Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Lecia McGee Part One: Cold & Deadly Night

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Lecia McGee Part One: Cold & Deadly Night · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. John Godwin wrote the 1978 book Murder, USA,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The Ways We Kill Each Other, to get the weight
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of what he'd seen as a crime reporter off his chest.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Godwin had traveled the country investigating everything from the Manson
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: murders to a long-forgotten case out of Fort Worth, Texas,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the murders of Daniel Ramirez, his brother Sammy, and son
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Daniel Jr. for selling bad dope to some bikers. Godwin
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: described Murder, USA as a gloomy and bloody picture of
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  Speaker 1: how little value is placed on human life in America.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: The United States was facing a murder epidemic, the age
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of mass murder, Godwin said. And in a way, he
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was right. In the last half of the 1970s, Fort
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Worth was in transition, though it looked almost completely abandoned
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: after business hours, like an area declared a forbidden zone
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: following an apocalyptic event. Downtown was still the bones of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the old city with its banks, office buildings, department stores,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and aging hotels, but much of its former energy had
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: moved elsewhere. Suburban growth had pulled shoppers, families, and even
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: nightlife away from the center, and by evening, parts of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: downtown became unnervingly quiet. The crowds thinned, storefronts went dark,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Traffic disappeared from the streets that had been busy only
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: hours before. What remained was a patchwork of vacant businesses
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in old brick buildings, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, adult theaters,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and seedy bars. Mercury vapor streetlights glowed and buzzed, echoing
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: off boarded-off buildings and sidewalks in varying states of disrepair.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: but by 1978, parts of Old Fort Worth were being
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: demolished to make room for a newer, cleaner skyline. Steel
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: behemoths rose beside weathered stone buildings that belonged to another era,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: resulting in a stark contrast between the polished glass and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: weathered brick that refused to go unnoticed. Still, for years
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to come, Downtown remained a place where few with good intentions,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: or at least few without secrets, sought out at night.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Just north, the stockyards showed a similar sense of decline.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: The giant packing plants that had once driven the district
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and brought economic stability to the entire city were gone.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Livestock activity had slowed dramatically. Buildings there also stood neglected.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Businesses struggled. and the polished tourist destination people know today
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: hadn't yet emerged. None of this necessarily meant Fort Worth
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: was dying, however. The city was still growing, making money,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and expanding outward. Oil families, the aerospace industry, manufacturing, and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: banking were still going strong. But downtown had developed a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: different character after dark. Fort Worth was becoming modern, but
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the part of it that was still in decay, the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: quiet nighttime streets and the shadows the lights couldn't reach
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: only further allowed the rise of violent crime, and that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: crime seeped far past the boundaries of the inner city.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: In an FBI report released in September of 1978, Fort
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Worth was shown to have failed in keeping up with
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of the nation's effort to reduce the overall
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: crime rate in the first quarter of the year. However,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth's violent crime rate had decreased by 10% and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the rate of homicides by 29%, the latter a significant
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: number by any city's standards. But this report had the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: city's law enforcement patting themselves on the back a little prematurely.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Violent crime and murder were, in fact, up when 1978 ended,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and in almost every consecutive year, those numbers steadily rose
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: through the end of the decade, the entirety of the 1980s,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and into the first half of the 90s. In general,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: cities in Texas were high on the list of the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: most violent in the nation during that period. By the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: end of 78, another report released by the FBI indicated
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that the violent crime rate in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: along with Houston, jumped higher than the other cities in
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: United States' 25 most populated metropolitan areas. Among the many
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: homicides that contributed to the dire and dismal statistics that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: year was one particularly brutal and undoubtedly senseless. And to
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this day, the January 1978 slaying of 17-year-old Leisha McGee
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: remains unsolved. ¶ ¶ On October 15, 1960, Leisha Ann
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: McGee was born in Fort Worth to parents Helen Ruth
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and Cecil Clark McGee, just 13 months after Helen had
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: given birth to another baby girl, Leisha's sister Lori. Her
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: other sister, Deborah, was six years older and her brother, Michael,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: eight years older. When she was only seven, Leisha's father, Cecil,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: died as the result of a blood clot. The impact
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: on the family was devastating, and along with being brought
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: up in South Fort Worth's Greenbrier neighborhood, known for being
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: rough and tumble, Leisha was no stranger to hardship. Though
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: she was small, and though her siblings, most often her
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: sister Lori, took up for her on a regular basis,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Leisha could hold her own just fine. She was tough
