Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Cindy Heller: The Dallas/Fort Worth ‘80s Murders Part 3

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Cindy Heller: The Dallas/Fort Worth ‘80s Murders Part 3 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: On a cold November night in nineteen seventy four, Karen
0:04
Speaker 1: Silkwood was heading to a meeting that would blow the
0:06
Speaker 1: whistle on the billion dollar nuclear corporation she worked for,
0:10
Speaker 1: but she didn't make it. Instead, her car drove into
0:14
Speaker 1: a concrete culvert on a dark, desolate stretch of highway
0:17
Speaker 1: just outside of Crescent, Oklahoma. From the creators of Gone Cold,
0:21
Speaker 1: Texas True Crime, comes Silkwood, the story of a woman
0:25
Speaker 1: who went up against a corporate goliath and paid the
0:28
Speaker 1: ultimate price with no witnesses. What happened to Karen Silkwood
0:32
Speaker 1: on that cold November night. Was it an accident? Was
0:36
Speaker 1: she silenced for knowing too much? Or something far more sinister?
0:42
Speaker 1: Find and subscribe to Silkwood on your favorite podcast platform.
0:46
Speaker 1: Some secrets are too dangerous to stay hidden. The Gone
0:55
Speaker 1: Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener
0:59
Speaker 1: discretion is advised.
1:03
Speaker 2: Twenty three year old Cindy Heller didn't try to be
1:05
Speaker 2: a good Samaritan. It was something that came natural to
1:09
Speaker 2: the affable and kind young woman driving back home from
1:13
Speaker 2: her first jazz dance class on Monday, October twenty second,
1:18
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. Cindy approached the intersection of Interstate twenty's
1:22
Speaker 2: westbound access Road and South Drive in Fort Worth, Texas,
1:27
Speaker 2: and saw a woman in need of help. It was
1:30
Speaker 2: nine thirty pm and dark outside, and the access road
1:34
Speaker 2: was no place for a woman to be stranded, Cindy knew,
1:38
Speaker 2: especially in the wake of the recent disappearance of twenty
1:41
Speaker 2: three year old Catherine Davis. Only two and a half
1:45
Speaker 2: miles to the northeast, Cindy pulled over on the shoulder,
1:49
Speaker 2: got out of her car, and approached the broken down vehicle.
1:54
Speaker 2: After they introduced themselves, Cindy offered to drive the woman,
1:58
Speaker 2: Kazumi Gillespie, to a nearby restaurant where she could make
2:02
Speaker 2: a phone call and get some help. Friends later described
2:06
Speaker 2: Cindy as a person who would stop, help and care.
2:10
Speaker 2: If there were more people like her around, they said
2:14
Speaker 2: the world would be a much better place, and she
2:17
Speaker 2: wasn't the type to simply drop someone off and leave
2:20
Speaker 2: them stranded. To the contrary, when Kazumi failed to get
2:24
Speaker 2: anyone to pick up her calls, Cindy decided to wait
2:27
Speaker 2: right alongside her at Bennigan's, a restaurant and bar near
2:31
Speaker 2: the Hewlen Mall. In southwest fort Worth. When she helped someone,
2:36
Speaker 2: Cindy went all in. The two got cozy at the
2:40
Speaker 2: bar and ordered a couple drinks. Hopelessly friendly and dangerously trusting,
2:46
Speaker 2: Cindy never met a stranger as she and her new
2:50
Speaker 2: good Samaritan friend talked and nursed their drinks. Kazumi periodically
2:55
Speaker 2: called some folks she knew to come to her aid,
2:58
Speaker 2: but they never answered their phone. Finally, at eleven twenty pm,
3:03
Speaker 2: presumably needing to get home, Cindy offered to deliver a
3:07
Speaker 2: note to her friends at the Hunter's Ridge Apartments on
3:10
Speaker 2: her way to the house. The complex was just behind
3:14
Speaker 2: the mall. Cindy Heller drove away with a note. She
3:19
Speaker 2: was never seen alive again. Fresh out of high school,
3:31
Speaker 2: Cindy Valerie Heller came to Fort Worth in nineteen seventy
3:35
Speaker 2: nine at age eighteen to attend Texas Christian University. Though
3:41
Speaker 2: she visited her parents back in the upper middle class
3:44
Speaker 2: Chicago suburb of Glencoe, Illinois, every summer, she was making
3:49
Speaker 2: a life for herself in her adopted Texas city. She
3:53
Speaker 2: was an active member of her sorority, the Tri Deltas,
3:57
Speaker 2: and her passion for song and dance led her to
3:59
Speaker 2: compete in two Miss fort Worth Beauty Patcheants in nineteen
4:03
Speaker 2: eighty one and eighty two, where she displayed both. During
4:08
Speaker 2: her time at TCU, Cindy occasionally attended Debutante balls as
4:13
Speaker 2: she mingled with the children of fort Worth's social elite.
