Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Sharon McLane Part One

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The Murder of Sharon McLane Part One · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In nineteen ninety six, Bedford, Texas
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  Speaker 1: wasn't the kind of place where people locked their doors
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  Speaker 1: before sunset. It wasn't polished or perfect, but it felt safe.
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  Speaker 1: The church parking lots were full on Wednesday nights. Mini
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  Speaker 1: vans and pickup trucks lining the rows. There were streets
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  Speaker 1: and cul de sacs lined with brick ranch style homes
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  Speaker 1: and chain link fences, large apartment complexes, little league fields.
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  Speaker 1: Kids on bikes cut through alleys and drainage easements like
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: they owned the city, and in the suburbs mid nineteen nineties,
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  Speaker 1: they more or less did. Bedford sits in the heart
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  Speaker 1: of what North Texans call the mid Cities, a ten
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  Speaker 1: square mile patch of suburbia squeezed between Dallas and fort Worth.
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  Speaker 1: If you drive west on Airport Freeway, you'll be in
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  Speaker 1: fort Worth East and you'll eventually hit downtown Dallas. Bedford
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  Speaker 1: is right in the middle. Back in the eighteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: before there were traffic lights, school zones, or apartment complexes
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  Speaker 1: with names like Whispering Oaks, the unnamed area wasn't much
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  Speaker 1: more than timber, prairie grass and wagon ruts. Settlers came
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  Speaker 1: in slow built farms, churches, and schools, and by the
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventies, when families from Bedford County, Tennessee, began settling there,
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  Speaker 1: they gave the community its name. A man named Weldon
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Wiles Bobo ran one of the town's earliest stores, and
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  Speaker 1: for a while Bedford looked like it might become one
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of the bigger towns in northeast Terrant County. It even
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: had a college in the eighteen eighties, but when the
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  Speaker 1: railroad bypassed it, Bedford's progress went somewhere else. By nineteen forty,
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  Speaker 1: the town had shrunk to around eighty people. It was farms, dairies,
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  Speaker 1: and dust roads, families that had known each other for generations. Then,
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  Speaker 1: after World War II, North Texas exploded. Highways between Dallas
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  Speaker 1: and Fort Worth were constructed, and they paved the way
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  Speaker 1: for miles of suburbs along them. Bedford adapted accordingly. In
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, worried it might be swallowed up by
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: neighboring towns, Bedford officially incorporated. At the time there were
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: only a few hundred residents, but by the nineteen sixties
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  Speaker 1: and seventies, subdivisions had replaced much of the area's pasture land.
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  Speaker 1: When the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport opened in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy four, Bedford's future was already locked in. It was
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  Speaker 1: no longer farm country, but instead commuter country. By the
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  Speaker 1: mid nineteen nineties, Bedford's population had climbed past forty five
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  Speaker 1: thousand residents. Families moved there for the good schools, for
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  Speaker 1: the location, and for the promise that you could raise kids.
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  Speaker 1: Some more quieter than Dallas, but still close enough to
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  Speaker 1: make the drive to work. On paper, Bedford was doing
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  Speaker 1: better than a lot of Texas cities its size. Violent
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  Speaker 1: crime rates through the nineteen nineties consistently tracked below state averages,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: while property crime things like burglary, vehicle theft, and break
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: ins made up the overwhelming majority of police calls that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: fit a lot of American suburbs. In nineteen ninety six, nationally,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, violent and property crimes were both dropping, marking
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the fifth straight year of decline across the country. But
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that didn't mean Bedford was crime free. Far from it.
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  Speaker 1: Police still responded to domestic disturbances and apartment complexes off
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  Speaker 1: Harwood burglar alarms at strip centers, vehicle debts and parking lots,
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  Speaker 1: teenagers getting caught with beer at park pavilions, fights outside
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  Speaker 1: high school football games, and drug arrests that residents hardly
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: believed could happen there. Homicide was much rarer. When thirty
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  Speaker 1: two year old Sharon maclain was murdered in her home
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  Speaker 1: in December nineteen ninety six, it sent shockwaves through the
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  Speaker 1: mild mannered town. Sharon Lucretia mclin was born on September
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  Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen sixty four, in Charleston, West Virginia. By
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the time she reached adulthood, people who knew her described
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: her as somebody who had already lived through more than
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  Speaker 1: her fair share of hardship. Family and friends said Sharon
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  Speaker 1: had survived difficult relationships and had spent much of her
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  Speaker 1: life trying to build stability where there often wasn't much.
