Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Sarah Kashka: The Dallas/Fort Worth ‘80s Murders Part 1

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Sarah Kashka: The Dallas/Fort Worth ‘80s Murders Part 1 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
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• 1:06
  Speaker 1: As the year nineteen eighty four reached its end, the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth Police had four relatively high profile missing persons
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: cases on their hands, and none of the investigations were
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: going anywhere. In the early morning hours of Sunday, September thirtieth,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: twenty three year old Catherine Davis was last seen leaving
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: her above garage apartment at thirty four oh four Park
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Ridge Boulevard, near the campus of Texas Christian University. Katherine
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and her car subsequently disappeared without so much as a
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: trace left behind. A week later, the vehicle was found
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  Speaker 1: about a mile west of her apartment outside the Westcliff
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Manor apartments, but there was still no sign of Catherine.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Less than a month later, late on the night of Monday,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: October twenty second, nineteen eighty four, Cindy Heller, also twenty
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: three years old, vanished after attempting to help a stranded
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: motorist on Fort Worth's southwest side. The following day, her
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: vehicle was discovered at the Hunter's Ridge apartment complex, though
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: like the case of Catherine Davis, there were no clues
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that pointed to her whereabouts. About a month and a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: half later, on Tuesday, December eleventh, twenty one year old
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  Speaker 1: Angela Ewart's father reported her missing. She was last seen
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  Speaker 1: the night before at the home of her fiance on
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the sixty two hundred block of Whitman Avenue in the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Wedgewood neighborhood of Fort Worth. Later on the morning she
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: was reported missing, Angela's car was found abandoned on southeast
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  Speaker 1: Interstate Loop eight twenty, about seven and a half miles
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  Speaker 1: from her fiance's house. While police and Fort Worth struggled
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to make sense of these three women's disappearances, law enforcement
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and other jarjurisdictions were taking note. The cases were highly publicised,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and with that came dire warnings from police all over
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Terrant County. Being twenty something female and a good samaritan
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: for starters became something the cops adamantly opposed, and fort
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Worth and the surrounding cities began ordering their patrol officers
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: stop at the scenes of stranded motorists. They weren't triple
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a Arlington spokesperson Jim Willett suggested, but they could stick
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: around while help arrived. As the continued lack of progress
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and the disappearances compounded the fear Fort Worth residents felt,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: especially the city's young women, It also brought forth intense criticism.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: The public wanted these young ladies found, and they wanted
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: it now. But before the Fort Worth police could, a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: fourth missing person was added to their list. Fifteen year
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: old Sarah Koshka. Sarah Ann Elizabeth Koshka was born on
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: November seventh, nineteen sixty nine, in Kansas City, Kansas, to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: parents Mazie and Leroy Koshka. In June of nineteen eighty three,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Sarah and her mother moved to Texas from Prairie Village, Kansas,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: first to a duplex in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Fort Worth,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and then to Denton. Mazie picked up a job at
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Texas Women's University while she worked toward her doctorate in nursing. There.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: As she had in Sarah made friends quickly and easily
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: at Strickland Junior High School in Denton, and in fact
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: gained almost instant popularity among the students. The teenager has
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: been described by friends as intelligent, friendly, outgoing, and mature
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: beyond her years. It didn't hurt that Sarah lived on
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Bell Avenue, about a block away from Strickland Junior High,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: making her house a popular after school hangout for her friends.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: On Saturday, December twenty ninth, nineteen eighty four, Sarah traveled
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  Speaker 1: from Denton to Fort Worth to spend the weekend at
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: her best friend's house. The evening of the following day, Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: December thirtieth, the two made plans to hit a party
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: with a couple boys they were into. For some reason,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: plans to go to the party were nixed. It's been
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: reported both that they went to the address it was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to take place, but it was no longer happening, and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that the four teenagers simply decided not to go. Whatever
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the case, Sarah and her best friend parted ways, each
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: going with their respective dates, but made plans to meet
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: up again later on. At around eleven that night, according
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to her date, he decided he needed to go home.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Because she knew her friend wouldn't be back for several
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: more hours, Sarah decided she'd visit some friends who live
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in an apartment complex not far away. Her date dropped
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  Speaker 1: her off at Wedgewood Terrace apartments and drove off before
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: she reached the door. This put Sarah in a bind
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: when it turned out her friends were not home. Still,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: as far as she was concerned, likely it wasn't that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: big of a deal. When they'd first moved to Texas,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Sarah and her mom had lived just a few blocks
