Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Angela Ewert: The Dallas/Fort Worth ‘80s Murders Part 5
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. K E g L. The Eagle
- 0:11Speaker 1: was the Dallas Fort Worth area's go to rock and
- 0:14Speaker 1: roll radio station in nineteen eighty four, spinning records from
- 0:18Speaker 1: ZZ Top, the Cars, Billy Idol, Ac DC, and The Kinks,
- 0:23Speaker 1: to name a few of the times chart topping acts.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Twenty one year old Angela Lee Ewert probably felt lucky
- 0:30Speaker 1: to land a gig as a programmer there. Born on
- 0:34Speaker 1: May fourth, nineteen sixty three, to parents Gary and Anne Ewert, Angela,
- 0:40Speaker 1: being their only child, was the pride and joy from
- 0:43Speaker 1: day one. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she never disappointed
- 0:48Speaker 1: in that role. At Eastern Hills High School, where she'd
- 0:53Speaker 1: eventually graduate in nineteen eighty one, Angela kept many friends,
- 0:58Speaker 1: all of whom would go on to describe her as
- 1:00Speaker 1: one of the nicest folks they'd ever met. She was
- 1:03Speaker 1: on the Lassie Drill team and a runner up in
- 1:06Speaker 1: the Miss Big E contest her senior year. After a
- 1:11Speaker 1: couple years at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Angela came back
- 1:14Speaker 1: home to Fort Worth and, among other endeavors that included
- 1:18Speaker 1: a stent in modeling landed a job at the radio
- 1:21Speaker 1: station k EGL. She loved media. At some point, Angela
- 1:28Speaker 1: became romantically involved with a longtime resident of Fort Worth's
- 1:32Speaker 1: southwest side, a young man her age named Richard Squires.
- 1:38Speaker 1: By December nineteen eighty four, the two were engaged. On
- 1:42Speaker 1: the tenth of that month, Angela drove to Richard's house
- 1:46Speaker 1: on the sixty two hundred block of Whitman Avenue in
- 1:48Speaker 1: the city's Wedgewood neighborhood, and they left to look at
- 1:52Speaker 1: an engagement ring. It was a big night for Angela.
- 1:56Speaker 1: Not only was the twenty one year old getting sized
- 1:59Speaker 1: for a ring from her sweetheart, but also the following
- 2:02Speaker 1: day she was to begin a new position at the
- 2:05Speaker 1: radio station as executive secretary to the program director. Things
- 2:10Speaker 1: were going well for her. At eleven PM, after arriving
- 2:14Speaker 1: back at her fiance's home, Angela climbed into her maroon
- 2:18Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four Mercury Topaz and headed to her house
- 2:22Speaker 1: on the west side of Arlington, about eighteen miles away
- 2:26Speaker 1: just outside the fort Worth city limits to the east.
- 2:29Speaker 1: A couple blocks into the trip, Angela realized she needed
- 2:33Speaker 1: gas and pulled into the seven to eleven convenience store
- 2:36Speaker 1: at fifty three fifty six Wedgemont Circle North. She filled
- 2:41Speaker 1: up the tank, paid the cashier, and drove off toward
- 2:44Speaker 1: Interstate twenty. Angela Lee Ewart was never seen alive again.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Early on the morning of Tuesday, December eleventh, nineteen eighty four,
- 3:03Speaker 1: Angela Ewart's parents and fiance, Richard, both became overwhelmed by
- 3:08Speaker 1: worry when they realized she was at neither home. Her father,
- 3:13Speaker 1: Gary had woken up, saw that she wasn't there and
- 3:16Speaker 1: called Richard right away. Both men immediately set out looking
- 3:21Speaker 1: for her. Sometime just before seven am, Gary found his
- 3:26Speaker 1: daughter's eighty four Mercury abandoned on the three hundred block
- 3:29Speaker 1: of southeast Interstate Loop eight twenty, about six and a
- 3:33Speaker 1: half miles northeast of her fiance's home. Angela was nowhere
- 3:38Speaker 1: to be seen, and Gary hurried to call police. That
- 3:42Speaker 1: in itself was a challenge. When Gary first called the
- 3:46Speaker 1: Fort Worth Police to report his daughter missing, they told
- 3:49Speaker 1: him that since she lived in Arlington with them, he
- 3:53Speaker 1: needed to call the Arlington Police to file the report.
