Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Cold-Blooded Slaying of Constable Bill Garsee
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. The population of Moscow, Texas didn't
- 0:12Speaker 1: change much between the year nineteen eighty four and the
- 0:16Speaker 1: year two thousand. It was reported one hundred and seventy
- 0:20Speaker 1: folks resided there each of those years, and the latter
- 0:23Speaker 1: year appears to be the last time an official head
- 0:27Speaker 1: count was taken. Located in Polk County, about ninety miles
- 0:32Speaker 1: northeast of Houston, Moscow is in the Big Thicket area
- 0:36Speaker 1: of the Piney Woods, an ecoregion that covers almost fifty
- 0:40Speaker 1: five thousand square miles of eastern Texas. The southeast Texas
- 0:45Speaker 1: town's history is modest but interesting. Nonetheless, David and Matilda
- 0:52Speaker 1: Green are the first known settlers of the area, which
- 0:55Speaker 1: for a short period was known as Greenville, but ultimately
- 1:00Speaker 1: the post office nixed the name. By the time they
- 1:03Speaker 1: were ready to make the small settlement's post office official,
- 1:07Speaker 1: there was already another town that had claimed it, so,
- 1:11Speaker 1: for reasons seemingly lost to history, the name Moscow was
- 1:16Speaker 1: chosen to replace Greenville. Although it spelled just like the
- 1:20Speaker 1: Russian capital, old Polk County maps indicate it might have
- 1:24Speaker 1: originally been spelled with a K. In the late eighteen fifties,
- 1:30Speaker 1: Moscow had grown into Polk County's major trading center for
- 1:34Speaker 1: farmers and lumberjacks. Businesses were plenty, and the Masonic Academy
- 1:40Speaker 1: later named the Moscow Masonic High School, was well known
- 1:45Speaker 1: and highly regarded throughout the region. A fruit and vegetable cannery,
- 1:50Speaker 1: an architectural column factory, a cotton gin, and a sawmill
- 1:55Speaker 1: inevitably brought in the railroad connecting the area and its
- 1:59Speaker 1: goods to Houston, the big city. When the Great Depression
- 2:04Speaker 1: hit in nineteen twenty nine, Moscow had already begun feeling
- 2:09Speaker 1: its effects. Lumber companies had already jumped ship due to
- 2:14Speaker 1: an East Texas bust in the industry, farmers and merchants
- 2:18Speaker 1: went bankrupt. Moscow's population dwindled to one seventy, down from
- 2:24Speaker 1: two sixty three. The folks who loved the town the
- 2:27Speaker 1: most stayed and weathered the storm the best they could.
- 2:32Speaker 1: By the latter half of the twentieth century, in many ways,
- 2:36Speaker 1: Polk County hadn't developed much since eighteen sixty eight, the
- 2:40Speaker 1: year fifteen year old John Wesley Harden shot and killed
- 2:44Speaker 1: Major Holshausen just outside Moscow, the first of thirty confirmed victims.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Flipping through the area's main newspaper, the Polk County Enterprise,
- 2:55Speaker 1: the bodies stack up shockingly fast for in areas so
- 3:00Speaker 1: sparsely populated. Undoubtedly, one murder that took place in Moscow
- 3:06Speaker 1: is among the most notorious in the county when in
- 3:10Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Constable Bill Garcy was gunned down and
- 3:14Speaker 1: cold blood at his home. Exactly why remains a mystery
- 3:20Speaker 1: to this day. Born in San Augustine County on July tenth,
- 3:49Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, to parents Pearl and Doc Garcy, Johnny
- 3:53Speaker 1: Raymond went by Bill most of his life, as nicknames
- 3:57Speaker 1: seem to be the Garcy way. Every single one of
- 4:01Speaker 1: his five brothers had one Jack, Winker, aj Tupi, and Bully.
