Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Slayings of Don & Boston Tate at Big Bend
Transcript
- 0:00As I'm sure you know it's Girl Scout Cookie season. Hi. I'm Alice.
- 0:05I'm trying to sell enough Girl Scout cookies to Goga Divakin this year.
- 0:09I met that go last year, and I want to thank you for helping
- 0:12me. If you can help me again this year, i'd really appreciate it.
- 0:16If you're in the market for some Girl Scout cookies, please consider clicking
- 0:21the link in the episode show notes, and thank you for supporting the Girl
- 0:25Scouts. The Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener
- 0:32discretion is advised. Nearly one million acres make up Big Bend National Park,
- 0:39located in southwest Texas on the Rio Grande rivers most dramatic and Biggest Bend,
- 0:46hence the name. From the high peaks of the Chisos Mountain Range to resilient
- 0:52plants like flowering yucca and prickly pear, Big Bend's landscape is incomparably beautiful,
- 0:59but also rugged and unforgiving. The National parks desert expanses, canyons, forest
- 1:06topped mountains, and rocky Boulderous terrain is largely unscathed by humanities, sometimes mundane,
- 1:15and almost always destructive touch. Among the United States' largest protected lands,
- 1:23Much of the park is secluded and desolate. The nearest big city, in
- 1:27fact, is Elpaso, two hundred and eighty miles to the northwest, and
- 1:32there isn't a whole hell of a lot in between. As magnificent and perhaps
- 1:38soul mending as Big Bend is, there are dangers there far beyond the obvious
- 1:42peril presented by mojave rattlesnakes and black widow spiders. Finding bodies at Big Bend
- 1:51National Park isn't common, but it isn't necessarily a rarity either. The rocky
- 1:57steep and barren desert mountains, the enormity of the park itself, the lack
- 2:04of people, and the beating Texas sun, after all, are a dangerous
- 2:08mixture. Mother Nature has remorselessly taken plenty of hikers and campers there to admire
- 2:15her majesty. Undocumented folks crossing the border from Mexico are particularly vulnerable, and
- 2:23many have attempted the trek through Big Bend, walking dozens of miles before they're
- 2:28relieved of their journey, unless they succumbed to the elements and the process more
- 2:35nefarious than what Mother Nature is capable of are the acts of men. To
- 2:42the south. Big Bend borders Mexico for one hundred and eighteen miles, just
- 2:46above the lines separating the Mexican states of Kohahuila and Chihuahua. Though the park's
- 2:53terrain makes it difficult to simply pass through on your way somewhere else, criminals
- 2:59over the US years have found the inexorable conditions just right for conducting business.
- 3:06Since the heyday of pistol packing, outlaws and banditos, Big Bends, mountains
- 3:10and arroyos have been used to lay low from the law and as a logistical
- 3:15safe haven for conducting below board business. But well after it was used as
- 3:23a place to hide the spoils from a stagecoach or train robbery, Big Bend
- 3:28continued serving the criminal element. Throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies. There were
- 3:35countless cases of marijuana trafficking through the national park. Countless because there's no way
- 3:42of knowing how many were successful at eluding the law. Certainly plenty. Most
- 3:47of the people in towns on the Mexican side are ranchers and farmers, good
- 3:53folks making honest livings, but into the last few decades of the twentieth century,
- 3:59violent drug cartels had become powerful and feared. In the late nineteen eighties
- 4:04and early nineties, trafficking of narcotics once again became a major issue for park
- 4:11rangers at Big Bend. This time, however, it was cocaine. The
- 4:16business conducted by many of these large scale drug smuggling operations inevitably comes with risks.
- 4:25Death, of course, the ultimate price to pay, whether or not
- 4:30the victims placed themselves in the line of danger or simply happened to be in
- 4:33the wrong place at the wrong time. Executions at the hands of South American
- 4:40drug cartels and their US traffickers within Big Bend's confines also happened from time to
- 4:46time on seldom walked paths, both literally and figuratively. More depraved motives,
- 4:56perhaps even the lack of one, have also led to m at the West
- 5:00Texas National Park. In nineteen ninety one, twenty six year old Donald Tait
- 5:06and his five year old daughter Boston went to Big Bend and never came out.