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  Speaker 1: At eight years old, she and three of her siblings
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  Speaker 1: were adopted by Virginia Cobb, who later described Sharon as
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a survivor. She was street wise, a scrapper, the leader
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  Speaker 1: of the pack. Her stepfather, Dwight Cobb, a former sheriff's
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  Speaker 1: investigator in Kansas, who had spent years working homicide, robbery,
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  Speaker 1: and sex crimes, said Sharon had always accepted him in away,
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  Speaker 1: the other chillildren had not. It was natural, though probably hard,
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  Speaker 1: to admit, that she was his favorite, not because he
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  Speaker 1: loved the others less, but because Sharon had always met
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: life head on. Sharon married young. Her first husband was
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Dwayne McLain. The couple had two children together, Ashley and Christopher.
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  Speaker 1: They were married for six years and built a life
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  Speaker 1: together in Bigsby, Oklahoma, But sometime in nineteen ninety one,
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  Speaker 1: when Sharon was working as a cashier at a service
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  Speaker 1: station in Tulsa, she met another man named James Eugene Cox.
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  Speaker 1: According to the family, they fell in love quickly. Sharon
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  Speaker 1: divorced Dwayne. Following the divorce, Sharon did not contest Dwayne's
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  Speaker 1: request for full custody of their children. They remained with
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  Speaker 1: their father in Bigsby, while Sharon moved to North Texas
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  Speaker 1: after marrying James. With him, Sharon had two more children,
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  Speaker 1: Dustin and Samantha. She was trying to start over, but
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  Speaker 1: in September of nineteen ninety five, that life was shattered
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  Speaker 1: at approximately eleven forty PM, on West Eulis Boulevard in ULSS,
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  Speaker 1: James Cox was struck and killed by a vehicle. Witnesses
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  Speaker 1: told police he had been behaving erratically and was carrying
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  Speaker 1: several cans of beer when he walked in front of
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  Speaker 1: the car. Sharon was suddenly widowed, and now she was
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  Speaker 1: alone with two very young children. Dustin was four and
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  Speaker 1: Samantha was two. Money became tight, tight enough that Sharon
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: would sometimes send the children to live with Cox's parents
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  Speaker 1: in Kansas City, Missouri, while she tried to get back
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  Speaker 1: on her feet. That fact would later be used by
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  Speaker 1: some to judge Sharon, but those close to her described
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a woman who was struggling. She was trying to survive
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and rebuild at the same time trying to hold her
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  Speaker 1: head above water. In late nineteen ninety six, family and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: friends believed Sharon was finally beginning to come back. She
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: had started going to church and had gotten a new job.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Then even better, she was promoted. Sharon worked for Advantage
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: rent a car at DFW Airport, and with her promotion
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: came a significant pay raise, and she had a plan.
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  Speaker 1: She wanted all of her children home for Christmas, and
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  Speaker 1: she wanted Dustin and Samantha back home for good. Everything
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  Speaker 1: was headed in the right direction, the folks closest to
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  Speaker 1: her believed, and by all outward appearances, they were right.
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  Speaker 1: No one knew, however, they were looking at Sharon's final weeks.
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  Speaker 1: By December nineteen ninety six, Sharon was living alone in
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  Speaker 1: a two bedroom apartment on the five hundred block of
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  Speaker 1: Bedford Road in Bedford, about fifteen miles northeast of Fort Worth.
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  Speaker 1: Friends described the thirty two year old as social, outgoing
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  Speaker 1: and someone who kept a clean home. On Wednesday, December eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, Sharon worked her shift at Advantage rent
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  Speaker 1: a car. After work, she returned home. Then Sharon went
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: for a jog. Afterward. At about six pm, she spoke
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  Speaker 1: by phone with Brad Smith, a former coworker with whom
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: she was romantically involved. Brad later said Sharon sounded tired
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  Speaker 1: and told him she was staying in for the night.
