Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Coldblooded Killing of Leslye Koon

Transcript

The Coldblooded Killing of Leslye Koon · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Although US Highway eighty once stretched
0:11
Speaker 1: from Savannah, Georgia, all the way to San Diego, California,
0:15
Speaker 1: it never quite cemented its way into pop culture. The
0:19
Speaker 1: way Route sixty six did. Strange since the road connected
0:23
Speaker 1: the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and cut straight through archetypal
0:28
Speaker 1: southern countrysides and big cities alike such as Dallas, Texas
0:33
Speaker 1: and Phoenix, Arizona, over its twenty six hundred or so
0:36
Speaker 1: miles of pavement. There might not be a song about
0:40
Speaker 1: Highway eighty that's been a hit record by different artists
0:44
Speaker 1: in multiple decades, like that other route, but the road
0:47
Speaker 1: was instrumental to the future of many small towns. Nonetheless,
0:52
Speaker 1: towns like Longview, Texas, located for the most part in
0:57
Speaker 1: Gregg County, about one hundred and twenty five miles east
1:00
Speaker 1: of Dallas, Highway eighty is singularly responsible for spurring the
1:06
Speaker 1: growth of what was the small cotton farming and lumber
1:09
Speaker 1: producing town. Before the road was paved straight through the
1:13
Speaker 1: heart of Longview in the nineteen twenties, there were only
1:17
Speaker 1: around two thousand residents and industry was down. By the
1:22
Speaker 1: end of that decade, the population more than doubled, and
1:25
Speaker 1: with it new revenue and economic development. A couple hiccups
1:30
Speaker 1: in Longview's economy aside East Texas oil field discoveries in
1:35
Speaker 1: the early nineteen thirties led to even more growth and
1:38
Speaker 1: carried the town out of the Great Depression. The next
1:42
Speaker 1: couple decades, Longview boomed, and by nineteen sixty nine it
1:46
Speaker 1: was a thriving city that headquartered businesses like Eastman Kodak
1:51
Speaker 1: Chemical Division, and was home to a large Schlitz brewery
1:55
Speaker 1: and bottling plant. The population at that point had reached
2:00
Speaker 1: about forty five thousand. For the first twenty four days
2:04
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty nine, the local stories that made the
2:07
Speaker 1: front page news of the Longview News Journal consisted of
2:11
Speaker 1: the first baby born in the city that year, the
2:14
Speaker 1: downtowner motor ens, hosting of the eleventh Annual Convention of
2:19
Speaker 1: the Texas United Press International Editors, and the announcement of
2:24
Speaker 1: the approval of a dog leash ordinance. But on January
2:28
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen sixty nine, the front page headline was
2:32
Speaker 1: devastating and appalling. It read seventeen year old Longview High
2:37
Speaker 1: School student murdered in small house near home fearce struggle
2:43
Speaker 1: preceded death. The bold black text surely caused each citizen
2:48
Speaker 1: reader to gasp in horror, but it hardly described the
2:52
Speaker 1: grisly and horrific nature of the slang of Leslie Coon.
3:20
Speaker 1: Leslie Diane Coon was born in Longview, Texas, on March
3:24
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen fifty one. Her mother, Wilma, who went
3:29
Speaker 1: by her middle name Fane, was twenty three years old
3:32
Speaker 1: when she was born, and her father, Henry was forty two.
3:36
Speaker 1: They were married only a year before Leslie's birth, almost
3:40
Speaker 1: to the day, in Miller County, Arkansas. Leslie was described
3:45
Speaker 1: as quiet and studious by friends. She was genuinely interested
3:50
Speaker 1: in her schoolwork and extracurricular activities. She was friendly and intelligent, wonderful,
3:57
Speaker 1: her friend said. In nineteen sixty five, Leslie Kuhn entered
4:02
Speaker 1: high school at Judson High. Judson is a small community
4:07
Speaker 1: on the northern outskirts of Longview, and it's where Leslie
4:11
Speaker 1: lived with her maternal grandparents off Hanby Road, on a
4:15
Speaker 1: large family property. Her grandfather, Roy, was the son of
4:20
Speaker 1: two of the first pioneers to settle in Gregg County, Texas.
4:25
Speaker 1: At Judson High, Leslie sang in the school choir, competed
4:29
Speaker 1: in interschoolastic spelling bees, and was on the girls track team.
4:35
Speaker 1: Outside of school, Leslie studied and read a lot. She
4:39
Speaker 1: attended the Missionary Baptist Church on Sundays. In nineteen sixty eight,
4:45
Speaker 1: Leslie Kuhn began her senior year at a different school,
4:48
Speaker 1: Longview High. She continued to sing for the choir and
4:52
Speaker 1: compete in spelling bees there, and was a member of
4:55
Speaker 1: a group that studied ethics and religion called the Bible
4:59
Speaker 1: Stress Brotherhood. It isn't entirely clear why Leslie lived with
5:05
Speaker 1: her grandparents, Ruby and Roy Sparks, but it is plausible
5:09
Speaker 1: that her father, Henry Coon, was hardly around, and perhaps
5:14
Speaker 1: her mother wasn't either. Henry Coon worked constantly as an
5:19
Speaker 1: oil filled pumper, installing, maintaining, and operating oil pumps. Leslie's
5:25
Speaker 1: parents divorced not long after she was born. Her mother,
5:30
Speaker 1: Faine Sparks, first married in nineteen forty three at age sixteen,
5:35
Speaker 1: but her twenty four year old husband died in a
5:37
Speaker 1: plane crash eleven days later. Two years after that, in
5:41
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, she shotgun married a man named jeff Erwin,
5:46
Speaker 1: with whom she had a boy. Randy. Faine and jeff
5:50
Speaker 1: Erwin weren't married long, and in nineteen forty six she
5:54
Speaker 1: tied the knot again, and a daughter, Nancy, came out
5:57
Speaker 1: of that marriage, which lasted until nineteen five forty nine.