- 5:13Instead, Boston and Don were left in secluded areas after having undergone deaths
- 5:18indescribably brutal and inhumane At about five pm on Friday, July nineteenth, nineteen
- 5:33ninety one, several men were riding horses along the Rio Grande River, a
- 5:39few miles north of San Vicente, Mexico. Across the river in an especially
- 5:45remote area at Big Bend National Park, the men saw an unusual number of
- 5:50vultures circling. The curiosity was simply too much for one of the men,
- 5:56so he pulled his horses reins toward the Rio grand and crossed at a low
- 6:00point, keeping an eye on the scavengers for direction. When he got across,
- 6:06just off the shore, at the mouth of a gulch, the man
- 6:11found a body wearing only a T shirt, caught in thick brush. Rising
- 6:15waters from recent heavy downpour had apparently washed it to where it was found.
- 6:21The discovery shocked the man. Whoever this was, it appeared, had died
- 6:27a gruesome and torturous death. He rode back across the river to tell the
- 6:31other men, three of whom raced back to a pickup, while the others
- 6:38stayed with the body to make sure the quick flowing water didn't wash it away.
- 6:42The three men in the truck drove to the home of a park ranger
- 6:46arriving sometime around half past nine. Another ranger was notified, and when she
- 6:51arrived a little less than an hour later, they followed the men to the
- 6:56body. When they got to the scene at aximately eleven pm, park rangers
- 7:01discovered the men who'd stayed behind had removed the body from the water and wrapped
- 7:08it in plastic. Rangers inspected the body. It was badly decomposed, but
- 7:14easily discernible as that of a white male who'd received several injuries, the obvious
- 7:19being removed teeth, a caved in cranium, and a broken leg. At
- 7:26midnight, park rangers arrived at Panther Junction, Big Bend National Park headquarters to
- 7:31meet Justice of the Piece Chester Wilson, who also acted as the county coroner,
- 7:38and who arrived at about one point fifteen a m. Since the body
- 7:43was on federally owned land, park rangers contacted the FBI, who they thought
- 7:47might claim jurisdiction on an obvious case of homicide. The following afternoon, the
- 7:55men who'd found the body accompanied a park ranger to the scene so he can
- 7:59inspect it in daylight. The ranger documented the scene by taking photographs demand's body
- 8:05meanwhile, was taken three hundred and twenty miles north to Lubbock for an autopsy.
- 8:11When it was announced in newspapers all over Texas the following week the demand's
- 8:16body had been found at Big Bend, the news was quickly followed by articles
- 8:22about another startling discovery at the park. On Saturday, July twentieth, nineteen
- 8:30ninety one, three miles away from where the body was discovered, a group
- 8:33of four hikers arrived at a remote camp site and Big Bend known as Solis.
- 8:41Once at the site, a large flat floodplain just off the shores of
- 8:45the Rio Grande River, the hikers noticed a scorched Volkswagen van nearby. It
- 8:50was little more than the frame of what was once a vehicle, but they
- 8:54could tell it was green in color. A couple of the hikers looked inside
- 9:00and saw what they thought to be charred remains of a dog, possibly a
- 9:03pit bull. They thought, since the head appeared to be rather big for
- 9:09a canine, they didn't think much of it. But after a few days,
- 9:13on Tuesday, July twenty third, one of the hikers decided to investigate
- 9:18further. It was gnawing at him. He grabbed his shovel, approached the
- 9:22van and turned the remains. When he got sight of the mandible, the
- 9:28man gasped it was the body of a small child. The hikers quickly made
- 9:35their way to the park ranger's station and reported the remains. At least one
- 9:41ranger knew about the burned van, but since tourist guides sometimes lost vans and
- 9:46fires due to overheating engines, he hadn't thought much of it, especially considering
- 9:52they'd usually come in and tow them away before long. But a check of
- 9:58the van's license plate showed that it belonged to a man named Donald William Tate
- 10:03of Irving, Texas, a city adjoining Dallas to its west. It made
- 10:09sense. Earlier that day, the rangers station received a call a request to
- 10:13locate Donald Tate, who'd gone to Big Bend National Park to camp with his
- 10:18five year old daughter, Boston Michelle Tate. Donald William Tate, or Don
- 10:37as he was better known, was born on September fourteenth, nineteen sixty four,
- 10:43in Dallas, Texas. His parents, Donald and Martha, and sister
- 10:48Amy were all actively involved in missionary work for the Episcopal Church. Don was
- 10:54a true believer himself, but perhaps traditional organized religion just wasn't for him.