4:18
Speaker 2: She was full of life, and to her that not
4:21
Speaker 2: only meant taking advantage of every opportunity she had, but
4:25
Speaker 2: it also meant helping others any and every time. The
4:28
Speaker 2: nit arose. After Cindy graduated from TCU in nineteen eighty
4:33
Speaker 2: three with a degree in Fashion merchandising, she worked briefly
4:38
Speaker 2: for Computer Craft at the Ridgemar Mall, a chain of
4:41
Speaker 2: retail stores that sold computer systems and accessories. After four months, however,
4:48
Speaker 2: Cindy quit retail and joined her boyfriend's landscaping company as
4:52
Speaker 2: his business manager, something her college studies had prepared her for.
4:58
Speaker 2: Between that and teaching a row bigs at a health
5:00
Speaker 2: studio on Camp Bouie Boulevard, she was a busy individual.
5:07
Speaker 2: On the night she vanished October twenty second, nineteen eighty four,
5:12
Speaker 2: Cindy's good nature wouldn't allow her to walk away from
5:15
Speaker 2: the chance to help someone in need. It wasn't helping
5:18
Speaker 2: someone that sealed her fate. Rather, it was a killer
5:23
Speaker 2: who acted in a fit of passion, who stalked her,
5:26
Speaker 2: or who waited in the shadows, which it was is
5:30
Speaker 2: as of yet unknown, But from the get go the
5:34
Speaker 2: fort Worth Police did know the disappearance was anything but normal.
5:39
Speaker 2: We have no reason to suspect foul play except this
5:43
Speaker 2: gal was level headed, had more than one job, and
5:46
Speaker 2: always reported in on time, Detective Joe tear Off remarked, adding,
5:52
Speaker 2: it looks like foul play. Late on the night she
5:55
Speaker 2: went missing, police searched a wooded area nearby, with no love.
6:01
Speaker 2: The following evening, while searching for her, Cindy Heller's boyfriend,
6:05
Speaker 2: Nathan Gaspard, found her car on the forty eight hundred
6:08
Speaker 2: block of River Ranch Boulevard, in the parking lot of
6:12
Speaker 2: the Hunter's Ridge Apartments. When the police arrived at the scene,
6:17
Speaker 2: they discovered that inside the vehicle a small fire had
6:20
Speaker 2: been ignited. In early reports, they claimed to believe the
6:25
Speaker 2: fire started as the result of spontaneous combustion of paper
6:29
Speaker 2: in the car. In later reports, however, the fire is
6:33
Speaker 2: described in such a way that suggested police actually believed
6:37
Speaker 2: the fire was intentionally set, likely in hopes the entire
6:42
Speaker 2: interior would burn to destroy evidence. However, only a small
6:47
Speaker 2: portion of the interior had burned. As the investigation unfolded,
6:53
Speaker 2: detectives scrutinized every aspect of Cindy's life, looking for something
6:59
Speaker 2: anything that implied a motive to make her disappear. They
7:04
Speaker 2: couldn't help but compare aspects of her disappearance to their
7:07
Speaker 2: other recent missing person's case, Catherine Davis, who disappeared from
7:12
Speaker 2: the neighborhood that surrounds Texas Christian University to the south.