6:01
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty Fane married Leslie's father, Henry Coon. They divorced,
6:07
Speaker 1: and in nineteen fifty four she married another man who
6:10
Speaker 1: may or may not be the father of her child
6:13
Speaker 1: born in nineteen fifty five, Leslie's half brother, Lynn Max Sparks.
6:18
Speaker 1: Fane's parents, Ruby and Roy, Leslie's grandparents, took guardianship of Lynn,
6:25
Speaker 1: so Leslie Kuhn had four siblings, one on the paternal
6:29
Speaker 1: side named Henry Junior, who was twenty one years older
6:32
Speaker 1: than her, and three maternal half siblings, Randy, Nancy, and Lynn.
6:38
Speaker 1: Lynn lived with his and Leslie's grandparents two Ruby and
6:42
Speaker 1: Roy Sparks. Fain tied the knot a few more times
6:46
Speaker 1: until one stuck for twenty years, a man named David Francis,
6:51
Speaker 1: who she married in nineteen sixty eight. It isn't difficult
6:55
Speaker 1: to come to the presumption that neither of Leslie's parents
6:58
Speaker 1: were around, but Ruby and Roy were good folks and
7:02
Speaker 1: all the grandkids adored them. On Friday, January twenty fourth,
7:08
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, at about four ten pm, Leslie Diane
7:12
Speaker 1: Coon arrived home from another day as a senior at
7:16
Speaker 1: Longview High. She came in, set her things down, and
7:20
Speaker 1: chatted with her grandparents for a few minutes. That was
7:23
Speaker 1: part of her daily routine, as was heading out to
7:26
Speaker 1: the small mother in law's house about one hundred yards
7:29
Speaker 1: behind the main home to do her homework and study.
7:33
Speaker 1: This evening would be no different in that regard. After
7:37
Speaker 1: chatting with her grandparents, she grabbed her school books and
7:40
Speaker 1: headed out to the little house. After studying, Leslie normally
7:45
Speaker 1: returned to the main house, helped prepare and ate dinner
7:49
Speaker 1: with her grandparents, talked with them some, and went to bed.
7:53
Speaker 1: But on this night, that part of the routine was
7:57
Speaker 1: not to be, and instead evil had in store something
8:01
Speaker 1: unimaginably depraved and macob At about five twenty pm on
8:08
Speaker 1: January twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine, seventy two year old
8:12
Speaker 1: Roy Sparks walked up to the small secondary house on
8:16
Speaker 1: his property, to shut off the water because he was
8:19
Speaker 1: expecting a hard freeze that night. The last thing Roy
8:23
Speaker 1: needed was a burst pipe. Leslie had gone to the
8:26
Speaker 1: little house to study after school, as she always did,
8:30
Speaker 1: so while he was there, Roy also intended to tell
8:33
Speaker 1: Leslie that dinner was just about ready. The door was locked,
8:38
Speaker 1: and Leslie didn't answer her grandfather's knock or respond when
8:42
Speaker 1: he yelled through the door, so Roy figured Leslie had
8:45
Speaker 1: gone back to help her grandmother with dinner. He headed
8:50
Speaker 1: back to the main house, and when he arrived, he
8:52
Speaker 1: discovered that his granddaughter had not been there. When Leslie
8:56
Speaker 1: hadn't returned to the main house in some time, Roy
9:00
Speaker 1: and Ruby both returned to the small house. They knocked
9:04
Speaker 1: and yelled some before walking around the house to try
9:07
Speaker 1: the back door. That door had been busted open, and
9:11
Speaker 1: when Roy looked inside, he saw the body of his
9:14
Speaker 1: seventeen year old granddaughter, Leslie Cohon, sprawled on the floor.
9:20
Speaker 1: She was in a doorway between the living room and
9:23
Speaker 1: one of the bedrooms, and there was blood, a lot
9:26
Speaker 1: of blood. In a panic, Roy sprinted to the main
9:31
Speaker 1: house to call the greg County Sheriff. After he did,
9:35
Speaker 1: he also phoned his neighbor Carl Eberhart Junior, who lived
9:39
Speaker 1: close by. Neighbor Carl showed up quick and was disturbed
9:44
Speaker 1: when he entered the small house and gazed upon the
9:47
Speaker 1: murder scene. Overturned furniture suggested there had been an intense struggle.
9:53
Speaker 1: Greg County Justice of the Peace Charles R. Cashell, was
9:57
Speaker 1: called to the scene immediately after shaf deputies arrived. Cashel
10:02
Speaker 1: inspected Leslie's body and discovered that she'd been strangled with
10:07
Speaker 1: a cord that he thought had come from an electric blanket,
10:10
Speaker 1: which was still on the bed of the nearest room.
10:13
Speaker 1: The cord was still around Leslie's neck, tied tight. In
10:18
Speaker 1: the seventeen year old's head was a gunshot wound, which
10:22
Speaker 1: Cashal believed was caused by a thirty eight caliber firearm.
