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The Murder of Sheila Renae Finch · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. October nineteen eighty nine, Waco, Texas.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: A little girl left her grandmother's house, climbed onto her
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  Speaker 1: pink and white bicycle, and pedaled. Only a few blocks away,
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  Speaker 1: she stopped at a grocery store payphone to call her
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  Speaker 1: aunt and ask for a ride to school. It was
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be a short trip, a simple phone call,
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  Speaker 1: but within twenty minutes she vanished. For two long days,
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  Speaker 1: the community searched, neighbors, police helicopters, Fields and creeks were scoured,
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  Speaker 1: Hope dimmed by the hour. The search came to an
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  Speaker 1: end in a place where Waco's nightmares too often seemed
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  Speaker 1: to converge, Lake Waco. The girl's death would spark an
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  Speaker 1: investigation filled with false leads, public outrage and arrest, and
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  Speaker 1: decade of unanswered questions. Thirty two years later, the case
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  Speaker 1: still lingers unsolved. In nineteen eighty nine, Waco was a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: city of roughly one hundred and four thousand residents, a
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  Speaker 1: working class hub rooted in its railroad, an agricultural legacy.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: South Waco was known for its modest homes and tight knit,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: predominantly Hispanic community, the kind of place where neighbors watched
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  Speaker 1: out for each other. The summer of that year had
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  Speaker 1: brought changes for the Finch family. Paul and Pamela Finch,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: working hard to support three children, moved the family to
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  Speaker 1: Fort Worth to try and find better work. But for
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  Speaker 1: their daughter, Sheila, ten years old and born and raised
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  Speaker 1: in Waco, Fort Worth didn't feel like home. She didn't
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  Speaker 1: like being away from her friends at Soul Ross Elementary.
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  Speaker 1: Most of all, she missed her grandmother, Jenny Marie Finch,
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  Speaker 1: so Paul and Pamela allowed Sheila to go back. She
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: liked the kids better in Waco, her mother remarked, it
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was hard for me, I missed her. Sheila returned to
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  Speaker 1: Waco in mid October nineteen eighty nine. She moved into
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: her grandmother's modest house at twenty eight twelve Ross Avenue,
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  Speaker 1: a small wood bungalow in the city's south side. It
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  Speaker 1: was the kind of house that fit the Finch family,
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  Speaker 1: plain and practical, the home of a working class family
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  Speaker 1: making do with what they had. Living with her grandmother again,
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  Speaker 1: and Sheila looked forward to returning to school. She had
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: her familiar neighborhood, back, her friends, and the stability she craved.
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  Speaker 1: October seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine. That Tuesday morning started out
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  Speaker 1: like so many others. Sheila woke up at her Grandma
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  Speaker 1: Jenny's house. Like other children in the neighborhood. She was
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: expected to catch the school bus, but she missed it.
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  Speaker 1: Jenny didn't drive, so she suggested her granddaughter ride her
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  Speaker 1: bike down the road to the payphone and call her
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  Speaker 1: aunt Trina to come pick her up. Knowing she needed
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  Speaker 1: to enroll for the year and not wanting to miss
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  Speaker 1: class entirely, she quickly dressed in her red sweatshirt and
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  Speaker 1: red cotton pants, grabbed her bicycle, and headed out the door.
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  Speaker 1: Her bike was pink and white, with a lavender seat
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  Speaker 1: and white tires. She climbed on it and pedaled less
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  Speaker 1: than a half a mile to the Duddon Avenue grocery
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  Speaker 1: store at twenty sixth and Dutton. There outside the store
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: was a payphone. Sheila used it to call her aunt Trina.
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  Speaker 1: The first time she called, her uncle answered. He told
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  Speaker 1: her to call back in a few minutes because Trina
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: had stepped out. Sheila waited at the phone, her bicycle
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  Speaker 1: beside her. When she called again, her aunt answered and
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  Speaker 1: agreed to come get her, but not at the store.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: She told Sheila she'd meet her at her grandma's house.
