Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Assassination of Alton Peek
Transcript
- 0:01The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
- 0:06is advised. Boxelder, Texas. To call it a small town is an
- 0:13overstatement, named for a type of maple tree that plentifully lines the area's creeks.
- 0:19The rural community is home to a church, a cemetery, and in
- 0:24the mid nineteen nineties, about two hundred residents scattered throughout, with expansive thickets
- 0:30or ranch land between them. There's not much more other than the Boxelder Store,
- 0:37which sold everything from hunting and fishing licenses, first aid supplies, and
- 0:42livestock feed to coffee, cold drinks, and gasoline. Political arguments and business
- 0:50advice were available at the Boxelder store for no charge. About seven and a
- 0:56half miles north of Boxelder is Anna. Unlike Boxelder, Anona is an incorporated
- 1:03city, but in nineteen ninety six was home to only one hundred more residents
- 1:07if that. Anona is about eight and a half miles east of Clarksville,
- 1:14Texas, the area's big city, at around four thousand or so residents in
- 1:18the mid nineteen nineties. It's the seat of the county that encases all of
- 1:23these places Red River County, which sits at the Texas, Oklahoma border.
- 1:30On the front page of the city's newspaper, the Clarksville Times, you'd most
- 1:34often find stories that fit squarely within what most folks considered normal life in their
- 1:41slow paced and Bucolic environs. An article about the groundbreaking for the new site
- 1:47of the Baptist church in a nearby community, perhaps, or all the information
- 1:53you need to attend the stew cookoff, a fundraising effort for the County Fair,
- 1:59maybe something. Now, it was almost unheard of to pick up the
- 2:02Times and find a missing person's or murder investigation story, particularly any such mystery
- 2:09that took place in the small towns and communities that surrounded Clarksville. But nineteen
- 2:16ninety five and nineteen ninety six saw one of each. What gave area residents
- 2:22even more cause for alarm and more fuel for rumors and baseless speculation was that
- 2:29both happened in the sparsely populated town of Boxelder. At two thirty am on
- 2:37Thursday August seventeenth, nineteen ninety five, friends of thirty two year old Jennifer
- 2:43Joyce Bench arrived at her home. Her car was in the driveway, but
- 2:47Jennifer wasn't there, although her cigarettes and purse were items her friends said she'd
- 2:54never have left the house without. Jennifer's dogs were up in the bedroom.
- 3:01After searching the premises surrounding their friend's southeast Red River County home and finding no
- 3:08sign of her, they called the sheriff's office. Later, Sheriff Bob Eddington
- 3:14told a Clarksville Times reporter that it appeared Jennifer had left with someone, though
- 3:20whether or not it was voluntary, let alone who that person might have been
- 3:25remained a mystery. At five feet five inches tall and ninety pounds, Sheriff
- 3:31Ederington figured the brown haired, green eyed woman wouldn't have been hard for a
- 3:37strong male to overpower, although he refused to commit to the theory that foul
- 3:42play was involved. With few leads and even less evidence, the missing person
- 3:47investigations stalled and articles about the disappearance of Jennifer Bench stopped, although a large
- 3:55advertisement offering a three thousand dollars reward for information leading to her whereabouts continued to
- 4:02run in the newspaper, at least until another crime took place, one that
- 4:08utterly shocked the residents of the Boxelder community and the surrounding areas. When Precinct
- 4:15four County Commissioner Alton Peak was gunned down in cold blood, a crime that
- 4:20appeared to be a methodically planned execution, the Red River County Sheriff's office struggled
- 4:28to gather the evidence needed to close the case. Alton Douglas Peak was born
- 4:57on April twenty fourth, nineteen sixty two, to parents Alton Blaine Peak,
- 5:01better known around town as Tebow, and Hazel Lucille Peak. Tebow was a
- 5:08World War two VET, a Precinct for road maintenance official, and a rancher.
- 5:14Both he and Hazel were active and popular members of the Boxelder community,
- 5:18where they raised Alton and his sister, Jamie Sue, twelve years older than
- 5:25her brother. Jamie was married and off to college before Alton was out of
- 5:29Junior high. The Peaks weren't necessarily well to do, and around their neck
- 5:35of the woods, it wasn't money that made you popular or influential anyway.