7:17
Speaker 2: Like Cindy, Catherine was interested in the fashion industry, detectives noted,
7:23
Speaker 2: and both young women's vehicles were found parked at or
7:26
Speaker 2: outside apartment complexes not too terribly far apart, within three
7:32
Speaker 2: and a half miles of one another. Both young women
7:35
Speaker 2: also disappeared without leaving so much as a trace of
7:39
Speaker 2: their possible whereabouts behind. Though a connection was far from
7:44
Speaker 2: back to by evidence of any kind, police were keeping
7:47
Speaker 2: the possibility open. During the initial investigation, it was discovered
7:53
Speaker 2: Cindy and her boyfriend Nathan had been discussing marriage seriously,
7:59
Speaker 2: trying to iron out how they'd overcome their religious differences,
8:02
Speaker 2: probably meaning in terms of their parents than anything else. Cindy,
8:07
Speaker 2: whose father emigrated from Russia during World War II, was
8:11
Speaker 2: Jewish and a member of the Temple Bethel Congregation. Detectives
8:16
Speaker 2: discovered her name among the others on the Jewish Community
8:20
Speaker 2: Center's singles lists. Also, police interviewed the two friends of
8:26
Speaker 2: the stranded motorist to whom Cindy was to deliver a note.
8:30
Speaker 2: They told police they did not return to their apartment
8:33
Speaker 2: that night until after twelve a m. Which was why
8:36
Speaker 2: Kazumi Gillespie, the motorist, couldn't get a hold of them.
8:41
Speaker 2: They'd found the note pinned to their door, they told detectives.
8:47
Speaker 2: Other than small articles advertising a five thousand dollars reward
8:51
Speaker 2: for information leading to Cindy Heller, news of her disappearance
8:55
Speaker 2: was few and far in between. There was simply nothing
8:59
Speaker 2: to report. The cops weren't any closer to finding her
9:02
Speaker 2: on day thirty than they were on day one. The
9:06
Speaker 2: disappearance of twenty one year old Angela Ewart brought both
9:10
Speaker 2: Cindy and Catherine Davis's name back to the front pages
9:14
Speaker 2: of the Fort Worth Star Telegram and to the television
9:17
Speaker 2: on the ten o'clock news. As of the early hours
9:21
Speaker 2: of Tuesday, December eleventh, nineteen eighty four, Angela became the
9:25
Speaker 2: third missing young woman police were scrambling then. On Sunday,
9:32
Speaker 2: December twenty third, twenty one year old Regina Grover was
9:36
Speaker 2: found floating in the shallow waters of Marine Creek under
9:39
Speaker 2: the Angle Avenue Bridge in northwest fort Worth. She'd been
9:44
Speaker 2: strangled to death earlier that day, her boyfriend, twenty six
9:49
Speaker 2: year old David Larson, was found beaten to death in
9:53
Speaker 2: his apartment in the neighborhood that adjoins Texas Christian University
9:58
Speaker 2: to the northeast. Exactly one week later, fifteen year old
10:03
Speaker 2: Sarah Kashka disappeared from fort Worth's Wedgewood neighborhood in the
10:08
Speaker 2: city's southwest, not far from where all three of the
10:12
Speaker 2: missing women were last seen. She was found less than
10:16
Speaker 2: forty eight hours later, floating face down in the waters
10:19
Speaker 2: of a small stream that feeds into Mountain Creek in
10:23
Speaker 2: far southwest Dallas. Sarah had been stabbed repeatedly in her
10:28
Speaker 2: chest and neck. Just five days later, another gruesome discovery
10:34
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Speaker 2: gone Cold at manscaped dot com. At around four pm
11:56
Speaker 2: on Saturday, January fifth, nineteen eighty five, children playing near
12:01
Speaker 2: a small creek on the campus of Texas Christian University
12:05
Speaker 2: made a frightening discovery floating in the water, but entangled
12:10
Speaker 2: in the branches of a fallen tree. It looked like
12:13
Speaker 2: a headless corpse. After telling their parents, an older boy
12:18
Speaker 2: was sent out to see if it was only the
12:20
Speaker 2: kid's imaginations running wild. He quickly reported back to his
12:25
Speaker 2: parents that there was indeed a body, and the TCU
12:29
Speaker 2: campus police were called. They notified the Fort Worth Police,
12:33
Speaker 2: and the two agencies cordoned off the area. Shortly thereafter,
12:38
Speaker 2: off duty dayshift detectives working the Catherine Davis and Cindy
12:43
Speaker 2: Heller missing Persons cases also rushed to the scene, though
12:48
Speaker 2: they wouldn't share their speculations with reporters. Detective's money was
12:53
Speaker 2: on the body belonging to Catherine, where she was last
12:56
Speaker 2: seen was less than a mile away. Identification would be difficult,
13:02
Speaker 2: they said. After a brief search of the surrounding area,
13:06
Speaker 2: no head could be found, and it became too dark
13:10
Speaker 2: to proceed. A uniformed officer was assigned to guard the
13:14
Speaker 2: site until the following day. As searches were resumed at daylight,
13:20
Speaker 2: Terrant County Assistant Medical Examiner Mark Krause performed preliminary autopsy procedures.