- 11:03Countercultures were in their absolute prime during Don's formative and adolescent years, the hippie
- 11:09movement in the former, and punk rock, post punk and metal scenes in
- 11:13the latter. He attended MacArthur High School in Irving, and in the summer
- 11:18before his senior year, Don spent ten weeks in Chicago, Illinois, with
- 11:24a community of around three hundred who were known as the Jesus People USA,
- 11:30a group not worried about things like wearing your Sunday best to church and who
- 11:35were known to welcome in hesher's goths, hippies, punks, and paroleees.
- 11:41Don was into playing his guitar and listening to the Resurrection Band, Christian music
- 11:46that, if you're not listening too closely, could fit right in among heavy
- 11:52rock and roll and later in their incarnation, hair metal bands. Likely Don
- 11:58wasn't privy to the dark side of Jesus People USA, the cult like separation
- 12:03of children and parents and the sexual abuse of underaged boys and girls covered up
- 12:09by the leadership for years, just to name a couple major problems. Instead,
- 12:15what Don found was a group of folks who didn't buy end the kind
- 12:18of clean cut consumerism version of Christianity, and, according to his senior yearbook,
- 12:24focused on street witnessing and sidewalk gospel singing. But even they might have
- 12:31been too organized for Dawn. His priest at Saint Mary's Episcopal in Irving,
- 12:37would later say he didn't come to church on Sundays, but always volunteered to
- 12:41play guitar at summer Bible classes and other events. Dawn was sensitive and sweet,
- 12:48Father Scott Wilson later reminisced and empathetic, to the point that he might
- 12:54cry right alongside someone, unburdening their problems. After he graduated in nineteen eighty
- 13:01two, Don married April Dawn Ward on January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six.
- 13:09April gave birth to Boston Michelle Tate. April and Don's marriage didn't last
- 13:16a whole lot longer, but they amicably and equally divided Boston's time between the
- 13:20two of them. Boston easily charmed anyone that crossed her path. A warm,
- 13:28genuine smile excinuated her brown eyes and long brown hair with bangs dangling just
- 13:33above her eyebrows. Don was a proud and doting father. Folks who knew
- 13:39him in Boston recalled the two frolicking energetically on the church playground, and Don's
- 13:46joy when the two were together was contagious. An avid camper, Don was
- 13:52most content when Boston could go along with him. The bonding time away from
- 13:56the hustle and bustle of Irving, Texas was something you couldn't put a price
- 14:01on. On the second week of July nineteen ninety one, Don was supposed
- 14:09to return Boston to her mother's place, but he requested April let the five
- 14:13year old stay with him another week so they could go camping again. They'd
- 14:18just gotten back, apparently, though it is unclear when or where they'd gone.
- 14:24Don had only been to Big Bend National Park once before the previous summer,
- 14:31and he told his ex wife wanted to take Boston there. April didn't
- 14:35have a problem with it. She gave Don the go ahead. He and
- 14:41Boston headed out to Big Bend in his pale green nineteen seventy nine Volkswagen van.
- 14:46When they didn't return as planned on Friday, July nineteenth, she called
- 14:52park rangers the next morning and requested an attempt to locate for Boston and doners
- 15:00had the brutalized, badly decomposed body of a man that was discovered later that
- 15:05day, but he had yet to be idd A few days later, on
- 15:09the twenty third, when the charred remains of a small body were found in
- 15:15a burned out van. The man's body still was an ideed, and now
- 15:20they had two. Both had been sent to Lubbock for autopsies and identification.
- 15:28On July twenty second, nineteen ninety one, April don Ward reported her ex
- 15:33husband Donald Tate and daughter Boston Michelle Tate missing to the Irving Police. Children's
- 15:41Education Search and Rescue or CAESAR. Was notified about Don and Boston's disappearance by
- 15:48park rangers before the report was filed, and officials with the group traveled the
- 15:52five hundred miles from their headquarters in North Richland Hills, Texas, just outside
- 15:58of Fort Wars, to Big Bend. There were fears and certainly circumstantial evidence
- 16:06that the bodies belonged to Don and Boston Tate. Not only was it his
- 16:11van, but also a few Mexican nationals on horseback seeking runaway livestock had seen
- 16:18a man matching Don's description bathing in the river while a little girl played on
- 16:22the shore near where the van was found. But Big Bend National Park rangers
- 16:30insisted that at that point the information was unknown and they'd go forward with searches.
