Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / Cynthia Gonzalez Part Three: Janie

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Cynthia Gonzalez Part Three: Janie · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Speaker 1: Gone Cold podcast may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. Detective Jim Ford's work on Cynthia
0:11
Speaker 2: Gonzalez's case earned considerable respect inside the Arlington Police Department.
0:17
Speaker 2: In December 1991, he was named Arlington's Officer of the Year.
0:23
Speaker 2: Sporting cowboy boots and a handlebar mustache, Colleagues later remembered
0:27
Speaker 2: him as an old-school homicide detective who often worked late,
0:32
Speaker 2: surrounded by Coca-Cola cans, 7-Eleven coffee cups, and an ashtray
0:37
Speaker 2: overflowing with cigarette butts. His calm manner and Texas drawl
0:42
Speaker 2: reportedly made him particularly effective in interviews, where persistence rather
0:48
Speaker 2: than intimidation became one of his trademarks. But Ford was
0:52
Speaker 2: more interested in his cases than accolades. At some point
0:57
Speaker 2: early on in the investigation into Cynthia's murder, the interviewing
1:01
Speaker 2: process brought him back to Janie Hatley, the woman who
1:05
Speaker 2: Rocky Ortiz claimed he had ended things with in order
1:09
Speaker 2: to be exclusive to Cynthia. The name Hatley was from
1:13
Speaker 2: Janie's prior marriage. Her birth name was Janie Elizabeth Cleveland.
1:18
Speaker 2: Because of her history with Rocky and the uncertainty surrounding
1:22
Speaker 2: exactly when their relationship had ended, Ford wanted to know
1:26
Speaker 2: where she'd been the night Cynthia disappeared. Janie said she
1:31
Speaker 2: was off work and at home alone. Unlike Rocky and
1:34
Speaker 2: Cynthia's estranged husband, Don, whose whereabouts detectives were able to corroborate,
1:40
Speaker 2: Janie had no one who could verify her account. She
1:44
Speaker 2: denied having anything to do with Cynthia's disappearance or murder.
1:49
Speaker 2: Detective Ford asked her to take a polygraph examination. Janie agreed.
1:55
Speaker 2: The first examination used what was described as a zone
1:59
Speaker 2: comparison technique, which measured her physiological responses to questions directly
2:05
Speaker 2: related to Cynthia's murder and compared them with her reactions
2:09
Speaker 2: to broader questions. According to the examiner, Janie showed significant
2:15
Speaker 2: indications of deception. The strongest responses reportedly came when she
2:20
Speaker 2: was asked whether she knew who shot Cynthia. and whether
2:24
Speaker 2: she herself had shot Cynthia. After the exam, Ford advised
2:30
Speaker 2: Janie of her Miranda rights and questioned her further. She
2:34
Speaker 2: continued to deny involvement. During the interview, however, detectives said
2:40
Speaker 2: Janie spoke openly about her feelings for Rocky Ortiz. She
2:44
Speaker 2: described the two of them as soulmates and said Rocky
2:48
Speaker 2: could never be completely rid of her. She also made
2:51
Speaker 2: statements about Cynthia that immediately caught Ford's attention. Janie admitted
2:57
Speaker 2: wishing Cynthia were dead, being glad she was dead, and
3:02
Speaker 2: having thought about either killing her herself or having someone
3:06
Speaker 2: else do it. About a week later, Detective Ford asked
3:10
Speaker 2: Janie to take a second polygraph. Again, she agreed. This
3:15
Speaker 2: examination used a different method than the first. an FBI-modified
3:21
Speaker 2: relevant-irrelevant technique, the oldest procedure developed for the polygraph machine,
3:27
Speaker 2: designed to compare a person's physiological reactions to questions specific
3:32
Speaker 2: to the crime against neutral or baseline questions. According to
3:37
Speaker 2: the examiner, Janie again showed indications of deception, and this
3:42
Speaker 2: time the interpretation went further. The examiner believed her responses
3:48
Speaker 2: suggested that she knew who had killed Cynthia and had
3:51
Speaker 2: been involved in planning the murder, possibly by arranging for
3:55
Speaker 2: someone else to carry it out. Ford questioned her again.