13:27
Speaker 2: The badly decomposed body, which was found unclothed, was largely skeletonized,
13:33
Speaker 2: and Kraus estimated that it belonged to a young, white
13:37
Speaker 2: adult female. There were approximately seventy nine bones missing about
13:43
Speaker 2: one third of the body, which included the right arm,
13:47
Speaker 2: a part of the torso, and the skull. The missing
13:51
Speaker 2: parts were not dismembered by the killer, Krause stated, rather
13:56
Speaker 2: they'd become detached as the result of natural decomposition and
14:00
Speaker 2: the water's movement. It had been decomposing for at least
14:04
Speaker 2: six weeks, he added, which meant the body most likely
14:08
Speaker 2: did not belong to missing twenty one year old Angela Ewart.
14:13
Speaker 2: By the time the sun had set on the second
14:15
Speaker 2: day of searches at the scene, nothing else was found.
14:20
Speaker 2: Then the third day came and went with no progress,
14:24
Speaker 2: even after firefighters had pumped water out of part of
14:27
Speaker 2: the creek. The next course of action, which they'd begun
14:31
Speaker 2: that day, was to pump the water out of the
14:34
Speaker 2: small three acre lake in which the creek runs off,
14:38
Speaker 2: about a quarter mile north of where the body was discovered.
14:42
Speaker 2: In the early morning hours of Tuesday, January eighth, nineteen
14:46
Speaker 2: eighty five, Police officer Marc Stephenson wandered as he kept
14:51
Speaker 2: watch of the scene. As he walked the side of
14:55
Speaker 2: wirth Hills Lake, circling and carefully inspecting the portions that
14:59
Speaker 2: had been drained, Officer Stevenson found a human cranium. He
15:05
Speaker 2: marked the spot and continued about twenty feet away, and
15:09
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes later the officer found an armbone, although the
15:14
Speaker 2: jawbone wasn't found. By the end of the day, police
15:18
Speaker 2: cut a brake with the two teeth that remained in
15:21
Speaker 2: the cranium. One was capped and the other had a filling.
15:26
Speaker 2: Identifying the remains now seemed possible through dental records. On Wednesday,
15:33
Speaker 2: January ninth, nineteen eighty five, the Fort Worth Police continued
15:37
Speaker 2: their searches. After draining the water, they determined the body
15:42
Speaker 2: found within was not placed in the lake, but instead
15:46
Speaker 2: had been dumped in a storm drain that fed into it.
