Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murders of Giti Harari & Wendy Aldrich Part Two

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The Murders of Giti Harari & Wendy Aldrich Part Two · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. GD Hurreri's May eleventh, nineteen eighty
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: eight murder rippled across Houston, Texas. A young woman working
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: alone in a model home on the edge of a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: growing subdivision attacked in the final moments of her work day.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: There was no fourth entry, no clear robbery, no witnesses,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: just a controlled scene, a missing purse, and a life
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: cut short in a place designed to feel safe. Investigators
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: worked the case, compared it, and then, like so many
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: others in that decade, set it aside as its own
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: isolated crime. But for one person, it was anything but isolated.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: For nearly a decade, gd and Wendy Aldridge had moved
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: through life side by side, college roommates, close friends, and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: constance in each other's worlds. When ged was killed, Wendy
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: didn't just lose a friend, She lost something foundational. The
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: grief didn't fade, it deepened. Wendy went to the funeral,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: She placed a poem in GEDI's casket. She returned again
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and again to the model home, to the grave. She
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: tried to make sense of something that didn't make sense,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and In the weeks that followed that grief began to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: pull her somewhere else. It pulled her toward a second story,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: one that would not end with mourning, but with another
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: disappearance and another body, because before the decade was over,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Whendy Aldridge's life, like her closest friend Gd's, would end
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: in tragedy. When Wendy Aldrich placed flowers at GD Hariri's grave,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: someone would promptly remove them. It happened with everything she
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: left in tribute to her friend, candles, balloons, and other items.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Though it was strange, she just figured groundskeepers were removing them.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: What she didn't know was that her visits to the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: grave site were not going unnoticed, and suspicion of her
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was mounting. GEDI's husband, Behuz Junagani, had become convinced that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Wendy somehow knew more about his wife's death than she
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: had told investigators. In his mind, the explanation was simple.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: He believed Wendy had killed GD. There was no evidence
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: supporting that belief. Investigators had not identified Wendy as a suspect,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: but Behrus remained convinced. He told people he believed Wendy
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: had developed an unhealthy fixation on his wife, and he
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: began searching for ways to prove his theory. At some
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: point after the funeral, Berus arranged for a voice activated
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: tape recorder to be hidden among the flowers at Gd's grave.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The device was placed there in the hope that Wendy
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: might say something during one of her visits that would
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: reveal what had happened. After Wendy left the cemetery, Berus
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: would retrieve the recorder and listen to the tapes. He
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: also removed the flowers and balloons she had placed there.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the recordings never captured an profession, but the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: surveillance or stalking did not end there. Berus believed Wendy's
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: attachment to ged was romantic and obsessive. He believed Wendy
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: had killed Gedi in a jealous rage. When the hidden
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: tape recorder at the cemetery had not produced any evidence
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: supporting that belief, Berus took another step. He hired a
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: private detective. Wendy lived alone at the Copper Mill Apartments
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: in northwest Harris County, not far from where she had
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: worked at a neuropsychology clinic. About six weeks after Gd's murder,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a woman calling herself Sammy Smith, moved into Wendy's building.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: She seemed friendly and outgoing. She told Wendy she had
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: recently moved to the area, and the two quickly began talking,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: spending time together around the complex and socializing. For Wendy,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: still grieving the loss of her closest friend, the companionship
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: was welcomed. Sammy brought her flowers, invited her to hang out,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and on at least one occasion, the two took a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: day trip to Galveston, spending hours away from the big city.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But Sammy Smith was not who she claimed to be.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: The apartment she said was hers was not an ordinary unit.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: It was typically reserved for security personnel assigned to the property,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and the name was false. The woman living near Wendy
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: was actually a licensed private investigator hired by Beiruz Junagani.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Wendy believed she had made a new friend. In reality,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: she was being watched. The investigator's assignment was to gain
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Wendy's trust and see whether she would say anything that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: might connect her to Gd's murder. For several weeks, the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: PI maintained the relationship. She visi a Wendy's apartment bought
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: her small gifts and spent time with her socially. Then