- 4:07Speaker 1: Bill's sister Marine was known as Tiny Hicks. Shine Garcie
- 4:13Speaker 1: was his father, Doc's real name, but his mother and
- 4:16Speaker 1: sister Ruby stuck with their given names. Although he died
- 4:21Speaker 1: a small precinct, Constable Bill Garcy was once quite famous,
- 4:26Speaker 1: at least on the rodeo circuit. The Center Light and
- 4:31Speaker 1: Champion newspaper reports that Bill's career started early when he
- 4:36Speaker 1: was attending a rodeo, a rider was thrown off a bull,
- 4:40Speaker 1: and the clowns were struggling to keep the angry animal
- 4:43Speaker 1: occupied while he escaped. Bill, at age nineteen, hopped into
- 4:48Speaker 1: the arena to help. That was it. He wouldn't leave
- 4:53Speaker 1: the rodeo arena for forty more years. About twelve years
- 4:57Speaker 1: into his career as a rodeo clown, in nineteen fifty,
- 5:00Speaker 1: a Shiner Gazette reporter wrote, in the Brahma bull Riding,
- 5:05Speaker 1: where the second nature of this breed of cattle is displayed,
- 5:09Speaker 1: is one of the sports most daring bullfighters, Bill Garci.
- 5:13Speaker 1: Garcy has thrilled rodeo fans of three states with his
- 5:17Speaker 1: reckless abandon in flaunting his baggy pants in the faces
- 5:21Speaker 1: of these infuriated animals. At this point, you'd be hard
- 5:26Speaker 1: pressed to find an ad that mentioned another rodeo entertainer.
- 5:30Speaker 1: It was always Bill Garci and company. In popularity, only
- 5:35Speaker 1: the Cajun Kid and a pre Hollywood slim Pickens seem
- 5:39Speaker 1: to have rivaled Bill. His choice of sad face clown
- 5:44Speaker 1: makeup gave him a comedic edge. In nineteen fifty eight,
- 5:48Speaker 1: Bill began working the Texas Prison Rodeo at the state's
- 5:52Speaker 1: Huntsville Penitentiary, missing Johnny Cash's first performance there by two
- 5:57Speaker 1: years at the prison rodeo, inmates rode wild broncos and bulls,
- 6:03Speaker 1: roped calves, and even tried their hand at milking wild cows.
- 6:08Speaker 1: For a quarter century, Bill Garcy would go back to
- 6:11Speaker 1: Huntsville every single year. The job took him to every
- 6:15Speaker 1: corner of the United States, including New York's Madison Square Garden,
- 6:20Speaker 1: and even to Havana, Cuba, several times. The rodeo clown
- 6:26Speaker 1: slash trick rider gig probably paid pretty good after a while,
- 6:31Speaker 1: but it was not without its fair share of danger.
- 6:34Speaker 1: He'd been in plenty of scrapes with pissed off one
- 6:37Speaker 1: ton bulls and sometimes came out a little worse for
- 6:41Speaker 1: the wear. A scar on both sides of his arm
- 6:45Speaker 1: marked where in Madison, Wisconsin, nineteen sixty one, a bull's
- 6:50Speaker 1: horn tore all the way through. After Bill was bandaged up,
- 6:54Speaker 1: he finished the show. There was no one else to
- 6:58Speaker 1: do it, he later told the Polk County Enterprises Linda Dickerson.
- 7:03Speaker 1: During the rise to rodeo fame in October nineteen forty eight,
- 7:08Speaker 1: Bill married his sweetheart Albertine Scarborough, better known as Teeny.
