Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearances of Brenda Moore, Jennifer Barton, and Debra Stewart

Transcript

The Disappearances of Brenda Moore, Jennifer Barton, and Debra Stewart · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, y'all. Before we get started here, I'm going to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: play a promo for Already Gone, a podcast covering cases
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from the Great Lakes region and hosted by the inimitable
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Nina Instead. As one of a handful of podcasts that
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: inspired Erica and I to start Gone Cold. I think
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: our listeners will find Already Gone compelling, and I'm willing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to bet you'll hear many cases that you've never heard before.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Already Gone is well researched, wonderfully written, and Nina's narration
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: is like butter. While you're listening to the following promo,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: search and subscribe to Already Gone. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: you'll be glad you did.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: True crime lovers are always looking for new and engaging content.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: The Already Gone podcast cover stories from Michigan and the
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Great Lakes region, cases you haven't heard before, like the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Mayo Hunters or them of sixteen year old Justin Mellow,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: plus better known cases like the death of Jane Bashara
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: in Illinois's own Lori Dan. Already Gone started in twenty sixteen,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: so there is a big back catalog for you to enjoy.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Find Already Gone on Apple Podcasts. Good pods or your
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: favorite podcatcher.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: You just heard a promo from our friend Nina at
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Already Gone, a podcast that covers lesser known crimes and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: digs beneath the media and back page to tell their
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: stories and find the truth. Listen and subscribe wherever you're
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: listening to this right now, Now onto the episode.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: The Gone Cold.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is advised. Truth is a difficult thing to grasp. In
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the case of the disappearance of Jennifer Joyce Barton, the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: most in depth coverage of the missing young woman was
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: an article by Bill Kryer in the Austin American Statesman,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: published a year after she was last seen on May eighth,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. A cautionary tale of life on the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: streets and prostitution, the piece is sensational and victim blames
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to the point of incredulity to make things worse. For
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a week leading up to the article's release, the Capital
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: City newspaper ran teaser ads for the story, neither Dead
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: nor Alive. The main teaser began Jennifer Barton vanished a
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: year ago. It continued two years before attracted to the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: flash of easy money and the close easy money buys
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: she had taken to the streets. Clues that may explain
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: her fate lead to dimly lit corridors of sleazy hotels
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and involve some mysterious people. Bill Cryer's detective magazine style
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: write up followed the ads in the Sunday edition of
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: The Statesman, and it read about as melodramatically. Yet Bill
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Cryer is a good reporter, and the information contained within
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: is impossible to ignore. The case file cover page the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Austin Police Department will come off of is virtually useless,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: though their lack of candor is certainly understood, and the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: trails of breadcrumbs found in other news sources or documents,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: some not about Jennifer Barton at all, leave much to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: be desired. The public, in fact, has largely been kept
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: in the dark about the details and circumstances surrounding not
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: only Jennifer's disappearance, but also the disappearances of two others.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Twenty year old Brenda Jane Moore and nineteen year old
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Debra K Stewart both vanished around the same time and
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: area of Austin as twenty year old Jennifer Joyce Barton,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: whether prompted by a curious reporter or diligent Austin police detective.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: If there was any information to be gleaned about these
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: missing young women by getting their descriptions out to the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: media fast, that opportunity was squandered in two out of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the three cases, one whose sensational story wouldn't run for
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: nearly a year and another whose name wouldn't see print
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: for decades. There was no public warning for what many
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: investigators believed was a serial killer on the loose targeting
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: young black women. Information about Brenda Moore has been elusive,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but by all indications, she was born Brenda Jean Breedlove
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: on March first, nineteen fifty six, to parents Earnest and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Norma Jean, in Burlison County, Texas, a sparsely populated area
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: consisting primarily of farmers and ranchers, about seventy five miles
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: northeast of Austin. She appears to have had several siblings.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: In June of nineteen seventy two, Brenda married a man
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: named Willie Lewis Moore, but the relationship lasted less than
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: four years. By March of nineteen seventy six, they were
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: estranged no matter, and even considering her bouts with depression,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Brenda appeared to be doing well. She kept a busy
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: schedule as a nurse's aide at Crest Haven nursing Home
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: in East Austin. Co workers at Cresthaven, in fact, would