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  Speaker 1: The girl hung up, got back on her bicycle, and
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  Speaker 1: started the quick ride home. It was about eight forty
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  Speaker 1: five am. That was the last confirmed time anyone heard
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  Speaker 1: from Sheila. Roughly twenty minutes later, Aunt Trina pulled up
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  Speaker 1: at the Ross Avenue house. She expected to find Sheila waiting,
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  Speaker 1: but she wasn't there. Trina and Jenny began to search.
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  Speaker 1: They drove around the neighborhood looking for any sign of
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  Speaker 1: Sheila and the pink bicycle. They expected to see her
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  Speaker 1: peddling toward them at any moment, but they never did.
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  Speaker 1: They fanned out to further streets, too far for Sheila
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  Speaker 1: to have gone realistically, but area they needed to check nonetheless,
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  Speaker 1: block after block. However, she was nowhere to be found.
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  Speaker 1: After thirty minutes of searching, worry hardened into dread. They
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: picked up the phone and called the Waco Police Department
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  Speaker 1: to report Sheila missing. Pamela later told reporters that her
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: daughter was not the kind of child to disappear. She's
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  Speaker 1: always been told to go to the store and come
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  Speaker 1: right back. She always did. She's not in the habit
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  Speaker 1: of getting into cars with strangers. For police, to their credit,
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  Speaker 1: the situation was already serious. The search began almost immediately
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that afternoon and evening. Local authorities patrolled the streets and
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  Speaker 1: no doors. By the following morning, Wednesday, October eighteenth, the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: effort was massive. As many as twenty Waco Police officers
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  Speaker 1: scoured the city's south near Baylor University's Floyd Casey Stadium,
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  Speaker 1: which cast its shadow on Sheila's home. Through the cold
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  Speaker 1: and relentless drizzle. Patrol officers, detectives, and the department's Special
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Operations Unit joined in. Neighbors and friends of the Finch
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  Speaker 1: family came out to help. They searched the alleys, fields
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  Speaker 1: and creeks. They checked vacant houses, calling Sheila's name again
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  Speaker 1: and again. The Texas Department of Public Safety added a
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: helicopter circling low over the city, scanning open spaces from overhead.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Roy Halsell, the Waco Police Department's public information officer,
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  Speaker 1: commented that ten year old girls rarely run away. They
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: may run off for a while, he said, but they
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: don't stay away. This length of time. In this bat
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  Speaker 1: of weather, tips came in and were followed. Some said
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a car had stopped near a young girl. Others claimed
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to have seen a child on a pink bicycle in
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  Speaker 1: another part of town. Everything was followed up on, and
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  Speaker 1: none of the tips led to Sheila. By that evening,
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  Speaker 1: frustration was palpable. Sergeant Monroe Kolenski told reporters they'd checked
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: about everything they could in the neighborhood. Sergeant Kolenski personally
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: talked to forty five people that day. He said they'd
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: seen her on the TV and in the newspaper, but
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they hadn't seen her in person. Meanwhile, inside the Ross
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Avenue house, Sheila's family waited in agony. Pamela and Paul
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  Speaker 1: had rushed to Waco from Fort Worth to help in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the searches for their daughter. While speaking with reporters, Pamela
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  Speaker 1: sat still in a chair, unable to lean back. Her
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: face was drawn, her eyes blank around her. Sheila's little brothers,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Jessee four and Raymond five, played quietly on the floor.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Somber relatives sat silently on the couch listening. Pamela spoke
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: softly about how Sheila loved school. She loves math, reading
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and drawling. She can draw. I was amazed the other
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: day she was drawing ponies. She sat down and drew them.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't copy them. She can draw most pictures from herself.
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  Speaker 1: Her voice trailed off. Turning toward the doorway, she whispered,
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  Speaker 1: I'm just hoping that at any moment she'll come up.