- 7:13Speaker 1: After beginning a family of their own that eventually included
- 7:17Speaker 1: two daughters and a son, Bill and Teeny settled in Moscow,
- 7:22Speaker 1: Texas in nineteen fifty three. Teeny and the kids had
- 7:26Speaker 1: lived on the road with Bill up until then. He
- 7:29Speaker 1: said his wife got burned out on the lifestyle. In
- 7:34Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, the rodeo became a part time gig,
- 7:37Speaker 1: and Bill Garcy focused on something else he loved, ranching,
- 7:42Speaker 1: Although he still participated in rodeos within a one hundred
- 7:46Speaker 1: mile radius of home and also began producing them. The
- 7:51Speaker 1: Garcies flourished in Moscow, and, besides a stint back in
- 7:55Speaker 1: San Augustine to take care of his ailing folks in
- 7:58Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, they never left. Bill became a fixture
- 8:03Speaker 1: in Moscow, the friendly neighbor who would gladly help you
- 8:07Speaker 1: work your cattle or shoe your horse. In seventy eight,
- 8:11Speaker 1: Polk County Commissioners accepted a five hundred thousand dollars grant
- 8:16Speaker 1: from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for
- 8:19Speaker 1: building homes and road expansions and maintenance. With only a
- 8:23Speaker 1: small chunk Unfortunately for the school district, improving the quality
- 8:29Speaker 1: of life for its citizens was overdue and meant other
- 8:33Speaker 1: changes as well. A new deputy was hired for the
- 8:37Speaker 1: sheriff's department, a new deputy district clerk, and the Polk
- 8:42Speaker 1: County Commissioners appointed Bill Garci as their Precinct three constable.
- 8:48Speaker 1: He'd be paid one dollar a year for his service,
- 8:51Speaker 1: and it'd be a surprise if he ever cashed one
- 8:54Speaker 1: of those checks. Bill also worked as a collections officer
- 8:58Speaker 1: for the Citizen's Stay eight Bank of Corrigan, about six
- 9:02Speaker 1: miles north of his home in Moscow. Bill was a
- 9:06Speaker 1: guy who believed in paying his debts and upholding his
- 9:09Speaker 1: own responsibilities, while at the same time empathetic and lenient
- 9:14Speaker 1: when being so was necessary. Most folks knew of his
- 9:18Speaker 1: time in the rodeo, and even when he came collecting
- 9:21Speaker 1: for the bank, everybody liked Bill. At least that's what
- 9:25Speaker 1: everybody thought. In nineteen eighty four, Bill Garci, now sixty
- 9:41Speaker 1: one years old, was seeking his third term as constable
- 9:45Speaker 1: of Precinct three. The vote was coming up on May
- 9:49Speaker 1: the fifth, and his challenger was former Corgan Police Chief
- 9:53Speaker 1: Joel Ruben Lambright a man prison Legal News would later
- 9:58Speaker 1: describe as an ex police chief who holds high office
- 10:02Speaker 1: in the good old boy fraternity. Although Bill had little
- 10:06Speaker 1: time to campaign, its doubtful Lambright's reputation and connections had
- 10:11Speaker 1: him losing any sleep. The rodeo famous man was well
- 10:16Speaker 1: known and well liked and didn't necessarily need to campaign.
- 10:21Speaker 1: Still working for the Citizens State Bank of Corrigan as
- 10:24Speaker 1: a collections officer and running his ranch, he was a
- 10:28Speaker 1: busy guy, even when not considering his other responsibilities as
- 10:32Speaker 1: a rodeo producer and star and trail boss and founder
- 10:37Speaker 1: of the Moscow Corgan Trail Riders Association, a kind of
- 10:41Speaker 1: social club centered around horse enthusiasts. Organized by Bill Garci.
- 10:47Speaker 1: The club began horseback riding a thirty mile trail on Friday,
- 10:51Speaker 1: March thirtieth, nineteen eighty four, at nine a m. In
- 10:55Speaker 1: Corrigan and ended up in Woodville for the Dogwood Festival
- 10:59Speaker 1: per at two pm Saturday, March thirty first, after camping
- 11:04Speaker 1: and enjoying a live country Western band and barbecue the
- 11:08Speaker 1: night before. Exactly a week later, a tragic and cold
- 11:14Speaker 1: blooded act took the life of the trail boss who
- 11:17Speaker 1: led the riders, having arrived home just before five forty
- 11:23Speaker 1: five pm on Saturday, April seventh, nineteen eighty four. Bill
- 11:28Speaker 1: Garcy immediately walked the one hundred feet behind his house
- 11:31Speaker 1: to his barn to put some kibble out for his dog.
