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The Shooting of Suzanne Hummel · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. The air was cool in Houston
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  Speaker 1: on a morning in November of nineteen ninety two. A
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  Speaker 1: quiet chill hung over the Rice Epicurean Market parking lot
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  Speaker 1: at Kirby in West Alabama, a place most people believed
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  Speaker 1: nothing bad was likely to happen, especially in broad daylight,
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  Speaker 1: before the rush of the day peaked, before the sun
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  Speaker 1: burned off the haze. A woman sat in her car
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  Speaker 1: eating breakfast. She had somewhere to be, responsibilities waiting on
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  Speaker 1: her and people counting on her to get there, But
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  Speaker 1: she had time a little, and she chose to take
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  Speaker 1: a few minutes for herself. Parked in a place she'd
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  Speaker 1: come to trust, that small sliver of morning peace was
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  Speaker 1: the last thing she would ever choose. The woman had
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  Speaker 1: driven into Houston from Richmond, about thirty miles to the southeast,
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  Speaker 1: as she did every weekday. Working in the city meant
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  Speaker 1: making concessions, beating traffic, stretching the morning hours, finding someplace
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  Speaker 1: safe to wait until she could get inside the office.
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  Speaker 1: She had picked up breakfast at a fast food restaurant
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  Speaker 1: near Kirby and the South freeway, then crossed over to
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  Speaker 1: the grocery store parking lot. It was something she did regularly,
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  Speaker 1: an action not designed for safety necessarily. Rather, it was
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  Speaker 1: simply a routine. But as she sat in her car
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  Speaker 1: that morning, the unthinkable happened. It was seven thirty am
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  Speaker 1: on Friday, November thirteenth, nineteen ninety two. Suzanne Marie Hummel,
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  Speaker 1: a divorced, single mother of two girls, sat inside her
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight Ford Taurus, eating her Burger King breakfast,
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  Speaker 1: drinking coffee, and maybe reading or applying makeup before heading
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  Speaker 1: across the street to Don Brelsford Insurance Agency, where she
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  Speaker 1: worked as a certified Customer Service representative. The agency didn't
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  Speaker 1: allow employees in before eight am, and she didn't have
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  Speaker 1: a key, and so she waited, filling the gaps left
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  Speaker 1: by schedules made without women like her in mind. Suzanne
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  Speaker 1: was thirty nine years old with two teenaged girls, Gretchen
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  Speaker 1: seventeen and Emily fourteen, both of whom knew very well
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  Speaker 1: that their mama moved mountains to make ends meet. Neighbors
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  Speaker 1: and friends remembered her always rushing trying to get home
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  Speaker 1: through Houston traffic to make a volleyball game or girl
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  Speaker 1: Scouts event. She laughed hard, worked harder, and made sure
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  Speaker 1: those girls felt supported, even when she worried privately that
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  Speaker 1: she couldn't give them everything she wished she could. Responsibility
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  Speaker 1: was Suzanne's instinct. Efficiency was her habit. Those things kept
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  Speaker 1: her safe until they didn't. Around Suzanne, the parking lot
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  Speaker 1: was filling people walking into the upscale grocery store. Shoppers
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  Speaker 1: and commuters passed with coffee cups, handbags, and briefcases, all
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  Speaker 1: assuming that the sun hung high enough to keep danger
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  Speaker 1: far away. A woman approached Suzanne's driver's side window. Detectives
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  Speaker 1: would later theorize that the woman may have asked a
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  Speaker 1: question first directions, perhaps some pretext that allowed her to
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  Speaker 1: get close without raising alarm. The window must have been
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  Speaker 1: lowered at least part way. It was chilly that morning.
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  Speaker 1: She almost certainly would not have had it down before
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  Speaker 1: someone walked up to her. Then came the demand. The
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  Speaker 1: stranger wanted her purse. It probably happened fast. Maybe Suzanne
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  Speaker 1: hesitated a moment of shock at the audacity of a
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  Speaker 1: robbery in broad daylight. Maybe she refused outright, believing the
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  Speaker 1: presence of so many others would keep her safe. The woman, however,
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  Speaker 1: pulled out a small caliber firearm. Investigators later confirmed it
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  Speaker 1: was a twenty two handgun. She fired one shot, tore
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  Speaker 1: through Suzanne's left arm, continued into her chest, and struck
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  Speaker 1: deep enough to steal her breath. The robber snatched her purse,
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  Speaker 1: its contents later found scattered on the ground, and ran.