- 3:57Speaker 1: But it was obvious Angela had gone missing from Worth
- 4:00Speaker 1: since her car was found well within the city limits,
- 4:04Speaker 1: and she was last seen, as far as they knew
- 4:06Speaker 1: at the time, at her fiancees in Wedgwood. He hung up,
- 4:12Speaker 1: just as Gary presumed. The Arlington Police wouldn't take the
- 4:16Speaker 1: report either, but for valid reasons, it wasn't their jurisdiction.
- 4:21Speaker 1: A second call to Fort Worth proved no more fruitful
- 4:24Speaker 1: than the first. Finally, on the third attempt, fw PD
- 4:29Speaker 1: took the report. That detail is troubling for more reasons
- 4:34Speaker 1: than one. The entire department was well aware of the
- 4:37Speaker 1: current crisis mode they were facing, having recently dealt with
- 4:41Speaker 1: two other disappearances, those of twenty three year olds Catherine
- 4:45Speaker 1: Davis and Cindy Heller. In such cases time as of
- 4:50Speaker 1: the essence. To their credit, the Fort Worth Police acted
- 4:54Speaker 1: fast upon taking Angela Ewart's missing persons report. A helicopter
- 5:00Speaker 1: was quickly called in to search the grassy fields and
- 5:02Speaker 1: sporadic woods that surrounded the area where the twenty one
- 5:06Speaker 1: year old's car was found. As far as the car
- 5:09Speaker 1: was concerned, a flat tire had been changed and was
- 5:12Speaker 1: found in the trunk alongside the jack. The tire was shredded,
- 5:17Speaker 1: but the tread was relatively new and in good shape.
- 5:21Speaker 1: No signs of a struggle or violence were found in
- 5:24Speaker 1: or around it, but that didn't mean no indications of
- 5:28Speaker 1: foul play were found Near the car was a broken
- 5:32Speaker 1: pocket knife, potentially the purposeful cause of the flat tire. Later,
- 5:38Speaker 1: when they found out Angela had also stopped for gas,
- 5:41Speaker 1: a theory developed, though they'd only hint at such in
- 5:45Speaker 1: fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper quotes, it seemed obvious detectives
- 5:49Speaker 1: believed that someone had punctured Angela's tire while she paid
- 5:53Speaker 1: for gas at the seven eleven. It was possible, even likely,
- 5:57Speaker 1: that someone had sabotaged her, a tree that would set
- 6:00Speaker 1: the stage for whatever happened next. The knife, of course,
- 6:05Speaker 1: was bagged as evidence, and the car impounded to be
- 6:08Speaker 1: searched for fingerprints and other potential clues. The investigation was on,
- 6:14Speaker 1: but with every passing hour, Angela's chances of returning home
- 6:18Speaker 1: grew slimmer. The search for the young woman would take
- 6:22Speaker 1: on a life of its own, but one question lingered
- 6:25Speaker 1: far longer than the other missing persons cases the fort
- 6:28Speaker 1: Worth Police were investigating at the time, Where was she?
- 6:34Speaker 1: In the wake of Angela Ewart's disappearance, The lone Woman program,
- 6:39Speaker 1: a protocol designed to protect vulnerable drivers left stranded in
- 6:43Speaker 1: the city's streets and highways, was reiterated to patrol officers
- 6:48Speaker 1: by their sergeants. Fort Worth Police spokesperson Doug Clark told
- 6:52Speaker 1: reporters that officers need to be hyper aware in the
- 6:55Speaker 1: later hours of the day, especially when a woman or
- 6:59Speaker 1: elderly person is out on their own. If something happens,
- 7:03Speaker 1: he said, raise the hood, get back in the car,
- 7:06Speaker 1: lock the door, flip on the hazard lights, and wait.