- 5:42Rather, it was active citizenship and being there for your neighbors. Tebow and
- 5:46Hazel's good standing was inevitably passed down to their son, Alton, who some
- 5:53knew as simply owl. Alton made good grades throughout his school years, most
- 5:59often a's. While at Clarksville High he was a runner up in student chosen
- 6:04categories like Mister chs and Most Handsome Boy. He was a class favorite his
- 6:11junior year and named the school's favorite Boy. As a senior, Alton was
- 6:16on the yearbook staff, but from an early age it seemed to be local
- 6:23government service and politics that most interested him. Where he was from that required
- 6:30taking a keen interest in ranching and agriculture. By the time he graduated,
- 6:35he'd reached the ranks of president of Clarksville High School's Future Farmers of America and
- 6:42was named the chapter's Outstanding Farmer for nineteen eighty. These were among his other
- 6:47many achievements with the FFA, which included an award based upon his performance in
- 6:54leadership, among other characteristics, the Agricultural Accomplishment Award. None of this ended
- 7:01with high school. In fact, Alton Peak was just getting started as an
- 7:08official for the Texas Farm Bureau before he was twenty years old. Alton became
- 7:13an active fixture in county and precinct politics early on in his adult life.
- 7:18The Farm Bureau, in simple terms, is a lobbying group representing the interests
- 7:24of farm and ranch families in Texas. Of course, that means having representatives
- 7:30ever present in Austin at the state capitol and in Red River County at the
- 7:35local courthouse. Alton Peak represented the fulk he knew his folk, which required
- 7:43a watchful eye and open ear while speaking with locals about their needs and ideas
- 7:47for their industry's betterment, whether it was protesting illegal trash dumping along county highways
- 7:55and roads, demanding no dumping signs be erected, or life for things like
- 8:01changes in crop rotation or irrigation requirements. Alton took his community's needs seriously,
- 8:09but he also had family responsibilities. In nineteen eighty three, his mother,
- 8:13Hazel was declared a quote person of unsound mind end quote. Both she and
- 8:20Alton's father, Tebou were ailing in fact, although precisely what they were suffering
- 8:26from is unclear. Tbou died on July eighth, nineteen eighty eight, at
- 8:31age sixty six, and Hazel the following year on August fourth, at age
- 8:37sixty eight. The death of his parents devastated Alton. He'd put his life
- 8:43on hold to care for them. It likely came as no surprise to anyone
- 8:50when a few months later, the Clarksville Times announced Alton Peake's engagement to Andrea
- 8:54Boswell, who went by her middle name Michelle, from Paris, Texas,
- 9:01and was working as a licensed vocational nurse at mccoiston Medical Center in that city.
- 9:07By this time, Alton had worked his way up to the vice president
- 9:11position at the Red River County Farm Bureau and served on the Red River County
- 9:16Agriculture Improvement Board. These civic responsibilities were on top of his family business farming
- 9:24and ranching, alongside his work as a bulldozer and back hoe contractor. Alton
- 9:31and Michelle were married on March seventeenth, nineteen ninety in a small ceremony at
- 9:37his church and Box Elder, Salem Baptist. In May the following year,
- 9:41Michelle gave birth to a son, Aaron. Their family grew by one more
- 9:48in December of nineteen ninety three, when their second son, Caleb, was
- 9:52born. By this time, the Peaks were living in Anona. Seeking to
- 9:58grow his political career, though his interests seemingly only local, Alton entered the
- 10:03nineteen ninety four Democratic primary race for Precinct four County Commissioner. He smoked opponent
- 10:11Jimmy D. Cox for the party's nomination, since the incumbent wasn't seeking a
- 10:16second term. Alton Peak ran unopposed in November's election and became Red River County
- 10:24Precinct four Commissioner the following January. He'd have likely had a good chance of
- 10:30winning even if he'd had an opponent. If the number of times he served
- 10:35as a pallbearer at local funerals was any indication of his popularity. In the
- 10:41Clarksville Times, you might find him doing so a dozen or more times a
- 10:45year. There's no doubt Alton Peak loved his community and the folks in it.
- 10:52The feeling was, by all accounts mutual. In late nineteen ninety five,
- 10:58Michelle Peak was chosen and to represent the small town of Anona at the
- 11:01nineteen ninety six missus Texas International Pageant. From the outside looking in, the
- 11:09Peak family seemed to have it all influence, the respect and admiration of the
- 11:15community, and a beautiful family. In November of nineteen ninety six, they
- 11:20gained something else, the Boxelder community's sympathy. On Monday, November eleventh,
- 11:39nineteen ninety six Veterans Day, Alton Peak pulled up to the Boxelder Store to
- 11:45purchase cattle feed. The thirty four year old Red River County Precinct four commissioner
- 11:50was heading down to a property whereas cows grazed land he leased for that purpose.