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  Speaker 1: Witnesses heard squealing tires, suggesting a getaway car waited nearby.
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  Speaker 1: In a packed lot full of potential onlookers, she disappeared
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  Speaker 1: faster than anyone realized what had happened. Suzanne fought her
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  Speaker 1: survival instinct kicked in. With the last of her strength,
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  Speaker 1: she leaned on her horn, pressed her foot down, and
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  Speaker 1: drove through the lot, rolling into a metro bus stop
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  Speaker 1: enclosure along West Alabama Street. People ran to her aid.
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  Speaker 1: She tried to speak, tried to help identify whoever had
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  Speaker 1: done this to her. She managed five words, A black
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  Speaker 1: woman shot me. Then consciousness slipped away. She never regained it.
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  Speaker 1: Paramedics rushed her to ben Toob Hospital, where surgeons raced
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  Speaker 1: to save her life. Her family was called, but at
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  Speaker 1: ten forty am the news came Suzanne was gone. Her parents,
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  Speaker 1: who had arrived in Houston just the night before from Michigan,
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  Speaker 1: were at her house when the call came in. They
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  Speaker 1: drove to the hospital with Suzanne's sister, Brigetta, whose birthday
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  Speaker 1: it was. Suzanne had left a pot of coffee warming
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  Speaker 1: and a birthday cake waiting on the kitchen counter. When
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  Speaker 1: her family reached the hospital, doctors told them Suzanne wasn't
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  Speaker 1: coming back for nearly a week. Afterward, her sister couldn't
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  Speaker 1: accept it. She expected Suzanne to walk back in the door,
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  Speaker 1: expected the nightmare to end. Suzanne's daughters, both still in school,
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  Speaker 1: were forced to face a reality. Their mother had always
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  Speaker 1: feared that something could happen to her and they'd be
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  Speaker 1: left without enough left without her. Meanwhile, police were stunned
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  Speaker 1: by the audacity of the crime, a shooting in the
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  Speaker 1: daylight in a high traffic area bordering River Oaks, a
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood where crime wasn't supposed to intrude, not like this.
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  Speaker 1: Nearby workers talked to reporters shaken and afraid. A woman
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  Speaker 1: in her twenties said she'd eaten in that same lot
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  Speaker 1: probably one hundred times. Another shopper said she'd always feared
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  Speaker 1: someone breaking into her car, but never once thought about
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  Speaker 1: being attacked there herself. Detectives made it clear there is
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  Speaker 1: no such thing as a perfectly safe place. If an
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  Speaker 1: area becomes popular with affluent customers, thieves will come eventually.
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  Speaker 1: Opportunity isn't deterred by zip codes. Houston Police Department Homicide
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  Speaker 1: Sergeant Doug Bacon took the lead on the investigation, working
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  Speaker 1: closely with Sergeant T. C. Bloyd. They only had fragments
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  Speaker 1: a female sub almost certainly a black woman, as Suzanne said,
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  Speaker 1: a small handgun, a purse taken, a vehicle speeding away,
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  Speaker 1: possibly white, according to at least one witness, morning traffic
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  Speaker 1: thick enough to hide a getaway, and no one who
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  Speaker 1: actually saw the confrontation. Yet the parking lot was busy,
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  Speaker 1: the streets were busy, Dozens of eyes moved through the area.
