The other avenue for Melendez would be executive clemency, which also depends on DNA findings. The girls cashed it at a supermarket and drove to Kenneths house. January 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? ). Thanks for your help! HAWKINS, Anthony Cardell Now, putting aside any remaining semblance of journalistic objectivity, he signed a paralegal agreement to work for Reaves, who offered to help get Washington out of prison pro bono. But he hadnt felt any violence at Speegleville. Simonss plan had been forming ever since hed first learned about Spence. accessed ), memorial page for Gena Lee Turner (1 Mar 1966-4 May 1986), Find a Grave Memorial ID 6653351, citing County Line Cemetery, Yoakum . Verify and try again. ", "It was one of the first times we had a major crime in the area. Not long after WFAAs investigative series on alleged corruption in Feazells office had aired the previous year, Feazell had filed a libel suit against the TV station; its parent company, Belo; and one of its reporters. Is this your business? As Kelley, a slim brunette, answered their questions, Simons got a sudden hunch. Other officers werent so surprised. 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. Ex-Inmate Now Free as a Bird read the front page of the Waco Tribune-Herald. Photo by Ben. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. One of these was a woman named Angela Miles, who had been serving time for burglary. I dont have any guilt feelings about causing their deaths.. Dannen reached out to Franks to learn more, but for almost a year, he refused to sit for an interview. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. Hawkins' murder sparked emotionally charged marches through the neighborhood, led by the Rev. Fire Ants Have Unleashed Chaos in Texas for Decades. Perhaps Simonss informants knew what they were talking about. 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. It was good." If theres one thing for certain, its that the Lake Waco murder case does indeed stand on its own. (Touch DNA, one of the latest developments in genetic testing, isolates and profiles the DNA in skin cells left on physical evidence when a person touches it.) Congress, no longer willing to pay to defend convicted murderers, had pulled the nonprofits funding. The semen found on Whites body had never been tested for DNA, Dannen realized with excitement. Fred would call now and then and say, Im almost ready, remembered Thompson. CORWIN, Javier Melendez has various jailhouse tattoos: a cross on his left hand, a lowrider and a jalapeo on his right. Though there was nothing exculpatory in the odontology testimony, the lawyers decided to address it at the upcoming hearing anyway, just to put it in the record. The incident was confirmed to have taken place at JJs Fast Stop. White had struggled with her attackerher nose was broken, her ear torn, her body battered. Leave them blank to get signed up. Lying in the grass was the body of a young blond woman. And You Thought Feral Hogs Were Bad. Feeling buoyed, Schonemann and Schwartz, now joined by Ken Driggs, decided to again attack the only physical evidence against Spence: the bite marks. The results, as they came in, proved astonishing. But later he told the police that he was out driving around the parks at about eight in the evening; this inconsistency, among other details, had prompted Detective Ramon Salinas and Lieutenant Marvin Horton to briefly consider Franks a suspect. He had recently left his position at the New Yorker to work as a freelancer, and he thought Spence might be his next story. Compelled by his vow to avenge the teenagershed whispered the same promise to Raylene and Kenneth as he had to JillSimons kept tabs on investigators progress, even stopping by police headquarters after his shift to read their reports. From the beginning, Feazell was a formidable prosecutor, calling 39 witnesses. Even Hunt, who never believed the jailhouse informants, remembers speaking at trial with a bailiff at the courthousewhom he did consider a credible witnesswho told him, I know you dont think Spence did it, but he told me he did. Other lawyers also still wonder about the incriminating things Spence said over the years. Jills mother, Nancy, who was scheduled to be a witness, had forced herself to study the crime-scene photos as a way of bracing herself for the gruesome details shed hear in testimony. The sergeant got on his hands and knees and crawled under the branches. To keep creating Try again later. We got the right people, he wrote recently in an email. He had also recently undergone gall bladder surgery. (Simons has said that he got involved only after he received calls from a few of his informants. 