15:49
Speaker 2: Officers crawled through a maze of muddy, pitch black storm sewers,
15:54
Speaker 2: most covering more than a mile. Human vertebrae was found
15:58
Speaker 2: in a large storm d that connects to a series
16:01
Speaker 2: of systems that drain into the small lake. They knew
16:05
Speaker 2: where the body was dumped. Just after nine pm that day,
16:10
Speaker 2: the department received permission from the family of twenty three
16:13
Speaker 2: year old Cindy Valerie Heller to announce that the mostly
16:18
Speaker 2: skeletal remains found on TCU's campus belonged to her. The
16:24
Speaker 2: identification was made, of course, using dental records. Cindy's body
16:30
Speaker 2: was on its way to Chicago, where it would be
16:33
Speaker 2: examined by a forensic scientist hired by her family. According
16:38
Speaker 2: to Terrant County medical examiners, she died as the result
16:42
Speaker 2: of strangulation. The creek and lake where her remains were
16:46
Speaker 2: found is about four miles northeast of where her car
16:50
Speaker 2: was discovered in the Hunter's Ridge apartments about nine hours before,
16:56
Speaker 2: a meeting was held at Fort Worth Police headquarters that
16:59
Speaker 2: launched a task force designed specifically to investigate the murders
17:04
Speaker 2: of Sarah Kashka and Cindy Heller and the disappearances of
17:08
Speaker 2: Angela Ewart and Catherine Davis. With the formation of the
17:13
Speaker 2: task force, Captain Charlie Hoague could offer nothing new as
17:17
Speaker 2: far as leads at the press conference announcement, But we
17:21
Speaker 2: do have some old ones we're still checking out the
17:24
Speaker 2: near future, Deputy Chief commented, suggesting the newly formed group
17:29
Speaker 2: of investigators had plenty of work already lined up. Fort
17:34
Speaker 2: Worth Mayor Bob Bollan assured the public that he was
17:37
Speaker 2: devoting more resources to solving the cases than ever had
17:42
Speaker 2: been in the history of the city. The task force
17:46
Speaker 2: was stocked with the best of the best police officers
17:49
Speaker 2: and investigators with special skills and talents. Bullen remarked he
17:54
Speaker 2: pledged cooperation with other nearby cities, which he knew were
17:59
Speaker 2: also seeing a road in violent crime and some homicide.
18:04
Speaker 2: Whether they locked them up in Dallas, Fort Worth or
18:07
Speaker 2: Grand Prairie, the mayor said he didn't care as long
18:11
Speaker 2: as the perpetrators were off the streets. Meanwhile, officials with
18:16
Speaker 2: the Texas Christian University and residents of the neighborhoods surrounding
18:21
Speaker 2: the campus were in a panic. TCU officials were in
18:26
Speaker 2: a race to figure out the best course of action
18:28
Speaker 2: to quell the fears of the student's returning. For the
18:31
Speaker 2: year's second semester, fifty five percent of TCU students were female.
18:38
Speaker 2: Many of those fit right in with the victimology of
18:41
Speaker 2: the recent murder and missing persons cases. Non student. Residents
18:47
Speaker 2: in the area were also fearful. One young woman commented
18:51
Speaker 2: that she didn't go back out after returning home from
18:54
Speaker 2: work at four point thirty in the afternoon. A native
18:58
Speaker 2: of Australia who had recently settled in the area said
19:02
Speaker 2: she felt more nervous in Fort Worth than she had
19:05
Speaker 2: when she lived in Los Angeles. A shocking reality was
19:10
Speaker 2: finally setting in to many Fort Worth residents, folks who
19:14
Speaker 2: had always believed it was a safe, sort of uneventful town.
19:19
Speaker 2: Truth was the city had been riddled with depravity and
19:22
Speaker 2: violence for more than a decade. Two hours after Cindy
19:28
Speaker 2: Heller's remains were positively identified, the body of twenty year
19:32
Speaker 2: old Lisa Griffin was found alongside railroad tracks that run
19:36
Speaker 2: alongside Alito Road outside far southwest fort Worth. She was
19:42
Speaker 2: shot once in the head. Months later, in June of
19:46
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, Lisa's killer would be identified as nineteen
19:51
Speaker 2: year old Michael Wayne Gooden, whose defense at trial was
19:54
Speaker 2: that he had been enlisted, paid with a couple hundred
19:58
Speaker 2: bucks money order and her call to assist her suicide.
20:03
Speaker 2: Medical examiner testimony that bruising showed a struggle had likely
20:07
Speaker 2: occurred and character witnesses refuted Gooden's story. However, a jury
20:14
Speaker 2: seems to have taken it under consideration. Gooden was convicted,
20:19
Speaker 2: but only assessed a forty three year sentence for killing Lisa.