- 7:11Speaker 1: It was the first in a long line of warnings
- 7:14Speaker 1: and programs designed to keep folks safe and their officer's vigilant.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Unlike the cases of Catherine Davis and Cindy Heller, Angela
- 7:25Speaker 1: Ewart's name, description and story hit the television news and
- 7:29Speaker 1: the Fort Worth Star Telegram the same day. She had long, wavy,
- 7:35Speaker 1: blonde hair, the descriptions read, and the five foot nine
- 7:39Speaker 1: inch tall young woman weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds.
- 7:43Speaker 1: Angela was last seen wearing a red sweater, blue jeans,
- 7:47Speaker 1: and tennis shoes. However, new information on the case was
- 7:51Speaker 1: all but forthcoming, and consecutive news articles for some time
- 7:56Speaker 1: demoted each woman's story down to simplify bullet points, but
- 8:02Speaker 1: the media had no choice. The cops were making no
- 8:05Speaker 1: progress to report on and could only be quoted as
- 8:09Speaker 1: saying they didn't believe the cases were connected in any way. Then,
- 8:14Speaker 1: on Sunday, December twenty third, nineteen eighty four, the bodies
- 8:18Speaker 1: of Regina Grover and her boyfriend David Larson were discovered
- 8:23Speaker 1: on separate ends of town. His in the apartment he
- 8:26Speaker 1: rented just south of downtown in the Paschal neighborhood, and
- 8:30Speaker 1: hers nude in North fort Worth beneath illegally dumped debris
- 8:35Speaker 1: floating in the shallow waters of Marine Creek. He'd been
- 8:39Speaker 1: bludgeoned to death and her strangled. Though the case was
- 8:44Speaker 1: initially separated from the cases of the missing women, Regina
- 8:48Speaker 1: and David's murders would eventually be investigated alongside the others.
- 8:54Speaker 1: A week later, another case brought with it plenty of
- 8:57Speaker 1: new speculation and worry. On Sunday, December thirtieth, nineteen eighty four,
- 9:14Speaker 1: exactly one week after the bodies of Regina Grover and
- 9:17Speaker 1: David Larson were found, fifteen year old Sarah Kashka vanished
- 9:21Speaker 1: from southwest Fort Worth. The police took a hard swallow
- 9:26Speaker 1: and got the news out perhaps as quickly as they could. Still,
- 9:30Speaker 1: as would eventually become clear, was the case in all
- 9:34Speaker 1: the investigations, it was too late. A day after her
- 9:39Speaker 1: mother reported her missing, on New Year's Day nineteen eighty five,
- 9:43Speaker 1: Sarah's body was found in far southwest Dallas, nearly thirty
- 9:47Speaker 1: miles away from the last place she was seen alive.
- 9:51Speaker 1: She had been stabbed repeatedly in her chest and neck.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Sarah's last known location quickly became of interest in Annie
- 10:00Speaker 1: Ewert's case as well, although no other details in the
- 10:04Speaker 1: cases were striking similarities or suggested connections, at least not
- 10:09Speaker 1: at first. Just before Angela Ewert vanished, She's known to
- 10:13Speaker 1: have bought gas just to block away from where Sarah
- 10:16Speaker 1: Kashka was last seen, and it had only been three
- 10:20Speaker 1: weeks prior. Even though they believed one likely had nothing
- 10:24Speaker 1: to do with the other, the detail nagged at detectives. However,
- 10:29Speaker 1: it absolutely consumed the press, along with other potential connections
- 10:34Speaker 1: that on their surfaces were interesting, perhaps jaw dropping, but
- 10:39Speaker 1: when analyzed could just as easily be explained away. The
- 10:44Speaker 1: church connection was maybe the best example of this. At
- 10:48Speaker 1: a Broadway Baptist Church meeting in mid January nineteen eighty five,
- 10:53Speaker 1: nervous Singles Group members spoke about the uptick in disappearances
- 10:57Speaker 1: of and crimes against women. The concern they had was anecdotal,
- 11:03Speaker 1: but certainly justifiable. By this time, the body of twenty
- 11:07Speaker 1: three year old Cindy Heller, missing since the previous October,
- 11:11Speaker 1: had been found, and a special homicide task force to
- 11:15Speaker 1: investigate her and Sara Koshka's murders and the disappearances of
- 11:19Speaker 1: Catherine Davis and Angela Ewart had been formed. What worried
- 11:25Speaker 1: the Singles Group was that one of these women, Angie,
- 11:28Speaker 1: had attended the church with friends at times, and that
- 11:31Speaker 1: murder victim, Regina Grover, was on the membership roster. Twenty
- 11:36Speaker 1: year old Lisa Griffin, who had since been added to
- 11:39Speaker 1: the task force's duties, was also a member at Broadway Baptist.
