Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Johnnye Janelle Henderson

Transcript

The Murder of Johnnye Janelle Henderson · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion
0:06
is advised. Up until at least the early nineteen seventies, in Odessa,
0:13
Texas, there were two worlds, the north side of the Texas and Pacific
0:18
Railroad and its white citizenry, and the south side of the tracks, where
0:23
the city's black and Hispanic populations resided at their cores. There was little difference
0:30
between the groups, but the oppressive rules of tradition and Jim Crow hadn't been
0:36
chipped away at in Odessa as much as the rest of the United States,
0:41
which as a whole anyway, still had plenty of work to do as far
0:44
as civil rights were concerned. Working folks made up the majority of the West
0:50
Texas city, and no matter the color of their skin, it was their
0:55
blood, sweat and tears with which the oil tycoons and fatcats lined their overflowing
1:02
pockets. The cultures of these working class groups were different only in so much
1:07
as things like style and preference. In Odessa's north, honky tonks and country
1:14
western music helped roughnecks loosen up after a back breaking day working the rigs and
1:19
the agonizing Texas sun and in the South, it was juke joints and blues.
1:26
It was in one of the latter where the second of three unfathomable tragedies
1:32
befell the Henderson family. Early in the morning of Sunday, July thirteenth,
1:38
nineteen sixty nine, Jack Johnson Henderson, Arthur Lee Powell, and Doc Pearl
1:45
Rand were shooting dice at the Elks Club, located at East Pearl Street and
1:51
South tom Green Avenue, just south of the railroad tracks. Although it is
1:57
almost certain Booze was involved, it isn't clear exactly what happened at the Elks
2:02
that night, but according to Doc Rand, the only man whose statements were
2:07
ever made public, he was winning at craps, and Henderson and Powell were
2:13
none too happy about the man taking their money. At some point, an
2:17
argument broke out which turned physical. Arthur Powell, Rand said, pushed him
2:23
to the floor, after which Jack Henderson kicked him several times again. Rand
2:30
claims the men did this because he was winning, but Powell and Henderson's actions,
2:36
if true, closer resembled the reactions a couple drunk fellas might have had
2:40
to a cheater. Whatever the case, Rand broke free of the men's attack
2:46
and high tailed it out of the Elks Club. Not long after, he
2:52
returned armed with a twenty two caliber pistol. Rand found Henderson and Powell playing
3:00
down a hallway inside the bar and took aim. Powell out of the corner
3:06
of his eye, saw the danger and ducked behind a door. Fifty eight
3:09
year old Jack Johnson Henderson, however, never saw it coming. Rand fired
3:15
several rounds. One struck Henderson in the chest, piercing his heart. He
3:23
didn't die instantly, it took a minute on routine parole. Odessa Police Sergeant
3:30
L. F. Hardwick heard the shots and saw thirty eight year old Doc
3:35
Rand fleeing from the club. The officer gave chase when he finally nabbed him.
3:42
Sergeant Hardwick and the department in general seemed more concerned with the pills and
3:47
marijuana they found inside a matchbox in Rand's pocket than they were with the fact
3:53
he had just killed a man. Rand, father of a popular high school
4:00
athlete and local boxer, posted a seventy five hundred dollars bond after his arraignment,
4:05
and later at court pleaded guilty and received ten years probation. The victim.
4:13
Jack Johnson Henderson, was a self employed landscaper and father of eight.
4:19
His wife Lucille was left to raise the children, who remained at home as
4:25
a single mother. It wasn't the first Henderson family tragedy. In nineteen fifty
4:31
eight, Lucille and Jack's daughter Susie Lee died of meningitis at age fifteen.
4:38
Neither tragedy would be the last. Just two years after Jack Henderson was shot
4:45
and killed over a game of craps, he and Lucille's daughter, Johnny,
4:49
died a mysterious, though undeniably sinister death. Johnny Janelle Henderson was born on
5:19
February eighteenth, nineteen sixty, in Odessa, Texas, to parents Jack Johnson
5:26
and Doris Henderson, who was known to most by her middle name Lucille.
