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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Dannarriah Finley · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:49
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
0:56
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
1:00
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
1:03
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
1:07
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
1:12
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven
1:15
Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
1:19
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
1:22
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
1:26
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
1:28
Speaker 3: In the early morning hours of July fourth, two thousand
1:31
Speaker 3: and two, four year old Danaria Finley was sleeping in
1:34
Speaker 3: her bedroom at home at ten sixteen fourth Street in Orange, Texas.
1:40
Speaker 3: Orange is the easternmost city in Texas and its right
1:44
Speaker 3: across the border from Louisiana on the Sabine River. It
1:48
Speaker 3: feels like a small town. The population is only about
1:51
Speaker 3: nineteen thousand. Denaria lived with her mother, twenty six year
1:55
Speaker 3: old Jamie Arnold, and her two sisters for the July
1:59
Speaker 3: fourth holiday. Three of their young cousins were staying over
2:03
Speaker 3: with them. Denaria's father, thirty year old Johnny Edwards, lived
2:07
Speaker 3: in Sparks, Louisiana, which was about a two and a
2:09
Speaker 3: half hour drive away down the Iten Freeway. He had
2:13
Speaker 3: been planning to see his daughter on July fourth. They
2:16
Speaker 3: were planning to shoot all fireworks. Jamie came home from
2:20
Speaker 3: work that night and put the kids to bed at
2:22
Speaker 3: around one thirty am. She told police that she checked
2:26
Speaker 3: on the children at around three or four AM. When
2:30
Speaker 3: she checked on the children, everything seemed fine. At some point,
2:35
Speaker 3: Jamie went to sleep and then she woke up the
2:38
Speaker 3: next morning at around ten am. Denariu's sisters and cousins
2:42
Speaker 3: were playing at home. Denaria was gone. I'm Catherine Townsend.
2:50
Speaker 3: Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast,
2:53
Speaker 3: Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
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Speaker 3: as a small town where murder never happens. I have
3:00
Speaker 3: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
3:03
Speaker 3: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
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Speaker 3: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
3:10
Speaker 3: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
3:12
Speaker 3: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
3:14
Speaker 3: Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
3:17
Speaker 3: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
3:21
Speaker 3: one four five, or you can send us a message
3:25
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod this is Helen Gone
3:29
Speaker 3: Murder Line. Jamie later told law enforcement that when she
4:05
Speaker 3: saw Denaria was gone, she walked around the neighborhood to
4:08
Speaker 3: look for her. Then she called friends and relatives to
4:11
Speaker 3: check that Denaria wasn't with any of them, and she wasn't,
4:15
Speaker 3: so Jamie called the police to report Denaria missing. That afternoon,
4:20
Speaker 3: Orange Texas law enforcement came to the home to start
4:23
Speaker 3: their search. They wondered how a little girl who was
4:27
Speaker 3: just weeks away from her fifth birthday could go missing
4:30
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night with no one noticing.
4:33
Speaker 3: Denaria had been sharing a bedroom with five other children,
4:37
Speaker 3: and while the case is still officially active, so we
4:40
Speaker 3: have not seen the case file, police have given several
4:43
Speaker 3: interviews to the media over the years, and from their descriptions,
4:47
Speaker 3: it doesn't sound like any of the children saw anyone
4:49
Speaker 3: they didn't recognize come into the room. Denaria just disappeared.
4:55
Speaker 3: So was Danaria kidnapped? And if so, how could someone
4:59
Speaker 3: get into her room? There was a comment on an
5:03
Speaker 3: online forum about this case, and it talked about the
5:06
Speaker 3: fact that officers had looked for a potential point of
5:10
Speaker 3: entry for the kidnapper and saw that there was a
5:12
Speaker 3: broken window in Danaria's room. This person went on to
5:16
Speaker 3: say they had heard that the window's broken part was
5:19
Speaker 3: papered over with cardboard, so it looked like.
5:22
Speaker 1: It was taped up and had not been moved.
5:24
Speaker 3: Apparently, law enforcement did not believe that that window was
5:28
Speaker 3: the way that someone accessed the room. We're not sure
5:31
Speaker 3: if this is true. The comment claimed to have been
5:34
Speaker 3: from a news source, but we can't find the original
5:36
Speaker 3: newspaper article. But either way, at least from what's been
5:41
Speaker 3: made public, it doesn't seem as though any of the
5:43
Speaker 3: her children noticed anyone in that bedroom. There was never
5:47
Speaker 3: a description given of a suspect, but maybe the kidnapper
5:51
Speaker 3: never entered Deenaria's room and instead she woke up in
5:54
Speaker 3: the night and wandered around the house. There was also
5:58
Speaker 3: no sign of forced entry into the home, but the
6:02
Speaker 3: door was unlocked.
