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The Murder of Cheryl Springfield Part 2: The Criminal · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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The Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion is
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advised. On Friday May fifteenth, nineteen eighty one, District Judge Howard Fender
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ordered a physical examination for Terrant County, Texas jail inmate Mark Anthony Rodgers,
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who was being held on charges of forgery and auto theft. Rogers was on
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a hunger strike. He'd been the victim of NonStop harassment by jailers, he
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said, after his allegations that guards al G. Wilburn and Darryl Polk were
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dealing marijuana to inmates led to their forced resignation. At the point of physical
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exam was ordered, Rogers hadn't eaten in several days, but Sheriff Lawn Evans,
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who was keeping a close eye on the situation, said he wasn't worried.
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The whole thing was a publicity stunt, the famous Terrant County lawman added,
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and all Rogers had been doing was sleeping. Whether rogers protest was or
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was not a publicity stunt, it was inspired by the hunger strike of Irish
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Republican Army inmates in a British prison in Belfast that had begun the previous March
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and ended in the death of ten men, including influential leader Bobby Sands.
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Right around the time Marc Anthony Rogers began his the inmate hadn't lost much weight,
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however, Sheriff Evans said. In fact, a few days later,
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Evans reported that out of some kind of immaculate ingestion, Rogers had actually gained
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two pounds and would be more than capable of participating in his trial. The
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coming Tuesday, doctors determined another inmate who had been protesting since May the first,
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twenty two year old Barry Dean Kelly, had, as the sheriff put
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it, succumbed to fried chicken when it was offered for Sunday's lunch. According
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to a jail report filed the eleventh of May nineteen eighty one, Kelly had
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told a jailer he'd rather starve to death than return to state prison sixty six
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days, just like Bobby Sands. A jailer quoted Kelly as saying, almost
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six months to the day before, the arrest had landed him back in County.
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Kelly had been released on parole in June of nineteen seventy six, then
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seventeen year old Barry Dean Kelly was arrested for a spree of crimes, which
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included the charges he'd be convicted of the following year, burglary of a vehicle
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and burglary of a habitation. He was sentenced to four years and seven years,
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respectively, the sentences to run concurrently. Kelly served the entirety of the
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first charge, but was released early on the second. Upon his release on
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June sixteenth, nineteen eighty as a twenty one year old, Kelly began courting
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a young woman he had dated before his stint in prison when they were both
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young teenagers and now eighteen year old Cindy Springfield. But before further exploring this
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particular connection to the Sherylynn Tunnel Springfield murder case, it is perhaps important to
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discuss what led Kelly to his nineteen eighty one hunger strike in the Tarrant County
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jail and the escalation of his criminal identity from petty thief and burglar to rapist,
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kidnapper, and murderer. Sometime between four thirty and five point fifty am
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on Sunday, January eleventh, nineteen eighty one, North Richland Hills, Texas
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resident Betty Greer was sound asleep when Barry Dean Kelly broke into her home on
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the forty six hundred block of Mackie Drive. Kelly rifled through some of the
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possessions in the modest suburban home until he found three purses to steal. He
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gathered them up and walked into a bedroom of the home where two young women
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slept. For whatever reason, theories of nefarious intentions the easiest to rationalize,
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Kelly woke up one of the young women, later identified as the homeowner's niece,
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twenty year old Brenda Beaver, who was visiting from Indianapolis. Kelly told
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Brenda he needed to ask her some questions, and, being dazed from having
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just awoken early and in the darkness, the young woman thought he was someone
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she knew. By the time they got to the living room, however,
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Brenda realized he was a stranger. Barry Dean Kelly quickly drew a knife,
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grabbed brenda hand, and escaped out the back door. He pulled her through
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a few backyards, then down the street and into another backyard. There,
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Kelly stopped as the silence of the early weekend morning was broken by the humming
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motor of a car. Ah damn she called the police. The kidnapper muttered,
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referring to the homeowner he'd burglarized and his captives aunt Betty Greer. Brenda
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Beaver was smart. She took those words as an invitation to scream, the
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perfect time to alert the cops or any nearby resident to her location. As
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soon as she did, Kelly pushed her to the ground and fled Barry Dean.
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Kelly was apprehended the following Tuesday, but the story hardly ends there.