- 11:44Speaker 1: But there was one more connection not yet on the
- 11:46Speaker 1: task forces list. Thirty two year old middle school teacher
- 11:50Speaker 1: Katherine Jackson was a member of the church's Singles Group.
- 11:54Speaker 1: She was found strangled to death in the bathtub of
- 11:57Speaker 1: her home in West fort Worth in November of nineteen
- 12:00Speaker 1: eighty four. Although fear lingered members admitted that the possibility
- 12:05Speaker 1: that Broadway Baptist Church somehow linked the disappearances and murders
- 12:09Speaker 1: in any way whatsoever was a slim one, and the
- 12:13Speaker 1: fort Worth Police all but outright rejected the idea. On
- 12:19Speaker 1: Thursday January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty five, Angela Ewart became
- 12:24Speaker 1: the only missing person on the Special Task Forces list
- 12:27Speaker 1: when the skeletal remains of twenty three year old Catherine
- 12:30Speaker 1: Davis were found in far south fort Worth. Likely the
- 12:34Speaker 1: Terrant County Medical Examiner said she'd been strangled to death.
- 12:40Speaker 1: The morning after the bones were confirmed to belong to Catherine,
- 12:43Speaker 1: Angela Ewart's father, Gary met police near the site where
- 12:47Speaker 1: he discovered his daughter's car more than a month before.
- 12:51Speaker 1: According to a tipster, Angela's body could be found at
- 12:54Speaker 1: Mansfield Highway and Interstate Loop eight twenty. For hours, two
- 12:59Speaker 1: large groups walked the fields, railroad tracks, culverts, small thickets,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and river beds. A chopper kept watch overhead and radioed
- 13:09Speaker 1: down potential sites to search. At around noon, it became
- 13:14Speaker 1: clear the tip they'd gotten was bad. Forced once again
- 13:18Speaker 1: into frustration and uncertainty, Gary Ewert left that day without
- 13:23Speaker 1: coming any closer to his daughter's whereabouts. More frustration lurked
- 13:28Speaker 1: around the corner from her stocking. On Christmas morning nineteen
- 13:34Speaker 1: eighty four, realtor Linda Wiles pulled out a rolled up
- 13:38Speaker 1: three foot white banner with the bold words call Police,
- 13:42Speaker 1: blaring and hot pink that would reflect easily off car headlights.
- 13:47Speaker 1: A light bulb inside her head went off. I was
- 13:50Speaker 1: really inspired by it, Linda said. I just brought it
- 13:53Speaker 1: into the office and said, we've got to get these
- 13:56Speaker 1: out there. Like all other area young women at the time,
- 14:00Speaker 1: she was well aware of the disappearances and murders. If
- 14:04Speaker 1: a predator saw one of these in a car window,
- 14:07Speaker 1: Linda thought they'd figure someone had already called police and
- 14:11Speaker 1: decide not to strike. Shortly thereafter, she grabbed one hundred
- 14:15Speaker 1: of the banners from the Women's Center of Terrant County.
- 14:19Speaker 1: They'd been selling them for two years, but Linda knew
- 14:22Speaker 1: she had to do more. She and other realtors passed
- 14:26Speaker 1: out all one hundred on the first day, then grabbed
- 14:30Speaker 1: seventy more the last of them at the Women's Center.