6:04
Speaker 1: Jamie told police she left.
6:06
Speaker 3: The door unlocked often because her mother, who lived nearby,
6:09
Speaker 3: would sometimes stop by the house without calling first. That way,
6:12
Speaker 3: her mom could just walk in. Another possibility was that
6:16
Speaker 3: Denaria might have woken up before anyone else in the
6:19
Speaker 3: home and went outside and that is where she was taken.
6:27
Speaker 3: According to her missing poster, the last time Danaria was seen,
6:30
Speaker 3: she had her hair and braids and was last seen
6:32
Speaker 3: wearing a white shirt with a flower on it and
6:35
Speaker 3: purple shorts. Jamie also said that her daughter was last
6:39
Speaker 3: seen barefoot. Denaria was four feet tall and weighed ninety pounds.
6:45
Speaker 3: Police launched a search for Denaria and the story was
6:48
Speaker 3: all over local news. The entire community became involved in
6:52
Speaker 3: this search. The Red Cross showed up and set up
6:55
Speaker 3: a command post in a local church parking lot. The
6:59
Speaker 3: search eventually spanned the three miles around Danaria's family home.
7:04
Speaker 3: They had canine units, helicopters, and around two hundred volunteers.
7:08
Speaker 3: Denaria's father, Johnny Edwards, also joined in the search. Police
7:13
Speaker 3: of course talked to him and pretty much immediately ruled
7:16
Speaker 3: him out. He seemed to be very cooperative, and when
7:20
Speaker 3: he heard a reward fund was being started, he offered
7:23
Speaker 3: to add the value of his car to that reward fund.
7:27
Speaker 3: Local newspaper, The Beaumont Enterprise interviewed Johnny Edwards. He told
7:31
Speaker 3: the reporter that Denaria going missing and the weight to
7:34
Speaker 3: get her back was agony, just pure agony. He also
7:39
Speaker 3: addressed the kidnapper directly. He said, quote, if someone is
7:43
Speaker 3: out there and they have her and they're scared to
7:45
Speaker 3: bring her back because of the amount of law enforcement involved,
7:48
Speaker 3: they could bring her to a Walmart or McDonald's. We
7:50
Speaker 3: don't care. We just want her back. The entire town
7:56
Speaker 3: came together to search for the missing child, and the
7:58
Speaker 3: circumstances struck terror into the hearts of the parents in town.
8:03
Speaker 3: According to media reports, some people helping with the search
8:07
Speaker 3: were able to hold on to hope because another young
8:11
Speaker 3: woman had gone missing shortly before in the same general area,
8:15
Speaker 3: and that missing young woman was found alive after sixteen days.
8:19
Speaker 3: The head of Texas Equisearch, who helped in the search
8:22
Speaker 3: for Deenaria, told KPLCTV. He acknowledged that the chances of
8:27
Speaker 3: getting Denaria back alive dropped significantly after forty eight hours,
8:32
Speaker 3: but he said that there were some exceptions, like the
8:35
Speaker 3: young woman who was being held and found alive, so
8:38
Speaker 3: the family continued to hope. Danaria love to wear pink
8:44
Speaker 3: ribbons in her hair, so someone made pink ribbons with
8:47
Speaker 3: Denaria's initials on them. Volunteers wore them during the search.
8:52
Speaker 3: Johnny Edward's mother, Wanda, was also there. During the search.
8:56
Speaker 1: She told a reporter she had not lost hope.
8:58
Speaker 3: She believed that her granddaughter was somewhere alive out there,
9:05
Speaker 3: but the searchers found no trace of Dunaria. Then, on
9:09
Speaker 3: Monday morning, at eleven am, four days after Denaria had
9:13
Speaker 3: gone missing, law enforcement called off the search, and Denaria's
9:16
Speaker 3: friends and family feared the worst. Earlier that day, shortly
9:21
Speaker 3: after eight am, on July eighth, two thousand and two,
9:24
Speaker 3: a pipeline worker was on Pleasure Island in Port Arthur
9:28
Speaker 3: and found the remains of a little girl. Words spread
9:32
Speaker 3: that a body had been found. For several agonizing hours,
9:36
Speaker 3: Denari's family did not know whether it was her or not.
9:41
Speaker 3: DNA testing later revealed a match it was Denaria. On
9:52
Speaker 3: July eighth, two thousand and two, after Danaria Finley had
9:55
Speaker 3: been missing for four days, a pipeline inspector at a
9:58
Speaker 3: work site found her body about twenty seven miles from
10:02
Speaker 3: her home in Orange. The worker told local media he
10:06
Speaker 3: was walking down a narrow path when he saw a
10:09
Speaker 3: badly decomposed body wrapped in a floral sheet. The worker
10:13
Speaker 3: said that the body was dumped in such a way
10:16
Speaker 3: that quote dredging crews would finish covering her with clay
10:20
Speaker 3: deposits end quote. The police department issued a news release
10:25
Speaker 3: in which they stated that quote, Her mostly nude and
10:29
Speaker 3: partially decomposed body was found approximately twenty seven miles away
10:33
Speaker 3: near a dredge pipeline ditch off State Highway eighty two
10:37
Speaker 3: in Port Arthur, an area known as Pleasure Island end quote.
