Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Texas Teen Snatched From High School Boyfriend Car, Raped, Tortured, Murdered

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Texas Teen Snatched From High School Boyfriend Car, Raped, Tortured, Murdered · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A seventeen year old girl
0:16
Speaker 1: is kidnapped. This is the time when she should be
0:19
Speaker 1: thinking about high school prom and whether she's going to
0:22
Speaker 1: make an A or a B on a final exam.
0:25
Speaker 1: But Carla Walker is kidnaped. Think about it. My twins
0:31
Speaker 1: are now fourteen. Carla's just seventeen years old when she
0:35
Speaker 1: becomes a victim of violent crime. I Nancy Grace, this
0:40
Speaker 1: is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here
0:42
Speaker 1: at Fox Nation and series XM one eleven. First of all,
0:46
Speaker 1: take a listen to our friends at NBC five. This
0:49
Speaker 1: parking lot was a hub of activity, a place where
0:51
Speaker 1: all the young Westsiders would escape for entertainment. Certainly, no
0:56
Speaker 1: one ever imagined what would happen the night of February seventeenth.
1:00
Speaker 1: The doorbells just started ringing frantically in my parents' house.
1:05
Speaker 1: I mean it was just banging, bang and banging. Cynthia's
1:08
Speaker 1: Stone says. It was then her family's living nightmare began.
1:12
Speaker 1: She was just eighteen when her younger sister Carla vanished,
1:16
Speaker 1: had blood just coming down his face, just screaming. They
1:18
Speaker 1: got her, they got her, they got her. They took
1:20
Speaker 1: her Carla Walker was abducted. Investigators say the petite blonde
1:25
Speaker 1: was snatched from the passenger seat if her boyfriend Rodney's
1:28
Speaker 1: car in the Bowling Alley parking lot. Rodney told police
1:31
Speaker 1: he was hit over the head knocked unconscious. When he
1:34
Speaker 1: woke up, Carla was gone. All he could remember were
1:38
Speaker 1: her last words. So I know she was terrified. I
1:42
Speaker 1: know she was terrified. And for her to say, go
1:48
Speaker 1: get help, I'll go with you. Don't hurt him. That
1:51
Speaker 1: what the kind of person she was. You're hearing her
1:54
Speaker 1: family in the middle of a nightmare. Did you hear
1:58
Speaker 1: what they said? Ringing? Doorbell starts buzzing, and then they
2:02
Speaker 1: find out the worst that Carla is gone. Now, from
2:06
Speaker 1: what you just heard, I guess the first thing cops
2:09
Speaker 1: are gonna do is take a hard look at the
2:11
Speaker 1: boyfriend who managed to somehow survive while Carla was kidnapped.
2:17
Speaker 1: With me and I'll star panel to make sense of
2:19
Speaker 1: what we know right now. First of all, doctor Kristen
2:22
Speaker 1: Middleman joining us CDO author am inc. Kim Devignon, Assistant
2:28
Speaker 1: prosecutor Tarrant County Criminal DA's Office. Her specialty is the
2:33
Speaker 1: Adult Sex Assault Unit. Eight years in crimes against children.
2:38
Speaker 1: She knows her way around a courtroom. I can tell
2:40
Speaker 1: you that much. Doctor Alan Blockkey joining US forensic Psychologists,
2:45
Speaker 1: joining us out of Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in criminal child
2:49
Speaker 1: custody and abuse. Cheryl McCollum, Founder director of the Coldcase
2:54
Speaker 1: Research Institute. You can find her at Coldcase Crimes dot org.
2:57
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendall Crowns, Chief medical Examiner, and that's not easy
3:03
Speaker 1: to attain, Chief Medical Examiner, Tyrant County. That's Fort Worth
3:07
Speaker 1: and at University Texas, Texas A and M Faculty, University
3:12
Speaker 1: of Texas Medical Branch. But first to Gina Tron, crime
3:17
Speaker 1: reporter with Oxygen dot com. Thank you so much for
3:20
Speaker 1: being with us, Gina. I want to take it from
3:22
Speaker 1: the beginning. So Carla is on a date with her
3:25
Speaker 1: boyfriend just after Valentine's FIB seventeen and she's allegedly snatched
3:31
Speaker 1: from the passenger seat of a car. Is that correct? Yeah,
3:35
Speaker 1: they went on a date a couple of days after
3:38
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, you know, they went to the Valentine's Date
3:41
Speaker 1: dam and afterwards they partied with friends and stopped by
3:45
Speaker 1: a local bowling alley to use the restroom. And it
3:49
Speaker 1: was there they were attacked after returning to Roddy McCoy's car.
3:56
Speaker 1: He was a starting quarterback for the Western Hills Cougar
4:00
Speaker 1: football team. And you know, they were just a couple
4:02
Speaker 1: of teams out having a good time. And I'm as
4:06
Speaker 1: they were getting back to his car in the parking
4:09
Speaker 1: lot of the bowling Alley, he was beating unconscious and
4:14
Speaker 1: when he came to Carlo was gone. According to police reports,
4:20
Speaker 1: the boyfriend was actually pistol whipped to use. Cheryl McCollum,
4:26
Speaker 1: you and I have seen plenty of cases where a
4:27
Speaker 1: victim is pistol whip. Explain what we're talking about. They
4:30
Speaker 1: just take the butt end of a gun, the handle,
4:33
Speaker 1: and they use it as their weapons. So they don't
4:35
Speaker 1: shoot them, but they use that you know, wooden handle
4:39
Speaker 1: to you know, beat the day like that of somebody,
4:41
Speaker 1: and in this case, beat her boyfriend unconscious right off
4:45
Speaker 1: the bat. You know when you started that off, Cheryl,
4:48
Speaker 1: you made it sound so um. Let me just say,
4:51
Speaker 1: you really put perfume on the pig, because you go, well,
4:54
Speaker 1: they just take the barrel of the pistol like that's
4:57
Speaker 1: not gonna hurt. Well, he is going to hurt nancy,
5:01
Speaker 1: especially when you're being beaten by the handle. You could
5:06
Speaker 1: call it the grip of a pistol about the face.