5:31
We know virtually nothing about Johnny other than the fact that she was the second
5:38
youngest child born to Lucille and Jack. Still, the one photograph of Johnny
5:44
that is known to exist gives at least some insight into the girl. In
5:49
it, she smiles genuinely and beautifully, suggesting the innocence and happiness one might
5:56
expect from a child the age in which it was taken at either ten or
6:00
eleven years old. The Henderson family lived on the far southeast side of Odessa,
6:08
on almost the last row of houses in town. In the late summer
6:13
of nineteen seventy one, Johnny was looking forward to entering her sixth grade year
6:17
at Hayes Elementary School. But something happened on Monday, August twenty third,
6:24
something terrible. At around seven a m Lucille Henderson left Johnny and her two
6:30
brothers, ten year old Bobby and thirty two year old Joe, asleep at
6:34
their home at nine oh six Snyder Street, and ran to the grocery store.
6:41
It's unclear if her fifteen year old brother, Jack Junior was also in
6:46
the house at the time. Regardless when she returned home at seven point thirty
6:50
or a little after, Lucille said Johnny was gone, her brothers, they
6:58
later told police, heard nothing thing, no commotion in the nine hundred and
7:01
sixty square foot bungalow, and no one exiting or entering. Bobby had even
7:09
been sleeping in the same room as his sister. Lucille appears to have thought
7:15
little about the fact that her daughter was gone, and perhaps for good reason.
7:20
In those days, It was common for kids to leave the house early
7:25
to hang out with neighborhood friends. The school year was right around the corner,
7:30
and the area children were taking advantage of their last few days of freedom.
7:34
Often kids would stay gone all day. Johnny wasn't seen all day,
7:41
at least not by anyone in the family, and as dark approached, her
7:45
absence became worrisome. Lucille sent out her boys to look for their sister.
7:51
They asked friends and neighborhood kids if they'd seen Johnny. None apparently had.
7:59
About fifty feet behind the Henderson home was a dirt alleyway, and just beyond
8:03
it began a brushy, rocky desert field about an acre and a half in
8:09
size and extending about four hundred yards south of the house. That field,
8:16
which included a small kalichi pit near the middle, then extended out into a
8:20
much larger desert area to the small fields south and east, which was dozens
8:26
of acres in size. A kalechi pit, for those who don't know,
8:31
is an often shallow depression in the landscape made up of the sedimentary rock kalichi.
8:39
They're often used as illegal dumping sites or a place to get large rocks
8:43
for landscaping, among other things. Kalechi pits and the dense brush that often
8:50
surrounds them are also commonplaces for kids to play in them. There are generally
8:56
plenty of lizards to catch and to throw. The pit behind the Henderson home
9:03
was certainly a place where the local children would sometimes play. Johnny's brother,
9:09
presumably her thirty two year old brother, Joe, searched the smaller area directly
9:15
behind their house for any sign of her, but he said he found nothing.
9:20
According to a police report, Lucille Henderson reported her daughter missing at eleven
9:26
fifty one that night after efforts to locate her failed. The Odessa police didn't
9:33
begin the search for Johnny until the following day. On Tuesday, August twenty
9:41
fourth, nineteen seventy one, juvenile authorities began speaking with a handful of family
9:46
and friends about the disappearance of Johnny Janelle Henderson. No one offered the policeman
9:54
much to go on, and the department failed to utilize either the local television
9:58
news or the newspaper The Odessa American in their attempts to locate the missing girl.
10:05
When twenty six year old Gloria Sue Green vanished just two months before.
10:11
The cops immediately used local media in the attempts to locate her. Odessa American
10:18
reporters tracked down several family members and coworkers and wrote giant front page stories about
10:24
the woman, both in terms of her disappearance and of her as a person.
10:31
Little Johnny Janelle Henderson would be afforded no such effort. She was from
10:37
the wrong side of the tracks. Odessa Police juvenile officers filed reports that stated
10:54
no foul play was indicated in the disappearance of eleven year old called Johnny Janelle
11:01
Henderson. In fact, they'd made no significant effort to locate her beyond speaking
11:07
with folks who knew her or were related to her. On Thursday, August
11:13
twenty sixth, nineteen seventy one, after what can only be described as minimal
11:18
search efforts had been performed, Odessa Police detectives Larry Lindley and W. L.
11:24
Walker decided it'd be a good idea to search the brushy rocky field behind
11:31
nine oh six Snyder Street, Johnny's home, because her brother had searched there
11:37
the day she disappeared. The cops hadn't felt the need to look until more
11:41
than three days after Johnny was reported missing. After pulling up behind the Henderson
11:48
home and exiting their vehicle, they walked toward the Callichi pit, about one
11:54
hundred yards from the house's back gate. The smell of decomposition overwhelmed them.