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: one night, during a late phone call, she suggested she
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: had romantic feelings for Wendy and expressed interest in a relationship.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: The advance caught Wendy off guard. She rejected it. Soon after,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the detective moved out of the apartment complex. The friendship
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: ended almost as quickly as it had begun. To Wendy,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: it must have seemed strange and confusing. She had no
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: idea that she had been the subject of a private investigation.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Byrus continued monitoring Wendy's visits to Gd's grave. He retrieved
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the hidden recorder he had placed there and listened to
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the tapes each time. He also continued to remove the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: flowers and balloons Wendy had left behind, but the recordings
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: still produced nothing. No confession, no explain nation, nothing that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: tied Wendy to GED's murder. On Saturday, July thirtieth, nineteen
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, Wendy went to dinner with a male friend.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: During the meal, she talked about how she had been
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: coping with GED's death. She said she was no longer
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: as overwhelmed as she had been in the weeks immediately
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: after the murder. The grief was still there, but it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to be easing. She appeared steadier, calmer, more in control.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: She told her companion that she planned to stop by
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the grave the next day. It would be the last
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: day anyone would see twenty seven year old Wendy Aldridge alive. Sunday,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: July thirty first, nineteen eighty eight, began quietly like any
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: other day. Wendy spent the afternoon at her apartment making
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a series of phone calls, including one to her mother,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Shirley in Kentucky. During that conversation, Wendy said she planned
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to visit Forest Lawn South Cemetery that evening. She told
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: her mom she was going to meet Jasmine Hassani, a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: friend of Gd's who she had met at a candlelight vigil.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: The two planned to meet at the grave sometime between
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: six thirty and seven pm. Afterward, Wendy intended to return
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: home and meet a friend for dinner later that night.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Before leaving, Wendy called another friend and said she was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: heading to the cemetery to place flowers on Gd's grave.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: She left her apartment at around five thirty pm, driving
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  Speaker 1: her white nineteen eighty six Chevrolet Cavalier. At approximately six
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: forty PM, Wendy was seen inside a supermarket near Forest
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Lawn South Cemetery. A cashier later confirmed that she purchased
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: flowers and a blue balloon printed with the words I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Love You. It was the same kind of balloon Wendy
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: had brought to the cemetery before she paid for the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: items and left the store alone. That purchase was the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: last confirmed public sighting of Wendy Aldrich alive. Wendy never
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: arrived for her dinner plans. She didn't return home. When
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: she failed to report to work the following morning. At
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Project re Entry, the clinic where she worked as a therapist,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: co workers became concerned and contacted her family. By the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: afternoon of August first, nineteen eighty eight, Wendy had been
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: officially reported missing. After she was reported missing, investigators with
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the Harris County Sheriff's Department began retracing Wendy Aldridge's steps
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and confirmed that she had gone to Forest Lawn South Cemetery.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: The flowers she had purchased were there, the balloon was there,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: but Wendy was not, nor was her car. Detectives also
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: noted something unusual near gd Hariri's grave. The hose Wendy
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: typically used to water the grass around the headstone had
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: been stretched across the ground, It had been turned on,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and it had not been put away. Friends and family
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: later said Wendy was careful about that routine. She always
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: returned the hose when she finished. This time, she had not.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: That detail led investigators to consider the possibility that something
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: had happened while Wendy was still there. Forest Lawn South
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is a large cemetery, and on summer evenings, people regularly
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  Speaker 1: visited to tend graves, walk the grounds, or pass through
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the area. Despite that steady traffic, authorities could find no
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: one who saw Wendy leave. No one reported seeing her
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  Speaker 1: with another person, no one reported seeing any kind of disturbance.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Wendy had planned to meet Jasmine Hassani there, but Jasmine
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: told investigators she never made it to the cemetery because
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: she had been helping Beheru's Junagani move that day instead.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Police were unable to verify that timeline. Behuz, meanwhile, refused
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to cooperate with investigators regarding Wendy's disappearance. He had spoken
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: with detectives about the murder of his wife, but declined
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  Speaker 1: to assist in the search for his wife's best friend.