- 16:37The body found in the river, a park spokesman said, could have
- 16:41come from forty miles upstream, so, along with around fifty other searchers who'd
- 16:48begun before their arrival, eight Caesar officials with four tracking dogs diligently searched the
- 16:55banks along the Rio Grande. A few days later, on Thursday, July
- 17:02twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one, word came from Lubbock that the body found
- 17:07in the river was positively identified as twenty six year old Donald William Tait.
- 17:12The autopsy showed his cause of death was a blow to the back of his
- 17:18head. An unnamed source close to the investigation said Don's skull was smashed,
- 17:25the likely weapon a baseball bat. The autopsy also showed he suffered a battered
- 17:32chest, a broken right leg, the foot of which had been amputated,
- 17:37a dislocated hip, and a broken jaw. Don's fingerpads had been removed.
- 17:45Texas newspapers were reporting the identification was made by dental records, but his teeth
- 17:51were also reported to have been removed by National Park rangers. In a morning
- 17:56report, it was estimated Don been deceased around ten days. His death,
- 18:03to the surprise of no one, was ruled a homicide. Five days later,
- 18:11on the thirtieth, the charred remains found in Don's burned out van were
- 18:15confirmed to belong to five year old Boston Michelle Tait. Her cause of death
- 18:22is believed to be carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire. Though the blaze that
- 18:27nearly cremated the child and destroyed the Volkswagen van was initially believed to have started
- 18:33near the engine due to some sort of wiring defect. A comprehensive investigation later
- 18:41performed by Texas State Fire Marshal Deputy Rick Womack showed that the slow burning fire
- 18:47began in the vehicle's sleeping area, since the intensity was concentrated there. Near
- 18:53the ignition point was a metal gas can that had not exploded, indicating it
- 19:00had been open and perhaps emptied during the fire. There were no wiring defects,
- 19:06Womac said, and the fire was intentionally set. It burned so hot
- 19:11that the aluminum and even the glass near the sleeping area melted. Womac determined
- 19:18both that gasoline from the can was used to start the fire and that Boston
- 19:25was either unconscious or tied up as the van burned. Her death, too,
- 19:30was ruled a homicide. The identifications and autopsies were performed, unfortunately by
- 19:40doctor Ralph Erdman, a once well respected medical examiner who performed nearly all the
- 19:47autopsies in West Texas and the Panhandle for more than a decade in the eighties
- 19:52and enriched himself by taking on more than he could handle. This led not
- 19:59only to batch autopsies, but also purposefully falsified autopsies that were based upon police
- 20:06and district attorney theories, not science. For a relatively detailed explanation of doctor
- 20:14Ralph Erdman's crimes, which we do not have time to get into here,
- 20:18check out our episodes about Deborah Mackey's case, specifically Part two titled The Criminal
- 20:26Pathologist. Erdman was in fact under heavy investigation during the time he conducted Don
- 20:33and Boston Tate's autopsies. Texas State Fire Marshal Deputy Rick Womack was present at
- 20:41these particular procedures and insists that the determinations were above board. Investigators assisting in
- 20:51irving, Texas were unable to locate many items friends and family said Don usually
- 20:56took with him, including care camping and fishing gear, a small brass marijuana
- 21:03pipe, and Boston's Diskman CD player. Don had also purchased a forty four
- 21:10caliber handgun not long before the trip, which it appears those who knew him
- 21:15found unusual. The firearm, along with all the other items, was missing
- 21:22for a few days. Park rangers and Caesar officials led searches by air,
- 21:27water, and ground. If any evidence was found, authorities have managed to
- 21:33keep it from the public. FBI agents crossed the border into Mexico to speak
- 21:40with locals of a couple towns there, but ultimately wouldn't comment whether or not
- 21:45they'd gleaned anything new. Months went by and the FBI seemed to lose interest
- 21:51in the case. Park Rangers came and went, and all who investigated were
- 21:56frustrated at their inability to find evidence or make progress. Rumors that named specific
- 22:03individuals floated around the Mexico side here and there, but none were ever substantiated.