12:01
When they got to the edge of the pit, among the sporadic weeds and
12:05
atop the rocky ground, they saw the unclothed, badly decomposed body of a
12:11
young girl lying face up. Surrounding this deceased girl was mesquite grass that looked
12:18
trampled, as if a struggle took place there. Detectives later told reporters it
12:24
was approximately eleven am, though they couldn't be certain, not yet, detectives
12:31
Lindley and Walker were sure it was the body of eleven year old Johnny Henderson.
12:37
She was the only female child currently missing in Odessa, and of course
12:43
found directly behind her home. Most telling, as far as tentative identification,
12:50
was an injury never publicly explained. One of Johnny's middle fingers had been nearly
12:56
severed and subsequently stitched back together by a local doctor. This body had such
13:03
an injury. Also out investigating the disappearance with Sergeant Russell Baker, who Detective
13:11
Walker immediately sought out and notified of the discovery. Baker quickly enlisted the help
13:18
of Assistant police Chief Tommy Callender, head of Records and Identification, Captain Byron
13:24
Hawthorne, and local pathologist doctor David Dawson. All emerged on the scene post
13:31
haste. Captain Hawthorne took photographs of the girl's body, the scene, surrounding
13:39
the discovery, and outside the Henderson home. At nine oh six Snyder doctor
13:45
Dawson examined the body, and at eleven forty five am, just after arriving
13:50
at the scene, Judge Manuel Vez officially pronounced the girl deceased. Vez noted
13:58
that there were no outward signs of violence, but he offered as a condition
14:03
the state of decomposition was advanced, he ordered an autopsy. The arid,
14:11
dusty air of the West Texas city might not have been easy on the sinuses,
14:16
but it made the heat bearable and should have had an interesting effect on
14:20
the rate of decomposition. Dry weather can slow down the process. The high
14:28
temperatures August twenty third through twenty sixth were below average anyway, ranging from eighty
14:35
six to eighty eight degrees, while the low temperatures were normal between sixty six
14:39
and sixty nine degrees. In other words, the days and nights in between
14:46
the discovery and Johnny's last known sighting had been relatively moderate. Had the temperatures
14:52
been typical for the time of year, aided by the dry conditions, it's
14:58
likely the girl's body would have undergone some mummification, particularly since she'd been left
15:05
out in the open in a spot exposed to a fall day's sun. There
15:11
was desert brush around her, but there'd been no attempts made to conceal the
15:15
body. At twelve thirty PM, an ambulance transported the still unidentified body to
15:22
the Paul Rick's funeral home. Thirty minutes later, a dozen or so Odessa
15:30
police officers cordoned off the area surrounding the discovery, just in time television and
15:37
newspaper reporters had got word and had descended. One yelled out to assistant police
15:43
Chief Calendar, asking if they had a suspect. He replied, everyone is
15:50
a suspect. This death joined several unsolved murders of women in the area.
15:56
Police were investigating three in Odessa to cougarate E Le May Miller and Ruth Maynard,
16:03
and one in nearby Kermit Nancy Mitchell, Glorias Sue Greene Io was missing.
16:11
However, they were all grown women and white, leading detectives to theorize
16:17
this case was not related, but Sergeant Russell Baker refused to eliminate the possibility
16:23
of a connection. The department, he said, was keeping an open mind.
16:30
After they closed off the scene, the same police officers, alongside detectives,
16:36
scoured the calleche pit and surrounding scrub brush, creosote, and occasional prickly
16:41
pair for clues. About sixty feet from where the body was found, a
16:47
beaded necklace which had been broken and was thought to belong to Johnny Henderson,
16:52
was discovered. It appeared the beads had been ripped from her neck and tossed
16:57
in the brush. There were footprints around the scene where Johnny's body had been
17:03
found, but none were discernible. Paw prints around the body were too small
17:08
to be coyote, and anyway, there were no signs of animal disturbance of
17:12
the body reported. Perhaps an interesting fact to take note of since turkey,
17:18
vultures and coyotes were and are extremely common to the area as authorities combed the
17:26
area for clues. At one thirty five pm, the missing eleven year old's
17:30
brother, Joe thirty two years old, identified the body as its sisters at
17:36
the Rick's funeral home. Another individual whose relation to Johnny is unknown to us,
17:41
also made a positive identification. The date would have been Johnny's first day
17:48
of sixth grade at Hayes Elementary School. Judge Manuel Veyez meanwhile made one determination
17:56
even before an autopsy was performed. A careful inspection of her body determined an
18:03
unknown cause of death murder. The death certificate reads by person or person's unknown.