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: down the road, and she knew the area. The familiarity
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: probably held back the panic she might have felt if
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: she were somewhere foreign to her. She just had to
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: kill some time, Sarah likely thought. Later witnesses would report
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: that Sarah headed in the direction of a dairy Queen,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: which could be seen from the apartment complex beside Mamma's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Pizza and across the street from the Wedgewood Bowling Alley.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Those witnesses were the last people to see fifteen year
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: old Sarah Kashka alive. When Sarah didn't return to the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: house by the following day, Monday, December thirty first, nineteen
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: eighty four, Sarah's friend called her mother, Maisie Kashka and Denton,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: who called the Fort Worth Police Department. Likely because they
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: already had three women missing from the area, law enforcement
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: began speaking with Sarah's friends right away. Lieutenant Vernon Ferris
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: told a reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: they were treating the case as a legitimate disappearance, but
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: offered that it was too early to theorize whether foul
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: play was involved. They knew Sarah had no history of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: running away from home, and what the cops weren't letting
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: anyone onto was that they feared. The four disappearances were connected,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: at least in the beginning. Like missing twenty three year
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: old Cindy Heller, Sarah was small, at five feet four
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: inches tall and barely one hundred pounds. Cindy had brown hair,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: as did Catherine Davis, another missing twenty three year old,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: though Catherine stood tall and thin at five feet ten
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: inches and weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds. Missing
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: twenty one year old Angela Ewart was also tall at
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: five feet nine inches. Her hair, like Sarah Kashka's, was
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: blonde and wavy. The similarities between the women and teenage
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: were mixed and not necessarily striking. Their last known sightings,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: three of which involved their vehicles, didn't seem to provide
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: any evidence of a connection other than the fact the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: cars were all found abandoned later, but one particular detail
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: seemed potentially relevant. Just before Angela Ewert vanished three weeks before,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: she bought gas at a seven to eleven convenience store
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: just a block away from where Sarah Kashka was last seen.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: As was the case with other disappearances, the Fort Worth
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Police neglected to utilize the media immediately. Sarah's description wasn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: released in the newspapers and on television until more than
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: forty eight hours had passed before it even ran. A
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: shocking discovery was made twenty four miles east of where
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Sarah Kashka was last seen. As I'm sure you've noticed,
• 10:07
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• 10:11
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  Speaker 1: gone Cold at manscaped dot com. On the afternoon of Tuesday,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: January first, nineteen eighty four, children shooting targets with appellet
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: gun and far southwest Dallas discovered a body floating face
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: down in the water in a small stream that feeds
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: into Mountain Creek, which itself feeds into Mountain Creek Lake.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The body, a female, as nimated by officers at the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: scene to be in her late twenties, was fully clothed.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The area near the small stream, just off FM thirteen
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: eighty two and East Camp Wisdom Road, was marshy fields
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of high brush that was sporadically wooded in between, especially
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: near the water, and sparsely populated. Whoever dumped the body there,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it seemed must have been familiar with the area. The
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Dallas Police tried matching up one of their missing persons
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to the body, but couldn't. When detectives in Fort Worth
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: got word, they quickly sent over their missing person's dental
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: records to Dallas County medical investigator Richard George. One was
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a match Sarah Kashka. The fifteen year old had been
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: stabbed repeatedly in her chest and neck. For detectives further
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: along in their careers, the discovery of Sarah's body brought
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: back memories they'd just as well assumed keep buried in
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the far recesses of their minds seven and a half
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: years before. On June eleventh, nineteen seventy seven, and just
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a couple miles north, two fishermen discovered the skeletonized remains
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of seven year old Ladina and McCoy in the bed
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of a dry runoff creek. The girl had been missing
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: since February eleventh, four months to the day before her
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: body's discovery. She was abducted while walking to school, excited
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to hand out Valentine's Day cards to all her classmates.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Ladina had been dumped in water, either after death or before.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Investigators couldn't be certain, but first she'd been shot in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the chest. Eight days after Ladina's remains were discovered, on
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: June nineteenth, nineteen seventy seven, a man walked into the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Dallas Policeolice Department with a rusted up pistol he'd found
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: a short distance north of where the body of Ladina
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: McCoy was discovered. The firearm was in a markedly unique holster.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: The leather holster was stamped OH Ball, the signature that
