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June Ward: The February Slayings Part 3 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: The Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. After the homicides of Mildred May
0:11
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, Becky Martin in nineteen seventy three,
0:16
Speaker 1: and Carla Walker in nineteen seventy four, all in the
0:19
Speaker 1: month of February, another homicide took place in nineteen seventy seven,
0:24
Speaker 1: again on that month. It was the least reported on
0:28
Speaker 1: of the cases that took place in the nineteen seventies,
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Speaker 1: but perhaps the most senselessly violent and brutal. The original
0:37
Speaker 1: investigation turned up few leads, and as it went on,
0:40
Speaker 1: the cops had less and less progress to report. Darryl Thompson,
0:45
Speaker 1: a Fort Worth Police detective at the time, said that
0:48
Speaker 1: there just wasn't anything there in terms of solid evidence.
0:52
Speaker 1: In a time before DNA was used in law enforcement
0:55
Speaker 1: investigations and long before investigative genetic genieology was even dreamt of,
1:02
Speaker 1: the clues found on the scene of the body meant
1:05
Speaker 1: little in terms of evidence. All they really knew was
1:09
Speaker 1: that the victim had been having issues with her vehicle,
1:12
Speaker 1: leading Thompson and other detectives to theorize the perpetrator was
1:16
Speaker 1: an opportunist, a transient or migrant worker. Fort Worth was
1:21
Speaker 1: undergoing a growth spurt at the time, and there was
1:24
Speaker 1: an abundance of shopping center, home and apartment construction all
1:28
Speaker 1: around the city. There were plenty of new faces and
1:32
Speaker 1: temporary residents. The case, perhaps as the result of the
1:37
Speaker 1: opportunistic nature, went cold almost as soon as it happened,
1:41
Speaker 1: some detectives have remarked, but there were other theories as well.
1:46
Speaker 1: The fourth victim in what the press referred to as
1:49
Speaker 1: the February Slangs was June Ward.
2:00
Speaker 2: M h.
2:08
Speaker 3: When this happened, I don't know what it was in me,
2:11
Speaker 3: but very very early on I remember trying to come
2:14
Speaker 3: to grips in the terms with it, and just never
2:16
Speaker 3: thinking I was going to figure out who did that
2:18
Speaker 3: to her, And then also very scared of what would
2:21
Speaker 3: happen if I tried to figure it out, you know,
2:23
Speaker 3: in the fact that it would consume me and live
2:25
Speaker 3: in some ways, would give whoever killed are even more,
2:28
Speaker 3: you know, than than they had already taken.
2:55
Speaker 1: Johnson County, Texas, sits due south of Terrant County. The
2:59
Speaker 1: county seat Cleeburn is virtually in its direct center the
3:04
Speaker 1: heart of the city. Is about thirty two miles directly
3:07
Speaker 1: south of Fort Worth. Cleeburn began as a Civil War
3:11
Speaker 1: outpost called Camp Henderson, a place where military units would
3:16
Speaker 1: be dispatched to battle or perform military exercises. The then
3:21
Speaker 1: tiny town wouldn't be officially named Cleeburn until eighteen sixty eight.
3:27
Speaker 1: At that time, the population was only seventy five hundred,
3:31
Speaker 1: but by the late nineteen seventies the population had slowly
3:35
Speaker 1: and steadily grown to eighteen thousand. The once agricultural center
3:40
Speaker 1: of Johnson County began to boom into a large town
3:44
Speaker 1: only after Santa Fe Railroads opened major machining operations there
3:48
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety eight. June Merlein Moulder was born in Cleburn, Texas,
3:55
Speaker 1: on July twenty eighth, nineteen fifty one, to Mary Catherine
3:59
Speaker 1: and William Awful Molder. William worked in the railcard department
4:04
Speaker 1: at the Santa Fe Railroad and Mary stayed home to
4:07
Speaker 1: care for their child. June was essentially an only child.
4:12
Speaker 1: Her older brother from her father's previous marriage was twenty
4:15
Speaker 1: nine years older than her and had left the home
4:18
Speaker 1: long before she was born. Her nephews were nearer in age,
4:23
Speaker 1: and June became very close to them, so close, in fact,
4:27
Speaker 1: that their relationships were more akin to that of siblings.
4:31
Speaker 3: My grandfather had a kid in the twenties, got divorced,
4:35
Speaker 3: and then in the fifties got remarried in the same
4:38
Speaker 3: time his son was having kids hadn't had my mom,
4:42
Speaker 3: so even though she was their aunt, technically they were
4:45
Speaker 3: all the same age, and they for a number of
4:47
Speaker 3: years they actually lived right next to each other.
4:49
Speaker 1: And Cleeburne was the picturesque archetype of a Southern American
4:54
Speaker 1: country town during June's childhood years. By all accounts, even
4:59
Speaker 1: by the those clever knights who longed for the big
5:02
Speaker 1: city in their youth, it was a great place for
5:04
Speaker 1: a kid to grow up. Everyone loved the sweet, natured
5:08
Speaker 1: and outgoing June Molder, and even as she blossomed into
5:12
Speaker 1: a young woman, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone
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Speaker 1: who would speak negatively about her. Friends called her sweet
5:20
Speaker 1: and sometimes quiet, a special girl and young woman who
5:24
Speaker 1: was always fun to be around.
5:27
Speaker 4: June never met a stranger. She talked to everybody. She
5:30
Speaker 4: I was a little shy parson, but June she never
5:32
Speaker 4: met a stranger, and she always had something nice to
5:35
Speaker 4: say about somebody. I never ever heard her say anything
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Speaker 4: bad about anyone.
5:41
Speaker 1: Perhaps closest to June was her best friend, Dorothy. The
5:45
Speaker 1: two became inseparable in junior high after an incident that
5:49
Speaker 1: provides a clear example of June's character.
5:53
Speaker 4: I met June in seventh grade. Next school was Fulton
5:56
Speaker 4: Junior High in Cleborn. Anyway, we just started grade and
6:01
Speaker 4: I was walked into the class. June was already setting.
6:05
Speaker 4: I dropped my books. All the kids started laughing and
6:08
Speaker 4: thinking it was funny that June. She got out of
6:10
Speaker 4: her chair, walked over and helped me pick up my books.
6:14
Speaker 4: She said, don't mind them, and she smiled. After class,
6:19
Speaker 4: I thanked her. I don't know. After that, June and
6:21
Speaker 4: I we just started hanging out together and we just
6:24
Speaker 4: became really best friends. We just did almost everything possibly
6:28
Speaker 4: you know, that we could do, and we just act
6:32
Speaker 4: stilly like you you know kids do.
6:34
Speaker 1: June and Dorothy did almost everything together. They were even
6:38
Speaker 1: married in a joint ceremony.
6:40
Speaker 4: Eventually she met Mike Ward.
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Speaker 3: I don't know.
6:43
Speaker 4: After that, it was just June, Mike and I. We
6:45
Speaker 4: all hung out. When my boyfriend asked me to marry him,
6:49
Speaker 4: I couldn't wait to tell June. She was so excited
6:52
Speaker 4: for me and we were laughing and cutting up like
6:54
Speaker 4: girl's dow Anyway, I mentioned I told her, I said, hey,
6:57
Speaker 4: I said, you and Mike. I said, y'all been talking.
