Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / “Put a Bullet in (Him)” The Killing of Christopher Tiensch
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In September of two thousand five,
- 0:11Speaker 1: New Zealand based mobile phone service provider Plus SMS held
- 0:16Speaker 1: its first annual meeting of shareholders and promised a strong
- 0:20Speaker 1: future for the company. Plus SMS had a big idea
- 0:24Speaker 1: to revolutionized the way globally branded products advertised. The details
- 0:30Speaker 1: are quite mundane to the layperson, but to advertising execs
- 0:34Speaker 1: and shareholders, the text messaging based promotional tool was exciting
- 0:39Speaker 1: a way for these brands to reach potential consumers worldwide.
- 0:43Speaker 1: With the simplicity of a text securing specific numbers that
- 0:47Speaker 1: coincided with a company's name on a phone's keypad. It
- 0:52Speaker 1: might not have seemed like a huge deal to most.
- 0:56Speaker 1: The practice of assigning a word to a phone number
- 0:58Speaker 1: had been around since the nineteen sixties, after all, But
- 1:02Speaker 1: to secure specific numbers on a provider's network was a
- 1:06Speaker 1: big idea To guide them to Plus SMS, the company figured,
- 1:10Speaker 1: and it would provide global product giants with the ability
- 1:14Speaker 1: to use those digits, essentially their name in number form
- 1:18Speaker 1: for promotional texting. Those ads you see telling you to
- 1:22Speaker 1: text something to five to five five five. Plus SMS,
- 1:26Speaker 1: of course, would be paid for each of these texts.
- 1:30Speaker 1: The company was started only a year before by a
- 1:33Speaker 1: man named Gary Donahue, and by the November following the
- 1:37Speaker 1: shareholders meeting a month later, the market value of Plus
- 1:41Speaker 1: SMS had risen to over two hundred and fifty million
- 1:44Speaker 1: dollars after Donahue's announcement that he had secured hundreds upon
- 1:48Speaker 1: hundreds of these numbers for use by global brands. A
- 1:53Speaker 1: year later, it turned out that he had not secured
- 1:56Speaker 1: nearly the amount of numbers he had claimed, and the
- 1:59Speaker 1: company began spiraling downward. Donahue stepped down from the board
- 2:05Speaker 1: and relinquished his shares in the company. He seems to
- 2:08Speaker 1: have seen the event coming, because months earlier, in June
- 2:12Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, Chris Tensch was brought in
- 2:15Speaker 1: as chief executive of Plus SMS. Donahue had known Chris
- 2:20Speaker 1: for a few years, and if anyone could mend the
- 2:23Speaker 1: company's self inflicted wounds, he was the guy. Years later,
- 2:29Speaker 1: when he was in a contentious legal battle with the company,
- 2:32Speaker 1: Chris Tench was found murdered. Christopher Robert Tench was born
- 3:02Speaker 1: on January nineteenth, nineteen sixty eight, the youngest child and
- 3:07Speaker 1: only son of Rita and Richard Tench, German emigrants who
- 3:11Speaker 1: moved to Texas in the early sixties. Chris grew up
- 3:15Speaker 1: a normal boy, his knees and elbows in a perpetual
- 3:18Speaker 1: state of being scabbed over, and his ingenuity was apparent
- 3:22Speaker 1: at an early age when he'd build forts using branches
- 3:26Speaker 1: and limbs in the family's backyard. Chris grew up in
- 3:30Speaker 1: a nice neighborhood just west of Houston, where he received
- 3:34Speaker 1: some of his private schooling, but he attended the Florida
- 3:37Speaker 1: Air Academy, where his athletic abilities were well recorded in
- 3:41Speaker 1: the local paper. He was a district tennis champ and
- 3:45Speaker 1: was on the varsity soccer team. Chris graduated from Florida
- 3:50Speaker 1: Air Academy in nineteen eighty six and went on to
- 3:53Speaker 1: attend Stephen F. Austin University in Nacadochius, Texas. He studied
- 3:59Speaker 1: business and marketing and became the student body president. He
- 4:03Speaker 1: also met a young woman there who he fell head
- 4:06Speaker 1: over heels for the president of the sophomore class, Dane,
- 4:11Speaker 1: at an on campus student government office. Dane was crazy
- 4:16Speaker 1: about Chris all but immediately too. She said of him,
- 4:20Speaker 1: he had such a presence, He's such a strong leader.