- 11:58At nine oh five am, Alton's purchase was rung up on the cash
- 12:01register. A few minutes later, he exited the store, hopped in his
- 12:05pickup truck, and headed south. At about nine point fifteen, Alton stopped
- 12:11by the home of thirty nine year old Jimmy Humphreys, from whom he leased
- 12:16the land in the days before. They both agreed to fix a fence on
- 12:22the property after Alton finished feeding his cattle that day, but Jimmy, for
- 12:26reasons never specified, backed out of the plans, he later told police.
- 12:31Alton left at approximately nine to twenty a m not far from an abandoned farmhouse.
- 12:39On the least property was a barn and other outbuildings places Alton's hungry cows
- 12:46new to come for a good meal. He parked his pick up and began
- 12:50unloading the feed. Later that day, Alton failed to meet his uncle sixty
- 12:56six year old Tom Peak. It was unlike his nephew to completely neglect plans,
- 13:03so Tom set out looking for him. Farmers and ranchers aren't necessarily creatures
- 13:09of habit and knowing Alton's routine, Tom headed to the least Land. When
- 13:16he arrived at around four pm, he saw his nephew's truck parked about twenty
- 13:20feet from the gate that leads to the barn. He walked back toward the
- 13:26barn and saw Alton laying face down on the dirt path with the feedsacks he'd
- 13:31been carrying near He was unresponsive. Tom's initial thought that was Alton had suffered
- 13:39a heart attack. When Tom flipped him over, the cause of Alton's death
- 13:43was apparent. He'd been shot in the chest. After racing to a nearby
- 13:50phone and alerting authorities, Tom Peak headed back to the scene. Years later,
- 13:56it was reported that by the time Red Rivers shared Briff's deputies arrived at
- 14:01the crime scene, bystanders had trampled the dusty path and destroyed any chance of
- 14:07finding evidence in the form of shoe or boot prints. At first, the
- 14:11rumors about the tragic death of one of their most beloved locals were innocuous.
- 14:18Anyone in Boxelder or Anna would tell you Alton Peak had not a single enemy,
- 14:24and everyone figured he'd simply been hit with a deer hunter's stray bullet,
- 14:30a freak and tragic accident, and nothing more. But rumors quickly became,
- 14:37as Wan Debray of The Clarksville Times poignantly wrote, limited only by the reach
- 14:43of people's imaginations. Baseless speculations were in no small part thanks to erroneous reporting
- 14:50by the Paris News. The day after Alton's death, the newspaper reported that
- 14:56he was one of two county commissioners under investigation for abuse of official capacity,
- 15:03someone this claim suggested, might have reason to silence him. Red River County
- 15:09District Attorney Jack Harrington attempted to put an end to the false allegations and any
- 15:16rumors that resulted as quickly as possible. He said, there was never an
- 15:20investigation on Alton Peak, and there'd never even been any former complaints against him.
- 15:28It was Precinct three County Commissioner Elmer Catton who was to go to trial
- 15:31for using gravel belonging to the county on his private property. While Alton's body
- 15:39was in Dallas to undergo an autopsy. Sheriff Bob Eddington did his best to
- 15:46quell rumors by insisting an accidental death had not been ruled out, but his
- 15:50decision to call in the Texas Rangers suggested the law man knew the results of
- 15:56the procedure would show something far more so. Thirty four year old Alton Peak
- 16:03was memorialized at Lindemann Chapel at the Clarksville Funeral Home on the afternoon of Thursday,
- 16:08November thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, and buried later that day at Boxelder
- 16:15Cemetery. Reporter Janda Bray wrote that along Highway forty four, folks had tied
- 16:21white ribbons to signposts, mail boxes, and trees in tribute and as a
- 16:26symbol of their mourning from Anona, where he lived, all the way to
- 16:30Boxelder, his hometown, and where he died. That same day, the
- 16:37Denton County Medical Examiner that performed the autopsy released his results. Alton had been
- 16:44shot multiple times in the chest several hours before his body was discovered. One
- 16:51of the bullets punctured his heart, killing him almost instantly. Powder burns on
- 16:56his shirt showed that he was fired upon at a extremely close range with a
- 17:02handgun. The death was a homicide, carried out, perhaps in one of
- 17:07the most cowardly ways possible, while Alton Peak was carrying heavy feedsacks to his
- 17:12cows at the time. Ballistics tests were yet to be conducted, the weapon's
- 17:19caliber yet to be determined, If it ever was anyway, that information was
- 17:26never released. The investigation got off to a rocky start. Red River County
- 17:33Sheriff Bob Edrington was admittedly in a sort of denial before the autopsy was completed.