18:11
He wasn't sure they'd ever know how she died, Theyz commented, referencing
18:17
the advanced stage of decomposition. Detective Floyd Hudman, who'd been assigned to investigate
18:25
Johnny's case alongside Detective Larry Finley, remarked that a couple kids claimed to see
18:30
her in the neighborhood as late as seven pm the day she vanished, twelve
18:36
hours after she was last seen at home, but police were having trouble confirming
18:41
the sighting. It was just one of the many different stories he'd been told,
18:48
Hudman said. A seventeen year old neighbor was taken to the station for
18:52
questioning, although it was never made clear why or even what his relationship to
18:59
Johnny might have On Friday, August twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, off
19:04
duty Ector County Sheriff's Office deputies joined both off duty and on duty Odessa policeman
19:11
in a widespread search of the land further behind the Henderson home. Detectives Hudman
19:18
and Finley had learned from Johnny's mother, Lucille, that her daughter's red robe
19:25
was missing, meaning she was wearing it when she left or was taken from
19:30
the house. Sheriff Slim Gabriel himself unofficially led the efforts. Gabriel was looking
19:37
for his own missing person, Gloria Sue Green, and figured searching for Johnny
19:42
Henderson's robe would be a good way to further his investigation, while also lending
19:48
a helping hand to the Odessa police in theirs, he hadn't yet looked in
19:52
that particular area for Gloria's body. After searching the approximate one and a half
20:00
acres inch by inch on foot and an additional dozen acres by jeep, the
20:04
search ended without authorities finding a thing. While he investigated that afternoon, Detective
20:12
Hudman discovered Johnny Henderson had a small dog who liked to trail her every move.
20:18
That accounted for the small paw prints found in the sand around her body.
20:25
Still, the heartbreaking detail got police no closer to determining what happened to
20:30
the eleven year old girl, nor did the autopsy. After the official procedure
20:37
was completed, the death certificate needn't be changed. The cause of death remained
20:42
unknown, and though every other detail indicated a particular motive, the facts that
20:49
she was found unclothed and that the ground around her was disturbed as if something
20:55
violent had taken place, Doctor David Dawson was unable to determine if Johnny Janelle
21:00
Henderson had been sexually assaulted. Funeral services for eleven year old Johnny Henderson were
21:19
held on Friday, August twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, at the Paul
21:25
Ricks Funeral Home. She was buried at Odessa Cemetery later the same day.
21:32
On Saturday, August twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one, Detective T. D.
21:37
McQueen administered a polygraph examination at Odessa police headquarters. The man quizzed,
21:44
a thirty two year old, by all indications, was the victim's brother.
21:48
Detective Floyd Hudman said the results of the test were inconclusive, but was sure
21:55
to mention that he came in voluntarily and that no charges had been fired.
22:00
More polygraph exams were forth the coming, Detective McQueen told reporters for the Odessa
22:07
American, but he declined to say when or to whom they'd be given The
22:11
thirty two year old man McQueen said might be brought back for additional tests.
22:18
Bright and early on Monday, August thirtieth, detectives were back in the victim's
22:23
neighborhood, going door to door talking to folks. There was optimism in the
22:29
air for reasons never made public. The detectives working the case, Hudman and
22:34
Finley, were making progress, but they still needed to find the red robe
22:41
thought to have been worn by Johnny Henderson when she left her home. The
22:45
many garbage dumpsters and containers near the site where her body was found were of
22:51
particular interest. Detectives thought there was a decent chance the robe had been discarded
22:57
and won. Later that day, jail trustees and volunteer city employees joined police
23:04
at the sanitary landfill north of town in Ector County, where they sifted through
23:11
trash and debris in an attempt to find the elusive piece of evidence. They
23:15
didn't find anything. Still, detectives remained optimistic and insisted that they'd been collecting
23:22
small pieces of the puzzle every day and that after giving a few more interviews,
23:27
the pictures should be far clearer. The next day, now more than
23:33
a week since Johnny Henderson was last seen alive, Detective T. D McQueen
23:38
quizzed the seventeen year old neighborhood kid on the polygraph machine a fourth time.