10:27
Speaker 1: As deputies and the Justice of the Peace further inspected
10:30
Speaker 1: the scene, they covered the young murder victim's body with
10:34
Speaker 1: a stark white sheet. Not long after the body of
10:38
Speaker 1: Leslie Diane Coon was transported to the Welsh Funeral Home
10:43
Speaker 1: and an autopsy was ordered. At autopsy, it was determined
10:49
Speaker 1: that Leslie's death was the result of strangulation with an
10:53
Speaker 1: electrical cord However, justice of the piece. Casual was wrong
10:57
Speaker 1: about the origin of the cord. It was off a fan,
11:01
Speaker 1: not the electric blanket. Cashel was also wrong about the
11:05
Speaker 1: caliber of bullet used to shoot Leslie in the head.
11:09
Speaker 1: It was twenty two, not thirty eight. Leslie's grandparents, Roy
11:13
Speaker 1: and Ruby Sparks heard no gunshot at the main house,
11:17
Speaker 1: which was just one hundred yards away, and there's a
11:20
Speaker 1: reason for that. A pillow was used to muffle the bang.
11:25
Speaker 1: Powder Burns singed the bullet hole on both sides of
11:28
Speaker 1: the pillow, telling investigators the shot was fired at close range.
11:33
Speaker 1: The gun pressed tightly against the pillow, but the gunshot
11:37
Speaker 1: was only insurance for the depraved individual who had already
11:41
Speaker 1: slain Leslie by strangling her to death. The bullet struck
11:46
Speaker 1: the teenager and the left temple, entering her skin but
11:50
Speaker 1: not penetrating her head. Leslie's killer also raped her. Funeral
12:06
Speaker 1: services for seventeen year old Leslie Diane Kuhn were held
12:10
Speaker 1: at two pm on the day following her brutal murder
12:14
Speaker 1: on Saturday, January twenty fifth, nineteen sixty nine, at the
12:18
Speaker 1: Welsh Funeral Home Chapel. Leslie was buried in Judson Cemetery
12:23
Speaker 1: the next day. As the investigation into the murder of
12:27
Speaker 1: Leslie Kuhn got under way, many residents and area businesses
12:31
Speaker 1: in Longview and greg County gave money to a reward fund.
12:36
Speaker 1: Within days, that fund grew to two thousand, six hundred
12:39
Speaker 1: and twenty five dollars, or just shy of twenty thousand
12:42
Speaker 1: dollars in twenty twenty one. Money it was offered to
12:46
Speaker 1: anyone who could provide information leading to an arrest and
12:50
Speaker 1: conviction of the person or persons responsible for the grisly murder. Homicide,
12:57
Speaker 1: particularly of such a depraved and sedition stick nature, was
13:01
Speaker 1: not common in Longview, Texas and the surrounding areas in
13:05
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, certainly not in the small community of Judson,
13:11
Speaker 1: Greg County. Sheriff Noble Crawford would not be alone in
13:15
Speaker 1: his investigation. Longview Police Chief Roy Stone immediately offered up
13:21
Speaker 1: three of his best to help investigate. Two detectives, Clifford
13:25
Speaker 1: Felts and W. A. Connell, and one patrolman, Charles Faircloth.
13:30
Speaker 1: Chief Stone told Sheriff Crawford that his men were on
13:34
Speaker 1: loan to him indefinitely. With the addition of Greg County
13:38
Speaker 1: District Attorney's Office investigator Gordon Anderson. A virtual task force
13:43
Speaker 1: was created solely for bringing Leslie Coon's murderer to justice.
13:49
Speaker 1: The investigation was among the most extensive and intensive greg
13:54
Speaker 1: County had ever seen. It didn't take long for this
13:58
Speaker 1: multi jurisdictional and investigative force to develop a couple theories.
14:04
Speaker 1: The first theory involved a burglary gone wrong. Detectives speculated
14:09
Speaker 1: that just after four PM, when Leslie arrived at the
14:12
Speaker 1: small secondary house, she interrupted a burglary in progress and
14:17
Speaker 1: the burglar or burglars panicked and killed her. Or that
14:21
Speaker 1: Leslie knew the man or men and therefore they felt
14:25
Speaker 1: they had to silence her. There were two problems with
14:28
Speaker 1: that theory, however, the small house contained little more to
14:33
Speaker 1: steal than a television set, some clothing, and a few
14:36
Speaker 1: pieces of furniture that would have been hard to make
14:39
Speaker 1: off with, and it hardly explains why the perpetrator or
14:42
Speaker 1: perpetrators raped the teenager. The second theory investigators came up
14:48
Speaker 1: with was better thought out. Perhaps the rapist and slayer
14:53
Speaker 1: noticed Leslie at some point and began studying her habit
14:56
Speaker 1: of going out to the small house every day after school. Usually,
15:01
Speaker 1: Leslie's little brother Lynn went out there with her, but
15:05
Speaker 1: not on that day. That day, Lynn was sick. Detectives
15:09
Speaker 1: speculated that the killer saw an opportunity and took it.