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  Speaker 1: At approximately nine pm, Sharon spoke with the grandmother of
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  Speaker 1: her late husband, James Cox. In the days that followed,
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  Speaker 1: Sharon didn't show up for work at first. Co workers
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: may have assumed something had come up, maybe car trouble
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: or an illness, but Sharon had just received a promotion
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: and was trying to get her children back. Missing work,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: especially without calling, didn't fit. By Friday, December thirteenth, when
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Sharon failed to show up for her scheduled seven am shift,
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  Speaker 1: her supervisor became concerned enough to call a man named
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Terry Fowler. He was a friend and former neighbor of
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  Speaker 1: Sharon's and was asked to go check on her. When
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Terry arrived at her apartment, the door was unlocked. A
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  Speaker 1: sense of dread came over him as he walked inside.
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  Speaker 1: The television and dining room lights were on. The Christmas
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  Speaker 1: tree was lit up. At first glance, the apartment looked normal.
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  Speaker 1: Then Terry saw the blood. Not a little blood, not
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  Speaker 1: the amount you'd expect from injury. Instead, it was everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Blood spatter covered multiple surfaces, the walls in the dining
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  Speaker 1: room and kitchen, on the refrigerator, the cabinets, and the
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  Speaker 1: partition separating the rooms. On the floor between the dining
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  Speaker 1: room and kitchen was Sharon lying face down in a
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  Speaker 1: pool of blood. She was unclothed below the waist, a
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  Speaker 1: knife laid by her feet. Terry called nine one one.
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  Speaker 1: When detectives arrived at the home of thirty two year
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  Speaker 1: old Sharon McLean, they noticed something that would guide the
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  Speaker 1: investigation from the beginning. There were no signs of forced
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  Speaker 1: entry and no sign of robbery. Sharon's purse sat on
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  Speaker 1: a chair in the living room, seemingly untouched. Whoever did this,
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  Speaker 1: they quickly ascertained, must have been known and perhaps trusted
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  Speaker 1: by the victim. It was a theory they couldn't let
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  Speaker 1: go of. As they processed the scene, the Bedford Police
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  Speaker 1: found a blood smear on an open kitchen drawer. Under
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  Speaker 1: Sharon's body was a blood stained piece of paper, and
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  Speaker 1: pressed into that blood was a partial palm print. Two
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  Speaker 1: kitchen knives were also found underneath her body. In the
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  Speaker 1: living room, investigators found a sock that appeared to have
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  Speaker 1: been used to wipe up blood. Its match Clean was
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  Speaker 1: later found in the bathroom hamper. Once crime scene documentation
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  Speaker 1: was complete, Sharon's body was transported to the Arrant County
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  Speaker 1: Medical Examiner's office. The autopsy revealed the full extent of
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  Speaker 1: the violence that took place inside that apartment. There were
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven wounds in total. Thirty seven of them were
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  Speaker 1: puncture wounds and twenty were slash wounds. Most of Sharon's
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  Speaker 1: injuries were concentrated in the head, chest, and neck. Two
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  Speaker 1: of the wounds were catastrophic. Sharon's trachea had been severed,
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  Speaker 1: as had her spinal cord. The defensive wounds on her
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  Speaker 1: arms and hands made it clear that she fought hard.
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  Speaker 1: Toxicology testing found no signs of drugs in Sharon's system.
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  Speaker 1: The exact time of her death couldn't be conclusively established,
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  Speaker 1: and the pathologist only determined Sharon had been killed before
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  Speaker 1: ten am on December thirteenth, which is around the time
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  Speaker 1: she was found. Seven detectives were assigned to work the
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  Speaker 1: case under the supervision of Bedford Police Lieutenant Mike Mason.
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  Speaker 1: Almost immediately, investigators began to suspect Sharon's killer wasn't a stranger.