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and street smart, but not jaded. Lori described her as
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a tomboy. At Southwest High School, she was on the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: field hockey and track teams, and her love for these
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: sports was the reason Leisha often spoke about becoming a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: phys-ed teacher later on in life. Out of school, she'd
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: often go bowling or drive go-karts at the local track
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: with friends, of whom she kept a tight circle. Leisha
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: got along with just about anyone and everyone, and was
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: always looking to go out and have a good time.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the kind that comes without trouble. She was well-liked for
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: her loyalty and kindness, and well-known for her keen sense
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: of humor. Leisha liked the harder genres of rock and roll,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and particularly loved listening to music as she drove around
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: alone or with friends in her pride and joy, a
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: cream-colored 1968 Chevy Impala. It was her baby, and she
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: liked to keep it looking top-notch. The Impala was ten
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: years old, sure, but the car was pristine. Leisha's mother
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Helen had purchased it for her from Leisha's oldest sister's mother-in-law,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: who is said to have only driven it to church
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: on Sundays, four blocks away from her home. In mid-1977,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: she began working at University Car Wash for extra cash,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and after she got the car a few months later,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: She could be seen washing and waxing it on a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: regular basis. It was always spotless. Whenever the high school
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: track team needed a car to haul the girls to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a meet, she volunteered to drive. By 1978, it was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: only Leisha, her mother, and her sister Lori living in
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: their South Fort Worth home on the 1200 block of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Hodgson Street. She was a junior at Southwest High. Sunday,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: January 22nd, was an unusually and bitterly cold day for
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth, Texas. The temperature never went above freezing, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the low was 16 degrees that morning. That evening, after
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: detailing her Chevy Impala, Leisha wanted to visit Kathy and Jim,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: friends and neighbors who had just moved out on their own,
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  Speaker 1: about four miles away from the McGee home. Leisha's mom, however,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: wanted her to go with her sister to the local
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: washateria to help with the family laundry. After raising a fuss,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Lori told Leisha she didn't have to come along. She'd
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: handle the laundry by herself. Leisha continued with her plans
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and arrived at Kathy and Jim's house sometime around 10.30 p.m.
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  Speaker 1: to eat pizza and watch a movie. Pizza was something
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of a luxury for Leisha. and was at the top
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of the list of the reasons she wanted to hang
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: out with her friends instead of doing chores. Sometime around
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: 1130 that night, Kathy and Jim's roommate, James, arrived home
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: from his job at a local service station. An hour
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  Speaker 1: or so later, at about 12.30 a.m., now January 23rd,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Leisha left her friend's house. But she never made it home.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: When 17-year-old Leisha McGee failed to come home from watching
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: a movie and eating pizza with friends at their house,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: her mother began to worry. Earlier that night, Leisha's sister
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Lori had ended up at a Fort Worth club with
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: a friend not far from the McGee home. They left
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the club a little before 1 a.m. and as Lori
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: began to drive her friend home at Felix Street and
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  Speaker 1: Interstate 35, The hood of the car popped open and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: flipped up, obstructing her view. She quickly pulled over, and,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: as their hearts pounded, both she and her friend laughed
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: at the experience. They closed the hood and continued on.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Not far from home, Lori decided it would be best
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to stop and borrow Leisha's car to take her friend
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the way. They pulled up to the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: house at 1 a.m., and she noticed her sister's Impala
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't there. Lori went inside where her mom was waiting
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  Speaker 1: for her. She told Lori Leisha hadn't come home and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: asked her to go out looking for her. She and
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: her friend quickly left to try and find Leisha. They
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: followed the route she would have taken to Jim and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Kathy's house, expecting to find her car broken down somewhere
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in between. The 1968 Chevy Impala, however, was nowhere to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: be found. And neither was Leisha. When they arrived at
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Kathy and Jim's, Lori was told that her sister left
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: sometime around 12.30 a.m., about 45 or so minutes before.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Leisha should have long made it home. For the next
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: few hours, Lori searched, first driving any and every route
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: between the McGee home and Leisha's friend's house that she
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: could have possibly taken. Eventually, the search became less and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: less sensical. and was instead driven by a sense of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: urgency that bordered on outright panic, since Alicia's usual haunts
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: were long closed, and Cowtown itself had been quiet for
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: several hours. Light snow was falling from a thick cloud covering,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: glowing with moonlight. And the unique silence that can only
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: be brought by a combination of dark early morning hours
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and bitter coldness exacerbated Helen and Lori's anxiety as they searched.