15:14
Speaker 1: They found evidence in a bedroom, closet and in the
15:17
Speaker 1: kitchen that someone, likely two people, detectives said had been
15:21
Speaker 1: hiding in the small house waiting to strike. A butcher
15:26
Speaker 1: knife was found on the floor near Leslie's body. It
15:30
Speaker 1: was used to cut the electrical cord the murder weapon
15:33
Speaker 1: from the kitchen's window fan. When Leslie's grandfather, Roy Sparks,
15:38
Speaker 1: knocked on the locked door of the small house and
15:41
Speaker 1: called out for her to come eat dinner, Sheriff Crawford
15:44
Speaker 1: believed her killer or killers were still inside. It's thought
15:49
Speaker 1: that Leslie was either murdered right before Roy got there
15:53
Speaker 1: or just after he left. Detectives also discovered tire tracks
15:58
Speaker 1: about two hundred yards away from the small house where
16:01
Speaker 1: Leslie was slain, and shoeprints were found just behind the structure.
16:07
Speaker 1: To flee the scene, they speculated the killer or killers
16:10
Speaker 1: had to make their way that two hundred yards through
16:13
Speaker 1: an open field of tall brush and grass and a
16:16
Speaker 1: large thicket of trees to an oil lease where they'd
16:19
Speaker 1: left their car or were picked up by another party entirely.
16:24
Speaker 1: The shoe prints were described as soft sole, presumably meaning sneakers,
16:29
Speaker 1: and were approximately a size nine, leading greg County Sheriff
16:33
Speaker 1: Noble Crawford to speculate that Leslie's killer was an average
16:37
Speaker 1: sized man, probably weighing between one hundred and forty and
16:41
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty pounds. Investigators made a plaster impression
16:46
Speaker 1: of the shoe prints. The tire tracks led detectives to
16:50
Speaker 1: inquire about vehicles seen in the area near the time
16:53
Speaker 1: of Leslie's slang. Several students who rode the bus daily
16:58
Speaker 1: with Leslie COO reported to police that for three days
17:02
Speaker 1: leading up to the murder, two boys in a jeep
17:05
Speaker 1: had been following the bus. Investigators discovered, however, that the
17:10
Speaker 1: occupants of the jeep were two thirteen year old boys
17:13
Speaker 1: who followed the bus simply as an attempt to flirt
17:16
Speaker 1: with the female passengers. The tire tracks found two hundred
17:21
Speaker 1: yards behind the small house on the edge of the
17:23
Speaker 1: oil field belonged to that jeep, but the driver had
17:27
Speaker 1: only turned around there. Sheriff Crawford said the sheriff said
17:32
Speaker 1: the jeep and its adolescent occupants had been eliminated as suspects. Meanwhile,
17:38
Speaker 1: Gregg County Sheriff's Deputy Clyde Arthur hand delivered several items
17:43
Speaker 1: collected at the scene of Leslie Coon's murder to the
17:45
Speaker 1: Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab in Austin to
17:49
Speaker 1: be analyzed and checked for fingerprints. Some of the items
17:54
Speaker 1: were described as weapons, and a ballistics test had been ordered,
17:58
Speaker 1: suggesting a gun was among them. What Sheriff Crawford described
18:04
Speaker 1: as scores of persons were questioned both Leslie's grandparents, Ruby
18:10
Speaker 1: and Royce Sparks, and the detectives on what essentially was
18:14
Speaker 1: a Leslie Kohon murdered task force believed that whoever killed
18:18
Speaker 1: her knew her, or at least knew her habits, school friends,
18:23
Speaker 1: hard crushing schoolboys, and residents who lived in the vicinity
18:27
Speaker 1: of the Sparks property were interviewed by either greg County authorities,
18:32
Speaker 1: Longview police detectives, or the District Attorney's investigator. Hundreds of
18:36
Speaker 1: folks from virtually every corner of the city of Longview
18:40
Speaker 1: and greg County. An unknown forty two year old man
18:44
Speaker 1: was scheduled to travel to Dallas to undergo a polygraph
18:48
Speaker 1: examination on Wednesday, February twelfth, nineteen sixty nine, though whatever
18:53
Speaker 1: became of that is unknown. Certainly not for the lack
18:58
Speaker 1: of investigative effort, suspects for the rape and slang were
19:02
Speaker 1: proving hard to come by. Locals were certainly talking. Rumors abound,
19:08
Speaker 1: and two months after the horrific crime and arrest came
19:24
Speaker 1: in response to rumors that spurred the greg County Sheriff's
19:27
Speaker 1: office being besieged with calls from the public. In late
19:31
Speaker 1: March nineteen sixty nine, two months after the rape and
19:35
Speaker 1: murder of seventeen year old Longview High School student Leslie
19:38
Speaker 1: Diane Cohon, Sheriff Noble Crawford hit the press. He told
19:43
Speaker 1: the Longview News Journal that there was not one single
19:46
Speaker 1: ounce of truth to the rumor, and arrest had been
19:49
Speaker 1: made in the case. These latest rumors were being spread
19:53
Speaker 1: on local radio broadcasts, and the sheriff chastised the rumor mill.
19:59
Speaker 1: The public had mostly been very cooperative with authorities, Sheriff
20:03
Speaker 1: Crawford went on to say, but still he emphasized that
20:07
Speaker 1: such rumors being spread around town as if they were
20:10
Speaker 1: truth did nothing but hamper the investigation. Solving a crime
20:15
Speaker 1: of this magnitude, he told the newspaper can't be done
20:19
Speaker 1: in an hour like you see on TV. Sheriff Crawford
20:23
Speaker 1: perhaps was referring to Adam twelve or Colombo, the latest
20:27
Speaker 1: hit police procedural television shows at the time. The sheriff
20:32
Speaker 1: assured the residence of Greg County, quote, we will get
20:35
Speaker 1: our killer no matter how long it takes end quote.