23:45
Like his other tests, the results proved inconclusive. It should be noted that
23:51
both he and his parents readily agreed to the tests. Sergeant Russell Baker insisted
23:57
that the exams were not being used to nab suspects. Rather, they were
24:03
being used to check the validity of the information they gave to police. In
24:10
fact, everyone who'd taken the polygraph tests so far had volunteered, and none
24:15
showed any hesitation or indication that they weren't willing, at least not until an
24:21
older neighborhood man was asked this man age sixty. Sergeant Russell said would also
24:29
be asked to volunteer a bit of a contradiction in terms, but his point
24:33
came across nonetheless. On Wednesday, September one, nineteen seventy one, this
24:40
man declined to undergo the exam until he could consult with his attorney, who,
24:45
as he certainly should have as an attorney, recommended his client not go
24:51
forward with it, so this neighbor refused. Though polygraph examinations given to both
24:57
the seventeen year old neighbor and almost certainly Johnny's thirty two year old brother,
25:03
came back inconclusive. The cops seemed to be satisfied that they were telling the
25:08
truth, though about exactly what remains a mystery. A different seventeen year old
25:15
was questioned the following day. His information was verified and detective said he was
25:22
cleared of having any involvement in the murder of eleven year old Johnny. A
25:26
red robe was never found, and within two weeks the case had gone cold.
25:34
On Thursday, January twentieth, nineteen seventy two, less than a half
25:38
mile away from the Callichi pit where the body of Johnny Henderson was found at
25:44
the black Shear Junior High Practice football field near Fitch Avenue and Laredo Drive,
25:51
Ector County. Sheriff's deputies descended on an empty lot of Creosote Callechi and illegally
25:56
dumped trash. In the day leading up, Sheriff Slim Gabriel had been in
26:03
New Mexico speaking with former Odesson Johnny Meadows. The man was a former employee
26:10
of the well servicing company from which Gloria Sue Green disappeared. After questioning thirty
26:17
four year old Meadows told the law man where he could find the body of
26:21
twenty six year old Gloria. Before heading back to Odessa, Gabriel called his
26:26
deputies and told them to move in, so they did. Under a decaying,
26:33
soiled mattress, there laid Gloria's bones, still clad in the brown buttoned
26:38
down dress she disappeared in. Electrical wire bound Gloria's wrists and ankles and was
26:47
tied around her neck. Meadows would confess to other area murders, and then
26:52
we cant those admissions. None of the confessions included eleven year old Johnny Henderson,
27:00
and it's no wonder there was nothing found around her neck. Linda Cooget,
27:04
to whom Meadows also briefly confessed to murdering in nineteen sixty eight, had
27:10
a pair of stockings nodded around hers, as did Ruth Maynard, whose body
27:15
was discovered just seven months before Johnny's death. In each case, and in
27:22
contrast to the eleven year old's killing, attempts had been made to hide the
27:26
bodies. Also, each woman Meadows confessed to was in their mid twenties.
27:33
It was obvious to authorities Meadows had not killed Johnny Henderson. In a nineteen
27:41
seventy eight Odessa American article, the newspaper suggests that the autopsy report in Johnny's
27:47
case was lost. Then captain of Detective's Jack Philah, refused to comment on
27:52
the case any further than saying it was inactive at that time. Small one
27:59
to two who sentence blurbs and articles about other murders was all the press attention
28:03
Johnny's case ever received again, and those were few and far in between.
28:11
Her case was even absent from the Odessa Crime Stoppers website until July of twenty
28:15
twenty one, added only after ninety nine point nine k BAT radio station DJ
28:22
Tonny the Rock Chick wrote a story that mentioned the omission. It's unknown to
28:27
us if any evidence exists in the case that might be used for testing.
28:34
If you have any information about the nineteen seventy one murder of eleven year old
28:40
Johnny Janelle Henderson, please call Odessa Crime Stoppers at four three two three three
28:45
three eight four seven seven, or submit a tip to the Odessa Crime Stoppers
28:52
website. We'll provide a link to that in the episode's show notes, and
28:56
to submit a tip there, you'll need to scroll through the Cold Cases almost
29:00
to the bottom of the page and click on the link next to Johnny's information.
29:06
If you like gon Cold's mission to renew the public's interest in cold cases,
29:11
you can support the show at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
29:17
There for as low as two dollars and fifty cents. You'll get the show
29:19
at free. Leaving a five star rating and written review at iTunes also helps
29:26
immensely, as it bumps the algorithm and gets us into the ears of more
29:30
folks. However you choose to support the show, we appreciate it more than
29:34
words can express. You can find Gone Cold online at goncold dot com or
29:41
on nearly all the social media platforms by searching at Gone Cold podcast. You
29:48
can also find a link in bio in the episode's description. Thanks for listening, y'all.