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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Alexander Murders · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
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Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
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Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
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Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
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Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
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Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 2: On the morning of April eighth, nineteen eighty one, forty
1:34
Speaker 2: seven year old Weldon Alexander finished his overnight shift at
1:37
Speaker 2: Cooper Tire in Texarkana, Arkansas. Weldon worked the graveyard shift
1:43
Speaker 2: from eleven one pm to seven am. He told police
1:46
Speaker 2: that he clocked out that morning at seven o'clock sharp,
1:50
Speaker 2: just like he always did, and he took his usual route,
1:54
Speaker 2: driving down Tennessee Street toward his house, which was just
1:57
Speaker 2: a few minutes drive away at five oh one Baden Street.
2:01
Speaker 2: Weldon had to stop and wait for a train, which
2:03
Speaker 2: added about five minutes to his commute, but he still
2:06
Speaker 2: arrived home in around fifteen minutes. When he got to
2:10
Speaker 2: the house, the first thing he noticed was the door.
2:13
Speaker 2: He saw that the door to the small frame house,
2:16
Speaker 2: the last house on the left, was open. Weldon said
2:20
Speaker 2: that normally his fourteen year old daughter, Karen, would already
2:23
Speaker 2: be awake. The house had a wooden door and a
2:26
Speaker 2: screen door. Weldon told police that both of those doors
2:30
Speaker 2: were normally unlocked, and the routine was that Karen would
2:33
Speaker 2: usually get up around six, she would start getting ready
2:36
Speaker 2: for school, and by about six thirty she would open
2:38
Speaker 2: the door so that her dad could get back in
2:40
Speaker 2: when he came home from work. Karen slept on a
2:44
Speaker 2: bed in the living room. Gordon, her thirteen year old brother,
2:48
Speaker 2: usually slept in the back room, but that morning, Weldon
2:51
Speaker 2: said the door was already open. Inside the house, Karen
2:56
Speaker 2: was on her bed in the living room. She was
2:58
Speaker 2: on her back facing up, Her feet were hanging over
3:01
Speaker 2: the edge. She had been stabbed in the head and throat.
3:07
Speaker 2: There was a kitchen knife lodged in her eye area.
3:11
Speaker 2: Someone had attacked her and stabbed her in a frenzy
3:14
Speaker 2: and the forest of the attack had fractured her skull
3:17
Speaker 2: and broken her jaw, but she was still alive. Weldon
3:22
Speaker 2: told police it sounded like Karen was mumbling something, but
3:25
Speaker 2: he couldn't make out what it was, so he raced
3:28
Speaker 2: to the landline phone to call nine one one, but
3:31
Speaker 2: the phone was off the hook. When Weldon looked down,
3:35
Speaker 2: he saw his son, Gordon, on the kitchen floor near
3:38
Speaker 2: the phone. Gordon had broken his hip a few months
3:42
Speaker 2: earlier and been in a wheelchair since then. Whoever attacked
3:46
Speaker 2: Gordon had thrown him out of the chair and stabbed
3:49
Speaker 2: him fifteen times in the neck, throat, and hands. Police
3:54
Speaker 2: later said they believe Gordon rolled into the living room
3:57
Speaker 2: in his wheelchair in a heroic attempt to fight off
4:01
Speaker 2: Karen's attacker. Gordon tried to grab the phone and call
4:05
Speaker 2: for help, and even managed to pick up the receiver,
4:09
Speaker 2: but the killer got him first. Gordon's throat had been
4:12
Speaker 2: cut with a dull knife. The news that two children
4:17
Speaker 2: had been viciously attacked, one dead and one barely clinging
4:21
Speaker 2: to life inside their own home that morning would throw
4:25
Speaker 2: this small town, Arkansas neighborhood into a panic. This case
4:30
Speaker 2: would involve psychics, polygraphs, false confessions, hundreds of tips, and
4:36
Speaker 2: a case file that would send police going in circles.
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Speaker 2: For over forty years, I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past
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Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
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Speaker 2: learned that there's no such thing as a small town
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Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
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Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
4:56
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
5:01
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
5:02
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
5:05
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
5:07
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
5:11
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
5:15
Speaker 2: can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.
5:19
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police raced to the
6:08
Speaker 2: Alexander home to figure out what happened inside that little
6:12
Speaker 2: house on Baden Street in the College Hill area of Texarkana.
6:16
Speaker 2: When officers arrived at seven twenty four am, Weldon Alexander
6:21
Speaker 2: showed them the bloody knife that had been stuck in
6:24
Speaker 2: Karen's head. In his Panic, he explained he had pulled
6:29
Speaker 2: the knife out and set it on a nearby bookshelf.
6:32
Speaker 3: Now, Welden had told police he believed.
6:34
Speaker 2: That Karen might still be alive, and he was right.