- 22:11Come December nineteen ninety one, however, talk that the case involved drug
- 22:18smuggling on some level gained further traction when park rangers discovered narcotics traffickers had been
- 22:25building a narrow road theorized to lead to a rendezvous point close to where Don
- 22:30and Boston Tate were murdered. Other smuggling routes, too, were discovered elsewhere,
- 22:37some using mules on foot through Big Ben's desert, and others employing campers
- 22:44for single trafficking missions by transporting the drugs through the park behind the walls of
- 22:49their RVs. In some cases, it should be noted the routes were used
- 22:56to bring everything from sneakers and electronic two believe it or not, frozen chickens
- 23:03across the border. Parts of the Rio Grande River near San Vicente, Kowahuila,
- 23:10Mexico were extremely shallow and easy to cross using a motor vehicle. These
- 23:15realizations that drug trafficking through Big Bend National Park was much bigger a problem than
- 23:22they previously believed, however, were quickly overshadowed by a scandal in the adjoining
- 23:30county, before news of the mysterious glowing orbs and flocking artists turned Marfa,
- 23:49Texas into the cultural phenomenon it's known as today, the Presidio County seat was
- 23:56a gritty ranch town with one traffic lane. Presidio County borders Brewster County to
- 24:03the west, where Big Bend National Park is located, and much of the
- 24:08landscape is the same. In both beauty and hostility, Marfa was home to
- 24:15the kind of cowboys who had the cattle to match the hat, and a
- 24:18place that didn't take kindly to outsiders suggestions on how to run things. Folks
- 24:26there were hospitable, but also as the geography demanded hard Before artists, hipsters,
- 24:34celebrities, and ufologists flocked to the area in droves, Marfa was something
- 24:41of a quintessential Western small town, and in ways even mirrored one you might
- 24:47see on the big screen. Corrupt small town sheriffs with blood on their hands
- 24:52who conduct business more like mobsters than lawmen are familiar Hollywood plot devices. In
- 25:00the case of former Presidio County Sheriff Rick D. Thompson, it's a fair
- 25:04description. After his predecessor, Sheriff Hank Hamilton, was gunned down in nineteen
- 25:11seventy three for seemingly no reason other than the fact the shooter dealt with mental
- 25:17health issues. Sheriff Thompson, then a tobacco chewing chisel jowed twenty eight year
- 25:23old former marine in well worn cowboy boots, took over. He might have
- 25:29been young for a sheriff, but Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson said of Thompson,
- 25:34his polite manners and looks concealed one tough, iron willed son of a bitch
- 25:40that had been tested in Vietnam and in countless scrapes since. The description is
- 25:47impressive coming from Jackson, who's known as one of the most stalwart and grittiest
- 25:52lawmen in ranger history. For many years, throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties,
- 25:59Sheriff Thompson was considered a kind of mascot for the War on drugs.
- 26:04First he fought to the nail against the trafficking of marijuana, or so the
- 26:10public was led to believe, and then heroin. When pot became kind of
- 26:14blase a in North American society in the nineteen eighties, cocaine became the drug
- 26:21of choice for folks who could afford it and even many who couldn't, and
- 26:26South American drug cartels boomed. By the late eighties. The most popular smuggling
- 26:32route of cocaine into the US from South America changed from Florida to West Texas.
- 26:40Sheriff Thompson, white, ten gallon stetson hat and all could even be
- 26:45seen on a television commercial sponsored by US Customs urging folks to call one eight
- 26:51hundred be alert if they suspected drug smuggling. Another drug smuggling mitrog Waiter State
- 26:57Penitentiary. Hell, folks, I'm Rick Thompson, Sheriff of Psadio County.
- 27:03I'm working with the US Customer Service to lock up drug smugger. Y'all can
- 27:06help us ruin a drug smugger. Holday, remember one eight hundred be alert,
- 27:11y'all can help. He worked closely with federal authorities, was in charge
- 27:15of a drug task force that included six counties, and was president of the
- 27:22Sheriff's Association of Texas. Thompson was a charismatic politician, competent, and the
- 27:29type of lawman folks in Presidio County and beyond looked up to and listened to.
- 27:37By late nineteen ninety one, However, nearly twenty years into his service,
- 27:41the beloved sheriff became a target of the US Drug Enforcement Agency in connection
- 27:48with the biggest drug seizure in West Texas history. In the early morning hours
- 27:55of December fourth of that year, federal narcotics agents were staking out a red
- 28:00horse trailer at the Presidio County Fairgrounds, parked near the Rodeo Arena and directly
- 28:07next to other property owned by forty six year old Sheriff Rick D. Thompson.
