. "For five horrible days, we didn't have a clue where to look," Barber said. He did it! After Simons calmed her down, she explained how, earlier in the evening, Deeb had taken her and a friend to a gory movie. It also marked the latest triumph for a new, controversial branch of DNA testing that has used public genealogy sites to close scores of lingering cold cases, while identifying high-profile suspects like the Golden State Killer. HAWKINS - On a clear May 4, 1986 evening, Suzanne Harrison, 18, and her best friend, Gena Turner, 20, waved goodbye to their families, jumped in the car and headed out on an ill-fated ride. Brooklyn Nets +11 Boston Celtics -11 1 -110. Al Sharpton. Melendez was still wary of false assurances, and he was tight-lipped about what Dannen had promised. A Baptist preachers son who took to the pulpit himself on occasion, Feazell married and with a son of his ownhad promised that he would be active in the courtroom; his first trial as lead prosecutor, in fact, was to be Spences aggravated sexual abuse case. Please contact Find a Grave at [emailprotected] if you need help resetting your password. After studying the autopsy photos himself, he determined that several of the wounds on the girls bodies did, in fact, look as if theyd been made by human teeth. Physically, McFadden cast an imposing shadow. 'The man in custody is refusing to talk. We held Truman on a pedestal for so long. Jerry Walter McFadden shot Turner and Boone execution-style with a .38-caliber pistol. He was taken into custody and jailed in Wood County on suspicion of aggravated robbery with a bond of $100,000. The shocking announcement of McFaddens role in a crime 2,000 miles away from his usual territory brought an unexpected end to Hlavkas mysterious killing. I dont know if Calvin Washington or Joe Sidney Williams Jr. killed Mrs. White, Miles told Price. They had the rope around my neck, ready to kill me. There had been no suppression of exculpatory evidence, the brief stated, and the police reports would not have made a difference in Spences verdicts. The run-up to Spences trial was particularly contentious. Hawkins is a city in Wood County, Texas, United States. He received another 15-year prison sentence, but walked out again on parole on July 17, 1985, after telling authorities he would follow the terms of his release.