6:38
Speaker 2: Gordon Alexander was dead on arrival that Karen Alexander was
6:42
Speaker 2: still breathing. Karen was rushed to Saint Michael's Hospital and
6:46
Speaker 2: placed in intensive care. Police guarded her room around the
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Speaker 2: clock because at that moment they believed there was a
6:53
Speaker 2: chance she might wake up and that she might be
6:56
Speaker 2: able to identify the killer. While Karen was in that
7:00
Speaker 2: hospital bed, unable to communicate, officers from the Texarkana Police
7:04
Speaker 2: Department were already hitting the streets. Police interviewed several of
7:08
Speaker 2: the Alexander's neighbors, who said that the Alexanders mostly kept
7:12
Speaker 2: to themselves. The neighbors said they saw the kids riding
7:16
Speaker 2: bikes occasionally, but they noted they did not see a
7:20
Speaker 2: lot of visitors coming and going, and it turned out
7:23
Speaker 2: the Alexander family was pretty complicated. Gordon and Karen's mother,
7:27
Speaker 2: thirty four year old Vera Alexander, had not been home
7:30
Speaker 2: at the time of the attack. Four days earlier, Weldon
7:34
Speaker 2: said he had taken her to Wady Hospital Weldon explained
7:38
Speaker 2: that Vera was suffering from depression and that he decided
7:41
Speaker 2: to take her for inpatient treatment after giving her medicine
7:44
Speaker 2: at home and seeing her black out. So Vera had
7:48
Speaker 2: been there in the hospital since Sunday night. Weldon told
7:51
Speaker 2: police that his wife had brain damage and that this
7:54
Speaker 2: had been confirmed by her doctors. Police later confirmed Vera
7:59
Speaker 2: was in the hospital during that crucial window of time,
8:01
Speaker 2: which removed her as a physical suspect in the murders,
8:05
Speaker 2: but she remained a person who investigators wanted to understand
8:09
Speaker 2: because the file shows that Vera had made reports to
8:12
Speaker 2: police before. There were complaints and calls connected to the
8:16
Speaker 2: Alexander house, calls about dogs running loose, a prowler, a
8:21
Speaker 2: suspicious person, reports of battery, and allegations from Vera involving
8:26
Speaker 2: sexual assault. According to police records, on April seventh, nineteen eighty,
8:32
Speaker 2: about a year before Karen and Gordon were attacked, Vera
8:35
Speaker 2: had made a rape allegation against a man named Ralph.
8:38
Speaker 2: Another man, Randy, was also mentioned in the police file
8:42
Speaker 2: in connection with allegations involving Vera. I'm using only first
8:46
Speaker 2: names here because neither man was ever charged in connection
8:50
Speaker 2: with what happened to Karen and Gordon, and there is
8:53
Speaker 2: no evidence in the file that I've seen that either
8:55
Speaker 2: man was involved in what happened to the children. According
8:59
Speaker 2: to the case file, after Vera accused these men of
9:03
Speaker 2: being involved in alleged sexual assault, both of these men
9:06
Speaker 2: were later released on bail. So, just to be clear,
9:09
Speaker 2: these men were never convicted in connection with the alleged rate.
9:14
Speaker 2: The case notes suggest that after Gordon and Karen were attacked,
9:18
Speaker 2: police were trying to explore every possible avenue and that
9:21
Speaker 2: included the history around the family and the possibility that
9:25
Speaker 2: something from Vera's life had come back to the Alexander home.
9:29
Speaker 2: Weldon also told police there had been another allegation years
9:33
Speaker 2: earlier of Vera being sexually assaulted, and that this allegation
9:37
Speaker 2: involved a family member, but he said there had been
9:40
Speaker 2: no proof. So from the beginning, when and best instigators
9:44
Speaker 2: walked into this home on Baden Street, they didn't see
9:47
Speaker 2: a clean case with one obvious suspect in one obvious motive.
9:51
Speaker 2: They saw a house with two children attacked in this
9:55
Speaker 2: unbelievably violent way with a butter knife from the kitchen,
10:00
Speaker 2: which a police officer later described as a weapon of opportunity.
10:04
Speaker 2: They also had a mother who was in the hospital,
10:07
Speaker 2: a dad who was at work on the graveyard shift,
10:10
Speaker 2: and a family history that gave them several possible directions.
10:16
Speaker 2: Gordon Alexander, Weldon's son, was thirteen. He had spent his
10:20
Speaker 2: entire life dealing with medical problems that would have overwhelmed
10:24
Speaker 2: a lot of adults. According to the reporting in the
10:27
Speaker 2: case file, Gordon was born with a congenital heart defect
10:31
Speaker 2: and had open heart surgery as an infant. Later, he
10:34
Speaker 2: had a stroke that affected his left arm and left leg,
10:37
Speaker 2: and then just a few weeks before the murders, he
10:40
Speaker 2: fell and broke his hip. The accident had put Gordon
10:44
Speaker 2: in a wheelchair, and Weldon told police that since the accident,
10:48
Speaker 2: Gordon had not been going to school. But despite all that,
10:52
Speaker 2: people who knew Gordon said that he didn't let his
10:55
Speaker 2: physical limitations define him. People described him as outgoing, gregarious,
11:00
Speaker 2: the kind of kid who never met a stranger. He
11:03
Speaker 2: was popular at school and in his physical therapy program.
11:06
Speaker 2: His father told police that Gordon dreamed about becoming a
11:10
Speaker 2: field goal kicker when he grew up. Karen Alexander was fourteenth.
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Speaker 2: She was an eighth grader at College Hill. Her date
11:18
Speaker 2: of birth was September twenty eighth, nineteen sixty six. Now,
11:22
Speaker 2: Karen was described very differently from her brother. Unlike her brother,
11:26
Speaker 2: Weldon said that Karen had never been sick a day
11:30
Speaker 2: in her life. Karen was described as shy and soft spoken.
11:34
Speaker 2: One school official reportedly described her as quiet as a mouse.