4:00
Speaker 2: Janie continued denying that she had killed Cynthia. By then,
4:06
Speaker 2: detectives had a woman whose whereabouts couldn't be independently verified.
4:10
Speaker 2: Two polygraph tests that examiners interpreted as deceptive and statements
4:16
Speaker 2: indicating deep hostility toward Cynthia. But that's where the investigation stalled.
4:22
Speaker 2: Detective Ford had no murder weapon, no witness, and no
4:26
Speaker 2: forensic evidence tying Janie Hatley to Cynthia's body. Polygraph examinations,
4:33
Speaker 2: though the cops have often placed tremendous faith in them,
4:36
Speaker 2: are worthless as far as proof goes. So, Detective Ford
4:41
Speaker 2: followed other leads, including his intensive scrutiny of serial killer
4:45
Speaker 2: Kenneth Allen McDuff, a possibility he held onto for many years.
4:51
Speaker 2: But as these avenues were explored, the name Janie Hatley
4:55
Speaker 2: often resurfaced. In February 1993, nearly a year and a
5:27
Speaker 2: half after Cynthia's murder, Janie Hatley returned to the center
5:31
Speaker 2: of the investigation when a man named Robert William Hardy
5:35
Speaker 2: was arrested in Grand Prairie on unrelated charges. Hardy knew
5:40
Speaker 2: Janie well, He was described as someone who'd been close
5:43
Speaker 2: to her. While in custody, the man asked to speak
5:48
Speaker 2: with Detective Jim Ford, to whom, ultimately, he gave a
5:52
Speaker 2: sworn statement. According to Hardy, Janie spoke repeatedly about Rocky
5:57
Speaker 2: Ortiz and had admitted to being involved in Cynthia's murder.
6:02
Speaker 2: He claimed Janie told him Cynthia had been raped, shot
6:06
Speaker 2: four or five times in the chest with a. 44 Magnum,
6:09
Speaker 2: and dumped in a ditch. He also said Janie told
6:13
Speaker 2: him police would never catch her because the evidence was gone.
6:17
Speaker 2: Heavy rain had washed it away. Some of those details
6:21
Speaker 2: matched those surrounding Cynthia's death. There had been torrential downpours
6:26
Speaker 2: during the days her body lay in a ditch in
6:29
Speaker 2: Johnson County, and by the time she was found, decomposition
6:33
Speaker 2: and exposure had severely damaged potential evidence. Other details provided
6:39
Speaker 2: by Hardy, however, were wrong. Cynthia had been shot with a.
6:44
Speaker 2: 38 caliber revolver, not a. 44. And although Hardy said
6:48
Speaker 2: Janie told him Cynthia had been raped, the autopsy didn't
6:52
Speaker 2: establish that as a definitive fact, unless that was information
6:56
Speaker 2: the police were trying to hold back. There was another complication.
7:02
Speaker 2: By the time Hardy spoke with Detective Ford in 1993,
7:06
Speaker 2: plenty of the details surrounding Cynthia's murder had been widely
7:10
Speaker 2: reported on in local television newscasts and in the Fort
7:14
Speaker 2: Worth Star-Telegram. A September 28, 1991 newspaper account reported that
7:21
Speaker 2: Cynthia had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and
7:24
Speaker 2: had stated rather decisively that she was raped. Hardy's account
7:30
Speaker 2: did offer other information, however, that Ford found worth checking out.
