hawkins texas murders 1986

After having their motions repeatedly denied by Judge Allen, Hunt and Fuller sent a 33-page letter to the FBI and the U.S. attorneys office asking for help. Not a shred of doubt., For almost thirty years now, Tony Melendez has sat in a Texas prison cell and considered his life. ), In November Chief Scott decided to make Prices investigation official. But on this particular day, they left the beach towels and portable radio behind. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. The inmate had taken his mothers death hard; his ex-wife, June Ewing, whom he had married and divorced years before, reported after a visit that hed stood in the prison yard and screamed at the sky in anguish, Are you real? On September 9, Simons walked by Salinass desk and saw the case file lying out. It was one crisis after another, Schonemann told me. He stopped Kelley mid-sentence. The Murders at the Lake - Texas Monthly On Valentine's Day 2015, a 24-year-old El Paso woman named Karyna Rodriguez was killed while unconscious during a similar sexual assault. DREW Sr. Kenneth The bedroom, Price discovered, had been Spences. Id say, David, if you did this, you deserve to die, she told me when we talked last May. General Freight. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. I know him better than anyone I never met, said Dannen. More significant, the officers also had another suspect: Tony Melendez, Gilberts younger brother. 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. But then in July 1986, as he awaited trial, McFadden knocked out a sheriffs deputy and kidnapped a woman who worked as a dispatcher and jailer. I followed the direction that has been pointed out to me.. In June two cops had been shot in a gun battle downtown. Clifton Texas authorities identify 2 victims in decades-old 'Killing Fields Other reports contained statements from people who claimed that the victims were heavy drug users; one witness said a friend of a friend had gone to the park that night to collect a $3,000 drug debt from Kenneth. Whoever had assaulted Hlavka had never been entered into the directory. 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? 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. McFadden never was charged with the other killings. I said, They didnt do this. He is mostly confined to his cell; he gets two hours daily in the dayroom, where he can watch TV, and two hours outside. Like Spence, he was given the death penalty. 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. Suzanne was raped at a remote roadside park and then strangled with her own panties; her two friends, Gena Turner, 20, and Bryan Boone, 19, were shot and tossed into a ditch several miles away from the park. It was left next to the brown granite headstone by a woman who had never met Jill but was drawn to visit the grave site after learning of the lake murders. With heavy hearts, hopeful rescuers searched by foot, horseback and off-road vehicles, in lakes, grassy pastures and deep woods. As Pardo worked through the documents, he grew incredulous. The police had seen the letter, and theyd questioned Frueh back in 1982 before letting him go. Murder in Texas (TV Movie 1981) - IMDb 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. This was a homicidal frenzy. There was one person in particular who Dannen figured might offer insight on the matter: Kenneths father, Richard Franks, whose accounts of that night had troubled a few police officers. (a) A person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence causes the death of an individual. He traced the van that Harper had driven the night of the murdersthe one that witnesses had seen parked next to the Pintoand discovered that, though the vehicle had been destroyed, the owner had saved its interior gold carpeting. This, Schonemann felt, was Spences last good shot at a new trial. "We all hung out at the point it was the place to be if you were a kid.". He and Spence had been riding around in Spences car, he said, drinking and smoking, when they went to Koehne Park. Wed work ten hours a day, and I didnt have a car, so Id stay a week at a time. Even Jills brother, Brad, who had been so vocal in his hatred for Spence, was stirred. She had been stabbed repeatedly and was naked except for a bra that was tied around her right leg. Yusef Hawkins, an African-American teen, is killed by a gang of white According to TDCJ records, McFadden was executed for the abduction, rape, and murder of 18-year-old Suzanne Denise Harrison. 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. 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. With each passing hour, hope for the safe return of the duo began to fade. She didnt make any changes, she didnt say anything was wrong with it, and she signed it.). In 2009, Portland police sent old evidence to the state crime lab to see if new DNA techniques might turn up any leads. The two victims were laid to rest in separate ceremonies a few days after their bodies were located. I told him, This guy is saying you told him all those storieswhy is everyone talking about it? Meanwhile, Price refused to close the White case; though she now had other investigations to work on, she was convinced that Williams and Washington were innocent and spent her spare time interviewing their lawyers and sources on the street. After three months, Dannen and Blum returned to New York. After talking, the brothers refused to take the stand against Deeb. The skulls of the unidentified victims were taken to Texas State University, where 3D composites were printed. Weeks stretched into years and then into decades. She found that the weather and the laid-back, friendly attitude of Texas suited her. In February Spence got his new date with death: April 3, 1997. Congress, no longer willing to pay to defend convicted murderers, had pulled the nonprofits funding. Inside The Murder Of Yusuf Hawkins, A Black Teen Killed By A White Mob 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. People were scared, worried. They had found Raylene and Jill. It would mean a cut in pay and status, but Simons didnt care. The ace in the hole, though, was Gilbert, who took the stand to describe the murders and stated that Spence had said Deeb would pay them $5,000 for killing Kelley. Ronald 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. But he was kindhearted to those he loved. Those kids were stabbed forty-eight times. Three years after her murder, Jills remains lay in an unadorned grave in a country cemetery just north of Waxahachie. He had also recently undergone gall bladder surgery. The case was a slam dunk for prosecutors, who presented the same type of evidence in Whites murderinformant testimony and bite-mark evidencethat had been used against her son just a few years earlier. The sergeant got on his hands and knees and crawled under the branches. (1-4 of 4) He didnt know a lot about the death