ASHBROOK. I argued with his lawyer, she told me. Feazell also included Chief Scott, who had publicly accused him of refusing to prosecute valid criminal cases. The two men could not have been more different. In addition, Owen hired a former president of the American Board of Forensic Odontology, Thomas Krauss, to review Homer Campbells conclusions; Krauss pronounced Campbells methodology well outside the mainstream. The lawyers then found that in August 1984, just two months after Campbell had testified against Spence, he made a mistake that called his expertise into question: he positively identified the remains of a woman alongside a highway in Arizona as those of a missing Florida teenager by comparing the dead womans teeth with an enhanced photo of the teenagers teeth. Schonemann spoke with him too. Thirty years later, Suzanne's mother is uncomfortable speaking publicly about her daughter's murder, said Mrs. Lane, who spoke for the family. In late 1999 he felt a spark of optimism when he received a couple of visits from Fredric Dannen, who interviewed him for his book and told him about the DNA testing being done on the crime-scene evidence. In his letter, Snelson wrote that he had made his testimony up. He eventually has an affair with a woman named Ann Kurth. His shirt was stained with blood, his chest full of stab wounds. Polygraphs were administered. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. The lawyers also found persuasive reasons to doubt the bite-mark evidence. The deadly shooting happened Saturday, July 25 . Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. After three months, Dannen and Blum returned to New York. At times he talked as if he was in a trance, Dannen told me, almost like he was hypnotized.. And other law enforcement officers, the TRC team was learning, had always doubted Gilberts statements. After being arrested, a Texas man begins confessing to the brutal murder of over 200 women. The woman survived and identified her attacker, a young man named Benny Carroll, who had been dating her granddaughter. 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. It was all mind-blowing, Schonemann told me. Lets go right now, he said. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. 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. GARZA Most journalists who came to Texas after Spence was executed werent interested in him but in finding stories about the Texas criminal justice system, remembered Schonemann. MARTINEZ, Ireneo But he was kindhearted to those he loved. Year should not be greater than current year. I think this is the worst thing to ever happen in Hawkins, Texas. He matched the description of a wild-haired, tattooed man who approached a couple at Lake Hawkins about 7:45 p.m., asking for money and a quick sexual encounter. But Melendez later recanted, saying he had only confessed because hed been threatened with the death penalty. history.). Guys getting their faces shot off. (Franks was never accused of any wrongdoing.) State records indicate McFadden was convicted on a burglary charge in 1966 anddestruction of property in 1968. But there was more, said Salinas. It was April 1983; in a few months, the local media would mark the one-year anniversary of the murders, and yet the investigation was still floundering. The call was urgent: a body had been discovered at Speegleville Park, near Lake Waco. (The medical examiner said she had not recognized the bite marks at the autopsy, but she was now certain that some of the victims wounds had a pattern that sug-gested teeth.) A new lawyer, Joel Schwartz, stepped up to help. Is my mother with you? Sixteen months after White was murdered, Hunt and Fuller filed Spences direct appeal with the CCA. "We all hung out at the point it was the place to be if you were a kid.". USA Trucking Companies. Soon after Simons began his new job as a sheriffs deputy, working the graveyard shift from midnight to eight, he and Spence began having regular conversations, often about the Lake Waco case, which the inmate clearly enjoyed discussing. David Spences case came before the TRC that same summer. These days theres increasing credibility given to the idea that innocent people do plead guilty; the National Registry of Exonerations recently found that nearly 1 in 5 of the 87 inmates who were exonerated in 2013 had pleaded guilty to charges against them, often because of the guarantee of a lesser sentence. 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. We cannot tell which are gun wounds and which are knives.'. HAWKINS, Texas (KLTV) - The Hawkins Police Department is investigating a shooting at a convenience store. The families (of the victims) were hysterical.". As she would later testify, she had checked with the courthouse records and found out that many of the jailhouse informants were getting their cases dismissed by the DAs office. 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. 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. MOODY, Toronto The first DNA exoneration in the country, in 1989, had come about when the DNA of a Chicago man convicted of rape was shown not to match that of the semen found on his alleged victims underwear; since then, this exclusionary approach had led to the exoneration of dozens of others. Jacque Hilburn-Simmons is an award-winning journalist who has been writing professionally for 30 years. He had recently received a letter from Dannen saying that a breakthrough with the DNA testing was imminent. Dannen told them he did not think Carroll was connected in any way to the Lake Waco killings, though he did consider the burglary at Whites house after her death to be highly suspicious. After Feazell was acquitted in the federal case, the feds didnt want anything more to do with him, Price remembered. Spence had grown so dependent on their conversations that he would sometimes call Simons at home, waking him up to talk. In 2009, Portland police sent old evidence to the state crime lab to see if new DNA techniques might turn up any leads. I dont know why I started writing, Thompson told me, but I felt it was the thing to do. 