10:43
Speaker 3: At the autopsy, the medical examiners were unable to identify
10:47
Speaker 3: an exact cause of death because of the decomposition. The
10:51
Speaker 3: body had been outside for four days in Texas summer heat,
10:54
Speaker 3: in an area where there was also wildlife like alligators.
10:59
Speaker 3: Newspaper reports stated that Denaria's remains had been ravaged by wildlife,
11:03
Speaker 3: though they didn't give specifics. They did mention the fact
11:07
Speaker 3: that an alligator was euthanized, though it's not clear if
11:09
Speaker 3: the alligator had anything to do with the remains or
11:13
Speaker 3: just happened to be nearby. But forensic testing did reveal
11:17
Speaker 3: that Danaria had been strangled and that she had been
11:20
Speaker 3: sexually assaulted. The police in Orange, Texas, and the community
11:27
Speaker 3: were left with a lot of questions. Why would the
11:29
Speaker 3: killer take Danaria there to that spot? Is it possible
11:33
Speaker 3: that the killer or killers knew the area and knew
11:36
Speaker 3: that crews were going to cover that ground? Could the
11:39
Speaker 3: location of the body dump provide any clues as to
11:42
Speaker 3: the possible identity of Naria's killer? And one of the
11:45
Speaker 3: biggest and to my mind, most obvious questions of the case.
11:49
Speaker 3: Was Denaria taken by a random stranger who saw an
11:52
Speaker 3: opportunity or was it someone who knew her and planned this.
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Speaker 1: Many of the media.
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Speaker 3: Reports quote police sources who say that they believe the
12:01
Speaker 3: kidnapper was someone known to Dnaria. In an Associated Press article,
12:05
Speaker 3: Major Steve Jones of the Orange Police Department says that
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Speaker 3: Denaria's case quote did not appear to be a stranger
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Speaker 3: abduction end quote. I wanted to take a step back
12:18
Speaker 3: to talk about some statistics around kidnapping, because child abduction
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Speaker 3: is shockingly common in the United States. In fact, according
12:27
Speaker 3: to the Child Crime Prevention and Safety Center, a child
12:30
Speaker 3: goes missing or is abducted about every forty seconds. According
12:35
Speaker 3: to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, approximately eight hundred
12:39
Speaker 3: and forty thousand people are reported missing each year, and
12:42
Speaker 3: the FBIS tomates that between eighty five and ninety percent
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Speaker 3: of these are children. About half of all of these
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Speaker 3: abductions involved family kidnapping, parental kidnapping, or parents involved in
12:53
Speaker 3: custody disputes, and in family kidnappings, a much higher percentage
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Speaker 3: of those are committed by females, and most of these
13:02
Speaker 3: children are found within.
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Speaker 1: A few hours.
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Speaker 3: Obviously, though, any time that a child goes missing under
13:08
Speaker 3: suspicious circumstances, everyone in the household has to be evaluated
13:12
Speaker 3: thoroughly by law enforcement. As I said, the police did
13:15
Speaker 3: look into Danaria's father, Johnny Edwards. Again, her parents were
13:20
Speaker 3: not together, but it seems as though just reading through
13:23
Speaker 3: all this information that they did have an amicable relationship.
13:27
Speaker 3: Johnny was cooperative and had an alibi. He was in
13:30
Speaker 3: his hometown of Stark's, Louisiana when Danaria was taken. When
13:35
Speaker 3: it comes to kidnapping statistics, there's another category called non
13:38
Speaker 3: family abductions. This category includes kidnappings committed by a quaint
13:44
Speaker 3: and strangers. Acquaintance abductions make up twenty seven percent of
13:48
Speaker 3: all child abductions. The kidnappers are often juveniles end quote.
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Speaker 3: This type of abduction has the highest number of female
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Speaker 3: and teenage victims and is often associated with other crimes
13:59
Speaker 3: such as sexual and physical assault end quote. Then they
14:03
Speaker 3: are the straight stranger abductions, where the kidnapper is completely
14:06
Speaker 3: unknown to the victim. These are the ones that get
14:09
Speaker 3: the most media attention, but actually they're the rarest kind.