6:59
Speaker 4: Mary just said what about the saving a double wedding?
7:03
Speaker 4: And she got really excited and she said I'd love
7:06
Speaker 4: that and I said, yeah, me too, because I want
7:07
Speaker 4: to stay. That's there by myself, you know, that's what
7:10
Speaker 4: we decided to do. But I told her she'd be
7:13
Speaker 4: talked to Mike, and I knew I'd have to talk
7:14
Speaker 4: to Danny about it, and we did, and the guys
7:18
Speaker 4: was fine with it. And we just wanted, you know,
7:20
Speaker 4: just something kind of small, but we differently have church wedding.
7:23
Speaker 4: You know, it's going to do it. We're just going
7:25
Speaker 4: to invite a few friends and mostly relatives, you know,
7:28
Speaker 4: And that's the kind of wedding we had.
7:31
Speaker 1: June last name now Ward, became pregnant while in high school,
7:36
Speaker 1: and although she dropped out to give birth to her son, David,
7:39
Speaker 1: she obtained her ged shortly thereafter so she could seek
7:43
Speaker 1: a nursing degree. Though Mike and June's marriage didn't work out.
7:47
Speaker 1: Providing for David was always June's priority. She attended a
7:51
Speaker 1: nursing program at Hill County Junior College in Cleeburn and
7:55
Speaker 1: completed her residency at Johnson County Memorial Hospital. She was
8:00
Speaker 1: licensed as a vocational nurse. June worked as a nurse
8:03
Speaker 1: at both John Peter Smith Hospital and that Edna Gladney Home,
8:08
Speaker 1: but was unemployed and still residing in Cleeborn in February
8:12
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy seven. David remembers his mom's hardships as
8:17
Speaker 1: a young mother, but has even more vivid recollections of
8:20
Speaker 1: their bond.
8:22
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, she's just really young when she had me.
8:25
Speaker 3: Now that I kind of know this story her, you know,
8:27
Speaker 3: my dad whom I never never really grew up or
8:30
Speaker 3: remember being around my and I don't fault him either,
8:33
Speaker 3: And there they're very literally still in high school and
8:37
Speaker 3: briefly tried to make it happen in that fell apart,
8:39
Speaker 3: and so, you know, very quickly ended up just being
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Speaker 3: me in my mom and then living with her dad,
8:43
Speaker 3: my grandfather, who was really kind of like, you know,
8:46
Speaker 3: looking back, my father's figure in my life. But you know,
8:49
Speaker 3: she was, you know, she was obviously not only did
8:52
Speaker 3: I love her, but you know, very obviously, like everybody
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Speaker 3: kind of looked and if she had one of their personalities,
8:56
Speaker 3: and she struggled, and she had she had a hard time.
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Speaker 3: You again, she was young and still trying to you know,
9:03
Speaker 3: be a young woman and also be a mother. And
9:05
Speaker 3: it's interesting, I have I have a you know, the
9:07
Speaker 3: memories I have of her are you know, they're like
9:10
Speaker 3: instead of like you know, a nice, nice and neat
9:13
Speaker 3: photo journal or photo book, you know, it's just a
9:15
Speaker 3: bunch of snapshots that are thrown into a box, you know,
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Speaker 3: and so there's really kind of no order or no
9:21
Speaker 3: kind of there's nothing written on the back of any
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Speaker 3: of them. So I just have these memories and I
9:25
Speaker 3: don't know who the people are. I don't know where
9:27
Speaker 3: I was or really, frankly, you like if I was five, six, seven,
9:30
Speaker 3: eight years old. So there's all these little snapshots of memories,
9:34
Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of them, you know, a
9:36
Speaker 3: lot of them are really good. You know, she was
9:38
Speaker 3: really proud of me, and one of my fondest memories
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Speaker 3: of Again, it's the seventies, so you have to give
9:43
Speaker 3: a break, but I remember her picking me up from
9:45
Speaker 3: school and sitting on my sixteen dollar man lunchbox in
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Speaker 3: the front see of the car, unrestrained, and she's got
9:51
Speaker 3: the radio crank and I'm you know, I'm sticking my
9:54
Speaker 3: head out the window, singing at the top of my
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Speaker 3: lungs to the song and the radio. And you know,
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Speaker 3: if there was a friend in the car, she would
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Speaker 3: brag about that. You know, I would know I would
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Speaker 3: know all the lyrics to the song after cheering it,
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Speaker 3: you know, a couple of times, and that puts out
10:07
Speaker 3: of course, man, you real proud, But just you know,
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Speaker 3: lots of little memories like that.
10:12
Speaker 1: On Thursday, February seventeenth, twenty six year old June dropped
10:17
Speaker 1: her son off at the Cleburne YMCA, where he was
10:20
Speaker 1: to compete in a boxing tournament. David kissed his mother
10:24
Speaker 1: and got out of the car. June headed to Fort
10:27
Speaker 1: Worth to meet a Haltham City man she'd recently been dating.
10:31
Speaker 1: It was the last time eight year old David would
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Speaker 1: see his mother. Just after three am on Friday, February eighteenth,
10:51
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, fort Worth Police Department patrol officers R. L.
10:55
Speaker 1: Murphy and FL. Cummings were taking a break at the
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Speaker 1: Riviera restaurant at the corner of East Seminary Drive and
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Speaker 1: the South Freeway, when they were startled by a frantic
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Speaker 1: man who approached them. The man, whose name was Gerald,
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Speaker 1: had been at the all night cafe just minutes earlier,
11:12
Speaker 1: drinking coffee and chatting it up with the policeman. As
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Speaker 1: he drove towards home on West Fuller Avenue, Gerald excitedly
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Speaker 1: told the officers he saw what looked like a body
11:24
Speaker 1: lying in the street. Officer Cummings and Murphy bolted from
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Speaker 1: the restaurant, raced to their cruisers, and followed Gerald to
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Speaker 1: the scene. There at three six a m. They found
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Speaker 1: the bloodied body of a female lying face up alongside
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Speaker 1: the road's north kurb. She was unclothed except for a
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Speaker 1: gold necklace. The strap of her brawl was cinched tightly
11:49
Speaker 1: around her neck. The woman had deep gashes in her
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Speaker 1: head and body, inflicted by some sort of sharp, heavy object,
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Speaker 1: later said to be consistent with the hatchet or act.
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Speaker 1: It seemed immediately obvious even to patrolman that the brutal,
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Speaker 1: unthinkable act the woman endured could be considered nothing less
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Speaker 1: than overkill, an act of impassioned violence that suggested the
12:14
Speaker 1: perpetrator either knew her and was enacting revenge for something,
12:19
Speaker 1: or perhaps the sharp object bludgeoning wounds were inflicted, as
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Speaker 1: the woman's broken fingers suggested, because she'd given the madman
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Speaker 1: a fight he wasn't expecting, which sent him into a rage.