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. Dannen showed the crime-scene photos to a longtime homicide detective he knew in New York, whose reaction supported this idea. That October, Feazell announced that his office was steadily putting together a puzzle where someone is trying to hide some of the key pieces., One month later, the puzzle was finished. We discussed bite-mark evidence and how a landmark forensics report by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 had thoroughly discredited it (The scientific basis is insufficient to conclude that bite mark comparisons can result in a conclusive match, the report stated). The population was 1,331 at the 2000 census. $54,900. Whoever did it wont just go to jailhe is going to pay for this. With Thompson and her husband present as witnesses, Chapman transferred every item to a representative of the Tarrant County medical examiners office. In a written confession, he stated he had participated with Spence and Gilbert in raping and killing the teenagers. 181 votes, 25 comments. Other officers werent so surprised. If Simons had a job at the jail, he could get close to Spence and use him to solve the lake murders. Earlier Tuesday, a jury had fond Beasley competent to stand trial on the three murder charges and two counts of injury to a child. Then the two set out to attack what they saw as the most powerful element of the states case: the accomplice testimony of the Melendez brothers. Are you sure that you want to remove this flower? Add to your scrapbook. Suzanne, remembered for her infectious grin, was a graduating senior and cheerleader. Simons went back to the inmate, even taking him to Koehne and Speegleville parks the next morning; over two days, Melendez gave three statements that included other discrepancies, such as different times for when he and Spence arrived at Koehne Park. Hunt even got an insurance salesman to explain that Deebs insurance policy on Kelley was the kind often used to cover employees in case of accidents. I remember thinking that that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard an investigator say. (Simons later said in a deposition that [Hortons] whole affidavit was a lie.) Even Butler seemed to have sensed the unsoundness of Gilberts statements. He said, I tried to tie the other one up with her bra. Spence also said hed driven their bodies across the bridge to Speegleville. Now 24, Spence had become more and more unpredictable and violent. Weve updated the security on the site. Early in the investigation, the prosecutor had written a note on his stationery: G[ilbert] M[elendez] told [fellow inmate] Robert [Garcia] he did not know anything but was going to make up a story to get off of [the] sexual abuse case., Why would Gilbert confess to such a horrible crime if he didnt commit it? He still thought hed be exonerated.. They knew they had to attack the jailhouse testimony; if Robert Snelson had lied, they figured, other inmates probably had too. Heart pounding, Simons peered around the immediate surroundings. It had taken more than three years, but the tireless lawmen had finally brought the killers to justice. Thompson was making a chocolate cake, and Jill, who had recently lost a lot of weight, asked for a slice. For all of Wacos small-town feel, Simonshimself the father of a young boyrecognized that these were big-city problems. Michael Anthony Almost five months after the final conviction in the lake murders, at around noon on March 2, 1986, Price got a call about a questionable death at a house on North Fifteenth Street. But Im still here.. In fact, not one of the seventeen people interviewed by police who had been at Koehne Park that night mentioned Spence or the Melendez brothersor anyone who looked like them. WILLIAMS, Nanon Mckewn He told me a two-day story about the murders., Jan Price has retired from active duty and now works part-time in the WPDs personnel department. Now there was a financial motive too. GONZALES, Cornelius Alan Wileys willingness to meet with interested parties on matters of criminal justice should never be construed as support for, or against, a person or issue being discussed.) Dannen made a presentation, and UT gave him more funds, which he sent to FSA for another round of testing. Friends or family never heard from them again. In April 1992 the federal court denied Spences petition for habeas corpus relief. Simons, who had become a private investigator after retiring from the sheriffs department in 2000 and now did work for Feazell, agreed. 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. State District Judge Richard Davis ordered the terms to be served concurrently. Jr. Robert Leslie Timothy Wayne As manager of this memorial you can add or update the memorial using the Edit button below. Spence was the kind of criminal Simons knew well: rough, poor, and full of swagger. She also had marks on her skin that looked as if theyd been made by teeth. Median home price: $434,475, lot price: $0. Authorities were eager to locate the unkempt man. The teens had been bound with shoelaces and strips of towel and stabbed a total of 48 times. Paul Owen Beasly Jr., 27, had gone to his parents home to celebrate Father's Day, but a family argument turned bloody at about 1:30 p.m., police said. Her body was facing downward off the mountain, fists clutching a wad of thorny vines and several articles of clothing lying nearby. In fact, by this time Dannen had discovered that the crime-scene evidence from the lake murders had never been tested for DNA either, and he was already working on proving that the last of the four defendants, Tony Melendez, was innocent. Finally, on Labor Day, with 45 days until his execution, Owen and Schonemann were assigned the case. "I tried to spend every waking minute there," he said. 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. The trail went cold again. And if someone got in trouble at school, they could count on getting in trouble at home, too. Finally Franks relented, and the two men met at a Lubys on Valley Mills Drive. He worked on a couple of rewrites, telling his friends and sources back in Texas that it wouldnt be long until he could publish everything. Whether youre a lifelong resident of D.C. or you just moved here, weve got you covered. Some forty pounds overweight, his eyes staring blankly, the inmate looked soft and harmless. The jailer managed to escape unhurt from a railroad boxcar. After the DNA comparisons were conducted from family members, positive matches were made, Ratliff said. Winnipeg Jets Edmonton Oilers 2 -155. PEREZ. For his detractors in the WPD, Simonss efforts to go after Deeb were evidence of his questionable methods and fixations. Had Frueh called Franks because he had seen Kenneth in trouble? GUTIERREZ. When Simons then learned that, two weeks before the murders, Deeb had taken out an accident insurance policy on Kelley that paid $20,000 in the event of her deathand listed himself as Kelleys common-law husbandhe felt his instincts confirmed.
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