- 17:41He'd commented that Alton was a guy who was well liked and respected,
- 17:45a friend to everyone who knew him, which made it hard to imagine his
- 17:49death was a homicide. They had tried to find evidence he had been in
- 17:55a dispute or feud with another local, but no one seemed to carry any
- 18:00animosity toward him whatsoever. In fact, all they heard were glowing reviews of
- 18:07the man's character. His close friend Raymond Long, compared to shooting al Peak
- 18:14with shooting Santa Claus. He was a generous, god fearing family man who
- 18:18put everyone's needs ahead of his own. His friend Billy Bratton remarked the entire
- 18:26community, particularly those in his home town of Box Elder, were stricken by
- 18:30grief. Alton and the rest of the Peaks weren't just good neighbors and friends,
- 18:37they were family. The community demanded justice, and judging by the way
- 18:42some of them spoke of that very thing, they might have meted it out
- 18:47themselves if a clear suspect became known. But nothing about this was clear.
- 18:53A motive was going to be hard to come by. Alton had no financial
- 18:59troubles. He wasn't involved in drugs or any other illegal activity that anybody knew
- 19:03of. Robbery could be ruled out since Alton's wallet, which contained several hundred
- 19:10dollars in cash, was still in his pocket. It was the lack of
- 19:15motive perhaps that drove folks crazy and resulted in confident whispers of grand conspiracy theories
- 19:22that were more sensational with every telling, even if that wasn't the intent.
- 19:29These began early on, but as the investigation crept along with no arrest in
- 19:34sight, some thought the sheriff too might be hiding something or worse. Bob
- 19:41Edrington became lumped into a group of county commissioners, constables, and judges that
- 19:48without an ounce of proof themselves became a sort of criminal cabal that had to
- 19:52silence Alton Peak before he blew the whistle on the whole lot of them.
- 19:57Not impossible, but in reality, Sheriff Edrington might have actually been onto something.
- 20:04He was keeping it close to the chest. When interviewing the last known
- 20:11person to see Alton Peak alive, Red River County Sheriff's investigators took pause at
- 20:17a detail the man wouldn't let go. Alton had visited this individual from whom
- 20:22he leased land and box, elder James Kelly Humphreys or Jimmy, just before
- 20:29driving his truck to feed his cattle less than a half mile away. The
- 20:33two were supposed to fix a fence, but Jimmy backed out at the last
- 20:37minute. When questioned, certainly a routine step in the investigation, Jimmy refused
- 20:45to admit he was the last person to see Alton. The last person to
- 20:51see him would have been the killer, Jimmy insisted. According to Sheriff Edrington,
- 20:57perhaps this response was nothing, but there was no denying that it was
- 21:02strange. They hadn't seen anything yet. On the afternoon of Tuesday, December
- 21:21tenth, nineteen ninety six, a relative entered the home of thirty nine year
- 21:26old Jimmy Humphreys. What they found was shocking devastating. On the living room
- 21:33couch, Jimmy laid with a plastic bag over his head. It was tied
- 21:38securely around his neck. Near him sat a prescription pill container and liquor bottle,
- 21:45both empty. According to a Dallas County medical examiner, Jimmy had washed
- 21:51the entirety of the prescription pills down with the liquor. He then strapped the
- 21:56plastic bag over his head. The cause of death was listed as suffocation.