5:09
Speaker 1: And I've seen people with places where the person had
5:13
Speaker 1: broken broken facial bones, their nose broken, the eye sockets broken.
5:19
Speaker 1: I mean, doctor Kendall Crowns. You ever seen a victim
5:21
Speaker 1: that's been pistol whipped. I have. You can do quite
5:23
Speaker 1: a bit of damage with the end of a gun.
5:26
Speaker 1: You can fracture the skull and fracture the facial bones, etc.
5:30
Speaker 1: So it's actually quite the lethal weapon if you want
5:33
Speaker 1: to use it as a blunt object to Kim Devignon, Kim,
5:37
Speaker 1: can you talk to me about the scenario A generic scenario,
5:43
Speaker 1: not necessarily this one where you've got a couple, a
5:46
Speaker 1: man and a woman in a car. You've the man
5:51
Speaker 1: happens to be the starting quarterback on the football team
5:54
Speaker 1: at high school, and the girl is just gone and
6:02
Speaker 1: the man survives to see that would that would raise
6:06
Speaker 1: the hair on the back of my neck in a
6:08
Speaker 1: general typical scenario where he somehow survives the attack and
6:13
Speaker 1: she disappears, certainly, and when you add in loss of consciousness,
6:18
Speaker 1: and you add in a lapse in time, that boy
6:24
Speaker 1: and a generic scenario would obviously become a person of interest.
6:27
Speaker 1: When you say lapse of time, what do you mean
6:30
Speaker 1: by that? There was certainly time period, a time period
6:33
Speaker 1: that could not be accounted for, And in this case,
6:35
Speaker 1: there wasn't lapse in time, wasn't there? Kim? Yes, there was.
6:38
Speaker 1: What kind of time are we looking at? You know?
6:41
Speaker 1: That's the thing we don't really know. You're right. Everyone
6:44
Speaker 1: was intoxicated and everyone was out partying, and so it
6:47
Speaker 1: wasn't like people were watching the clock. So we'll never
6:50
Speaker 1: know for sure, but there's certainly a gap in time
6:54
Speaker 1: from the attack on Rodney in the car and when
6:57
Speaker 1: Rodney shows up at the Walker's house. Wow. Now, the
7:01
Speaker 1: only thing that makes Rodney somewhat believable at this point
7:07
Speaker 1: is the degree of his injuries. I wanted you to
7:10
Speaker 1: take a listen again to Ashley Berry, our friend at
7:15
Speaker 1: NBC five. This parking lot was a hub of activity,
7:18
Speaker 1: a place where all the young Westsiders would escape for entertainment. Certainly,
7:23
Speaker 1: no one ever imagined what would happen the night of
7:26
Speaker 1: February seventeenth. The doorbells just started ringing frantically in my parents' house.
7:32
Speaker 1: I mean it was just banging, bang of Banian. Cynthia
7:35
Speaker 1: Stone says it was then her family's living nightmare began.
7:39
Speaker 1: She was just eighteen when her younger sister Carla vanished,
7:43
Speaker 1: had blood just coming down his face, just screaming. They
7:46
Speaker 1: got her, they got her, they got her, They took her.
7:48
Speaker 1: Carla Walker was abducted. Investigators say the petite blonde was
7:52
Speaker 1: snatched from the passenger seat if her boyfriend Rodney's car
7:55
Speaker 1: in the Bowling Alley parking lot. Rodney told police he
7:59
Speaker 1: was hit over the head, knocked unconscious. When he woke up,
8:03
Speaker 1: Carla was gone. All he could remember were her last words.
8:07
Speaker 1: So I know she was terrified. I know she was terrified.
8:14
Speaker 1: And for her to say go get help, I'll go
8:16
Speaker 1: with you. Don't hurt him. That was the kind of
8:19
Speaker 1: person she was. To Kim Devignon, joining us from Terence
8:23
Speaker 1: County Criminal District Attorney's office him what time of the
8:27
Speaker 1: day or night was this. I know they had been
8:28
Speaker 1: to the dance, so it was a cold night in February.
8:31
Speaker 1: It was a kind of night where the teenagers after
8:34
Speaker 1: the dance were all hanging out and drinking and having
8:38
Speaker 1: a good time. After the dance, just kind of a
8:41
Speaker 1: regular evening in juniors and senior years of high school.
8:46
Speaker 1: What time of the day or night was it. It
8:47
Speaker 1: was very late in the evening. It was after midnight. Okay.
8:50
Speaker 1: You know, Cheryl McCallum, you've been in the courtroom with
8:53
Speaker 1: me many many times. He was an investigator me, he's
8:56
Speaker 1: a prosecutor. How many times have I told you, Jerry,
8:59
Speaker 1: nothing good happens after midnight? Nothing nothing, You've You've said
9:03
Speaker 1: it almost every single case we've ever worked. And you
9:06
Speaker 1: know it's anecdotal, which means I'm recounting from stories, not
9:12
Speaker 1: from statistical data. But I bet you anything, I bet
9:16
Speaker 1: you anything, Kim Devignon. The later it gets at night,
9:21
Speaker 1: the drunker people get, the higher they get, the more
9:25
Speaker 1: they're tired, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
9:29
Speaker 1: I can't explain it in any other terms than that,
9:33
Speaker 1: but I know for a fact, Kim, nothing good happens
9:36
Speaker 1: after midnight. Yea. Our moms are all right about that,
9:39
Speaker 1: weren't they. Yeah, they really were. Time stories with Nancy Grace.
