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The Killing of Thomas Hammerton · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
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Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Thomas Charles Hamerton was born on
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Speaker 1: January fourth, nineteen forty six, in Youngstown, Ohio, to Joseph
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Speaker 1: and Ruby Hamerton. He was the older of two sons
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Speaker 1: and was named for an uncle who was a prominent
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Speaker 1: Methodist reverend. In the Youngstown of the nineteen sixties, the
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Speaker 1: expected life for a boy was simple and narrow. Graduate
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Speaker 1: high school, then go straight into the mills or into
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Speaker 1: a trade, something steady and practical, like the work Thomas's
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Speaker 1: father did as an automotive serviceman. Thomas, however, wasn't built
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Speaker 1: for that path. At Boardman High School, where he graduated
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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five, classmates called him ham short, of course,
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Speaker 1: for Hamerton leaned into art and science, subjects that suggested
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Speaker 1: curiosity and creativity more than smokestacks and shift whistles around him.
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Speaker 1: The city was tightening and fraying at the same time.
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Speaker 1: Economic concerns, social tension, and pressure to conform made Youngstown
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Speaker 1: a hard place for anyone who didn't fit the traditional mold.
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Speaker 1: Whether Thomas was chasing broader opportunity, personal freedom, or simply
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Speaker 1: a future that looked different from the one laid out
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Speaker 1: for him. He did what many people only talked about.
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Speaker 1: He left Ohio behind in time, he landed in Houston, Texas,
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Speaker 1: a city big enough to disappear into and bold enough
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Speaker 1: to reinvent yourself inside. He settled in Montrose, a neighborhood
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Speaker 1: that had evolved into the cultural heartbeat of the big city.
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Speaker 1: Nearly century old bungalows stood beside coffeehouses and neonlit bars.
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Speaker 1: Artists painted murals on garage doors, musicians dragged amplifiers down
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Speaker 1: narrow sidewalks. Since the nineteen seventies, when the first Pride
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Speaker 1: parades moved through its streets, Montrose had become the center
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Speaker 1: of LGBTQ plus life in Houston, a place where visibility
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Speaker 1: had been carved out in a city that wasn't always
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Speaker 1: welcoming to difference. It was where you went if you
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Speaker 1: wanted to hold hands with the person you loved without
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Speaker 1: having to scan every passing face for unwarranted judgments or worse.
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Speaker 1: It was where you could walk into a bar and
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Speaker 1: be greeted like family. It was where outsiders finally felt
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Speaker 1: like locals. For a man who had grown up hiding
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Speaker 1: pieces of himself and who had left a steel town
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Speaker 1: in Ohio behind. Montrose offered what Youngstown never could. Freedom, expression,
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Speaker 1: and belonging. Here, Thomas could live closer to who he
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Speaker 1: truly was, and that's part of what makes what happened
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Speaker 1: next so devastating, because even a sanctuary casts shadows. By
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Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties, Montrose was wrestling with more than
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Speaker 1: just the pressures of growth. The AIDS crisis had struck
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Speaker 1: early and hard, turning informal circles of friends into lifelines.
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Speaker 1: The neighborhood held on, but beyond its borders were people
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Speaker 1: who saw its openness not as progress but as a target.
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Speaker 1: Montrose was supposed to be safe, but safety is fragile,
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Speaker 1: especially when hate is already looking for somewhere to land.
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Speaker 1: And across the country, hate was organizing. What had begun
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Speaker 1: in Britain as a gritty youth subculture had by the
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Speaker 1: mid nineteen eighties taken on a distinctively American form, white
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Speaker 1: power skinhead groups, driven no longer by fashion or rebellion,
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Speaker 1: but by ideology, intimidation, and coordination. The shift became unmistakable
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Speaker 1: in Chicago, where the Chicago area Skinheads or cash formed
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Speaker 1: the first organized neo Nazi skinhead gang in the United States.
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Speaker 1: They weren't just street thugs. They functioned as a hate group.
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Speaker 1: Their members assaulted Hispanic women, vandalized Jewish owned businesses, and
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Speaker 1: harassed immigrant neighborhoods. The message underneath the violence stayed consistent,
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Speaker 1: this is our territory and you don't belong. The hate
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Speaker 1: spread in Dallas. Skinheads, calling themselves the Confederate hammer Skins
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Speaker 1: or CHS, formed in nineteen eighty eight, then expanded into
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Speaker 1: a multi state network known simply as the hammer Skins.
