Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Bosque County Slaying of Helen Kilgore

Transcript

The Bosque County Slaying of Helen Kilgore · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
0:07
is advised. More than a year and a half before fourth grade teacher Mickey
0:13
Bryan was shot to death in her home in the small town of Clifton,
0:17
Texas, another victim of violence, a teenaged girl, was discovered in Bosqui
0:23
County. Mickey's husband was charged for her murder eight days later, after authorities
0:29
created a character out of him, a gay man who wished to free himself
0:34
from the bonds of traditional marriage so that he might indulge in the then socially
0:39
and lawfully forbidden lifestyle. In their investigation notes on Mickey's murder case, in
0:46
fact, law enforcement was exploring the possibility she was a lesbian, a theory
0:51
that, given the time and place her murder occurred, suggested at least some
0:56
of the blame was on the victim herself. When thirteen year old Helen Kilgore
1:03
was killed in April of nineteen eighty four, the era's other hangman's noose of
1:07
moral panic was wrapped around the neck of her case, placing the blame not
1:12
only on the still unidentified killer, but also in a way the victim satanic
1:19
Panic. Helen Marie Kilgore was born on July seventeenth, nineteen seventy, to
1:34
parents James and Gloria Kilgore. In the mid nineteen eighties, Helen lived with
1:40
her parents and three sisters, Robin, Kelly, and Tara, in a
1:45
new middle class home in suburban Corpus Christi, Texas, a city on the
1:49
Gulf Coast about one hundred and forty four miles south of San Antonio. In
1:56
nineteen eighty four, she was attending Tom Brown Junior High School. As she
2:00
began navigating her teenage years, Helen was seeking independence and autonomy. For whatever
2:07
reason, she began running away, a habit her sister Kelly, later explained
2:14
that usually only lasted a couple days at a time. On March fifth,
2:19
nineteen eighty four, Helen's parents reported her as a runaway. She was found
2:23
in San Antonio within days and returned to her home in Corpus Christi, although
2:30
precisely where she'd gone isn't known. Helen had been in a drug rehabilitation program
2:36
in San Antonio sometime before, a place where sometimes strong bonds are developed.
2:44
Less than two weeks later, she disappeared again. The Corpus Christie Police Department
2:50
received a missing persons report for Helen Kilgore on Tuesday, March thirteen. The
2:55
New Ace's County Sheriff's office was also aware of the teenager's disappearance, but this
3:01
time there was no sign of Helen for a while, until she called home
3:06
on April fifteenth, nineteen eighty four. The nature of this conversation with her
3:10
parents is unknown, though some news reports suggest that it was only to let
3:16
them know she was okay. In nineteen eighty four, folks didn't walk around
3:22
with a mobile device that could be tracked, and instead used payphones or landlines
3:28
at homes or businesses to make calls. There wasn't even caller ID at the
3:32
time. While tracking calls through the major telephone companies wasn't unheard of, it
3:38
was local calls that were generally tracked successfully. Helen Kilgore was calling her family
3:45
back home, she told them from Belton, a Texas city of around eleven
3:50
thousand residents at that time. It's less than fifty miles south of Waco and
3:55
more than two hundred and fifty miles north of Corpus Christie, a long way
4:00
from home. It's unlikely Helen's call to her parents could have been traced had
4:05
it come from a residential line, likely and making it even more difficult,
4:12
the thirteen year old called from a payphone, which were practically everywhere up until
4:16
cell phones became moderately affordable in the early two thousands. The payphone would have
4:23
cost Helen Kilgore ten cents for ten minutes, which was probably more time than
4:28
she needed. She wasn't calling to get a ride back home, just to
4:32
set her parent's mind at ease. What she did next and where she ended
4:38
up is unknown, as this was the last publicly known verified account of anyone
4:44
speaking with her. Evidence later showed, in fact that Helen died not long
4:50
after. At about seven am on Sunday, April twenty second, nineteen eighty
4:57
four, Derwood Koonsman was driving up Old Morgan Road in Bosque County, about
5:03
five miles north of Meridian, the county seat, and seventeen miles north of
5:09
Clifton. Derwood noticed a rolled up blanket just off the road about eight feet
5:15
or so. Locals illegally dumped trash often and loads falling from traveling open truck
5:23
beds along the rural county roads was not uncommon, so it wasn't an unusual
5:29
site necessarily. The black vultures circling in the sky above, however, is
5:34
what drew Derwood's eye to the blanket, which was gray and appeared to be
5:40
one used for moving or shipping furniture. He turned around after passing it and
5:46
approached again. When the man slowed his truck and pulled closer beside it,
5:50
he could see small feet extending out the blanket's end. Derwood was startled at
5:57
the site. He sped to a phone and called the Boskie County Sheriff's Office.