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Speaker 1: The scene quickly turned into a veritable who's who. A
12:37
Speaker 1: fort Worth Law Enforcement crime scene Search Unit officers Gary
12:41
Speaker 1: Nichols and Steve Nooncaster were summoned to the scene, and
12:45
Speaker 1: homicide detectives Bill Cole and Darryl Thompson were also called in,
12:50
Speaker 1: all arriving within twenty minutes of the discovery. Both Thompson
12:55
Speaker 1: and Cole were assigned to lead the case. The woman
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Speaker 1: was later determined was twenty six year old June Ward
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Speaker 1: of Cleeburn. Her white two door nineteen seventy three Chevy
13:07
Speaker 1: Laguna had been found abandoned at the forty eight hundred
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Speaker 1: block of the South Freeway Service Road near Felix Street
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Speaker 1: just before her body was discovered blocking the thoroughfare. The
13:20
Speaker 1: vehicle was locked, and inside on the floorboard, police found
13:24
Speaker 1: only a pair of women's shoes and jumper cables. It
13:28
Speaker 1: appeared as though the car had stalled and the driver
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Speaker 1: left the auto as the result, possibly unable to move
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Speaker 1: it by themselves. The abandoned auto wasn't a particularly unusual
13:40
Speaker 1: police call, so when it was found, only routine arrangements
13:44
Speaker 1: to have it towed from the thoroughfare were made. It
13:47
Speaker 1: was business as usual for the officers that answered the dispatch.
13:52
Speaker 1: After the body was found, the vehicle became anything but that. Still,
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Speaker 1: neither June Ward's clothing nor evidence of a struggle could
14:02
Speaker 1: be found in the car, leading police to theorize her
14:05
Speaker 1: murder had taken place elsewhere. Her missing clothing and personal
14:09
Speaker 1: items included a bluish green blouse and blue jeans, a
14:13
Speaker 1: small brown leather purse, and her car keys, all items
14:18
Speaker 1: that she was known to have had that night. It
14:21
Speaker 1: was speculated that June also might have been wearing a
14:24
Speaker 1: red leather jacket missing a button on the front, white sandals,
14:28
Speaker 1: and two rings. At the scene where her body was found,
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Speaker 1: detectives took note that June had been discarded on the
14:35
Speaker 1: road with absolutely no attempt to conceal her body. It
14:40
Speaker 1: was careless, perhaps brazen, but no matter. The immediate area
14:44
Speaker 1: provided no clues or evidence as to what happened to
14:47
Speaker 1: the young mother. It was determined that she was killed
14:51
Speaker 1: at another location and dumped at the site. David was
14:57
Speaker 1: told that his mother was gone shortly after waking up
15:00
Speaker 1: later that morning.
15:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that the night, and I guess, looking back,
15:05
Speaker 3: this is this is probably my lens to my belief that there's,
15:09
Speaker 3: you know, something beyond death. But the night my mother died,
15:13
Speaker 3: the last time I saw her, she had dropped me
15:15
Speaker 3: off at the y m c A. And that was
15:17
Speaker 3: the last time I saw her. And when I got
15:20
Speaker 3: back to Cleveland, my friend's parents took me back home
15:23
Speaker 3: and I went to bed, and then at some point
15:25
Speaker 3: in the night, I remember waking up and she was
15:29
Speaker 3: at the door, and she came to me and she
15:31
Speaker 3: said good night, and she took me in. And I
15:35
Speaker 3: woke up the next morning, and when I woke up,
15:37
Speaker 3: that's from my grandfather told me, you know, briefly or basically,
15:41
Speaker 3: what had happened.
15:42
Speaker 2: To my mother.
15:43
Speaker 3: And she was gone. And and again I was waking up,
15:48
Speaker 3: and I just remember being a little bit of shock
15:51
Speaker 3: and disbelief and dysworried. And because I just said, I
15:55
Speaker 3: remember her tucking me in and as I as I
15:58
Speaker 3: kind of woke up, I realized that that it actually
16:01
Speaker 3: happened a couple of times previously in the night. And
16:04
Speaker 3: then I also remembered that she was, you know, when
16:07
Speaker 3: she came to me, she was she was dressed as
16:09
Speaker 3: a as a nurse, which obviously she wasn't working that night.
16:13
Speaker 3: Of course, that I think that took me a little
16:16
Speaker 3: bit of time to kind of piece goes together that
16:18
Speaker 3: you know, what I experienced was you know, maybe not
16:20
Speaker 3: not a literal thing that had happened, but you know,
16:23
Speaker 3: it's very it was also very hard to accept them
16:26
Speaker 3: because I just knew she'd been there the night before.
16:29
Speaker 3: You know, obviously that that kind of thing sticks with you.
16:32
Speaker 3: But when I got older and old enough to really
16:34
Speaker 3: kind of, I guess, do researching and do homewark on
16:37
Speaker 3: such things. I did do some reading, and you know,
16:39
Speaker 3: it turns out that's that's actually a relatively common phenomenon
16:43
Speaker 3: for for loved ones to come to other loved ones,
16:46
Speaker 3: you know, when they passed. And again I think that,
16:48
Speaker 3: you know, really the main thing that that does for
16:50
Speaker 3: me is just you know, that's a memory I have
16:53
Speaker 3: of her, whether it's you know, real or literal or
16:56
Speaker 3: not physical or not. But it also kind of gives me,
16:59
Speaker 3: you know, in spite of I guess doubts about a
17:01
Speaker 3: lot of things, that really kind of gives me at
17:02
Speaker 3: least some motiveum of faith that there is something afterwards,
17:06
Speaker 3: because in some form of fashion, I not truly believe
17:09
Speaker 3: she came to me that night.
17:12
Speaker 1: Officers wasted little time showing June's photo to nearby businesses,
17:17
Speaker 1: though any clues they obtained while doing this are unknown.
17:21
Speaker 1: The service road where her Chevy Laguna was found was
17:25
Speaker 1: just adjacent to a shopping center that contained a kmart
17:28
Speaker 1: department store, a nightclub called Mister Magoo's, and at the
17:32
Speaker 1: corner of a service road that was busy daytime and
17:35
Speaker 1: evening hours. Though many have speculated that June had been
17:40
Speaker 1: at Magoo's that night, it could never be definitively determined
17:44
Speaker 1: and is thought by some to have just been that
17:46
Speaker 1: sheer speculation. It seems unlikely that she was at the bar,
17:51
Speaker 1: as many of June's friends have said that she did
17:54
Speaker 1: not go to that establishment, and questioning of the clientele,
17:58
Speaker 1: which consisted of mostly regular her customers, could not place
18:01
Speaker 1: her there. June's family told police that she had experienced
18:06
Speaker 1: car trouble in the preceding few weeks and was carrying
18:09
Speaker 1: the jumper cables for that reason, A helicopter was dispatched
18:14
Speaker 1: and aerial photographs were taken of a large perimeter surrounding
18:18
Speaker 1: the one thousand block of West Fuller where June's body
18:21
Speaker 1: was found, as well as a perimeter around where the
18:24
Speaker 1: vehicle was found, but the actual distance covered on either
18:28
Speaker 1: area was not specified. June's father told police that she
18:33
Speaker 1: was going on a date with her boyfriend, who resided
18:36
Speaker 1: in Haltam City. Police later questioned him, but the information
18:40
Speaker 1: they gathered was kept close to the chest. Little is
18:44
Speaker 1: publicly known concerning where June and the Haltame City man
18:47
Speaker 1: had been or what they had done during their date.