- 4:23Speaker 1: I remember he would walk into a room and everybody
- 4:26Speaker 1: would go, there's Chris. It's not an arrogance. He just
- 4:30Speaker 1: knows who he is. Chris graduated in nineteen ninety one
- 4:34Speaker 1: and moved to Austin, where he worked on a Senate campaign.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Chris was a staffer at the state capitol there during
- 4:41Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety three legislative session, working for Karl Rove
- 4:45Speaker 1: and Associates, performing public relations tasks and managing political campaigns.
- 4:52Speaker 1: He and his college flame, Dane, were married on November
- 4:56Speaker 1: sixth of that year. Chris Tensch's degree in business and marketing,
- 5:01Speaker 1: and though it could be argued that would serve him
- 5:04Speaker 1: quite well in a career in politics and government, the
- 5:07Speaker 1: work became more tedious than challenging, and he decided to
- 5:11Speaker 1: call it quits at Rove and Associates after being one
- 5:14Speaker 1: of the few selected for a young executive program at
- 5:17Speaker 1: SBC Communications, a multinational telecommunications company that was previously known
- 5:24Speaker 1: as Southwestern Bell. SBC took Chris and Dane to Dallas
- 5:29Speaker 1: and then Saint Louis, Missouri, before finally landing them along
- 5:33Speaker 1: with their young children in Europe in nineteen ninety eight.
- 5:38Speaker 1: It wasn't long before Chris was ready for something new,
- 5:41Speaker 1: and in two thousand and one he joined the Swiss
- 5:44Speaker 1: owned company BMD Wireless as a text message infrastructure specialist.
- 5:50Speaker 1: He was a major asset to the company. In the
- 5:53Speaker 1: stone age of cell phones, text messages could only be
- 5:57Speaker 1: sent within the same carrier. Chris, while he was employed
- 6:01Speaker 1: at the company, is said to have basically invented the
- 6:05Speaker 1: technology that allowed texts to be sent from one carrier
- 6:08Speaker 1: to another. Chris was the chief executive officer at BMD
- 6:13Speaker 1: by two thousand and four, and though the company was
- 6:16Speaker 1: bought out that year, he continued operating the business until
- 6:19Speaker 1: two thousand and six. The tench family moved back to
- 6:24Speaker 1: the United States in six settling in Boulder, Colorado. Chris
- 6:29Speaker 1: had done well financially, very well, in fact, and he
- 6:33Speaker 1: chose to concentrate on his children for a while, leaving
- 6:36Speaker 1: the corporate world behind for a stent of fatherhood. Though
- 6:41Speaker 1: raising children can indeed be challenging, the ever restless, Chris
- 6:45Speaker 1: told his wife Dane, I've built a company and I
- 6:49Speaker 1: need a new challenge. He took up mountain climbing. A
- 6:54Speaker 1: few months past, Chris was having the time of his
- 6:57Speaker 1: life with his family and practicing his new fani, but
- 7:01Speaker 1: he was pulled back into the world of business when
- 7:04Speaker 1: he received an offer from Gary Donahue of New Zealand's
- 7:08Speaker 1: Plus Sms, a former client of his, to serve as
- 7:12Speaker 1: their chief executive officer. They practically begged him, Dane Tench
- 7:17Speaker 1: would later tell a reporter the potential massive income and
- 7:22Speaker 1: the possibility to once again live abroad were enticing, sure,
- 7:26Speaker 1: but that's not why Chris agreed to come on board.