6:03
Justice of the Piece, James Corpier from Clifton, arrived at the scene
6:08
alongside deputies and Sheriff Phil Staley. It was obvious the badly decomposed body,
6:15
a female, had been there for days. Later, as they conducted the
6:19
investigation, Sheriff's deputies learned a woman heading into town to get her hair done
6:25
at about three point thirty in the afternoon the previous Friday had seen the rolled
6:30
gray blanket but assumed it was blown from a moving truck. It wasn't much,
6:35
but considering they'd found scant evidence on the scene, no tire tracks or
6:41
shoe prints, it was a detail they valued. Sheriff Staley would not release
6:46
details about other possible evidence found, but did say later the murder weapon was
6:53
not There was no identification found. The body was sent to pathologyists at the
7:00
Southwest Institute of Forensic Medicine in Dallas to be examined and they hoped identified.
7:09
Because of the state of the body, they had trouble with an age.
7:13
It was estimated at first that it belonged to a twenty to twenty five year
7:16
old woman, but after careful examination and detailed consideration of the decomposition, that
7:24
was changed to an estimation of thirteen to fourteen years of age. As they
7:30
took X rays for dental records and sent off fingerprints, authorities also released a
7:35
description in hopes they'd get a lead. The female stood about five feet four
7:41
inches tall, weighed around one hundred and two pounds, and had medium length
7:46
brown hair. She wore blue jeans, a red knit top, and a
7:50
gold beaded necklace. The cause of death was a gunshot to the head just
7:56
over her right eye, and powder burns around the wound suggested the shot was
8:01
made at extremely close range. A thirty eight caliber bullet was found in the
8:07
victim's head. Doctors who examined the body insisted suicide could not be ruled out
8:13
because of the angle the bullet was fired, though both they and Peace Justice
8:20
Corpier insisted the death must be ruled a homicide. One identifying detail, a
8:26
tattoo on the teenager's chest, led to a theory that might have stifled the
8:31
investigation at the start. Fueled by a widespread paranoia and moral panic that was
8:37
just getting its hooks into mainstream society in nineteen eighty four, and incredibly even
8:43
influencing law enforcement investigations because a tattoo of three sixes was discovered on their Jane
9:03
Doe's chest, the number of the beast according to the Holy Bible's Book of
9:09
Revelation. The pathologist who performed the autopsy said satanic ritual sacrifice could not be
9:16
ruled out. This mind you was a medical doctor in the big city of
9:20
Dallas. From law enforcement seminars on satanic rituals and abuse to touring preachers and
9:28
pastors warning of the wave of youth devil worship, such theories and murder investigations
9:35
were all the rage in nineteen eighty four and beyond newspapers in the United States
9:41
were inundated with articles about Satanic rituals and abuse in the nineteen eighties. The
9:46
phenomenon, by and large was uniquely American. To call Satanic panic baseless is
9:54
kind of a misnomer. Mass portions of the population engaging in ritual killings and
10:01
sexual abuse in the name of Lucifer might have been pure fantasy, but it
10:05
was rooted in something fear and ignorance. Evangelicals were happy to oblige parents' fear
10:13
that resulted from their inability to understand their children and especially the popular culture their
10:20
children were consuming. They were coming out of the woodwork to gain their places
10:24
as authorities on the occult. In nineteen eighty two, on his tour of
10:30
high schools and youth camps, mostly along the country's Bible Belt, Pentecostal minister
10:35
Steve Timmins told flocks of parents what to look for by citing examples of his
10:41
perceived truths about indoctrination into Satanism and witchcraft. Timmins's new firsthand the evils of
10:50
Satanism. He explained a Satanic coven had tried to baptize him when he was
10:56
stationed at an army base in Germany, and because he refused, he claimed
11:01
he was shipped out to active duty in Vietnam. Music, both popular and
11:07
underground, was the vehicle the fallen angel himself was using to indoctrinate the underage
11:13
masses to his word. Timmins and the like professed playing Led Zeppelin's Stairway to
11:20
Heaven backwards. Timmins said, will reveal the words I sing because I live
11:26
with Satan. The Lord turns me off. He admitted that you might not
11:31
hear it at first, but if you listen long enough, you will.
