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The Assassination of Sammy Rogers · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In Stephens County. The land doesn't
0:12
Speaker 1: rise or fall dramatically. It stretches, pastures, run into scrub
0:18
Speaker 1: mesquite breaks the horizon. Roads arrive, quietly, intersect, and continue
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Speaker 1: on without ceremony. If you weren't looking for it, and
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Speaker 1: if you missed the signs, you could pass right through Caddo,
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Speaker 1: Texas and never know you had been there at all.
0:36
Speaker 1: Caddo is tucked into eastern Stephens County, about ten miles
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Speaker 1: east of Breckinridge, where US Highway one point eighty cuts
0:45
Speaker 1: across pasture land and low rolling hills. The story of
0:50
Speaker 1: Caddo begins in the late nineteenth century on land that
0:54
Speaker 1: had long been used as a camp site by the
0:57
Speaker 1: Caddo people, whose name the community adopted. Settlers arrived in
1:03
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, and by the turn of the century,
1:06
Speaker 1: Caddo had the markers of a small but stable rural town, churches,
1:12
Speaker 1: a school, a post office, and families tied to ranching
1:16
Speaker 1: and farming. For a while, it was enough. Then the
1:21
Speaker 1: oil boom of nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen changed everything. Like
1:27
Speaker 1: much of north central Texas, Caddos swelled almost overnight. Oil
1:33
Speaker 1: workers poured into the area. Businesses sprang up, and by
1:37
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty the population had climbed to around one thousand people.
1:43
Speaker 1: It was loud and crowded, but temporary. When the boom slowed,
1:48
Speaker 1: so did Caddo. The wells declined, workers moved on, and
1:53
Speaker 1: the town began the long contraction that defined the rest
1:57
Speaker 1: of its existence. By midcentury, Caddo was shrinking steadily. Young
2:03
Speaker 1: people left for larger towns. Businesses closed, the school disappeared.
2:10
Speaker 1: What remained was a tight cluster of residents who stayed
2:13
Speaker 1: because their family had always been there, or perhaps because
2:17
Speaker 1: leaving felt harder than staying. By nineteen eighty, census records
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Speaker 1: put the population at around forty people, a number that
2:26
Speaker 1: barely changed through the nineteen eighties and beyond. By the
2:31
Speaker 1: mid nineteen eighties. Caddo would not have felt like a
2:34
Speaker 1: town in the traditional sense. It was more like a crossroads,
2:39
Speaker 1: but it was a place where people knew one another's
2:42
Speaker 1: routines and noticed unfamiliar vehicles. There were no new subdivisions,
2:48
Speaker 1: no economic revival, no sense of growth on the horizon.
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Speaker 1: Life revolved around nearby Breckinridge for groceries, schools, work, and entertainment.
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Speaker 1: What Caddo offered instead was a sort of peace wide
3:06
Speaker 1: Texas silence, broken by highway traffic and the rhythms of
3:10
Speaker 1: rural life. In nineteen eighty four, Caddo existed largely in
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Speaker 1: the shadow of its own past, with the oil boom
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Speaker 1: decades gone and the population a small fraction of what
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Speaker 1: it once was. What remained was a place suspended in time,
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Speaker 1: holding onto its name, its post office, and the land
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Speaker 1: beneath it, an almost forgotten dot on the map that
3:36
Speaker 1: still mattered deeply to the few people who called it home.
3:40
Speaker 1: It was slow and quiet. That's the part that made
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Speaker 1: what happened there in nineteen eighty four so difficult to understand.
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Speaker 1: On Halloween Mourning that year, Caddo's tranquility was broken inside
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Speaker 1: a wood framed house just north of Highway eighty. By
3:59
Speaker 1: the end of the morning, one of the most prominent
4:01
Speaker 1: men in Stevens County would be dead, killed inside the
4:05
Speaker 1: place his family had always called home, And to this day,
4:10
Speaker 1: no one has been able to say why. The man
4:13
Speaker 1: was Sammy Rogers. To every single person who knew him,
4:44
Speaker 1: Samuel Martin Rogers was known as Sammy. He was born
4:48
Speaker 1: on March twenty seventh, nineteen forty two, in Ranger, Texas,
4:53
Speaker 1: but grew up in nearby Caddo, as all Caddo teenagers did.