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  Speaker 1: You would have thought somebody driving by would have seen something,
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  Speaker 1: Sergeant Bacon said, but no one did, or no one
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  Speaker 1: admitted it. The robbery itself confused investigators. Women commit robberies,
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  Speaker 1: They noted it certainly wasn't unheard of, but they rarely
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  Speaker 1: escalate to lethal violence, and this particular attack seemed purposeful,
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  Speaker 1: not panicked. Some with Houston PD even considered the possibility
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  Speaker 1: that the suspect may have been a man dressed as
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  Speaker 1: a woman. Given the proximity to Lower Westimer, where male
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  Speaker 1: sex workers sometimes dressed in drag. It was a stretch
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  Speaker 1: to be sure, but nothing in the evidence could rule
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  Speaker 1: it out. Police canvassed the area, checked robbery cases with
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  Speaker 1: female suspects, and waited for tips. They pushed through media
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  Speaker 1: and designated the murder a crime Stopper's Crime of the Week,
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  Speaker 1: offering a reward and asking anyone with information to come
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  Speaker 1: forward anonymously. But days passed, then weeks, then Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving
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  Speaker 1: was a holiday meant to reunite Suzanne Hummel's family, but
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  Speaker 1: now served only to underscore their loss. Her parents, her sister,
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  Speaker 1: and her girls sat down to a table that should
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  Speaker 1: have held joy and found only absence. Her sister said
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  Speaker 1: it felt wrong, as if they were all waiting for
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  Speaker 1: someone still on the way home. On the police side
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  Speaker 1: of things, the investigation struggled to progress. There were no leads,
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  Speaker 1: no witnesses, no forward movement. Detectives continued to hold onto
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  Speaker 1: the hope that the purse would unlock a lead. Suzanne
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  Speaker 1: carried twenty one credit cards, a robber desperate enough to
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  Speaker 1: kill might be careless enough to use them, and if
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  Speaker 1: they did, detectives would finally have a lead. But not
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  Speaker 1: a single card was ever used. They probably did it
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  Speaker 1: for the cash and dumped the cards. Sergeant Bacon later
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  Speaker 1: said it pointed to someone who knew better than to
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  Speaker 1: risk it. Detectives kept the case file on the move,
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  Speaker 1: from Bacon's desk to Bloyd's and back again, doing what
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  Speaker 1: they could when time allowed in a department overloaded with death.
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  Speaker 1: They admitted the reality sometimes a case is solved not
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  Speaker 1: by detective work, but by what they called the magic
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  Speaker 1: phone call. Someone hears something, someone talks, someone tells the truth.
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  Speaker 1: But Suzanne's murder had the misfortune of competing for public
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  Speaker 1: attention with another tragedy the very same day, the brutal,
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  Speaker 1: high profile murder of the Coulson family, also in Houston.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcast news and newspapers zeroed in on the sensational five
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  Speaker 1: family members slaughtered, overshadowed one woman robbed and killed while
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  Speaker 1: eating breakfast. Public memory shifted overnight, but Houston police detectives
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  Speaker 1: didn't forget. Suzanne's daughters couldn't forget, nor could her parents
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  Speaker 1: or siblings. Her case lingered, suspended, cold waiting. Detectives Bloyd
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  Speaker 1: and Bacon felt in their gut that there was a
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  Speaker 1: witness out there somewhere. Someone saw something, someone knows something.
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  Speaker 1: Someone out there made eye contact with Suzanne's killer, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: maybe without even realizing what they were looking at. The
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  Speaker 1: lawmen did what they could cross referenced robberies committed by
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  Speaker 1: female suspects across the Greater Houston area, but there weren't
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  Speaker 1: many cases matching the profile. A woman firing a gun
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  Speaker 1: during a purse robbery was unusual. Robbery itself wasn't anything new,
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  Speaker 1: but the violence in this one wasn't the norm. So
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  Speaker 1: they looked for outliers, anyone who stood out, anyone with
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  Speaker 1: a history of taking what wasn't theirs while carrying a
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  Speaker 1: gun as backup. But finding a single robber in the
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  Speaker 1: fourth largest city in America, someone who could just blend in,
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  Speaker 1: who might have left town, who may have disguised themselves,
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  Speaker 1: became a daunting task. The detectives also believed the shooter
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  Speaker 1: likely didn't flee alone. The sound of tires squealing just
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  Speaker 1: after the gunshot suggested a second person was waiting in
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  Speaker 1: a getaway vehicle. It seemed like a detail that would
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  Speaker 1: work to their advantage if they were just patient. Two
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  Speaker 1: criminals meant more opportunities for someone to brag or to slip.
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  Speaker 1: Two mouths capable of talking, but if anyone talked, none
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  Speaker 1: of those words ever found their way to the police.
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  Speaker 1: A year passed, then more the case file traveled back
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  Speaker 1: and forth between detectives' desks, reopened when they could spare
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  Speaker 1: minutes between new murders and active investigations. The weight of
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  Speaker 1: backlog grows fast. In Houston. Detectives admit that solving a
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  Speaker 1: case often comes from the right phone call, a conscience
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  Speaker 1: that finally gives in a relationship that sours a secret overheard.