14:14
Speaker 3: According to Reuter's from an article in twenty nineteen, there
14:17
Speaker 3: had only been about three hundred to three hundred and
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Speaker 3: fifty stranger abductions per year between twenty ten and twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 3: That equals much less than one percent of abductions. But
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Speaker 3: stranger abductions are also some of the most dangerous. Experts
14:33
Speaker 3: say that stranger kidnappings very often result in the victim's
14:36
Speaker 3: death within a short period of time. Three other interesting
14:40
Speaker 3: things that I didn't know about stranger kidnappings. They are
14:44
Speaker 3: much more likely to occur in the outdoors. Two when
14:48
Speaker 3: strangers kidnap, they use firearms more often than in other kidnappings.
14:52
Speaker 3: And three these type of kidnappings often result in robbing
14:56
Speaker 3: male victims and sexual assault in female victims. We don't
15:01
Speaker 3: know for sure that Danaria was taken from inside her house. Yes,
15:05
Speaker 3: the door was unlocked and Danaria's mom and the other
15:08
Speaker 3: kids were asleep, But maybe she could have wandered outside
15:11
Speaker 3: on her own and a stranger kidnapped her from her yard.
15:15
Speaker 3: People do get kidnapped from random strangers, and it only
15:19
Speaker 3: takes a second. On November thirtieth, twenty twenty two, seven
15:25
Speaker 3: year old Athena Strand disappeared from her family driveway near
15:28
Speaker 3: Fort Worth, Texas, in a town called Paradise, in broad daylight.
15:33
Speaker 3: Police caught the killer three days later. He was a
15:36
Speaker 3: FedEx driver named Tanner Horner who had been delivering Christmas presents.
15:41
Speaker 3: He claimed that he accidentally hit Athena with his deliver
15:43
Speaker 3: truck and then pulled her into the vehicle and kidnapped
15:46
Speaker 3: her and later strangled her because he was afraid that
15:49
Speaker 3: she would tell her parents about the accident. Athena's body
15:53
Speaker 3: was found three days after she disappeared in the Trinity River, about.
15:57
Speaker 1: Nine miles from her home.
15:59
Speaker 3: Police stated they believed that Athena was taken just two
16:03
Speaker 3: hundred yards from her front door and was killed within
16:06
Speaker 3: an hour from the time she was put into her kidnappers' vehicle.
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Speaker 3: This is very sadly the pattern with these types of cases.
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Speaker 3: Very often the child who is abducted by a stranger
16:18
Speaker 3: is killed within hours of their abduction. Tanner Lynn Horner
16:23
Speaker 3: was charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. He is
16:27
Speaker 3: currently awaiting trial, which as of now is set for
16:29
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, and is pleaded not guilty.
16:33
Speaker 1: If convicted, he faces the death penalty.
16:37
Speaker 3: Athena's mother, Maitland Gandy, has advocated for a new bill
16:40
Speaker 3: named after Athena that attempts to change Texas law so
16:44
Speaker 3: that amber alerts do not have any delay from the
16:47
Speaker 3: time that the child disappears to the time in which
16:50
Speaker 3: the alert can be issued locally. This might help in
16:54
Speaker 3: cases like Denarius. Having a tool that could instantly notify
16:58
Speaker 3: the local community could be a massive help in these
17:02
Speaker 3: types of cases, but Denari's case did not get much
17:06
Speaker 3: media attention. There were a few local reports about Danaria's murder,
17:10
Speaker 3: but there were no national headlines. Some people have stated
17:14
Speaker 3: over the years that they believed that because she was black,
17:17
Speaker 3: her case did not receive as much attention as cases
17:20
Speaker 3: of missing children who are white. Denaria's funeral took place
17:27
Speaker 3: at the Mountain Zion Baptist Church. The pastor told local
17:30
Speaker 3: press the funeral was so crowded they had to bring
17:33
Speaker 3: in a closed circuit TV. She was buried near her
17:37
Speaker 3: home in the Magnolia Memorial Garden in Orange. Years later,
17:42
Speaker 3: the minister of that church, C. W. Crawford, was interviewed
17:46
Speaker 3: by reporter. He said that Denaria's death had left the
17:49
Speaker 3: lasting impression on the community. He said everybody in that
17:52
Speaker 3: community still thought about her.
17:54
Speaker 1: Every Fourth of July, he said, quote.
17:57
Speaker 3: People who didn't really know Danaria were crying and shedding tears.
18:00
Speaker 3: She was one four year old kid that brought this
18:02
Speaker 3: whole community together. Detectives canvassed the area. They questioned a
18:11
Speaker 3: lot of people, including a sex offender who lived nearby.
18:15
Speaker 3: They reportedly searched his home and his truck, but they
18:19
Speaker 3: found no obvious suspects.
18:21
Speaker 1: It was also reported that law enforcement did.