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  Speaker 1: For days, there were no real clues. Then, three days
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: after Wendy disappeared, investigators found the first physical sign of
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: where the case might have gone. Next, that sign was
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: almost one hundred miles away. On August third, nineteen eighty eight,
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  Speaker 1: employees at Lake Livingston State Park in Polk County noticed
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a white car that had been parked near a swimming
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: area for several days without moving. No one had seen
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: anyone return to it in that time. Park staff contacted
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  Speaker 1: the Polk County Sheriff's Department, and when deputies ran the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: license plate, the vehicle came back to Wendy Aldridge. It
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: was the white nineteen eighty six Chevrolet Cavalier she had
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: driven away from her apartment on the evening of July
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  Speaker 1: thirty first. The car was locked, there were no signs
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of damage to the doors or windows. Inside, detectives found
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Wendy's purse on the front floorboard. Her driver's license was
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: still there, so was her money twenty eight dollars in cash.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Also inside the purse was the receipt from the supermarket
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  Speaker 1: where she had bought flowers and the blue I Love
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  Speaker 1: You balloon before going to the cemetery. Everything Wendy had
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: taken with her that evening was still inside the car,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: everything except Wendy herself. Investigators noticed another detail. The driver's
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: seat was pulled far forward toward the steering wheel, the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: way Wendy normally kept it. She was just over five
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  Speaker 1: feet tall, and friends said she always positioned the seat
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that way so she could comfortably reach the pedals. The
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: placement suggested the car had been driven by someone approximately
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Wendy's size, but detectives could not determine whether she herself
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: had driven it to the park or whether someone else had.
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  Speaker 1: The keys were missing. Lake Livingston Park, roughly one hundred
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  Speaker 1: miles northeast of Huston, was remote compared to the city's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: subdivisions and commercial corridors. It was surrounded by forest and
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  Speaker 1: open land, and was not a place Wendy had ever
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: been known to visit. In fact, detectives found no connection
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  Speaker 1: between her and the park. She had no known friends
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: or relatives nearby, and had never mentioned the location to family, friends,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: or coworkers. Park personnel told investigators the car had likely
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: entered some time after eight pm. On July thirty first,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: when the entrance station closed for the evening and vehicles
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: could drive in without being logged. That suggested Wendy's car
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: reached the park hours after she was last seen buying
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: flowers near the cemetery. Search teams combed the area. Deputies
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: checked wooded trails, camp sites, and the nearby shoreline. Divers
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: searched sections of the lake. Officers looked for clothing, personal items,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: or any sign of a struggle. They found nothing. The
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: discovery of the car didn't explain what had happened to Wendy,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: but instead only raised harder questions. If she had been
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: abducted from the cemetery, who drove her car to Lake Livingstone,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: If she had gone there herself, why leave behind her purse,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: her money, and her identification. Why go to a place
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: she had no known reason to visit. While detectives searched
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: for answers, Wendy's parents arrived in Houston from Kentucky, and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: inside Wendy's apartment, something unsettling began to happen. The phone
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: started ringing. After Wendy's car was found at Lake Livingston
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: State Park, her family made the decision to remain in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Houston until she was found. Her mother and stepfather, Shirley
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and Robert Snodgrass, traveled from Lexington, Kentucky, and moved into
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Wendy's apartment, so that if she tried to return home
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: or contact anyone, someone would be their waiting. At first,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the apartment was quiet. Detectives came and went, friends stopped by,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: coworkers checked in to see if there was any news.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Then the phone began to ring. Wendy's parents kept answering,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: hoping each time that it might be her. At first,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the calls were silent. Whoever was on the other line
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: would stay there for a few seconds and then hang
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: up without speaking. Then the calls changed. Shirley later described
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the voice as male and speaking rapidly in what she
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: believed was a foreign language. She could not identify it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: The calls came at different hours, sometimes during the day,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: sometimes late at night, with no pattern. It became unsettling
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: enough that Wendy's parents started pushing furniture against the apartment
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: door before going to bed. Then one day the phone
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: rang again. This time, the caller identified himself. It was
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Bereu's According to Shirley, He said he wanted to put
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: her mind at ease. What followed did the opposite. He