- 7:30Speaker 1: It was the challenge. The company was under investigation. Shares
- 7:35Speaker 1: had slipped forty percent. Chris was brought in to do
- 7:39Speaker 1: damage control and bring the company back to its former glory,
- 7:43Speaker 1: without a doubt, a monumental challenge that he would have
- 7:46Speaker 1: been excited to take on. The responsibility of this task, however,
- 7:52Speaker 1: would prove to be challenging in a way that he
- 7:54Speaker 1: could never have predicted. Chris Tench was pressured by board
- 7:59Speaker 1: members to fabricate Plus Sms's performance, he'd later claim, to
- 8:04Speaker 1: make the company appear to shareholders and potential shareholders that
- 8:08Speaker 1: they'd brought themselves back up from the brink of extinction,
- 8:12Speaker 1: a move that Gary Donahue had made prior to Chris
- 8:16Speaker 1: coming on board, and that had perpetuated the mess that
- 8:19Speaker 1: Plus Sms was already in. It wasn't long after being
- 8:23Speaker 1: named CEO of Plus SMS that Chris came public with
- 8:27Speaker 1: the fact that Donahue had been misleading shareholders. Chris trudged on,
- 8:34Speaker 1: still believing he could turn things around for the company.
- 8:37Speaker 1: He moved his family from New Zealand to an upscale
- 8:40Speaker 1: community near Austin, Texas called Westlake Hills in two thousand
- 8:45Speaker 1: and seven. There he got a US branch of Plus
- 8:49Speaker 1: SMS going. Despite the fact that Chris was successfully expanding
- 8:54Speaker 1: the company into the Americas, his unwillingness to deceive shareholders
- 9:00Speaker 1: elevate and liquidate chunks of Plus sms's stock, his inclination
- 9:05Speaker 1: to do the right thing, as Dane later put it
- 9:07Speaker 1: to the press, ultimately cost him his job. The company
- 9:12Speaker 1: hired a new chairman, with whom Chris all but immediately
- 9:16Speaker 1: became bitter enemies. It was the beginning of a long,
- 9:20Speaker 1: arduous battle between him and Plus SMS. In September of
- 9:35Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, a disillusioned Chris Tench turned in
- 9:38Speaker 1: his six months notice. Plus SMS execs flew out to
- 9:43Speaker 1: Austin the following month, shut down the company's operations there,
- 9:48Speaker 1: and fired Chris. The very month he was let go,
- 9:52Speaker 1: Chris filed a lawsuit against Plus SMS, alleging wrongful termination,
- 9:58Speaker 1: breach of contract, and defamation. A bitter and contentious court
- 10:03Speaker 1: battle began, with Chris Tennch suing SMS at home in Austin, Texas,
- 10:09Speaker 1: and Plus SMS suing him in New Zealand, where the
- 10:13Speaker 1: company was based. Chris testified in court, telling US District
- 10:18Speaker 1: Judge Lee Yeagle in Austin that prior to his employment
- 10:23Speaker 1: with Plus SMS he had constantly been offered positions in
- 10:27Speaker 1: other companies and that those have absolutely disappeared when all
- 10:32Speaker 1: was said and done. At least in the US lawsuit,
- 10:35Speaker 1: Chris Tench was awarded four hundred and thirty thousand dollars
- 10:38Speaker 1: for his wrongful termination and company assets to which he
- 10:42Speaker 1: was owed, and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
- 10:45Speaker 1: legal fees and interest. A further hearing was set to
- 10:50Speaker 1: take place on September fifteenth, twenty eleven. The hearing would
- 10:54Speaker 1: determine how and when the money would be released to Chris,
- 10:58Speaker 1: but the court was also set to hear arguments for
- 11:01Speaker 1: his request for a temporary restraining order and anti suit injunction.
- 11:06Speaker 1: Chris had also filed this type of request in a
- 11:09Speaker 1: New Zealand court, which would prevent plus SMS from seeking
- 11:13Speaker 1: further court action against him. Among the evidence that Chris's
- 11:18Speaker 1: attorneys produced was a series of emails that provided proof
- 11:22Speaker 1: that plus SMS executives plotted to terminate both Chris and
- 11:26Speaker 1: the company's chief financial officer, Less Coats, and that the
- 11:31Speaker 1: company had purposely timed legal actions to interrupt a mountain
- 11:35Speaker 1: climbing vacation that Chris had planned. The most alarming email produced, though,
- 11:41Speaker 1: was dated eight days after Chris Tench turned in his resignation.