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth homicide detective Oliver Ball stamped on all the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: hundreds of holsters he hand crafted, usually to give police
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: academy graduates, but he also sometimes sold them to officers
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and detectives who didn't graduate at Fort Worth and came
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: on to the department later. Ladina's body could have washed
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: down from where the pistol was found. Ball was retired
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: at the time of the discovery, but worked with police
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to try to identify who the holster was made for,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but the ex homicide detective had made so many at
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that point he told the Fort Worth Star Telegram he'd
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: be able to Whether he ever did or not was
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: never reported on, and it's unknown if any then, current
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: or former Fort Worth police officer ever came forward to
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: claim it. If the one of a kind Holster is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: in any way connected to Ladina McCoy's slang, it's still unknown,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: as the case remains unsolved to this day. Presumably the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Dallas police detectives who remembered working Ladina's murder couldn't help
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: but wonder if there was a connection between her and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Sara Kashka's cases. Detectives in fort Worth, however, were busy
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: trying to prove or eliminate a connection between the teenager's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: case and the three still missing women in their city.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: It was vital, of course, for authorities to comb the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: proximity around where a body is found to find evidence.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Because the fort Worth police had no solid leads in
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the cases of Angela Ewart, Cindy Heller, and Catherine Davis,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: they also believed searching the area might turn up more bodies.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Police weren't convinced the cases were related. They had no
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: evidence of a connection, but they also had nothing to
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: lose and were desperate for leads. Both Dallas and fort
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Worth police helicopters could be seen hovering around the scene
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: while officers from both departments performed ground searches. Technically, since
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Sarah was found in their jurisdiction, the case now belonged
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to Dallas. It was theorized the victim was taken across
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: county lines to purposefully confuse the investigation by pitting two
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: rival police agencies against one another. Even if that wasn't
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the case, the split jurisdiction certainly threw in a wrench. Still,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the departments vowed to work together for whatever reason. The
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: press continually spoke of Catherine Davis, Cindy Heller, and Angela
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Ewerts cars being found within two miles of one another,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but that simply was not true. While two of the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: women's cars being found outside apartment complexes was an interesting
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: clue worth keeping in mind. Those two vehicles, Catherine and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Cindy's were found four miles apart, while Angela's was found
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: more than seven miles from both. And now their missing
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: teenager was found dead twenty four miles from where she
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: was last seen. Fort Worth Police Lieutenant Tommy Swan tried
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to play down the connection angle, but the media had
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: already made up their mind after their searches of the brushy,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: swampy fields and thick woods surrounding where the body of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Sara Kashka was found fort Worth Police Captain of Detectives
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Ben Dumas announced they'd found evidence that she was killed
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: at that spot near the creek in which she was
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: found floating. Searches had located Sarah's black spike heeled boots,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: apparently the only thing missing from her body, as she
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was described as fully clothed. Other evidence, police said suggested
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Sarah and whoever killed her were at the spot for
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: a significant amount of time. A small pullover on the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: shoulder near the intersection of FM thirteen eighty two and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Camp Wisdom Road was likely where the killer parked their vehicle.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Both roads were well traveled, and Captain Dumas said he
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: hoped to find someone who saw one there that night,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Although he declined to elaborate further as to not hinder
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the investigation. The Luman called the evidence gathered at the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: scene substantial. There was a considerable difference in the murder
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of fifteen year old Sarah when compared to the three
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: missing women, he added, but it was one they weren't
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: ready to talk about publicly. This one, Dumas said, was Separate.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Funeral services for Sarah and Elizabeth Koshka were held both
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in Denton on January fourth, nineteen eighty five, and where
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: she'd grown up Prairie Village, Kansas. The following day, she
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: was buried at Pilgrim Home Cemetery in Hope, Kansas. On
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that same day, January fifth, two other major events unfolded. First,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the Fort Worth Police established a task force to investigate
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Sarah's brutal murder, the disappearances of the three missing young women,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and the murders of several other women that were also
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: unsolved at the time. More than twenty detectives from various
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: police agencies in the region were expected to join, with
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth Police Captain C. E. Hoague heading it up.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: The second event lessened the number of missing women. The
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: body of missing twenty five three year old Cindy Heller