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: told her he believed Wendy had murdered his wife. Bruz
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: described her as a psychopath, said she had studied criminology
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: and understood how crimes were committed, and said he hoped
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Wendy would come back so she could face justice. The
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: accusation stunned Wendy's family. They had listened to her grieve
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: GDI's death openly. They knew she had attended the funeral,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: visited the cemetery, and struggled in the weeks after the murder.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: The idea that she had killed her friend was impossible
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: for them to accept. They reported the call to investigators.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Bahruz did not deny making it. Despite his accusations. No
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: evidence linked Wendy to Gd's murder. No witness had placed
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: her at the Model Home that night, No physical evidence
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: tied her to the scene. The only thing that came
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: close was a white Compact car seen at the Model
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Home the night GD was killed. Wendy's Hivy Cavalier was
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: also white. The vehicle seen by a passing motorist at
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the crime scene was never identified, at least not publicly.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Detectives anyway, hadn't identified Wendy as a suspect. At the
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: same time, Bayruz continued refusing to cooperate with investigators regarding
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the disappearance. Neither he nor Jasmine Hassan would give reporters comments.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: As the weeks passed, the investigation stalled. Wendy was seemingly
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: nowhere to be found. Her car had been discovered abandoned
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: in a state park, her parents were receiving unexplained phone calls,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and the man accusing her of murder would not assist
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in the search for her. For nearly two months, there
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: were no new leads, no confirmed sightings, and no trace
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of Wendy Aldridge. Then a discovery along the shoreline of
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a Texas lake would provide the first physical evidence of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: what had happened to her. Nearly two months after Wendy
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Aldridge vanished, the case changed from a disappearance to a recovery.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The The first sign had surfaced earlier in late August,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: a severed foot believed to be that of a woman
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: washed ashore at Lake Somerville, about eighty five miles northwest
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of Houston. At the time, investigators could not say whether
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: it had anything to do with Wendy's disappearance. Then, more
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: than a month later, on September twenty ninth, in another
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: part of the lake, a man fishing from the bank
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: found the lower torso of a body believed to be female.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: The remains were in Burlison County at Lake Summerville, roughly
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: eighty five miles southwest of Lake Livingston State Park, where
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Wendy's car had been found. Until then, her case had
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: been built on a disappearance, a mist dinner, a mist
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: day of work, flowers left at a grave, a hose
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: stretched across cemetery grass, and a locked car abandoned almost
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: one hundred miles north of Houston. Now investigators had something
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: physical to examine. Authorities from Burlison County and Harris County
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: began working the recovery together, hoping more remains, especially teeth,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: might be found to help make an identification. Divers searched
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the lake, but nothing else turned up right away, meaning
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the remains came with a problem. Investigators did not have
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: a full body. They didn't have a head, no teeth,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: no fingers for prints. In nineteen eighty eight, before DNA
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: made this kind of work more routine and more precise,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it meant identifying characteristics were absent, so they worked with
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: what they did have, bone structure and items that had
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: been found alongside the torso, clothing and other personal effects.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: What they found pointed back to Wendy. The lower torso
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: was still dressed in blue jeans, similar to those she
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was known to wear. Investigators also recovered keys that fit
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the doors at the neuropsychology clinic where she worked. Police
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: told Wendy's mother that a key to her car had
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: also been found. Those details became the basis for the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: presumptive identification for Wendy's family that ended one kind of
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: uncertainty and opened up another. Wendy's mother, Shirley, told reporters
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in late October nineteen eighty eight that police had said
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the remains were in all probability her daughters. The family
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: prepared to have the remains cremated and taken north to Ohio,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: where Wendy was born, so they could finally lay her
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to rest, but even then, the most important answers were
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: still missing. Investigators could say exactly how Wendy died without
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the head, upper torso, or best case scenario, a complete body,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: there was no definitive cause of death. Detectives believed the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: body had been separated through decomposition, but that still left
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: them with what they believed was a homicide, and without