11:37
The evangelical might have sounded less like a lunatic had he chosen something a little
11:41
more modern and outwardly shocking at the time, perhaps something from Venom's nineteen eighty
11:48
one release Welcome to Hell. Citing the Dead Kennedy's album and God We Trust
11:54
Incorporated, Timmins said album cover symbolism was preparing the case kids to miss the
12:01
rapture of the church. It was even deadlier than drugs. North Carolina preacher
12:05
Albert Long insisted rock and roll music, Timmins continued, is the spirit that
12:13
Christ said would be here in the end of days. Others went on to
12:18
use the Dead Kennedy's song I Kill Children, while describing the band as hardcore
12:22
heavy metal oddly as satanic sadistic messages, even at least one psychologist, a
12:30
college degree holder, who somehow missed the band's almost exclusive and always flagrant use
12:35
of parody and satire. However, even after what might have been perceived by
12:41
paranoid parents and fearmongering ministers as bringing Satan into the mainstream, the summer nineteen
12:48
eighty three release shouted the Devil by Motley Crue, rock and Roll, nor
12:54
any derivative thereof. Had the kids drinking blood or sacrificing blonde haired, blue
13:01
eyed, Norwegian blooded virgins to Satan. Neither did the Dead Kennedys, nor
13:07
Motorhead, nor Say Twisted Sister Usher in the End of Times, instead leaving
13:13
that heavy lifting for a future generation of heathen ministrels like Lil naz X and
13:18
Taylor Swift. The six six six tattoo, which was fully healed, was
13:26
used to identify the Bosky County victim as thirteen year old Helen Marie Kilgore from
13:31
Corpus Christi, Texas. The body art had been tattooed on her by a
13:37
female friend, her family later said. Although her family also remarked that they
13:43
were unaware if Helen was involved in cult activities, it's far more likely she
13:48
was simply a fan of metal music and maybe even trying to piss off her
13:54
parents. There was at least some thought given to the occult angle as far
14:00
as the murder investigation was concerned, and while just how much is unknown,
14:05
even ten minutes would have been a waste of resources and time. Regardless,
14:11
few other details of the crime have been released. Authorities said the thirteen year
14:16
old was not sexually assaulted. It is also known that Helen left Corpus Christy
14:22
with two other teenaged girls who had not been found. Weeks after her body
14:28
was discovered. Another unidentified individual became a person of interest in Helen Kilgore's murder
14:37
because of the type of blanket she was found wrapped in justice of the piece,
14:41
James Corpier commented, and because the person remained missing for at least some
14:46
time after she was found. When Corpier told Waco Tribune Herald reporters they had
14:54
strong leads they'd obtained with the help of the New Wacey's County Sheriff's office,
14:58
He presumably meant the identification of this individual. He later said police and Corpus
15:05
Christie believed the POI fled the country. The case went cold fast tragically.
15:15
In nineteen ninety five, Helen's sister, then twenty one years old, died
15:20
of suicide when she jumped off the Corpus Christie Harbor Bridge. Why she did
15:24
is publicly unknown, though she is said to have left a note. Helen's
15:31
parents have also since died, but thanks to her sister, Kelly Kilgore,
15:37
Helen's memory lives on and her case is not forgotten. She keeps a pen
15:43
Helen gave her on her eighth birthday on a chain around her neck as a
15:46
reminder to never give up looking for her sister's killer. In the late twenty
15:52
tens, Kelly hired private investigator Bill Schaeffer, who was able to identify and
15:58
locate several so suspects, one of whom Schaeffer said died outside the country in
16:04
Canada in nineteen ninety three. The outcome of Schaeffer's investigation is unknown. Kelly
16:12
said Helen had been beaten in nineteen eighty four. Boskie County Sheriff Phil Staley
16:19
retired not long after the Helen Kilgore murder case began, leaving it to his
16:25
successor, Denny Prophet. Right after Prophet took office, another unimaginably violent murder
16:33
took place under his watch in August of nineteen eighty four. Whether Boskie County
16:38
residents wanted to admit it or not, a theme was certainly developing, and
16:44
there were at least some known similarities between the murders, if only a few.
16:49
We'll get to the August nineteen eighty four crime. But before we do,
16:55
we'll go forward to nineteen eighty five, back to the murder of Mickey
16:59
Bryan and the slang of another before her. That's next time on Gone Cold,
17:06
Texas True Crime. If you have information about the murder of Helen Marie
17:11
Kilgore, please call Texas Crime Stoppers at eight hundred two five two eight four
17:18
seven seven. You may be eligible for a cash reward of up to three
17:22
thousand dollars in return for your information. If you like Gone Cold's mission to
17:30
renew the public's interest in cold cases, you can support the show at Patreon
17:34
dot com slash Gone Cold Podcast there for as low as two dollars and fifty
17:41
cents, you'll get the show at free. Leaving a five star rating and
17:45
written review at iTunes also helps immensely, as it bumps the algorithm and gets
17:49
us into the ears of more folks. However you choose to support the show,
17:55
we appreciate it more than words can express. You can find and Gone
18:00
Cold online at goncold dot com or on nearly all the social media platforms by
18:06
searching at gone Cold podcast. You can also find a link in bio in
18:11
the episode's description. Thanks for listening, y'all.