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: be the last known folks to see the young woman alive,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: as she left her shift at about three fifteen p m.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: On Sunday, March seventh, nineteen seventy six, without so much
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: as a trace. Brenda vanished. Five days later, coworkers found
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: her abandoned car, the keys locked inside, on the nineteen
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: hundred block of Coletto Street, a few miles southwest of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the nursing home. Though they never utilized the media in
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: their attempts to find or find out what happened to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Brenda Jean Moore, the Austin Police said decades later they
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: investigated the case to exhaustion. Reportedly, Brenda had been dating
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a man who drove a blue Chevy pickup truck of
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: unknown model year. Her estranged husband, Willie Lewis Moore, told
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: police apparently that he believed she left with this man.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Now almost fifty years later, that possibility is incredibly unlikely.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: It seemed that way even at the time, particularly when
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: considering the disappearance of another young woman from East Austin
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a couple months after twenty year old Brenda Jean Moore vanished.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: According to Austin American Statesman reporter Bill Cryer, Jennifer Joyce
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Barton was a girl from an upper middle class family
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: who never wanted for anything. Born in Travis County on
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: May thirty first, nineteen fifty five, to parents Joyce and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: George Barton, Jennifer was described as intelligent and sweet by
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: her mother, but also scatterbrained and hot headed, the latter
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: perhaps often a result of the former. Anyway, her mother
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: said she didn't like rules. In the halls of Reagan
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: High School, Jennifer walked confidently and carefree, a strut that
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: never went away even after she left school her senior
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: year to pursue another way of life. After that, Jennifer Barton,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: or Lady Jennifer, as her boyfriend named her, could be
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: seen on the streets of East Austin, particularly around Eleventh
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Street bars and liquor stores. But her boyfriend and wasn't
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: just any old bad boy a type her mother said
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: she overwhelmingly preferred over nice boys instead. He was a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: drug dealer and a pimp before long. A friend later
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: said Jennifer was hooked on pills. At some point, Jennifer's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: boyfriend went to prison under the thumb of a new boyfriend,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: this one more willing to pimp her out. She soon
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: began performing sex work to get by and to pay
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: for heroin, a habit probably encouraged by her new protector.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Jennifer was an unusual sex worker. A friend of hers
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: said she didn't need short shorts or revealing blouses to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: make an impression. She was fashionable but sophisticated, and her
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: self assurance was about all she needed to catch attention
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: semi regularly. At that point, Jennifer was busted and charged
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: with prostitution and fined. But things took a much darker
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: turn than the occasional night in jail. Late on the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: night of Tuesday, February twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six, on
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: East Sixth Street in Austin, police ascended up the dark,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: narrow staircase at the Salinas Hotel. The dilapidated building was
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: small for its purpose. Atop the barber shop on the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: first floor were several rooms with cigarette yellowed walls and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: curtains and musty stained carpets. It was surprisingly quiet. Whatever
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: was going on in the rooms didn't spread into the hall.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: This was a place for discretion. If you were at
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the Salinas Hotel, you certainly weren't looking for attention. Some
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: rooms there were rented long term, but a majory by
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the hour. The Salinas wasn't a place you got a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: room if you were just passing through town, or if
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you were in Austin for a work conference. Officers were
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: at the hotel responding to a call. Room six was
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the scene of a grisly death, a site that was
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: becoming all too common in the capital city, a city
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: once so uneventful to anyone outside the greasy palmed world
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of good old boy politics. A police technician documented the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: result of the crime. The victim, who they quickly identified
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: as thirty year old Thomas Govea Junior, had been stabbed
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: in his abdomen repeatedly, and then once, no doubt, the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: fatal blow in the right side of his neck. Before
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that fatal injury was inflicted, Govea had been bludgeoned in
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the head with the leg of a wooden chair at
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the crime scene, Peace Justice Bob Perkins ruled the death
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: a homicide and the likely motive almost as easy to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: deduce around Govea's right index finger. After all, were two
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: balloons of heroin between that and more found in the room.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: There were twenty two ounces of the drug in total.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: For whatever went wrong here, this was to be a
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: significant heroin deal. Old news reports and the Austin American
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Statesman don't specify exactly how the Austin police knew to
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: look for a few specific men in connection with this
