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The Killing of Kathy Ann Stembridge · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Killers don't just take lives, They reshape everything they left behind.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: A quiet back road, a busy stretch of highway, a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: house that once felt safe now a shrine to everything
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that went wrong. Across Texas, Deserts, fields and bayous keep
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: their secrets buried, but not forever. From the creators of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Gone Cold, comes of Hell Texas True Crime, a podcast
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: about the state's most depraved killers and the scars they
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: left on every town, every family, every mile marker they touched.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Stories that ask one burning question, were there more victims?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Some folks aren't just from Hell, they'reo it. Of Hell
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Texas True Crime coming soon. Subscribe wherever you listen to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: podcasts Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Granberry, Texas, nineteen eighty. On the surface,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it was just another small county seat tucked into the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: bends of the Brazis River, the kind of place where
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: life revolved around family and church bells. But in reality,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Granberry was changing at a rate most people couldn't keep
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: up with. In the decade before Hood, county had exploded
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: in size. Between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty, it ranked
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: among the fastest growing counties in the entire nation. For
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a rural patch of North Texas, that kind of growth
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was dizzying. Families were arriving from Dallas and Fort Worth,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Retirees were building lakeside homes. Developers were buying up ranch land.
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  Speaker 1: Granbury wasn't just a sleepy square on the prairie anymore.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: The engine behind it all was Lake Granbury, a reservoir
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  Speaker 1: carved out of the Brazos in nineteen sixty nine by
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the De Cordova Bend Dam. By nineteen eighty, the lake
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  Speaker 1: was no longer new, but it had reshaped the identity
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  Speaker 1: of the town. It drew weekenders, fishermen, and anyone who
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  Speaker 1: wanted a sip coffee on a back porch looking out
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  Speaker 1: over the water, And with them came money, new houses,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and a sense that Granberry's days of obscurity were behind it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Still you couldn't escape the town's past. The Courthouse Square
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: remained the center of life, dominated by the three story
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: limestone Hood County Courthouse, built in the eighteen nineties. Just
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: down the block, The old Opera House sat as a
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  Speaker 1: relic of another century. The downtown square had been placed
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  Speaker 1: on the National Register of historic places just a few
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: years earlier, in nineteen seventy four, and that meant every
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: worn brick and creaking door frame was preserved as part
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  Speaker 1: of Granberry's heritage. Granbury in nineteen eighty was a place
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  Speaker 1: of contradictions. Modern growth pressed up against century old stone.
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  Speaker 1: The lake promised prosperity for the old timers, but it
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  Speaker 1: also brought in outsiders. The town was booming but still
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: trying to hang on to its soul, and like so
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: many places in Texas, beneath the historic charm and new
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: development lay something else, a darker undercurrent, the kind of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: tension that comes when old traditions collide with new arrivals,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: when growth pushes faster than the people living through it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Granberry was a place on the rise in nineteen eighty,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: but with that came a sort of dark uncertainty, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that year it began and taking its toll. Catherine Anne Stembridge,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: or Kathy as she was better known, was born January tenth,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, in Cleeborn, Texas, to Nathan Stembridge and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Christine Miller. She graduated from Cleeborn High and lived in
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  Speaker 1: the town for most of her life before moving to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the Indian Harbor neighborhood in Granbury. By early nineteen eighty,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: she was beginning new routines and new work, a young
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: adult trying to stake out her path. Her family roots
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: were broad. Her mother and stepfather J. D. Miller lived
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  Speaker 1: in Granbury, Her father and stepmother, Francis Stembridge, were in Gainesville.