20:24
Speaker 2: He appears to have been released after serving eleven Still,
20:29
Speaker 2: for the first few months after Lisa's murder, her case
20:33
Speaker 2: was worked alongside the others that the Special Task Force
20:36
Speaker 2: was formed to investigate. Like in Lisa's case, it seems
20:42
Speaker 2: police were chasing down someone who knew Cindy Heller for
20:45
Speaker 2: her murder. Perhaps they were even seeking the same man
20:50
Speaker 2: for both. The Fort Worth police continually skirted around the
21:04
Speaker 2: question of whether or not Cindy Heller's boyfriend, thirty one
21:08
Speaker 2: year old Nathan Gaspard was a suspect, but judging by
21:12
Speaker 2: their actions, it's clear that he was. Cindy Heller was
21:17
Speaker 2: eulogized and laid to rest on Tuesday, January fifteenth, nineteen
21:22
Speaker 2: eighty five, and on that day, through an article in
21:25
Speaker 2: the Fort Worth Star Telegram, it was announced the cops
21:29
Speaker 2: would like to speak with Gaspard, but on that day
21:33
Speaker 2: he was in Chicago attending Cindy's funeral. A grand jury
21:38
Speaker 2: was convened to assist the Special Homicide Task Force in
21:42
Speaker 2: their investigation of the disappearances of Angela Ewart and Catherine Davis,
21:48
Speaker 2: and the murders of Cindy Heller, Sarah Kashka, Lisa Griffin,
21:52
Speaker 2: and now it seemed twenty seven year old Mary Till,
21:56
Speaker 2: who was connected to Fort Worth but killed in Dallas
22:00
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three and whose case resembled the others.
22:04
Speaker 2: The Grand Jury was utilized in the investigation for their
22:08
Speaker 2: subpoena powers, a smart move for a task force that
22:11
Speaker 2: had little to go on in nearly every one of
22:14
Speaker 2: the cases they were working. Not long after they began
22:18
Speaker 2: their inquiry, the skeletal remains of Catherine Davis were found
22:23
Speaker 2: in an isolated field in far southwest fort Worth, just
22:27
Speaker 2: north of Crowley. But concerning Cindy Heller's case, Gaspard was
22:32
Speaker 2: high on the list of folks the Grand Jury wanted
22:35
Speaker 2: a question, and on Thursday, January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty five,
22:40
Speaker 2: they got their chance when he voluntarily testified. Since the
22:44
Speaker 2: proceedings are secret by state law, the testimony came and
22:49
Speaker 2: went with little fanfare, and the Grand Jury continued to
22:52
Speaker 2: hear witnesses and see evidence at about two pm on
22:57
Speaker 2: Tuesday February twenty sixth teen eighty five, Nathan Gaspard left
23:02
Speaker 2: the home he once shared with Cindy Heller so the
23:05
Speaker 2: fort Worth Police could continue to execute a search warrant.
23:10
Speaker 2: They'd already been doing so for four hours at that point.
23:15
Speaker 2: Police searched the house, a storage shed out back, and
23:19
Speaker 2: utilized Fortworth City plumbers to dismantle and replace pipes both
23:24
Speaker 2: inside and outside the house. By six pm, they'd also
23:29
Speaker 2: searched gas Bard's vehicle. Because Cindy's body was found unclothed
23:35
Speaker 2: with no personal effects, detectives were hoping to find the
23:39
Speaker 2: clothing she was last seen wearing, a white jogging suit
23:43
Speaker 2: and tennis shoes. They also hoped to find her billfold
23:47
Speaker 2: and other items unnamed in the search warrant AFFIDAEPHIT. Among
23:52
Speaker 2: the items they confiscated during the search were a man's
23:55
Speaker 2: white shirt, a gray jogging suit, scrapings of possible blue
24:00
Speaker 2: blood stains, the contents of a vacuum bag, a cutting
24:04
Speaker 2: of drywall, and two pieces of molding, both with possible bloodstains.