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: drug deal turned murder, But almost right away there were
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: all points bulletins out for men named Calvin Paul Ciphers
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and John E. Loggins. Both men fled Austin, and both
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: soon met fates that would make the most rigid skeptic
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: believe that karma occurs at least every once in a while.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Just a few months later, in July of seventy six,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Cypher's was gunned down by his own wife in Albuquerque,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, after he beat her, a homicide a judge
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: later ruled was justifiable. Loggins was later killed in a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: barroom fight in California, where he sought refuge from police
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: in Austin. The APD is said to have dropped the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: case of the murder of Thomas Govea Junior after Loggins's death,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But before all that, and a few days after the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: murder of Govea, the cops arrested others in connection with
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the crime, Robert Alexander Felder and James Hemphill Junior, both
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: twenty eight years old, twenty six year old q mel
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Tyrone Grant, and twenty seven year old George Harold. By
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Friday February twenty seventh, nineteen seventy six, all four of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: these men were being held in the Travis County Jail
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: on twenty five thousand dollars bonds. They were all later
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: released as authorities concentrated their investigation on Calvin Paul Ciphers
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and John E. Logins. According to Austin American Statesman crime
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: ime writer Bill Cryer, there was one more person police
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: were looking to talk to the victim's girlfriend, twenty year
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: old Jennifer Barton. Govea, whose brother was stabbed to death
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: less than four years before him, wasn't just involved in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: drugs as a dealer, but also prostitution, and he wasn't
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: just Jennifer's boyfriend, he was her boss, she snapped. After that,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a friend of Jennifer, Joyce Barton, was later quoted as
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: saying her confident, carefree smile was gone, her vibe lost.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Throughout East Austin rumored that Jennifer had set up govea
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: spread like wildfire. She vehemently denied the accusations, but was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: stricken by paranoia. Nonetheless, and for good reason. Within days,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: two of the largest scaled dealers in town were offering
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a reward of two ounces of heroine for the names
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of the killer or killers of Thomas GOVEA Junior Austin
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: p D Homicide Lieutenant Colin Jordan reported, adding that he
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: imagines the drug pushers would then do them in somehow.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: For Jennifer, the odd reward was the least of it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Not long after her boyfriend's murder, Jennifer Barton's apartment was
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: broken into in red paint. The word blood was written
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: next to a pair of her underwear that had been
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: pinned on the wall. Various other obscenities in both depiction
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and words were also smeared around it. Jennifer was a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: nervous wreck. She was waking up in the middle of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the night and pacing her apartment often or not sleeping
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: at all. But things went quiet after that. As things
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: seemingly returned to something that resembles normal, Jennifer perhaps let
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: her guard down. In nineteen seventy six, the law was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: coming down hard on Austin bail bondsman and otto salvage
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: yard owner Frank Huey Smith. Smith, it was alleged, was
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: illegally soliciting bonds at the courthouse, paying Travis County Sheriff
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Raymond to Frank and his deputies to solicit bonds on
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: his behalf, and had accepted sexual favors for the release
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of an inmate at the Travis County Jail, Perhaps an
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: important allegation to keep in mind. His big green Cadillac
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was a popular fixture around East eleventh Street, where there
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: was much bail bond's business to be had. Smith kept
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: tabs on what was happening in the area, and that
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: included whatever was going on with the local sex workers
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and their bosses. According to Frank Huey Smith, he took
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Barton to a motel room to purchase her services
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and she stole eighty bucks out of his wallet before
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: leaving and returning to East eleventh. He later found her
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and an altercation ensued. Apparently at some point after that, Smith,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: who had a lot of pull at APD and the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's office, had Jennifer detained at the jailhouse for a night.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Smith said it was because she'd failed to show up
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: at court for a prior charge, hence forfeiting her bond
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and resulting in an arrest warrant being issued. Jennifer's friends
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: called the charges false, it appears they were right by
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: all indications. Jennifer paid the fine the day following her arrest.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Not long after, Frank Huey Smith confronted Jennifer Joyce Barton
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: about stealing money from him, which is an accusation, not
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a fact. She disappeared. In a later, unrelated case, Smith
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding an aggravated
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: robbery that resulted in the death of the man hired
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: to do the deed. Turns out Smith had just paid
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a competing auto salvage yard fifteen thousand dollars in cash
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: for an unspecified amount of vehicles and had three robbers