11:39
Speaker 2: Karen loved reading and spelling, and she had recently been
11:41
Speaker 2: in a spelling beat. Weldon hold a local reporter that
11:45
Speaker 2: Karen wanted to be a nurse when she grew up,
11:48
Speaker 2: and following her brother's brutal murder, Karen was the only
11:52
Speaker 2: living witness. While she was being guarded by police. Investigators
11:57
Speaker 2: began canvassing the neighborhood, and of course, the police talked
12:01
Speaker 2: to Weldon Alexander right away. Weldon was distraught. He told
12:07
Speaker 2: them he had worked at Cooper Tire for more than
12:09
Speaker 2: sixteen years, and he had worked that same graveyard shift
12:12
Speaker 2: for about six years. Weldon had a regular routine, like clockwork.
12:17
Speaker 2: He went to work at the same time and came
12:18
Speaker 2: home at the same time, with no diversions that morning
12:22
Speaker 2: except for a few minutes he spent waiting for that train.
12:25
Speaker 2: Weldon said he last talked to his children around midnight.
12:28
Speaker 2: He said he had called the house to check on them.
12:30
Speaker 2: He said that he spoke with Karen, asked whether she
12:33
Speaker 2: and Gordon were in bed, and asked if everything was okay.
12:36
Speaker 2: According to Weldon, Karen said they were fine. He told
12:39
Speaker 2: police while he was on the road that morning, he
12:42
Speaker 2: didn't notice any unusual people or vehicles on that normal route,
12:46
Speaker 2: but Weldon did say he had heard people in the
12:49
Speaker 2: neighborhood talking about a truck that someone had seen in
12:52
Speaker 2: the yard. Weldon said that when he looked in the yard,
12:55
Speaker 2: he saw tire tracks there. This detail would become one
12:59
Speaker 2: of the most crucial ones in the case. There was
13:02
Speaker 2: no sign of forest entry, but that wasn't super helpful
13:05
Speaker 2: in this case since neither the wooden door nor the
13:08
Speaker 2: screen door had been locked, so the killer could have
13:11
Speaker 2: walked straight in through the unlocked door, or the kids
13:15
Speaker 2: could have opened the door to someone they knew, among
13:17
Speaker 2: other possibilities. When she was found on the bed, Karen
13:21
Speaker 2: was wearing yellow shorts, a blouse, and a bra. Investigators
13:26
Speaker 2: were trying to build a timeline, and one of the
13:28
Speaker 2: things they were trying to figure out was Were the
13:31
Speaker 2: children already awakened dressed for school when they were attacked?
13:34
Speaker 2: Had they gone to bed in those clothes? At first,
13:38
Speaker 2: police were working on the theory that the attack on
13:41
Speaker 2: Karen and Gordon's time of death were sometime around six
13:44
Speaker 2: forty five am. Police believed that Karen was the original
13:48
Speaker 2: target of the attack and that her brother was killed
13:51
Speaker 2: after he came out of the back room to defend her.
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Speaker 2: So they asked Weldon about Karen's friends and her boyfriend.
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Speaker 2: Was she dating anyone? Did she have any boyfriends? Had
14:00
Speaker 2: she ever been raped or assaulted? Weldon told investigators that
14:04
Speaker 2: to his knowledge, Karen was not dating anyone. He said
14:08
Speaker 2: she had never been raped or assaulted, and that as
14:10
Speaker 2: far as he knew, his daughter was a virgin. Now
14:14
Speaker 2: police didn't say this at the time, but Karen's autops
14:17
Speaker 2: he had shown that she was vaginally penetrated two to
14:20
Speaker 2: three days prior to her death. They also asked Weldon
14:24
Speaker 2: about Gordon. He said Gordon had no problems with anyone
14:27
Speaker 2: at school or anywhere else. Weldon also talked about the
14:32
Speaker 2: family history. He told investigators that when Karen was three
14:35
Speaker 2: and Gordon was about eighteen months old, Vera had whipped
14:38
Speaker 2: Karen with a belt and left bruises on her face.
14:41
Speaker 2: According to Weldon, Vera had been a y rested for
14:44
Speaker 2: assault and battery inside the house. Police were building the
14:48
Speaker 2: sequence of events from the physical evidence. Gordon was found
14:52
Speaker 2: on the floor near the telephone. He had been stabbed
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Speaker 2: many times. He had wounds to his neck, throat, and hands.
15:00
Speaker 2: The file indicates that when his throat was cut with
15:03
Speaker 2: that butter knife, that the fatal injury was that massive
15:06
Speaker 2: wound to his throat. Investigators believed that Gordon heard the
15:11
Speaker 2: commotion in the living room and rolled his wheelchair out
15:15
Speaker 2: there and tried to get to the phone because the
15:17
Speaker 2: receiver of the phone was lifted, but before he could
15:20
Speaker 2: make that call, the attacker got to him at some point.
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Speaker 2: This attack was so violent Gordon was pulled from the
15:28
Speaker 2: chair or knocked out of it. Police also believed that
15:32
Speaker 2: while he was being beaten and stabbed that he might
15:35
Speaker 2: have suffered a heart attack. This was a brutal death.
15:39
Speaker 2: Karen's was as well. She had also been stabbed multiple
15:42
Speaker 2: times in the head, with additional cuts to the throat area.