7:36
Speaker 2: He claimed Janie asked him to tell police that he'd
7:39
Speaker 2: been with her on the night Cynthia disappeared. Hardy also
7:42
Speaker 2: said Janie told others she'd killed Cynthia. Ford followed up
7:47
Speaker 2: with Rocky Ortiz. Rocky gave a sworn statement describing conversations
7:53
Speaker 2: he'd had with Janie that began in October 1991. only
7:57
Speaker 2: weeks after the murder of his girlfriend. According to him,
8:01
Speaker 2: Janie repeatedly said she had killed Cynthia, sometimes discussing the
8:07
Speaker 2: murder in more detail and insisting police would never be
8:10
Speaker 2: able to prove it. Rocky said Janie told him that
8:14
Speaker 2: the cops would probably never find the murder weapon or
8:17
Speaker 2: Cynthia's clothing. He claimed Janie said Cynthia's clothes had been
8:22
Speaker 2: thrown away at a dump. Perhaps that statement was notable,
8:27
Speaker 2: since Cynthia's body was found immediately behind the Turkey Creek
8:31
Speaker 2: landfill in Johnson County. Or perhaps not, since Rocky could
8:36
Speaker 2: have easily known that fact without Janie ever telling him anything.
8:40
Speaker 2: Either way, no clothing belonging to Cynthia was ever recovered there.
8:46
Speaker 2: Rocky also told detectives Janie connected Cynthia's slang directly to
8:51
Speaker 2: their relationship. telling him now that Cynthia was gone, he
8:55
Speaker 2: would have to return to her. But at other times,
8:59
Speaker 2: Rocky added, Janie denied killing Cynthia, saying she'd only claimed
9:04
Speaker 2: responsibility because she was angry with him and wanted to
9:07
Speaker 2: hurt him. Detective Ford now had two separate men saying
9:12
Speaker 2: Janie Hatley had claimed involvement in Cynthia's murder, and Robert
9:17
Speaker 2: William Hardy and Rocky Ortiz didn't know one another. Their
9:22
Speaker 2: statements weren't identical. While Hardy's. 44 Magnum account conflicted with
9:27
Speaker 2: the physical evidence, Rocky's statement didn't establish the caliber of
9:32
Speaker 2: the weapon. Still, both men described Janie talking about Cynthia's
9:37
Speaker 2: killing after the fact, and both attributed statements to her
9:41
Speaker 2: concerning evidence investigators would never recover. There was something else
9:46
Speaker 2: connecting Janie. A key. She had told detectives that she'd
9:51
Speaker 2: left or lost her keys inside Cynthia's car. A key
9:56
Speaker 2: had indeed been found inside the Fiero. Detective Jim Ford
10:01
Speaker 2: had accumulated a troubling collection of statements and circumstances surrounding
10:06
Speaker 2: Janie Hatley, but still lacked the physical evidence needed to
10:10
Speaker 2: move the case forward. Nothing placed Janie with Cynthia during
10:15
Speaker 2: the critical hours after she disappeared. The case went cold.
10:19
Speaker 2: but it never left Ford's mind. He continued returning to
10:24
Speaker 2: Cynthia's murder whenever new information surfaced. In 1995, the Arlington
10:30
Speaker 2: police said they had two potential suspects in Cynthia's murder,
10:34
Speaker 2: but still didn't have enough evidence for an arrest. In 2004,
10:39
Speaker 2: Ford and Detective John Bell participated in a grant-funded cold
10:44
Speaker 2: case effort while continuing to carry their normal caseloads. As
10:48
Speaker 2: forensic science improved, they revisited Cynthia's case again in 2005
10:54
Speaker 2: and 2006, reviewing suspect profiles and submitting requests involving DNA
11:00
Speaker 2: and latent evidence testing that had not been available in 1991.
11:06
Speaker 2: But those efforts didn't produce the breakthrough Ford had spent
11:09
Speaker 2: more than a decade looking for. In May 2010... Ford
11:14
Speaker 2: retired from the Arlington Police Department after a 34-year career there.
11:19
Speaker 2: Cynthia's murder had followed him through nearly two decades of that.
11:25
Speaker 2: After leaving APD, he worked as a criminal investigator for
11:28
Speaker 2: the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office. Jim Ford died on
11:33
Speaker 2: July 31, 2013, at only 58 years old. Cynthia Gonzalez's
11:51
Speaker 2: case never became cold to the people who loved her. Jessie,
11:56
Speaker 2: Cynthia's daughter, had grown up carrying the indescribably heavy weight
12:01
Speaker 2: of her mom's murder, and had lived with the unrelenting
12:04
Speaker 2: uncertainty that comes with unresolved cases.