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: lying in wait to strike and take the cash back
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: after he left. According to Austin American Statesman reporter Bill Cryer,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: on Sunday May sixteenth, nineteen seventy six, several Latinos descended
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: on the campus of Austin Community College and on the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: streets of the city's east asking about Jennifer Joyce Barton,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: where she was and where she hung out. It's unclear
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: why they would ask kids at the college. That evening,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Jennifer and a friend were interested in catching a movie
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: at the local theater, but she was short on cash.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: The young woman knew where she could get some fast,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: so they headed to the Victory Grill at East eleventh
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and Waller Streets, a popular eating spot that had been
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: just as well known for jazz and blues since pre
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: integration nineteen forty five. Went to the Victory and Jennifer
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: began speaking with two men at the bar who had
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: taken a great deal of interest in her, so much
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: so that both ignored her friend. Both men were black
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and below average height. One a slender man, stood about
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: five feet four inches tall and wore a T shirt
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and sailor's hat, according to news reports, and the other
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: was five feet six inches tall with a heavy set
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: build and large afro. For about thirty minutes, the three
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: sat and talked over beer. After that, Jennifer had decided
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: to go with the men. They'd offered her twenty five
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: dollars in exchange for sex. When they left at approximately
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: eleven ten pm, according to the police report, Jennifer and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: one man headed out the front door and climbed in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a brown van with California license plates. The vehicle was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: described by witnesses as a good Times van, a line
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of customizable chevies that like this one, often included small
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: teardrop windows at the back, one on each side, and also,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: like this one, a large whip style antenna. The other
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: man exited the bar out the back. When the van
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: turned the corner onto Waller Street from East eleventh, the
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: second man got in. No one is known to have
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: seen twenty year old Jennifer Barton again. Jennifer sometimes went
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: by JJ, is black, light complexioned with brown hair and
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: brown eyes. She stands five feet six inches tall and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: weighed one hundred and twenty pounds at the time of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: her disappearance. There's a small mole above her top right lip,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and she has a scar on the calf of her
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: right leg. Jennifer was last seen wearing a burgundy body suit,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: blue jeans, and sandals. Some, like her family, held onto
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the theory that she'd gone to California, where she'd spoken
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of going before. Her friends on the street, however, had
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: only heard that she was dead. Nothing about the missing
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: young woman was reported to or by the local media
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: for a year. Even when nineteen year old Debraka Stuart
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: disappeared less than a week later, the cases of Jennifer
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Joyce Barton and Brenda Jane Moore were unknown to the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: public at large. Several people who said they knew both
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: twenty year old Jennifer Joyce Barton and nineteen year old
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: University of Texas student debrak Stuart remarked that it would
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: have been nearly impossible for them not to have known
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: each other. Though she'd lived in East Austin for a while,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Jennifer had once lived in the neighborhood surrounding the University
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of Texas where Deborah was enrolled. Jennifer engaged with the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: college bar scene, and Deborah, who lived in East Austin
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a couple miles from Jennifer, is said to have hung
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: around the Eleventh Street area, often drawn to the night
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: life there. This meant, at the very least, their paths
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: likely crossed. Both young women disappeared within a week of
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: one another. On May twenty first, nineteen seventy six, five
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: days after Jennifer vanished, her mother reported her missing to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the Austin Police, and that same day was the last
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: time anyone saw Deborah K. Stuart. Deborah was born on
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: September fifth, nineteen fifty six, the daughter of Marguerite Rittenhouse.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: A man named Willie Stewart, a Houston laundry service owner,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: was her adoptive father. Marguerite described her daughter as a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: normal nineteen year old girl. She liked fashion, music, and dancing.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Out of the norm perhaps was the fact that Deborah
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: played the piano, clarinet, and violin. She was talented and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: especially intelligent. While enrolled at the University of Texas as
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a communications major, Deborah took a job at a Sears
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: department store at fifteen oh one ben White Boulevard in
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: South Austin. The young woman suffered from a chronic kidney disease,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and on Friday May twenty first, nineteen seventy six, left
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: her shift at Sears early at about one pm. Because
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the condition had her feeling ill. Her lower back had