- 14:34Speaker 1: The plan became to get ten thousand more of those
- 14:37Speaker 1: out there as soon as possible by the end of January,
- 14:41Speaker 1: the Greater fort Worth Board of Realtors agreed to the idea. Meanwhile,
- 14:47Speaker 1: the recent arrest of rape suspect Remsen Newbold Wolf was
- 14:51Speaker 1: still on the mines of local residence. Wolf, a forty
- 14:55Speaker 1: four year old freelance photographer, was also suspected of involvement
- 14:59Speaker 1: in at least two cases the Special Task Force was investigating,
- 15:04Speaker 1: the case of the murder of fifteen year old Sarah
- 15:06Speaker 1: Kashka and the disappearance of twenty one year old Angela Ewart.
- 15:11Speaker 1: Wolf drove a blue pickup truck, and witnesses in both
- 15:15Speaker 1: of those cases had reported seeing one at a pull
- 15:18Speaker 1: off near where Sarah's body was found and behind Angela's
- 15:22Speaker 1: broken down Mercury Topaz. Police wouldn't know it for decades,
- 15:27Speaker 1: but Wolfe wasn't the only predator in Fort Worth who
- 15:30Speaker 1: drove a blue pickup truck. We'll get to that later.
- 15:34Speaker 1: He did, however, fit a recent suspect profile they had
- 15:38Speaker 1: mocked up. When announcing that FBI profilers would soon have
- 15:43Speaker 1: profiles of their killers completed, fort Worth Police homicide lieutenant
- 15:48Speaker 1: and Task Force leader Ray Armond spoke about the confusing
- 15:52Speaker 1: results they'd already gathered from other professionals psychologists tell us
- 15:58Speaker 1: that the killer wants to be caught, the lawman said,
- 16:01Speaker 1: but if he does, he hasn't left any good clues
- 16:04Speaker 1: laying around to help us, at least none that we
- 16:07Speaker 1: found yet. The suspect, police sort of contradictorily believed, was
- 16:12Speaker 1: a loner whose friends thought he was a nice guy,
- 16:16Speaker 1: someone with above average intelligence, who is well liked by
- 16:20Speaker 1: his neighbors. There had been no new murders since the
- 16:24Speaker 1: task force started, Lieutenant Armand noted, adding that they don't
- 16:28Speaker 1: believe the killer will strike until the news and investigation
- 16:32Speaker 1: both slow down. It was an odd interview before, and
- 16:37Speaker 1: for months after, other detectives adamantly denied they believed the
- 16:42Speaker 1: killings were the work of only one person, and here
- 16:45Speaker 1: was a cop seemingly admitting that they were looking for
- 16:48Speaker 1: only one guy. Wolfe, it seemed was their perfect suspect.