12:09
Speaker 1: It's something that has, you know, haunted me my entire life.
12:15
Speaker 1: I've gotten stronger as I've gotten older, of course, but,
12:18
Speaker 1: you know, I have, moments here and there whenever I just,
12:23
Speaker 1: you know, cry and cry and cry about it. And
12:26
Speaker 1: I have moments where I'm digging through articles and chasing,
12:30
Speaker 1: you know, possible Facebook leads of people and this and
12:33
Speaker 1: that and reaching out to people.
12:35
Speaker 2: Several years ago, Jessie went to the Arlington Police Department
12:39
Speaker 2: to get an update on her mom's case. She was
12:42
Speaker 2: no longer the six-year-old girl who had cried when she
12:45
Speaker 2: was taken from Cynthia's apartment on the last evening she
12:49
Speaker 2: was seen alive. The little girl who was struck by
12:52
Speaker 2: a frightening feeling she'd never see her mom alive again. Now,
12:57
Speaker 2: she was an adult who had spent nearly her entire
13:00
Speaker 2: life waiting for an answer. And the trip to the
13:03
Speaker 2: department wasn't just a catch-up visit. There was something specific
13:08
Speaker 2: on her mind.
13:09
Speaker 1: I had told them that, you know, as a child,
13:13
Speaker 1: you know, I never got questioned by the police, even
13:16
Speaker 1: though I was with my mom a day that she
13:19
Speaker 1: was abducted. You know, you would think that you would
13:22
Speaker 1: want to ask the child who's watching her mom get
13:26
Speaker 1: ready for work, you know, any kind of questions that
13:28
Speaker 1: might give you some kind of clue of where she's going.
13:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I might have known where she was going.
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Speaker 2: Who knows?
13:35
Speaker 1: You know, but they didn't ask me anything. And so
13:37
Speaker 1: I was a little annoyed by that. And so they
13:40
Speaker 1: did a little preliminary interview with me, I guess.
13:44
Speaker 2: Something else happened, too. Jessie learned a name she'd never heard.
13:50
Speaker 1: They let me look at some of my mom's stuff
13:52
Speaker 1: that they had taken from her apartment. And one of
13:54
Speaker 1: those things was that diary. And it was in that
13:59
Speaker 1: diary that I learned about Janie. I mean, I just
14:04
Speaker 1: knew that they knew one another and would hang out
14:07
Speaker 1: from time to time because she'd say stuff like, oh,
14:09
Speaker 1: I hung out with Janie today, you know, blah, blah, blah.
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Speaker 1: We went to the mall or whatever, you know, kind
14:15
Speaker 1: of things, kind of stuff like that. Nothing really negative
14:19
Speaker 1: about her. I just knew who she was from the diary.
14:21
Speaker 1: I didn't know how she was involved in all of this.
14:26
Speaker 2: Not long after, Detective Anthony Stafford decided to investigate. Stafford
14:32
Speaker 2: pulled Cynthia's case file and began reviewing the investigation Detective
14:37
Speaker 2: Jim Ford had left behind. He initially concentrated on the
14:42
Speaker 2: forensic work conducted in 2005 and 2006. including DNA testing
14:48
Speaker 2: and latent evidence analysis. Nothing immediately produced a new lead,
14:54
Speaker 2: but Stafford kept the case assigned to himself. Then, in 2025,
14:59
Speaker 2: the Arlington police entered into an unusual partnership with the
15:04
Speaker 2: University of Texas at Arlington. The department doesn't have a
15:08
Speaker 2: dedicated cold case unit. Unsolved murders are assigned to homicide
15:13
Speaker 2: detectives who are also responsible for new and active investigations.