15:45
Speaker 2: As we said before, police had very quickly found their
15:48
Speaker 2: murder weapon a butter knife from a kitchen drawer in
15:51
Speaker 2: the Alexander home. The knife had blood on it and
15:55
Speaker 2: the killer had stabbed the children so hard that it
15:58
Speaker 2: was bent again. Because Weldon told police that in his
16:03
Speaker 2: panic and shock, he pulled the knife out of Karen
16:06
Speaker 2: and put it on shelf.
16:08
Speaker 3: Any fingerprint that.
16:09
Speaker 2: Police got off the knife handle might have been compromised,
16:12
Speaker 2: but they had another potential witness, Karen. She was still
16:17
Speaker 2: in the hospital fighting for her life. On April tenth,
16:21
Speaker 2: doctors performed a brain scan on Karen.
16:24
Speaker 3: It was flat.
16:25
Speaker 2: Three days after she was taken to the hospital. Her
16:28
Speaker 2: life support was removed and Karen Alexander died. The case
16:33
Speaker 2: became a double homicide in the immediate aftermath of a
16:48
Speaker 2: double homicide that killed two young teenagers. This neighborhood in
16:52
Speaker 2: Texarcana was terrified. The newspapers called the attacker a throat
16:57
Speaker 2: slashing assailant. People were leaving porch lights on, parents were afraid.
17:02
Speaker 2: Everyone tried to help. Weldon's co workers put up one
17:05
Speaker 2: thousand dollars reward. Volunteers put posters everywhere around town. Even
17:10
Speaker 2: Gordon's classmates joined in to try to look for clues.
17:14
Speaker 2: A neighbor of the Alexanders, Miss Hopkins, said she saw
17:17
Speaker 2: a light blue pickup truck parked in front of the
17:20
Speaker 2: Alexander house at around three o'clock in the morning. She
17:24
Speaker 2: told police that at that time, the Alexander's porch light
17:27
Speaker 2: was on, but the house was dark. Another report placed
17:31
Speaker 2: a white and powder blue pickup backing out of the
17:34
Speaker 2: driveway of the Alexander home at around six forty five am.
17:39
Speaker 2: Now this would appear to be crucial because investigators initially
17:42
Speaker 2: believed that this could have been close to the time
17:45
Speaker 2: of the attack, so this truck became a main focus
17:48
Speaker 2: of the investigation. Police described it as an early nineteen
17:53
Speaker 2: seventies Chevrolet pickup with a long wheelbase, no tail light,
17:56
Speaker 2: and a gunrack in the rear window. There was also
17:59
Speaker 2: reportedly some kind of a sticker on the back window
18:02
Speaker 2: that referenced cowboys. They wanted to talk to the man
18:06
Speaker 2: driving it. He was described as clean shaven, wearing a
18:09
Speaker 2: brown western hat and a black and white snakeskin style
18:12
Speaker 2: cowboy boots. So that image the blue pickup the man
18:16
Speaker 2: wearing the cowboy hat and boots kind of took on
18:19
Speaker 2: a life of its own. Suddenly everyone in Miller County
18:22
Speaker 2: was looking for this truck. Police got printouts of all
18:26
Speaker 2: pickup trucks in the county, which I imagine in an Arkansas
18:29
Speaker 2: county must have been a big job. This included Forde
18:33
Speaker 2: Chevrolets and GMCs. They even sent teams out at night
18:37
Speaker 2: to track vehicles and compare them to the witness description.
18:40
Speaker 2: They looked for anything that could be a match. But
18:43
Speaker 2: it turned out that there was a problem with that
18:46
Speaker 2: truck sighting because, according to the case file, an officer
18:50
Speaker 2: went to Miss hopkins house, the neighbor who said she
18:53
Speaker 2: had seen the blue pickup truck in the Alexander's driveway.
18:56
Speaker 2: This officer stood where Miss Hopkins said she had been
18:59
Speaker 2: standing when she saw the truck. The officer noted in
19:02
Speaker 2: his report that he was about four inches taller than
19:05
Speaker 2: she was, and he wrote, even from that angle the
19:09
Speaker 2: Alexander driveway was partially blocked, it would have been very
19:13
Speaker 2: hard to see a truck backing out from that angle.
19:17
Speaker 2: Was the truck really connected to the murders or was
19:20
Speaker 2: the witness mistaken about what she saw? Was the truck
19:24
Speaker 2: the killer or could it have been just someone randomly
19:26
Speaker 2: turning around in a driveway and the truck was not
19:30
Speaker 2: the only possible lead. Several days before the murders, Karen
19:34
Speaker 2: had reportedly been seen talking to a man near a
19:37
Speaker 2: washeteria around East and Hay Street. Another version in the
19:41
Speaker 2: case file places a similar sighting new the Pigly Wiggly
19:44
Speaker 2: on East Street. A woman named Lisa came to the
19:47
Speaker 2: police department and helped create a composite drawing. The man
19:51
Speaker 2: who Lisa saw Karen talking to was described as white,
19:55
Speaker 2: between six foot and six foot three, clean shaven, very slender,
19:59
Speaker 2: with shoulder length brown hair and a prominent nose. Police
20:03
Speaker 2: said he may have worn a hat with a feather
20:06
Speaker 2: and boots that were described as black and white or
20:08
Speaker 2: snakeskin style. Now, the boot description here sounds similar to
20:12
Speaker 2: the man in the white pickup truck. Was this someone
20:16
Speaker 2: different or could this have been the same man. Could
20:19
Speaker 2: the man talking to Karen at the Piggly Wiggily be
20:21
Speaker 2: the same one who was driving.