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Speaker 1: Their ideology was explicit and their structure disciplined. In nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty nine, five members were federally indicted after authorities accused
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Speaker 1: them of patrolling a Dallas park to attack black and
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Speaker 1: Hispanic people, and of vandalizing a synagogue and a Jewish
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Speaker 1: community center as part of a racially motivated campaign of terror.
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Speaker 1: This wasn't teenage mischief, it wasn't random violence. It was
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Speaker 1: a targeted movement, and it wasn't just about race. Across cities,
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Speaker 1: gay men were being beaten outside clubs and in parking lots,
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Speaker 1: violence that was widely known as gay bashing. For some
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Speaker 1: of the attackers. It wasn't random or impulsive. It was
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Speaker 1: treated like a sport. Hate crime numbers in the late
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties spiked to some of the highest levels recorded
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Speaker 1: to that point. The attackers looked the same from city
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Speaker 1: to city, young white men with shaved heads and steel
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Speaker 1: toe boots, fueled by propaganda, hate filled music, and the
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Speaker 1: thrill of hurting someone they believed couldn't or wouldn't fight back.
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Speaker 1: They hunted the vulnerable, someone walking home alone, someone stepping
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Speaker 1: outside a bar, or someone whose identity could be read
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Speaker 1: from across the street. Police reports often reduced these attacks
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Speaker 1: to street fights or isolated incidents. Victims knew the truth.
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Speaker 1: None of it felt random, but instead felt like a
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Speaker 1: message delivered with fists, boots, and blades. Federal Justice data
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Speaker 1: later reflected what communities were already living through. Even as
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Speaker 1: formal hate group membership appeared to dip, violence surged. Skinhead
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Speaker 1: groups and domestic extremist networks moved fast. Groups dissolved and reformed,
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Speaker 1: names changed, and the violence kept going. At the very
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Speaker 1: same moment that wave of terror was rising in the streets,
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Speaker 1: television was teaching America how to look at it. Toward
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Speaker 1: the end of the eighties, American television didn't just get louder,
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Speaker 1: it became more volatile. Ratings wars turned talk shows into
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Speaker 1: conflict factories, and HAT eight became one of the most
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Speaker 1: reliable products. Two programs that led that shift were The
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Speaker 1: Heraldo Rivera Show and The Morton Downey Junior Show. Even
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Speaker 1: primetime dramas began weaving skinhead gangs and neo Nazi violence
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Speaker 1: into their storylines, turning real world extremism into entertainment before
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Speaker 1: much of the country fully understood how dangerous it had become.
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Speaker 1: On November third, nineteen eighty eight, Haraldo Rivera staged what
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Speaker 1: amounted to a televised ambush. White supremacists and skinheads seated
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Speaker 1: opposite black and Jewish activists, not to be examined, but
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Speaker 1: to be provoked. The episode spiraled into an on air brawl,
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Speaker 1: chairs flying, audience members rushing the stage, and Rivera left
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Speaker 1: with a broken nose. It aired during Sweep's Week. The
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Speaker 1: footage replayed nation and wide and ratings soared. At the
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Speaker 1: same time, Morton Downey Junior built a show that didn't
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Speaker 1: even need a riot. Extremists became regularly booked guests, Neo
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Speaker 1: Nazis skinheads and white supremacists weren't framed as organized, violent movements.
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Speaker 1: They were treated as provocative personalities dropped into shooting matches
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Speaker 1: for entertainment. The goal was not accountability, it was heat.
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Speaker 1: When extremist ideology shows up week after week as just
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Speaker 1: another argument segment, it stops looking exceptional and becomes routine.