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the forensic findings needed to say whether Wendy had been shot, stabbed, strangled,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: or killed some other way. Without the upper torso and head,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: investigators could not fully assess trauma or build the kind
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of forensic case a prosecutor would need. One investigator said
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: plainly that unless more of the body was found and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a cause of death established, building a case would be difficult.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The discovery at Lake Somerville brought only the narrowest kind
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of resolution. Wendy Aldridge was no longer missing. She was dead.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: The geography only made it stranger. Lake Somerville was not
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: close to the places already tied to Wendy's disappearance. It
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: was well away from Forest Lawn South Cemetery, near where
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: she had last been seen, and far from Lake Livingston
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: State Park, where her car had been abandoned. The foot
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and torso were found in different parts of Lake Somerville.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: That left investigators with fresh questions and very few answers.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Where was the body dumped? Did it drift? Where was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the rest of it. Wendy had obviously been moved across
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: multiple counties after she vanished from the cemetery, but where
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: did the killing take place? By the time the remains surfaced,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: time and decomposition had erased much of the evidence that
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: might have answered those questions, and hanging over all of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: it was the same question that had shadowed the case
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. Was Wendy's death directly connected to the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: murder of gd Hariri? Authorities clearly considered that possibility. Beruz Junagani,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: GEDI's husband, remained part of that shadow. He'd refused to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: cooperate in Wendy's disappearance, even while continuing to speak with
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: investigators about GED's death. Police knew he believed Wendy had
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: killed his wife, but by the time Wendy's remains were identified,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: there was still not enough evidence to charge him or
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: anyone else in either case, and in that time, he
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: left Texas and moved back to his home country, Iran,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: carrying with him his version of events and leaving behind
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: questions that were never resolved. More than thirty six years
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: after the nineteen eighty one bludgeoning, stabbing, and strangulation death,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of realtor vs. Virginia Ginger Freeman in College Station, Texas
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: discussed on Part one. Her case was finally solved in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: June of twenty eighteen. DNA testing led investigators to a
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: man named James Otto Earnhardt, who was executed by the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: state in nineteen ninety nine for the nineteen eighty seven
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: murder of nine year old Brazis County girl Candy Janelle Kirtland.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Earnhardt also became a suspect in the slangs of two
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: other women in that area, one elderly and one middle aged,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: one shot to death and the other stabbed. Because of
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: his responsibility for Ginger Freeman's horrific murder, Earnhardt was likely
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: looked at for the killings of other real estate agents
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in a relative proximity to the Bryan College Station area,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: or anywhere else he might have gone, possibly meaning all
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the way down to West Houston, where Schumant and Company
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: realtor's owner Elizabeth Schue and two agents, Joanne Brown and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Francis Ivy, were slain in nineteen eighty three. Earnhardt's capture
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for the murder of nine year old Candy Kirtland was
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in late May of nineteen eighty seven, just a couple
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: months after realtor Betty Joe Hudson was shot in the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: head in Galveston in March. James Otto Earnhardt could not
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: have been responsible for gd Hariri's murder, as he was
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: tried and convicted by that time. Ged and Wendy Aldridge
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: met as college roommates in Ohio in nineteen eighty one.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: They stayed close through school, relocation, marriage, work, and all
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the uncertainty that comes with trying to build an adult
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: life before you've fully figured out who you are. What
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: began in a dorm room in Cleveland, Ohio followed them
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: through Alabama and then to Houston, surviving distance, change and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the ordinary upheavals of young adulthood, and then, in nineteen
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, within months of each other, both women were gone.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Perhaps their bond does not end with Perhaps their bond
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: did not end when their friendship became part of a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: police file. Perhaps it became the reason their names would
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: be linked together forever, not by proof, not by answers,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: but by loss. When violence entered their lives, it did
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: not stop with one of them. It reached the other
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: as well. If you have any information about the murder
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of Wendy Aldridge. Please contact Crime Stoppers of Houston at
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: seven one three two two two eight four seven seven.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gon Cold's mission to shine
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the show at free and have access to bonus content.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You can at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: You can also support the show by leaving a five
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.