- 11:46Speaker 1: The content of the email, despite later claims that the
- 11:49Speaker 1: phrase used was a common euphemism for employment termination, was horrifyingly,
- 11:55Speaker 1: though maybe innocently prophetic, It read put a bullet in
- 12:00Speaker 1: Less and Chris next week. Chris Tench had dealt with
- 12:05Speaker 1: court battles for months upon months now, and before the
- 12:09Speaker 1: upcoming hearing, he desperately needed a break. His wife, Dane,
- 12:14Speaker 1: reported that it wasn't at all unlike Chris to go
- 12:17Speaker 1: solo on short getaways, and that's what he did on
- 12:21Speaker 1: September eleventh, two thousand and one, heading to the coast Portoransas,
- 12:26Speaker 1: Texas to do some fishing. He made the two hundred
- 12:29Speaker 1: mile trip and arrived at the Holiday Inn Express and
- 12:33Speaker 1: Suites on Eleventh Street there at about three pm, checked in,
- 12:38Speaker 1: threw his bags in the room, and headed out to
- 12:40Speaker 1: a jetty to throw his line in the water. At
- 12:44Speaker 1: eight pm, Chris phoned Dane to brag about the fish
- 12:47Speaker 1: he caught, told her that he'd call the next day
- 12:50Speaker 1: to check the final score of his son's first football
- 12:53Speaker 1: game of the season, and said he was heading off
- 12:55Speaker 1: on foot to grab a burger somewhere. Dane sent a
- 12:59Speaker 1: text message to her husband at around eleven thirty pm
- 13:03Speaker 1: that night, but got no response and figured he had
- 13:06Speaker 1: called it an evening. The following morning, Monday, September twelfth,
- 13:11Speaker 1: twenty eleven, Dane began to worry Chris hadn't texted her back.
- 13:17Speaker 1: She called him, but there was no answer. Dane made
- 13:20Speaker 1: a series of calls to her husband every two hours
- 13:23Speaker 1: from that point on, but still nothing. She contacted the
- 13:28Speaker 1: hotel that evening after never having received a response or
- 13:32Speaker 1: an answer to her calls, His range rovers still sat
- 13:36Speaker 1: in the Holiday in Express's parking lot. Hotel staff entered
- 13:40Speaker 1: Chris's room, where they found his keys, watch, cell phone,
- 13:45Speaker 1: and wallet. Blood was everywhere, on lampshades, the walls, the curtains,
- 13:51Speaker 1: the ceilings, and on the floors. The blood trailed from
- 13:55Speaker 1: the room to the bathroom, and there was no sign
- 13:58Speaker 1: of Chris Tench. Port Ransis had a population of around
- 14:04Speaker 1: thirty five hundred in twenty eleven. Needless to say, the
- 14:08Speaker 1: resources available to the police department there are limited, but
- 14:12Speaker 1: a search began right away, and flyers were quickly printed
- 14:16Speaker 1: up and distributed around the island. The efforts to locate
- 14:21Speaker 1: Chris Tench remained futile until ten twenty am on Thursday,
- 14:26Speaker 1: September fifteenth, when a low flying Texas Department of Public
- 14:30Speaker 1: Safety chopper discovered his body floating near the shore of
- 14:34Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico just outside of San Jose Island,
- 14:39Speaker 1: about ten miles northeast of Port Orransis. Chris had been shot.
- 14:45Speaker 1: Because of the immediate evidence they had, suicide was ruled out.
- 14:50Speaker 1: The missing person investigation became a homicide investigation. Detectives had
- 14:56Speaker 1: feared for the outcome upon the inspection of Chris's room
- 15:00Speaker 1: at the Holiday Inn a few days prior, where they'd
- 15:02Speaker 1: found an obvious crime scene. We have our two crime scenes.