- 11:36Speaker 1: Bill walked in the barn, grabbed the bucket where he
- 11:39Speaker 1: kept the kibble, and began walking toward the dog bowl
- 11:42Speaker 1: when he heard his name called out. It was a
- 11:45Speaker 1: man's voice, not his wife's, and he could hear the deep,
- 11:48Speaker 1: idling hum of a large engine. When he stepped out
- 11:52Speaker 1: of the barn. Without any prior words exchanged, shots rang out,
- 11:57Speaker 1: possibly four of them. According to later witness accounts. Bill
- 12:02Speaker 1: fell to his knees then collapsed. The shooter raced off
- 12:07Speaker 1: in his pickup truck, throwing rocks as he sped down
- 12:10Speaker 1: the gravel driveway and slowing down little before turning on
- 12:14Speaker 1: to US Highway fifty nine heading south. Teeny Garcy raced
- 12:20Speaker 1: to her husband's side as he clung to life, but
- 12:24Speaker 1: Bill Garcy quickly succumbed to the injuries. As neighbors phoned
- 12:28Speaker 1: the Polk County Sheriff's Office, Chief Deputy Rick Velker quickly
- 12:33Speaker 1: arrived at the scene, followed shortly thereafter by Precinct one
- 12:38Speaker 1: Justice of the Peace Mary Placer Peace Justice Placer pronounced
- 12:43Speaker 1: Johnny Raymond Bill Garcy dead. At approximately six thirty pm,
- 12:50Speaker 1: Chief Deputy Velker got Plenty to go on. Betty Lowe,
- 12:54Speaker 1: a neighbor of Garci's, told the lawman that she and
- 12:57Speaker 1: her husband had driven back from Lovekin just before the
- 13:01Speaker 1: shots rang out. As soon as he heard them, Betty's
- 13:04Speaker 1: husband leapt up and ran outside. He saw the suspect
- 13:09Speaker 1: fleeing in a late model Chevy truck, dark blue and
- 13:12Speaker 1: silver in color. Besides the lows and teeny Garcie, four
- 13:17Speaker 1: other witnesses emerged from the immediate area. The shooter was
- 13:22Speaker 1: a white male in his fifties. Those who saw the
- 13:25Speaker 1: suspect told Velker he had what looked like salt and
- 13:29Speaker 1: pepper gray hair under a straw cowboy hat, they said,
- 13:33Speaker 1: and weighed about one hundred and eighty to one hundred
- 13:36Speaker 1: and ninety pounds. Deputies who had since arrived at the
- 13:40Speaker 1: scene wasted no time making arrangements for the witnesses to
- 13:44Speaker 1: come to the Sheriff's office to give their descriptions to
- 13:47Speaker 1: a police artist. Later that night, a composite sketch was created.
- 13:54Speaker 1: The following morning, Sunday, April eighth, nineteen eighty four, an
- 13:59Speaker 1: autopsy wasmed on Constable Bill Garci's body. There were a
- 14:04Speaker 1: total of four bullet wounds, though the projectile that went
- 14:08Speaker 1: through Bill's wrist as he instinctively attempted to shield himself
- 14:12Speaker 1: might have been the same to have caused one of
- 14:14Speaker 1: the others. Another wound was on his shoulder, and two
- 14:19Speaker 1: were centered in his chest. The kill shots, every bullet
- 14:23Speaker 1: went clean through, leaving no ballistics evidence behind. Investigating deputies
- 14:30Speaker 1: later commented that they believed the weapon used was either
- 14:33Speaker 1: a nine millimeter, a thirty eight caliber, or a three
- 14:37Speaker 1: fifty seven. All they knew for sure was that the
- 14:40Speaker 1: murder weapon was a handgun, and only because Bill's wife, Teeney,
- 14:45Speaker 1: had seen the assailant shoot. According to the Centered Texas
- 14:49Speaker 1: newspaper Light and Champion, other witness accounts led to a
- 14:54Speaker 1: second composite drawling of the suspect. At approximately one pm
- 14:59Speaker 1: on s Saturday, a man stopped a woman on the
- 15:02Speaker 1: streets of San Augustine, Texas, the victim's hometown. He asked
- 15:08Speaker 1: her where Bill Garcia lived, to which she replied she
- 15:12Speaker 1: did not know, some seventy miles away, and a few
- 15:15Speaker 1: hours later, at approximately four thirty pm, a man stopped
- 15:20Speaker 1: at the Gulf Service Station in Corrigan asking the same thing.