20:23
Speaker 3: The blue truck.
20:24
Speaker 2: Police distributed the drawing and they got hundreds of calls.
20:28
Speaker 2: One tip said a man matching the composite had been
20:30
Speaker 2: seen in a blue work style shirt embroidered with the
20:33
Speaker 2: name ron or Ronnie. So investigators contacted uniform supply companies.
20:39
Speaker 2: They tried to get lists of men named Ron or Ronnie. Meanwhile,
20:43
Speaker 2: they also looked into a relative of Ralph's, the man
20:46
Speaker 2: whom Vera had claimed allegedly raped her, because this person
20:50
Speaker 2: had reportedly been at the Pigley Wiggly before the murder.
20:56
Speaker 2: I don't know how much judgment was baked into the
20:59
Speaker 2: way that police viewed Vera. This was nineteen eighty one,
21:02
Speaker 2: and Vera was a woman with documented mental health issues
21:05
Speaker 2: prior sexual assault allegations and relationships are encounters with men
21:10
Speaker 2: that investigators were trying to figure out, So it would
21:13
Speaker 2: be naive to pretend that none of.
21:15
Speaker 3: That affected how people saw her.
21:17
Speaker 2: But from an investigative standpoint reading the case file, it
21:21
Speaker 2: seems as though Vera's involvement with men did increase the
21:25
Speaker 2: suspect pool because police had to ask who knew Vera,
21:28
Speaker 2: who knew the house, who might have known Weldon's schedule,
21:32
Speaker 2: and who might have had access to Karen and Gordon.
21:35
Speaker 2: While they were looking at men connected to Vera, they
21:39
Speaker 2: talked to a guy named Ronnie. Now, this man had
21:42
Speaker 2: been a coworker of Weldon's at Cooper Tire. Ronnie told
21:46
Speaker 2: police he had met Vera a few years earlier when
21:48
Speaker 2: she walked over to Cooper Tire. Ronnie said he ended
21:51
Speaker 2: up giving Vera a ride home. He said while they
21:54
Speaker 2: were in the car, Vera propositioned him and they ended
21:57
Speaker 2: up having sex four or five times after that. However,
22:00
Speaker 2: he said he only had sex with Vera at the
22:02
Speaker 2: Baden Street home once, and then he hadn't seen her
22:05
Speaker 2: at all in about two years, he said. On the
22:08
Speaker 2: morning of the murder, he was home in Atlanta, Texas.
22:11
Speaker 2: His police cleared Ronnie after speaking to his wife, and
22:14
Speaker 2: in the end, none of those leads produced an arrest.
22:18
Speaker 2: The physical evidence pointed investigators toward another idea that the
22:23
Speaker 2: killer might have worked around heavy machinery. Police found fibers
22:27
Speaker 2: on the children's clothing and material under their fingernails. They
22:31
Speaker 2: could see some of the evidence looked like it came
22:33
Speaker 2: from a laborer or someone around machines, so they started
22:37
Speaker 2: looking at people who worked in places like alternator shops,
22:39
Speaker 2: tire shops, cable companies, small engine repair environments, and other
22:43
Speaker 2: jobs where a person might pick up fibers.
22:46
Speaker 3: Or metal shavings.
22:48
Speaker 2: I have to say this police file shows a very
22:50
Speaker 2: active investigation. Seven detectives reportedly worked twenty four hours a
22:55
Speaker 2: day for a long time. They interviewed persons of interest,
22:58
Speaker 2: They gave polygraphs. They looked at men with sexual assault histories.
23:02
Speaker 2: They talked to people connected to Vera's earlier allegations. They
23:05
Speaker 2: also looked into a suspect who drove a cable company truck,
23:09
Speaker 2: someone who had reportedly exposed himself near an Arkansas high school.
23:13
Speaker 3: After they heard that rumor, they.
23:14
Speaker 2: Actually checked every single employee of this cable company. They
23:18
Speaker 2: interviewed them and stated in the report that they were
23:20
Speaker 2: all cleared. They chased a lot of false leads too.
23:25
Speaker 2: Police even noted that in one situation, they believed that
23:29
Speaker 2: a man's own family might have been trying to set
23:32
Speaker 2: him up for this murder to collect the reward offered
23:35
Speaker 2: by Weldon's employer, Cooper Tire. Vera remained in the mental
23:41
Speaker 2: health ward of the hospital for a period of time.
23:45
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure how long, but it was for
23:48
Speaker 2: quite a while, and police were trying to talk to her.
23:51
Speaker 2: The newspapers later reported that investigators believed Vera might have
23:55
Speaker 2: known something The Texarcana Police Captain James Coward was quoted
24:00
Speaker 2: in reports as saying police spent hours and hours trying
24:03
Speaker 2: to talk to Vera, but they couldn't get any information
24:07
Speaker 2: they could use, and her mental health made those interviews
24:10
Speaker 2: very challenging. Vera did give them some names, including the
24:15
Speaker 2: name of a man who went by Pinky. Investigators found
24:18
Speaker 2: out this person's real name. They spent a ton of
24:20
Speaker 2: time tracking him down, only to find that he had
24:23
Speaker 2: not hung out with Vera in years. According to what
24:26
Speaker 2: was written in the case file, Vera sometimes seemed to
24:29
Speaker 2: get the past and the present confused. This man and
24:32
Speaker 2: others she mentioned were quickly cleared. This is one of
24:37
Speaker 2: the places where the file kind of becomes heartbreaking in
24:40
Speaker 2: a different way, because Vera may have been a victim herself,
24:44
Speaker 2: and from what's got in the case while it does
24:46
Speaker 2: seem like investigators were communicating with her and she seemed
24:49
Speaker 2: to be wanting to tell them something, but in the end,
24:53
Speaker 2: whatever was inside her never became a clean investigative lead.