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Mason and the detectives assigned to the case began
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  Speaker 1: reconstructing Sharon's final forty eight hours. Her last day at
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  Speaker 1: work was Wednesday, December eleventh, nineteen ninety six. After that shift,
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  Speaker 1: she returned home, went for a jog, and spoke with
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a boyfriend on the phone. She told him she wasn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: going out. Three hours later, at around nine pm, Sharon
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  Speaker 1: spoke to the grandmother of her late husband, James Cox.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Police recovered two messages from Sharon's home answering machine, both
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: from a man named Caleb McNair. When detectives contacted McNair,
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  Speaker 1: they learned that he didn't know Sharon. He wasn't calling
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  Speaker 1: her because they were friends or because they had made plans.
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  Speaker 1: He said he was simply returning a page. That page
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  Speaker 1: came from Sharon's apartment, and detectives soon learned the person
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  Speaker 1: who sent it wasn't her. Instead, it had been sent
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: by a man named John Earle Noley, a friend of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the victim, one of many, but his name was now
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: attached to Sharon's home. During the narrowest possible window before
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: her murder, it changed everything. John Earle Noley was twenty
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: two years old in December of nineteen ninety six. He
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: lived in Hurst with his live in girlfriend, Amy Degear.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: According to witnesses, Noley and Amy were friends with Sharon Maclain.
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  Speaker 1: They watched Dallas Cowboys games together some Sundays, they shared meals,
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  Speaker 1: and even spent holidays with each other. Just a few
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: weeks before Sharon's murder, she and one of her daughters
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: had spent Thanksgiving at Noley and de Gear's apartment. In
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: detective's minds, that established something important to the investigationation trust.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But no one investigators interviewed in those early days described
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: tension between Sharon and Noli. No one knew of any
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: arguments or jealousy. Certainly no bad blood or threats. No
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: one who knew them seemed to point to any obvious
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: reason Noley would want Sharon dead. Detective's first interview with
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: him was described as relatively routine. When questioned, Noley told
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  Speaker 1: investigators he hadn't seen Sharon since December eighth, three days
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: before her last known movements. Detectives kept working Sharon's contact,
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  Speaker 1: calling names in her address book like coworkers both past
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and present, friends, neighbors, and family. Every trail seemed to
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  Speaker 1: lead to a dead end. But in Sharon's kitchen, not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: far from where her body was found, the police had
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: discovered something three empty beer bottles. Other than the bottles,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the trash can was nearly empty. That detail immediately caught
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: detective's attention. It meant those bottles couldn't have been sitting
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: there long. When they were processed, one of the bottles
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: came back with a fingerprint. It belonged to John Earl Noley.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Suddenly there was physical evidence placing the man who said
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: he hadn't been there since December eighth, inside Sharon's apartment,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: far closer to her death. Noley was brought back in
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: for another interview, and he stuck to his story. He'd
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: last seen Sharon December eighth, he maintained, not December eleventh.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: At least four interviews followed. Each time Noley denied being
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: there on the night detectives believed Sharon had been killed,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: but that fingerprint wasn't going anywhere. Eventually, no caved he
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: had been at Sharon's apartment on December eleventh. According to Knowley,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: he had lied because he was afraid of what police
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: might think if they knew the reason he had gone there.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: He was on probation. A few years earlier, in nineteen
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: ninety three, Noley had been involved in an incident in
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: which he shot a gang member in the hand during
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: what he claimed was self defense. Attempted murder charges against
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: him or dropped, but Noley was ultimately convicted on a
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: lesser weapons offense involving possession of a prohibited weapon. The
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: reason he lied about seeing Sharon, he told police was
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: because he had gone there that night to sell her pot.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Possession of marijuana would have violated his probation, so, according
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: to Noley, he lied not because he killed Sharon, he insisted,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but because he didn't want to go back to jail
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that night. He now claimed he had gone to the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: victim's apartment with weed and stayed about forty five minutes.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: They smoked together and he drank a couple beers before leaving.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: When he walked out of Sharon's apartment at around eleven PM,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Noley said she was alive and well. If that story
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: was true, The fingerprint on the beer bottle was explained,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: as were the messages on the answering machine. Detectives confirmed