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That day, he was charged with burglary and aggravated kidnapping. After his arraignment,
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as North Richland Hill's police detective Gary Fisher questioned him, Kelly picked up
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the apparently heavy metal ash tray off the table and smashed it over the officer's
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head. Kelly then bolted out of the police station's back door. Kelly's very
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fast on his feet. Chief of Administrative Services for the North Richland Hills Police
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Ron McKinney later said he can run like a deer. The statement wasn't necessarily
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hyperbole. By the time detective Fisher came to Kelly, a tall, skinny
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and wiry man was nowhere to be found. An alert quickly went out over
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the police band a beyond the lookout for a white male five feet ten inches
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tall, one hundred and fifty pounds with ruffled red hair and a matching mustache,
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wearing a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and orange boots, but the
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bolo did nothing. Bury Dean Kelly, also wanted for questioning in other similar
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crimes in a few nearby jurisdictions, was gone after flagging down an unsuspecting motorists
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passing by and hitching a ride a couple miles east to the city of Hurst.
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The following Friday, January sixteenth, nineteen eighty one, at about nine
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thirty pm. However, the carelessness of a motorist in southwest Dallas County changed
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law enforcement's luck. In Cedar Hill, Texas, about thirty miles southeast of
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the North Richland Hills Police Department, the driver of a car struck a motorcycle
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from behind, causing the rider to lose control and fall to the pavement.
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The motorcyclist suffered only minor injuries, some pretty nasty bruising and a small gash
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to his head. While being transported to an Arlington hospital, it was discovered
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the motorcycle rider was wanted escapee buried in Kelley, who was placed in the
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Tarrant County jail post haste after his injuries were treated. Exactly a week after
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the accident, Kelly was officially charged with felony assault on a police officer and
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aggravated escape. He'd also violated his parole in June of nineteen eighty one,
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just shy of a year since his release from a Texas prison. Kelly was
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sent back after his conviction for burglary, aggravated assault, and aggravated assault of
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a police officer. Oh and, of course, his failure at a jail
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hunger strike after being unable to resist the succulent seduction of Fried Chicken Day.
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During the short time in between his release on parole and returned to jail,
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Bary Dean Kelly had latched back on to his teenage sweetheart, Cindy Springfield.
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Cindy wasn't a kid anymore. She was fourteen years old when Kelly was sent
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up the river, but now Cindy was eighteen and the mother of a baby
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girl, Cheryl Lynn's. Springfield began living with Cindy, her former sister in
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law, on Whittier Street in Fort Worth's South Hills neighborhood in between that time
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as well. According to Cindy, and although she didn't recall them ever meeting
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in person, Kelly and Cheryl did not get along. He was obnoxious,
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Cindy told Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter Deanna Boyd decades later, and Cheryl,
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as her sister jan told us, didn't take much shit. Kelly would call
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the Whittier Street house, Cindy remembered, and if she wasn't there, he
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wouldn't stop. Likely this pissed Cheryl off pretty good, and anyway, she
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likely thought Cindy shouldn't be hanging around a two bit criminal dip shit like Kelly
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Scott. Cheryl's ex husband with whom she was reconciling, also said decades later
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that there was nothing good about his sister's boyfriend, nothing honest, although we
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do not know when they considered him to be. When Cheryl was murdered on
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Christmas Day nineteen eighty, Barry Dean Kelly became a potential suspect in the eyes
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of police as well. After December twenty eighth, nineteen eighty, more than
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two decades went by without a mention of Cheryl Lynn Springfield's murder in the Fort
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Worth Star Telegram, but Barry Dean Kelly was making the news plenty. In
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November of nineteen eighty six, he was again paroled from the Texas Department of
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Criminal Justice system, and as he had after his parole in nineteen eighty,
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he sought out Cindy Springfield. She never believed her brother's suspicions that Kelly could
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have murdered Cheryl, whose sister had also come to believe he had strong potential
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as a suspect. Cindy was close with Cheryl, she suggested in a twenty
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seventeen four or Star Telegram article, and even back when she was strangled to
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death in the house they shared, Cindy didn't believe her boyfriend would have done
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something like that to someone who meant so much to her. Cindy declined our
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requests for an interview, but it appears her again renewed romance with Kelly was
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swift and moved to the next level quickly. Just a few months after he
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was released from prison in February of nineteen eighty seven, they went down to
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the courthouse and got married, but the marriage was short lived. Here's what
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why at gunpoint and using a homemade tattoo needle. Cindy said Bury Dean Kelly
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tattooed his initials B KAY and a star on her right hand between her thumb
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and index finger. She didn't want the branding, she would later say,
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but still stayed with him after the traumatic experience and after having to escape at
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a window of a motel that very night when she contracted hepatitis from Kelly,
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Cindy said, presumably meaning the sexually transmitted hepatitis B. It was the last
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straw and she left him, but Kelly wasn't having it. He continually came
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around trying to see Cindy, and on October ninth, nineteen eighty seven,
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accosted her outside a store on West Seminary Drive at knife point. Kelly forced
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Cindy into a Ford Ltd. Which was new to him, and she later
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said, struck two cars on the way out of the parking lot. He
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drove to a wooded area off Jacksborough Highway, where he raped and terrorized her
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for several hours. He was arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping shortly after he
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abducted Cindy. Now the convicted felon's version of this story is very different.