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  Speaker 1: Her brother Gary lived in Fort Worth, and her sister
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Lisa also in Granbury. Aunt's uncle's, nieces and nephews rounded
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  Speaker 1: out a big Texas family that expected to have a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: lifetime with her. At twenty one years old, Kathy Stembridge
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was working at CNM Laundromat part time, a small, unassuming
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  Speaker 1: building on Granberry's southwest side. The lot was gravel, the
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  Speaker 1: block was residential. Next Door lived Bill and Mary Lou Carney,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and to the south of the laundromat on Spring Street,
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  Speaker 1: stood a mobile home. The business sat off a major
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  Speaker 1: thoroughfare on Texas fifty one, also known locally as Poluxi Road. Friday,
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  Speaker 1: March twenty eighth, eighteen eighty, was Kathy's third day on
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the job. At the end of her shift, she was
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: ready to get out of there and get into her
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: life as a young woman. Kathy closed up for the night.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It was a little after eight thirty pm. The next
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  Speaker 1: several minutes were violent and seemingly personal. Kathy was attacked
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  Speaker 1: as she left the laundromat. No one knows exactly what happened.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: The violence was carried out with a knife. There were
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: multiple puncture wounds to her chest and abdomen bleeding out,
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  Speaker 1: She still managed to flee the scene, cut across the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: vacant field separating the businesses from the homes, and crawled
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: roughly one hundred and seventy feet to Mary lew and
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  Speaker 1: Bill Carney's front porch, the closest house. The time window
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  Speaker 1: was narrow. A white pickup truck and a following car
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  Speaker 1: were seen passing the laundromat at about eight forty pm,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and by about eight forty five pm, Kathy was collapsing
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  Speaker 1: at the Carney's door, begging for help. I've been stabbed,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: she told them, I've been stabbed. She couldn't get anything
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: else out inside. Missus Carney grabbed the telephone and called
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: for an ambulance while mister Carney tried to help. Paramedics
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: arrived quickly and attempted artificial resuscitation, but Cathy was pronounced
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: dead on arrival at Hood General Hospital in Granbury. Ralph Moser,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: an investigator for the District Attorney's office, confirmed the essential facts.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: As police began locking down the scene, Granbury Police Chief
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Don Steele told reporters that Cathy died before she could talk,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: before she could name or put a face to her killer.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Police told reporters that money was found in her vehicle,
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  Speaker 1: a bag with close to two hundred dollars, indicating she
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was likely preparing to deposit the day's take after closing,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a task that would have made her temporarily vulnerable as
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: she stepped from the laundry business to her car. Chief
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Steele emphasized early on that if the motive had been robbery,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: it was not successful. He doubted it was. Investigators saw
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: signs that a struggle occurred in the car. It was
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: found in the roadway, the engine running, a detail that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: fit a chaotic confrontation rather than a stealthy theft. The
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: death certificate would later state the medical chain of events
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  Speaker 1: in clinical sequence immediate cause of death cardiovascular pulmonary collapse
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: due to hyperbolemic shock due to multiple puncture wounds to
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  Speaker 1: the chest an abdomen. The short version was the same
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  Speaker 1: as the long one. Kathy bled to death from stab wounds.
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  Speaker 1: The March twenty eighth homicide came Granbury's second murder of
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, arriving less than three weeks after the March
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  Speaker 1: eighth convenience store killing of Lillian Pert at Mars shortstop
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  Speaker 1: on a Highway one forty four, a separate case in
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  Speaker 1: a small town suddenly forced to think about murder twice
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  Speaker 1: in the same month. Officers sealed off the area around
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  Speaker 1: CNM Laundry and the field. They followed Kathy's blood trail
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  Speaker 1: from the carney's porch across the vacant lot back to
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  Speaker 1: the parking lot where the attack appeared to have started.
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  Speaker 1: They searched for the knife, for Prince, for anything an
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: attacker might have dropped or left behind in a struggle
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in or near the car found in the roadway. No
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: murder weapon was recovered. Chief Steele told the press that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: detectives were combing the area at the same time. The
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: department reached out to the public, and one who had
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: been on Piluxi Road that night, especially after eight thirty pm,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was urged to call the Granbury Police. That request would
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: be repeated again and again. Even the tiniest of details
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: might break the case wide open. Steele would later say
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: he believed someone innocent out there had a piece of
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: information they assumed wasn't important, and that it could be
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the vital link. Without those folks coming forward, However, the
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: case was moving slow. Two days after the murder of
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: twenty one year old Kathy Stembridge on Sunday, March thirtieth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, employees at a dairy Queen on Pearl Street
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  Speaker 1: reported a suspicious man. One worker said he came in
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  Speaker 1: soay afternoon, ordered a banana split, and sat for about
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  Speaker 1: two hours. He asked one of the girls there to
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  Speaker 1: go to the show with him a movie perhaps, then left,
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  Speaker 1: only to return about thirty minutes later and stay another
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  Speaker 1: two hours, this time after ordering a Sunday The staff
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: noticed he watched the female employees. One thought she saw
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  Speaker 1: something in his back pocket that looked like a gun
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  Speaker 1: or possibly a knife. When the man finally left, someone
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  Speaker 1: wrote down his license plate number. Police traced the plate
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to a Fort Worth resident in short order. After some investigation,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Chief Steele announced that this man did not appear connected
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to the laundromat homicide. The lead was eliminated, investigators had
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: other trails to follow. They believed that a white Ford
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: pickup heading west toward Hood General Hospital passed the laundromat
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: around eight forty pm, with another vehicle following. Officers emphasized
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  Speaker 1: the occupants were not suspects, but potential witnesses who might
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: have seen the laundromat, the parking lot or the street
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  Speaker 1: at a critical five minute slice of time. With Kathy
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  Speaker 1: found at about eight forty five pm on the carney's porch,
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  Speaker 1: the drivers of those two vehicles could help fix the
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  Speaker 1: timeline or describe what they saw in those minutes before
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  Speaker 1: the collapse at the door. A motive was as elusive
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  Speaker 1: as witnesses from the outset of the investigation. Robbery didn't fit.