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Speaker 1: Then in April nineteen eighty nine, the illusion collapsed. While
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Speaker 1: promoting his show in San Francisco, Downy claimed skinheads attacked
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Speaker 1: him in an airport restroom, cutting his hair, drawing swastikas
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Speaker 1: on his body, and leaving bruises on his face. Cameras
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Speaker 1: rushed in. Police found no evidence of any attack, only scissors,
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Speaker 1: a marker, and no credible corroboration. Downey refused to file
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Speaker 1: a police report. Airport officials concluded it was self inflicted
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Speaker 1: and likely staged for publicity. By then, the point had
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Speaker 1: already been made. The spectacle mattered more than the truth,
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Speaker 1: and this wasn't happening in a vacuum. In nineteen eighty eight,
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Speaker 1: a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke,
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Speaker 1: was running for president, not of some secret racist society,
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Speaker 1: but campaigning on television and press conferences, his name on
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Speaker 1: official United States ballots, and Duke didn't campaign in robes
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Speaker 1: or hoods. He wore suits and ties. He spoke in
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Speaker 1: carefully coded language about heritage and American identity. He had
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Speaker 1: spent years inside the clan and neo Nazi politics before
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Speaker 1: rebranding himself as a mainstream candidate. Frighteningly, millions of Americans
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Speaker 1: voted for him. In some states, Duke pulled enough support
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Speaker 1: to make party leaders nervous, not because he was going
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Speaker 1: to win, but because his ideas were no longer confined
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Speaker 1: to the fringe. They were being discussed in living rooms,
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Speaker 1: debated on news programs, and treated as part of legitimate
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Speaker 1: political discourse. When a former clansman could run for president
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Speaker 1: while skinheads fought on daytime television and neo Nazi gangs
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Speaker 1: recruited in malls, it sent a clear message this ideology
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Speaker 1: was no longer hiding. It was stepping into the light.
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Speaker 1: By the end of the nineteen eighties, the United States
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Speaker 1: was trapped in a perfect storm. Real world hate was escalating,
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Speaker 1: and television was turning it into background noise. The movement
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Speaker 1: had grown bold enough to try something unprecedented neo Nazi
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Speaker 1: skinhead groups and white power organizations, including White Aryan Resistance,
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Speaker 1: announced plans for a massive gathering they called Aryan Woodstock.
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Speaker 1: It was scheduled in Napa County, California, not as a
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Speaker 1: secret meeting, but as a public national rally built around
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Speaker 1: racist music, propaganda and recruitment. The goal was explicit bring
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Speaker 1: together skinheads, clansmen, and neo Nazis from across the country
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Speaker 1: in one place under one banner. Organizers advertised it as
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Speaker 1: a cultural and political event, a way to turn hate
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Speaker 1: into identity and identity into movement. Local residents, civil rights groups,
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Speaker 1: and law enforcement moved quickly. Lawsuits were filed, permits were blocked,
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Speaker 1: and pressure mounted. The event never materialized the way its
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Speaker 1: organizers envisioned, but the damage was already done. The fact
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Speaker 1: that it had been planned at all showed just how
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Speaker 1: far the movement had come. White power skinheads no longer
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Speaker 1: saw themselves as isolated gangs. They were now thinking nationally,
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Speaker 1: staging rallies, promoting music, and attempting to mobilize a generation.
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Speaker 1: And by the time that wave reached Houston, the city's
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Speaker 1: Montrose neighborhood wasn't just in its path. It was the
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Speaker 1: bull's eye. On the surface. City officials still framed skinheads
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Speaker 1: as a rumor, or as a fashion trend that belonged
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Speaker 1: to other places. The real trouble, they insisted, was in
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Speaker 1: Austin or Dallas, where police could already point to violent incidents.
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Speaker 1: In Houston, they said, shaved heads and boots were mostly
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Speaker 1: an esthetic choice, not an organized threat. Down at Sharpstown Mall,
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Speaker 1: that fantasy broke. Teenagers with shaved heads and heavy work
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Speaker 1: boots moved through the corridors and practiced swagger. One young
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Speaker 1: man who openly identified himself as a skinhead walked in,
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Speaker 1: threw up a Nazi salute, and spat on the floor
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Speaker 1: to punctuate his point. He met friends at alternative clothing
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Speaker 1: shops that catered to punk kids, new wave kids, metal kids,
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Speaker 1: and increasingly to kids who had started calling themselves skinheads.
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Speaker 1: One of those friends was a sixteen year old Memorial
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Speaker 1: High School student with his head shaved down to stubble
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Speaker 1: and neo no Nazi symbols tattooed directly into his scalp.