15:19
Speaker 2: Cynthia's case alone contained decades of interviews, evidence logs, forensic reports, photographs,
15:26
Speaker 2: handwritten notes, and supplemental reports. Patricia Eddings, a longtime forensic
15:33
Speaker 2: analyst and UTA criminology professor, proposed allowing an advanced criminology
15:39
Speaker 2: class to review cold cases. The students wouldn't conduct police interviews,
15:45
Speaker 2: collect evidence, or replace detectives. Rather, their job was to
15:49
Speaker 2: spend time with the existing files, organizing them, comparing records,
15:55
Speaker 2: and identifying anything that might deserve another look. The murder
15:59
Speaker 2: of Cynthia Gonzalez became one of three cases assigned to
16:03
Speaker 2: the class. Fifteen students were divided into three groups. Five
16:09
Speaker 2: of them, J.C. Kincannon, Preston Schroeder, Jenna Lewis, Natalia Montoya,
16:15
Speaker 2: and Samantha Underwood, were assigned to Cynthia's case. They received
16:20
Speaker 2: a flash drive containing as many as 600 digitized pieces
16:25
Speaker 2: of evidence and spent approximately six weeks reviewing interviews, evidence logs,
16:31
Speaker 2: polygraph examinations, forensic testing, crime scene photographs, and police reports.
16:38
Speaker 2: One name repeatedly caught their attention, Janie Hatley. The students
16:44
Speaker 2: began asking why she had been interviewed multiple times. what
16:48
Speaker 2: detectives had done with the statements involving her, whether forensic
16:52
Speaker 2: evidence had been directly compared to her, and why that
16:56
Speaker 2: avenue of the case had never led to an arrest.
17:00
Speaker 2: In October, their questions reached Detective Stafford. He and Detective
17:06
Speaker 2: Julie Evans pulled six boxes of records and physical evidence
17:10
Speaker 2: from police archives, cleared a conference room, and spent roughly
17:14
Speaker 2: six hours working through the old investigation. They saw the
17:19
Speaker 2: same thing that had troubled Detective Ford decades earlier, Janie's
17:23
Speaker 2: uncorroborated alibi, the two failed polygraph examinations, the statements attributed
17:29
Speaker 2: to her by Robert William Hardy and Rocky Ortiz, and
17:33
Speaker 2: the apartment key recovered from Cynthia's Fiero. Stafford compared those
17:39
Speaker 2: accounts with what investigators knew about the murder. while some
17:43
Speaker 2: details didn't exactly match the facts. He noted that Hardy
17:47
Speaker 2: and Rocky didn't know one another, yet each had described
17:52
Speaker 2: Janie making incriminating statements about Cynthia's death. She had provided
17:57
Speaker 2: what he considered unique details specific to the crime that
18:01
Speaker 2: only someone involved would have known. After reviewing the material collectively,
18:07
Speaker 2: Detective Stafford concluded that there was enough to seek a
18:10
Speaker 2: warrant for Janie Perkins. the woman Detective Jim Ford had
18:14
Speaker 2: known during the initial investigation as Janie Hatley. Stafford's theory
18:20
Speaker 2: also attempted to reconstruct Cynthia's final movements. According to the
18:25
Speaker 2: arrest warrant affidavit, Cynthia was scheduled to meet a customer
18:29
Speaker 2: near Cooper Street and Grand Avenue at approximately 6.30 p.m.
18:34
Speaker 2: on September 16, 1991. Stafford believed she completed the gig
18:40
Speaker 2: and came into contact with Janie sometime shortly after. Because
18:45
Speaker 2: the women already knew one another and had spent time
18:48
Speaker 2: together before, the meeting probably wouldn't have been anything unusual.
18:53
Speaker 2: From there, Detective Stafford alleged that Janie facilitated, executed, and
18:58
Speaker 2: participated in Cynthia's abduction, murder, and the disposal of her body.
19:05
Speaker 2: The lawman also sought a search warrant for a saliva
19:08
Speaker 2: sample from Janie. On November 4, 2025, a Tarrant County
19:14
Speaker 2: judge signed a warrant charging Janie Cleveland Perkins with capital murder.
19:20
Speaker 2: Two days later, members of the U.S. Marshals' North Texas
19:24
Speaker 2: Fugitive Task Force located the 63-year-old at her home in Azle.