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  Speaker 1: The bag with two hundred dollars remained in Kathy's car,
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  Speaker 1: suggesting the opportunity to rob her was there and that
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  Speaker 1: a cash motivated attacker would have taken it. In the
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  Speaker 1: March eighth Grandbury murder at Mars shortstop on Highway one
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  Speaker 1: forty four under the jurisdiction of Hood County, about fifty
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: seven dollars had been taken. That contrast, the small cash
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: theft at the convenience store. The untouched cash at C
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and M laundry hinted that two different killers were at
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: work in town that month. Sheriff Henry Robertson weighed in
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and said he felt sure they were looking for two
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: different murderers, considering the way she was attacked and the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: fact that it didn't appear the killer tried to disrobe her.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Rape also seemed unlikely as the motive. Funeral services for
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  Speaker 1: Kathy Stembridge were held Monday, March thirty first, nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: at the Crozier Pearson Funeral Chapel in Cleeburn, with burial
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  Speaker 1: at Fall Creek Cemetery west of town. As the days
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  Speaker 1: passed with no suspect named, community members tried to help.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: A couple from the nearby community of Acton launched reward
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: for information leading directly to the arrest and conviction of
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Kathy's killer. By the first week of April nineteen eighty,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it had topped only two hundred dollars. As far as
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the police were concerned. Chief Don Steele told reporters they
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: were finding out some interesting things and that the investigation
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: was progressing, but the case was still wide open. By
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: June twelfth, Chief Steele acknowledged that the file had grown enormous,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: bulging with interviews, observations, and leads, but the concrete evidence
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: still wasn't there. He believed someone who thought their information
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was insignificant still needed to come forward. He was candid
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  Speaker 1: a grand jury wouldn't indict anyone on what they had
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: so far. There was no murder weapon, no confession pieces
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: were there, but nothing to link them together. From the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: outside looking in, it appeared the case had gone cold,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: but it was only the press that had stopped. According
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to the cops, they hadn't Almost a year to the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: day after Kathy's murder. On March twenty ninth, nineteen eighty one,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the Hood County News reported that the District Attorney's office
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: would probably seek an indictment from the grand jury. In
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: early April, police believed they finally had enough evidence to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: test their case. Chief Steele kept details close to the chest,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: fearful of compromising the case by revealing too much. He
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: did say the suspect was not in the immediate Granbury area,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and he laid out the scope of the work, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: included hundreds of miles of travel to Austin College station
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and as far away as Alabama. Not all the leads
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: had panned out, but it was obvious. Had investigator Milton
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Barnes had tracked down a witness in Mississippi who appeared
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to have been at or near the scene the night
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of the murder. She supplied background authorities didn't have before.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: She also gave police a name. They pursued that person,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: studied him intensely, and eliminated him. Chief Steel also articulated
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a theory. While Kathy was not raped and two hundred
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: dollars remained in her car, the circumstances were perhaps consistent
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: with an offender intent on rape or robbery, the grab
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and control pattern seen in certain violent crimes against women.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: He said. Police had bits of evidence that supported that pattern,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: but Kathy either fought too hard for the assailant or
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: he was spooked by something else, maybe a car in
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the distance heading in his direction. When we have circumstantial evidence,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: he said, of the ultimate burden, we've got to prove
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: beyond a shadow of a doubt. He intended to sit
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: down with the district attorney and lay out every detail
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of the investigation to decide if they had enough to proceed,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: As they often do in towns like Granbury, rumors ran
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: rampant in early nineteen eighty one. Kathy's brother, Gary Campbell,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: took out a newspaper ad to address the rumor. Mill
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: head on rumors of unreported information in the slang of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Kathy Stembridge in March nineteen eighty are very disturbing to me.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: It read, I personally request that if you have any information,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: give it now. Two months later, a headline in the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Hood County News quashed any rumors and perhaps gave credence
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to one. In July nineteen eighty one, the grand jury
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: returned a capital murder indictment against a thirty one year
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: old man named Robert Lowell Combs. The charge the April
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty stabbing death of Kathy Stembridge at CNM laundromat.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Combs's residence at the time of the homicide put him
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: right there, a mobile home on Spring Street, across the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: road from the laundromat. It was the kind of proximity