9:58
Speaker 1: Think about it, this young girl. It's the very odd scenario,
10:01
Speaker 1: very odd, indeed, because you got Cheryl McCollum in an
10:06
Speaker 1: open parking lot where there could be witnesses. You've got
10:11
Speaker 1: a young girl with a date for Pete. Say he's
10:14
Speaker 1: a quarterback who's going to approach a quarterback and steal
10:18
Speaker 1: the girl, and pistol whipped the quarterback for Pete's sake
10:21
Speaker 1: somehow at first, Blush, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't
10:26
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. The other thing that we
10:27
Speaker 1: need to make sure we understand is what he's telling
10:31
Speaker 1: us is an ambush like blitz attack. So immediately there
10:36
Speaker 1: wasn't a threat of violence. Immediately, right off the bat,
10:39
Speaker 1: there was violence the first place you start, Kim, I
10:42
Speaker 1: don't know if you do this as well when you're
10:43
Speaker 1: prosecuting cases, Cheryl, I don't know if you do this,
10:46
Speaker 1: but I look at the parties involved. Credibility. Who to
10:51
Speaker 1: believe is the sole province of the jury. And I
10:54
Speaker 1: want to make sure I believe my witnesses when I
10:57
Speaker 1: put them up on the stand and swear them on
10:59
Speaker 1: us to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
11:01
Speaker 1: but the truth. So help them God, I want to
11:04
Speaker 1: know first that they're telling the truth. So who are
11:07
Speaker 1: these people? Take a listen to our friends at crime
11:10
Speaker 1: online dot Com. Carla Walker and Rodney McCoy are the
11:14
Speaker 1: poster couple for high school Sweethearts at seventeen. Walker is
11:17
Speaker 1: a four foot eleven inch blonde with blue eyes, a cheerleader.
11:21
Speaker 1: Rodney McCoy, with his boyish good looks, is a quarterback
11:24
Speaker 1: on the football team. It's just after Valentine's Day, February sixteenth,
11:29
Speaker 1: and the couples celebrate attending a Valentine's Day dance at
11:32
Speaker 1: their Western Hills High School in Fort Worth, Texas. After
11:36
Speaker 1: the dance, the couple hangs out with friends at a
11:38
Speaker 1: taco bell, then go to ridgele A bowling alley. When
11:41
Speaker 1: they get back to McCoy's car, Carla Walker is in
11:44
Speaker 1: the passenger seat, and the couple takes Valentine's Day to
11:47
Speaker 1: heart with some kissing. You know, doctor Alan Blocky, PhD.
11:52
Speaker 1: Is that not a little redundant Blocky? I mean you've
11:54
Speaker 1: got doctor Alan HD. I don't know. I'll think, Okay,
12:00
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to give you the full Monty,
12:03
Speaker 1: Doctor Alan Blocky, PhD. Forensic psychologists joining us out of Birmingham.
12:08
Speaker 1: Did you hear what either my friends at crime online
12:13
Speaker 1: did his boyish good looks. You know, they said that
12:18
Speaker 1: about Ted Bundy, they said that about Scott Peterson. I
12:23
Speaker 1: didn't think either of them were even remotely attractive. Maybe
12:27
Speaker 1: I already knew the facts that the case were suspected.
12:30
Speaker 1: Why do people fall for the school quarterback and his
12:34
Speaker 1: boyish good looks. Probably because he uses his good looks
12:39
Speaker 1: to his advantage. He's probably a nice guy. He's social,
12:42
Speaker 1: he's communicative, he shows interest. But again, the major thing
12:47
Speaker 1: I go back to, you ever heard don't judge a
12:50
Speaker 1: book by its cover. I mean, I certainly didn't get
12:52
Speaker 1: my PhD or psychology, but I know that much. But
12:56
Speaker 1: there's got to be that initial attraction, that initial interest
12:59
Speaker 1: to somebody before you discover that they're not so good.
13:04
Speaker 1: You know, I'm curious about the search that ensued for
13:08
Speaker 1: Carla to prosecutor joining us from Tyrant County Kim Davignon.
13:13
Speaker 1: Did he go straight to police or did he stop
13:17
Speaker 1: at Carla's home first? So he went straight to the
13:20
Speaker 1: walker house. You know, it's kind of interesting looking back now,
13:23
Speaker 1: there's not nine one one in nineteen seventy four. I
13:26
Speaker 1: think all of us we have this instant I'm going
13:28
Speaker 1: to call the police, But in nineteen seventy four, you
13:30
Speaker 1: got to get to a phone, and she actually lived
13:33
Speaker 1: less than a mile away from the Bowling Alley. So
13:36
Speaker 1: that's where he went to the walker's house. Okay, at
13:38
Speaker 1: first I didn't like that that he didn't immediately go
13:43
Speaker 1: call nine one one, such as in the Bowling Alley,
13:46
Speaker 1: but knowing that the walker's home was that close, he
13:50
Speaker 1: didn't have a cell phone, so he went there first. Okay,
13:54
Speaker 1: I can't make as much of a big deal about
13:56
Speaker 1: it as I thought I could. So that's just one
13:58
Speaker 1: of those you know, that proves him lesson which I'm
14:01
Speaker 1: sure you have learned, as have I. In court, never
14:04
Speaker 1: ask the question in front of a jury that you
14:06
Speaker 1: don't know the answer too, because you will it will
14:09
Speaker 1: blow up on your face. Once in a while. You
14:11
Speaker 1: might get lucky, but you know, sometimes on a cross
14:15
Speaker 1: you just have to ask it because you're not going
14:17
Speaker 1: to get another chance. It's not your witness. But typically
14:20
Speaker 1: that's just kind of question you'd ask and get a
14:23
Speaker 1: blow up in court. Aha, why didn't you call nine
14:26
Speaker 1: one one? Well, because their house was you know, six
14:28
Speaker 1: houses down, all right, So he goes straight to their house,
14:32
Speaker 1: and that is what the sister one year older is
14:34
Speaker 1: describing hearing their doorbells, and you know, Cheryl McCollum, I've
14:40
Speaker 1: heard that from Victim's family so many times. They get
14:44
Speaker 1: the at the door, the doorbell, and they never forget it.
14:48
Speaker 1: They open it up and they see a cop there.
14:52
Speaker 1: That's just what you don't want to see. At one am.
14:54
Speaker 1: And this boyfriend, the quarterback, shows up with blood streaming
15:00
Speaker 1: down his face and he says, she's gone, she's missing.