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Speaker 1: Sammy attended Breckinridge High School in the town of the
5:02
Speaker 1: same name. He graduated in nineteen sixty earned a college
5:07
Speaker 1: degree from Texas Tech University in Lubbock a few years later,
5:12
Speaker 1: and returned to Stephens County to build his life. In
5:17
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, Sammy married Pat Simmons. Together they raised
5:22
Speaker 1: two children, Leslie and Joey, in the same rural community
5:27
Speaker 1: where Sammy had been raised himself. In fact, he never
5:31
Speaker 1: left Caddo behind. Even as his business interests expanded. Sammy's
5:37
Speaker 1: roots remained planted in the same stretch of land. The
5:41
Speaker 1: house where he raised his kids had once belonged to
5:44
Speaker 1: his grandparents. His own parents lived nearby. His life always
5:50
Speaker 1: seemed to follow familiar roads. By the time he was
5:54
Speaker 1: in his early forties, Sammy Rogers had become one of
5:58
Speaker 1: the most successful oil around those roads. He was the
6:03
Speaker 1: owner of Delta Oil and Gas Company, one of the
6:06
Speaker 1: largest independent oil operations in Stephens County. Sammy was also
6:13
Speaker 1: deeply involved in the civic life of the area. He
6:17
Speaker 1: served on the Breckinridge Independent School District Board of Trustees,
6:21
Speaker 1: the Stephens Memorial Hospital Board, and the Stephens County Tax
6:26
Speaker 1: Appraisal District Board. He was an active member of Saint
6:30
Speaker 1: Paul Methodist Church and a past director of Citizens National
6:34
Speaker 1: Bank in Breckinridge. By nineteen eighty four, he was reportedly
6:39
Speaker 1: among the highest tax payers in the county. To people
6:44
Speaker 1: in Stephens County, Sammy was not an abstract success story.
6:49
Speaker 1: He was local, He was visible, and he was known.
6:54
Speaker 1: He had earned a reputation as a hands on businessman,
6:57
Speaker 1: someone who preferred doing the work himself rather than delegating
7:01
Speaker 1: it away. Friends described him as a country boy at heart,
7:06
Speaker 1: and that meant he didn't mind getting his hands dirty,
7:09
Speaker 1: even after financial success made it unnecessary. By all accounts,
7:15
Speaker 1: the man was well liked and a respected member of
7:18
Speaker 1: the community. A lot of folks get rich and become
7:22
Speaker 1: hoity toity, but not Sammy Rogers. It just wasn't him.
7:27
Speaker 1: In the months before his death, he had been working
7:30
Speaker 1: toward developing a game preserve on land he owned near Caddo,
7:35
Speaker 1: a project that reflected both his business instincts and his
7:39
Speaker 1: connection to the land. According to comments later made by
7:44
Speaker 1: his friend Stevens County Sheriff James Cain, nothing suggested Sammy
7:50
Speaker 1: was under threat. There were no public disputes and no
7:54
Speaker 1: known enemies, nothing to warn him or his family about
7:59
Speaker 1: what was to come. In nineteen eighty four, Halloween Morning
8:05
Speaker 1: arrived in the middle of the work week on Wednesday,
8:08
Speaker 1: October thirty first for the Rogers family, it began like
8:13
Speaker 1: any other weekday. Sammy and Pat were home, their children,
8:17
Speaker 1: Joey and Leslie, were getting ready for school. The Rogers
8:22
Speaker 1: property included a three car garage with vehicles inside, including
8:27
Speaker 1: a Chevy Suburban. Sometime around seven point fifteen that morning, Joey,
8:33
Speaker 1: a high school student, went out to the garage to
8:36
Speaker 1: start a vehicle. As he moved through it, something caught
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Speaker 1: his attention. Across the room, near the suburban, Joey noticed
8:45
Speaker 1: a pair of legs, legs that did not belong there.