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. Found more than one record for entered Email, You need to confirm this account before you can sign in. TIGNER After the phenotyping was completed, investigators began working with GenMatch to use genetic genealogy to compose family trees for both of the victims. ), The rift between the WPD and Simons made Price nervous. He wasnt perfect. The long-haired, tattoo-covered McFadden enhanced the reputation when he broke out of the Upshur County Jail before his capital murder trial. Joshua Hawkins, 13, was the last of the three surviving boys involved in the wreck to return home. I was very fond of David, Schonemann told me. That case will stand on its own, he said. In 2009, Portland police sent old evidence to the state crime lab to see if new DNA techniques might turn up any leads. After all this time, I still think about it.. Could the bracelet be Jills? Thats hard to believe, said the deputy to reporters as he walked out. Suzanne's body was located the following day and by May 6, officers stopped the suspect vehicle near Loop 564 and State Highway 37, north of Mineola. Spence, in fact, was about to become the face of a national debate over capital punishment in Texas. Cliffside Path LOT 384, Hawkins, TX 75765. For Simons, this was a promising start, and later that afternoon he and Baier sat down to interview Kelley, who had also been a friend of Jills. But at the end of the hearing, she walked up to the DA and gave him a message. Though several people had seen them arrive at Koehne, and Raylenes car was found there, no one had seen them leave. 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. Price didnt agree with him, and neither did several of her fellow WPD officers, so in July, when Feazell held a press conference to announce the indictments, the cops kept their distance. And, crucially, they kept and carefully stored forensic evidence from the scene. Their primary person of interest was the jailed McFadden, already under scrutiny for the unrelated robbery attempt the same evening the friends disappeared. Yes, Kelley repliedin fact, people had asked if they were sisters. Median home price: $434,475, lot price: $0. He liked reading about everything and loved talking about religion. Other TRC lawyers who helped Owen and Schonemann with the case, such as Ken Driggs, agreedSpence may have been a criminal, but he didnt seem like a killer. Thirty years later, Yusuf Hawkins' murder still shocks in a changed Many of the wounds were shallow, suggesting they had been tortured. A word about the reporting. 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. Eight months after the Fifth Circuits ruling, Schonemann got a call from John McLemore, an investigator who worked for Brian Pardo, a Waco insurance magnate. As the community paused to remember the girl with the dazzling smile, the search for the missing continued. Randall Wayne Sitting calmly nearby, Simons would tell him to let it all out. 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. Ive got to go to Texas and find out what the hell happened, he told her. I dont know if I want to see an innocent man get freed or if I just so deeply want to know who the guilty people are. Learn more about managing a memorial . 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. It was only in December 2012 that theyd finally reclaimed the material; now it was at Arkansas Genomics, a lab in Little Rock that does touch DNA testing. Owen, a Harvard law graduate from Georgia, moved to Texas to work for the nonprofit in 1989; he encouraged Schonemann, an NYU law grad whod grown up in Ohio and Indiana, to join him a couple of years later. On February 16, 1994, Schonemann got his answer. It was a Sunday, and she had been working with one of her horses, but she was the on-call detective that week. Her husband died in 2005, and her daughters often stop by to visit the retirement village where she lives, in Waxahachie. Decades later the violence that unfolded that summer continues to defy explanation and understanding. List of female murderers by name | A | Murderpedia She had been stabbed multiple times and was naked, gagged, and bound. Winnipeg Jets Edmonton Oilers 2 -155. Davids mom suffered. Toward the end of last year, I began to hear from various sources that it was just a matter of time, maybe weeks, before the DNA results came out. 39.5m members in the funny community. QUITMAN, Texas (AP) _ A man has pleaded guilty to killing his father, mother and sister during a Fathers Day and birthday celebration, and has been sentenced to three life terms. (Simons would later disagree and say that it was Price who fingered Williams as a suspect after his arrest.) Murder in Texas (TV Movie 1981) - IMDb Are you adding a grave photo that will fulfill this request? ``Hes gutless, Harrison said of McFadden. Simons and Baier set out to investigate. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.. Clear skies. Dannen and Reaves, as Williamss lawyer, arranged for all the evidence to be tested at a lab in California named Forensic Analytical, and the DNA results came back in November 2000: the semen did not belong to either Washington or Williams. For Fred, Texas was as exotic as a foreign country, remembered Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for the New Yorker (and a former TexasMonthly staffer), who hosted Dannen and Blum in his home, in Austin. PEREZ, Robert Anthony Martinez By then Schonemann had lost his most important cohort: Owen had received a job offer in Kentucky and left the TRC. Guys getting their faces shot off. Resend Activation Email. That dude did it, he said. Getting Calvin out was the greatest thing Ive ever done. Based on his reporting, he felt sure it involved Harper, who was allegedly both a drug dealer and close to Kenneth, and two henchmen. At a quarter before six, Governor Bush, Spences last hope, also denied a reprieve. Cold Cases, Missing and Unsolved Crimes. Are you sure that you want to report this flower to administrators as offensive or abusive? William Porter, 51, has been charged with the 1986 murder of . He eventually has an affair with a woman named Ann Kurth. With each passing hour, hope for the safe return of the duo began to fade. In the summer of 1982 the city of Waco was confronted with the most vicious crime it had ever seen: three teenagers were savagely stabbed to death, for no apparent reason, at a park by a lake on the edge of town. Dannen then arranged for a series of DNA tests, beginning with one of the beer cans. She found herself rooting for two convicted killers. 0:00. Try again later. A book comes out by a New York writer that says Tonys innocent and Texas may have executed an innocent manand Tonys going to get clemency? They told my mom and my girlfriend that they were killing me by not getting me to plead out. (Melendezs mother recalled this too. But no one emerged as a credible suspect. But Schonemann felt strongly about Spence, and the lawyer made frequent visits to the Ellis Unit to interview the convict. 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. GARDNER. The second body was found on Feb. 2, 1986, by two juveniles who were riding bikes in the same area where Frye's body was discovered on Calder Road, Ratliff said. Jr. David One thing Dannen was particularly struck by in the writ was the blood-spatter report. 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 was active in several organizations, including band, National Honor Society and Future Teachers of America, acquiring a job later at a local pharmacy. Its not that I thought he was innocent, but I thought, They cant execute him based on this record.. MADDEN, Gerald Edward ), On November 19 a furious Feazell dragged Price and Scott before a grand jury, cross-examined the detective, and demanded that she turn over her files on the White case. He eventually hammered out a 114-page writ of habeas corpus, a last appeal available to death row inmates in which evidence can be introduced to allege that their trial was unfair. Associates of Cook also reported to authorities that she possibly sold and used cocaine, Ratliff said. Schonemann also cant escape the past. Convinced he was on the right track, Dannen shared some of his own suspicions with Thompson. Hawkins' death was the third killing of a black male by white mobs in New York City during the 1980s; the other two victims were Willie Turks, who was killed on June 22, 1982, in Brooklyn, and Michael Griffith, who was killed in Queens on December 20, 1986. Simonss exchanges with the Melendez brothers had never been revealed to Spences defense lawyers. 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. West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country. He had spent more than fifteen years behind bars. Dateline originally aired an . As the trials for Spences accomplices approached, the discovery seemed to be a sweet validation of all his work. Speaking of his decision to move to Mexico, he even referred to the Wizards words to the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger you have no courage. All Dannen needed at this point was DNA from the crime scene. For Hlavkas family, the news is bittersweet. Feazells antagonism, the open hostility between the DAs office and the WPD, and the seedy informant underworld shed spent months in had begun to make her feel paranoid. She recognized the inconsistencies in Gilberts testimony but said his words had been corroborated at Spences second trial by Tonyas well as by the bite-mark evidence. View listing photos and property details. I dont think it ever goes away for them. "Before that happened, you never locked your doors, you left your car keys in the car and your shotgun in the window. After that, however, the teenagers trail vanished. Nonetheless, Spence was set to be executed in four days. Learn more about Brooks Lake / Brookhaven Lake. Relatives of the victims, including Kenneths and Jills parents, and friends whod driven in from Waxahachie sat together with members of the DAs office. The testimonyeveryones bite mark is different, like a fingerprintwas very convincing.. The police had seen the letter, and theyd questioned Frueh back in 1982 before letting him go. Ive paid for the bad things I did., Melendez, now 55, is short and muscular. 