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  Speaker 1: But she didn't. Everyone knew something was terribly wrong. A
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  Speaker 1: horrific and heartbreaking discovery soon proved them right. On Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: October nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine, the search for ten year
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  Speaker 1: old missing Waco girl Sheila Finch came to a grim
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and at around three pm, two folks going out to fish,
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  Speaker 1: a brother and a sister walked along a gravel road
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  Speaker 1: in the Spiegelville Park section of Lake Waco. They were
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: looking for a fishing spot. Instead, they found something under
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  Speaker 1: a cluster of trees about thirty feet from the road.
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  Speaker 1: It was the body of a child. They alerted a
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  Speaker 1: gate attendant, who called police. Sergeant Halsell confirmed the worst
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  Speaker 1: It was Sheila. She was still dressed in her red
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  Speaker 1: sweatshirt and red pants. Justice of the Piece Alan Mayfield
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  Speaker 1: arrived and pronounced her dead. At four forty five pm.
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  Speaker 1: She was clearly murdered and it was apparently a violent death,
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  Speaker 1: he said. The crime scene was bloody. Tire tracks and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: footprints were visible. Investigators weren't sure yet whether they were
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: connected to the killer. The Finch family was not brought
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to the site. Police confirmed Sheila's identity through photographs and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: her clothing. Later, Sheila's grandmother, Jenny, admitted the guilt she carried.
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  Speaker 1: I always had a feeling that if I hadn't told
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  Speaker 1: her to go there, then this wouldn't have happened, she said.
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  Speaker 1: But she wanted to go to school so much. Sheila's
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  Speaker 1: body was transported to Dallas for autopsy at the Southwestern
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  Speaker 1: Institute of Forensic Science. The procedure was conducted by doctor
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  Speaker 1: Charles b Odom. The results revealed staggering brutality. Sheila had
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  Speaker 1: been stabbed at least eighteen times in the chest and abdomen.
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  Speaker 1: Nine of those wounds struck vital organs. Any one of
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  Speaker 1: those could have been fatal. One wound to the liver
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  Speaker 1: was specifically noted as not characteristic of a sharp instrument.
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  Speaker 1: Another stab womb perforated the aorda just above the heart.
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  Speaker 1: Another pierced the kidney, causing internal bleeding. The other nine
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  Speaker 1: wounds penetrated only skin and muscle, but together they painted
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  Speaker 1: a picture of relentless violence. The weapon used in the
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  Speaker 1: murder appeared to be dull. The wound tracks showed tearing
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  Speaker 1: rather than clean cuts. Doctor Odom also found bruising on
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  Speaker 1: Sheila's genitalia contusions without tears. It was evidence of sexual assault.
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  Speaker 1: Her clothing bore no cuts, only small tears at the
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  Speaker 1: waistline of her shirt. Doctor Odom concluded that the killer
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  Speaker 1: likely moved or removed her clothing before stabbing her, then
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: dressed her again afterward. Evidence collected included a sexual assault kit,
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  Speaker 1: blood samples, a hare, and her clothing. Although newspapers later
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  Speaker 1: reported Sheila had been raped, the police never confirmed it publicly.
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  Speaker 1: The only other injury on her body was an abrasion
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  Speaker 1: on her right calf. All of these details remained unreleased
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  Speaker 1: for decades. On Monday, October twenty third, nineteen eighty nine,
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  Speaker 1: about two hundred mourners gathered at Waco Memorial Park to
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  Speaker 1: bury Sheila. Her casket was closed, draped in red and
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  Speaker 1: white flowers. It bore wreaths with streamers reading he Loves
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  Speaker 1: Our little Sheila and our darling niece. Pastor Daryl Waite
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  Speaker 1: of Chalk Bluff officiated under the October sun. He told
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  Speaker 1: the family, who knows what difficulty these Sheila may have
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  Speaker 1: faced as a teenager, Who knows what difficulties Sheila may
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  Speaker 1: have faced as an adult? God does not wanting her
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to suffer. He took her home. Likely the words were
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of little relief to them. When it was over, Pamela
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  Speaker 1: lingered at the casket, collecting the ribbons, dropping them and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: picking them up again. Paul carried a framed photograph of
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  Speaker 1: his daughter. A woman hugged him and said softly, she
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  Speaker 1: was beautiful. Little girls always love their daddy, don't they. Afterward,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor Waite admitted he hadn't known Sheila well. The family
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  Speaker 1: had been too shocked to share much of anything. It
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  Speaker 1: hadn't hit them yet, the pastor guest, but Sheila's death
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: had certainly hit them and the community in Waco. A
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  Speaker 1: sense of safety had been shattered. At this point. The
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six sexual assault and murder of another ten
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: year old South Waco girl, Cheryl Logan, was still unsolved.