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: been hurting for days and she'd been nauseous. Deborah headed
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: out to see her doctor, after which she was to
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: call her mother in Houston. It was the last time
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: anyone ever saw her. When she neglected to call that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: afternoon and evening, her mother called and filed a missing
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: person's report. The same day Jennifer Joyce Barton was reported missing.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Deborah's East Austin apartment was left immaculate, just as she
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: kept it, and nothing was missing, not even a change
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of clothes. Her nineteen seventy five red and white Plymouth
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was found two days later on May twenty third, abandoned
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: on the twenty one hundred block of Ferdinand Street in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: East Austin. This is about a half mile from her
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: home on Manor Street and less than a block from
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: where the abandoned car of missing person Brenda Jane Moore
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: was found just three months before. On the eve of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the day she disappeared, at about ten pm, two witnesses
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: had seen a black man with a medium bill to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: get out of the car. He stood about five feet
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: nine or ten inches tall and weighed approximately one hundred
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and ninety pounds. The witnesses reported he has never been identified.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Deborah's car, like Brenda's, was found with the keys in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the ignition. The ignition key was twisted. The plymouth started
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: right up and the tires were fine. She had not
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: had car trouble. The vehicle anyway, was spotless like her apartment, again,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: just as Deborah kept it. Still, police impounded the car
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: to be processed for possible evidence. It was obvious to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Deborah k Stuart's family she hadn't run away, as she
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: already had all the freedom she could hope for and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: she'd taken nothing. Also, Deborah needed daily medication for her
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: kidney condition. She and her boyfriend had visited her mother
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: in Houston in March, just a couple months before, and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Deborah had even met her six year old sister, Katrina
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: for the first time when she visited her father there
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: as well. Katrina later said her sister's boyfriend was neither
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: warm nor friendly, at least in the papers. Marguerite said
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: nothing bad about her daughter's choice and boyfriends, but she
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: did point out that two had been fighting earlier in
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the week Deborah disappeared. They spoke on the phone three
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: days before, however, and Deborah was in good spirits. She
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and her boyfriend had resolved their little spat after getting
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: her mother's peach cobbler recipe. They hung up. Police later
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: remarked that the boyfriend was crossed off the suspect list
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in the initial investigation. Unlike the cases of Deborah Gene
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Moore and Jennifer Joyce Barton, Deborah K. Stewart's case got
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: media attention within a week. It was better, though absolutely
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: not good enough. At the same time, during an announcement
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: for a one thousand dollars reward offered by the family,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: police said they believed Deborah was probably dead, but they
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: were at a roadblock with the investigation. It's said that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: APD conducted a multi state investigation that involved more than
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: three hundred people. Authorities found out Deborah borrowed one hundred
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and fifty dollars from a coworker the week before she vanished,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Thinking she might have been pregnant and sought an abortion,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: they checked the area clinics with no luck. Also, friends
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: reported she'd recently become concerned about lumps she had found
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in her breasts. By early summer, family rescinded the reward
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: money so they could hire private investigator R. G. Lopez.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: At first, Lopez, although he would not elaborate, said he
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: believed Deborah was alive because of information he had received
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: from informants. After working the case for months, he, like police,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: came to believe Deborah was in a shallow grave somewhere
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: around Austin. The cops often commented that they found absolutely nothing,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: but a December nineteen seventy six article in the Austin
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: American Statesman says that they and the family PI had
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: an idea where to look for the grave, but a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: lack of evidence prevented them from obtaining a search warrant
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to look on private property. Private investigator Lopez in fact
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: stuck a seventy percent in front of his certainty level
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: that he knew where Deborah was buried, somewhere in southeast
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Austin near the Colorado River. The suspect in this scenario
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: has never been named, but APD Homicide Lieutenant Colin Jordan
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: remarked that every time they try and talk to this
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: particular suspect, they hit a brick wall in the form
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of his lawyer, Lopez's work dabbled in the conspiratorial or
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: perhaps something else. He claimed to have met Debora about
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: a month before she vanished at the apartment complex where
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: she was working as an assistant manager. She handed him
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a copy of a play called Four Women by glou