- 22:03Jimmy died by suicide. It was determined the community of Boxelder was crushed by
- 22:10the death. In a place that didn't even have two hundred and fifty residents,
- 22:15two deaths by unimaginably violent means was simply too much to bear. After
- 22:22his death, a source told the Clarksville Times that Jimmy Humphreys was the Red
- 22:26River County Sheriff's office prime suspect in the Alton Peak murder case, though they
- 22:33remarked there were more sheriff Ederington, in fact, said no one had been
- 22:38ruled out, but the sudden lull the investigation appeared to have experienced told a
- 22:45different story. Outwardly, it looked as though the suicide of Jimmy Humphreys had
- 22:51grinded everything to a halt. On February twenty third, nineteen ninety seven,
- 22:57citizens of Red River County began circulating a petition requesting outside assistance in the Alton
- 23:03Peak investigation, which they intended to send to state and federal authorities and officials,
- 23:11including Texas Attorney General Dan Moralees and Governor George W. Bush. The
- 23:17petition was started by resident Jody Dooley and three other unnamed women to give the
- 23:22people a voice. The community, her husband, Charles, told the Clarksville
- 23:27Times needed to know what was happening in the investigation. Jody added that the
- 23:33petition was not a criticism of Sheriff Edrington. Rather, his friends in the
- 23:40community believed the lawmen simply didn't have the staff or resources needed to properly work
- 23:47the Alton Peak case, nor the county's other unsolved murders that dated back to
- 23:52the mid nineteen eighties. The call to action was something Alton would have done
- 23:57for anyone else in Red River County, they said, but Edrington wasn't happy
- 24:03about the petition. He already had Texas Ranger Roger Loff and the FBI involved
- 24:10in the case, all of whom he'd invited in himself. State and federal
- 24:15resources, he said, were already at his disposal. He understood the people's
- 24:22frustrations, the sheriff said, it was something he also felt. After all,
- 24:27it was his duty to solve Alton's case. Perhaps, he pondered while
- 24:33speaking to the press, he could be a little more open with the media
- 24:37so folks would know what was happening. Red River County District Attorney Jack Harrington
- 24:42was crystal clear about one thing in his defense of Sheriff Edrington. It was
- 24:48not the man power that was the problem. Necessarily, it was the lack
- 24:52of physical evidence. Despite the disapproval of the county's top cop, the petition
- 25:00was getting overwhelming support, Jody Dooley remarked. In August of nineteen ninety seven,
- 25:07Sheriff Eddrington told reporters he had sent evidence to the FBI for testing an
- 25:11analysis, but refused to specifically identify that evidence. Later that year, the
- 25:18lawman told a reporter for the Texarcana Gazette that he had suspects, and that
- 25:23evidence and testimony would be submitted to a grand jury. Eddrington was not blowing
- 25:30smoke. As the months went on with nothing about Alton Peake's murder in the
- 25:37newspapers other than sporadic short stories quoting the Red River County DA Jack Harrington or
- 25:44Sheriff Bob Edrington commenting that nothing new has materialized. Rumors that the sheriff was
- 25:51somehow involved were intensifying. When asked if the lawman was a suspect in the
- 25:56case, Texas ranger Roger loff called the notion the craziest thing he'd ever heard.
- 26:03Loffe had been assisting the investigation since the beginning. Another year passed with
- 26:10virtually no word about the Alton peak murder case, but as the second anniversary
- 26:17drew near, a major investigative effort unexpectedly took place. On the afternoon of
- 26:25Tuesday, October twentieth, nineteen ninety eight, the phone at the Boxelder's store
- 26:30rang. The woman working the counter picked up. It was the first of
- 26:34many calls inquiring about the day's goings on at the Boxelder's Cemetery, and the
- 26:41store was usually the place to get the scoop not today. After piecing together
- 26:48the information gleaned by the many calls and customers two sins that day, it
- 26:53was determined that the grave of Alton Peak was roped off and his body exhumed.
- 27:00Everyone claimed they didn't know what was happening, and that included Red River
- 27:04County Sheriff Edterington, the local Justice of the Peace, and even the county
- 27:10judge. The only way the exhumation could have been handled worse, an editorial
- 27:15in the Paris News later read, would have been if disinterment had been ordered
- 27:21in the dead of night. The comment was certainly dramatic, but it also
- 27:26captured the continued frustration of area residents who felt they were continually left in the
- 27:33dark when it came to their beloved county commissioner and friends murder case. A
- 27:40couple days later, the mystery behind the surprise exhumation was resolved in a press
- 27:45release issued by District Attorney Harrington. The president of the Boxelder Cemetery Association and
- 27:52Alton's widow, Michelle, had signed off on the disinterment, which was at
- 27:57the request of the one hundred nith second District Grand Jury and under the supervision
- 28:03of the District Attorney's office. A grand jury investigation, secret by definition according
- 28:11to Texas state law, had been under way since the previous May. The
- 28:15exhumation made it impossible to hide going forward. Suggesting that his department's investigation had
- 28:23come to a standstill, Sheriff Edrington said that he and da Harrington had used
- 28:30the grand jury investigation in order to utilize their subpoena powers to their advantage.