- 15:25Speaker 1: In both of these sightings, the dark blue and silver
- 15:29Speaker 1: late model Chevy pickup truck was consistently described by witnesses. However,
- 15:35Speaker 1: the second composite created different enough from the first for
- 15:39Speaker 1: Polk County Sheriff Teddy Lee Everett to make a tough call.
- 15:43Speaker 1: He would not release the drawings publicly. All Sheriff Everett
- 15:48Speaker 1: could imagine would come from doing so was confusion, which
- 15:52Speaker 1: would in turn and inevitably lead to wild goose chases.
- 15:57Speaker 1: For now, they'd stick with interviews. They were already running
- 16:01Speaker 1: down numerous leads, Everett told the Polk County Enterprise. As
- 16:07Speaker 1: Sheriff of Polk County, Teddy Everett had a lot on
- 16:10Speaker 1: his plate at the time, and it wasn't just the
- 16:14Speaker 1: seemingly endless barrage of violent crime plaguing the state at
- 16:18Speaker 1: the time, a problem with which his county was not immune.
- 16:24Speaker 1: Just over a month before the shooting death of Bill Garci,
- 16:27Speaker 1: freshly arrested boogeyman Henry Lee Lucas had apparently led Polk
- 16:31Speaker 1: County authorities to almost the exact spot where the skeletal
- 16:36Speaker 1: remains of an unidentified female were found in a shallow
- 16:40Speaker 1: grave in nineteen seventy seven. In nineteen eighty two, when
- 16:45Speaker 1: serial spree killer Robert Dale Henderson was arrested in Punta Gorda,
- 16:50Speaker 1: Florida and confessed to killing twelve folks on a murder
- 16:54Speaker 1: rampage that stretched from Ohio to Louisiana, Sheriff Everett thought
- 16:59Speaker 1: he had his guide responsible for their Jane Doe. Henderson
- 17:03Speaker 1: admitted to throwing the body of a woman he killed
- 17:06Speaker 1: out of his car near Livingston, Texas, off US Highway
- 17:10Speaker 1: fifty nine. However, he denied killing the missing woman. The
- 17:14Speaker 1: sheriff believed his Jane Doe was. Eventually, with no evidence
- 17:20Speaker 1: and dental records that didn't quite match up, Everett dropped it. Now,
- 17:25Speaker 1: with Lucas's confession, he was sure he had his guy
- 17:28Speaker 1: once more, or at least sure he had his case cleared.
- 17:33Speaker 1: Not only that, but Lucas was also leading the lawman
- 17:36Speaker 1: to believe, or vice versa, depending on where your opinion
- 17:40Speaker 1: in this matter falls, that this Jane Doe was a
- 17:43Speaker 1: missing New Orleans woman Stephanie Lee Smith, the same woman
- 17:48Speaker 1: Sheriff Everett believed two years earlier that spree killer Robert
- 17:52Speaker 1: Dale Henderson had murdered and dumped in his county. He
- 17:57Speaker 1: and his buddy Ottis Elwood tool Lucas Canest had killed her,
- 18:01Speaker 1: even though they could have not possibly yet met each
- 18:04Speaker 1: other when Stephanie disappeared in June of nineteen seventy seven. Many,
- 18:10Speaker 1: many typically reliable sources state that Lucas O'Toole met at
- 18:14Speaker 1: a Jacksonville, Florida, soup kitchen in nineteen seventy six, But
- 18:18Speaker 1: according to documentation and interviews collected by the Texas State
- 18:22Speaker 1: Attorney General's Office under gym Maaddos, that is close to impossible,
- 18:27Speaker 1: if not all the way there. It's a mistake simply
- 18:31Speaker 1: repeated time after time to keep a sensational story of