8:49
Speaker 1: Someone was crouched behind the vehicle. The teenager did not
8:54
Speaker 1: investigate further. He turned and went back inside the house,
8:59
Speaker 1: telling his mother, Pat Rogers, that there was a man
9:02
Speaker 1: in the garage. The information moved quickly through the household,
9:07
Speaker 1: pat passed it along to Sammy. At that point, nothing
9:12
Speaker 1: had yet turned violent. The person in the garage hadn't
9:16
Speaker 1: made a sound. Sammy believed he was dealing with a prowler,
9:21
Speaker 1: someone trespassing, perhaps attempting theft. Not one to back away
9:26
Speaker 1: from protecting his family and property, Sammy went to the
9:30
Speaker 1: garage to see for himself. What happened next unfolded in
9:35
Speaker 1: seconds in closed quarters, with his wife and children only
9:40
Speaker 1: steps away, and when it was over, the man who
9:43
Speaker 1: had lived his entire life in Caddo, Texas, who had
9:47
Speaker 1: built a business, raised a family, and invested deeply in
9:51
Speaker 1: his community, was also killed there. When forty two year
10:07
Speaker 1: old Sammy Rogers stepped into the garage on Halloween Mourning
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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, he did not walk into an
10:14
Speaker 1: empty space. The man his son Joey had seen was
10:19
Speaker 1: still there. He had been crouched beside the Chevy suburban,
10:23
Speaker 1: concealed just enough that only his legs were visible from
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Speaker 1: across the garage. When Sammy entered, the man stood up.
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Speaker 1: He was armed. The gunman emerged from behind the vehicle
10:37
Speaker 1: and immediately confronted Sammy, pointing his pistol at him, Sammy
10:42
Speaker 1: raised his hands in the air. From that moment forward,
10:46
Speaker 1: the encounter unfolded under the control of the man with
10:49
Speaker 1: the weapon. Words were exchanged, though no one could say
10:54
Speaker 1: exactly what was said. Sammy did not attempt to fight.
10:59
Speaker 1: He didn't scare easily, but when he was confronted with
11:03
Speaker 1: a firearm, he understood the seriousness of what was happening.
11:08
Speaker 1: He knew if he did anything brash, he might get
11:11
Speaker 1: himself shot. The gunman began forcing Rogers backward. He pushed
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Speaker 1: him across the garage toward the door that led into
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Speaker 1: the house. Sammy complied, stepping back slowly, his hands still raised.
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Speaker 1: His wife and children were now fully aware that something
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Speaker 1: was wrong inside the house. Leslie, a senior at Breckinridge
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Speaker 1: High School, called out to her father, telling him to
11:38
Speaker 1: come inside. Sammy responded that he could not move, that
11:43
Speaker 1: the man had said he would shoot him. Upstairs, Joey
11:47
Speaker 1: ran to activate a panic button connected to the family's
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Speaker 1: security system. The system was elaborate for the time, designed
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Speaker 1: to alert authorities and record activity a road the house,
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Speaker 1: but it wasn't working. In fact, the system had broken
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Speaker 1: down the day before. As Joey tried unsuccessfully to trigger
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Speaker 1: the alarm. Pat began yelling into a company radio, calling
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Speaker 1: for help. Leslie ran toward the front door inside the garage.
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Speaker 1: The gunman continued backing Sammy toward the kitchen entrance. The
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Speaker 1: weapon remained trained on him. At some point, Sammy made
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Speaker 1: a decision. He lunged, jumping backward into the house and
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Speaker 1: grabbed the steel door on his way as he slammed
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Speaker 1: it shut. Almost simultaneously, the gunman fired. Pat locked the door,
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Speaker 1: but it was too late. Sammy had been hit. The
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Speaker 1: bullet struck him in the throat, just below the Adams apple.
12:55
Speaker 1: The wound severed an artery. He collapsed inside the house heavily.
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Speaker 1: The gunman did not attempt to force his way inside
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Speaker 1: the Rogers home. He didn't even touch the door, not
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Speaker 1: that the family could hear anyway. Investigators later said that
13:14
Speaker 1: if he had entered the house, the outcome could have
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Speaker 1: been far worse, meaning an entire family might have died
13:21
Speaker 1: that day. Instead, the man turned and fled outside. The
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Speaker 1: area surrounding the Rogers home was rough ranch land, open fields, fencing,
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Speaker 1: oil leases, and patches of brush. Witnesses reported seeing the
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Speaker 1: gunman running north and northwest away from the house on foot.