20:41
Speaker 1: This damage control that Sheriff Nobel Crawford was performing was
20:45
Speaker 1: at least a little deceptive. Law enforcement at that very
20:49
Speaker 1: moment were hard at work investigating a theory and identifying suspects,
20:55
Speaker 1: and an arrest was eminent, even as Sheriff Nobel Crawford
20:58
Speaker 1: denied it. On Wednesday, March twenty sixth, nineteen sixty nine,
21:05
Speaker 1: Sheriff Crawford and his men executed warrants for the arrest
21:08
Speaker 1: of three men at the direction of greg County District
21:11
Speaker 1: Attorney Ralph Prince. The investigation of these men had been
21:16
Speaker 1: in the works almost from day one. The identity of
21:20
Speaker 1: the men was shocking. Arrested was twenty three year old
21:25
Speaker 1: Roy Randolph Irwin or Randy, the victim's half brother, twenty
21:30
Speaker 1: two year old James Bruce Fisher or Jimmy, Randy's cousin,
21:36
Speaker 1: and twenty three year old William Lamont Brown or Monty,
21:40
Speaker 1: also Randy's cousin. All three men were charged separately for
21:45
Speaker 1: the murder with malice aforethought of Leslie Diane Coon. They
21:50
Speaker 1: were charged jointly with conspiracy to commit murder. Justice of
21:55
Speaker 1: the Peace Charles Cashell ordered the young men held without
21:59
Speaker 1: bail pending their appearance before a grand jury. They were
22:03
Speaker 1: subsequently indicted and a trial was set. According to District
22:09
Speaker 1: Attorney Ralph Prince's investigation, Leslie Coon's half brother, Randy Irwin,
22:14
Speaker 1: held a twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy on her.
22:19
Speaker 1: He alleged that Randy, with the help of his cousins,
22:22
Speaker 1: murdered Leslie to cash in on the policy, which for perspective,
22:26
Speaker 1: would be worth nearly one hundred and eighty four thousand
22:29
Speaker 1: dollars in twenty twenty one money. The policy on Leslie,
22:34
Speaker 1: which her grandmother Ruby Sparks, thought had lapsed, named Ruby
22:38
Speaker 1: Sparks as the beneficiary. The defendants vehemently denied the charges
22:44
Speaker 1: against them and requested that Sheriff's Deputy Bill Brown call
22:48
Speaker 1: a barber to the jail to collect hair samples from
22:51
Speaker 1: them in order to compare against evidence collected at the scene.
22:56
Speaker 1: The samples were taken and Deputy Brown handed them over
22:59
Speaker 1: to the District Attorney's office. Less than two weeks after
23:03
Speaker 1: the arrests, on Sunday, April sixth, nineteen sixty nine, at
23:07
Speaker 1: about two thirty pm, James Jimmy Bruce Fisher was released
23:12
Speaker 1: from the greg County Jail on a fifty thousand dollars bond.
23:16
Speaker 1: An additional one thousand dollars bond was set against Randy
23:19
Speaker 1: Erwin because he was carrying a pistol when he was arrested,
23:24
Speaker 1: but he was released days after Fisher when he put
23:27
Speaker 1: up bonds totaling fifty five thousand dollars. The third man
23:32
Speaker 1: indicted for Leslie's murder, William Lamont Monty Brown, was also
23:36
Speaker 1: released on bonds that totaled thirty five thousand dollars. Several
23:42
Speaker 1: months later, in September of nineteen sixty nine, the men
23:45
Speaker 1: were to be tried all at once after a motion
23:48
Speaker 1: to do so was filed by District Attorney Prince and
23:52
Speaker 1: accepted by a Greg County judge at pre trial Irwin
23:57
Speaker 1: Fisher and Brown didn't have just any old defense attorney luckily.
24:02
Speaker 1: The reason I say luckily should become perfectly clear as
24:06
Speaker 1: the details of the trial progress from here. Grady Ewless
24:11
Speaker 1: Endsur was a World War Two veteran war hero and
24:15
Speaker 1: three and a half year MIIAPOW that's Missing in Action
24:20
Speaker 1: prisoner of War. He was a Master sergeant and upon
24:24
Speaker 1: his honorable discharge from the Air Force, he enrolled at
24:28
Speaker 1: Baylor University in Waco, Texas. After graduating and setting up
24:33
Speaker 1: his practice in Longview, he became well known for his
24:36
Speaker 1: winning record, and over the course of his long career
24:39
Speaker 1: as a criminal defender, Insur even went on to win
24:43
Speaker 1: appeals in both the Texas Supreme Court and the United
24:46
Speaker 1: States Supreme Court. In nineteen sixty nine, he'd been practicing
24:52
Speaker 1: in Longview for sixteen years and he was one of
24:55
Speaker 1: the best in the area. Needless to say, he had
24:58
Speaker 1: plenty of motion to present to a judge at pre
25:01
Speaker 1: trial for the three men accused of killing seventeen year
25:05
Speaker 1: old Leslie Diane Kohn. His clients. First of all, Endser
25:10
Speaker 1: called for a special pool of prospective jurors for the trial.
