Instead, immediately call the Hawkins County Sheriff's Department at 423-272-4848. ADVERTISEMENT 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. But in a case of mistaken identity, they had attacked Jill, and Raylene and Kenneth had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then, just when it seemed things couldnt get worse, in September 1995 the TRC found itself forced to shut its doors. It was grueling, often heartbreaking work, and it tended to attract young, idealistic lawyers, like two attorneys in their late twenties named Rob Owen and Raoul Schonemann. The grass around the girls was flattened, as if theyd struggled with whoever killed them, but there was no knife, very little blood on the ground, and no semen anywhereeven though the medical examiner eventually determined that the girls had been sexually assaulted. Hunt and Fuller pointed out that none of the hair or blood found at the crime scene tied Spence to the murders, and they insisted that Deeb had been joking about getting rid of Kelley and that Spence knew it. In 2012, Hopper took over the case and began trying to match the DNA profile with various suspects who had been identified over the years. Melendez, who was most recently denied parole in May 2016, asserted his innocence until the end, says Jan Thompson, the aunt of one of the victims, who Melendez often called and wrote. Though Price had been the police departments investigating officer, she wasnt called as a state witness. A Town In Terror: How Jerry McFadden's 1986 crime spree stole the lives Theyd killed Kenneth and Raylene to prevent them from talking. Though no one has ever been held accountable for Gena and Bryan's deaths, McFadden is guilty in the court of public opinion. After three months, Dannen and Blum returned to New York. But this one, she said, looked shiny and brand-new, not like it had been sitting outside for two years. Judge Black didnt address anything we had done.. Lake Hawkins' murders featured on true-crime network episode - KLTV Resend Activation Email. He then held the woman hostage in a boxcar outside the rail yards for hours until she managed to flee. In the eyes of the law, the two murder cases remain open, essentially unsolved. Her name was Juanita White. Not once did I hear Well beat this, youre innocent, he said. Avon A second wrote that the marks were more likely than not made by insects or artifacts. If the purpose of the exercise, he continued, was to match these marks to a set of teeth, it borders on the unbelievable. A third thought that some contusions on one body were probable human bite marks, but he couldnt match any of the molds to them. The crime struck Price as unbearably sad. He wasnt very intelligent. He never would have risen to the level of a suspect.. After so long, Thompson told me, and all the promises he made, I lost faith in him. cemeteries found within kilometers of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. 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. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9). All of his criminal history and police contacts and even address information is all from about three counties in Texas. In 1986, Michael Morton was a supermarket manager in Texas and a husband and father. 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 called him several more times through the summer, and in our talks he turned often to Spence, saying he had all kinds of photos of the inmate and letters he had written. ANDRADE, Roger For Feazell in particular, the victory could not have come at a better time. Why would it be destroyed? Brad told me. Thirty years later, Yusuf Hawkins' murder still shocks in a changed Dwayne He eventually has an affair with a woman named Ann Kurth. 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.. At that time, prisoners were granted excessive time off their sentences for good behavior, essentially opening the spigot for releases. The teens had been bound with shoelaces and strips of towel and stabbed a total of 48 times. Cliffside Path, Hawkins, TX 75765. He and Blum met with Vic Feazell, who had gotten divorced and started dabbling in the film business. Later in the evening, the woman wrote, she saw Kenneth in the front seat of a maroon Lincoln Continental with Robert Frueh, a local reverend with a fondness for teenage boys who often cruised through Wacos parks. In 1984, he told me, we were all mad at who the justice systemthe police, the DA, the judge, the jurysaid to be mad at. They were all good kids they were the cream of the crop.". An HBO documentary released two months later, The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row, featured Spence in his final week. He was sent to prison. To everyone's horror and disbelief, they never made it home at all. I can see it still today.". Several other witnesses reported the suspicious remarks Spence had madeabout raping two girls at the lake, about being scared he might have killed someone. Getting Tony out will be the other greatest thing., Was Dannen about to solve the 32-year-old mystery? Audrey Lee Cook was born on Nov. 25, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Houston and Channelview, Texas, between 1976 and 1985, Ratliff said. There was a problem getting your location. Though several people had seen them arrive at Koehne, and Raylenes car was found there, no one had seen them leave. He was sentenced to concurrent stays in the Texas Department of Corrections, but was paroled in 1978 after serving only a few years. She and her girlfriend had broken up at the time of her disappearance, Bluffington said. Investigators used DNA to identify the bodies found in 1986 and 1991. But sometimes you get hold of a case, and sometimes the case gets hold of you.. Officials used dental records to identity her remains. This article is the result of a full year of researchdozens of interviews were conducted with the principal and minor players, and thousands of pages of transcripts, depositions, and affidavits, from the cases six capital murder trials and one aggravated sexual abuse trial, were carefully reviewed. cemeteries found within miles of your location will be saved to your photo volunteer list. While looking up these records on microfilm would be a chore, with online Hawkins obituaries, all you need is a name, state of death, and year of death. Thank you for fulfilling this photo request. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Copyright 2020 KLTV. He choked her it was horrible. There had been no suppression of exculpatory evidence, the brief stated, and the police reports would not have made a difference in Spences verdicts. She had been a detective for only two years at that point, and they were after a vicious killer. Franks had originally told a newspaper reporter that when his son didnt return home, he became anxious that Kenneth might be in trouble and went out looking for him at four-thirty in the morning. One night, driving home at midnight after a long interview with Dennis Baier, a discombobulated Dannen was pulled over by a cop for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. "I tried to spend every waking minute there," he said. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph). This memorial has been copied to your clipboard. To retrieve it, Dannen had turned to Thompson for help; as a relative of Jills, she had the authority to request that her nieces personal belongings be returned. He was a likable guy, intellectually curious, gregarious. The medical examiner agreed with the results and is now in the process of amending the death certificates, Ratliff said. Schonemann was not about to give up: after landing a job at the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, he continued to represent Spence pro bono. When Butler first saw the lake murders file, he immediately asked Salinas if theyd checked the bodies for bite marks. Then, on June 22, 1979, one month before Hlavkas death, he kidnapped and sexually assaulted another Texas woman. He still thought hed be exonerated.. Please try again later. 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,. hawkins texas murders 1986. A Town in Terror Part II: Hawkins mourns three young victims, as law Davids mom suffered. I felt at risk. His work on the White case had caused bad publicity for Simons and Feazell, and he worried about the enemies he was making with his investigation, even as he got no closer to actually solving the case. He was a big, wild-haired man whose body was covered in devilish looking tattoos featuring contorted faces and satanic imagery. Texas Seven Prison Escape - The Murder Of Aubrey Hawkins - My Crime Library All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. "I wrote the parole board and asked them not to parole him to this area," then-sheriff Frank White said in a May 13, 1986 newspaper. When the medical examiners tests did not return any DNA profiles, Dannen arranged for the evidence to be sent to Forensic Science Associates (FSA), a California lab run by Ed Blake, one of the countrys pioneering DNA scientists. ). We will always love you, they wrote. Jr. Kenneth Edward Im going to see my mom.. Dannen hoped the reporter would call before the execution took place to say a court had stayed it, but she didnt contact him until his watch read almost eight. Robert He walked with a limp and went by the nickname Lucky. cemeteries found in Yoakum, DeWitt County, Texas, USA will be saved to your photo volunteer list. Wed paint all day, then throw down our sleeping bags, turn on the radio, cook, and go to sleep. He ended up helping me make the statement, and I just got deeper into this., Simons hadnt expressly told him what to say, Gilbert continued, but hed made suggestions and given alternative scenarios. I dont know if Calvin Washington or Joe Sidney Williams Jr. killed Mrs. White, Miles told Price. Joshua Hawkins, 13, was the last of the three surviving boys involved in the wreck to return home. To some of Simonss colleagues, the results of the polygraph were no surprise. CORWIN, Javier 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Spence, unaware that he might be a suspect, offered to help the officers in their investigation. Now 24, Spence had become more and more unpredictable and violent. This, and only this, would ultimately lead to a hearing where Reaves could question the men who put Melendez and the others in prison and sent Spence to his death, making them answer for their actions a generation ago. A native of New York and an accomplished pianist, Dannen had a small build and an intense disposition, and he was known for his ability to get interviews with tough subjects, from Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates to New York drug kingpin Lorenzo Nichols. Relatives of the victims, including Kenneths and Jills parents, and friends whod driven in from Waxahachie sat together with members of the DAs office. (1-4 of 4) On November 21, 1983, a McLennan County grand jury indicted Deeb, Spence, and both Melendez brothers for the murders of the three teenagers. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. The four juries in these trials concluded that Spence and the Melendez brothers were the killers, Simons wrote in his own email. Are you sure that you want to remove this flower? The sponsor of a memorial may add an additional. Lets go right now, he said. A few hours later, family members of Suzanne, Gena and Bryan started worrying after the trio failed to show up after their ride around the lake. Bob Layman, who had baptized the girl, encouraged the audience to set bitterness aside and support one another. It was a Sunday, and she had been working with one of her horses, but she was the on-call detective that week. Id say, David, if you did this, you deserve to die, she told me when we talked last May. For the first time in years, Thompson felt calm. Simons told him early in their relationship, a few weeks after arriving at the jail. 