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  Speaker 1: At 5.50 a.m. on Monday, January 23, 1978, Leisha McGee's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: mother reported her missing to the Fort Worth Police Department.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Something was certainly wrong. Though Lori could only bring herself
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to imagine that her sister was just stranded somewhere with
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: car trouble, Helen was freaking out completely, she later said.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Leisha didn't make a habit of getting herself in trouble,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: not by any stretch of the imagination, and it was
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: completely out of character for her not to return home.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Helen's worry, her fear, transferred to Lori. If her mother
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: sensed something terrible, she thought, It must be true. The
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: search for Leisha got underway fast thanks to her older sister, Debbie.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: She and her husband were part of a CB club
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: popular in Fort Worth at the time called the Citizens
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Band Radio Club, and they utilized its vast contacts in
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the effort. A couple of Leisha's cousins, too, were in
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the club, and before long, Virtually every member had an
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: eye out for her Chevy Impala at the very least,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: with many actively searching. Among those looking for Leisha was
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: a man named Travis Langston, who was married to Fran
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Arnold Langston, mother of Rachel Arnold Trelisa, who, along with
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Julie Mosley and Renee Wilson, made up the Fort Worth
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Missing Trio. three young girls who disappeared without a trace
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a couple days before Christmas a little more than three
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: years earlier, in 1974. Coincidentally, Leisha's sister Debbie had been
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: close friends with Rachel Trelisa. As it became evening, at
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: around 5.20 p.m., Langston spotted a car that matched the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: description put out on the CB Club's airwaves. On the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: 2300 block of Southwest Loop 820's access road at Lubbock Avenue,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: less than a mile and a half from the McGee home,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he pulled over to inspect the vehicle. The 1968 Chevy
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Impala sat abandoned with a flat tire. The car was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: undoubtedly Leisha's. Even without entering the vehicle, it was obvious
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: extreme violence had taken place within There was blood on
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the car's front seats, back seats, and floorboards. A dark
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: green jacket and blue scarf, also bloodied, lay in the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: back seat. A back seat armrest was broken off the door.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Langston alerted the CB Club and the Fort Worth police.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: When officers arrived and began inspecting the scene, they found
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: blood smeared on the Chevy's bumper and trunk lid. Several
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: feet away, near a fence, they found Leisha's keys. They
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: unlocked the trunk. Curled inside, the lifeless body of Leisha
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Ann McGee laid bloodied from multiple stab wounds to her chest,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: her throat deeply slashed. The victim's brother-in-law and a Tarrant
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office deputy were already there by the time
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a Fort Worth police officer arrived. Her cousins, who had
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: heard the car was found over their CB, got to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the scene shortly after the police. But the cops weren't talking,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: but the blood on the bumper told them everything they
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: needed to know, that the results of the search for
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: their loved one had ended in tragedy. Leisha's two wallets
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: were found outside the Impala on the road's shoulder. One
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: was a recent gift. Both still contained a small amount
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of cash. Some confusion on exactly where the wallets were
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: found later surfaced, with some sources claiming they were found
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: inside a storm drain. People have suggested Travis Langston told
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: police officers they should look there, while others say he
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: found the wallets himself. But most reports indicate that police
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: found them as the result of a routine search for
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: evidence at the scene. The source of the confusion, perhaps,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: is an article put out by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: describing a substance found in a storm drain some two
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: blocks away that had been sent for testing. It was
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: thought to be blood, and it's unclear if it was
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: ever confirmed to be. Langston, anyway, had been involved in
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: searches for missing children and adults since the disappearance of
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Rachel Trelesa, Julie Mosley, and Renee Wilson. Since becoming Rachel's father-in-law,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: well after she and the others vanished, the loose connections
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: to the missing trio case have often clouded facts and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: fueled rumors in Leisha McGee's case. The autopsy performed on Tuesday,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: January 24, 1978, determined that Leisha had died one to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: two hours after eating pizza, suggesting that the attack occurred