19:29
Speaker 2: After 34 years, the first ever arrest was made in
19:33
Speaker 2: Cynthia's case. While all of this was happening, Stafford had
19:37
Speaker 2: also reached out to Jessie. She had no idea what
19:41
Speaker 2: had been going on, let alone how incredibly important the
19:45
Speaker 2: new developments were.
19:46
Speaker 1: So I got a phone call from Detective Stafford. and
19:51
Speaker 1: he said he really needed to talk to me. And
19:53
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm about to go out of town tomorrow,
19:57
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be gone for 10 days. And
20:00
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, you do that, and we'll talk to
20:03
Speaker 1: you when you get back in town. He wanted to
20:06
Speaker 1: talk to me the day after I got back into town.
20:09
Speaker 2: Detective Stafford could wait, but only for so long.
20:13
Speaker 1: We had scheduled a 10 o'clock appointment the next day
20:18
Speaker 1: after I got back from a road trip with a
20:20
Speaker 1: friend of mine. And I got back so late that night.
20:25
Speaker 1: I was just exhausted. We had been driving for four days.
20:28
Speaker 1: I was beat. And I texted him and I said, hey,
20:34
Speaker 1: I'm so tired. Can we just reschedule this for another day,
20:39
Speaker 1: maybe the next day? And I didn't hear anything from him.
20:42
Speaker 1: And that was, you know, in the middle of the night.
20:46
Speaker 1: Then the next morning I woke up at like 830
20:49
Speaker 1: and I saw that he had seen it or whatever.
20:54
Speaker 1: You know, I called him. Basically, he said to me,
20:58
Speaker 1: he's like, no, I need you to come in right now.
21:01
Speaker 1: I need you to be here by 10. And I
21:03
Speaker 1: was like, okay.
21:05
Speaker 2: Jesse rushed to find someone to watch her son, and
21:09
Speaker 2: because she couldn't find anyone, had to explain to him
21:12
Speaker 2: what had happened to his grandmother since he was about
21:16
Speaker 2: to be alongside his mom in a room where detectives
21:19
Speaker 2: were talking about the case.
21:21
Speaker 1: He is, like, blown away because he has no clue.
21:25
Speaker 1: And so I'm having this in-depth conversation with my 10-year-old
21:29
Speaker 1: in the backseat on the way there, not knowing at
21:32
Speaker 1: all what to expect. And so we get there and
21:37
Speaker 1: they immediately come and get us and they take us
21:39
Speaker 1: into the conference room, which I've been in before. And,
21:44
Speaker 1: but never with like five detectives in there. So as
21:47
Speaker 1: soon as I walked through the door and everybody stood up,
21:50
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, what is happening? And
21:53
Speaker 1: so then they sit me down and then, and yeah, it,
21:58
Speaker 1: it just, I just immediately fell apart when they started
22:02
Speaker 1: telling me what was going on.
22:04
Speaker 2: The news, of course, was a lot to take in,
22:07
Speaker 2: and Jessie was bombarded by many emotions all at once.
22:11
Speaker 2: The work being done by UTA students had previously come
22:15
Speaker 2: to her attention. The arrest of Janie Perkins for the
22:30
Speaker 2: murder of Cynthia Renee Gonzalez produced an extraordinary moment at
22:35
Speaker 2: the University of Texas at Arlington. After the students submitted
22:40
Speaker 2: their questions about Janie, an Arlington police representative came into
22:44
Speaker 2: Professor Edding's classroom and told them the warrant had been served.
22:49
Speaker 2: The arrest was publicly announced on November 17, 2025, when
22:54
Speaker 2: Arlington Police and UTA discussed the partnership and the students' work.
23:00
Speaker 2: The story quickly spread beyond North Texas, with headlines describing
23:05
Speaker 2: college students helping break a 34-year-old cold case. The students
23:11
Speaker 2: had spent more than 100 hours examining years of investigative
23:15
Speaker 2: work and had directed Detective Stafford's attention back toward Janie.