25:15
Speaker 1: He also filed a motion for the dismissal of the
25:17
Speaker 1: charge murder with malice, a forethought for each of his
25:20
Speaker 1: clients that was obviously struck down. Grady ensur filed a
25:26
Speaker 1: motion for first discovery, which would require the state to
25:30
Speaker 1: produce to him all evidence and photographs to be used
25:34
Speaker 1: for the prosecution's case against his clients, along with a
25:37
Speaker 1: witness list for inspection, analysis, and use. Defense attorney Endser
25:43
Speaker 1: II petitioned the court for the right to examine each
25:47
Speaker 1: juror individually and in private, and asked the judge not
25:51
Speaker 1: to allow disqualification on the basis of a juror's belief
25:55
Speaker 1: or lack thereof in the death penalty, the penalty in
25:59
Speaker 1: which they District attorney was seeking. Regardless of these motions,
26:04
Speaker 1: it became perfectly clear in the eight day trial of
26:07
Speaker 1: Randy Irwin, Jimmy Fisher, and Monty Brown that the state
26:11
Speaker 1: had next to nothing. The District Attorney's evidence against the
26:17
Speaker 1: accused killers of Leslie Kohn at trial is as follows,
26:23
Speaker 1: twenty two murder scene photographs, an autopsy and state pathologists report,
26:29
Speaker 1: an open beer can, a small pistol, and a copy
26:33
Speaker 1: of a twenty five thousand dollars check the payout from
26:36
Speaker 1: Leslie's life insurance policy. The assistant District Attorney, Nathan Holt
26:42
Speaker 1: brought up that the small secondary house on the Sparks
26:45
Speaker 1: property was unlit when Roy Sparks knocked and called for
26:49
Speaker 1: his granddaughter. He said, quote, this indicates to me that
26:53
Speaker 1: Leslie was killed almost immediately after she stepped into the
26:57
Speaker 1: house shortly after four to twenty pm, by someone who
27:01
Speaker 1: was waiting for her, and that her assailant was someone
27:04
Speaker 1: she knew. End quote. The Assistant DA backed that up
27:09
Speaker 1: by citing the fact that the sparks three dogs, who
27:13
Speaker 1: usually guarded the property well by barking at any strangers
27:16
Speaker 1: that came around, didn't make so much as a whimper
27:19
Speaker 1: that day. This argument was geared mostly toward Leslie's half
27:24
Speaker 1: brother and defendant charged with her murder, Randy Irwin. Randy
27:30
Speaker 1: was a pretty well known figure in those parts. He
27:33
Speaker 1: was named Boy of the Month by Longview's Optimist Club
27:36
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four when he was a high school senior.
27:41
Speaker 1: At his school, Judson High, Randy was the football team captain,
27:45
Speaker 1: student council representative and president, and a three year Letterman.
27:51
Speaker 1: Also as a senior defendant, Randy Irwin took one of
27:55
Speaker 1: the top places in an Interschoolastic League literary competition. He
28:00
Speaker 1: served honorably in the military, after which he obtained his
28:04
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree in nineteen sixty eight. Early in life, as
28:09
Speaker 1: early as high school, Randy was interested in insurance sales.
28:14
Speaker 1: Insurance was the basis of the state's case against him.
28:19
Speaker 1: At trial, two Longview National Bank tellers testified that twenty
28:23
Speaker 1: two year old Randy Irwin received twenty four thousand dollars
28:27
Speaker 1: of Leslie's life insurance policy, while one thousand dollars was
28:31
Speaker 1: deposited in the account of his and Leslie's grandmother, Ruby Sparks.
28:37
Speaker 1: Assistant Da Holt said that according to the testimony of
28:41
Speaker 1: Bill Allen of the Denton National Bank, Randy deposited twenty
28:45
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars into his account. There ninety five hundred
28:50
Speaker 1: of that went to Monty Brown, Randy's cousin and co defendant.
28:54
Speaker 1: Holt said that left five hundred dollars unaccounted for and
28:59
Speaker 1: it's uncle. How and if that discrepancy was ever resolved anyway.
29:05
Speaker 1: Assistant Die Holt's last point, as far as the insurance goes.
29:10
Speaker 1: The one that tied everything together was that the premium
29:13
Speaker 1: on Leslie Kuhon's policy was due only two days after
29:17
Speaker 1: her murder, on January twenty sixth, nineteen sixty nine. That's
29:22
Speaker 1: according to the District Attorney. Texas Department of Public Safety
29:28
Speaker 1: ballistics expert Roger Sedberry identified the deformed piece of metal
29:33
Speaker 1: presented to him in court as the remains of a
29:36
Speaker 1: twenty two caliber bullet fired from a rifle. Though he
29:40
Speaker 1: admitted upon cross examination that the bullet could have been
29:44
Speaker 1: fired from a variety of guns, including any given variety
29:48
Speaker 1: of twenty two caliber handguns. The state needed that bullet
29:53
Speaker 1: to have been fired from a rifle since Randy's roommate
29:57
Speaker 1: Gus Bryden had testified that Randy sh owned a twenty
30:01
Speaker 1: two caliber rifle. The deformed bullet, of course, was the
30:05
Speaker 1: one removed from the left temple of Leslie Coon's head.
30:11
Speaker 1: District Attorney's Office investigator Gordon Anderson testified that he was
30:15
Speaker 1: unable to untie the electric cord from Leslie Coon's neck
30:20
Speaker 1: the murder weapon. It was tied in a square knot.