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: immediately or not long after. leaving her friends Kathy and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Jim's home. The autopsy also revealed the extent of the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: violence that had taken place. Leisha was fully dressed when
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: she was found, wearing the clothing she'd worn the night before,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: a colorful long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. Though she had
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: not been raped, the motive of the attack could have
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: been just that. because the wounds she sustained to her
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: hands and arms suggested she'd fought hard. Tarrant County Medical
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Examiner Felix Quotes told reporters the defensive wounds showed she
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: had waged a terrific struggle. Those wounds also suggested that
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Leisha was attacked from behind. She was stabbed seven times
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in her chest, but ultimately died of acute hemorrhage shock
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: according to her death certificate, from complete transverse dissection on
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the throat due to cutting wound. When detectives first began
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: investigating the murder of 17-year-old Leisha Ann McGee, they couldn't
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: explain how or why her car ended up where it did.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: several blocks west of the route she would have taken
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to get home from her friend's house. While an answer
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to that question could be easily theorized, that perhaps Leisha
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: herself hadn't driven there, but instead her murderer had, the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: speculation seemed to evade Fort Worth police detectives. Motives weren't
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: sticking either. It didn't look like robbery, because both of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Leisha's wallets contained cigarettes, small amounts of money when they
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: were found. From the get-go, since the Chevy Impala's right
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: rear tire was flat, police developed a good Samaritan theory. Someone,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: they thought, had stopped to pretend to help and then attacked.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: But Leisha's tire had been slow leaking for a few weeks,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and she was regularly stopping to put air in it,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: so they soon nixed that idea, and instead came to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: believe the tire had gone flat overnight, after she was slain.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Motive is always helpful to an investigation, but it eluded detectives.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: The only one they could come up with was that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: someone had some sort of vendetta against Leisha, another theory
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that was seemingly squashed early on. After interviewing friends, co-workers,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and classmates, absolutely no one who knew her could offer
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: any reason why someone would want to harm her, let
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: alone kill her so brutally. She didn't have any enemies,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: not that the police could find. One friend said that
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Leisha wasn't the type to go around making people mad,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and that there was nobody who knew her that would
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: have done such a thing out of anger toward her.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Her boss at the car wash said she had the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: best attitude of all his employees. Leisha's high school track
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and field coach said she got along with everyone on
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the team. Detectives continued to consider that it was an
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: attempted rape, which may have been thwarted by the intense
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: fight that Leisha put up. Perhaps, they theorized, the attacker
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: had killed her out of anger. It wasn't a flawless theory,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: but it made substantially more sense than Leisha dying as
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the result of a grudge or perceived slight. There was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: no evidence at all supporting that notion. Newscasts in the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: following days showed footage of Leisha's impounded Chevy Impala. The
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: sheer amount of blood in the vehicle shocked viewers. The
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: film showed the inside of the vehicle, with blood covering
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the seats. The floor mats that were taken out and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: placed on the storage facility's floor were also shown very bloody.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: The trunk of the vehicle, too, was covered in blood.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: The story of Leisha McGee's murder stayed on the front
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for about a week.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Detectives chased leads as far as Memphis, Tennessee within days,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: where a 17-year-old suspect had brutally stabbed a 60-year-old woman there,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: but they found out the suspect hadn't left the area
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: during that time. They also looked at a 40-year-old man
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: that had visited the funeral home where Leisha's body was
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: several times, claiming he knew her. The man, who told
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: family members he'd met Leisha in a park, upsetting them,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: was ruled out as a suspect by police for some
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: unknown reason. When a fellow Southwest High School junior died
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: within days of Leisha's murder, detectives looked for evidence connecting