18:51
Speaker 1: According to the man, June left him at approximately eleven
18:55
Speaker 1: thirty pm to head back to Cleeburne. He was quoted
18:59
Speaker 1: by the four wor Star Telegram as saying she might
19:02
Speaker 1: have stopped to eat after the date, so presumably the
19:05
Speaker 1: two had not dined during their time together. The man
19:09
Speaker 1: was said to have been cleared of any involvement in
19:12
Speaker 1: June Ward's murder. Witnesses would later place June at a
19:16
Speaker 1: Cleburn drive in restaurant at around seven pm before her
19:21
Speaker 1: date and just after she dropped her son, David off
19:24
Speaker 1: at the Cleburn YMCA. Chief Medical Examiner Felix Quotes, determined
19:31
Speaker 1: that the manner of death was asphyxiation by strangulation and
19:34
Speaker 1: said there was no direct indication that June had been
19:38
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. However, there would be later claims that semen
19:42
Speaker 1: was found on the body. Doctor Quotes determined that strangulation
19:47
Speaker 1: killed June and the bludgeoning to her body occurred post mortem.
19:52
Speaker 1: They were able to ascertain such because little bleeding occurred
19:56
Speaker 1: as the result of the bludgeoning. The object used would
20:00
Speaker 1: ultimately be theorized to have been a carpenter's hatchet or
20:03
Speaker 1: riggers acts, a tool that has a hammer on one
20:07
Speaker 1: end and a hatchet on the other. Several newspapers outside
20:11
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, such as the Tyler Morning Telegraph and the
20:14
Speaker 1: Brownsville Herald, reported that there were also numerous cigarette burns
20:19
Speaker 1: found on June's body. Doctor Quotes determined that the fingers
20:23
Speaker 1: on her right hand were broken, indicating an intense struggle
20:27
Speaker 1: was likely. There was definitely a struggle. John Underwood, a
20:32
Speaker 1: crime scene investigator at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, in Florida,
20:36
Speaker 1: and a classmate of June's from elementary to high school
20:39
Speaker 1: told the Cleburne Times Review years later, I think she
20:43
Speaker 1: fought to the end.
20:44
Speaker 5: He added, So this person spent quite a bit of
20:49
Speaker 5: time in the commission of this monstrous act. The very
20:54
Speaker 5: idea that someone would take their girl and do that,
20:58
Speaker 5: that's a monster. I have daughters and granddaughters that I
21:02
Speaker 5: worry about constantly. Well, these days you got to you
21:07
Speaker 5: got to keep on crolls. But there are monsters of moments.
21:22
Speaker 1: It was unfathomable to June's family and friends that anyone
21:26
Speaker 1: would want to cause harm to the beloved mother, daughter, sister,
21:30
Speaker 1: and aunt.
21:31
Speaker 3: I remember even when she died. I remember my grandfather
21:34
Speaker 3: just got a loss for everything. Just remember him saying,
21:38
Speaker 3: I just don't understand it. Everybody who knew or just
21:40
Speaker 3: loved her, I don't know why anybody would do this
21:42
Speaker 3: to her.
21:44
Speaker 2: And you know, there's so many things she didn't get
21:46
Speaker 2: to see or experience and whatever. But then on the
21:49
Speaker 2: flip side of that, David didn't get to spend time
21:52
Speaker 2: with his mother, you know, as far as growing up
21:54
Speaker 2: with him graduating and him doing well in school or
21:58
Speaker 2: getting married or you know, get is her job or
22:01
Speaker 2: all of those things. So you know, there's so many
22:04
Speaker 2: people that lose in that situation. That's a ripple of that.
22:09
Speaker 1: But when she passed, eight year old David pushed up
22:14
Speaker 1: a chair to the radio in the kitchen at their
22:16
Speaker 1: home and awaited updates that would never come. He was stunned.
22:21
Speaker 1: He couldn't speak. Of course, his mom's passing would have
22:25
Speaker 1: an effect on him for the rest of his life,
22:28
Speaker 1: as he struggled to understand why she was taken from him.
22:32
Speaker 3: Well, i'd see you like losing your parent, losing or
22:36
Speaker 3: even all go as far to say, like a boy
22:38
Speaker 3: losing their mom and their only mom. And a mom
22:41
Speaker 3: the a door for you know, even if she's not perfect.
22:43
Speaker 3: You know, it really is the gift that keeps giving.
22:46
Speaker 3: And it's unfortunately when this when that happened to her,
22:50
Speaker 3: I don't know quite the rhyme or reason, but but
22:53
Speaker 3: neighbors or friends had given my family a collection of
22:56
Speaker 3: newspaper clippings. You know, obviously Cleburne and I guess at
23:00
Speaker 3: that time forward, they weren't, you know, super big talent,
23:02
Speaker 3: so these were you know, it's kind of a big
23:04
Speaker 3: event that mix the news and Unfortunately, like at that time,
23:08
Speaker 3: soon after that happened, I was privy to a lot
23:11
Speaker 3: of the things that happened there and how she died,
23:13
Speaker 3: and you know, it just it just leaves a mark.
23:16
Speaker 3: You know, it's you know, I can't compare it. You
23:18
Speaker 3: know that that's the only frintal loss I have. But
23:21
Speaker 3: you know it's very it's very violent, and you know,
23:24
Speaker 3: it exposes you to I guess, the side of the
23:27
Speaker 3: humanity that that you know, you really hope you're never
23:31
Speaker 3: exposed to. Somebody can be that. I don't know, you
23:35
Speaker 3: can use the term evil and that would be every right,
23:37
Speaker 3: just probably other terms for it, but it, you know,
23:40
Speaker 3: really it just leaves it. There's a big mark. And
23:43
Speaker 3: you know, looking back as you know, and then knowing
23:46
Speaker 3: the little having kids on my own and you know,
23:47
Speaker 3: just experiencing their kind of developmental journey. I say, it's
23:51
Speaker 3: the gift that keeps on giving them because you know,
23:53
Speaker 3: when you're eight years old, you can process so much
23:55
Speaker 3: and then you hit you know, the next divil mental faith,
23:58
Speaker 3: and you know, and then something else a tercy, and
24:01
Speaker 3: then there's on top of that. For me, you know,
24:03
Speaker 3: I had to leave my my talk behind was he
24:07
Speaker 3: was my father figure, and I left he was, you know,
24:09
Speaker 3: an old man, and I think it was the term
24:11
Speaker 3: he wasn't really in a position to take care of me,
24:13
Speaker 3: so I had to live with family. So I lost
24:15
Speaker 3: my mom and then shortly thereafter I lost him, or effectively.
24:19
Speaker 5: Lost Hi because I didn't live with him anymore, and so.