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that Noley had paged Caleb McNair from Sharon's apartment that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: same night without a question. John Earl Noley had been there,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: but they didn't have any evidence proving he was a murderer.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Then witnesses started talking. The first statement came from one
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of Noley's friends named Jason Vandergriff. The two had known
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: each other since high school, where they played football to together.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: According to Vandergriff, on December eleventh, the night Sharon was killed.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: He and Noley had been together drinking beer and smoking
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: pot when Noley's pager started going off repeatedly. Noley became
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: aggravated and eventually left. He told Vandergriff he was going
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to deliver marijuana to Sharon at her apartment in Bedford,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: which lined up with Noley's admission, But it was what
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Vandergriff said happened the next day that turned John Noley
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: from a witness to a suspect. On December twelfth, Vandergriff
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: said he had a phone conversation with Knowley. During that call,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Vandergriff claimed Noley said he had riped a bitch. Vandergriff
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: said he asked what he meant. Noley replied. The witness
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: claimed I stabbed them then, Vandergriff claimed Noley described the attack.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: When he thought it was over, the person got back
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: up and he had to finish them off, and according
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: to Vandergriff, Noley said blood got on him. He wiped
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: off what he could. The witness account was damning. While
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: investigators continued interviewing friends, co workers, family members, and anyone
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: else who had crossed paths with Sharon Maclain in her
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: final weeks. Crime scene evidence from her apartment on Bedford
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Road continued moving through laboratories, analysts, and forensic review. By
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: this point, Bedford Police had already interviewed dozens of people.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: In January of nineteen ninety seven, Assistant Chief David Florey
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: said detectives had interviewed approximately sixty people connected to Sharon's life,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and while police were interviewing everyone they could find, Sharon's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: family was living through something far worse than uncertainty. Her
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: youngest children, Dustin and Samantha, were struggling. These weren't children
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: who had only lost one parent within roughly eighteen months.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: They had lost almost everyone who anchored their world. Their father,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: James Cox, had died in September of nineteen ninety five
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: after being hit by car. Their thirty three year old
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: babysitter had reportedly died of a heart attack in May
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six. Now their mother was also gone.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Detectives were determined to give the family answers, but some
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of the evidence was becoming more complicated than expected. DNA
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: testing in nineteen ninety six was still in its infancy.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: It was available and useful, sometimes even powerful, but it
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: was nowhere near the tool it would later become. Samples
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: taken from Sharon's apartment, including blood evidence, a black briefcase,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and the bloodstained sock recovered from the living room, were examined,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and none of it directly tied John Earl Noley to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Sharon's murder. If Noley had killed her, investigators needed something
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: stronger than a fingerprint on a beer bottle. While detectives
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: worked her case, Sharon McLean's family returned to her apartment
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a few days after her body was discovered. Sharon's adoptive parents,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Dwight and Virginia Cobb, entered the unit to begin sorting
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: through what remained of their daughter's life. They found letters, photographs,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and personal mementos, small pieces of a life that had
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: ended without warning. Virginia found a Bible. Inside was an
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: inscription commemorating Sharon's baptism. Her mother reportedly broke down when
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: she saw it. By then, most of Sharon's belongings had
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: already been boxed, but not everything. The Christmas tree was
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: still standing, silver and gold tensil still wrapped around the branches,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and its lights were still plugged in. A glass dish
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: on the dining room table still held gumballs and other
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: small treats. On the refrigerator hung a watercolor painting of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the Lion King signed by Sharon's son, Dustin, and on
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the brown carpet between the dining table and the refrigerator,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: bloodstains still remained. Sharon's two older children, Ashley and Christopher,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: came to see where their mother had lived. Their father,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Dwayne McLane, brought them. The children, ages nine and eleven,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: had reportedly struggled for years with Sharon's absence. After the divorce,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: they had remained with their father in Bigsby, Oklahoma, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: as children do, they had questions, why didn't Mom visit more?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Why wasn't she around? Dwayne always tried to protect Sharon's
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: image in their eyes. When the children walked into Sharon's
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: apartment after her death, the first thing they saw was
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the Christmas stockings. Each one was labeled with their names, Ashley, Christopher, Dustin, Samantha.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Sharon had been planning to bring them home, not just someday,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: but that Christmas. By June of nineteen ninety seven, six