18:23
Speaker 3: Do standard checks and made their way through questioning all
18:26
Speaker 3: the known sex offenders in the area, but again came
18:29
Speaker 3: up with nothing. In the early stages of the investigation,
18:34
Speaker 3: a lot of people focused on what was going on
18:36
Speaker 3: inside the home and on Danaria's mother, Jamie Arnold, because
18:40
Speaker 3: there was a lot that was not known, or if
18:42
Speaker 3: it was known, it was made public, like who was
18:45
Speaker 3: watching Denari and the other children that night while her
18:48
Speaker 3: mom worked, what other family lived in the area, who
18:51
Speaker 3: the neighbors were. On August twenty third, two thousand and two,
18:56
Speaker 3: The Orange Leader reported that the FBI showed up at
18:59
Speaker 3: Denaria's family home and took some items from the house,
19:02
Speaker 3: including a Teddy Bear. Police questioned Jamie, and it was
19:06
Speaker 3: reported at the time there was an open CPS investigation
19:09
Speaker 3: against her before Denaria disappeared.
19:13
Speaker 1: We looked through court records.
19:14
Speaker 3: And found online references to those cases cases in which
19:18
Speaker 3: Jamie was being investigated for neglectful supervision. A local newspaper
19:23
Speaker 3: spoke to someone from CPS who confirmed that there was
19:26
Speaker 3: an active investigation into Jamie at the time of Denaria's death,
19:30
Speaker 3: and that another case was opened after her death. However,
19:34
Speaker 3: one case was dismissed in December of two thousand and four,
19:37
Speaker 3: and it appears the rest were also dismissed.
19:39
Speaker 1: At some point. It was reported that Jamie had admitted.
19:43
Speaker 3: To CPS she had used some drugs at some point
19:45
Speaker 3: in the past, but she claimed that at the time
19:48
Speaker 3: when Danaria disappeared, she was not using drugs, and obviously
19:53
Speaker 3: neither drug use nor CPS allegations, even if they are
19:56
Speaker 3: found to be valid, which these were not, do not
19:59
Speaker 3: indicate that this mother had any role in her daughter's disappearance.
20:03
Speaker 3: In late July two thousand and three, Jamie spoke to
20:06
Speaker 3: a local news station KPLC about the rumors that she
20:10
Speaker 3: said were going around the community, rumors.
20:12
Speaker 1: That she said had hurt her. She said that she.
20:15
Speaker 3: Had been hearing criticisms of her parenting since Denaria's murder.
20:20
Speaker 3: A year after denarius murder, Jamie said that her two
20:23
Speaker 3: other daughters, who were seven and nine years old at
20:26
Speaker 3: that time, had been taken into foster care. She told
20:30
Speaker 3: a reporter that because of what she called the terrible
20:33
Speaker 3: things people had told officials after denarius murder, she was
20:37
Speaker 3: terrified that she might lose custody of her other two children,
20:40
Speaker 3: and in that interview, she said people were suspicions of
20:44
Speaker 3: her because of that three hours between Denaria going missing
20:48
Speaker 3: and her reporting it to the police. She reiterated the
20:52
Speaker 3: delay was because she was looking around the neighborhood for Denaria,
20:55
Speaker 3: thinking Denaria might be with a friend or relative. Jamie
20:59
Speaker 3: said that she believes people would be suspicious of her
21:02
Speaker 3: unless and until either the murder was solved or police
21:07
Speaker 3: officially cleared her as a suspect, which she said had
21:10
Speaker 3: not happened. Detectives collected evidence, including DNA from Danaria's clothes,
21:16
Speaker 3: and reportedly they took DNA and hair samples from potential
21:20
Speaker 3: people of interest, but since this is still an open investigation,
21:25
Speaker 3: they've made references over the years to DNA, but they
21:27
Speaker 3: haven't specified exactly what they were testing or what the
21:31
Speaker 3: results were. In February of two thousand and four, there
21:37
Speaker 3: appeared to be a break in the case when Orange
21:39
Speaker 3: Police Chief Sam Cattrell stated at a press conference, quote,
21:43
Speaker 3: we believe we know who did it. In February of
21:57
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, the Orange Police Chief Sam Catroll,
22:01
Speaker 3: indicated that the police department had figured out who killed
22:04
Speaker 3: Denaria Fenley. At the time, local media reported that quote.
22:09
Speaker 3: Police sources stated that evidence and herefogical charts from the
22:12
Speaker 3: police department indicate a possible suspect lived or had been
22:16
Speaker 3: staying within a few miles from denarius Fourth Street home
22:20
Speaker 3: at the time of the crime.
22:21
Speaker 1: End quote.