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  Speaker 1: Within days of the discovery of her body, the Waco
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  Speaker 1: Tribune Herald ran an editorial titled Little Sheila. It detailed
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: how people throughout the Waco area shuddered to think that
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  Speaker 1: a depraved killer was among them, prowling their streets and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: watching their children. The article urged parents to remind children
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that it was right to say no to strangers, to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: run away, to tell an adult. Possibly the person or
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: persons who killed Sheila had tried to pick up other children.
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  Speaker 1: It read, maybe those children hold the clue to this mystery.
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  Speaker 1: The editorial closed with a warning, take precautions, keep children supervised,
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  Speaker 1: keep eyes open. Sergeant Roy Hausell told the press that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the department was keeping most of the information about Sheila's
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  Speaker 1: case co confidential for purposes of the investigation. Someone might
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: make an inadvertent statement that only the suspect would know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: or a nut might confess to the murder based on
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: what he had read and heard, hal Sell asserted. But
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: among investigators the conclusion was clear. Sheila had been murdered
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in an act of shocking brutality. Two days after Sheila's
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: body was found at Lake Waco, investigators recovered another piece
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: of the puzzle. Her pink and white bicycle was pulled
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: from a Creek, about two hundred yards from where her
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: body had been left at Spiegelville Park. It had been
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: deliberately hidden, shoved beneath the water to keep it from
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: being seen. For the Finch family, the bicycle had been
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: more than just transportation. It was a symbol of Sheila's independence,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: her way to get around the neighborhood she loved. Now
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it was another reminder of what had been taken. Investigators
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: treated the bicycle as critical evidence. It was sent to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Dallas County, where specialists used a new laser fingerprint technology
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to search for prints on its wet surfaces. The same
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: process was applied to Sheila's clothing. Even the smallest impression
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the faint ridges of a handprint left behind might help
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: identify a killer. The hope was slim, but the search
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: went on. Detectives knew that without physical evidence, their case
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: would always remain tenuous. The investigation trudged on until a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: witness came forward. This woman said she had been near
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the Dutton Avenue grocery store the morning Sheila vanished. She
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: described a man she believed looked suspicious. The man was slender,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: dark complexioned, possibly hispanic, about thirty five to forty years old.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Working with that description, police produced a composite sketch. The
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: sketch was printed in the local paper, broadcast on television,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and circulated among officers. Detectives hoped someone in the community
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: would recognize him, but no one came forward with a match.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Rumors rippled through Waco that other children had disappeared, that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the city faced a predator moving through its neighborhoods. Detectives
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: denied the stories and stressed that Sheila was the only
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: confirmed victim. To encourage tips, crime Stoppers offered a one
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: thousand dollar reward. Calls came in, and leads were checked,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but none broke the case. The weeks turned to months,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the months to years. Besides a crime stopper's piece that
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: ran regularly in both the Waco Tribune Herald and the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Waco Citizen newspapers. At least for a while, Sheila Finch's
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: name faded from print and disappeared from television news coverage.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But with nineteen ninety one came a break that detectives
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: believed was the big one. For almost two years, the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: investigation into the murder of ten year old Sheila Finch
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: remained stalled. Then in the summer of nineteen ninety one,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: detectives in the Special Crimes Unit believed they were finally
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: closing in. Sergeant Mike Nicoletti, head of the unit, told
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: reporters they had a very good suspect and that they
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: were close, hopefully to finally solving the case. We know
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: who he is, Nicoletti remarked, and he knows who he is.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: That suspect was Anthony Torres, a forty six year old
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: man who lived at twenty four to twenty one Girly Avenue,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a half a mile from Sheila's home and two blocks
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: from the place she was last known to be alive,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Dutton Avenue grocery store. Torres had been questioned in the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: early days of the investigation. Police had searched his house,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: taken samples of his blood and hair, and interviewed him