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Speaker 1: He was described as wearing camouflage clothing and a mask
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Speaker 1: later specified as a black ski mask. Inside the house,
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Speaker 1: emergency calls went out. Pat Rogers contacted the Sheriff's office
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Speaker 1: and requested an ambulance. Despite the effort to save him,
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Speaker 1: Sammy Rogers was pronounced dead at eight forty five am
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Speaker 1: by Justice of the Peace Sid Rhodes. The cause of
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Speaker 1: death was clear, a single gunshot wound to the neck.
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Speaker 1: Within minutes, law enforcement began arriving at the scene. The
14:22
Speaker 1: response grew rapidly. Officers from the Stevens County Sheriff's Department,
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Speaker 1: Breckinridge Police Department, and the Texas Rangers converged on Cado.
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Speaker 1: Sheriff James Cain, who had not yet officially been sworn
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Speaker 1: into office, found himself overseeing the most serious investigation of
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Speaker 1: his career. His predecessor, Sheriff Louis Hall, was on vacation,
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Speaker 1: and Cain was called to step in as the investigation began.
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Speaker 1: By mid morning, a massive search was under way. Roadblocks
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Speaker 1: were established along US Highway one point eighty at County
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Speaker 1: Road two o seven near the community of Necessity, and
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Speaker 1: along Farm de Market Road seven seventeen, leading toward ranger.
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Speaker 1: Officers searched on foot and horseback. A Texas Department of
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Speaker 1: Public Safety helicopter was brought in to scan the area
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Speaker 1: from the sky. Searchers followed muddy tracks leading away from
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Speaker 1: the garage. The ground was damp and the fleeing gunmen
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Speaker 1: had left a trail of visible impressions. It ran nearly
15:34
Speaker 1: a mile before reaching a paved road, where it abruptly ended.
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Speaker 1: Investigators believed the gunmen either had a getaway driver waiting
15:44
Speaker 1: or had reached a vehicle he had left behind for
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Speaker 1: the purpose of fleeing. Whatever the case, he managed to
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Speaker 1: leave the area before roadblocks were fully established. Morning showers
15:57
Speaker 1: may have helped erase additional trace. Despite the scale of
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Speaker 1: the response, the search produced no suspect. Two men wearing
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Speaker 1: camouflage were stopped and questioned on the edge of Breckinridge
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Speaker 1: later that morning. Both were released. They were deemed to
16:16
Speaker 1: be in the wrong place at the wrong time. By
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Speaker 1: two pm, the intensive manhunt was called off. What investigators
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Speaker 1: were left with was Stark, a respected oil man dead
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Speaker 1: in his own garage, a masked gunman gone, no stolen property,
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Speaker 1: and no clear motive. As Sheriff Kin would later say,
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Speaker 1: people had seen plenty that morning, but a question lingered
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Speaker 1: was it enough. By Halloween afternoon nineteen eighty four, word
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Speaker 1: of Sammy Rodgers's death had spread far beyond Caddo in Breckinridge,
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Speaker 1: the county seat and commercial center of Stephens County. The
17:00
Speaker 1: news landed like a physical blow. Businesses slowed, conversations stopped
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Speaker 1: mid sentence. People gathered in small clusters, trading the same
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Speaker 1: questions over and over again, not because they expected answers,
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Speaker 1: but because there were none. Sammy wasn't a man people
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Speaker 1: associated with danger. He was familiar, approachable, someone who waived
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Speaker 1: when he passed. An oilman, yes, but also a school
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Speaker 1: board trustee, a hospital board member, a church member, and
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Speaker 1: a father whose children attended local schools. Everybody knew him
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Speaker 1: or knew of him. For many in Stevens County, that
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Speaker 1: familiarity made the killing feel personal. Across Loop two fifty
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Speaker 1: two from the Rogers home set Caddo Mercantile, owned by
17:56
Speaker 1: Ronnie Langford, a close friend of Sammy's and at one
18:00
Speaker 1: time his business partner. The store quickly became an informal
18:05
Speaker 1: gathering point. People stopped in, not to shop, but to
18:09
Speaker 1: talk or to listen. Langford said everyone wanted to know
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Speaker 1: who did it. Employees in Breckinridge echoed the same disbelief.