24:21
Speaker 3: There was guilt of leaving him behind. But you know,
24:23
Speaker 3: and then when you know your teenage years and that
24:26
Speaker 3: for me personally, that's when I kind of started to unravel.
24:29
Speaker 3: And then you know, I must you. By the time
24:31
Speaker 3: when I was, you know, twenty five, I was really
24:33
Speaker 3: just kind of a mess and at a loss for
24:35
Speaker 3: what to do with myself. But you know, when when
24:38
Speaker 3: this happened, I don't know what it was in me,
24:41
Speaker 3: but very very early on I remember trying to come
24:44
Speaker 3: to grips in the terms with it, and you know,
24:46
Speaker 3: just never thinking I was going to figure out who
24:48
Speaker 3: did that to her, and then also very scared of
24:52
Speaker 3: what would happen if I tried to figure it out,
24:55
Speaker 3: you know, in the fact that it would consume me
24:57
Speaker 3: and then in some ways would give whoever chilled her warm,
25:00
Speaker 3: you know, than they had already taken you know. One
25:02
Speaker 3: of the things I think the tragedy and trauma is
25:05
Speaker 3: in some ways you could come you start to identify
25:07
Speaker 3: with and it becomes part of your identity. I'm Dave,
25:10
Speaker 3: you know, the guy who lost my mom brually when
25:12
Speaker 3: I was eight years old.
25:15
Speaker 1: June Ward's homicide was cold almost as soon as it occurred.
25:19
Speaker 1: Lack of evidence, motive, and witnesses frustrated the fort Worth
25:23
Speaker 1: Police from the beginning. They certainly couldn't catch a break.
25:29
Speaker 1: After seeing the reports about June's murder in the newspaper,
25:32
Speaker 1: A man called fort Worth Police on Monday, February twenty
25:35
Speaker 1: first to report seeing a hatchet over the weekend in
25:39
Speaker 1: the parking lot of the kmart near where June's car
25:42
Speaker 1: was found, but police were unable to locate the item,
25:46
Speaker 1: let alone confirm that the hatchet was ever there to
25:49
Speaker 1: begin with. June's romantic interests were apparently ruled out quickly,
25:54
Speaker 1: and the only other persons of interest seemed to be
25:58
Speaker 1: grasps at Straws. One became so after an incident that
26:03
Speaker 1: occurred shortly after her murder. A twenty nine year old
26:07
Speaker 1: white male was arrested for the abduction of a nineteen
26:10
Speaker 1: year old Haltam City seven to eleven night manager. The
26:14
Speaker 1: young woman was taken from a convenience store located at
26:17
Speaker 1: thirteen twenty five North Beach Street. The man, wearing a
26:22
Speaker 1: brown paper bag on his head, walked into the store
26:25
Speaker 1: carrying a can of unspecified chemical spray in one hand
26:29
Speaker 1: and a pocket knife in the other at about one
26:32
Speaker 1: am early Wednesday morning, February twenty third. He didn't ask
26:37
Speaker 1: for money and instead forced the woman into the passenger
26:40
Speaker 1: seat of her own car. He climbed in after her
26:44
Speaker 1: and began driving, holding a knife to the young woman's side.
26:48
Speaker 1: The man traveled south on one twenty one toward fort
26:52
Speaker 1: Worth and turned south on the South Freeway for reasons
26:56
Speaker 1: not made clear. He stopped the car suddenly around the
26:59
Speaker 1: two twelve thousand block, and the young woman was able
27:02
Speaker 1: to escape the vehicle unharmed. She called police from an
27:06
Speaker 1: unknown location. The police retrieved her, and while returning to
27:11
Speaker 1: the store in the patrol car, she saw the man
27:14
Speaker 1: walking along the South Freeway service road. The suspect was arrested.
27:19
Speaker 1: Of course, the man was questioned in regard to June
27:23
Speaker 1: Ward's homicide, but was cleared by a polygraph test. A
27:28
Speaker 1: month later, on March twenty first, nineteen seventy seven, two
27:31
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Forest Hill High School students were arrested
27:35
Speaker 1: for questioning in the case. According to Fort Worth Police
27:39
Speaker 1: Captain Roy Tate, the two teenagers became suspects after the
27:43
Speaker 1: department received a call implicating them in June's murder. The
27:47
Speaker 1: tip was apparently good enough for a judge to sign
27:50
Speaker 1: off on probable cause arrest warrants, but after they were
27:53
Speaker 1: given polygraph examinations, the two were released. Captain Tate told
27:58
Speaker 1: the fort Worth Star Telegram that the boys were just
28:01
Speaker 1: shooting their mouths off with information they had heard on
28:04
Speaker 1: the radio and read in papers. On February twenty seventh,
28:10
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, less than ten days after June's body
28:13
Speaker 1: was found, the discovery of a dismembered woman in a
28:17
Speaker 1: wooden box at an illegal dumping site in West fort
28:20
Speaker 1: Worth had homicide detectives scrambling to make a connection ultimately
28:26
Speaker 1: and quickly at that however, the homicide was determined to
28:30
Speaker 1: be a one off by a jealous boyfriend. From the
28:34
Speaker 1: get go. Investigators theorized June's case was connected to others
28:38
Speaker 1: that had taken place in the month of February. Over
28:41
Speaker 1: the past ten years, the smacks of the murder of
28:44
Speaker 1: Mildred may Terran County medical investigator ro Parky remarked early
28:49
Speaker 1: on comparing the nineteen sixty seven crime with the nineteen
28:53
Speaker 1: seventy seven case. The unsolved homicides of Becky Martin and
28:58
Speaker 1: Carla Walker were also compared. In September twenty twenty, when
29:03
Speaker 1: Carla Walker's killer was finally identified, many online sleuths and
29:08
Speaker 1: armchair detectives theorized June might have also been a victim
29:12
Speaker 1: of Glenn Samuel McCurley, Carla's killer, but as far as
29:16
Speaker 1: we understand, the police do not suspect him in the case.
29:20
Speaker 1: The details of June's case differ significantly from Carla Walker's,
29:25
Speaker 1: and evidence might have already ruled McCurley out.
29:28
Speaker 5: Some of my people that I knew back in Cleveland
29:31
Speaker 5: found out what I did. I'm a crime scene investigator,
29:35
Speaker 5: and they asked if I could find out anything about
29:39
Speaker 5: the case. When I called. It just so happened that
29:43
Speaker 5: the Fort Worth Police Department had reformed the cold case unit,
29:48
Speaker 5: and the young detective I spoke to had been put
29:51
Speaker 5: in the cold Case Unit from CSI. When I brought
29:54
Speaker 5: this case up to him in a telephone conversation, he
29:57
Speaker 5: looked it up and told me that he was going
30:00
Speaker 5: to look for some of the evidence. He found it,
30:02
Speaker 5: and yes, they were able to extract a mal DNA
30:06
Speaker 5: profile from some of the evidence they had left over,
30:09
Speaker 5: and they ran that as a test against what they
30:12
Speaker 5: knew at the time a couple of guys that were
30:15
Speaker 5: prime suspects and there was no mats.