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Speaker 1: He wore what had become the uniform of the scene,
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Speaker 1: UK imported Doctor Martin's in black or oxblood loved for
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Speaker 1: working class roots, but valued even more for steel toe
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Speaker 1: caps that could double as weapons. Colored bootlaces were coded messages.
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Speaker 1: They were paired with thin red suspenders known as braces,
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Speaker 1: under a nylon bomber jacket. When money allowed, a Fred
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Speaker 1: Perry polo finished the look. None of it was style.
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Speaker 1: The boots were the centerpiece, a show of force before
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Speaker 1: a word was spoken, and the rest of the outfit
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Speaker 1: was designed to announce danger the moment they walked into
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Speaker 1: a room. Their influences came from across the Atlantic. They
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Speaker 1: knew the origin story late nineteen sixties British working class
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Speaker 1: teenagers and young adults shaving their heads, getting to tattoos
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Speaker 1: when tattoos were still counterculture, and pulling on heavy boots
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Speaker 1: to push back against what they saw as middle class softness.
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Speaker 1: But in nineteen eighties America, especially in Texas, that defiance
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Speaker 1: had fused with white supremacist ideology. The bands weren't just
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Speaker 1: music anymore. They were recruitment tools. Album art flaunted Nazi imagery.
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Speaker 1: Lyrics preached racial purity and violence as destiny. Their soundtrack
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Speaker 1: was built on grievance, superiority, and the belief that power
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Speaker 1: came from making other people afraid. In Houston, many of
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Speaker 1: the teenagers drifting into the scene did not describe themselves
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Speaker 1: as predators. They described themselves as under attack. A changing
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Speaker 1: city felt like a threat to them, Violence felt justified.
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Speaker 1: They talked openly about targeting gay men, people of color,
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Speaker 1: and anyone they believed was disrespecting them, framing it as
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Speaker 1: self defense. They cast themselves as patriots protecting a version
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Speaker 1: of America they believed was slipping away. Even though most
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Speaker 1: white Houstonians wanted nothing to do with their ideology, researchers
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Speaker 1: studying the movement kept finding the same pattern. Many recruits
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Speaker 1: came from emotionally barren or unstable homes, where cruelty passed
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Speaker 1: for strength. Skinhead ideology offered identity, belonging, and permission to dominate.
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Speaker 1: Older hate groups understood exactly how useful that was. The
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Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan and neo Nazi outfits like White Aryan
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Speaker 1: Resistance saw skinheads as a ready supply of young, angry recruits.
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Speaker 1: The beliefs overlapped neatly anti semitism, racism, hostility toward EMMAGA
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Speaker 1: grants and LGBTQ plus people. Only the packaging was younger
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Speaker 1: Houston's clan leadership publicly denied any skinhead presence. The Anti
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Speaker 1: Defamation League disagreed and warned that the conditions were in place. Nationally,
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Speaker 1: anti Semitic vandalism and arson had spiked in nineteen eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: and skinheads were tied to that surge. Houston, Texas wasn't
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Speaker 1: an exception. On the ground, it was already visible. Sociologists
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Speaker 1: estimated roughly sixty skinheads or sympathizers in the Houston area,
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Speaker 1: including organized groups. In reality, that number was likely much higher.