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Speaker 1: Sammy was widely described as polite, hard working, and visible
18:24
Speaker 1: in the community. Nobody knew of any feud. They couldn't
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Speaker 1: think of a recent dispute. There was never any public
18:32
Speaker 1: controversy surrounding him. The question that followed nearly every conversation
18:38
Speaker 1: was simple and unanswered. Why would anyone do this? Law
18:44
Speaker 1: enforcement could offer little reassurance. Sheriff Kine was sworn into
18:49
Speaker 1: office the day after the killing, two months before it
18:52
Speaker 1: was due. He was candid with reporters. The only solid
18:57
Speaker 1: information investigators had came from the Rogers family themselves. Beyond that,
19:04
Speaker 1: there was no suspect, no confirmed motive, and no clear
19:08
Speaker 1: trail to follow. Cain said the investigation was entering the
19:13
Speaker 1: part of police work that involved far more effort than inspiration.
19:18
Speaker 1: Leads were sparse, Most tips were rumors, but each one
19:23
Speaker 1: had to be checked. Even if it were evident, they
19:26
Speaker 1: would lead nowhere, and that's exactly where most of them
19:31
Speaker 1: ended up. As the days passed, the absence of a
19:35
Speaker 1: motive became the central problem. Nothing had been taken from
19:40
Speaker 1: the house. There were no signs of forced entry, no burglary,
19:44
Speaker 1: no robbery. The gunmen had come prepared, concealed, and armed.
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Speaker 1: He'd fled immediately after firing a single fatal shot. The
19:55
Speaker 1: security system was down. Investigators were left to consider possibilities
20:01
Speaker 1: without evidence to support them. Anyone in business at Sammy's level,
20:07
Speaker 1: Sheriff Kane acknowledged, inevitably had people who disliked him and
20:12
Speaker 1: business rivals. Those ideas alone, however, were not enough to
20:17
Speaker 1: build a case. Law enforcement examined rogers oil dealings, his landholdings,
20:24
Speaker 1: and his financial relationships. None produced a clear lead. The
20:40
Speaker 1: killing of Sammy, Rogers and Caddo also reopened old wounds
20:45
Speaker 1: in the region. In nearby Ivan, residents were reminded of
20:49
Speaker 1: the unsolved nineteen seventy eight murder of Doc Moon, a
20:53
Speaker 1: former Stevens County rancher, whose body had been found beside
20:57
Speaker 1: his pickup truck along Farm to Market Road seven seventeen.
21:02
Speaker 1: Like Sammy, Doc had been well known and respected. Both
21:07
Speaker 1: men had been shot, and like Sammy's killing, Doc's murder
21:11
Speaker 1: had never been solved. The similarities were difficult to ignore.
21:16
Speaker 1: Both men were prominent. Both were killed in rural settings.
21:21
Speaker 1: Investigators didn't formally link them, but the comparison lingered in
21:27
Speaker 1: public conversation. It fed the sense that someone could kill
21:31
Speaker 1: a well known person in Stephens County and disappear. That
21:36
Speaker 1: feeling only deepened as reporters began noting similarities between the
21:40
Speaker 1: Rogers killing and other violent crimes elsewhere in Texas that year,
21:45
Speaker 1: including one one hundred miles to the east in Colleyville.