24:58
Speaker 2: Then the case started attracting stranger information, including tips from
25:04
Speaker 2: self described psychics. In December of nineteen eighty one, investigators
25:20
Speaker 2: spoke with a woman named Sue Vazkez along with her
25:22
Speaker 2: eleven year old daughter, after they said that this child
25:26
Speaker 2: had clairvoyant abilities. The officer documenting that interview made a
25:30
Speaker 2: point of saying he hadn't told miss Vazkez and her
25:33
Speaker 2: daughter any details about the homicides, but he also noted
25:37
Speaker 2: that information could have been obtained from newspapers anyway. The
25:41
Speaker 2: psychics Sue Vazkez told investigators that the killer was a
25:44
Speaker 2: large man and that he was known to the family.
25:47
Speaker 2: She said that Alexander family was funny turned, meaning that they.
25:51
Speaker 3: Kept to themselves.
25:52
Speaker 2: She also said the killer either worked or had worked
25:56
Speaker 2: at Cooper Tire in Texarcana. Police were seeming to consider
26:00
Speaker 2: the fact that the killer could have been someone from
26:02
Speaker 2: Cooper Tire. After all, if someone was a colleague of Weldon's,
26:06
Speaker 2: then presumably they could have known his routine and when
26:09
Speaker 2: he would be home, which means they might have known
26:12
Speaker 2: that the children were there alone. On April sixteenth, nineteen
26:17
Speaker 2: eighty one, investigators R. W. Neil and Bill Sullivan searched
26:20
Speaker 2: Weldon's workplace at Cooper Tire, in the welding shop, where
26:24
Speaker 2: there was metal tool and die machinery. They collected metal
26:27
Speaker 2: shavings and entered them into evidence in nineteen eighty three,
26:31
Speaker 2: the case took another turn, one that happened to quite
26:35
Speaker 2: a few cold cases from that era. Henry Lee Lucas,
26:39
Speaker 2: the infamous serial killer who has claimed responsibility for hundreds
26:42
Speaker 2: of murders, many of which it has been proven he
26:45
Speaker 2: did not commit confess to the Alexander murders. However, police
26:50
Speaker 2: later reported there was no evidence tying him to these crimes, physical, circumstantial,
26:54
Speaker 2: or otherwise, and he was never charged in connection with
26:57
Speaker 2: Gordon and Karen's deaths. All Henry Lee Lucas did in
27:01
Speaker 2: the end was waste police time. In nineteen eighty one,
27:05
Speaker 2: investigators requested that the case file be labeled inactive and
27:09
Speaker 2: after the headlines surrounding the Lucas confessions, for which again
27:13
Speaker 2: there was never any proof that Alexander case disappeared from headlines.
27:17
Speaker 2: But for a lot of people in Texarcana, including one
27:20
Speaker 2: person in particular, this case never went away. Captain Calvin Seward,
27:26
Speaker 2: whose daughter had attended school with Karen Alexander, first worked
27:30
Speaker 2: the case as a patrol officer in nineteen eighty one.
27:33
Speaker 2: Decades later, he would say that he kept a picture
27:37
Speaker 2: of Karen and Gordon above his desk. He would look
27:39
Speaker 2: at it and then be inspired to go back into
27:42
Speaker 2: the case files. In twenty twenty two, there was another
27:46
Speaker 2: dramatic turn of events in this case because the now
27:50
Speaker 2: retired Texarkana Police Captain Calvin Seward announced that he was
27:54
Speaker 2: going to be leading a new investigation into the Alexander murders.
27:58
Speaker 2: The case file went from inactive to very active. Over
28:02
Speaker 2: the next year and a half, Captain Seward reinterviewed dozens
28:06
Speaker 2: of people. He also teamed up with a forensic criminologist
28:10
Speaker 2: named doctor Todd Stephie, a DNA scientist from the Arkansas
28:13
Speaker 2: State Crime Lab, Kelly Dixon, and others. They took a
28:16
Speaker 2: new look at the physical evidence and realized they had
28:19
Speaker 2: tools that the nineteen eighty one investigators did not have.
28:23
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, they extracted DNA from fingernail tissue
28:27
Speaker 2: from both Karen and Gordon Alexander. The profiles were entered
28:31
Speaker 2: into CODIS, which stands for Combined DNA Index System. This
28:35
Speaker 2: is the software program manned by the FBI, the one
28:38
Speaker 2: that allows state and local forensic labs to compare DNA
28:41
Speaker 2: profiles nationally. Investigators also revisited evidence from the scene and
28:46
Speaker 2: from Karen's betting, and this new testing produced a result
28:51
Speaker 2: that changed everything.
28:53
Speaker 3: But let me back up a minute.