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Speaker 1: One group, Metro Area Skinheads or MASH, ever so Clever
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Speaker 1: as Usual, claimed fifteen to twenty members operating in central Houston,
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Speaker 1: with internal loyalties and a defined list of enemies. Their
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Speaker 1: worldview revolved around rage. They openly despised non white people, Jews,
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Speaker 1: gay men, immigrants, and interracial couples, while portraying themselves as
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Speaker 1: morally strict and anti drug. Their failures were redirected outward
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Speaker 1: as violence. Houston's nightlife felt the pressure first. At Axiom,
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Speaker 1: a club on McKinney Street, staff noticed a pattern certain
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Speaker 1: skinhead bands played and fights followed. After one show, a
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Speaker 1: customer stumbled back inside, bloodied. Outside Skinheads made the implication
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Speaker 1: plane book their band again and trouble would stop. The
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Speaker 1: club banned the group anyway, but the moment revealed how
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Speaker 1: intimidation worked, violence used as leverage, and the violence at
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Speaker 1: Axiom didn't stop. At the same time, a harder line
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Speaker 1: faction took shape. A seventeen year old dropout from Humble, Texas,
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Speaker 1: openly committed to neo Nazi ideology, tried to establish a
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Speaker 1: Houston chapter of the Dallas based Confederate Hammer Skins. When
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Speaker 1: that effort collapsed under law enforcement pressure, he created his
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Speaker 1: own organization, the National Socialist Skinheads of Houston. In interviews,
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Speaker 1: he openly expressed admiration for Hitler and the Third Reich,
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Speaker 1: describing the Nazis as figures he saw as heroic and
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Speaker 1: saying he embraced their beliefs as his own. The group's
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Speaker 1: platform echoed those views, framing its mission as a fight
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Speaker 1: for racial purity and the preservation of what it defined
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Speaker 1: as the White Nation. The name was deliberate, so was
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Speaker 1: the skull insignia, modeled on imagery associated with Nazi concentration
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Speaker 1: camp guards. The group drew roughly ten to fifteen teenage
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Speaker 1: members and enforced strict internal rules, belief in God, bans
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Speaker 1: on drugs and alcohol before or during meetings, and absolute
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Speaker 1: racial separation, no friendships, relationships, or contact of any kind
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Speaker 1: with anyone deemed non white. Recruitment was systematic and aggressive.
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Speaker 1: Members distributed business cards, flyers, and phone numbers in schools
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Speaker 1: and clubs in Jewish neighborhoods like Myerland and along West
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Speaker 1: tim Or near Houston's gay community, seating their ideology wherever
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Speaker 1: young people and perceived enemies lived side by side and
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Speaker 1: the teens weren't operating alone. A Houston attorney with ties
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Speaker 1: to Aryan nations and clan figures provided legal and ideological support,
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Speaker 1: watched their children quit school, bring Nazi propaganda into the home,
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Speaker 1: and cut off anyone who tried to intervene once inside.
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Speaker 1: Leaving was rare. By late nineteen eighty eight, it was
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Speaker 1: no longer plausible for law enforcement to dismiss the trend.
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Speaker 1: Threats escalated and attacks increased. What had once looked like
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Speaker 1: kids copying a look was now organized and growing. The
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Speaker 1: ADL warned that skinheads didn't need big numbers. The whole
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Speaker 1: movement was built for violence. Houston's problem wasn't just that
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Speaker 1: racist skinheads were here, it was that for too long,
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Speaker 1: no one in power wanted to admit they were. Houston's
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Speaker 1: denial had become institutional. In court, three young men identified
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Speaker 1: by police as skinheads were acquitted after being arrested near
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Speaker 1: Hopkins and Pacific with long wooden rods, white painted closet
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Speaker 1: dowels carved with swastikas, political slogans, and the initials NSSH
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Speaker 1: for the National Socialist Skinheads of Houston. Officers testified that
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Speaker 1: a pedestrian had been struck with the rods before the
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Speaker 1: suspects dropped them in tall grass and ran. Prosecutors argued
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Speaker 1: the dowels had been adapted into weapons. The judge disagreed.
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Speaker 1: Because the rods were technically household closet polls, not batons,
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Speaker 1: not clubs, they did not meet the legal definition of
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Speaker 1: an illegal weapon under Texas law. The charges were dismissed,
23:41
Speaker 1: even though the symbols, the slogans, and the assault itself
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Speaker 1: all pointed to organized extremist violence. In early nineteen eighty nine,
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Speaker 1: the warning became even bloodier. Two January stabbings were under
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Speaker 1: investigation for possible skinhead involvement. In early nineteen eighty nine,
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Speaker 1: The first attack unfolded on the night of January twenty first,
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Speaker 1: outside a teen club in the nine hundred block of
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Speaker 1: Drew Street, a place built for music, dancing, and safety,
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Speaker 1: where kids were supposed to feel alive, not hunted. After closing,
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Speaker 1: the club's owner and his disc jockey stepped outside, a
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Speaker 1: car pulled up. Several young men jumped out, shaved heads, boots.
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Speaker 1: The competence of boys who believed fear and of course
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Speaker 1: numbers made them untouchable. The dj was hit first. Fists
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Speaker 1: and boots came fast. Before he could react, the owner
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Speaker 1: grabbed the only thing within reach, a pair of hedge
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Speaker 1: clippers from his truck. In the chaos, the clippers became
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Speaker 1: a tool of desperation, yanked, wrestled, fought over until the
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Speaker 1: owner swung the handle hard enough to knock one attacker back.