- 15:07Speaker 1: There's stuff that is in that hotel that makes it
- 15:10Speaker 1: strange for that body to be on that island. Police
- 15:13Speaker 1: later said they were withholding the fact that blood was
- 15:17Speaker 1: found in the hotel room. Police told the press that
- 15:20Speaker 1: Chris's wounds were not self inflicted, but they remained tight
- 15:24Speaker 1: lipped on about every other detail of their findings to
- 15:28Speaker 1: preserve the integrity of the investigation. They said the location
- 15:33Speaker 1: of the injuries, type of weapon, ammunition, and number of
- 15:37Speaker 1: shots will not be released. Since law enforcement released that
- 15:42Speaker 1: he'd been shot, and considering the fact that their statement
- 15:45Speaker 1: said injuries plural, it is presumable that Chris suffered multiple
- 15:50Speaker 1: gunshot wounds. Investigators suspected that Chris's body was dumped in
- 15:56Speaker 1: much deeper water than where he was found, far away
- 15:59Speaker 1: from the concentration of peers that surrounded where his body floated.
- 16:04Speaker 1: The beach in the direct vicinity to where Chris was
- 16:07Speaker 1: discovered by helicopters was combed and scoured. If police found
- 16:12Speaker 1: anything there, they haven't slipped up on what tips poured
- 16:17Speaker 1: in after word of the homicide. Several individuals had come
- 16:21Speaker 1: forward with reports of Chris tench sightings. However, evidence supporting
- 16:26Speaker 1: the claims eluded investigators. Since it is likely that Chris
- 16:31Speaker 1: was murdered on the very night he arrived in Port Oransas,
- 16:35Speaker 1: law enforcements, attempts at inquiry in bars and restaurants there
- 16:40Speaker 1: with photo in tow provided few witnesses who had seen
- 16:43Speaker 1: the forty three year old husband and father of two.
- 16:47Speaker 1: They spoke with visitors who were fishing on the pier
- 16:50Speaker 1: where Chris had been so successful on the day he'd arrived,
- 16:53Speaker 1: but no clues were gathered. Detectives scrambled to find a
- 16:58Speaker 1: fisherman who'd been on the pier fishing near Chris that
- 17:01Speaker 1: Sunday evening. They had no description at all to work
- 17:05Speaker 1: off of, though, so it is likely that this individual
- 17:08Speaker 1: was casually mentioned by Chris to his wife the last
- 17:11Speaker 1: time they spoke. The press hounded police for details, but
- 17:16Speaker 1: they remained mostly silent. They didn't have any persons of
- 17:20Speaker 1: interest that fit the bill. Presumably, even if they did,
- 17:25Speaker 1: A detective later told a reporter they didn't have enough
- 17:28Speaker 1: evidence to charge anyone. It seems the police were baffled
- 17:33Speaker 1: as to a motive in Chris's slang, though they also
- 17:36Speaker 1: believed that there was only about a ten percent chance
- 17:40Speaker 1: the killing was random. Police released a written statement to
- 17:45Speaker 1: the press on Monday, October third, twenty eleven, where they
- 17:49Speaker 1: explained that they had spent hundreds of hours investigating the case,
- 17:54Speaker 1: utilizing all of the varying law enforcement agencies tools and resources.
- 18:00Speaker 1: They wouldn't comment on specifics, but relayed to the press
- 18:04Speaker 1: that the nature of those resources could not be disclosed.
- 18:08Speaker 1: The statement did not mention that physical evidence was being tested.