15:06
Speaker 1: I've heard that over and over that people have a
15:10
Speaker 1: sense of premonition, a sense of dread, even before they
15:13
Speaker 1: hear the knee. Cheryl, well, what she's describing to is panic.
15:17
Speaker 1: I mean he's ringing that doorbell, just repeatedly, trying to
15:22
Speaker 1: get some help. And you know, from what we've heard,
15:25
Speaker 1: the last thing Carlos said to him was go get
15:29
Speaker 1: my dad. And these are young people, these are high
15:32
Speaker 1: school kids. Go get my dad. Yes, And I'm sure
15:38
Speaker 1: he was thinking, if I get her dad, it'll all
15:40
Speaker 1: be okay. You know, he can do something, he can
15:43
Speaker 1: save her, he can help us, So it makes sense
15:46
Speaker 1: to me. You know, that just breaks my heart. You know,
15:50
Speaker 1: there's those certain facts in cases, and I've told you
15:52
Speaker 1: this before Jackie in my first carjack murder case. You know,
15:56
Speaker 1: I've been to many an autopsy, a homicize scene, but
15:59
Speaker 1: there's something about this poignant fact that almost almost brought
16:03
Speaker 1: me to tears in front of the jury. The young
16:05
Speaker 1: guy that was the murder victim carjack murder victim was
16:09
Speaker 1: shot in his driveway outside his family home. He lived
16:11
Speaker 1: with his mom and dad and the rest of his family.
16:14
Speaker 1: He was gunned down dead to get his car, and
16:17
Speaker 1: the neighbors saw it and ran out, then ran back
16:21
Speaker 1: in and got a pillow and put under his head
16:25
Speaker 1: even though he was already dead. He just that pathos
16:32
Speaker 1: was very upsetting. And in this case, we're hearing go
16:39
Speaker 1: get my dad, like dad could somehow be supermant and
16:44
Speaker 1: save her from what was to come. What do we
16:49
Speaker 1: know about the search for Carla Walker or this teen
16:52
Speaker 1: girl that's yanked out of the passenger seat at a
16:55
Speaker 1: bowling alley. How did the search go down him? Well,
16:58
Speaker 1: it was the kind of search that you know, this
17:01
Speaker 1: was the kind of crime that just shook our community,
17:03
Speaker 1: and so all resources were pulled to begin searching, and
17:09
Speaker 1: they searched high and low in every inch of Tarrant County.
17:13
Speaker 1: There had been some murders in years past that specifically
17:17
Speaker 1: one named Becky Martin who had gone missing the year
17:20
Speaker 1: before and her body was found in a culvert, and
17:23
Speaker 1: so a lot of resources were spent looking in kind
17:26
Speaker 1: of unincorporated areas, rural areas in cattle culverts and ditches
17:32
Speaker 1: and places like that, because there was a thought was
17:36
Speaker 1: this a serial situation and so stars so everybody immediately
17:41
Speaker 1: thought it was a serial killer or attacker. Back to
17:46
Speaker 1: Gina Tron joining US crime reporter with Oxygen dot Com.
17:51
Speaker 1: So the search is on and everyone is looking for
17:55
Speaker 1: Carla and ditches similar to where Becky was found. The
18:01
Speaker 1: search goes on for several days. Then what happens. Yeah,
18:07
Speaker 1: and also you know, her boyfriend described the assailant as
18:11
Speaker 1: the five foot ten man, so they were looking for
18:14
Speaker 1: that's basically all they had to go off of Gina Tron.
18:17
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. He describes the perp as
18:20
Speaker 1: a male five foot did you say ten? And you
18:24
Speaker 1: got to take into account that he was seated at
18:27
Speaker 1: the time he saw the purp. He was sitting in
18:30
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. So with that description in mind, the
18:33
Speaker 1: search is on. Take a listen to hour cut to
18:36
Speaker 1: our friends at NBC five. The first forty eight hours
18:40
Speaker 1: were agonizing, tireless search efforts turned up nothing, no phone calls,
18:45
Speaker 1: few leads. We just waited for We kept thinking, honestly,
18:48
Speaker 1: somebody would drive by in the middle of the night,
18:50
Speaker 1: push around the car. In reality, though, it would be
18:54
Speaker 1: much worse. Three days later, just alongside of the road
18:58
Speaker 1: in a culvert here and you're Benbrook, Carlo's body was found.
19:02
Speaker 1: She had been beaten, raped and strangled, police say, repeatedly
19:07
Speaker 1: tortured for days, and in an interesting twist and a
19:11
Speaker 1: puzzling discovery, the medical examiner ruled she had been injected
19:15
Speaker 1: with morphew to medical examder joining us from tyrant counting
19:21
Speaker 1: the chief medical examiner there, doctor Kendall crowns, how can
19:25
Speaker 1: they determine that this team girl had been tortured for
19:29
Speaker 1: two days? They find her body on day three? How
19:34
Speaker 1: did they know she had been tortured for two days,
19:37
Speaker 1: not three days, not one day, but two days. Well,
19:40
Speaker 1: it'd be a combination of things, So the torture aspect,
19:43
Speaker 1: it would be the cluster of the injuries about her body.
19:47
Speaker 1: You know, she could have abrasions or possible injuries, it
19:51
Speaker 1: looked like she's been bound, or even burn marks or
19:54
Speaker 1: whip marks, things of that nature that aren't necessarily immediately lethal,
19:59
Speaker 1: but them being about her body shows that she's been tortured.
20:03
Speaker 1: As far as the number of days are concerned, it's
20:08
Speaker 1: if she's not showing a decomposition changes, then they were
20:11
Speaker 1: probably theorizing that she was alive up until a certain point.