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Cindy, he says, went with him willingly and his intentions were simply to
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talk. But also, according to bury Dean Kelly, he's innocent of absolutely
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everything he's ever been charged or convicted of, including murder. Not long after
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he was released on Pearl, in December of nineteen eighty six, bury Dean
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Kelly met a woman named Mary Earlene Copeland. They began a sexual relationship,
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Mary would later tell at Tarrant County Court, but it ended in February nineteen
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eighty seven when Kelly married Cindy. The following summer, however, when he
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and Cindy's relationship deteriorated, Kelly began calling on Mary again, though this time
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they did not engage in a sexual relationship. Mary's mother, sixty three year
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old Melva Teams, whom she lived with, was kind to Kelly. She
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lent him money to get gas and fix car issues from time to time.
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She also took Kelly to do laundry on at least one occasion, on Monday,
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October fifth, nineteen eighty seven, just a few days before Kelly abducted,
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terrorized, and raped his estranged wife, Cindy. Melva disappeared from her
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northwest fort Worth home on the two hundred block of Castlebury cut Off Road.
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The scene showed obvious signs of foul play. On Melva's bedroom floor lay the
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blue jeans she'd been wearing earlier when Mary last saw her. The usually made
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bed was disheveled and pushed slightly off the box spring. Also on the bed
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was one of Melva's bras with a clasp broken off and missing. An upper
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drawer in the room was open, and the twenty two caliber pistol that usually
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sat inside, wrapped in a yellow rag, was gone. The yellow rag
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was on the floor. Melva's purse, which contained her in her deceased husband's
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wedding rings, was also missing. Known as an especially tidy woman, the
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butcher knife on the kitchen counter and her check book on the dining room table
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were just two more unusual things out of character for Melva. The most noticeable
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thing missing was Melva's nineteen sixty eight turquoise and white Ford pickup truck. The
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next day to day, October sixth, nineteen eighty seven, a police helicopter
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located the truck in a wooded area behind what used to be Panther Hall,
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the famous honky tonk where folks like Willie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and
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Charlie Pride cut live albums. There was no key in the vehicle, but
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it also hadn't been hot wired. There were several blood stains inside on the
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driver's side seat cover, the driver's side floor mat, and the ceiling above
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the driver's seat. Later, when the vehicle was processed, crime scene investigators
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discovered a length of rope, a cigarette butt with plum colored lipstick, and
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a small plastic baggie with cocaine residue. Quickly, officers on horseback began searching
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the brushy fields and woods in the vicinity, but it wasn't until more than
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a week later, on Saturday, October seventeenth, that they found Melbury's body
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in a ravine on the north end of the city, ten miles north of
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where the abandoned pickup was discovered. Police went to search that area as the
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result of a tip. The highly decomposed body was quickly identified as Melva Teams
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by family members using her clothing, particularly her T shirt which bore the name
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of her son, Michael's local rock and roll band. Looker A long piece
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of material had been ripped from the shirt and was tied tightly around Melva's neck.
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The cause of the woman's death was obvious, but the advanced state of
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decomposition made it impossible to determine if she'd been raped. A few days later,
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just after Melva's burial, Mary Copeland noticed a yellow stain on her mother's
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new bedspread. The Fort Worth Police began seeking out a erologist and a technique
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they'd never used before in a criminal investigation, something being called genetic fingerprinting to
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appease the lay person, a category the cops fit squarely into at the time.