- 18:13Speaker 1: A further glimpse into police activity came on Monday, November seventh,
- 18:18Speaker 1: twenty eleven, when port Ranza's police Chief, Scott Burroughs told
- 18:22Speaker 1: reporters that the investigation was moving slow, but that the
- 18:26Speaker 1: pace was normal in such investigations where cases in which
- 18:31Speaker 1: no immediate suspects or motives are concerned. He said the
- 18:35Speaker 1: investigations required ample legwork due diligence and patience. Chief Burrows
- 18:42Speaker 1: was optimistic that an arrest would be made, though asserting
- 18:46Speaker 1: that highly skilled investigators were assigned, but also indicating that
- 18:50Speaker 1: sometimes homicide investigations such as Chris Tenches are solved by
- 18:55Speaker 1: good old fashioned luck. Burrows also said that results of
- 19:00Speaker 1: forensic testing would be available in the near future, and
- 19:04Speaker 1: to explain to the press the importance of such Burroughs said,
- 19:08Speaker 1: DNA is like fingerprints, unique markers, and sometimes recovering fingerprints
- 19:14Speaker 1: or DNA evidence can lead to or exclude individuals as
- 19:18Speaker 1: suspects or witnesses. While the Port Ransis Police Department had
- 19:34Speaker 1: two detectives on Chris Tensch's case, the Texas Rangers and
- 19:38Speaker 1: the FBI became involved. Not long after. Court documents regarding
- 19:42Speaker 1: Chris's legal battles with Plus SMS made their way into
- 19:47Speaker 1: the police file, joining the witness statements, photos, forensic and
- 19:52Speaker 1: medical examiner reports, and phone records that already made up
- 19:56Speaker 1: the investigative material. The Travis count Sheriff's office aided the
- 20:01Speaker 1: other agencies in obtaining many of the documents. In Austin,
- 20:05Speaker 1: where Chris and his family lived, investigators began looking deeply
- 20:10Speaker 1: into the court documents. Most striking to them or emails
- 20:15Speaker 1: exchanged between Plus SMS executives, the ones that referred to
- 20:20Speaker 1: putting a bullet in Chris Tench. It became known to
- 20:24Speaker 1: detectives that Chris's bad blood with Plus SMS had been
- 20:28Speaker 1: well documented in the press, particularly overseas in New Zealand,
- 20:33Speaker 1: where the company became known as the New Zealand Enron.
- 20:36Speaker 1: A US company that was taken down for large scale
- 20:40Speaker 1: conspiracy and fraud, to put it simply, and whose story
- 20:43Speaker 1: dominated the press for quite some time. Portranzis homicide sergeant
- 20:49Speaker 1: Mike Hannon told a reporter there was some good information
- 20:53Speaker 1: on the news about how he blew the whistle in
- 20:55Speaker 1: the company and some dirty dealings. Chris Tench reported to
- 21:00Speaker 1: New Zealand's equivalent of the US Securities and Exchange Commission
- 21:04Speaker 1: the company's unethical practices and deceptions to shareholders, making many
- 21:10Speaker 1: enemies who sat on the board of Plus SMS. The
- 21:14Speaker 1: bitter legal battle and the e mails that were obtained
- 21:17Speaker 1: as a result weren't only investigation fodder and court evidence
- 21:22Speaker 1: after Chris's murder, They also had a major impact on
- 21:26Speaker 1: the Tench family, causing fear and paranoia in the months
- 21:30Speaker 1: leading up to Chris's death. Dinah Welsh, a spokesperson for
- 21:35Speaker 1: the family, told the New Zealand Mourning Report that Dane
- 21:38Speaker 1: and Chris were startled by the e mails and that
- 21:41Speaker 1: Chris was worried for his family's safety, believing he was
- 21:45Speaker 1: being followed. Dane Tench told the Austin American Statesman that
- 21:50Speaker 1: Chris had been receiving anonymous threats in the months leading
- 21:53Speaker 1: up to his death, too, though she would not go
- 21:56Speaker 1: into specifics on them. She told the press that she
- 22:00Speaker 1: had expressed concerns to her husband about his trip to
- 22:04Speaker 1: the coast, but he attempted to lessen his wife's worry,
- 22:07Speaker 1: telling her, no one's going to follow me to Porter Ransas.
- 22:11Speaker 1: I really feel like I'm in a nightmare, Dane told
- 22:14Speaker 1: the reporter. The law firm representing Plus SMS released a
- 22:20Speaker 1: statement and provided that the lawsuits between Chris Tench and
- 22:24Speaker 1: his client had nothing to do with Chris's homicide. Investigators
- 22:30Speaker 1: met with Plus SMS executives in Dallas, where it was
- 22:34Speaker 1: noted that they spoke freely to detectives, and they ultimately
- 22:37Speaker 1: decided that there was little to no evidence pointing to
- 22:41Speaker 1: their involvement. Sergeant Hannon blew off the company's role in
- 22:45Speaker 1: Chris's murder, telling a reporter countries have different ways and sayings,
- 22:50Speaker 1: where we will say give the acts to someone to
- 22:53Speaker 1: fire him, and maybe another country will say, my god,
- 22:57Speaker 1: they're going to take an axe and kill somebody. We
- 22:59Speaker 1: know what that means. In America. Tench family spokesperson Dinah
- 23:05Speaker 1: Welsh's thoughts on the term were strikingly opposed to law enforcements. However,
- 23:10Speaker 1: she said, I don't know about you, but I've heard
- 23:12Speaker 1: people in anger say I'm going to kill him or whatever.