- 18:35Speaker 1: mass rapes and killings alive. Anyway, long story short, Polk
- 18:41Speaker 1: County Jane Doe was exhumed on Thursday, March twenty ninth,
- 18:45Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, a little over a week before Constable
- 18:49Speaker 1: Bill Garci was gunned down in cold blood, so her
- 18:53Speaker 1: teeth could be compared to Stephanie Lee Smith's dental records
- 18:57Speaker 1: and X rays of a past surgical compared to the
- 19:01Speaker 1: bones of her feet. Again, the woman known as Polk
- 19:06Speaker 1: County Jane Doe was reburied at Union Spring Cemetery in
- 19:10Speaker 1: Corrigan a little while later. And since Stephanie Lee Smith's
- 19:14Speaker 1: case is active and remains on the National Missing and
- 19:17Speaker 1: Unidentified Person's System or name us to this day, it's
- 19:22Speaker 1: safe to say Lucas's confession here, like virtually all his others,
- 19:27Speaker 1: was not the truth. There's a lot more to this
- 19:30Speaker 1: story that we don't have time for here, most of
- 19:33Speaker 1: it quite maddening, So we'll release an episode on our
- 19:36Speaker 1: Patreon feed later this week. As the investigation into the
- 19:42Speaker 1: slang of Bill Garci continued, rumors led the Polk County
- 19:46Speaker 1: Sheriff's office to look into and quickly squash conjecture that
- 19:50Speaker 1: somehow the man's professional life had played a role. Funeral
- 20:06Speaker 1: services for Johnny Raymond Bill Garcy were held at First
- 20:10Speaker 1: Baptist Church in Corrigan on Monday, April ninth, nineteen eighty four.
- 20:16Speaker 1: His burial at Pine Grove Cemetery immediately followed. As Polk
- 20:21Speaker 1: County Sheriff Teddy Lee Everett assigned investigator Chuck Statton to
- 20:26Speaker 1: the case. Friends and family began a reward fund. Within days,
- 20:31Speaker 1: the fund grew to more than ten thousand dollars for
- 20:34Speaker 1: information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man
- 20:38Speaker 1: who gunned down Bill Garci, an amount equivalent to just
- 20:42Speaker 1: over thirty thousand dollars today in August of twenty twenty four. Meanwhile,
- 20:48Speaker 1: investigator Staton wasn't having much luck with new viable leads.
- 20:55Speaker 1: Several different law enforcement agencies were already involved because of
- 20:59Speaker 1: his time in the row and more recently with the
- 21:02Speaker 1: Moscow Trail Riders Association. The investigation had extended into other
- 21:07Speaker 1: counties to account for the many folks Bill was known
- 21:10Speaker 1: to be involved with in some way or another. Fifteen
- 21:14Speaker 1: to twenty leads had already been checked, said Sheriff Everett,
- 21:18Speaker 1: who always spoke for the department. Somewhere there's one person
- 21:22Speaker 1: who was very upset with him. We'll find that one person.
- 21:26Speaker 1: I feel it's a case that can be solved, but
- 21:28Speaker 1: it'll take some time. Everything that can be done is
- 21:31Speaker 1: being done. A month passed with no news. On Saturday,
- 21:37Speaker 1: May fifth, nineteen eighty four, voters hit the polls to
- 21:41Speaker 1: cast ballots for their choice of mayor, some county commissioner seats,
- 21:45Speaker 1: sheriff and Precinct three Constable. Bill's name hadn't been removed,
- 21:51Speaker 1: and he won in a landslide, receiving seven hundred and
- 21:55Speaker 1: fifty eight votes to good old boy challenger Joel R.