- 28:12The trailer belonged to the Sheriff's office, seized from dope smugglers in the
- 28:18village of Redford. An informant had told the DEA the day before that there
- 28:23was at least a ton of cocaine sitting in it. At one fifteen am,
- 28:30the silence of the night was interrupted by the revving engine of a green
- 28:34Chevy suburban driving away from the Fairgrounds. In contrast, the darkness remained curiously
- 28:41uninterrupted since the vehicle's headlights were off. The Chevy, seasoned and perhaps hardened
- 28:49DEA agent Dale Stanton knew was the vehicle. Sheriff Thompson generally drove. The
- 28:56reverberating hum of the suburban's V eight engine grew increasingly quieter until agents could no
- 29:03longer hear it at all. A few peaceful night. Hours later, armed
- 29:08agents moved in on the red horse trailer to investigate what was within, though
- 29:15they had a pretty good idea thanks to their informant. Inside were large heavy
- 29:19bags containing what appeared to be cocaine found under feed sacks and alfalfa hey.
- 29:26Later, the contents of the bag would prove to be just shy of twenty
- 29:32five hundred pounds of ninety three percent pure cocaine, each bag bearing the stamp
- 29:37of a known Colombian drug cartel, the Mediine Cartel. Specifically, the load
- 29:45was worth about fifty million bucks. The following day, several hours after the
- 29:51seizure of the nearly twenty five hundred pounds of coke, armed federal agents stormed
- 29:56the home of the son of a prominence local rancher, thirty seven year old
- 30:02Glenn Robert Chambers, and took him into custody. Chambers, an ex marine
- 30:08like sheriff Thompson was known as a violent man who conducted much business outside the
- 30:14law and who had been long suspected of narcotic smuggling. His close relationship with
- 30:21major drug cartels was the El Paso Herald Post reported legendary. There seems to
- 30:29be some debate on whether or not Chambers was put in a corner by federal
- 30:33authorities and in on the bust from the get go, but either way,
- 30:37he turned state's evidence against the sheriff, his longtime close friend, Sheriff Rick
- 30:45D. Thompson, who stood to gain a cool half a million dollars from
- 30:48the delivery of the cocaine to San Antonio, and Houston later pled guilty to
- 30:55drug trafficking charges that landed him a life sentence. Many of his constituents and
- 31:00nearly all of the local area law enforcement community supported him in disbelief of the
- 31:07accusations, but as even his own attorney, Barry Crutchfield pointed out, he
- 31:14pled guilty and that speaks for itself. Though it came with no possibility of
- 31:19parole. Thompson's sentence changed along with sentencing guideline laws, and he was released
- 31:26in twenty eighteen. Glenn Robert Chambers, who also was to have been paid
- 31:32handsomely for his trafficking services on this particular delivery, was also given a life
- 31:37sentence. Though Chambers tried to downplay his role in the operation, evidence clearly
- 31:45proved otherwise. Anybody that can move a ton of cocaine at one time has
- 31:51to be considered a major player in the world of drug trafficking. Dea agent
- 31:56Dale Stinton said of both Chambers and Sheriff Time Robson. After a subsequent investigation,
- 32:02chambers network proved to be vast, and further arrests were eventually made.
- 32:09Chambers mentor was close friend and drug lord Pablo Acosta, also known as El
- 32:15Zoro de Oinaga. Chambers was released on parole after serving thirteen years. Many
- 32:23including reporters, still give Sheriff Rick D. Thompson, the benefit of the
- 32:28doubt, suggesting he was new to the business when he was busted. However,
- 32:32his drug world nickname suggests he'd been involved in smuggling for many years,
- 32:38at least for a long enough period of time to be referred to as La
- 32:44Puerta or the door, meaning the door to the United States from Mexico,
- 32:49in which smugglers could slip right through. His photograph apparently still hangs among those
- 32:57of past and current Presidio County sheriffs at the department in Marfa, a place
- 33:01of honor, much to the disapproval of plenty of folks in the area.