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was found in a creek on the campus of Texas
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Christian University. The remains were badly decomposed, though the cold
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: weather and water had slowed the process considerably. The discovery,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: though expected at some point, was a shock. News about
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the Sara Kashka case continued to run in the local, state,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and even national newspapers, though there was nothing new to report,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: nothing more than a repeated brief synopsis, that is, until
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the arrest of a local man for the rapes of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: several area women. Several investigative avenues police pursued in Sara
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Kashka's murder apparently went nowhere. A car was reported stolen
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: about a block from where she was last seen, and
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it would have been stolen around that same time. It
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: was a long shot, but detectives checked it out, presumably
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: with no luck tying it to the slang. When interviewed
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: by a local reporter, a Wedgewood neighborhood liquor store owner
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: shared his doubts that four different perpetrators were responsible for
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Sarah and Cindy Heller's deaths and the disappearances of Catherine
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Davis and Angela Ewart. More than one madman on the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: loose was, perhaps to frightening a concept to grasp. On Wednesday,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: January tenth, nineteen eighty five, another heinous crime was added
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: to the task force's list when the body of twenty
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: year old Lisa Griffin was found near railroad tracks that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: ran alongside Alito Road in far southwest Fort Worth. Lisa
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was shot once in the head with the In a
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: couple days, police charged a twenty five year old man
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: named Timothy Paul Volkmar for the crime. Volkmar, who was
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a nineteen eighty aggravated assault
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: with a deadly weapon conviction, was arrested when police heard
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: he was dating a woman named Lisa. The conviction he
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: had was for an assault against his father. Coworkers and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: acquaintances had also vouched for his whereabouts the entire day
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Lisa Griffin was killed, and the young woman's mother said
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: she was certain her daughter didn't know Volkmar. Still, an
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: officer with the Arrant County Sheriff's Office told the press
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that a fingerprint found on the trunk of Lisa's car
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: matched his, but they didn't suspect he was responsible for
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: any of their other victims and missing persons. Fingerprint experts
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: exonerated Timothy Paul Volkmar within days, anyway, and the whole
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: debacle eventually led to a lawsuit against the department, though
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the cases would ultimately prove not to be linked with certainty.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: It turned out Lisa Griffin worked with missing twenty three
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: year old Catherine Davis at Mama's Pizza during the summer
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three. It was hardly where the connections ended.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, January twenty third, nineteen eighty five, Catherine's skeletal
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: remains were found in thick brush and far south Fort
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Worth by land surveyors. The next day, Thursday the twenty fourth,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the Fort Worth Police discovered a unit at the Wedgewood
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Terrace apartments in which the walls had been vandalized using
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: spray paint. Some of the graffiti was described as cryptic
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: drawings and rhymes, but two things were of interest, if
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: only passing interest. One was that the apartment complex was
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the last place Sarah Kashka was seen alive, and the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: other was the fact that Sarah's name was among three
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: others painted on the wall. Lieutenant Tommy Swan brushed off
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the discovery's significance, calling it just a bunch of graffiti
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and that investigators truthfully did not see any connection with
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: her murder. That same day, the Fort Worth Police took
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: forty four year old freelance photographer Remsen Newbold Wolf into
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: custody in an out of the ordinary circumstance. Judge Dan
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Hollifield arraigned Wolf at his apartment as police executed a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: search warrant and interviewed the man. The Village Apartments in
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: southwest fort Worth where Wolf lived was the same complex
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: where eighteen year old Ginger Hayden was found slain stabbed
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: more than fifty times in her apartment on September fifth,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Though police would go on to label
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Ginger's murder as the first in this series of crimes,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the truth was the horror had started long before. Wolf
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was already under investigation for indecency with a child, so
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: when a rape survivor picked him out of a photo lineup,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the cops pounced. He was also suspected of raping six
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: other women, all of whom were photographed by their attacker,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and of the murder of Ginger Hayden, who lived just
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: several apartment units away from his. Ginger's case was solved
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: decades later, and it wasn't Wolf who killed her, but
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: her slang remained on the list that would become known
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as the eighties murders colloquially in fort Worth in the duration.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: But that's certainly not where it ends, as police had
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: other reasons to suspect the man, and at least a
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: couple of the other cases, including Sarah Kashka's Remsen Newbold
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Wolf owned a blue pickup truck. A witness came forward