30:30
Speaker 1: Both the Fort Worth Police detective who investigated the case,
30:33
Speaker 1: Darryl Thompson, and June's high school friend John Underwood, who
30:38
Speaker 1: you just heard from and is now a crime scene
30:40
Speaker 1: investigator at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office in Florida, believe
30:44
Speaker 1: the perpetrator to have been a transient worker.
30:47
Speaker 5: I did know that. They said she was bludgeoned with
30:50
Speaker 5: a hammer or an act and I spent a little
30:53
Speaker 5: time doing construction work odd jobs, and one of the
30:57
Speaker 5: implements I thought I wanted to use until I tried
31:01
Speaker 5: it and hurt myself badly with it with a tool
31:04
Speaker 5: called a roofing hatchet, a roofing hammer specifically made for
31:09
Speaker 5: guys that nailed down asphalt and cedar shingles. It has
31:12
Speaker 5: a hammer face on one side, but the backside, instead
31:16
Speaker 5: of being a claw to pull out nails, it's a
31:19
Speaker 5: small hatchet blade. And if it were a transient worker,
31:23
Speaker 5: for example, yeah, that would be the tool he would
31:26
Speaker 5: have with him. Homicide cases never close. There is no
31:31
Speaker 5: statute of limitation. They never close until the judge bangs
31:35
Speaker 5: the gabble and says, Okay, this guy goes away for it,
31:38
Speaker 5: or the police can prove this guy that did this
31:41
Speaker 5: has he's died, no longer exists. From my position as
31:46
Speaker 5: a TSI, I deal with physical evidence and my evidence.
31:50
Speaker 5: It can sometimes be excupatory, but evidence doesn't lie. At
31:55
Speaker 5: this point, my feeling has been from the moment I
31:58
Speaker 5: got involved, if enough attention could be drawn to this case,
32:03
Speaker 5: that would put it on a national television network or
32:07
Speaker 5: national radio network somewhere somewhere, God willing, some person would say, oh,
32:13
Speaker 5: you know what, I remember, I remember that night I
32:17
Speaker 5: sawt this. There's no one on this planet that would
32:20
Speaker 5: love to see this monster brought to death any more
32:23
Speaker 5: than I would.
32:25
Speaker 1: June's best friend also has a theory.
32:29
Speaker 4: The last time that I saw June, I was working
32:32
Speaker 4: at seven eleven at the time, and by that time
32:35
Speaker 4: I already had four little girls. She had quote her David.
32:39
Speaker 4: She came in. She wanted to tell me something, but
32:43
Speaker 4: I could tell that she did that I had customers.
32:45
Speaker 4: I had to get rid of the customers first, and
32:47
Speaker 4: I waited on all them, and she and I was talking,
32:49
Speaker 4: and she said that she had met someone and she
32:53
Speaker 4: was very excited about it. And I asked her who
32:56
Speaker 4: it was, and she said, well, I'm not going to
32:57
Speaker 4: tell you his name. And I said, I mean, you're
33:00
Speaker 4: not gonna tell me his name and she said, well,
33:02
Speaker 4: I'm just not gonna I'm not I tell you right now.
33:05
Speaker 4: And I said, okay, like that and everything, and and
33:08
Speaker 4: I can always get stuff out of her, you know.
33:10
Speaker 4: Eventually it just took a little walk. So I, you know,
33:13
Speaker 4: I said, well, tell me a little bit about him.
33:15
Speaker 4: She said, well, we went to school with him. She
33:17
Speaker 4: said it was in a great above it. So I said,
33:21
Speaker 4: we'll tell me something about him. And she said, I'm
33:23
Speaker 4: just going to tell you he's tall, dark and handsome
33:25
Speaker 4: and he and he was a great above it. And
33:27
Speaker 4: I said, okay, you know, I'm still going to get
33:30
Speaker 4: this out of her.
33:31
Speaker 1: Dorothy was determined to figure out who her best friend
33:34
Speaker 1: was talking about, but they were interrupted by a mutual acquaintance.
33:39
Speaker 1: Although June and Dorothy both tried to push the acquaintance
33:42
Speaker 1: along nicely so they could continue their talk, he wouldn't budge,
33:46
Speaker 1: and customers were stacking up at the register, so I
33:50
Speaker 1: went to.
33:50
Speaker 4: Wait on them, and June and him stood there and
33:52
Speaker 4: talked for a second or two, and the next thing
33:55
Speaker 4: I know, she's waving at me and going out the door,
33:58
Speaker 4: and that's the last time I saw her.
34:01
Speaker 1: Later, Dorothy found out about the man from Haltam City
34:04
Speaker 1: June was seeing, but eventually, decades later, another possibility arose.
34:11
Speaker 4: Another granddaughter, one of the younger meen. She and I
34:14
Speaker 4: was talking and I told her, just about all my
34:16
Speaker 4: classmates are, you know, passed away, and I'm older than them,
34:19
Speaker 4: and she said, really, Nana, And I said yeah. I said,
34:22
Speaker 4: I've been keeping those list of thements out and once
34:25
Speaker 4: it's passed. But she started looking at it and she said, Nana,
34:28
Speaker 4: She said, do you realize She said that these people
34:31
Speaker 4: and everything died two weeks after June did, And I said, no,
34:36
Speaker 4: I haven't, you know, I haven't noticed that. So she
34:38
Speaker 4: pointed it out, and never since then, I've been kind
34:40
Speaker 4: of digging.
34:42
Speaker 1: On Thursday, March tenth, nineteen seventy seven, twenty nine year
34:46
Speaker 1: old Gary Manasco apparently arrived home in Alvarado, a small
34:50
Speaker 1: town in Johnson County around twelve miles northeast of Cleeburn
34:55
Speaker 1: and twenty seven miles south of Fort Worth. Inside the
34:59
Speaker 1: home's baptib he discovered his twenty seven year old wife, Carolyn,
35:03
Speaker 1: deceased from an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound. Monasco phoned
35:08
Speaker 1: a relative, told them what happened, and added that he
35:11
Speaker 1: intended to do the same thing. Then he turned the
35:14
Speaker 1: twenty two caliber pistol on himself, firing right into his temple.
35:19
Speaker 1: Although the relative had phoned authorities, who raced to the scene,
35:24
Speaker 1: it was too late. Gary Menasko died from his injury
35:28
Speaker 1: soon thereafter at a Fort Worth hospital. Monasco wasn't only
35:35
Speaker 1: a classmate of Dorothy and June's, and as she learned more,
35:39
Speaker 1: Dorothy couldn't help but wonder if the deaths had anything
35:42
Speaker 1: to do with her friend's murder. She and June's son
35:45
Speaker 1: David discussed the possibility.
35:49
Speaker 4: But I thought it was kind of strange. When I
35:51
Speaker 4: was mentioning it to David and David did it. He
35:53
Speaker 4: remembered that that he said he thought that he had
35:55
Speaker 4: happened the door, because he said he remembered his mom
35:58
Speaker 4: talking about it. There's two weeks after because I've already
36:01
Speaker 4: checked it and rechecked it. So if she was talking,
36:04
Speaker 4: maybe she was talking about him in front of David.