28:55
Speaker 2: A lot of headlines have said this case was cracked
28:57
Speaker 2: through DNA, and that's partially true, but the first real
29:01
Speaker 2: crack in this case came from something very low tech,
29:05
Speaker 2: a single line in the original case Faule. For decades,
29:09
Speaker 2: one of the strongest reasons to look away from the
29:12
Speaker 2: people closest to the children was timing, because detectives in
29:15
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one thought the murders happened later in the
29:18
Speaker 2: morning before Weldon said he got home from work. That
29:22
Speaker 2: made his work shift look like a strong alibi, because
29:26
Speaker 2: if the children were attacked around six forty five am,
29:29
Speaker 2: Weldon would have been clocking out at Cooper Tire and
29:32
Speaker 2: he had been seen by co workers. Investigators even tested
29:36
Speaker 2: that timing in nineteen eighty one. They left Cooper Tire
29:39
Speaker 2: when Weldon would have left, checked the clock out time
29:42
Speaker 2: drove the route to the Alexander Homme factored in that train.
29:45
Speaker 2: They tested the drive at thirty and thirty five miles
29:48
Speaker 2: an hour, and they determined that at most Weldon had
29:52
Speaker 2: about eight minutes between leaving Cooper Tire and getting home.
29:55
Speaker 2: Eight minutes was not enough time to do what had
29:58
Speaker 2: been done in that house. So after that the investigation
30:02
Speaker 2: moved outward toward the pickup truck and the mystery man
30:05
Speaker 2: in the cowboy boots. But when Captain Seward went back
30:08
Speaker 2: through the case file, he saw a sentence where one
30:12
Speaker 2: of the investigators who found Gordon's body said that the
30:15
Speaker 2: boy's body.
30:16
Speaker 3: Was cold to the touch.
30:18
Speaker 2: Now that meant the time of death might be wrong,
30:21
Speaker 2: and that the attack probably did not happen at around
30:23
Speaker 2: six forty five am, because it takes around twelve hours,
30:27
Speaker 2: give or take for a body to be cold to
30:28
Speaker 2: the touch. If Gordon and Karen had been killed minutes
30:32
Speaker 2: before their dad got home, as it had been suggested
30:34
Speaker 2: for decades, Gordon's body would not have been cold, which
30:39
Speaker 2: meant Gordon must have been killed much earlier than initially thought.
30:43
Speaker 2: And if that was the case, then everything from the
30:46
Speaker 2: night before became the crucial time period, which meant Weldon's
30:50
Speaker 2: alibi that had shaped the case for forty years fell apart.
30:55
Speaker 2: Now investigators were looking hard at the grieving father who
30:58
Speaker 2: had been so distraught after finding his children murdered in
31:02
Speaker 2: his living room. Weldon Alexander in addition to the DNA
31:07
Speaker 2: from Karen and Gordon's fingernails, police were also retesting Karen's betting.
31:12
Speaker 2: Authorities later said this new testing suggested there was a
31:15
Speaker 2: familial relationship in the fingernail tissue, and further analysis found
31:20
Speaker 2: traces of Weldon Seamen on Karen's betting. Additional forensic evidence
31:25
Speaker 2: from dried blood on the children's hands contained fibers and
31:28
Speaker 2: elemental materials, including bryce, copper, and zinc. This was a
31:32
Speaker 2: combination of materials that were reportedly consistent with the environment
31:35
Speaker 2: at Cooper Tire where Weldon worked. Police had executed a
31:40
Speaker 2: search warrm on Cooper Tire way back in nineteen eighty one.
31:43
Speaker 2: They looked at the materials they gathered there in a
31:46
Speaker 2: whole new light. Police felt confident they knew who the
31:50
Speaker 2: killer was and he had been there all along. On
31:57
Speaker 2: October nineteenth, twenty twenty three, the Texarkana, Arkansas Police Chief
32:01
Speaker 2: Michael Cram held a news conference, more than forty two
32:05
Speaker 2: years after Karen and Gordon Alexander were attacked and brutally murdered.
32:10
Speaker 2: Authorities announced they had identified a sole suspect, Weldon Alexander,
32:15
Speaker 2: but he would never stand trial because Weldon Alexander had
32:19
Speaker 2: died in twenty fourteen. Miller County prosecuting attorney Connie Mitchell
32:24
Speaker 2: later wrote that, in her opinion, Weldon Alexander was the
32:28
Speaker 2: sole viable suspect. She believed probable cause existed for two
32:32
Speaker 2: counts of capital murder, but since Weldon was dead.
32:36
Speaker 3: No warrant could be issued.
32:39
Speaker 2: When police initially questioned Weldon in nineteen eighty one, they
32:42
Speaker 2: had described him as as a quote passive, stoic man
32:46
Speaker 2: with excellent impulse control end quote. They noted he had
32:49
Speaker 2: no history of violence or criminal record, he had a
32:52
Speaker 2: steady job, and they didn't have a reason to suspect
32:55
Speaker 2: he was lying. Now investigators had a new theory. The
32:59
Speaker 2: theory is that Weldon attacked Karen before leaving for work,
33:03
Speaker 2: and Gordon came in and tried to rescue his sister.