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  Speaker 1: Those calls happen more than the public realizes. The moment
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  Speaker 1: someone picks up the phone is often the difference between
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  Speaker 1: justice and silence. But Suzanne's case didn't get that call.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe someone knew something but didn't want the trouble. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: they didn't want to be a witness, or maybe they
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  Speaker 1: never realized what they'd seen until much later, when the
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  Speaker 1: details were too blurred By time, Suzanne's family tried to
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  Speaker 1: live inside the empty space left behind. Her daughters, Gretchen
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  Speaker 1: and Emily faced milestones without their mother. They were smart girls,
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  Speaker 1: active in sports and school and community. They had a
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  Speaker 1: mother who cheered on every success. She ran herself ragged
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  Speaker 1: to make every game, every meeting. Now the stands were
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  Speaker 1: missing her presence. Friends and neighbors tried to help. A
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  Speaker 1: community bank in Sugarland created a benefit fund to support
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  Speaker 1: the girl's education. The dreams Suzanne talked about constantly. One
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  Speaker 1: daughter had only months until graduation, the other was still
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  Speaker 1: in junior high. Suzanne's parents had come to Texas expecting
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  Speaker 1: to spend happy days with their daughter and granddaughters, her
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  Speaker 1: brother and sister too. Instead, they stood beside hospital machines
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  Speaker 1: as they got word that Suzanne was gone. Years passed
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  Speaker 1: without resolution, and then came another fight, not for a suspect,
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  Speaker 1: but for what the family saw as accountability. In nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety eight, Suzanne's family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against
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  Speaker 1: Rice Food Markets and the security companies responsible for the
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  Speaker 1: shopping center. They argued negligence, that safety in the parking
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  Speaker 1: lot was insufficient, that what happened to Suzanne was preventable.
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  Speaker 1: The case was initially shifted to Harris County, where it
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  Speaker 1: was dismissed, but the family appealed and the Fourteenth Court
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  Speaker 1: of Appeals reinstated the case. It was sent back to
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  Speaker 1: Fort ben County for further action. That ruling didn't change
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  Speaker 1: the outcome for Suzanne. It did, however, give the family
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  Speaker 1: what the criminal investigation had not, a step forward. Justice
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  Speaker 1: remained distant. Detectives Bacon and Bloyd kept the files circulating
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  Speaker 1: when they could. They continued to believe that someone must
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  Speaker 1: have seen something. A hurried woman, a mismatched pair near
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  Speaker 1: a car, a flash of panic, even a stray comment
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  Speaker 1: after the fact could hold value. But the phones stayed silent.
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  Speaker 1: The case today remains open. It was a case that
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  Speaker 1: was culled from the get go. Suzanne Hummel left her
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  Speaker 1: house early to beat traffic. She bought breakfast to fill
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  Speaker 1: a few moments of waiting before work. She parked in
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  Speaker 1: a spot she believed was safe. She thought of her
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  Speaker 1: daughter's futures of birthdays, weekends and college tuitions, and late
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  Speaker 1: night conversations with teenagers who still needed their mom. She
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  Speaker 1: did everything right that morning. The person who took her
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  Speaker 1: purse also took everything else. There is no way to
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  Speaker 1: measure the hole left behind cases like this, don't they
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  Speaker 1: wait for someone willing to speak, A witness who thought
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  Speaker 1: what they saw wasn't important, a memory pushed aside, or
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  Speaker 1: a secret someone no longer wants to keep. The smallest
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  Speaker 1: detail could make a difference. A woman seen hurrying away,
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  Speaker 1: a car that didn't belong, a flash of something off
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  Speaker 1: in the corner of an ordinary mourning. Those details, even now,
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  Speaker 1: could be enough. Because Suzanne's story isn't a mystery, it's
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  Speaker 1: a wound, and wounds demand answers. Perhaps someone does know
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  Speaker 1: the truth, and her daughters deserve to hear it. If
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  Speaker 1: you have any information about the murder of Suzanne Murray Hummel,
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  Speaker 1: please contact the Houston Police Department's Homicide Division Cold Case
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Unit at seven one three three zero eight thirty six
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  Speaker 1: hundred or crime Stoppers at seven one three two two
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  Speaker 1: two eight four seven seven. If you'd like to join
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: con Coold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and missing persons cases, get the show at free and
• 19:16
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• 19:32
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