- 28:37The proceedings the entire six months had been used solely for the purpose of the
- 28:41investigation of Alton Peak's murder. After another autopsy had been performed by a medical
- 28:48examiner in McKinney, Alton's body was reburied at Hopewell Cemetery in Paris, Texas,
- 28:56at Michelle Peake's request. It isn't clear what, if anything, was
- 29:00learned as the result of the exhumation, but after six months of hearing testimony
- 29:07and reviewing evidence, the grand jury ultimately adjourned on October twenty eighth, nineteen
- 29:11ninety eight, without issuing an indictment. In fact, it ended anti climactically
- 29:18with no big announcements following the case was turned back over to the Red River
- 29:25County sheriff's office, and another couple years passed without any answers whatsoever. After
- 29:33defeating incumbent Sheriff Bob Edrington in the Democratic primary, Bob's Story ran for the
- 29:40position in two thousand and inherited the Alton Peak murder case. When he took
- 29:45office in two thousand and one, Edrington was known as Young Bob, while
- 29:52Story was called Old Bob. Old Bob had been sheriff of Red River County
- 29:57previously, first taking that office in nineteen seventy nine and then remaining there until
- 30:03Edrington defeated him in nineteen ninety two. Sheriff Edrington's inability to solve Alton's case
- 30:11was likely a major factor in his defeat, and it's a talking point Bob
- 30:15Story relied heavily upon during the race whether or not the incumbent was at fault.
- 30:22The voluminous case file described by one deputy suggested he was doing his best.
- 30:29Not long after the new sheriff took his oath of office, however,
- 30:33there was a big problem, a problem that again gave rise to the once
- 30:37swirling rumors that had finally settled the case file. The thousands of pages of
- 30:44supplemental reports and witness statements seemingly vanished into thin air or by means more nefarious.
- 31:06When Sheriff Bob's Story began his new term in January of two thousand and
- 31:10one, he quickly discovered that the physical files for a handful of active cases
- 31:15were missing. After searching the department's computer system, things got worse when he
- 31:21realized files had been deleted. The missing files included two of Red River County's
- 31:27biggest, highest stakes cases, the nineteen ninety five disappearance and likely abduction of
- 31:36thirty two year old Jennifer Joyce Bench and the nineteen ninety six murder of Precinct
- 31:41four County Commissioner Alton Douglas Peak. Both were cases out of the small community
- 31:47of Box Elder. The sheriff and his deputies scrambled to locate the missing files,
- 31:53but they had no luck until May two thousand and one, when they
- 31:57were told of a storage building next to the Sheriff's office in Clarksville where the
- 32:01files were kept. The news was a huge relief, though it didn't explain
- 32:08the missing computer files. Deputies were told stacks of physical boxes had simply been
- 32:15moved to storage, but it seemed the Red River County Sheriff's Office was never
- 32:20a safe distance from rumor and controversy, and another problem was waiting for them
- 32:25right around the corner, one that could have been ripped right from the pages
- 32:30of a dime store detective novel. Upon their visit to the storage building on
- 32:35May seventh, two thousand and one, deputies discovered the lock had been cut
- 32:40and the large metal door had been lifted from the track and pulled out.
- 32:45The files the department reported to the Clarksville Times had been stolen. The FBI
- 32:52was called in to assist in the investigation of this burglary, and new rumors
- 32:57of grand conspiracy explode did As an investigation ensued. Chief Deputy Larry Taylor made
- 33:05a phone called a Burbank, California. After explaining the Alton Peak case to
- 33:10a producer of Unsolved Mysteries, the execution, the prime suspect's suicide, the
- 33:16exhumation, and now the missing files. The television program agreed to come to
- 33:22Red River County, Texas to look into it. The Sheriff's office was looking
- 33:29forward to putting both Alton Peak's murder case and Jennifer Bench's missing persons case in
- 33:34front of both the fresh eyes of Unsolved Mysteries investigators and a national television audience.