- 16:54Speaker 1: But after a couple days locked up in the Arrant
- 16:56Speaker 1: County jail and no charges filed due to the fact
- 17:00Speaker 1: that they had no evidence, the suspect was freed. Dallas
- 17:06Speaker 1: psychic John Catchings, who tried to locate the body of
- 17:10Speaker 1: twenty seven year old Mary Elizabeth Till in his city
- 17:14Speaker 1: a couple years before, also decided to try his hand
- 17:17Speaker 1: at finding angela Ewart's body. It's unclear if the cops
- 17:21Speaker 1: ever took him up on the offer, but it is
- 17:24Speaker 1: clear where it led. If they did, nowhere, he surely
- 17:29Speaker 1: would have chose an obvious spot, like the next location
- 17:33Speaker 1: to come up in the investigation. On Saturday, February second,
- 17:39Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, two women collecting firewood stumbled across angela
- 17:44Speaker 1: Ewart's purse in the creek north of the fifty six
- 17:47Speaker 1: hundred block of Overton Ridge Boulevard. The information was purposely
- 17:52Speaker 1: withheld from the public because due to inclement weather, the
- 17:56Speaker 1: police couldn't search the fields surrounding the area right away. Finally,
- 18:02Speaker 1: the following Friday, divers combed the murky creek bed slowly
- 18:06Speaker 1: and carefully. Meanwhile, less than a half a mile away,
- 18:11Speaker 1: about fifty women sat in a theater at Hewlen Mall
- 18:14Speaker 1: learning how to defend themselves with a gun. The women,
- 18:19Speaker 1: most of them unnerved by the string of disappearances and murders,
- 18:23Speaker 1: said they'd already purchased firearms and if push came to shove,
- 18:27Speaker 1: they'd shoot to kill the seminar put on by the
- 18:31Speaker 1: Fort Worth Rifle and Pistol Club at the UA Hewlen
- 18:34Speaker 1: six Cinema had drawn mostly women, of course, though a
- 18:38Speaker 1: fair number of men had come along for support, mostly
- 18:41Speaker 1: boyfriends and husbands. A pistol instructor for the club noted
- 18:46Speaker 1: that his organization usually hosted such workshops, but this one
- 18:50Speaker 1: had been spurred by the fear gripping the west and
- 18:53Speaker 1: southwest parts of the city. By four forty five pm,
- 18:58Speaker 1: back at the creek, police caese and fired apartment divers
- 19:01Speaker 1: had to call it quits. The water was bitterly cold,
- 19:05Speaker 1: the day was growing dark, and the diver's energy had
- 19:09Speaker 1: been spent. They'd have to continue the next day. When
- 19:13Speaker 1: they did, they found nothing. Police spokesperson Doug Clark confirmed
- 19:19Speaker 1: the discovery of the purse, but kept quiet on most
- 19:23Speaker 1: of the details, having only said that inside the bag
- 19:26Speaker 1: were her driver's license and some receipts he wouldn't disclose
- 19:31Speaker 1: if there was any cash. Clark said they'd be using
- 19:34Speaker 1: lasers to lift fingerprints, but he insisted that finding Angela's
- 19:39Speaker 1: purse wasn't a breakthrough. It was just another lead in
- 19:43Speaker 1: a case that had long gone cold, where the discovery
- 19:47Speaker 1: was made sat just five hundred yards from the Hunter's
- 19:50Speaker 1: Ridge apartments, where Cindy Heller's burned out car had been
- 19:54Speaker 1: found back on October twenty third, the day after she disappeared.
- 19:59Speaker 1: The newly disc covered apparel mart connection was another detail
- 20:03Speaker 1: difficult to make sense of. Angela Ewart had done some
- 20:06Speaker 1: modeling with a retail company at the business hub, as
- 20:10Speaker 1: had Mary Till, a woman who had gone missing for
- 20:13Speaker 1: months and whose skeletal remains were ultimately found in South Dallas.
- 20:18Speaker 1: It wasn't their case, but the Fort Worth Task Force
- 20:21Speaker 1: had their eye on mary Till's murder for days. After
- 20:26Speaker 1: the firefighter and police searches of the creek, they used
- 20:29Speaker 1: fleer technology, or forward looking infrared system to search from
- 20:34Speaker 1: helicopter above. Again, they found nothing. In late March nineteen
- 20:52Speaker 1: eighty five, the task force was cut in half. Only
- 20:56Speaker 1: seventeen out of the thirty five full time detectives remained
- 20:59Speaker 1: on the U unit, their duties solely dedicated to it.
- 21:04Speaker 1: They'd tried everything to generate new leads, even using policewomen
- 21:09Speaker 1: as bait. At Southwest Loop eight twenty, not far from
- 21:13Speaker 1: the Hewlen mall female cops pulled over in their own car.
- 21:17Speaker 1: Like stranded motorists, with backup units scattered around keeping watch.
- 21:23Speaker 1: If the decoy operation ever turned up any new leads
- 21:26Speaker 1: or suspects. The task force never let on. Largely the
- 21:31Speaker 1: unit had greatly failed to do what it was designed
- 21:34Speaker 1: to do. The last and most promising large scale search
- 21:40Speaker 1: for the body of Angela Ewert occurred on Saturday, January fourth,
- 21:44Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. At the request of Gary and Anne Ewert.