20:16
Speaker 1: And that's why with the number of injuries, it looks
20:18
Speaker 1: like she had survived for a period of time while
20:21
Speaker 1: sustaining the injuries, so that would lead to the opinion
20:25
Speaker 1: of torture. Was her body out in the open? So
20:30
Speaker 1: first off, her body was found in a culvert, but
20:32
Speaker 1: I will say the idea that she was alive for
20:35
Speaker 1: days has been It was a theory at the beginning
20:38
Speaker 1: that has since been debunked, and so I want to
20:39
Speaker 1: make sure that we're clear about that. Due to the temperature,
20:42
Speaker 1: it was particularly cold and in the culvert it was
20:45
Speaker 1: the Onseene police officers described as feeling like a refrigerator. Also,
20:51
Speaker 1: with her blood alcohol level, we know for sure she
20:55
Speaker 1: died pretty soon after being abducted, and so the original
20:59
Speaker 1: theory was that perhaps there have been days, but and
21:04
Speaker 1: she certainly was tortured. I want to be very clear
21:06
Speaker 1: about that. But there was not a period of days.
21:10
Speaker 1: It was a period of days until we found her.
21:12
Speaker 1: So let me circle back with that knowledge. What about it?
21:17
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendall Crowns explain how the body will still look
21:23
Speaker 1: as if it had she had only been killed recently
21:27
Speaker 1: because of the temperature. How does that work? So decomposition
21:31
Speaker 1: is basically the body breaking down after death, being turned
21:37
Speaker 1: into you know, basically simpler forms of matter eventually dirt,
21:41
Speaker 1: and that happens with the activity of bacteria. And if
21:45
Speaker 1: it is the body is in a cold environment, the
21:48
Speaker 1: bacteria are slowed or even inhibited, so the body doesn't
21:53
Speaker 1: decompose at a faster rate. So you can be out
21:57
Speaker 1: in a cold environment and not show any signs of decomposition,
22:02
Speaker 1: even though you've been dead for days. I know that
22:04
Speaker 1: this is a very elementary comparison, but it's like putting
22:09
Speaker 1: food in the fridge versus leaving it out. You put
22:12
Speaker 1: it in the fridge, it stays fresh for a period
22:14
Speaker 1: of time. Here her body looked as if it had
22:18
Speaker 1: just been left there, but in fact it had been there.
22:21
Speaker 1: According to Kim Davignon, in the DA's office for a
22:25
Speaker 1: couple of days. And another interesting fact to you, Kim,
22:29
Speaker 1: she was found in a culvert, of course, which is
22:31
Speaker 1: a tunnel carrying a stream or an open drain under
22:37
Speaker 1: a road or even under a railroad. Was her body
22:43
Speaker 1: covered by a road or a railroad had she been
22:45
Speaker 1: dragged underneath the road. So she definitely have been placed
22:49
Speaker 1: underneath a road. The culvert in particular ran underneath a
22:52
Speaker 1: kind of county road. We don't believe she was drugged there,
22:56
Speaker 1: given the way the debris was settled around, and it
22:59
Speaker 1: was a completely dr culvert at the time. So if
23:02
Speaker 1: she wasn't dragged there, then how did she get there?
23:05
Speaker 1: I mean, the assumption would be she was carried into
23:07
Speaker 1: the culvert, carried into the culvert. So out in the elements,
23:11
Speaker 1: it's a pretty tall colvert, like it's a it's a
23:14
Speaker 1: person can stand in it. It's about it's a tall colvert.
23:17
Speaker 1: And that leads me to the morphine, which is a
23:20
Speaker 1: huge clue in this case, and in my mind, would
23:24
Speaker 1: rule out the high school quarterback. The All Americans scrubbed
23:29
Speaker 1: in Sunshine quarterback for the high school team. Cheryl McCollum agree, disagree,
23:34
Speaker 1: I completely agree. In nineteen seventy four, morphine is not
23:37
Speaker 1: something you buy on the street. It's not something a
23:39
Speaker 1: seventeen year old kid would have that he bought in
23:43
Speaker 1: or near the high school. Not at all. And plus
23:45
Speaker 1: there was no indication that he had ever used morphine
23:47
Speaker 1: or had access to morphine. So correct, who would have morphine?
23:52
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut three our friends at
23:54
Speaker 1: NBC five. Who would have such access to a powerful
23:57
Speaker 1: drug like morphine? Did the suspect have a medical background?
24:01
Speaker 1: Over the years, detectives ask those questions, and many others
24:05
Speaker 1: honed in on several suspects, but evidence collected from the
24:09
Speaker 1: crime scene turned up nothing. Cynthia believes much of it
24:13
Speaker 1: was tainted. Who do you think killed your sister? I
24:18
Speaker 1: don't know, really, I don't know. Just imagine all these
24:23
Speaker 1: years later, not knowing a case gone cold? Oh justice
24:28
Speaker 1: for her taken from a parking lot, now silent testimony
24:32
Speaker 1: to a decades old murder mystery, and the family is
24:36
Speaker 1: left to hang in the wind, to suffer as weeks,
24:40
Speaker 1: than months, than years go by with no resolution. Take
24:45
Speaker 1: a listen to our cut for our friend Alice Barr,
24:49
Speaker 1: I've seven this parking lot, many many code nights song.
24:53
Speaker 1: Forty five years is a long time to wonder, where, when? Why?
24:58
Speaker 1: How come? What happened to someone you love? For her?
25:02
Speaker 1: I just want it done, I want it closed. Carla
25:05
Speaker 1: Walker was just seventeen the night she and her boyfriend
25:08
Speaker 1: parked outside of a West fort Worth bowling alley. In
25:11
Speaker 1: the passenger door flew open, and a guy leaned down
25:15
Speaker 1: with a cowboy hat and a gun and grab Carlo
25:18
Speaker 1: started pulling her out, Yet her boyfriend was knocked unconscious,
25:21
Speaker 1: and when he came to Carlo was gone. Her body
25:25
Speaker 1: found three days later in a culvert, beaten, raped and strangled.
25:29
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the sadness in grief my mom had.
25:32
Speaker 1: I would always whisper in her ear that we're going
25:36
Speaker 1: to find who did this to Carla. You know that's
25:38
Speaker 1: pretty bold. It's giving me an insight into the killer's
25:43
Speaker 1: mind to walk up to a car with a football
25:46
Speaker 1: quarterback in there with his date and drag her out
25:50
Speaker 1: of the car and pistol whip the quarterback. Who is
25:55
Speaker 1: this guy? I mean, what does that tell you? Ryl brazen? Bold?