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: months had passed and Sharon McLean's killer was still free.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Bedford police investigators had apparently narrowed their focus. Mike Mason,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: now a captain, told her reporters they believe they knew
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: who killed Sharon. According to The law Man, five people
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: connected to the case were expected to testify before a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: grand jury. These weren't random names, rather, they were people
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: detectives had already interviewed multiple times, people close enough to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley or close enough to Sharon that their
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: words might finally push the case forward come August. They
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: finally made their move. On August thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: eight months after Sharon McLean's murder, the Bedford Police arrested
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: John Earl Noley at his apartment on Pecan Street in Hurst.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: He was twenty three years old. They said Noley had
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: been their prime suspect for a long time. There was
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: no smoking gun, but detectives believed they had a strong case.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: The final push had come from two things, the fingerprint
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: on the beer bottle and to answering machine messages. Those
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: messages confirmed what Noley had initially denied, that he'd been
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: at Sharon's the last night she was seen alive. After
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: his arrest, Noley was booked into jail with bond set
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: at one hundred thousand dollars. After John Earl Noley's arrest,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the case slowly moved through the Tarrant County court system.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: In November nineteen ninety seven, a grand jury formally indicted
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: him for Sharon Maclin's murder. By then, investigators were still
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: unable to establish a clear motive. It wasn't robbery. Detectives
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: said rape had neither been proven nor ruled out, but
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: nothing in the apartment clearly suggested it had been the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: primary motive either. There was no obvious explanation for why
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Sharon Maclain, a woman John Noley had known socially, a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: woman he had spent hot with, a woman he had
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: watched football games with, had ended up dead on her
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: apartment floor. The state believed they knew who had done it,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: but they still couldn't tell a jury exactly why. In
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: May of nineteen ninety eight, the case was finally ready
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: for trial in a Fort Worth courtroom. Twelve jurors, eight
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: men and four women were selected in the court of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: District Judge Bob Gill. Prosecutor James Cook told reporters the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: facts would speak for themselves. Defense attorney Gary Medlin had
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a very different view. He told reporters police had arrested
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the wrong man. From the beginning, the prosecution leaned heavily
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: on what they believed was a chain of evidence that
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: pointed directly to Knowley. He had lied about being there,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and his fingerprint was inside Sharon's apartment. Phone records and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: answering machine messages placed him there on the night Sharon
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was thought to be killed. Witnesses were prepared to testify.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: One of the state's most important witnesses was Jason Vandergriff,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: who had known Noley since high school. According to Vandergriff,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: on the night of December eleventh, nineteen ninety six, he
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and Noley had been drinking beer and smoking pot together
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: when Noley's pager kept going off. Vandergriff told the court,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Noley became irritated and left, saying he was going to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: deliver marijuana to Sharon Maclain at her Bedford apartment. On
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: December twelfth, the day after Sharon was last seen, Vandergriff
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: said he had a phone conversation with Noley. According to Vandergriff,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Noley suggested he had killed someone, but then came cross examination.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Defense attorney Madeleine pressed Vandergriff on earlier versions of the story.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: At one point, the witness admitted that when he originally
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: told his girlfriend about the conversation, he hadn't said Noley
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: admitted killing a woman. Instead, he had set a man.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: He also admitted something else. At the time of the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: alleged confession, he thought Noley might be exaggerating, showing off,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: or just drunk talking. Then Vandergriff admitted something else. When
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: he later learned Sharon Maclin had been murdered, he asked
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Noley if she was the person he had been talking about.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: According to Vandergriff, Noley told him no, but the witness's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: credibility didn't stop taking hits there. During testimony, he admitted
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he had been facing a domestic assault charge in the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: months leading up to the trial. In a plea deal,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: he had recently been sentenced to probation. Also on the stand,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: he admitted to habitual weed and crack cocaine you use.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Then the state introduced another witness, John O'Brien. O'Brien testified
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: he had been incarcerated in the Tarrant County Jail at
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the same time as John Noley, and in October of
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven. While both men were in the jail
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: law library, Noley confessed. O'Brien claimed Noley told him he
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: went to Sharon McLean's apartment intending to rob her. When