- 21:49Speaker 1: Police led searchers, who were mostly organized by the parents.
- 21:54Speaker 1: They had posted a notice for help at the Lanham
- 21:57Speaker 1: Federal Building, where they were both employed, and from the
- 22:00Speaker 1: pulpit of the Handley Baptist Church, folks were asked to
- 22:04Speaker 1: come into hand. The search was centered on a field
- 22:08Speaker 1: around the creek where her purse had been found, the
- 22:11Speaker 1: same spot that had been searched a little less than
- 22:14Speaker 1: a year before. Nothing was found the first time, but
- 22:18Speaker 1: Anne and Gary Ewart told police they just had to
- 22:21Speaker 1: be sure. If they could get the man power, the
- 22:24Speaker 1: cops said they'd have no problem leading. A staggering two
- 22:29Speaker 1: hundred and forty people showed up to help, men, women,
- 22:33Speaker 1: and teenagers. Lieutenant Vernon Harris instructed the crowd to look
- 22:38Speaker 1: for remains and the clothing. Angela was last known to
- 22:41Speaker 1: be wearing a red sweater, blue jeans, and tennis shoes
- 22:46Speaker 1: for three hours, covering a total of about three miles.
- 22:50Speaker 1: Searchers created human chains to cover as much ground as
- 22:54Speaker 1: possible without leaving gaps between them. When it was all
- 22:58Speaker 1: said and done, caated various sized bones and shockingly, a
- 23:03Speaker 1: red sweater. Though their hearts were warmed by the outpouring
- 23:08Speaker 1: of support, the Ewerts knew the chances those items would
- 23:11Speaker 1: shed light on the investigation were slim, and they were right.
- 23:16Speaker 1: Nothing ever came of it. Also in January of eighty six,
- 23:22Speaker 1: the Special Homicide Task Force announced they'd ruled out a
- 23:25Speaker 1: serial killer was responsible for all, or even most of
- 23:30Speaker 1: the unsolved slangs and disappearance of Angela Ewert. The unit
- 23:36Speaker 1: had even expanded their cases for re review, having also
- 23:40Speaker 1: picked back up the December nineteen seventy four case of
- 23:43Speaker 1: the disappearances of Rachel Trellisa Renee Wilson, and Julie Moseley,
- 23:48Speaker 1: collectively known as the Fort Worth missing Trio, and the
- 23:52Speaker 1: February nineteen sixty seven murder of Mildred May, whose case
- 23:56Speaker 1: marks the first in a series of crimes the press
- 23:58Speaker 1: dubbed the February Slam. The task force announced its next
- 24:03Speaker 1: strategy as well. Six undercover tactical squad officers would track,
- 24:09Speaker 1: shadow and surveill suspects in the cases. The Fort Worth
- 24:13Speaker 1: Police could seek charges for suspects in four of the cases,
- 24:17Speaker 1: Deputy Chief Koy Martin said, though those charges never came
- 24:22Speaker 1: and those suspects were never publicly named, they admitted they
- 24:26Speaker 1: had no suspect in the Angela Ewart case. As the
- 24:32Speaker 1: months went on and then years, Angela's name faded in
- 24:36Speaker 1: and out of the local press, mentioned only alongside the
- 24:39Speaker 1: names of the many other women who met mysterious and
- 24:43Speaker 1: murderous ends in a handful of articles. After nearly nine
- 24:48Speaker 1: years had gone by, a discovery in Angela's case was
- 24:52Speaker 1: finally made on Tuesday, August eleventh, nineteen ninety three. In
- 24:58Speaker 1: a far south a Terrant County f field near the
- 25:00Speaker 1: intersection of Rindall Crowley and Stevenson Levy Roads, about three
- 25:05Speaker 1: and a half miles east of Interstate thirty five, a
- 25:08Speaker 1: construction worker cleaning up trash from an illegal dumping site
- 25:12Speaker 1: found a partial human skull. The construction worker was clearing
- 25:17Speaker 1: debris with a front and loader. When the cranium rolled
- 25:20Speaker 1: out from under it, Terrant County Medical examiners anthropologists wrongly
- 25:26Speaker 1: estimated that the cranium belonged to a person who had
- 25:29Speaker 1: been deceased for about two years. As ME officials continued
- 25:34Speaker 1: to sift through the trash and natural debris by hand,
- 25:37Speaker 1: the partial skull was sent to be compared with a
- 25:40Speaker 1: handful of dental records belonging to known missing people in
- 25:44Speaker 1: the area. Within hours, they got a match the cranium
- 25:49Speaker 1: and subsequent bones found at the site. Two lower arm
- 25:52Speaker 1: bones and some vertebrae belonged to twenty one year old
- 25:56Speaker 1: Angela lee Ewert, who'd been missing for almost a d decade.