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Speaker 1: It didn't stop the others. Someone got behind him and
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Speaker 1: stabbed him in the back. The group fled as quickly
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Speaker 1: as it had arrived, speeding away while shouting a warning
25:23
Speaker 1: meant to silence him. You're dead man. If you call
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Speaker 1: the cops, you're dead. Later, a nineteen year old young
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Speaker 1: man who was associated with skinheads admitted he was present
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Speaker 1: during the attack, though he denied being the one who
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Speaker 1: stabbed the owner. He described the confrontation as turning violent
25:44
Speaker 1: after the club owner struck one of the skinheads with
25:48
Speaker 1: the handle of the hedge clippers and said he may
25:51
Speaker 1: have landed a couple blows himself, claiming self defense. He
25:56
Speaker 1: said the group left and later he learned the club
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Speaker 1: owner had been stabbed by someone he identified only as Lurch,
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Speaker 1: who reportedly displayed a bloody knife. Afterward, the club owner
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Speaker 1: said the trouble hadn't come out of nowhere. He traced
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Speaker 1: the animosity back to June, when skinheads began showing up
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Speaker 1: at the club and trying to recruit teenagers inside. He
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Speaker 1: described watching the group grow more organized over time. Then
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Speaker 1: just days later, Houston woke up to the second stabbing,
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Speaker 1: this one fatal. Just after two thirty am on January
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Speaker 1: twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine, Thomas Charles Hammerton, forty three
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Speaker 1: years old, was found lying in the twenty four hundred
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Speaker 1: block of Yupus in the Hyde Park area west of downtown.
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Speaker 1: He had been stabbed six times in the chest and stomach.
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Speaker 1: Thomas died in the street. Police had no witnesses and
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Speaker 1: no immediate suspects, but Hyde Park residents were already talking quietly,
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Speaker 1: carefully about skinheads in the area, the harassment, chasing, and
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Speaker 1: beatings of gay men, people of color, women, Hispanics, anyone
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Speaker 1: who stood out to them. Houston homicide investigators admitted the
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Speaker 1: bind they were in. There were no witnesses, only information
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Speaker 1: from neighbors who said they had already been having problems
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Speaker 1: with skinheads in the area. Hyde Park changed almost immediately.
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Speaker 1: Some residents tried to organize, while others stayed quiet, knowing
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Speaker 1: that drawing attention could invite the wrong kind of attention.
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Speaker 1: Back reports accumulated threats, vandalism, and assaults, but without names
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Speaker 1: or eyewitnesses, nothing moved the way a frightened neighborhood needed
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Speaker 1: it to. One of Thomas Hammerton's friends said he believed
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Speaker 1: skinheads were responsible, pointing to incidents in recent months when
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Speaker 1: the same group had chased him and beaten other residents
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Speaker 1: without provocation. Several people in the neighborhood would speak only
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Speaker 1: if their identities were protected. One woman said she no
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Speaker 1: longer felt safe going outside at night, and described repeated
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Speaker 1: harassment and attacks by skinheads who lived nearby. Two stabbings
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Speaker 1: one survivor and one death only days apart in the
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Speaker 1: same small pocket of the city. Forced Houston to acknowledge
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Speaker 1: what it had been reluctant to say. The attacks might
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Speaker 1: be connected, and they might be tied to racist skinhead
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Speaker 1: groups whose presence in the city had been growing quietly.
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Speaker 1: The fear was not incidental, it was part of the message.
28:55
Speaker 1: Police increased surveillance of known skinhead hangouts, and one name
29:00
Speaker 1: surfaced quickly, a twenty nine year old Houston man who
29:03
Speaker 1: openly identified as a skinhead and had already drawn the
29:07
Speaker 1: attention of homicide detectives. Shortly after Thomas was killed. Residents
29:13
Speaker 1: had been reporting that skinheads in the Montrose Hyde Park
29:16
Speaker 1: area were stalking and attacking members of the gay community.