21:50
Speaker 1: Two weeks after Sammy's murder, on November thirteenth, nineteen eighty four,
21:55
Speaker 1: a masked man wearing camouflage clothing strangled Judy Herron and
22:00
Speaker 1: attempted to kill her young son inside their home. Judy's
22:05
Speaker 1: father was well known in the oil industry. Authorities were
22:09
Speaker 1: careful not to overstate the connection. Sheriff Kine initially acknowledged
22:15
Speaker 1: the similarities and sent investigators to Colleyville to compare notes. Later,
22:21
Speaker 1: he said he did not believe the cases were connected,
22:24
Speaker 1: though he stopped short of ruling it out entirely. Without
22:29
Speaker 1: physical evidence tying the crimes together, the similarities remained just
22:34
Speaker 1: that similarities. As weeks passed, frustration grew quietly. Sammy's funeral
22:42
Speaker 1: was held in Breckinridge, with burial in Caddo Cemetery. Friends,
22:48
Speaker 1: business associates, and community leaders gathered to mourna man described
22:53
Speaker 1: repeatedly as self made, generous, and deeply invested in the
22:58
Speaker 1: place he lived. Behind the scenes, investigators continued working. They
23:04
Speaker 1: ran down every tip, They questioned anyone who might have
23:08
Speaker 1: seen something unusual that morning. They re walked the scene,
23:13
Speaker 1: They reviewed what little physical evidence existed. By late November,
23:19
Speaker 1: friends and associates of Sammy Rogers took another step. A
23:23
Speaker 1: reward fund was established, initially totaling twenty five thousand dollars
23:28
Speaker 1: for information leading to the identification and conviction of the killer.
23:33
Speaker 1: The amount would eventually grow larger. Sheriff Cain said he
23:38
Speaker 1: believed the case could take a long time. Some cases
23:42
Speaker 1: do not yield answers quickly, no matter how much effort
23:46
Speaker 1: is applied. The law men also praised the patience of
23:50
Speaker 1: the community and the restraint shown toward his department. The
23:55
Speaker 1: Rogers murder, he said, was not going to be solved
23:59
Speaker 1: by luck, and if it wasn't solved in the coming months,
24:03
Speaker 1: it might not be solved at all. As nineteen eighty
24:08
Speaker 1: four turned to nineteen eighty five, the murder of Sammy
24:12
Speaker 1: Martin Rogers settled into an uneasy place in Stevens County.
24:17
Speaker 1: The initial shock faded, the roadblocks were long gone, the
24:22
Speaker 1: helicopters stopped flying. What remained was the case file, thin
24:28
Speaker 1: worn and growing heavier with time, rather than answers. In
24:34
Speaker 1: January nineteen eighty five, authorities announced that the reward for
24:38
Speaker 1: information had been increased. What had begun as a twenty
24:42
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars fund was raised to thirty thousand dollars
24:47
Speaker 1: and the terms were changed. Instead of requiring a final conviction,
24:52
Speaker 1: the reward would now be paid for information leading to
24:55
Speaker 1: a grand jury indictment, and additional ten thousand dollars was
25:00
Speaker 1: offered for the recovery of the murder weapon. By then,
25:04
Speaker 1: the investigation had narrowed to what little evidence existed. The
25:09
Speaker 1: autopsy had confirmed what had been known from the beginning.
25:13
Speaker 1: Sammy died from a single gunshot wound to the neck.
25:17
Speaker 1: Footprints left in the muddy ground behind the house remained
25:21
Speaker 1: one of the few physical traces of the killer's escape.
25:25
Speaker 1: The bullet was recovered, but for months investigators refused to
25:30
Speaker 1: publicly identify the weapon. Then, in March nineteen eighty five,
25:36
Speaker 1: Sheriff James Cain confirmed what ballistics experts had determined. Sammy
25:41
Speaker 1: Rogers had been killed with a three point fifty seven
25:44
Speaker 1: caliber Magnum pistol. The announcement came alongside something new, the
25:50
Speaker 1: first development in the case that could be described as progress.
25:55
Speaker 1: More than four months after the murder, investigators received a
25:59
Speaker 1: tip from from a witness who claimed to have seen
26:02
Speaker 1: someone driving north at a high rate of speed from
26:05
Speaker 1: the vicinity of the Rogers home shortly after the shooting.
26:09
Speaker 1: The witness provided what Caine described as a pretty fair
26:13
Speaker 1: description of both the person and the vehicle. Texas rangers
26:18
Speaker 1: brought the witness in for hypnosis. A police artist produced
26:23
Speaker 1: a sketch, but the result left much to be desired.