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: at length, but nothing solid had tied him to the crime.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: By late nineteen ninety one, detectives had accumulated new witness
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: statements and felt they had probable cause. On January twenty fourth,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, the Waco Police arrested Anthony Torres and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: charged him with capital murder in the death of Sheila Finch.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: For the Finch family. The news brought a surge of relief.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: After more than two years of waiting, They believed the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: nightmare might finally come to an end. Pamela told reporters,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I feel like Sheila can rest now. I guess the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: whole community can feel a little safer. Torres sat in
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the McLennan County jail, awaiting and examining trial that finally
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: came in March nineteen ninety two. It was then that
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: prosecutors presented their case to determine whether Torres would face trial.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: The testimony laid bare the insurmountable weakness of the case
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: against the man. The state's key witness was a woman
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: named Patsy Ledbetter. She testified that she had seen Torres
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and another man wrestling Sheila off her bicycle outside the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Dutton Avenue grocery store on the morning she vanished. Ledbetter
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: identified Torres in a photographic lineup and again in court,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: but only after being shown the composite sketch. Under questioning anyway,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: her testimony was riddled with problems. She admitted she had
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: been eighty to one hundred yards away when she saw
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the incident. In her an initial description, she said the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: man was black, Torres was Hispanic. She described him as
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: medium height and build, but Torres was only five feet
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: four inches tall and weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Another witness, Carol Cook, had also placed Torres at the scene,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: but she had not identified him in a lineup. Back
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, Waco police detective Bob Fuller testified
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that his supervisor during the initial investigation told him presenting
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: her with a lineup was unnecessary. It wasn't until two
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: years later, under hypnosis that Cook provided a description of
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: a man who resembled Torres. Cook also testified that she
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: saw this man and another man in a red pickup truck.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Police could not locate a second man, nor presumably get
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a good enough description to produce a second scale. When
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on the stand, Detective Fuller admitted that Torres's girlfriend said
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: she was with him the day Sheila Finch was abducted
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and murdered, although she later said she was lying at
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the man's request. The physical evidence was just as shaky.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Blood stains were found in the carpet of Torres's home,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: but testing showed the blood was old and could not
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: be linked to Sheila. Also a man had told Detective
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Fuller that the blood was his, as he'd been stabbed
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: by his girlfriend and had used Torres's phone to call police.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: When it was all said and done, Torres's attorney, Walter M.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Reeves Junior, called the state's case circumspect at best. He
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: pointed out that without physical evidence, the case depended almost
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: entirely on uncertain eye witness identifications. For the Finch family,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the examining trial was excruciating after ten years of waiting,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: The details laid out in court made it clear how
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: tenuous the case against Torres was still. Prosecutors pressed on,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: determined to present everything they had. A judge ruled that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Torres continue to be held on a five hundred thousand
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: dollars bond for the capital murder charge, the case prosecutors
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: said would go before a grand jury. On April twenty first,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, After hearing six hours of testimony, much
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of which was covered at the two hour examining trial,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the mcclennan County grand jury declined to indict Anthony Torres
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: without a true bill. The capital murder charge evaporated. Torres
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was released after ninety days in custody. The Finch family
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was devastated. Paul Finch, Sheila's father, expressed his anger openly.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: If I did something like that, they would give me life.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But he's just going to walk the streets. Because grand
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: jury proceedings are secret in the state of Texas, Paul
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: was unable to hear all the holes in the state's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: case with his own ears. District Attorney John Segrest explained
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that the case was too weak to prosecute. First Assistant