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the deaths. The 16-year-old was discovered in the front seat
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of a pickup truck inside the closed garage of a
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: house that was under construction. The door leading from the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: garage into the house was braced shut. and the vehicle
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: had run out of gas by the time the youth
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: was found. The hood was open, and the key was
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: turned to the on position in the ignition. The death, however,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was ultimately listed as undetermined. Even considering the obvious signs
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of suicide, there were questions, including evidence that the teenager
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: had been bludgeoned, both in the head and in the pelvis.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: While they found out he and Leisha had in fact
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: known each other, police could find nothing suggesting the cases
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: were related. It was never made clear how or why
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: this was determined. A few weeks after Leisha McGee's murder,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: on February 15, 1978, a 33-year-old man named John Albert
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: DePue was arrested and charged with three attempted kidnappings, including
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: two high school-aged girls and two successful abductions, one of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a 13-year-old girl. Both of those ended in the victims
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: escaping from Depew's moving car. Both suffered some injuries, but
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: likely not near as bad as they would have been
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: had they not gotten away. Four of the charges were
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: out of Crowley, several miles south of Fort Worth, and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: one out of Mansfield, several miles southeast of the city.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth police detectives quizzed the man on Leisha's murder,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: but apparently found no connections. In late April, they compared
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the slang of Paula Puckett Davenport of Hearst to Leisha's case,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: but there were few similarities. Paula had been shot once
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: in both her chest and abdomen, unlike Leisha, who had
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: been stabbed and slashed. Paula's mother did recall showing her
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: daughter an article about Leisha's murder the morning after it happened.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Paula Davenport's murder became the first Tarrant County case that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Dallas-based Sheps Dairy began offering a $ 5, 000 reward for information
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: leading to an arrest and indictment. But there were several
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: others right alongside it. Sheps was also offering the reward
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: for the case of the Fort Worth Missing Trio, Rachel Trelesa,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Julie Mosley, and Renee Wilson. Other cases included murders the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Fort Worth police feared Leisha McGee's case was going to join,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a set of unsolved cases that shared some similarities. They
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: happened to take place around the same time of year
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: as Leisha's murder and had become known as the February Slangs.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: They were the cases of Becky Martin in 1973, Carla
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Walker in 1974, and June Ward the year before in 1977.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Of all the three, Leisha's case most closely resembled June's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in its savage brutality. Another murder the following year led
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to another comparison with Leisha's when 26-year-old Susan Kilgore was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: found shot to death in the trunk of her car,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: but ultimately no connection was found. After that, Leisha McGee's
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: name vanished from both print and television news sources. except
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: for when Helen put notices in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: on the anniversary date of her daughter's slaying. As a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: single mother who worked for a department store, paying for
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Leisha's funeral on top of missing many days of work
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: was more than just a difficulty. It had threatened her
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and her daughter Lori's very way of life, which had
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: already been almost ripped apart. Luckily, the Citizens Band Radio
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Club The one who was responsible for finding Leisha helped
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: raise the money to pay the costs. Funeral services for
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Leisha were held at All Saints Episcopal Church on Thursday,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: January 26, 1978, and she was buried at Laurel Land Cemetery. Finally,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: decades later, Leisha's name once again hit the newspaper's front pages,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and this time, it came with what looked like the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: promise of justice. That's next time on Gone Cold, Texas
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: True Crime. If you have any information about the murder
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of Leisha Ann McGee, please contact the Fort Worth Police
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: at 817-392-4307. If you'd like to join Gone Cold's mission,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to shine a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: get the show ad-free, and have access to bonus content,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you can at patreon.com slash gonecoldpodcast. You can also support
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the show by leaving a 5-star rating and written review
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen. However you
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: choose to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.