26:01
Speaker 1: Deliberate this guy? Nancy, You and I talk all the
26:04
Speaker 1: time about how critical. Not just the first forty eight are,
26:09
Speaker 1: but when you have a young person abducted, it's the
26:12
Speaker 1: first three hours that are critical. The reason they were
26:16
Speaker 1: taken will become apparent in the first three hours. To
26:20
Speaker 1: doctor Alan Blocky joining US forensic psychologists out of Birmingham, Alabama,
26:26
Speaker 1: what does that tell you about the mind of the
26:28
Speaker 1: Maybe that he's committed a violent crime before, because he
26:31
Speaker 1: certainly has a lot of bravado walking up at cowboy
26:35
Speaker 1: hat and with a gun in his hand and trying
26:39
Speaker 1: to us and snatching, not trying to, but snatching a
26:42
Speaker 1: teen girl from her quarterback boyfriend. Yeah, I doubt it's
26:46
Speaker 1: the first time that he's been aggressive and harmful. And
26:49
Speaker 1: let's not remember it was late at night where there
26:52
Speaker 1: were probably fewer people around. I'm sure he planned it,
26:55
Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing, and he executed. It
26:58
Speaker 1: makes me think this is not his first time at
27:01
Speaker 1: the rodeo. Let's hear it from the horse's mouth. Let's
27:05
Speaker 1: hear from Carlo's a boyfriend. Take listen our cut five.
27:09
Speaker 1: This is Todd under w FAA. It was outside of
27:12
Speaker 1: a one time bowling alley on Benbrook Highway where the
27:15
Speaker 1: hours after Valentine's Week dance turned for the worse. He
27:20
Speaker 1: opened the door and she was falling out, and I
27:24
Speaker 1: went to grab her and he started beating me over
27:29
Speaker 1: the head back here with pistol. Rodney McCoy. Carlo's boyfriend
27:34
Speaker 1: was left knocked out. She vanished, said and done in
27:38
Speaker 1: just a matter of seconds. He was a high school
27:41
Speaker 1: football player, she a PEP squad member, and as one
27:44
Speaker 1: officer put it, we're looking everywhere. A w FA report
27:48
Speaker 1: from the days after showed her photo, but investigators had
27:51
Speaker 1: little else to circulate until the body was found a
27:54
Speaker 1: few days later. For me, that there won't there will
27:58
Speaker 1: never be any closure, Rodney, it's not a suspect in
28:00
Speaker 1: the case, one that has admittedly turned very cold. Then
28:05
Speaker 1: out of the blue, the case is cold, comes an
28:09
Speaker 1: anonymous letter, and it's not the first time we've seen
28:12
Speaker 1: an anonymous letter. I think of BTK buying towardture, killed
28:17
Speaker 1: Dennis Raider and many others were somehow, someone either wants
28:23
Speaker 1: to help solve the case or they want attention. Take
28:27
Speaker 1: a listen to our cut six, Alice Barr. It's an
28:30
Speaker 1: anonymous letter written and sent to police the same year
28:33
Speaker 1: that Carla died. It points to a potential suspect. Now
28:37
Speaker 1: police want to find who wrote it, hoping they'll have
28:40
Speaker 1: more evidence to finally solve a decades old case. Now
28:44
Speaker 1: a whisper from the past could bring long sought answers
28:48
Speaker 1: trying to find who wrote this letter. And the letter
28:51
Speaker 1: was written in nineteen seventy four and rediscovered when new
28:54
Speaker 1: detectives took over the case. It lists a suspect name
28:58
Speaker 1: police have blanked out kill Carlo Walker in Benbrog. Yes,
29:02
Speaker 1: it is hard to say, but it is true. Was
29:05
Speaker 1: he talked to back then or her? And what came
29:08
Speaker 1: of that? Investigators won't say anymore, but found it important
29:12
Speaker 1: enough to go public. You know, we have social media.
29:15
Speaker 1: We have more exposure now than we ever did before. Right,
29:18
Speaker 1: he said something to somebody. Somebody's going to recognize that
29:21
Speaker 1: type of thought process in writing, and that's all we need.
29:25
Speaker 1: As a phone call a family that still feels deep loss.
29:28
Speaker 1: You've got that missing partner, praying for justice long overdue.
29:32
Speaker 1: We'll get resolution, either in this life or in a
29:34
Speaker 1: better place. Time stories with Nancy Grace. It reminds me
29:54
Speaker 1: very much Robert Darth, the real estate he on the
30:00
Speaker 1: multi millionaire, and in his case, a letter emerges, an
30:04
Speaker 1: anonymous letter that was used years later to link him
30:09
Speaker 1: to our murder. Because of a misspelling of Beverly Hills, guys,
30:15
Speaker 1: an anonymous letter comes forward. What about it, Cheryl McCollum,
30:19
Speaker 1: This to me is a huge clue because the you know,
30:23
Speaker 1: the handwriting is real distinct, the way they sign it
30:25
Speaker 1: as unusual, and I think that's something law enforce it
30:28
Speaker 1: needs to send our own. But also the fact that
30:30
Speaker 1: they're reaching out, the fact that somebody, because of guilt
30:34
Speaker 1: or whatever their reason is, has to contact law enforcement,
30:39
Speaker 1: but they specifically send it to Lieutenant Oliver Ball, which
30:43
Speaker 1: is again I think a clue. Somebody's watching the news,
30:47
Speaker 1: somebody knows who to send this letter to. So not
30:50
Speaker 1: only does an anonymous letter emerge, but we need DNA.