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This new process was DNA testing. Of course, Melva was exhumed for
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blood samples just days after she was buried. On Wednesday, January twenty sixth,
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nineteen eighty eight, twenty eight year old Berry Dean Kelly was charged with
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the first degree murder of Melva teams after testing showed his DNA matched that of
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seamen stains found on the sixty three year old woman's bedspread. Kelly was easy
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to find. He'd been in the Tarrant County jail awaiting trial since the previous
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October. Just a few days after Melva was killed after his arrest for the
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abduction and sexual assault of his estranged wife. At his trial the following November,
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testimony from three sex workers was given alongside the DNA evidence. Bury Dean
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Kelly had given one of them a ride in melv Team's nineteen sixty eight two
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tone Ford truck within hours of her disappearance. She testified inside she'd smoked a
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cigarette down to the butt, leaving it in the pickup's ash tray, stained
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by her plumb colored lipstick. At one point, Kelly stopped the truck,
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tied off his arm, and injected himself with cocaine. The second sex worker
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who testified remembered seeing him in the truck and speaking with him on a couple
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occasions. That day. A third woman also rode around with Kelly. They
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stopped and bought twenty bucks worth of heroin, cooked it up with some coke
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to make a speedball, and both shot up. He showed the woman some
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jewelry he intended to sell, which was later identified as belonging to Melva Teams.
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It was the only time that these three sex workers, who'd known Kelly
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for quite some time, they testified, had seen him in that vehicle,
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and also the first time one said she'd ever seen him with fifty to one
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hundred dollars bills. His fingerprints, of course, were all over Melva's truck,
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which her daughter Mary said he'd never been in before her mother went missing.
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Kelly ended up selling Melva and her deceased husband's wedding rings to the owner
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of a local tire shop on hemp Hill Street. Kelly's defense attorneys professed his
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innocence to the end, calling into question the validity of DNA science, something
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appeals courts would absolutely take up in the then near future and set precedence using
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Kelly's case when they upheld the conviction in Tarrant County, DNA technology was new
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and absolutely foreign to jurors, as the first trial to ever use such tests.
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There, defense also attempted to present an alternate suspect, Melva's daughter,
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Mary Copeland, and even brought in acquaintances of the woman to testify that the
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two sometimes argued. It was a week defense, and on Wednesday, November
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twenty third, nineteen eighty eight, after seventeen long days at trial, the
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jury found buried In Kelly guilty of the murder of sixty three year old Melva
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Teams. He was sentenced to life in prison the following Monday. In the
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years after, Kelly pleaded guilty to Cindy's kidnapping and charges that occurred when he
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was locked up in Tarrant County waiting to be tried for Melva's murder, possession
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of a weapon a razor blade attached to a toothbrush, and setting a mattress
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on fire. He got a twenty five year sentence for agreeing to plead guilty
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to those and they ran concurrently with his life sentence. In two thousand and
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three, Kelly came up for parole but was denied. He's also been denied
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in every hearing since the next, scheduled to take place in April of twenty
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twenty four. There seems to be a relatively short suspect list in Cheryl's case.
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You'd be hard pressed to find a pre nineteen eighty three cold case murder
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in which serial confessor Henry Lee Lucas didn't claim at the prodding of his handler,
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Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell, and Cheryl's case is no exception. Apparently,
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however, Lucas botched this particular confession royally at the get go by telling
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detectives that Cheryl had answered the front door in a black neglige. Anyway,
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Lucas sold scrap medal in Jacksonville, Florida, on both Christmas Eve that year
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and the day after Christmas, rendering his confession virtually impossible and certainly improbable.
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The father of Cindy's daughter, Christy, also made his way on the suspect
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list in Cheryl Lynn Springfield's case. His name was Ricky Lynn Brothers. However,
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his criminal record reflects no charges that suggest her murder is something he's capable
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of. Scott Springfield, Cheryl's ex husband who sought to reconcile their marriage and
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who found the body, also doesn't believe Brothers could have done it. He
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believes Cheryl would likely have wiped the floor with Brothers if he'd tried to harm
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her. Police anyway, could find absolutely nothing tying him to the terrible crime.
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Ricky Lynn Brothers died of suicide in nineteen ninety four. In twenty seventeen,
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Barry Dean Kelly, then fifty eight years old, contacted Fort Worth Police
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detectives and told them he'd share information about Cheryl's case if they came to see
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him at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice already unit in which itaal falls.
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Detectives were interested, of course, even though there was no clear match.