- 23:16Speaker 1: But I've never heard of somebody, especially an executive, putting
- 23:20Speaker 1: something like that in an email and actually hitting send.
- 23:24Speaker 1: And then the fact that Chris turns up dead, apparently
- 23:27Speaker 1: because of a gunshot wound. You can't help but question
- 23:31Speaker 1: and be concerned about the fact that something that was
- 23:34Speaker 1: stated has become some kind of prophecy. We were unable
- 23:39Speaker 1: to find tailtale proof that the euphemism put a bullet
- 23:43Speaker 1: in him is indeed a common one used when discussing
- 23:46Speaker 1: the termination of an employee. In New Zealand, Plus SMS
- 23:52Speaker 1: dropped their lawsuit against Chris Tench after his murder and
- 23:57Speaker 1: offered their condolences to his family, adding that they would
- 24:00Speaker 1: pay the courts the money they owed Chris from the
- 24:03Speaker 1: US lawsuit to satisfy the judgment there I pray that
- 24:08Speaker 1: the answer will one day be revealed to us, Dane
- 24:11Speaker 1: Tench said of her husband's slang at his funeral. The
- 24:15Speaker 1: somber event, well attended by friends and family, featured music
- 24:20Speaker 1: that Chris's son wrote for his father that played over
- 24:23Speaker 1: a screen featuring photos of Chris Tench throughout his life.
- 24:28Speaker 1: Port Ransis homicide sergeant Mike Hannon told the port Ransis
- 24:33Speaker 1: newspaper The South Jetty in September of twenty fifteen that
- 24:37Speaker 1: he and fellow homicide detective Matt Johnson would be looking
- 24:41Speaker 1: back over Chris's file, which is said to contain hundreds
- 24:45Speaker 1: of pages in its entirety. The truth, however, seems elusive
- 24:50Speaker 1: to investigators, and Chris Tench's homicide remains unresolved. Sergeant Hannon
- 24:56Speaker 1: suggested in the interview that he was interested in handing
- 25:00Speaker 1: the case over to the Sheriff's Association of Texas Cold
- 25:03Speaker 1: Case Review Team, but it is unclear if it actually
- 25:07Speaker 1: ever was. He told a South Jedy reporter, it's a
- 25:11Speaker 1: very strange and unusual homicide case, whether it's by some
- 25:16Speaker 1: lead we get and makes the police department look like
- 25:19Speaker 1: a great agency, or someone literally walks in and have
- 25:22Speaker 1: enough guilt and lays it out. I don't care how
- 25:26Speaker 1: it happens. Referring to the case being solved, he added,
- 25:31Speaker 1: frustration with the case apparent that Chris got the VIP
- 25:35Speaker 1: treatment and we are still here where we are. The
- 25:39Speaker 1: case is said to be Portoransis's only unsolved murder. In
- 25:44Speaker 1: September twenty twenty, Detective Amy Jamison told The South Jetty
- 25:49Speaker 1: that no new leads have come up in the case
- 25:51Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen and all have been exhausted. Sergeant Joey
- 25:58Speaker 1: Reeves called the case suspended pending new leads. If you
- 26:06Speaker 1: have any information about the homicide of Christopher Tench, please
- 26:10Speaker 1: contact the Portoransis Police Department at three six one seven
- 26:14Speaker 1: four nine six two four one, or Texas Crime Stoppers
- 26:19Speaker 1: by calling seven to one three two two two tips
- 26:23Speaker 1: that's seven one three two two two eight four seven seven,
- 26:28Speaker 1: where you can remain completely anonymous. If you'd like to
- 26:33Speaker 1: join Gon Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
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