22:23
Speaker 3: But then there was no other public announcement. No suspect
22:27
Speaker 3: was identified no one was arrested or charged. It was
22:29
Speaker 3: reported that the case was sent to the Orange County
22:32
Speaker 3: District Attorney's office, but then nothing happened. One newspaper article
22:37
Speaker 3: quoted a police source who said that the killer was
22:40
Speaker 3: unsophisticated and made a lot of mistakes, but that he
22:43
Speaker 3: had a lot of help from the environment. I believe
22:46
Speaker 3: he was referring to the fact that the decomposition made
22:49
Speaker 3: the forensic testing challenging. Little evidence could be recovered from
22:53
Speaker 3: her body. Months and then years went by. In twenty fourteen,
23:00
Speaker 3: according to media reports, the police in Orange resubmitted some
23:04
Speaker 3: DNA to the FBI, but they received no matches. Mark
23:08
Speaker 3: Blynton was the assistant chief of the Orange Police Department
23:11
Speaker 3: at the time. He talked to a local newspaper on
23:14
Speaker 3: the twentieth anniversary of the case in twenty twenty two.
23:18
Speaker 3: At that time, he said he still believed that the
23:20
Speaker 3: case was solvable. Another detective from the Orange Police Department,
23:25
Speaker 3: Nick Medeena, was also quoted. He said that police were
23:29
Speaker 3: quote waiting on new technology or new investigative measures that
23:33
Speaker 3: may assist in the investigation, which in my opinion.
23:37
Speaker 1: Is pretty vague. So what did the police have.
23:40
Speaker 3: In evidence and is there anything that can be done
23:43
Speaker 3: to to retest evidence including Denario's clothing. Police have said
23:48
Speaker 3: they do have some evidence, including some DNA and some
23:52
Speaker 3: fiber samples. There is also the sheet, the one that
23:55
Speaker 3: Denario was found wrapped in. It was made by Spring
23:59
Speaker 3: Made and presumably did not come out of her home.
24:02
Speaker 3: The sheet is a flower pattern that is pink, yellow,
24:05
Speaker 3: and white.
24:05
Speaker 1: It looks like a million other sheets out there.
24:09
Speaker 3: Police followed up leads on that sheet to see if
24:11
Speaker 3: they could narrow down who might have purchased it, but
24:14
Speaker 3: unfortunately the pattern had been made by Spring Maids several
24:17
Speaker 3: years earlier. There were a lot of those sheets sold,
24:20
Speaker 3: so there was no way to track it down. The
24:23
Speaker 3: sheet was also decayed when it was found. Police released
24:27
Speaker 3: details publicly on the sheet, including a photo. We're going
24:30
Speaker 3: to be posting photos of that sheet and of Denaria's
24:33
Speaker 3: clothing on Instagram at helen gonpod. Over the years, police
24:39
Speaker 3: have released some other information publicly. They have confirmed to
24:43
Speaker 3: Daria was sexually assaulted by male abductor. They've compared hair
24:47
Speaker 3: follicles and DNA on area sex offenders to their evidence,
24:50
Speaker 3: but they've gotten no matches. Police have hinted at having
24:54
Speaker 3: other DNA evidence, but they haven't specifically said what that
24:58
Speaker 3: evidence might be. We do know they took a look
25:01
Speaker 3: at a garbage can in the home and removed the
25:03
Speaker 3: entire can, and other than that, there have.
25:06
Speaker 1: Not been many public details.
25:09
Speaker 3: We have not received responses to our foyer request yet,
25:13
Speaker 3: but honestly, I'm expecting it to be denied because this
25:16
Speaker 3: is still technically an open investigation. A local news station
25:21
Speaker 3: quoted Captain Robert Enman from the Orange Police Department. He
25:25
Speaker 3: was the patrol captain on duty when Denaria's missing person's
25:29
Speaker 3: call came in. He said, quote, this investigation has never
25:33
Speaker 3: been closed end quote. He made a couple of comments
25:37
Speaker 3: about DNA too. He said over the years, police had
25:40
Speaker 3: sent out DNA from Dannaria's crime scene to private lab
25:44
Speaker 3: as well as presumably.
25:45
Speaker 1: The FBI labs.
25:47
Speaker 3: He also said he hoped the DNA could someday be
25:50
Speaker 3: extracted from the bed sheet that Denaria's body was found
25:53
Speaker 3: wrapped in. He said he hoped the DNA would help
25:57
Speaker 3: them narrow down potential people of interests, and he also
26:00
Speaker 3: specifically said that the Orange Police Department would be interviewing
26:03
Speaker 3: new people in the next couple months, but that was
26:07
Speaker 3: back in twenty twenty one, and four years later, there
26:10
Speaker 3: have been no significant updates. So what needs to happen
26:18
Speaker 3: next and is there anything we can learn from other
26:20
Speaker 3: homicide cases that have been solved in the same region,
26:24
Speaker 3: Because there are other cold cases that DNA advances have helped.