23:20
Speaker 2: Most of the evidence that led to her arrest had
23:22
Speaker 2: been sitting inside the case file for decades. Janie Perkins
23:27
Speaker 2: denied having any involvement in Cynthia's murder. After her arrest,
23:32
Speaker 2: she was booked into the Tarrant County Jail and was
23:34
Speaker 2: later released on a $ 150, 000 bond. The case then moved
23:40
Speaker 2: to the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office. The original detective
23:44
Speaker 2: on the case was dead. Witnesses had died or had
23:48
Speaker 2: become unavailable. Memories aged and faded. Cynthia's Fiero had been
23:53
Speaker 2: released before it was properly processed. Neither the murder weapon
23:58
Speaker 2: nor her clothing were ever recovered. And still, after almost
24:03
Speaker 2: three and a half decades, a suspect had been arrested.
24:07
Speaker 2: While the fact that Janie was that suspect might have
24:10
Speaker 2: been a shock to some, Don Gonzalez's reaction was different.
24:15
Speaker 1: When I told my dad that they had arrested somebody
24:18
Speaker 1: named Janie and he got so mad, he said that
24:23
Speaker 1: he told them about her from day one. He knew
24:25
Speaker 1: somehow she was involved. He was aware of the harassment.
24:29
Speaker 1: I guess she was being harassed by Janie. None of
24:32
Speaker 1: that's documented in her diary. But, you know, according to
24:35
Speaker 1: my dad, I mean, he lived through it, so he
24:37
Speaker 1: would know, you know. And he talked to my mom
24:40
Speaker 1: because they had me together. And even though they were separated,
24:43
Speaker 1: they still saw each other every other weekend to pass me,
24:45
Speaker 1: you know, back and forth and stuff. So he, I'm sure,
24:49
Speaker 1: heard a lot from her about it. So I guess
24:53
Speaker 1: she was afraid of Janie. At one point in time,
24:56
Speaker 1: she told my dad that Janie had threatened to kill her.
24:59
Speaker 1: So my mom was afraid for her life because of that.
25:03
Speaker 1: I mean, all of the pieces fit together.
25:06
Speaker 2: In a post on the Justice for Cynthia Renee Gonzalez
25:09
Speaker 2: Facebook page, Cynthia's friend Heather described a time she spoke
25:13
Speaker 2: with Cynthia's mother, Linda Gandy, who told Heather her daughter
25:17
Speaker 2: would call her crying and scared. It's unclear if Janie
25:21
Speaker 2: had anything to do with that. Whatever the case, the
25:25
Speaker 2: feeling of relief, and sense that justice was coming soon,
25:29
Speaker 2: didn't last long. On March 20, 2026, prosecutors presented the
25:37
Speaker 2: case to a Tarrant County grand jury. They returned a
25:41
Speaker 2: no bill. Janie Perkins would not be indicted for Cynthia's murder.
25:47
Speaker 2: Texas grand jury proceedings are secret, so whatever prosecutors presented,
25:52
Speaker 2: the witnesses who testified, and the reasoning behind the decision
25:57
Speaker 2: is not public information. Janie Perkins' attorney, D. Miles Brissett,
26:03
Speaker 2: said the decision followed an independent review of the evidence
26:07
Speaker 2: and added that the evidence against his client had not
26:10
Speaker 2: sufficiently supported criminal charges. The Tarrant County District Attorney's Office
26:16
Speaker 2: acknowledged the difficulties of presenting a murder case when witnesses,
26:20
Speaker 2: physical evidence, and opportunities for forensic testing may no longer
26:25
Speaker 2: exist in the form they once did. Jessie made clear
26:29
Speaker 2: that they did not consider the grand jury's decision the
26:32
Speaker 2: end of her mom's case.
26:35
Speaker 1: If they feel like that is the right decision to
26:38
Speaker 1: protect the case, I'm glad that they stepped back and said,
26:41
Speaker 1: we need more time. We want to have a solid case.
26:47
Speaker 1: No reason for anybody to have doubt. So I trust
26:52
Speaker 1: that they know what they're doing in that decision. Was
26:54
Speaker 1: it disappointing? Yes, it was very disappointing. They didn't indict,
26:59
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that she's innocent.
27:03
Speaker 2: Arlington police, likewise, left the investigation open to new evidence.