24:10
Speaker 2: Although police refused to comment on the items taken from
24:14
Speaker 2: the home of Gaspard, a source told the fort Worth
24:17
Speaker 2: Star Telegram the following day that authorities were disappointed in
24:21
Speaker 2: the results of the search. In their affidaphit, police cited
24:26
Speaker 2: an unwillingness to cooperate with detectives, untruthful statements, and inconsistencies
24:32
Speaker 2: between what was learned in the investigation and information Gaspard
24:37
Speaker 2: had given them as their reasoning for the request. Deputy
24:42
Speaker 2: Chief Charlie Hoague declined to theorize a motive Gaspard might
24:47
Speaker 2: have to kill Cindy, but the cause for a search
24:50
Speaker 2: warrant is certainly questionable. First, Gaspard had given the fort
24:56
Speaker 2: Worth Police his consent to search the house before send
25:00
Speaker 2: He's body was ever found just a few days after
25:03
Speaker 2: she went missing, the police neglected to search the home
25:08
Speaker 2: for four months. He had taken two polygraph examinations voluntarily,
25:13
Speaker 2: and appeared before the grand jury investigating the disappearances and
25:18
Speaker 2: slangs voluntarily as well. Some strange occurrences involving Gaspard, however,
25:26
Speaker 2: were likely the catalyst for seeking the search warrant. Cindy
25:30
Speaker 2: and murder victim Lisa Griffin had met as they were
25:34
Speaker 2: introduced to each other by Gaspard at the grand opening ceremony.
25:39
Speaker 2: For Witherspoon and Associate's advertising company, where Lisa worked. Gaspard
25:45
Speaker 2: landscaped the office building's grounds while Cindy managed his company.
25:51
Speaker 2: Lisa Griffin was a receptionist at the advertising company. It's
25:56
Speaker 2: important to note police still didn't know who killed Lisa
26:00
Speaker 2: Griffin at this point. Gaspard had also contacted Katherine Davis's boyfriend,
26:06
Speaker 2: pat Riley while both women were still missing, to discuss
26:10
Speaker 2: similarities and possible connections. It's easy to understand why the
26:16
Speaker 2: police raised an eyebrow to such circumstances, though difficult to
26:21
Speaker 2: understand what took them so long to respond to them.
26:26
Speaker 2: Nothing anyway, ever, came of the items confiscated from Nathan
26:30
Speaker 2: Gaspard's home, suggesting tests and crime lab analysis failed to
26:35
Speaker 2: connect them to Cindy Heller's murder. In late March nineteen
26:42
Speaker 2: eighty five, the public got a glimpse into the expanded
26:45
Speaker 2: duties of the Special Homicide Task Force. There was now
26:50
Speaker 2: a total of eight Catherine Davis, Cindy Heller, Angela Ewart
26:55
Speaker 2: whose body was still yet to be discovered, Sarah Kashka,
27:00
Speaker 2: Lisa Griffin, and Regina Grover. Besides those six, two new
27:05
Speaker 2: names appeared Ginger Hayden and Katherine Jackson. On Tuesday, the
27:11
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, a fifty thousand dollars reward for information leading
27:15
Speaker 2: to the conviction of the murderer or murderers of the
27:19
Speaker 2: women whose cases the task Force was investigating was announced,
27:24
Speaker 2: in addition to the fifty thousand dollars reward offered by
27:28
Speaker 2: fort Worth Citizens Organized Against Crime, the fort Worth Crime Commission,
27:33
Speaker 2: the fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, and the Rotary Club
27:37
Speaker 2: of fort Worth. Cindy Heller's father was offering fifty thousand
27:41
Speaker 2: dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of
27:44
Speaker 2: her killer. The task Force's list was growing to include
27:50
Speaker 2: older unsolved murders, though jurisdiction in her case belonged to
27:56
Speaker 2: the Dallas Police. The task Force was also heavily invaded
28:00
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighty three murder of twenty seven year
28:03
Speaker 2: old Mary Elizabeth Till. That's next time on Gone Cold,
28:08
Speaker 2: Texas True Crime. If you have any information about the
28:14
Speaker 2: murder of Cindy Valerie Heller, please call the fort Worth
28:18
Speaker 2: Police Cold Case Unit at eight one seven three nine
28:21
Speaker 2: two four three zero seven. We'd like to thank Pat
28:27
Speaker 2: h for becoming a supporter at our Patreon page at
28:31
Speaker 2: the Clutch City level, and thanks to Emily G. For
28:34
Speaker 2: your support at the Bomb City level. We appreciate it
28:38
Speaker 2: beyond words, y'all. If you'd like to join Gone Cold's
28:42
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28:47
Speaker 2: persons cases, and other perplexing mysteries, you can support the
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Speaker 2: slash Gone Cold podcast. You'll also find episodes exclude to
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29:04
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29:08
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29:31
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, y'all.