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When a detective reinvestigating Cheryl's case in two thousand and one got a warrant for
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Kelly's DNA and compared it to the cloth iron cord used to strangle Cheryl to
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death, he remained at the top of the suspect list. He'd been convicted
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of killing Melva teams, after all, and the knot used to tie the
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cloth around her neck was similar to the one used to tie the cord around
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s. When two detectives arrived to interview Kelly, it became clear very quickly
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that he was trying to trade information for special privileges, including a move to
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a more desirable prison. What Kelly wanted were things detective Jeremy Rodin and J.
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W. Galloway simply could not promise him. They left with no new
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information, and Barry Dean Kelly continues to deny responsibility for both Cheryl's murder and
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the murder he was convicted of again. Kelly's ex wife and Cheryl's sister in
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law Cindy denied our requests for an interview, telling us through her daughter that
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Barry Dean Kelly did not kill Cheryl, presumably referring to the CoP's failure to
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make a DNA match in two thousand and one. It's unclear where Cindy was
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that night, but even as her ten month old baby slept in the house
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with Cheryl, she failed to return home home until well after six am on
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Christmas morning. If Barry tried to get a hold of her and come to
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the house, perhaps Cheryl got mouthy with him and he got violent, That's
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what her sister Jan theorizes. But looking in to Bury dean Kelly was dead
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end after dead end. The neighbor who reported Cheryl speaking or arguing with a
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man at two am the morning she was killed couldn't give a good description,
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and apparently police have only supplemental reports describing what the person witnessed, with no
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actual witness statements or even the name of that witness. Cheryl's sister, Jan,
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like Scott Springfield, came to strongly believe that buried in Kelly was responsible
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for her murder. It had to be someone with a connection to the house.
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She told us it seems incredibly unlikely a random killer was lurking the streets
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and randomly stopped at the Whittier house to do their worst on Christmas Eve.
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Jan continued. Cheryl's mother, Pat, rarely spoke of her daughter's murder,
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and when she did, it was only to express the guilt she felt.
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Dropping Cheryl off at the home that Christmas Eve, she delivered her little girl,
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Pat thought, into the hands of a killer. Pat didn't pressure the
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Fort Worth Police to solve the case, but instead left that responsibility to her
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oldest Jan J. C. Holmes. Cheryl's stepfather died in nineteen ninety eight
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and Pat died in twenty thirteen. While it's unclear exactly what happened to one
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of the teenage roommates that lived at the Whittier Street house, the other Nancy,
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never went back there. She sent relatives, in fact, to collect
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her things. Besides being hounded by the mean, Nancy recalled threatening phone calls
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to her parents' house, where she'd gone after Cheryl's murder. Some told her
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to keep her mouth shut, and others that she was next. Though likely
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cruel pranks, they were no less scary. Scott Springfield dealt with a lot
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as the result of Cheryl's murder. The overwhelming sadness and pain goes without saying,
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but he was also scrutinized heavily by police as he tried to make sense
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of what happened, a task that was an impossible one. He was cleared
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of the unthinkable crime, but the pain of losing Cheryl, though blunted,
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hasn't waned. Scott would describe Cheryl through the years as sweet and kind,
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the type of person who never had a bad thing to say about anyone.
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Tragically, Cheryl and Scott's son, Scott Allen, died in twenty twenty three
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at only forty five years old. No one knows if he saw what happened
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to his mother, or if he woke up that morning and found her body
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by the Christmas tree. As a young child, he remarked both that the
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bad man had put him to bed and that Santa hert mommy. Cheryl's sister.
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Jan's anger is still palpable and is a defense mechanism, perhaps against crippling
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sadness. To this day, Jan calls cold case or homicide detectives at the
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Fort Worth Police Department every thirty days it's unclear if the current cold case detectives
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are actively investigating or testing evidence today, and the older Jan gets, the
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more she worries there will be no one left to take up the cause of
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justice for her sister after she's gone. If you have any information about the
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Christmas Day murder of Cheryl Lynne Tunnel, Springfield, please conc tacked the fort
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Worth Police Cold Case Unit at eight one seven three nine two four three zero
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eight, or you can email the tip to cold Case at fort worthpd dot
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com. We'll link to both contacts in the show notes. We'd like to
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thank Jan for her help and contributions to this episode, and thank John Watson
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for speaking with us about his experience. If you like Gone Cold's mission to
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raise awareness for unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and other mysteries across Texas,
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notes. Thanks for listening, y'all,