- 33:08Glenn Chambers and Sheriff Rick Thompson, of course, weren't the only drug smugglers
- 33:14working in West Texas during this period. It's also unknown to us if either
- 33:20has ever been tied to operations that ran through Big Bend National Park. Both
- 33:25men and their parts in this vast operation, however, are a good example
- 33:30of what was taking place at the time. It's been theorized many times that
- 33:36don Tate might have been connected to some sort of drug smuggling operation and because
- 33:42of some action or perceived slight against others involved, he and five year old
- 33:46Boston were brutally executed, perhaps in part as an example to others. The
- 33:53fact that April Donzec's wife is quoted by author Lawrence parent and his book Dead
- 34:00in Big Bend as saying his involvement and some sort of drug deal gone wrong
- 34:05isn't unlikely, probably only further fueled the theory. In a logged National Park
- 34:12Service morning report on July thirty first, nineteen ninety one, a ranger writes
- 34:17that don quote had been involved in drug activity and owned large gambling debts in
- 34:23the Dallas Fort Worth area end quote. It isn't clear what involved in drug
- 34:30activity means exactly. In this context, the report might have been written after
- 34:36investigators found out Down always carried his pipe with him when he went camping,
- 34:40and it can be deduced at least some amount of marijuana. April also told
- 34:47parent that Don couldn't keep a job and suggested that was further evidence he might
- 34:52have been doing a drug deal. She wondered why he'd recently bought a handgun
- 34:59when he wasn't real really a gun guy. Along with at least one investigator
- 35:04that worked the case, April asked why he took five year old Boston to
- 35:08such a desolate area for camping, and questioned why his beating was so severe
- 35:15if he was an innocent party. The fact that his teeth and finger pads
- 35:19were removed also lent to the drug deal gone wrong theory. If these are
- 35:24the only things that point toward Don's involvement in a drug deal, that theory,
- 35:30however, is still lacking, or at least there are simpler answers to
- 35:35some of the speculation. Don, after all, was known as an avid
- 35:39camper and had only been to Big Bend once the summer before. Dangerous wildlife
- 35:45at Big Bend bears and cougars, as examples might have prompted Don to buy
- 35:52a gun for protection. Bear sightings at that time, in fact, were
- 35:57increasing dramatically. He took his daughter camping often, and the secluded areas of
- 36:04Big Bend have always been known as one of the ultimate camping experiences. Also,
- 36:09suggesting Don wanting to camp in such a remote area was because he was
- 36:15involved in a drug deal must also suggest that the family of four who found
- 36:20the burned van and Boston's body were also there for that purpose. Perhaps Don
- 36:27wanted to take advantage of the unusual temperatures Big Bend Park visitors were enjoying that
- 36:32summer. The week they were there, the area was experiencing highs in the
- 36:37lower eighties on a hot day and lows in the upper fifties on a cold
- 36:43night. In other words, it was perfect. Chief ranger Jim Northrop,
- 36:50who inherited the case months later, told author Lawrence parent that investigators himself included,
- 36:55never found a single piece of evidence that indicates a drug deal gone wrong
- 37:00scenario. Still, if drug mules had been using the area as a pass
- 37:07through, Don and Boston could have been killed simply for witnessing what was happening.
- 37:14Perhaps, though the murderer or murderers were motivated by sheer depravity. In
- 37:20nineteen eighty eight, just a few years before, four teenaged snipers hiding in
- 37:24the cliffs of Big Bend shot and killed a rafter floating down the Rio Grande
- 37:30River. Other boaters were shot at as well, but luckily none were injured.
- 37:37The snipes apparently weren't just for the hell of it. The snipers were
- 37:43apprehended. The motive remains one of the biggest mysteries in the case of the
- 37:49murders of Don and Boston Tate, and because investigators found virtually no evidence,
- 37:55solving the case is far more difficult than most The fact that those responsible might
- 38:01have been Mexican nationals only further convoluted the investigation. Park rangers say they tried
- 38:08desperately to keep the FBI interested and investigating the case, but their pleas fell
- 38:15on deaf ears. The slangs, especially the murder of five year old Boston
- 38:21Michelle Tate, still haunt the rangers who worked the case to this day,
- 38:27and certainly haunted Don's ex wife and Boston's mother, April, until her untimely
- 38:31death in twenty fifteen. Whatever the case, no matter the motive for their
- 38:37murders, and even if Don had made a terrible decision that led to his
- 38:42in Boston's horrific deaths, what was done to the father and daughter is in
- 38:46no way justifiable. If you have any information about the murders of Boston Michelle
- 38:55and Donald William Tate, please contact the National Park Service tip line at eight
- 39:02eight eight six' five three zero zero zero nine, or submit a tip
- 39:08using their online form, which we'll link to in this episode's show notes.
- 39:16If you like Gone Cold's mission to raise awareness for unsolved homicides, missing persons
- 39:22cases, and other mysteries across Texas, we'd greatly appreciate your five star rating
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