penalty, yet when he read the writ, the inmates conviction didnt make sense. The next day he spoke with Jills mother, Nancy Shaw, and her aunt, Jan Thompson, and revealed a theory that was beginning to take shape in his mind. It was a spot where teenagers often congregated to drink, smoke, and hang out. Folks, he implored in the same preachers cadence hed used throughout the trial, it has been two years, and there are a lot of people who have been waiting for your decision.. Breaking news has shocked and unnerved me only a few times. This whole experience changed my life, radicalized me, he said. (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.) He was sent to prison. Texas Executes Man Convicted In 1977 Killing - The New York Times (A representative from Perrys office insists today that the meeting was solely about funding: Ms. For four decades, Portland police were baffled by the brutal crime against the young woman with flowing brown locks and a bright smile. After nearly three hours of deliberations, a jury reached a guilty verdict Thursday in the double murder trial Alex Murdaugh, a disgraced South Carolina . Schonemann had been visiting Gilbert and Tony periodically since 1991; though both had told him they had lied in their statements and testimony, they refused to speak on the record. HAFDAHL 39.5m members in the funny community. Graham, who later chose law enforcement as a career, said the point was once a teenager's paradise. Yet by 2008, he was no closer to proving Melendezs innocence. He was still living in San Miguel de Allende, playing chamber music and serving on a board that helps rural Mexican schoolchildren. Jan Evans didnt know anything about Waco before she moved there, in June 1981. Two years later, the teenager turned up alive. Suzanne Harrison's body was found near the site in 1986. MOODY, Toronto Afterward, when the crowds and cameras had dispersed, the jurors asked to meet Simons, about whom they had heard so much. Still, the defense attorneys made a miscalculation in their overall strategy. I cant say for certain he was innocent, but I know that he was wrongly executed. But just six years later, he was paroled. Feazell eventually gave Dannen access to hundreds of tapes he had made of the many conversations in his office about the lake murders. 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). based on information from your browser. I dont know whats happened to you, he whispered in her ear, but I promise you one thing. After Jills parents divorced, when she was in middle school, the girl spent a lot of time at her aunts house. 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. Obituaries Hawkins TX - Hawkins Death Records Back at the TRC, Schonemanns peers found the Melendez recantations encouraging. Dannen reached out to Franks to learn more, but for almost a year, he refused to sit for an interview. That June, Dannen tracked down Williams, who was still living in Waco. Spence insisted he couldnt remember murdering anyone, but he began to wonder if it was possible that he had really done it. Then Simons got a surprise visit from Ned Butler, an assistant DA who had recently been hired to try capital cases. These kids, he felt sure, had been killed somewhere else. Bob Layman, who had baptized the girl, encouraged the audience to set bitterness aside and support one another. I replied, Whats there to know, Truman? Mr. Simons said, People get killed here real easy. Then, leaning in for emphasis, he added, Even cops. Blum and Dannen were taken aback by what they understood to be a threat. Relatives of the victims, including Kenneths and Jills parents, and friends whod driven in from Waxahachie sat together with members of the DAs office. As he testified in a deposition in 1997, Im a deputy sheriff, Im not an assistant DA or a prosecutor. Rogersville Hawkins County Tennessee Warrants & Most Wanted Finally, on Labor Day, with 45 days until his execution, Owen and Schonemann were assigned the case. 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. Despite this acclaim, Simons felt the most satisfaction from having fulfilled his calling. There is far too much doubt to carry out an execution. Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. $20,000. Two years later, Janelle Moore, a senior forensic scientist with the Oregon State Police Crime Lab, made a remarkable discovery: A full DNA profile from an unidentified man she was confident was the killer. Suzanne's funeral was conducted three days later. He said one of them had some big tits, Gilbert told his lawyers. Schonemann also cant escape the past. Dannen soon found what seemed to be confirmation of this during a visit with Thompson. 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. As the trials for Spences accomplices approached, the discovery seemed to be a sweet validation of all his work. Add to your scrapbook. More Crime News Man shot, killed at north Harris County apartment complex The victim, he could see, was just a boy, with a wispy mustache. This browser does not support getting your location. League City Police detectives "worked diligently" since the bodies were discovered to identify Jane Doe and Janet Doe, Ratliff said. Police investigators announced the identification of two women whose bodies were found decades ago in League City, Texas, in a press conference on April 15, 2019. Simons called Chief Scott at home. 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. The interview went smoothly, so the two were surprised when, as they got up to leave, the conversation took a turn. 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. HAWKINS, Texas (KLTV) -Monday, April 27, true-crime network Investigation Discovery (ID) will air the story of Hawkins serial murderer and kidnapper Jerry McFadden, dubbed the animal, on a new show called Southern Gothic. And I know that you know it too, Vic! As before, the jury found him guilty. This is very important. Use Escape keyboard button or the Close button to close the carousel. Yet during his interrogation, Simons made another breakthrough. Hawkins, TX Map & Directions - MapQuest In October 2018, they found a match. Melendez had been suffering from multiple maladies, including bone cancer and kidney failure. 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. ANDRADE, Roger ). "It seems like yesterday and always will. If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. He sped away, holding her at gunpoint with the deputys .38-caliber revolver, according to a recounting of the crime spree by the Tyler Morning Telegraph, until he crashed while trying to spot a helicopter buzzing overhead. June 16, 1986 Gunshot spree at Father's Day family gathering; son charged HAWKINS, Texas -- A Father's Day gathering in a small east Texas town turned into a blood bath Sunday as a son. But there was just one problem McFadden didn't like following rules. 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.