- 33:43Jennifer's case was actually seeing some movement. At this time. Texas rangers
- 33:49and DEA agents were digging on a northwest Red River County property after receiving a
- 33:54tip that was where her body was located. They never found Jennifer Joyce Bench,
- 34:00and she remains missing to this day. A month after agreeing to come
- 34:07to Texas, Unsolved Mysteries backed out, citing as the reasons the lack of
- 34:13rock solid evidence oddly something to show itself lacks by its very nature, that
- 34:19the story was too complicated, and most likely the actual reason the politics involved.
- 34:28In January of two thousand and two, a year after Sheriff Bob's story
- 34:31came into office and realized several case files had gone missing, it came to
- 34:37light that the files had never been missing at all. In fact, most
- 34:43of them were safe and secure at the Red River County Jail in Clarksville apparently
- 34:49the entire time. The single brown file folder that contained the entirety of the
- 34:53information in the Jennifer Bench case was found in the top drawer of a sheriff's
- 34:59office filing cabinet by sheer accident, and the Alton Peak case file two boxes
- 35:06was found in the evidence locker room. Likely, the absurdity of this debacle
- 35:12had locals and disbelief, and exactly why the department thought anything was ever missing
- 35:17at all, let alone the apparent break in at the Sheriff's office storage building
- 35:22was never explained. By this time, Sheriff's Story had resigned due to poor
- 35:30health, and retired highway patrolman Jerry Conway was assigned to temporarily take his place.
- 35:37Conway was at a loss. He had no idea what had happened,
- 35:42but it was suggested he'd have no such embarrassment at the department under his watch.
- 35:49Both Alton and Jennifer's cases remained cold, but eventually one of them heated
- 35:53up. In March of two thousand and six, when specifically asked what he
- 36:00might do about County Commissioner Alton Peake's cold case, candidate for Red River County
- 36:06Sheriff Royce Abbott told the Paris News there was an incarcerated person who might be
- 36:12able to clear it up. The current Sheriff's office administration was also aware of
- 36:17this individual. He added It's unclear if Abbot's remarks had anything at all to
- 36:23do with what came next. He did not win the election. On September
- 36:29ninth, two thousand and eight, Andrea Michelle McClure, formerly known as Michelle
- 36:35Peak, Alton's widow, was arrested at her home in Paris, Texas.
- 36:39She'd been charged, in Alton's case, a second degree felony charge, conspiracy
- 36:45to commit murder. It had long been rumored in Box Selder in the surrounding
- 36:52area that Michelle was having an affair with Jimmy Humphreys, the man who leased
- 36:55Alton Land for his cattle, who was the last man to see the victim
- 37:00alive, and who died of suicide a month later. After being questioned by
- 37:06Sheriff Bob Edrington, newspaper reports heavily implied that the arrest of Alton's widow was
- 37:13based upon this theory, though how the conclusion was reached and what evidence had
- 37:17been collected remains a mystery. The cold case murder of Alton Peak, Red
- 37:23River County Sheriff Terry Reid said was one of the few cases he and his
- 37:29investigators had been working on since he took office. Michelle was released on a
- 37:35twenty five thousand dollars bond on October third, two thousand and eight. In
- 37:39January of two thousand and nine, it was announced that a grand jury held
- 37:44the previous month had returned a full blown murder indictment against Michelle McClure. She'd
- 37:51see trial in September. News reports announced in July of two thousand and nine.
- 37:58For whatever reason, nothing happened for more than three years. Michelle remained
- 38:04free on bond. In November of twenty twelve, sixteen years after the murder
- 38:09of Alton Douglas Peak, an article in the Paris News said Michelle McClure would
- 38:15go to trial the following February. The trial was to take place in Bowie
- 38:20County after a change of venue request was approved by a Red River County judge.
- 38:27When February twenty thirteen arrived, however, charges were dropped against Michelle.
- 38:34Just like that, the last piece of news about Alton's nineteen ninety six murder
- 38:39came and went. Evidence against Michelle McClure has never been expounded upon publicly.
- 38:46The dropped charges were an abrupt pause in a long cold case steeped in decades
- 38:52of controversy, rumor, and speculation. If you have any information about the
- 39:00nineteen ninety six murder of Alton Peak or the nineteen ninety five disappearance of Jennifer
- 39:06Bench, please contact the Red River County Sheriff's Office at nine zero three four
- 39:10two seven three eight three eight. If you like Gone Cold's mission to renew
- 39:17the public's interest in cold cases, you can support the show at Patreon dot
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- 39:59ep pisodes description. Thanks for listening, y'all.