36:07
Speaker 4: David told me then that you know that, yeah, that
36:10
Speaker 4: was his second grade teacher, and I thought, whoa wait
36:13
Speaker 4: a minute, you know, that would be a perfect way
36:15
Speaker 4: for her to get reacquainted with him. He also was
36:18
Speaker 4: a great ahead of us in school, and he was
36:21
Speaker 4: saw the dark and he was hand so to me,
36:24
Speaker 4: that just seemed like that was the guy. I thought,
36:26
Speaker 4: maybe she might have found some jewelry of June's or maybe,
36:30
Speaker 4: you know, just I don't know, maybe found out something,
36:33
Speaker 4: and maybe if he shot her and then he shot hisself,
36:37
Speaker 4: like I said, that was you know, that's kind of
36:38
Speaker 4: my theory, you know, and stuff that I didn't think
36:41
Speaker 4: it was trying to tidy in if that was him
36:43
Speaker 4: that she was seeing, which I'm pretty sure it is,
36:46
Speaker 4: So you know, how would you open it up? David
36:49
Speaker 4: told me he was a truck driver, and I didn't
36:51
Speaker 4: know that, and I thought, well, you know, if he
36:53
Speaker 4: was driving the truck and he saw June's you know thing,
36:57
Speaker 4: you know, maybe he pulled over or I don't know,
37:00
Speaker 4: I'll speculation and what happened.
37:02
Speaker 1: Having checked all the boxes of the new love interest,
37:05
Speaker 1: June spoke of to Dorothy not long before she was murdered.
37:09
Speaker 1: The theory was hard to discount. David too, found it interesting.
37:15
Speaker 3: For some reason. In my inner timeline, I had my
37:19
Speaker 3: second grade teacher dying before my mom died, and it
37:23
Speaker 3: was you know, it made the rounds in the school,
37:27
Speaker 3: and it was was it was I guess at the time,
37:30
Speaker 3: I was fooled it was a double suicide or you know,
37:33
Speaker 3: a suicide homicide where the husband had killed the wife
37:37
Speaker 3: and then filled himself or something or something along those lines.
37:40
Speaker 3: And I just thought I was just seeing that happen
37:42
Speaker 3: before my mom died. But Dorothy said, one of the
37:46
Speaker 3: last time she saw my mom, she was working, I
37:49
Speaker 3: think at a seven eleven, and my mom came in
37:51
Speaker 3: to talk to her and said she was seeing someone new,
37:55
Speaker 3: but he was married, a tall, dark and handsome guy,
37:59
Speaker 3: but he was married and was a little bit reluctant
38:01
Speaker 3: to give her the name, and then one of their
38:03
Speaker 3: mutual friends came in the store and started talking to him,
38:05
Speaker 3: so she didn't have a chance to talk to her
38:07
Speaker 3: any more about it or get the name. So she
38:10
Speaker 3: was talking about this, the suicide murder, that it happened,
38:13
Speaker 3: and of course, you know, I only remembered one when
38:15
Speaker 3: I was a kid. I'd be surprised that they are
38:17
Speaker 3: more than one. And sure enough it was. It was
38:20
Speaker 3: the same as the same couple. Michael Pick came my
38:23
Speaker 3: second grade teacher. And then she insisted that it had happened,
38:27
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of weeks after my mom had died.
38:29
Speaker 3: I just didn't think that was the case, and so
38:31
Speaker 3: she looked it up and it did. In fact, I
38:33
Speaker 3: think the at least like I guess, the date was
38:36
Speaker 3: March tenth, nineteen seventy seven, when the couple died. And
38:39
Speaker 3: so again she's just speculating, but maybe it went starts
38:42
Speaker 3: with my mom, And her thought was maybe he killed
38:45
Speaker 3: my mom and then that the wife found out about it,
38:48
Speaker 3: committed suicide, and then he could again that's all, you know,
38:51
Speaker 3: really kind of speculation and maybe pulling two things together
38:54
Speaker 3: that may or may not be related, but they are.
38:57
Speaker 3: They I didn't realize that. Now I do that that
39:00
Speaker 3: did happen literally like two and A had three weeks
39:02
Speaker 3: after my mom died. So from a timeline perspective, I
39:05
Speaker 3: guess that's kind of interesting and nothing I'd ever really considered.
39:09
Speaker 3: I just I just swear. I do remember my mom
39:13
Speaker 3: mentioning my second grade teacher that one on one or
39:17
Speaker 3: two instances, why would that, Why would that come up?
39:20
Speaker 3: Why would she mentioned? But you know, I was off
39:22
Speaker 3: to shoots, sitting r tagic, so I don't I don't know.
39:26
Speaker 1: Funeral services for June Ward were at the Pitts Dylan
39:30
Speaker 1: Funeral Home in Cleeburn. She was laid to rest at
39:34
Speaker 1: the Rose Hills Cemetery, also in Cleeburn, but June's story
39:39
Speaker 1: doesn't end there. Though the tragic death of June Ward
39:55
Speaker 1: altered the lives of so many, she is remembered and
39:59
Speaker 1: loved by those she touched. A couple of years after
40:03
Speaker 1: David was born, June gave birth to a baby girl,
40:06
Speaker 1: who she let go for adoption because she was so
40:10
Speaker 1: young and taking care of one child was such a struggle.
40:13
Speaker 1: June decided that her daughter would have a better life
40:16
Speaker 1: with those who were better equipped to provide.
40:19
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that was a real
40:21
Speaker 3: big shift in my view of everything was when I
40:24
Speaker 3: met my sister. I didn't even know I had a
40:26
Speaker 3: sister when I was growing up, and then when I
40:28
Speaker 3: was after my grandfather died and I'm assuming because the
40:31
Speaker 3: family agreed not to tell me while he was alive,
40:35
Speaker 3: they told me that I had a sister. I think
40:36
Speaker 3: I was eighteen, and it wasn't until I was twenty
40:39
Speaker 3: five that I met her. And that was a really
40:41
Speaker 3: and I think that actually, in a lot of ways,
40:43
Speaker 3: really turned me around. One it was it was amazing
40:45
Speaker 3: to meet her, and she's an amazing woman, and it's
40:48
Speaker 3: great to you know, it's a roller coaster, you know.