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: she resisted, he killed her. But again, the defense was
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: ready to point out the problems with the witness's credibility.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: O'Brien had nine prior felony convictions at the time he testified.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: He had been facing charges involving the theft of over
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: seventy five thousand dollars worth of heavy work machinery. After
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: speaking with prosecutors, he received probation for those felony charges.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Because of this, the defense rightfully called his story into question.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: More importantly, though they attacked it, Sharon's purse was still
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: at the scene, money was still there. In fact, nothing
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: had been stolen. So why would John Noley try to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: rob a woman everyone knew he was going to visit
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: and after killing her leave with nothing. Medlin had effectively
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: poked holes in the witness's reliability, But the defense wasn't done.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: They also pointed out that none of the DNA evidence
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: collected from Sharon Maclin's apartment directly tied John Noley to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the crime. Evidence from a black briefcase, the blood stained sock,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the swabs that were used to take blood samples at
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the scene, the bloody knives. None of it linked him.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: When he was first interviewed, he had no signs of
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: cuts on his hands. Then there was the partial pom
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: print found in blood on the memo paper beneath Sharon's body.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Fingerprint analyst Bill Bailey testified that he compared the print
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to both Sharon Maclain and John Noley. The result was negative.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Sharon was not a match, nor was Noley, and there
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough detail on the print to positively identify anyone else.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: The hair evidence also looked bad for the state. A
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: trace evidence analyst testified that brownish blonde hairs found at
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the scene were from a white person and not Sharon.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: They also did not belong to Amy Degear, John Earl,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Noley's girlfriend and Sharon's friend, and Noley is black. Two
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of the hairs were found on Sharon's shirt and two
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: more on the toilet bowl in the blood stained bathroom.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: The prosecution had no explanation. Then the defense introduced timing issues.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Apartment residents had reportedly heard what they called blood curdling
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: screams on December twelfth, the day after Noley admitted being
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: at Sharon's apartment. Employment records showed that on that day,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Noley was working all day at Avian Kingdom, a pet
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: supply store in Dallas. If the screams were Sharon, it
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: meant the Bedford police timeline was dead wrong and that
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Noley could not have killed her. The defense continued with toxicology.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Sharon's autopsy showed no marijuana metabolites in her system, and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a forensic pathologist testified that if Sharon had smoked weed
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: twelve to thirteen hours before death, metabolites should have been present.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: The defense argued that meant Sharon may have been alive
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: much longer after Noley left. On May twenty sixth, nineteen
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, after hearing days of testimony, the jury began deliberations.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: It took them about an hour and a half. They
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: returned with a verdict of guilty. When it was read
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: John Earl, Noley reportedly stared straight ahead, then he began
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: to sob. Gary Medlin later said he'd never had a
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: client cry like that after a guilty verdict. The next day,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the sentencing phase began. After roughly thirty minutes of deliberation,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the jury sentenced Noley to life in prison. No one
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: testified on his behalf. He didn't take the stand for
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Bedford police, for the state, the case was solved. Prosecutors
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: later said jurors told them they believed Bedford police had
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: done an extraordinary investigation the da and more importantly, the
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: jury didn't buy the defense's argument that another man had
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: committed the murder, but Madeleine Noley's defense had cast at
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: least some shadow of a doubt with his alternate suspect,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a man who had allegedly murdered seven people in another
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: state not long after Sharon McLain was killed. And it
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't simply because two of the wounds to the alternate
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: suspects victims matched those inflicted upon Sharon. It was also
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: because witnesses placed Paul Dennis Red, the fast food killer,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: in the vicinity near the time of her murder. That's
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: next time on Gone Cold, Texas True Crime. If you
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: have any information about the murder of Sharon Lucretia McLain, police,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: call the Bedford Police Department at eight one seven nine
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: five two two one two seven. If you'd like to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: join con Cold's mission to shine a light on unsolved
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: homside and missing persons cases. Get the show at free
• 37:03
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• 37:07
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• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the show by leaving a five star rating and written
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen. However
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: you choose to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: for listening, y'all.