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: DA Crawford Long said they had presented every piece of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: evidence available, but the jury did not find probable cause.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: To investigators, Torres remained the prime suspect, but in the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: eyes of the law, he was a free man. Whether
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: he was guilty or innocent. Sheila's case once again went cold.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Anthony Torres didn't stay out of trouble for long. Later,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, he was indicted on felony drug
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: charges after police found twenty five pounds of marijuana at
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: his home and in a bell Mead motel registered to him.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, he was sentenced to five years
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: in federal prison. By the early two thousands, Torres had
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: died to police he was still considered the most likely
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: killer of Sheila Finch. For Sheila's family, the years after
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the failed indictment were marked by sorrow. Paul lived another decade,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: but in two thousand and three, he died without ever
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: seeing justice for his daughter. He was only forty eight
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: years old. Sheila's mother, Pamela, was often nowhere to be found.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: She struggled with homelessness and grief. Her grandmother, Jenny, lived
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: well into her eighties. In her home, she kept photos
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of Sheila everywhere. On one frame, she taped a small
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: prayer card that read, I think I may go out
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and see the world today, So keep me safe and sound,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I pray. In two thousand and nine, years after Sheila's murder,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Jenny reflected, I often wonder what she would look like
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: today or what she would be doing. For the Finch family,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the pain of Sheila's murder never eased. The case haunted
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: some of them until their last days and continue to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: haunt others today. In twenty twenty two, Waco police reopened
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Sheila's case with the possibility of new DNA testing. Detective
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Michael Alston, who had been assigned the cold case, explained
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: why I looked at this case and knew that there
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: was a lot of stuff there that could possibly contain
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: some DNA evidence which may lead us to a suspect. Clothing,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the bicycle, and other items collected in nineteen eighty nine
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: were resubmitted for testing at Texas Department of Public Safety labs.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Advances and forensic science meant that even with a few cells,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the smallest trace of blood or skin could be analyzed
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: for investigators. In nineteen eighty nine, the idea of identifying
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a suspect from such microscopic evidence had been impossible. By
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, it was not only possible, but it
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: was also relatively routine. Alston remained hopeful. We want to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: bring closure to the family, justice for the victim. If
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: anybody knows anything about it, if they know who the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: killer is, if they had a conversation with a killer
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and they admitted to it, I'd like to talk to them.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Though most of Sheila's immediate family had passed away, detectives
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: carried her case forward for the city of Waco. The
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: murder of ten year old Sheila Finch was not forgotten.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Sheila was a child who loved school. She loved math,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: reading and drawing on October seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, she
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: set out to call her aunt for a ride to school,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: a se ghoul filled with her friends. Minutes later, she vanished.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Her body was found two days later at Lake Waco,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: brutally stabbed eighteen times with a dull weapon. The investigation
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: led to an arrest, albeit a shaky one, but no conviction,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: but hope remains. DNA evidence, now at a technological level
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: unthinkable in nineteen eighty nine, may one day identify the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: person who took Sheila from her family and from Waco.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Until then, her story lingers the story of a little
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: girl who wanted nothing more than to get back to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: school and the violence that cut her life short. If
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you have any information about the murder of Shila Rene Finch,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: please contact the Waco Police Department at two five four
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: seven five zero seventy five hundred, or search Waco Cold
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Cases on your web browser, look for Sheila's case and
• 29:01
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• 29:07
  Speaker 1: new Patreon members for their support, So thank you Aaron
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: AA and Jennifer R for your generous support. We appreciate y'all.
• 29:18
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• 29:21
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• 29:25
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• 29:28
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• 29:34
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• 29:36
  Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,