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. On September 9, Simons walked by Salinass desk and saw the case file lying out. I can tell you he shouldnt have been prosecuted for it., Far from Waco, in Louisiana, Spences ex-wife looks back on the past three decades with deep sadness. (According to Dannen, the states forensic expert in Deebs retrial told him that when he asked to test the truck, he was informed it had disappeared in Mexico. Now it was possible hed orchestrated the whole thing.. They told me they got enough to get me out, he said. At some point she started working for National Rent-A-Car but the dates of her employment are unknown, Ratliff said. I kept shaking my head, he told me. Shes gotten me through the last year or two, he told me. ROSALES, Vaughn Suzanne Harrison's grave is marked at Chilton Cemetery in Big Sandy. I was going to get convicted of those murders whether I did it or not. They met with Pardo, who eagerly shared his files. Local newscasts repeatedly showed images of ambulance workers and police officers, including Simons, carrying three body bags out from the brush. Manuel Thompson never met Kenneth and barely knew Raylene, yet her thoughts turn to them too. Even Jills brother, Brad, who had been so vocal in his hatred for Spence, was stirred. During an interview with investigators, she had fingered a man named Muneer Deeb, who she said didnt like Kenneth and became angry at the mere mention of his name. The acrimony was about to get even worse. White rushed the letter over to Russ Hunt, Spences trial lawyer. 302 days on Zillow. The former DA remained confident of Spences guilt and felt he had nothing to hide; he was even contemplating filing a libel suit against Pardo for maligning him in Capitol Watch. Originally from Haskell, Texas, he was allowed to move to the small community of Hawkins to live with his mother and sister. Informants they interviewed offered myriad allegations about Feazell and Simons, and the two cops found themselves having to consider the sources. Everyone's worst fears were realized a few days later. Share this memorial using social media sites or email. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. More than 800 mourners gathered at Hawkins High School to say goodbye. 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 terrorized a region and influenced the way Texas deals with prison overcrowding. That night, the officers got a huge break when a panicked Kelley called Simons at one in the morning. We got the right people, he wrote recently in an email. He recounts his random selection of victims and his traveling companions, his friend and friend's sister. 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. The [murders] made me very angry, Ivy wrote in an affidavit, so hed talked about them with other inmates. Contact a real estate agent. He pointed to the informant testimony and said there was pretty solid evidence that Williams had left a bite mark on Whites body. GUTIERREZ. They had found Raylene and Jill. But I didnt kill anyone. He said one of them had some big tits, Gilbert told his lawyers. It was such a relief, she told me, to know there was somebody who understood how I felt.. Three years after her murder, Jills remains lay in an unadorned grave in a country cemetery just north of Waxahachie. Like Spence, he was given the death penalty. They had been looking for a place to fish when theyd spotted the body near the foot of a tree, lying beneath some low-hanging branches. As investigators processed the scene, another body was found in close proximity but they were in "vastly different stages of decomposition," Ratliff said. At the time of his death, Bryan lived at the lake with his uncle, which was a positive for Suzanne and Gena, who were always on the lookout for an excuse to head to its sparkling shores. PEREZ, Robert Anthony Martinez Cargo Hauled by Larry Pack. He was going to find the one person who would give him the answer. We had life-size pictures of the marks and a cast of [Spences] teeth brought into the jury room, remembered one juror afterward. When he got on the trail of something, remembered Officer Richard Ashby, who patrolled the streets with Simons in the late sixties, you couldnt get him off. Police chief Larry Scott agreed. A system error has occurred. Prudhomme "just kind of fell out of contact with her family," Bluffington said. HAFDAHL Schonemann and his team appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 1994. She liked the journalist, even if she found him odd. 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. Whether youre a lifelong resident of D.C. or you just moved here, weve got you covered. In December, however, he discovered that the crime lab that had performed Whites autopsy had saved vaginal and anal swabs. By now the tension between the WPD and the DAs office had grown to an all-time high. Winona (9 miles) Big Sandy (9 miles) Owentown (14 miles) Just die., Spence turned to his own family. Is this what had driven Franks out on a desperate search for his son that night, well before the murders were reported? A few days later I called Dannen again. Nevertheless, Simons believed he had found his men. One testified that he heard Spence say hed bitten off one of Jills nipples; another stated that Spence told him that when he saw the teenagers, hed said, Theres the motherfucker that beat that Iranian on a drug deal. Spence found himself with no lawyers. But the police can't be sure whether to believe him or not until he locates a body and shows them some polaroids. At that time, we'd never had anyting like that happen here. Our feeling of being satisfied, of getting justice, was taken away., In the summer of 2013, Thompson stopped talking to Dannen.