26:27
Speaker 1: Investigators tried again, this time using computer assisted technology in
26:32
Speaker 1: nearby Graham. From that effort came composite sketches, which were
26:38
Speaker 1: released publicly and distributed to law enforcement agencies nationwide with
26:43
Speaker 1: assistance from the FBI. The suspect description was specific but
26:49
Speaker 1: broad enough to include countless men across Stevens County and beyond.
26:54
Speaker 1: A white male approximately twenty five to thirty years old,
26:58
Speaker 1: between five foot ten and six foot two, weighing one
27:02
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty pounds, with
27:05
Speaker 1: dishwater blonde hair, a ruddy complexion, and a small mole
27:09
Speaker 1: on his right cheek. The sketches generated attention, they did
27:14
Speaker 1: not generate arrests. By the fall of nineteen eighty five,
27:20
Speaker 1: the Rogers case had reached its one year mark. Sheriff Kine,
27:25
Speaker 1: now fully settled into the job he had assumed under
27:28
Speaker 1: the worst possible circumstances, spoke about the investigation. He said
27:34
Speaker 1: his department and Texas Ranger James Key had chased hundreds
27:39
Speaker 1: of leads, phone calls, rumors, tips that ranged from promising
27:44
Speaker 1: to implausible. Most led nowhere. None solved the case. The trail,
27:51
Speaker 1: Caine admitted, had gone cold shortly after the murder and
27:55
Speaker 1: never truly reheated. Investigators still did not know why Sammy
28:01
Speaker 1: Rogers had been killed. Robbery didn't fit, neither did botched burglary.
28:07
Speaker 1: There was no evidence of personal conflict that explained a
28:11
Speaker 1: masked man lying in wait inside a garage. Cain said
28:15
Speaker 1: that among the many theories examined, one carried more internal
28:20
Speaker 1: logic than the others. The idea that Sammy had been
28:23
Speaker 1: targeted deliberately the hitman theory, but logic wasn't evidence. If
28:30
Speaker 1: the killing had been professional, Cain said, it might never
28:34
Speaker 1: be solved. Someone would have had to pay for it.
28:39
Speaker 1: Someone would have had to want Sammy dead badly enough
28:42
Speaker 1: to arrange it, And yet after exhaustive investigation, law enforcement
28:48
Speaker 1: could not identify who that might be or why. By
28:53
Speaker 1: late nineteen eighty five, rewards totaling forty thousand dollars had
28:58
Speaker 1: produced no break. Composite sketches had drawn no response. Physical
29:04
Speaker 1: evidence remained limited to a bullet and footprints that ended
29:08
Speaker 1: at a paved road. Cain said the case frustrated him
29:13
Speaker 1: more than any other aspect of his first year as sheriff,
29:17
Speaker 1: not just because it was unsolved, but because Sammy was
29:21
Speaker 1: his friend. Despite that, Cain said, the work continued, Every
29:27
Speaker 1: tip was logged, every call was checked, The case files
29:32
Speaker 1: stayed open. In Cado, life went on quietly. Highway eighty
29:39
Speaker 1: still funneled traffic past pastureland and scrub brush. The Rogers
29:44
Speaker 1: home remained standing, holding the memory of a morning that
29:48
Speaker 1: changed everything, and somewhere beyond Stevens County, a masked gunman
29:55
Speaker 1: or someone who knew him. Perhaps someone who hired him
30:00
Speaker 1: carried the answers to a killing that left no motive behind.
30:05
Speaker 1: More than four decades later, the questions that remain are
30:09
Speaker 1: the same ones asked in CADO in nineteen eighty four.
30:13
Speaker 1: Who killed Sammy Rogers and why? If you have any
30:20
Speaker 1: information about the murder of Sammy Martin Rogers, please contact
30:25
Speaker 1: the Stevens County Sheriff's Office at two five four five'
30:28
Speaker 1: five nine two four eight. One if you'd like to
30:34
Speaker 1: Join Gon cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
30:37
Speaker 1: homicides and missing persons, cases get the show at free
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Speaker 1: y'all