30:25
Speaker 1: He went on to tell the court that he pulled
30:26
Speaker 1: out a pocket knife and cut it off of her
30:29
Speaker 1: at the scene, a detail that would surely cause a
30:32
Speaker 1: modern investigator to gasp in horror. A T shirt found
30:37
Speaker 1: in the woods by the oil lease near the murder
30:40
Speaker 1: scene was used against Randy Irwin. Although Leslie's fourteen year
30:44
Speaker 1: old half brother Lynn claimed the shirt belonged to him,
30:48
Speaker 1: Assistant d A. Holt said that a hare found on
30:51
Speaker 1: it matched Randy's, even after testimony from a state chemist
30:56
Speaker 1: who said the hare could have come from a number
30:59
Speaker 1: of common sold horses, presumably meaning it might not have
31:02
Speaker 1: even been human. Then there was the matter of perhaps
31:06
Speaker 1: the state's star witness. According to Gus Bryden, who was
31:12
Speaker 1: defendant Randy Irwin's roommate at North Texas State University in Denton,
31:18
Speaker 1: he wasn't around the apartment they shared the day of
31:21
Speaker 1: the murder. Brydon's fiance, Pamela's Smothers also testified to that,
31:28
Speaker 1: but that's not it. Brydon also testified that he accompanied
31:33
Speaker 1: Randy and one of the other defendants, Monty Brown, to
31:36
Speaker 1: Longview on January nineteenth, to pick up Jimmy Fisher's car.
31:40
Speaker 1: The third defendant, five days before someone raped and murdered Leslie.
31:45
Speaker 1: Gus Bryden said that the car's license plate number was
31:49
Speaker 1: taped over, and that the car had in its wire
31:52
Speaker 1: and a woman's hosiery box. Randy, according to Bridon, said
31:56
Speaker 1: to him, quote, a person could kill someone by shooting, raping, strangling,
32:01
Speaker 1: and making it look like a maniac. Did it end? Quote?
32:06
Speaker 1: It was an odd testimony all around, almost Dare I
32:10
Speaker 1: say hard to believe? Now? For Grady Endsire's defense, the
32:16
Speaker 1: defendant's attorney made short work of the state's case. The
32:21
Speaker 1: T shirt the state said belonged to Randy was obviously
32:24
Speaker 1: too small for him, as the jury saw when Insurre
32:28
Speaker 1: held it up to his client. The defense attorney produced
32:32
Speaker 1: several witnesses who all testified that Randy Irwin, Jimmy Fisher,
32:37
Speaker 1: and Monty Brown were all in the Dallas and Denton
32:40
Speaker 1: areas the evening Leslie coon was slain. The witnesses included
32:45
Speaker 1: a service station employee who acknowledged that he'd been the
32:48
Speaker 1: one that made out a credit card ticket after the
32:51
Speaker 1: men purchased gas at the station he worked. The purchase
32:55
Speaker 1: was made just after dark. Sunset on January twenty five, fourth,
33:00
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, was five point forty five pm, within
33:04
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of Leslie's murder, and the Dallas Denton areas
33:08
Speaker 1: were both well over two hours away. The state's case
33:12
Speaker 1: took a hit with that testimony, but it was about
33:15
Speaker 1: to be shattered. Grady called to the stand Leslie's grandfather,
33:21
Speaker 1: Roy Sparks, who was also his client Randy Irwin's grandfather.
33:26
Speaker 1: Roy said that his grandson did indeed take twenty four
33:29
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of the twenty five thousand dollars life insurance
33:32
Speaker 1: policy on Leslie, but it was at his and his wife,
33:36
Speaker 1: Ruby's instruction to do so. Ruby Sparks was the beneficiary.
33:42
Speaker 1: The state didn't subpoena Ruby, Endzer said, because they knew
33:46
Speaker 1: not only did she instruct Randy to cash the check,
33:50
Speaker 1: but she also called the bank and let them know
33:52
Speaker 1: he was coming to do it. But it was witness
33:56
Speaker 1: Shelton Glascock who really shredded the state's theory about the
34:00
Speaker 1: insurance see The state claimed that the monthly premium on
34:04
Speaker 1: the policy was due on the twenty sixth of January,
34:08
Speaker 1: two days after Leslie's slang. That would be the logical
34:12
Speaker 1: thing to assume if the premium were to be paid
34:15
Speaker 1: on a monthly basis, it'd be exactly a month after
34:19
Speaker 1: the policy was issued, which was on December twenty sixth,
34:22
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. The problem is comptroller for the insurance
34:27
Speaker 1: company that issued the policy, Shelton Glascock, told the court
34:32
Speaker 1: a year's premium on the policy had been paid in
34:34
Speaker 1: advance when it was purchased. Randy Irwin, Leslie's half brother,
34:41
Speaker 1: was the only defendant to take the stand in his
34:43
Speaker 1: own defense. Before he further tore down the state's so
34:48
Speaker 1: called evidence about the murder for insurance scheme, Randy addressed
34:52
Speaker 1: some of the other testimony against him. He told the
34:56
Speaker 1: court that his roommate Gus Brydon's testimony was a complete fabrication.
35:01
Speaker 1: There was never a taped over license plate, Randy said,
35:04
Speaker 1: and there was never any wire or a woman's hosiery
35:08
Speaker 1: box in his cousin Jimmy Fisher's car. Randy denied ever
35:12
Speaker 1: discussing with his roommate how to commit the perfect murder.