30:56
Speaker 1: It's just that simple, straight out to our DNA expert,
31:02
Speaker 1: doctor Kristen Middleman, Chief Development Officer, author AM Inc. You
31:06
Speaker 1: can find her at DNA solves dot com. Doctor Middleman,
31:11
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Is it possible to
31:15
Speaker 1: extract DNA in a case this old? And if so,
31:20
Speaker 1: where would you find the DNA at the crime scene? Um,
31:23
Speaker 1: it's absolutely possible to extract DNA from evidence in a
31:27
Speaker 1: case that's old at Austin, and we've been able to
31:30
Speaker 1: extract DNA successively and identify someone from a case in
31:34
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one, eighteen eighty one. Yes, that's correct. I've
31:40
Speaker 1: got to just ask you. In the eighteen eighty one case,
31:43
Speaker 1: where'd you get the DNA? Well, it was remains in
31:46
Speaker 1: that case, and we identified the victim, so we were
31:48
Speaker 1: able to get the DNA from the remains. In this case,
31:51
Speaker 1: the DNA was extracted from the brawl Carla Walker's braw
31:56
Speaker 1: and there was unknown profile found on the and that
32:00
Speaker 1: is the DNA that was used to solve the case.
32:03
Speaker 1: Doctor Mittelman, did you say the DNA in this case
32:06
Speaker 1: a Krola Walker? It was found on her bra. It
32:09
Speaker 1: was was it epiphilial skin cells or was it touch dna?
32:13
Speaker 1: Was it semen? Was it blood? What was it? It
32:17
Speaker 1: was semen DNA, which made it very probative in case
32:21
Speaker 1: there was a trial. Why do you say DNA from
32:24
Speaker 1: seman makes it very probative. In other words, it's very
32:27
Speaker 1: strong evidence that proves something bring a sexual assault. If
32:31
Speaker 1: there is steam in DNA, it usually can be attributed
32:34
Speaker 1: to the unknown male and because in this case Rodney,
32:39
Speaker 1: Rodney's DNA is something that they could go back to
32:42
Speaker 1: and compare. If there is another male seaman DNA there,
32:46
Speaker 1: it would make sense to think that that person had
32:49
Speaker 1: something to do with the attack. Yeah, you know, it's
32:52
Speaker 1: very It's one thing if you have DNA that's there innocently,
32:58
Speaker 1: like a male DNA on her coat or on her
33:02
Speaker 1: arm or on her hand, as supposed to male DNA
33:06
Speaker 1: in semen found on her bra. When we know that
33:11
Speaker 1: she has been raped, tortured, and murdered, that's a whole
33:16
Speaker 1: another ball game. So in this case, how do you
33:20
Speaker 1: take how do you extract the old DNA? Now, many
33:25
Speaker 1: many decades later, in this case, specifically, Series Labs actually
33:31
Speaker 1: created the DNA extracts from Carla Walker's clothing. There were
33:37
Speaker 1: several extracts created, and the one that was the least
33:42
Speaker 1: degraded and the highest quantity was sent to a different
33:47
Speaker 1: labs for advanced Gruensic testing and unfortunately did not build
33:52
Speaker 1: a profile. And people thought this case was sort of
33:56
Speaker 1: stalled cold forever because there was advanced friends A testing done,
34:03
Speaker 1: there was standard friends A testing done, and no answers
34:06
Speaker 1: were found and awesome is actually purpose built for cases
34:12
Speaker 1: just like this where DNA testing hasn't worked, even advanced
34:16
Speaker 1: DNA testing hasn't worked, and we are able to go
34:20
Speaker 1: in and create what we call a high performing profile.
34:24
Speaker 1: It's almost like taking a better picture, a clearer picture
34:27
Speaker 1: of the DNA that was found at the crime scene
34:30
Speaker 1: and looking at that and being able to make an
34:33
Speaker 1: identity and provide that investigative lead back to the detectives
34:37
Speaker 1: so that this cold case can now be solved. And
34:41
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, the family in this case was suffering.
34:44
Speaker 1: The family had spent forty six years trying to figure
34:47
Speaker 1: out what happened to their sisters. Forty six years. Yeah,
34:52
Speaker 1: Jim Walker lived in the same house. He wouldn't move
34:55
Speaker 1: because he hoped that someone would come and knock on
34:58
Speaker 1: the door and let him no look at the end
35:01
Speaker 1: of their life what they had done, so that he
35:04
Speaker 1: could have closure, so his sister could have closure. And
35:07
Speaker 1: we talked about Rodney. He was living under this cast
35:11
Speaker 1: of suspicion this entire time he lost the person he
35:14
Speaker 1: loved most, that he was still living under this suspicion
35:18
Speaker 1: where he couldn't prove his innocence for forty six years. Oh,
35:22
Speaker 1: so you've got the victims family suffering, and then you
35:26
Speaker 1: have the quarterback boyfriend now grown and his whole life.
35:31
Speaker 1: People thought he may have killed Carla and gotten away
35:36
Speaker 1: with it, and then suddenly take a listen to our
35:40
Speaker 1: cut nine our friends at DFW five. DNA technology didn't
35:45
Speaker 1: exist in February nineteen seventy four, when Western Hills High
35:49
Speaker 1: School junior Carlo Walker was kidnapped outside of Bowling Alley,
35:52
Speaker 1: her body found three days later near Benbrook Lake. In
35:56
Speaker 1: the forty six years since, police have searched for clues,
36:00
Speaker 1: no arrests until now him So thankful for the four
36:03
Speaker 1: Worth Police Department. Carlo's brother Jim. The feeling that I
36:07
Speaker 1: had when I was notified, the word that came across
36:12
Speaker 1: my brain was finally, Finally. Glenn McCurley, a seventy seven
36:18
Speaker 1: year old retired truck driver, was living quietly with his
36:20
Speaker 1: wife in this modest home of Vickery Boulevard when police
36:24
Speaker 1: picked him up and booked him on capital murder. Wow,
36:28
Speaker 1: Kim Devinyon joining us from Tarrant County DA's office. It's
36:32
Speaker 1: one thing to get DNA off the victim's bra but
36:36
Speaker 1: how in the world do you know where to go? Then?