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Deine Baker and told him that's me, Lopez said. The play,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: adapted from Anina Simone song, was centered on a sex worker.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Lopez believed Deborah identified with the character, not because she
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: was a sex worker she was not, but because the
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: character was close to another sex worker who dies in
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the play. The private investigator believed that Debra knew a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sex worker who disappeared a week before she did, speaking
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of course, of Jennifer Joyce Barton, though the article does
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: not name her. The theory, to say the least, was bizarre,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: but not nearly as bizarre as Deborah meeting Lopez a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: month before she went missing. It would seem reasonable that
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the police thought of Lopez as a person of interest
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for that very claim. Lopez had also told Debra's family
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that he'd been a PI for eight years, but the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Austin American Statesman claimed he'd only received a state license
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the previous month. In May of nineteen seventy six. Media
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: coverage of the case slowed to a drip after December
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy six, two years after her disappearance, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: after Jim Jones laced flavoride with cyanide and performed suicide
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: with his people. In November of nineteen seventy eight, FBI
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: agents searched for Deborah's name among Jones's victims. She wasn't there.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Brenda stands five feet tall and weighed one hundred and
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: twenty to one hundred and thirty pounds at the time
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: of her disappearance. She has black hair and brown eyes,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and was last seen wearing patchwork blue jeans, a wide belt,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a blue long sleeved blouse with white stitching, brown wedge shoes,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and a blue bandana over her hair. The victimology was
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: strikingly similar in Deborah Stewart's and Brenda Moore's cases, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the vehicles found so close to one another also keep
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the cases somewhat linked an till it's proven otherwise. Brenda's case,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: according to APD via my San Antonio dot COM's Christella Jones,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: was looked at again as recently as twenty nineteen, and
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: had been worked heavily throughout the years, as has Deborah's,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: they added, which was re reviewed in twenty twenty. There
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: is nothing definite or even significant connecting Brenda and Deborah's cases,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and no known physical evidence between them. Internet sleuths have
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: speculated Samuel Little as being responsible for one or more
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of these young women's disappearances. Jennifer Joyce Barton, whose relatives
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: DNA was compared against unidentified human remains in twenty nineteen,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: was perhaps more Little's victim type than Deborah or Brenda. However,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: try as I might, I'm unable to put Samuel Little
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: anywhere near Austin, Texas at the time. With the recent
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: arrest of seventy eight year old Deck Brewer Junior for
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the abduction, rape, and murder of Susan Lee Wolfe in
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, he has become a possibility in the disappearances.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Susan's body was dumped about a block and a half
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: from where Deborah and Brenda's cars were found. According to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a family member of Brewer, he was back and forth
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: between Austin and Northern United States. Though, like the possibility
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of Samuel Little being responsible, there is no actual evidence
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that points to Brewer. The Austin Police say that the
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: lack of evidence and witnesses in all three of these
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: missing young women's cases mandates that people come forward with
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: information to advance or break the cases. If you have
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: any information about the disappearances of Brenda Jean Moore, Jennifer
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Joyce Barton, or Deborah K. Stewart, please contact the Texas
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Department of Public Safety's Missing Persons Clearing House at eight
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: hundred three four six three two four three or the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Austin Police Department at five one two nine seven four
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: five two five zero. Thanks to all who support us
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: at Patreon this week. At the Clutch City level, thank
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you Laura H. And at the bomb city level, thank
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: you Amanda Jay, Angie Fish, Callie P, Candice P. Chantel, DC,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Christy V. Cowtown Crime, and Diane Ka. Oh. And again,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: if you're at the ten dollars tier or above, please
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: message me those shirt sizes so I can get them out.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gone Cold's mission to renew
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the public's interest in unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: other perplexing mysteries, you can support the show and listen
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: ad free at patreon dot com. Forward slash Gone Cold Podcast.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: You'll also find episodes exclusive to Patreon there, with more
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: to come in the very near future. Words cannot express
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: how much we appreciate our patrons. Thank you so much
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: for your support. You can also support Gone Cold by
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: leaving a five star rating and written review on iTunes
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and Apple podcasts. This will help the show reach more ears,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: bettering the chance someone with information about a case will
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: listen and come forward. A rating and written review wherever
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you listen is much appreciated. Thanks for listening, y'all.