35:17
Speaker 1: Jimmy's vehicle was left in longview because several days before
35:21
Speaker 1: Leslie was slain on January sixteenth, he'd been driving the
35:25
Speaker 1: car around, hitting night spots there and ditched it because
35:29
Speaker 1: there was a mysterious car following him. He called his
35:33
Speaker 1: other cousin, Monty in Denton to come pick him up
35:36
Speaker 1: and waited in the darkness by a tree for a
35:38
Speaker 1: couple hours until he got there. Days later, on the nineteenth,
35:43
Speaker 1: they returned to get Jimmy's vehicle, but that was well
35:47
Speaker 1: before the day of the murder. Randy had his own
35:51
Speaker 1: account of that day Friday, January twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine,
35:56
Speaker 1: and that account was backed up by at least one witness.
36:00
Speaker 1: That Friday, he overslept, missing and examed. He'd stayed up
36:04
Speaker 1: the night before cramming for He got dressed, went to
36:09
Speaker 1: his office at the insurance company he worked for, ate
36:12
Speaker 1: lunch at a local Denton joint called Barlow's Cafe, and
36:16
Speaker 1: went back to his apartment to study for a speech
36:18
Speaker 1: he had to do for class. That evening, he traveled
36:22
Speaker 1: to Dallas and met Monty at a bar called the
36:25
Speaker 1: Golden Bowl. Witness Shirley Morgan backed that up. She remembered
36:30
Speaker 1: it well because she accidentally spilled beer on Randy. Randy
36:36
Speaker 1: Irwin was in insurance. It's what he did. He sold it.
36:41
Speaker 1: It wasn't unusual at all that he'd taken out a
36:44
Speaker 1: policy on his half sister. Likely and this is sheer
36:48
Speaker 1: speculation on my part. Randy purchasing the policy helped his
36:52
Speaker 1: own production record, which according to his company, was outstanding.
36:58
Speaker 1: Randy really didn't need more. Randy was even going to
37:02
Speaker 1: put Leslie through Stewardess School. The defense confident for a
37:07
Speaker 1: good reason rested. On September twenty ninth, nineteen sixty nine,
37:14
Speaker 1: the seventh day of trial, Judge David Moore dismissed all
37:18
Speaker 1: charges against James Bruce Fisher Jimmy. The state had provided
37:23
Speaker 1: no evidence at all of Jimmy's involvement none. Grady Endzer
37:28
Speaker 1: asked the judge to dismiss the charges against his other
37:31
Speaker 1: two clients, but that was denied. Both sides presented closing
37:37
Speaker 1: arguments the next day, and after two and a half
37:39
Speaker 1: hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict of
37:43
Speaker 1: not guilty on all counts against Randy Irwin and Monty Brown.
37:50
Speaker 1: This episode's end is abrupt, and though no stories of
37:54
Speaker 1: unsolved cases can end with any modicum of satisfaction, this
37:58
Speaker 1: is one of those that lacks it completely. You see,
38:02
Speaker 1: after the trial of Randy, Monty and Jimmy. Nothing else
38:06
Speaker 1: at all was printed in the Longview News Journal about
38:09
Speaker 1: the slang of Leslie Diane Coon. Everything just stopped. It
38:15
Speaker 1: wasn't until two thousand and five that the crime was
38:18
Speaker 1: brought up again in the paper. When a reader wrote
38:21
Speaker 1: in to ask if the case had ever been solved.
38:25
Speaker 1: The editor answered to sum it up, no, it is not.
38:30
Speaker 1: On the fifty first Dark anniversary of the Unsolved, Long
38:34
Speaker 1: Cold and Forgotten Case January twenty fourth, twenty twenty, the
38:39
Speaker 1: story of the brutal murder of Leslie got a spot
38:42
Speaker 1: in the Today and Longview History section of the Longview
38:46
Speaker 1: News Journal. Briefly, we will get our killer no matter
38:50
Speaker 1: how long it takes, or Sheriff Noble Crawford's words in
38:54
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, but the case remains unresolved. If you
39:02
Speaker 1: have any information about the nineteen sixty nine murder of
39:05
Speaker 1: Leslie Diane Koon, please contact greg County Crime Stoppers at
39:10
Speaker 1: nine zero three two three six stop. That's nine zero
39:15
Speaker 1: three two three six seven eight sixty seven. You can
39:22
Speaker 1: support Gone Cold at patreon dot com forward slash Gone
39:25
Speaker 1: Cold podcast Donors at all levels there get the show
39:29
Speaker 1: ad free and for just two and a half bucks
39:31
Speaker 1: a month, you'll have access to episodes featuring stories of
39:35
Speaker 1: mostly solved Texas crimes and the bad guys who perpetrated them,
39:40
Speaker 1: such as the Slayer Saint, the Devil of West Texas,
39:43
Speaker 1: the Butcher Painter, and our latest to there, the Tourniquet
39:47
Speaker 1: Killer Part one, among others. Part two of that will
39:50
Speaker 1: be up as soon as humanly possible. Thanks for your patients,
39:55
Speaker 1: and thanks so much to everyone who supports us there.
39:58
Speaker 1: We could not do this without you, and we appreciate
40:01
Speaker 1: it beyond words. The Texas State Historical Society, American Roads
40:07
Speaker 1: dot US, the Longview News Journal, the Shreveport Journal, the
40:12
Speaker 1: Tyler Morning Telegraph, and the Kilgore News Herald were used
40:16
Speaker 1: as sources for this episode. Thanks for listening, y'all,