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: that made him an automatic suspect, but only when also
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: considering his past, a history that made him terrifying. Combs
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: was already serving a prison term on the Texas Gulf
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Coast for an unrelated case. At the time of Cathy's murder,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: he had been out on parole after a Bell County
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: conviction for armed robbery and assault, but that parole had
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: since been revoked and he was back in the Texas
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Department of Corrections carrying out the remainder of a fifteen
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: year sentence. Authorities declined to comment other than to say
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: one thing, It keeps going back to the same guy,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Chief Steel remarked. The Austin American Statesman had documented Combs's
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two arrest, the facts were chilling. On an
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: April Sunday night near Colleen, three young women left a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: drive in theater and were on their way to Young'sport
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: when their car was run off the road. The man
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: who was responsible put a knife to one of their
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: throats and forced them to go with him. For about
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: ninety minutes. He drove them on back roads through Bell
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and Williamson Counties, molesting them and threatening to kill them.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: He robbed two of the girls of their purses. At
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: one am Monday, one of the victims hit him on
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the head with a coke bottle, and all three bailed
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: out of his still moving car, Hiding in the brush
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: until dawn before flagging down a motorist to help. Days later,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Austin officers Sergeant Roger Huckabee and Sergeant Roosevelt Samson, Texas
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Ranger Ed Gooding of Belton and Bell County Deputy Wayne
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Oldham arrested Robert Lowell Combs in his trailer house at
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: thirteen hundred Village West in Austin. They found him hiding
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: behind paneling in a water heater closet using a secret
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: door he'd cut into the wall. The lawman also recovered
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a stick of dynamite, a bayonet, and a long bladed
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: pocket knife in the trailer. The girls identified him from
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a photograph and he was transported to Bell County. The
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: charges were two counts of armed robbery and three counts
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: of assault with intent to rape. He was later convicted
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and sentenced to fifteen years, but he was paroled in
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight after serving only six to detectives and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: bestigating the brutal slang of Kathy Stembridge in Granbury, that
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: history looked like a blueprint for capability, sexual threats, coercive control,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a knife, and the willingness to hurt women, but momentum
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: didn't last. The Granbury police were sure they had their
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: guy for the March nineteen eighty murder of Kathy Stembridge,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: but the case against Robert Lowell Combs was slowly unraveling.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: In September nineteen eighty one, prosecutors reduced the charge from
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: capital murder to murder, the first blow to the case.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: District Attorney Randy Chandler said they didn't have sufficient evidence
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to prove the aggravated element, the attempted robbery or attempted
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: rape that would make the killing a capital of fena.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: They still believed they had enough for murder and a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: trial might happen in early October, the next district criminal
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: court setting. Then in December nineteen eighty one, the murder
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: indictment was dismissed altogether. Chandler explained the state had been
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: counting on evidence it didn't receive. Combs's right to a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: speedy trial complicated the timeline. If they couldn't proceed, Combs
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: might walk and never face trial for Kathy's murder. The
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: district attorney said witnesses had altered their stories, and some
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: who had indicated they would testify now said they wouldn't.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: The case would remain open, he emphasized. Combs, meanwhile, was
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: transferred from the Hood County jail back to Huntsville to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: continue serving out his Bell County sentence. Chandler insisted he
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: still believed the suspect could be brought back to stand
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Tree sometime in the near future. Then came the Lucas Years,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a period when Henry Lee Lucas, a drifter already convicted
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of murder and notorious for confessing to hundreds more toward
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the country, pointing at maps and closing cases that later
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: fell apart under scrutiny. In October nineteen eighty four, Hood
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff Edwin Tomlinson brought Lucas to Granbury, Texas Ranger
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: John Denby. Tomlinson and officers drove him around without feeding
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: him case details, they said, hoping his own memory would surface.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Lucas pointed out Mars shortstop on Highway one forty four,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: saying Ottis Toole had killed the clerk while Lucas pumped
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: gas and got beer and potato chips. Tomlinson said those
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: items were indeed found on the floor there the night
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of the Lillian Pert homicide, a detail he offered as
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: corroboration and closed the sheriff's office case. Later on the drive,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Lucas pointed at cnm laundry and said this is the place,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: claiming he had taken the laundromat clerk from the building
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: at knife point and that she was killed elsewhere. That