33:07
Speaker 2: When Gordon tried to get to the phone, investigators believe
33:11
Speaker 2: Weldon attacked him and stabbed him. Then he turned on
33:15
Speaker 2: his daughter and also stabbed her in a vicious frenzy
33:18
Speaker 2: before pulling the butter knife out and placing it on
33:20
Speaker 2: that bookshelf. Then, according to that theory, Weldon went to work,
33:25
Speaker 2: completed his shift as normal, came home and presented himself
33:29
Speaker 2: as the father who had discovered the crime scene. Once
33:33
Speaker 2: the case was officially closed, we were able to foia
33:36
Speaker 2: the case file, and we were able to see a
33:39
Speaker 2: lot of clues that had been there from the beginning,
33:41
Speaker 2: including the fact that the original file suggested the attacker
33:44
Speaker 2: had taken his time inside the home and had used
33:47
Speaker 2: a washcloth to wipe down the countertop and sink and
33:51
Speaker 2: wash the blood off his hands in the kitchen sink.
33:54
Speaker 2: Captain Seward said he was surprised by the conclusion of
33:58
Speaker 2: the investigation because the information that detectives had back in
34:02
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one about time of death seemed to rule
34:05
Speaker 2: Welden out. But after over four decades, he said at
34:09
Speaker 2: a press conference, he felt like a load had been
34:12
Speaker 2: taken off his shoulders, which I can understand because now
34:15
Speaker 2: everyone in the community knows who did this, and there
34:18
Speaker 2: is probably some relief in knowing that this person is
34:21
Speaker 2: gone and they aren't out there hurting other people. But
34:25
Speaker 2: it's also tragic because, as the prosecuting attorney said, there
34:28
Speaker 2: is no earthly justice.
34:30
Speaker 3: Weldon is dead.
34:32
Speaker 2: There's no moment when Weldon Alexander will ever have to
34:34
Speaker 2: sit in a courtroom while the evidence is read aloud.
34:38
Speaker 2: In my opinion, this case is a perfect example of
34:41
Speaker 2: how old cases can still be solved. In nineteen eighty one,
34:45
Speaker 2: even if police had suspected Weldon, the forensic testing they
34:49
Speaker 2: could do was much more limited, and Weldon's fingerprints in
34:53
Speaker 2: the house would not have been surprising because he lived there,
34:56
Speaker 2: and he even had an explanation for why his fingerprints
34:59
Speaker 2: were on the knife.
35:00
Speaker 3: He said he had pulled.
35:01
Speaker 2: It out of Karen in a panic, and at the
35:03
Speaker 2: time detectives couldn't prove otherwise. But this case, to me,
35:06
Speaker 2: is also an example of something else, the fact that
35:09
Speaker 2: technology alone does not solve the case. You need a
35:13
Speaker 2: dedicated investigator to go back and look again, look at
35:16
Speaker 2: everything they thought they knew about the case, and figure
35:18
Speaker 2: out where they went wrong, including asking one of the
35:21
Speaker 2: most basic questions, what if the time of death was wrong?
35:26
Speaker 3: It's obvious from reading the case.
35:27
Speaker 2: While the original investigators cared a lot about getting justice
35:30
Speaker 2: for the Alexander children. They interviewed a lot of people,
35:33
Speaker 2: they ruled a lot of people out, They did a
35:36
Speaker 2: lot of legwork, and crucially, they did a great job
35:39
Speaker 2: of collecting evidence that would help solve this case decades later.
35:44
Speaker 3: But back in nineteen eighty one.
35:45
Speaker 2: Since the time of death was wrong, everything else followed
35:48
Speaker 2: a faulty premise. In twenty twenty two, once the investigation
35:53
Speaker 2: accepted a later time of death, Weldon became much harder
35:57
Speaker 2: to eliminate as the killer. Once the blue truck became
36:01
Speaker 2: the picture in everyone's mind, that's all they were looking for.
36:04
Speaker 2: The case file filled with strangers and the person living
36:08
Speaker 2: inside the house kind of faded into the background. Maybe
36:12
Speaker 2: the most horrifying part of this case for me is
36:15
Speaker 2: thinking about Karen Alexander in that hospital room, fighting for
36:18
Speaker 2: her life. Police were guarding her because they believed that
36:22
Speaker 2: the killer might come back. But while officers were chasing
36:26
Speaker 2: a man in a cowboy hat or one of the
36:29
Speaker 2: men from Vera's past or a blue pickup truck, her
36:32
Speaker 2: killer was allowed to come in and visit her, probably unmonitored.
36:38
Speaker 2: Could Karen have still been conscious when her dad visited her?
36:43
Speaker 2: And if so, how scary must that have been for
36:46
Speaker 2: her to have her killer and rapist in the room
36:50
Speaker 2: while she was lying there helpless. In the end, this
36:55
Speaker 2: is not a story about an unknown monster, A guy
36:59
Speaker 2: in a blue pickup wearing cowboy boots who slipped into
37:02
Speaker 2: the house while the children's father was away working hard.
37:06
Speaker 2: This story is much darker because these children were brutalized
37:12
Speaker 2: and viciously murdered by the one person who was supposed
37:16
Speaker 2: to protect them. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
37:23
Speaker 2: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murderline is a production of School
37:26
Speaker 2: of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by
37:29
Speaker 2: me Catherine Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks
37:34
Speaker 2: to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and Sarah Burns
37:37
Speaker 2: for legal review. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode.
37:41
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of
37:45
Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen
37:49
Speaker 2: Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime
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Speaker 2: Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested in
37:55
Speaker 2: seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow
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Speaker 2: the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod. If you have
38:02
Speaker 2: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
38:04
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
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