26:28
Speaker 3: Some have been solved years or even decades later. On
26:32
Speaker 3: October fifth, nineteen eighty eight, thirty six year old Patricia
26:35
Speaker 3: and Jacobs, a married mother of three, went out for
26:38
Speaker 3: a night at the Silver Spur nightclub, but she never
26:41
Speaker 3: came home, and her husband, to whom she was seemingly
26:44
Speaker 3: happily married, reported her missing to the Harden County Sheriff's Office.
26:49
Speaker 3: The next day, Patricia's body was found in the Netchez
26:52
Speaker 3: River under the Rainbow Bridge in Port Arthur. A month later,
26:57
Speaker 3: other items were found under a bridge, including Patricia's driver's license.
27:01
Speaker 3: Patricia's autopsy revealed that her cause of death was drowning,
27:04
Speaker 3: but before she drowned, someone had inflicted trauma to her
27:08
Speaker 3: head and face. The manner of death was ruled a homicide.
27:12
Speaker 3: Over the years, the Harden County Sheriff's Office and the
27:15
Speaker 3: Port Arthur Police Department and the Texas Rangers all joined
27:19
Speaker 3: in the investigation, and eventually they found a suspect. His
27:24
Speaker 3: name was Daniel McGinnis and he was twenty nine years
27:26
Speaker 3: old at the time of the murder. In October of
27:29
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, one of Patricia's family members contacted the Texas Rangers.
27:34
Speaker 3: They wanted an update, and the Texas Rangers and the
27:37
Speaker 3: Port Arthur Police Department at that time resubmitted some of
27:41
Speaker 3: Patricia's clothing from modern DNA testing, testing that they said
27:44
Speaker 3: was not available at the time of the murder. The
27:46
Speaker 3: items were entered into cotis and they found a match.
27:50
Speaker 3: The DNA on Patricia's clothing from the crime scene was
27:53
Speaker 3: a match to the suspect, Daniel McGinnis. On August twenty seventh,
27:56
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, Daniel McGinnis was arrested and charged with Patricia's murder.
28:02
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, he was convicted and given a
28:05
Speaker 3: twenty year sentence. Daniel was also given a one hundred
28:09
Speaker 3: and ninety nine year sentence on unrelated drugs and weapons charges.
28:13
Speaker 3: This never would have happened if a family member had
28:16
Speaker 3: not reached out and asked that the case be reopened
28:19
Speaker 3: and if police had not taken another look at the
28:22
Speaker 3: cold case. One of the most terrifying things about this
28:26
Speaker 3: case is that, according to a twenty twenty two media report,
28:29
Speaker 3: police suspected Daniel after they believed he was involved in
28:32
Speaker 3: assault against two other women, but apparently they couldn't get
28:37
Speaker 3: enough evidence to convict him. Besides, DNA, could the location
28:42
Speaker 3: where Denari's body was dumped provide a clue. Mark Blanton,
28:47
Speaker 3: the assistant police chief in Port Arthur in two thousand
28:50
Speaker 3: and two, told a news station that there was not
28:52
Speaker 3: much DNA left at the actual crime scene. He also
28:56
Speaker 3: mentioned the fact that a nearby alligator was euthanized. That
29:00
Speaker 3: had me wondering if someone chose that spot because of
29:03
Speaker 3: its proximity to wildlife or to alligators, or maybe it
29:08
Speaker 3: was someone who had knowledge of the construction work going
29:10
Speaker 3: on there and thought that her body would be covered
29:13
Speaker 3: by the ongoing work. Police have said that they believe
29:17
Speaker 3: that there was more than one person involved in the abduction.
29:21
Speaker 3: They made comments over the years about them believing that
29:24
Speaker 3: the killer told someone else about it or possibly had
29:27
Speaker 3: a guilty conscience. Brandon Bess, a Texas Ranger investigator, was
29:32
Speaker 3: quoted as saying, quote, they did not keep this a
29:35
Speaker 3: total secret.
29:37
Speaker 1: We believe multiple people at least.
29:39
Speaker 3: Know about this, and that there's somebody out there who
29:41
Speaker 3: can bring us that little piece of information, and that
29:44
Speaker 3: you know, they may not think it's important, but it is.
29:51
Speaker 3: Danaria's mother and the rest of her family continued to
29:54
Speaker 3: hope for answers and for justice. The city of Orange
29:58
Speaker 3: saw some hard times over the years. The city was
30:01
Speaker 3: heavily damaged by Hurricane Ike, which hit in September of
30:05
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight.
30:06
Speaker 1: Three people were killed in.
30:07
Speaker 3: That storm, and then the town got hit again in
30:10
Speaker 3: August of twenty seventeen when Hurricane Harvey ravaged the community.