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: claim didn't match the facts of Cathy's case. She died
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on the neighbor's porch not miles away. Granbury Police Chief
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Don Steele, who had carried Cathy's file for years, said
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Lucas's scenario was totally out of the ballpark. He was
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: all wet, Steele told the press, adding that he had
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a different suspect and had even built a case strong
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: enough to get an indictment once before witnesses moved away
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and the indictment was dismissed. Steele said of Lucas, he
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: didn't kill the one in Granbury, Texas. By April nineteen
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: eighty five, Lucas was recanting to all but three of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: his can profashions, claiming he had lied because he wanted
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to expose lazy police work. Sheriff Tomlinson, for his part,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: stood by his decision to close the Lillian Perk case
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: at least until substantial new evidence arrived, The Granbury police,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: unsatisfied with Lucas's ridiculous version, kept Kathy's case open, while
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Texas Attorney General Jim Maddox, mclinnan County DA Vic Fizell,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and reporter Hugh Answorth helped dispel many lucas Tool confessions.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Records do not prove it was impossible for them to
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: have committed Kathy and Lillian Pert's murders. However, it is
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: incredibly unlikely. Later, the main suspect in Cathy's case, Robert
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Lowell Combs, completed his prison sentence and, according to the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: police chief at the time, moved to California. By March
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, after seventeen years had gone by, Granbury
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: police chief Randy Jacks said investigators had run three DNA
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: tests on evidence. They had tested hair and blood found
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: on a suspect's genes after the homicide, hoping to prove
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the material was Kathy's and thereby link the suspect. The
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: results came back inconclusive again and again, including a test
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: done just weeks before the anniversary. The police chief said
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: those samples would be resubmitted as technology improved. The hope
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was that science might eventually succeed where eyewitnesses and circumstantial
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: proof had failed. So far, it hasn't. By September two
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: thousand and four, retrospective reporting in the Hood County News
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: distilled law enforcement's long held view Lucas and Toole were
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: never true suspects in Kathy's The focus had always been
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: on Combs, the man charged in nineteen eighty one and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: later let go when the case collapsed. Late reporter Leland
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Debusk's unpublished notes put it bluntly, the man had a
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: known history of violence and frequented the laundromat. Larry Gohen,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the chief investigator for the Hood County Sheriff's Department, called
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the crime a passion killing. The multiple stab wounds and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the hands on method fit either a personal relationship or
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: at minimum, someone who wanted one with the victim. Goen
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: added specific grounded possibilities. Kathy worked at a grocery store
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: off the Highway three seventy seven bypass and part time
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: at the laundromat. The killer may have approached her at
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: her car. He could have been waiting in the car itself.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: A knife is a quiet weapon, Goin said. He also
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: described the context. On the night Kathy was killed, Granbury
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: police were handling a major accident at Highways one, forty
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: four and fifty one, just a couple blocks east of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: CNM Laundry. The murder occurred about the time the accident
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: was clearing, meaning officers were in the area but busy,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a chaotic environment that could help an attacker avoid notice
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for crucial minutes. We felt we had the right suspect,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Gohen said. The case remains officially unsolved. The image that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: won't let go is the vacant lot, a one hundred
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and seventy foot gap between Kathy's place of work and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a place of safety. In between were seconds, footsteps and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the will of a twenty one year old woman trying
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to survive long enough to speak. She did speak, She
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: told the world what had been done to her, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: then she was gone. It's been decades. Granberry kept living.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: The laundromat kept humming for a while, but the file
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: never left the desks of detectives, and Cathy never left
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: her family's lives. Her brother asked anyone with information to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: give it now. Her mother wrote that there had been
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: no justice on this earth and prayed that hereafter the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: person responsible would pay. Police said someone had a sliver
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of truth that could connect the chain. Investigators held fast
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: even when the indictment collapsed, even after the confession killer's
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: claims came and went. If you have any information about
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the murder of Kathy Ann Stembridge, please call the Granbury
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Police Department at eight one seven five seven three two
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: six four eight. If you'd like to join Concold's mission
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to shine a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: get the show at free and have access to bonus content.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You can at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: You can also support the show by leaving a five
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.