40:51
Speaker 3: On the one hand, I'm really saturday and how my
40:52
Speaker 3: sister growing up. The next emotion is you're you're really
40:56
Speaker 3: thankful that she didn't have to go through, you know,
40:58
Speaker 3: the things that I had to go through. And then
41:00
Speaker 3: it's really hard to describe to you know, the emotional
41:03
Speaker 3: roller coaster that that is. And she'd always wanted to
41:07
Speaker 3: meet her mother, and I'm the one who had to
41:09
Speaker 3: tell her that she wasn't going to and I'm the
41:12
Speaker 3: one who had to tell her what happened to And
41:14
Speaker 3: it wasn't my bottom anymore, it was our mom. And
41:16
Speaker 3: so I found myself kind of stumbling on on even
41:20
Speaker 3: telling the stories and this is my I mean, our mom,
41:23
Speaker 3: and it really kind of I don't know that I
41:25
Speaker 3: think the net result of that is, besides being lucky
41:28
Speaker 3: enough to meet her and have a relationship with cars,
41:30
Speaker 3: that really kind of changed my It wasn't just about
41:33
Speaker 3: me anymore, and that was that was really helpful. And
41:36
Speaker 3: even you know, at the time that I met her,
41:39
Speaker 3: I was living in Houston, about to move to Austin
41:41
Speaker 3: to go to to go to school of eut and
41:44
Speaker 3: didn't have a car, and so I took the bus
41:46
Speaker 3: up to Arlington and her and her husband were going
41:50
Speaker 3: to pick me up at the bus station. And I
41:52
Speaker 3: remember standing inside the bus station looking out the window,
41:55
Speaker 3: and I remember about fifty fifty yards off, a car
41:58
Speaker 3: pulled into the driveway parking lot, and I just got
42:02
Speaker 3: to I looked in the passenger window and I, you know,
42:04
Speaker 3: essentially saw my mom and just got a chill and
42:08
Speaker 3: knew that was her and of course probably made her
42:11
Speaker 3: very uncomfortable the first, you know, a half hour that
42:13
Speaker 3: I met her, because I would just measur write at
42:16
Speaker 3: how much she looked like my mom and just kind
42:18
Speaker 3: of shocked and stunned by that.
42:19
Speaker 4: But obviously no doubt, I always very much wanted to
42:23
Speaker 4: find my birth mother and thank her for what she
42:26
Speaker 4: did for me, because I knew she did give me
42:29
Speaker 4: a good lab making that choice, but it was always
42:31
Speaker 4: very important to me, and I'd actually tried to find
42:34
Speaker 4: her before but was unable to. So one day I
42:38
Speaker 4: get a phone call from my dad who tells me
42:41
Speaker 4: that he received a letter from the agency that I
42:45
Speaker 4: was adopted from that they had updated information in my file.
42:49
Speaker 4: So he gave me the number to call. I called,
42:52
Speaker 4: and they told me about Dave and that Dave wanted
42:56
Speaker 4: to speak with me if I was open to it.
42:58
Speaker 4: So they gave me Dave's number. So in the matter
43:01
Speaker 4: of an hour, I was talking today for the first time,
43:04
Speaker 4: which you know, at that point I knew nothing about
43:06
Speaker 4: June and that she died, and so there really are
43:10
Speaker 4: not words to describe that whole feeling. That's very surreal.
43:13
Speaker 4: You wake up one morning and a couple hours later
43:16
Speaker 4: you're farming out at that for history, because I asked
43:18
Speaker 4: about our birth mom and you know, where is she?
43:21
Speaker 4: And so he's the one that actually had to tell
43:23
Speaker 4: me what had happened to her. And for me then
43:27
Speaker 4: this was pre internet days, this was the ninety five.
43:31
Speaker 4: So actually later that evening we went down to the
43:35
Speaker 4: downtown Fortworth Public Library and looked up old microfilm and
43:40
Speaker 4: that was the first picture I ever saw, is the
43:42
Speaker 4: newspaper article about her death. That's the first picture I
43:45
Speaker 4: ever saw of her. And it was like looking at
43:48
Speaker 4: a picture of me, because we looked very much to
43:51
Speaker 4: ut and so that was very, very emotional, and it
43:56
Speaker 4: was very hard for me. And then my mind I
43:59
Speaker 4: was always going to be to meet her and thank
44:01
Speaker 4: her and tell her I was okay and whenever, even
44:04
Speaker 4: though she died many years before, I was just finding
44:09
Speaker 4: out about it. So it was actually a grieving process
44:12
Speaker 4: for me that I was never going to get to
44:14
Speaker 4: meet her. Dave did him and we started talking, and
44:18
Speaker 4: meeting him for the first time was for me. It's
44:22
Speaker 4: stilled in a lot of teaches about my life and
44:24
Speaker 4: it was the strangest thing is how we got a
44:28
Speaker 4: lot of lack about things. So even though we'd been
44:30
Speaker 4: raised separately and in different kind of so it was
44:34
Speaker 4: just very strange to me that there was someone who
44:38
Speaker 4: thought Goctices were like mine. So that was just very wonderful.
44:43
Speaker 4: It's been wonderful for me even did so many years later.
44:47
Speaker 4: Dave and I had a great relationship, and I consider
44:50
Speaker 4: him a blessing in my life. That I'm extremely sad
44:54
Speaker 4: that Jane could never know that I'm okay and then
44:57
Speaker 4: I turned out okay, that she couldn't know my kids,
45:00
Speaker 4: her grandkids, and that she wasn't able to know that
45:03
Speaker 4: Dave and I not only reconnected our clubs and have
45:06
Speaker 4: a great relationship, and I know that would make her
45:09
Speaker 4: extremely happy, and it's very it's very sad for me.
45:15
Speaker 4: It's very sad for me. I never got to meet her,
45:17
Speaker 4: I never will. But it's also sad that she never
45:20
Speaker 4: got to know that the decisions she made that I
45:23
Speaker 4: know the hard for her works out well for me,
45:26
Speaker 4: and that Dave and I found each other again and
45:29
Speaker 4: have a great relationship. For me, the whole thing is
45:33
Speaker 4: just a feel this many years later I found out
45:36
Speaker 4: about June and ninety five, and still I just have
45:38
Speaker 4: a lot of sadness, even though I never knew her,
45:43
Speaker 4: I did know her, you know, and she was such
45:45
Speaker 4: an important part to my story and to my last
45:48
Speaker 4: and I mean, her difficult decision put me on a
45:52
Speaker 4: path to where I am now, and I so wanted
45:55
Speaker 4: to thank her for that, and I just overall feel sad,
46:00
Speaker 4: sad that her laugh ended like it did, Sad that
46:03
Speaker 4: Dave had to go through what he had to go through,
46:05
Speaker 4: and said that I never got to know her and
46:07
Speaker 4: that she never got to know me, And know that
46:10
Speaker 4: everything's okay. I know he often tells me what a
46:14
Speaker 4: blessing accident to him and how it helped his life
46:17
Speaker 4: and helped him become who he is today, but I
46:21
Speaker 4: don't know that he realizes how much he's blessed me too.
46:25
Speaker 4: And our relationship is it's a nurturing thing for me,
46:29
Speaker 4: and it's a positive thing for me and brought peace
46:32
Speaker 4: to me, and I'm extremely grateful for that relationship.
46:39
Speaker 1: If you have any information about the murder of June Ward,
46:42
Speaker 1: please contact the Fort Worth Police Department Cold Case Unit
46:46
Speaker 1: at eight one seven three nine two four three zero seven.
46:52
Speaker 1: Next time I'm Gone Cold, Texas True Crime, Christi Tower
46:56
Speaker 1: and Hillside Jane Doe the February Slangs Part or we'd
47:02
Speaker 1: like to thank Dorothy Williams, David Ward, Jenna Howard, and
47:07
Speaker 1: Detective John Underwood for their help and contributions to this episode.
47:12
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, y'all. If you'd like to hear more
47:16
Speaker 1: about the Woman in the Wooden Box, you can hear
47:19
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48:16
Speaker 3: Y'all