29:21
Speaker 1: Investigators believed Thomas Hammerton's murder fit that pattern, but suspicion
29:27
Speaker 1: alone was not enough to make an arrest. The break
29:31
Speaker 1: didn't come from homicide, but from narcotics. Undercover. Houston narcotics
29:36
Speaker 1: officers had already made two controlled LSD buys from the
29:40
Speaker 1: same suspect while watching activity in the Montrose area. When
29:45
Speaker 1: investigators learned a large shipment was about to arrive, they
29:49
Speaker 1: secured a search warrant and moved into a two story
29:52
Speaker 1: house at the one hundred block of Oak Place near
29:56
Speaker 1: downtown Houston. PDE said one of the suspect tried to
30:00
Speaker 1: dump some of the LSD out a window, but officers
30:04
Speaker 1: recovered it. The drug was packaged on small paper stamps
30:09
Speaker 1: and sold for anywhere from about five dollars to twenty
30:13
Speaker 1: dollars a dose. Inside the house, officers seized more than
30:17
Speaker 1: a thousand doses of LSD along with cocaine. At the scene.
30:23
Speaker 1: Police also found a scene saturated with occult imagery, supposed
30:28
Speaker 1: satanic slogans and symbols, pentagrams, animal skulls, cages of rats,
30:35
Speaker 1: and a dead skunk in an upstairs bedroom. An officer
30:39
Speaker 1: said it was the first time his unit had encountered
30:42
Speaker 1: what he described as Satanic worship in a drug investigation.
30:47
Speaker 1: This was at the height of the Satanic panic era.
30:51
Speaker 1: Homicide detectives quickly separated spectacle from motive. They emphasized that
30:57
Speaker 1: the occult imagery was not believed to be connected to
31:00
Speaker 1: Thomas's killing. They weren't looking for ritual, they were looking
31:05
Speaker 1: for hate. Still, numerous knives were recovered during the search,
31:11
Speaker 1: including two detectives believe could be consistent with the weapon
31:15
Speaker 1: used in Thomas's slang. Police said the knife that killed
31:19
Speaker 1: him had a blade about an inch wide, not at
31:22
Speaker 1: all uncommon. The knives taken from the Oak Place house
31:27
Speaker 1: were sent to Houston p D's crime lab to be
31:29
Speaker 1: tested for traces of blood. The suspect was arrested on
31:33
Speaker 1: two charges of delivery of a controlled substance and held
31:37
Speaker 1: in jail in lieu of bonds totaling twenty thousand dollars.
31:42
Speaker 1: Four other people were arrested during the raid but were
31:45
Speaker 1: not suspects in Thomas's killing. Publicly, homicide detectives described the
31:52
Speaker 1: self professed skinhead as their prime suspect in the murder,
31:56
Speaker 1: but no homicide charges were ever filed. The investigation remained active.
32:02
Speaker 1: The police claimed a lab tested the evidence, but the
32:07
Speaker 1: case went cold. The press, specifically the Houston Post and
32:12
Speaker 1: the Houston Chronicle, virtually ignored the murder of Thomas Hamerton
32:17
Speaker 1: and reported on the case only a couple times. The
32:22
Speaker 1: Montrose neighborhood, especially the people who had already been living
32:26
Speaker 1: with the knowledge of where danger tended to lurk, was
32:29
Speaker 1: left with the same chilling uncertainty. Someone capable of that
32:34
Speaker 1: level of violence had been living among them, associating with
32:38
Speaker 1: skinhead groups, and moving through the same streets. Even worse,
32:43
Speaker 1: nobody could yet say with certainty whether the person responsible
32:48
Speaker 1: for killing Thomas had truly been stopped. Almost four decades
32:54
Speaker 1: have passed since Thomas's life was taken on a quiet
32:57
Speaker 1: street in Houston. Of those who loved him, time has
33:02
Speaker 1: done nothing to soften the loss or answer the questions
33:05
Speaker 1: that still keep them awake at night. Someone knows something,
33:10
Speaker 1: and Thomas deserves justice. If you have any information about
33:17
Speaker 1: the murder of Thomas Charles Hammerton, please call Texas Crime
33:22
Speaker 1: Stoppers at eight hundred two five two eight four seven seven.
33:28
Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gon Cold's mission to shine
33:31
Speaker 1: a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
33:35
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33:39
Speaker 1: you can at patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
33:44
Speaker 1: You can also support the show by leaving a five
33:47
Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
33:51
Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
33:55
Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.