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. Suspects were grilled and released. She liked the journalist, even if she found him odd. Mr. Hawkins had also been sentenced to death for the abduction, rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, Rhonda Keys of Amarillo, in 1976. It was her late niece's absolute favorite meal and the item most requested for family get-togethers. The faces of Suzanne, Gena and Bryan are firmly etched in memory. Im not a forensic expert, but I feel the case has taken a turn, he said. Some forty pounds overweight, his eyes staring blankly, the inmate looked soft and harmless. It was a match. But the hairs did not implicate anyone in particular, and eight weeks into the case, there was simply not enough evidence to make any arrests. I know he put in many hours and sleepless nights, but I also know he raised hopes for people and didnt follow through., Lawrence Wright, who hasnt talked to his friend since 2002, recalls Dannens single-mindedness. Then, six days before Spences trial, they were dealt an even bigger blow: in an unexpected about-face, Tony pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Some reports noted that several people had seen Tab Harper, one of the polices early suspects, at Koehne Park the night of the murders; witnesses also said he had bragged about killing three people. The judge had agreed, and Feazell and Ned Butler, the assistant DA, had complied. According to TDCJ records, McFadden was executed for the abduction, rape, and murder of 18-year-old Suzanne Denise Harrison. Oops, we were unable to send the email. This didnt surprise his fellow officers; it was this kind of dedication that had helped him solve difficult cases in the past. Nevertheless, Simons believed he had found his men. When youre working under an execution date, every minute not spent on the case feels wasted. He filed motions for stays of execution and successor habeas writs with the Texas courts. But Thompson had never stopped wondering if theyd made a mistake. Now 76, Thompson doesnt get out much. The Rev. I dont trust Reaves or Dannen, he told me. The two became fast allies. In return Melendez got two life sentences. She uses a cane to walk, and because of failing eyesight, she cant drive. Today in Music History for March 4: In 1678, composer Antonio Vivaldi was born. Gilbert said that he had been clueless too, throwing in details he had heard on the news. McFadden became a household name in the Lone Star State the next year thanks to a horrific crime and a heart-pounding escape from jail. There was no evidence of a boat, and there were no tire tracks around the Speegleville gate, which closed at eleven. Two friends who accompanied her on May 4, 1986, for a Sunday drive were shot to death. I told her I was exhausted after talking with Baier for five hours. But now he didnt know what to think. This menacing appearance seemed to be amplified by his less than seventh grade education, long history of mental instability and an inner fury that was unpredictable, violent and sometimes unbridled. 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. Chad Beasley, 9, the son of another relative, was treated for a broken leg and released. When the officers got to Dallas, he informed them that Washingtons mold matched the wounds on Whites body. I was afraid to die, he told Texas Monthly in 2014, insisting he was painting houses in Bryan, as several alibi witnesses had told police he was. You cry all night long. Search above to list available cemeteries. If Simons had a job at the jail, he could get close to Spence and use him to solve the lake murders. (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.) Krauss did, choosing five experts around the country. $54,900. PDF She Wanted It All A True Story Of Sex Murder And A [PDF] At a court hearing in Waco, Feazell accused Dannen of not returning his tapes; Dannen, in an affidavit, said he had made copies and given them back. SPENCE, Exzavier Lamont They had planned to meet up with their friend, Bryan Boone, 19, and take a small cruise around the water. I have a witness.. Simons would allow him long phone calls to Juhl, sometimes until three or four in the morning, but she failed to turn up any new leads.

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