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: saying they saw a blue truck near the abandoned car
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of missing twenty year old Angela Ewart, and at least
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: one witness in Sarah's case came forward saying they saw
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a blue truck near the creek in southwest Dallas where
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: her body was found. According to KDFW television reporter Ed Dalheim,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a source told him that Remsen admitted to the murder
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: of a teenager named Tara. Tara was believed to be
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Sarah Kashka based on Dalheim's conversation with the source, who
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: he described as someone who holds a responsible social and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: professional standing in the community. However, the case against Wolf
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: fell apart in no time. Police found no photos of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: any of the murder and rape victims among the freelance
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: photographer's large collection. Wolfe's blood type differed from the rapist.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: A few days after he was arrested, all charges against
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Remsen Newbold Wolf were dropped. The chief of police told
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: reporters he was no longer a suspect in any of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the crimes. Mid month January stumped and desperate for fresh eyes,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the fort Worth Police brought in both FBI agents and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Texas rangers to work alongside the task force they'd already established,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: manpower now numbered in the forties. New leads were being
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: created daily, not because of new evidence they'd uncovered, but
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: instead because of the seemingly unstoppable flow of violent crime
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that was occurring in the city and other cities nearby.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: On Saturday, July twentieth, nineteen eighty five, at about eleven
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: fifteen pm, twenty eight year old Rebecca K. Smidty left
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: home in Pleasant Grove, a neighborhood in East Dallas. Rebecca
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: should have only been gone a few minutes. She was
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: only heading down to a nearby convenience store for cigarettes,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a coke, and to get the car washed. But she
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: never made it home, and although her vehicle was found
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: at the car wash, subsequent searches failed to locate her.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Almost four days later, at eleven am on Wednesday the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth, a fisherman discovered Rebecca Smitty hidden in the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: tall grass in a swamp at the southeastern edge of
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Mountain Creek Lake in far southwest Dallas. It was just
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a couple miles up the road from where the body
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: of teenager Sarah Kashka was found. Like Sarah, Rebecca was
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: found around twenty five miles from where she was last seen,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: only to the west instead of east. Rebecca had been
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: shot in her head. In January of nineteen eighty six,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: thirty three year old Ronald Glenn Corley was arrested after
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: stalking a woman from a fort Worth nightclub, accosting her
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and beating her. The attack, which was no doubt an
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: attempted rape, was thwarted when the brave twenty six year
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: old woman kicked Corley in the groin and fled. Later,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it was discovered that the woman had been friends with
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: murder victim Ginger Hayden. Because the attack occurred in the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: parking lot of an apartment complex that was less than
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a half a mile from the apartment complex Sarah Kashka
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: was last seen, detectives grilled the man about her and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: other victims' cases. Turns out, however, Corley was just released
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: from prison in May of nineteen eighty five, making it
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: impossible for him to have committed the crimes for which
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: they suspected him. Throughout the initial coverage of Sarahra's case,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it was repeatedly reported that police were awaiting test results
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to determine if she'd been sexually assaulted. In two thousand
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and five, the fort Worth Star Telegram reported she had
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: been raped. Several known serial killers have been looked at
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: for the murder of fifteen year old Sarah Kashka, including
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Ricky Lee Greene, Curtis Don Brown, and Ferrian Edward Wardrobe,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: all of whom will be discussed in the next few
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: episodes of Gone Cold, Texas true crime, as will several
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: victims the press and the police seemingly left behind. If
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you have any information about the murder of Sarah Ann
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Koshka, please contact the Dallas Police Cold Case Squad
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at two one four six seven one three six six
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: ' one or the fort Worth Police Cold Case Unit
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: at eight one seven three nine two four three zero seven.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gone Cold's mission to renew
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the public's interest in unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: other perplexing mysteries, you can support the show and listen
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: at free at patreon dot com forward Slash Gone Cold Podcast.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: You'll also find episodes exclusive to Patreon there with more
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to come in the near future. Words cannot express how
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: much we appreciate our patrons. Thank you so much for
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: your support. You can also support Gone Cold by leaving
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a five star rating and written review on iTunes and
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, which will help the show reach more ears,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: bettering the chance someone with information about a case will
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: hear it and come forward. A rating and written review
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen is much appreciated. Thanks for listening, y'all.