- 21:59Speaker 1: Lambright's four hundred and sixty seven. Later, the Polk County
- 22:03Speaker 1: Democratic Committee chose Jerry Lynn Ivy to take over as
- 22:07Speaker 1: Precinct three Constable. By the end of May, the reward
- 22:12Speaker 1: for information leading to Bill's murderer reached seventeen thousand, five
- 22:17Speaker 1: hundred dollars. A friend of the victim and president of
- 22:21Speaker 1: Citizens State Bank in Corrigan, Anthony Page, kept up with
- 22:25Speaker 1: both the fund and the posters advertising it. Folks from
- 22:29Speaker 1: Polk County and all over helped mister Page place the
- 22:33Speaker 1: posters in the most highly visible places in towns across South,
- 22:38Speaker 1: Southeast and East Texas. Posters ran in the Polk County enterprise. Still,
- 22:46Speaker 1: it was as if speculation and rumor were the only
- 22:49Speaker 1: things going around. Bill repossessed property from someone who sought
- 22:54Speaker 1: to even the score After was one baseless theory, although plausible.
- 23:00Speaker 1: Perhaps the most common rumor was that something took place
- 23:04Speaker 1: during the trail Ride a week prior to Trail Boss
- 23:07Speaker 1: Bill Garci's assassination. This one didn't seem too far out there.
- 23:13Speaker 1: Trail riders were known to get rowdy on occasion. Back
- 23:17Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, all hell broke loose at the
- 23:19Speaker 1: annual dance that marks the halfway point of the Tyler
- 23:22Speaker 1: County Dogwood Festival Parade when a Tyler County Sheriff's deputy,
- 23:27Speaker 1: a Texas ranger, and Trail Ride officials attempted to break
- 23:30Speaker 1: up a fight between two outsiders. Before anyone could make
- 23:34Speaker 1: a lick of sense out of what the squabble was about,
- 23:38Speaker 1: the place turned into a battle zone. About twenty people
- 23:41Speaker 1: jumped on the law and fists flew all around. A
- 23:46Speaker 1: distress call went out over the police band almost immediately,
- 23:50Speaker 1: which brought in officers from all over carrying shotguns. A
- 23:55Speaker 1: weapon that will end a lot of things simply by
- 23:57Speaker 1: the side of it, let alone the disked sound it
- 24:00Speaker 1: makes when it's pumped. Their presence certainly ended this before
- 24:06Speaker 1: it was all said and done, with six arrests. Patrol
- 24:09Speaker 1: Woman Barbara Westerman was badly injured after being kicked in
- 24:14Speaker 1: the dogpile. One person in the know told Gone Cold
- 24:18Speaker 1: that around Polk and the surrounding counties, business is often
- 24:22Speaker 1: handled in ways that is unfathomable outside the area, meaning
- 24:27Speaker 1: an intense fight might lead to one of the contenders
- 24:30Speaker 1: getting shot. Did something happen between Bill Garcy and someone
- 24:35Speaker 1: on that trail ride the last weekend of March nineteen
- 24:38Speaker 1: eighty four. Other folks thought Bill's murder was a hired hit,
- 24:44Speaker 1: but ultimately Polk County Sheriff Teddy Everett was quoted as
- 24:47Speaker 1: saying he believed Bill Garcie's murder was something that happened
- 24:51Speaker 1: that only Garcy and the person that killed him knew about.
- 24:55Speaker 1: If he had any evidence of that, he didn't say it.
- 24:59Speaker 1: The r the sheriff went on had so far proven
- 25:02Speaker 1: to be false. These hitman and trail ride gone wrong
- 25:06Speaker 1: theories seemed to be the highest on law enforcement's list.
- 25:11Speaker 1: In September nineteen eighty four, the Corrigan Camden Booster Club
- 25:15Speaker 1: unanimously voted to name the Park Rodeo Arena the Bill
- 25:20Speaker 1: Garci Memorial Rodeo Arena. County commissioners had spoken out about
- 25:26Speaker 1: his shooting murder, calling it a blight to Polk County.
- 25:30Speaker 1: The pressure was on Sheriff Everett to solve the case.