30:16
Speaker 3: Deanaria's home in the one thousand block of Fourth Street,
30:19
Speaker 3: where Danaria lived with her mother and sisters, was destroyed
30:22
Speaker 3: by Hurricane Rita in two thousand and five, and the
30:25
Speaker 3: entire block was torn down in twenty twenty two. Several
30:29
Speaker 3: local newspapers did follow up stories about the case. There
30:32
Speaker 3: was already a three thousand dollars reward on the Texas
30:35
Speaker 3: Rangers Cold Case website, and the Texas Department of Public
30:39
Speaker 3: Safety increased the reward for any information on Danaria's murder
30:43
Speaker 3: to six thousand dollars, but so far there have been
30:48
Speaker 3: no significant tips. The Orange Chief of Police, Sam Cattrell,
30:52
Speaker 3: after he retired, told a local news station that the
30:56
Speaker 3: memory of Danaria's homicide and sexual assault had always stayed
31:00
Speaker 3: with him. He said, quote, it was a four year
31:02
Speaker 3: old child, the circumstances in which he was found down
31:05
Speaker 3: on the island, and what that little girl had to
31:07
Speaker 3: have gone through. I felt terrible about it in every sense,
31:10
Speaker 3: not just then. This is the one case that was
31:13
Speaker 3: unsolved that still haunts me. That's the part that carries on,
31:17
Speaker 3: even speaking from a retired perspective. It has not been
31:20
Speaker 3: forgotten end quote.
31:25
Speaker 1: So what are we left with here?
31:27
Speaker 3: What clues can we take away from what law enforcement
31:29
Speaker 3: has said over the years. I keep going back to
31:32
Speaker 3: the twenty eighteen interview when officers from the Orange Police
31:36
Speaker 3: Department told twelve News Now they believed that the suspect
31:41
Speaker 3: knew Denaria and planned the kidnapping. They described the suspect
31:45
Speaker 3: as someone who lived locally and as a quote calculated
31:49
Speaker 3: killer who carefully planned Nary's kidnapping end quote. They talked
31:54
Speaker 3: about how they were transferring a lot of the old
31:56
Speaker 3: evidence to digital They said they had a stack of
31:58
Speaker 3: old BHS tapes. They talked about how they had a
32:01
Speaker 3: lot of evidence, but they were still missing that one
32:03
Speaker 3: crucial piece that they believed could lead to an arrest.
32:07
Speaker 3: According to METI reports, police remained focused on the same
32:11
Speaker 3: person of interest they were focused on back in two
32:13
Speaker 3: thousand and two, and presumably the same one they didn't
32:16
Speaker 3: have enough evidence to charge in two thousand and four.
32:19
Speaker 1: But we have no idea who that is.
32:22
Speaker 3: I look back at something that Captain Robert Mman said
32:25
Speaker 3: after he retired. He said, quote, bad guys talk. Someone
32:30
Speaker 3: out there knows something, someone out there heard someone mention something,
32:34
Speaker 3: even if it's just hey, I remember that case and
32:37
Speaker 3: so and so said something about it. Anything like that,
32:40
Speaker 3: call us end quote. Even after the horrific experience of
32:47
Speaker 3: losing her child, Denaria's mother, Jamie continues to speak out
32:52
Speaker 3: to local media about Deenaria, about her grief and her pain,
32:55
Speaker 3: but also her hope that someday someone will give police
32:59
Speaker 3: a piece of information that could help bring Danaria's killer
33:02
Speaker 3: to justice. Jamie did an interview with a local news
33:06
Speaker 3: station in twenty twenty two in which she talked about
33:10
Speaker 3: how grateful she was for all of the help from
33:12
Speaker 3: the community. She also said she hoped in some small
33:15
Speaker 3: way that Denaria's death could bring the community together. This
33:20
Speaker 3: is still an open case. There is a crime Stoppers
33:23
Speaker 3: reward that is still active. There is also a reward
33:26
Speaker 3: for the State of Texas. Crime Stoppers number is four
33:29
Speaker 3: oh nine eight three three tips tips. Anyone with information
33:35
Speaker 3: about the case can also contact the Orange Texas Police
33:39
Speaker 3: Department directly. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
33:46
Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
33:49
Speaker 3: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
33:52
Speaker 3: Catherine Townsend and.
33:53
Speaker 1: Produced by Gabby Watts.
33:55
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and
33:59
Speaker 3: to James Wheaton for legal review. Our theme song is
34:02
Speaker 3: by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
34:06
Speaker 3: and L. C.
34:06
Speaker 1: Crowley.
34:07
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 3: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
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Speaker 3: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
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Speaker 3: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
34:21
Speaker 3: If you have a case you'd like me and my
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Speaker 3: team to look into, you can reach out to us
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