27:10
Speaker 2: The UTA students were able to organize and gather what
27:13
Speaker 2: was determined to be, it appears, a strong circumstantial case
27:18
Speaker 2: against Janie Perkins. Their work had caused detectives to revisit
27:23
Speaker 2: one part of a complicated and decades-old investigation. But a
27:27
Speaker 2: grand jury didn't bite. The Arlington police have evidence they've
27:32
Speaker 2: kept close to the chest. But what is known publicly can, perhaps,
27:37
Speaker 2: be explained away by defense attorneys. Prosecutors only have one shot.
27:43
Speaker 2: Detectives had revisited DNA and latent evidence in 2005 and 2006,
27:46
Speaker 2: but it presumably led nowhere. In 2025, Janie's DNA profile
27:55
Speaker 2: became available for direct comparison. When the arrest was announced,
28:00
Speaker 2: authorities did not say that a DNA match tied her
28:03
Speaker 2: to Cynthia's body, the Fiero, or anywhere else that might
28:07
Speaker 2: help indict and convict her. It's one of the questions
28:11
Speaker 2: still lingering, and there are plenty more.
28:14
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember her wearing a police officer's outfit. when
28:21
Speaker 1: I left the apartment. But they're insisting that they never
28:24
Speaker 1: saw a police officer's outfit. What they found was a
28:28
Speaker 1: pizza delivery outfit. But I was there and I saw it.
28:33
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking there must have been two appointments or
28:37
Speaker 1: something where she like changed in between them or something.
28:40
Speaker 1: I don't know. There are a lot of things also
28:43
Speaker 1: that they've told me that they can't share with me
28:45
Speaker 1: because it's still an active investigation. And I understand that. So,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, they may have answers to questions I've got
28:52
Speaker 1: that they can't give me, you know.
28:55
Speaker 2: Jessie has been able to keep pieces of her mom
28:57
Speaker 2: throughout her life, but she was always looking for more.
29:02
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of years searching for her, you know,
29:05
Speaker 1: just looking for signs of her or, you know, anything
29:10
Speaker 1: and everything. For a long time, my dad had all
29:15
Speaker 1: of my mom's clothes in this big box. I mean,
29:18
Speaker 1: it was big for me. I was six. It may
29:20
Speaker 1: not have actually been too big, but it was big
29:22
Speaker 1: enough that it fit a lot of her clothes in it.
29:25
Speaker 1: And it smelled like her. And he kept them in
29:28
Speaker 1: the living room for a little while. And I would
29:32
Speaker 1: just get in that box. I'd get in it and
29:35
Speaker 1: I would just cover up in her clothes and just
29:38
Speaker 1: soak in her smell.
29:41
Speaker 2: Cynthia Gonzalez would be 60 years old today. However, she
29:46
Speaker 2: remains fixed in 1991 or before in only photographs and memories.
29:52
Speaker 2: The big auburn hair, the mother doting on her daughter,
29:55
Speaker 2: a young business owner. and a 25-year-old woman trying to
30:00
Speaker 2: build a life beyond the way the newspapers initially described her.
30:04
Speaker 2: She was also a daughter and a friend. And someone
30:08
Speaker 2: who had no say decided to end all that, to
30:11
Speaker 2: take Cynthia away from the many people who cared about her.
30:16
Speaker 2: Whether Janie Perkins is responsible for Cynthia's murder, either alone
30:21
Speaker 2: or with an accomplice, hasn't yet been decided. Whatever the case,
30:26
Speaker 2: perhaps someone out there knows something. If you have any
30:30
Speaker 2: information about the murder of Cynthia Renee Gonzalez, please contact
30:35
Speaker 2: the Arlington Police Homicide Division at 817-459-5772. If you'd like
30:44
Speaker 2: to join Goncold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
30:47
Speaker 2: homicides and missing persons cases, get the show ad-free and
30:52
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30:59
Speaker 2: You can also support the show by leaving a five-star
31:02
Speaker 2: rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else
31:06
Speaker 2: you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold, we
31:10
Speaker 2: appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.