- 26:01Speaker 1: Angela's body had apparently been wrapped in an Afghan blanket,
- 26:06Speaker 1: and some of her jewelry was found to be inside
- 26:09Speaker 1: as well. Since the discovery, very little has been reported
- 26:14Speaker 1: about the case. After his confessions to the murders of
- 26:18Speaker 1: for Wichita Falls women and one fort Worth woman, the
- 26:22Speaker 1: FWPD showed interest in speaking with Farian Wardrobe about Angela's
- 26:27Speaker 1: case in nineteen ninety nine, and it's likely they did,
- 26:32Speaker 1: but the larger question is perhaps why when he confessed
- 26:36Speaker 1: to several other crimes, would he not have readily confessed
- 26:39Speaker 1: to her murder. In a recent story released by Fox
- 26:44Speaker 1: four News, they reported the Fort Worth Police Department told
- 26:48Speaker 1: them they could give no interviews or updates on Angela
- 26:52Speaker 1: Ewart's case, which is forty years old as of this year.
- 26:56Speaker 1: The police, the story says, wouldn't even come on whether
- 27:00Speaker 1: or not the case is still open or active. Before
- 27:05Speaker 1: the Special Homicide Task Force was cut back and then
- 27:09Speaker 1: entirely dissolved, there were other cases added, whether they were
- 27:13Speaker 1: being investigated or simply watched, a couple of which got
- 27:17Speaker 1: virtually no coverage from the press. Next time on Gone Cold,
- 27:23Speaker 1: Texas True Crime, the cases of Judy Herron, Catherine Jackson,
- 27:28Speaker 1: and Marilyn Hartman. If you have any information about the
- 27:33Speaker 1: murder of Angela Lee Ewert, please call the Fort Worth
- 27:37Speaker 1: Police Cold Case Unit at eight one seven three nine
- 27:40Speaker 1: two four three zero seven. We'd like to give a
- 27:45Speaker 1: warm thanks to Sadie who recently supported us at Patreon
- 27:48Speaker 1: dot com slash Gone Cold podcast at the bomb City level.
- 27:53Speaker 1: Welcome aboard, We appreciate you. If you'd like to join
- 27:57Speaker 1: Gone Cold's mission to renew the Publick's interest in unsolved homicides,
- 28:02Speaker 1: missing persons cases, and other perplexing mysteries. You can support
- 28:07Speaker 1: the show and listen at free at patreon dot com
- 28:10Speaker 1: forward slash Gone Cold podcast. You'll also find episodes exclusive
- 28:16Speaker 1: to Patreon there, with more to come in the near future.
- 28:20Speaker 1: Words cannot express how much we appreciate our patrons. Thank
- 28:24Speaker 1: you so much for your support. You can also support
- 28:28Speaker 1: Gone Cold by leaving a five star rating and written
- 28:31Speaker 1: review on iTunes and Apple podcasts, which will help the
- 28:35Speaker 1: show reach more ears, bettering the chance someone with information
- 28:39Speaker 1: about a case will hear it and come forward. A
- 28:43Speaker 1: rating and written review wherever you listen is much appreciated.
- 28:47Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all.