36:39
Speaker 1: With that DNA It's like how when people go, hey,
36:42
Speaker 1: couldn't you get a fingerprint and you say, yeah, I've
36:44
Speaker 1: got a fingerprint from the crime scene. But I gotta
36:47
Speaker 1: find somebody to match it too. So let me go
36:50
Speaker 1: straight back to doctor middleman. How was the DNA off
36:53
Speaker 1: Carlos bra connected to this perp, Glenn McCurley. So we
36:59
Speaker 1: were able to build a high performing DNA profile that
37:02
Speaker 1: was uploadable to genealogical databases consented for law enforcement use.
37:08
Speaker 1: This profile had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of markers,
37:12
Speaker 1: so when uploaded, we were able to identify all of
37:16
Speaker 1: the matches that were in the databases and where this
37:19
Speaker 1: person sit on a family tree, and we were able
37:22
Speaker 1: to identify that it was a m curly and contact
37:28
Speaker 1: the investigators and let them know that there were two possibilities,
37:33
Speaker 1: a few possibilities of who the person could be. And
37:37
Speaker 1: once the investigators heard that, he immediately recognized there was
37:42
Speaker 1: a detective menute. He immediately recognized that that name was
37:47
Speaker 1: on his suspect list from nineteen seventy four. Amazing, So
37:50
Speaker 1: I have to go all the way back the family
37:52
Speaker 1: tree and then come back down and figure out who
37:57
Speaker 1: lives in the city, who was in the city at
37:59
Speaker 1: the time she was kid app Take a listen hour
38:01
Speaker 1: cut eight. This is Lily Sang. According to the arrest warrant,
38:05
Speaker 1: for Worth, officers collected trash from a been outside mccurley's home.
38:09
Speaker 1: They were tested trying to find a match to DNA
38:12
Speaker 1: found on Walker's clothing, DNA that would leader match McCurley.
38:16
Speaker 1: The feeling that I had when when I was notified,
38:22
Speaker 1: the word that came across my brain was finally. Walker's brother, Jim,
38:26
Speaker 1: says the family has lived through Darky's waiting for justice,
38:29
Speaker 1: but this resolution, he says, is something they've prayed for,
38:33
Speaker 1: prayers which now extend to McCurley too. We don't hate you,
38:37
Speaker 1: We really are praying for you. I hope that the
38:40
Speaker 1: city of for Worth has prayers for the family. It's
38:44
Speaker 1: not their fault, guys. What it boils down to is
38:49
Speaker 1: because of DNA expertise there at Authram Inc. Going all
38:56
Speaker 1: the way back for about one hundred years, literally, they
39:00
Speaker 1: narrowed down the possible male purps. Then they identify who
39:04
Speaker 1: was in the city at the time the murder occurred,
39:07
Speaker 1: then they find that suspect and they obtain his DNA
39:11
Speaker 1: out of the trash. But I want you to hear
39:15
Speaker 1: the Glenn McCurley in his own words, whining to police.
39:20
Speaker 1: This is NBC five our cut eleven. Glenn McCurley in
39:24
Speaker 1: his own words, then seventy seven year old first defiant,
39:40
Speaker 1: insisting he did not kill Carlo Walker in nineteen seventy four,
39:44
Speaker 1: didn't even know her, then seemingly confessing a false confession
39:54
Speaker 1: detectives forced out of a sick elderly man, argues his defense,
39:58
Speaker 1: a curly had been a suspect after the murder for
40:00
Speaker 1: owning a gun magazine like the one found on the
40:03
Speaker 1: scene of Walker's brutal kidnapping. There you were hearing McCurley
40:07
Speaker 1: in his own words, whining I didn't do anything and
40:10
Speaker 1: literally crying in, boohoo ing and nodding the whole shebang,
40:17
Speaker 1: until finally he says, I guess I choked her to death. Well,
40:22
Speaker 1: the defense claims that police brutalized the defendant and forced
40:28
Speaker 1: a confession out of him that he really didn't do it. Yeah,
40:32
Speaker 1: what about that DNA match? What does that mean? In
40:35
Speaker 1: the end, Kim Devin Yon what happens in court. So
40:39
Speaker 1: we spent many, many, many weeks in suppression hearings because
40:46
Speaker 1: this was new technology, and the court ruled the DNA
40:49
Speaker 1: was going to be admissible, and so at that point
40:52
Speaker 1: we thought perhaps he would plead guilty, but he didn't,
40:55
Speaker 1: and so we prepared for trial, and we got to
40:58
Speaker 1: our trial, and three days into the trial, when we
41:01
Speaker 1: were on our last few witnesses, honestly, he changes plea
41:05
Speaker 1: to guilty. And in Texas, when you're charged with capital
41:08
Speaker 1: murder and we're not seeking the des penalty, the only
41:10
Speaker 1: sentence of life, and so he was immediately sentenced to
41:12
Speaker 1: life in prison. So Kim, you got him, We got him,
41:16
Speaker 1: You got him. P t. L. After all the suffering
41:20
Speaker 1: that family has been through, to all the suffering the
41:23
Speaker 1: quarterback boyfriend has been through. With this cloud hanging over
41:27
Speaker 1: his head, people still whispering he did it, he did it,
41:30
Speaker 1: and now it's a done deal. The guy played guilty,
41:33
Speaker 1: he did it, all that crying and slobbering, in the
41:38
Speaker 1: end he admits he did it. Doctor Millman, has it
41:42
Speaker 1: feel amazing? It was the first time this technology a dance.
41:46
Speaker 1: Friends at the DNA testing has been admitted in court.
41:51
Speaker 1: I think this shows the importance of working with Alb.
41:54
Speaker 1: Like author Martine of Custody maintain from the very beginning
41:58
Speaker 1: where there's not DNA, ain't going around the country or
42:01
Speaker 1: having volunteers work on this case. It's extremely important, man,
42:06
Speaker 1: it really is, doctor Middleman, I mean you, the chief
42:10
Speaker 1: development officer at ath Ran, hand in hand with the
42:14
Speaker 1: prosecutor Kim Davignon, has brought this family who suffered over
42:19
Speaker 1: forty years peace. Finally justice. Nancy Grace signing off goodbye
42:26
Speaker 1: for