- 25:34Speaker 1: On Tuesday, December eleventh, nineteen eighty four, a deputy found
- 25:38Speaker 1: a jacketed lead bullet just below the ground's surface, near
- 25:42Speaker 1: the spot Bill Garcy was shot and killed. Likely the
- 25:46Speaker 1: bullet was one that passed through Bill's body. A year
- 25:51Speaker 1: after the slang in April of nineteen eighty five, however,
- 25:54Speaker 1: the case was no farther along. Sheriff Everett insisted they'd
- 25:59Speaker 1: been following leads, but cited a lack of evidence as
- 26:02Speaker 1: investigator's primary obstacle. If someone knows something, they're either afraid
- 26:08Speaker 1: to talk or not interested in the money, he said,
- 26:11Speaker 1: adding that the lack of resolution was not a reflection
- 26:15Speaker 1: on his deputies. Although Sheriff Everett insisted the case was
- 26:20Speaker 1: not political, the lawman's own political opponents suggested that it
- 26:24Speaker 1: could have been. According to The Light and Champion, ex
- 26:29Speaker 1: Corgan police chief and Bill Garci's political rival in the
- 26:33Speaker 1: race for Precinct three, Constable Joel Reuben Lambright, was assigned
- 26:39Speaker 1: to the murder case as a special investigator at some point,
- 26:43Speaker 1: spending at least some time in the victim's hometown of
- 26:47Speaker 1: San Augustine chasing down leads, regardless of his apparent connections
- 26:52Speaker 1: as a holder of high office in the Good Old
- 26:55Speaker 1: Boy fraternity. According to the Prison Legal News, Lambright failed
- 26:59Speaker 1: to idea Bill Garcy's killer. The edition of the Polk
- 27:04Speaker 1: County Enterprise published on Sunday, August twenty first, nineteen eighty eight,
- 27:09Speaker 1: was the last time much of anything new was reported
- 27:12Speaker 1: on Bill's murder. As a lame duck, Sheriff Teddy Everett
- 27:17Speaker 1: commented that the case had been before a grand jury twice,
- 27:21Speaker 1: obviously with no luck either time, and that a Polk
- 27:24Speaker 1: County investigator and Texas ranger had made several trips out
- 27:28Speaker 1: of the state. He would not elaborate any further. If
- 27:36Speaker 1: you have any information about the murder of Johnny Raymond
- 27:39Speaker 1: Bill Garci, please contact the Polk County Sheriff's office at
- 27:43Speaker 1: nine thirty six three two seven six eight one zero.
- 27:49Speaker 1: If you're a Gone Cold Patreon supporter, remember to keep
- 27:52Speaker 1: an eye out later this week for an episode loosely
- 27:55Speaker 1: connected to this one about Polk County Jane Doe and
- 27:59Speaker 1: the Stephanie Lee Smith case. Speaking of Patreon, we thanked
- 28:03Speaker 1: the Clutch City level supporters last episode, and I'd like
- 28:07Speaker 1: to say thanks this week to the folks who support
- 28:10Speaker 1: the show at the bomb city level. Thank you Angie D. Cassius, Darren,
- 28:16Speaker 1: Emily D, Janet, M. Jill S, Julia, F, Christy, G,
- 28:23Speaker 1: Laura and Lisa Z. Also at the Clutch city level,
- 28:28Speaker 1: Thank you Francy C for coming back. If you'd like
- 28:32Speaker 1: to join Gon Cold's mission to renew the public's interest
- 28:35Speaker 1: in unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and other perplexing mysteries,
- 28:41Speaker 1: you can support the show and listen ad free at
- 28:43Speaker 1: Patreon dot com forward slash Gone Cold Podcast. You'll also
- 28:49Speaker 1: find episodes exclusive to Patreon there, with more to come
- 28:53Speaker 1: in the very near future. Words cannot express how much
- 28:57Speaker 1: we appreciate our patrons. Thank you so much for your support.
- 29:03Speaker 1: You can also support Gone Cold by leaving a five
- 29:06Speaker 1: star rating and written review on iTunes and Apple podcasts.
- 29:11Speaker 1: This will help to show reach more ears, bettering the
- 29:14Speaker 1: chance someone with information about a case will listen and
- 29:18Speaker 1: come forward. A rating and written review wherever you listen
- 29:22Speaker 1: is much appreciated. Thanks for listening, y'all,