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Debra Mackey Part 1: Plainview Jane Doe · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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In early February of twenty fifteen, in conjunction with a nationwide initiative that
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began fifteen years earlier, Texas rangers watched as forensic anthropologists exhumed a grave at
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a plain View cemetery marked by a headstone that read only Jane Doe. The
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simple coffin several feet below the earth held the bones of a young woman whose
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identity had been a mystery for more than thirty years, and there was a
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controversy surrounding this particular unidentified set of remains. We could have more than one
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person in there, Texas Ranger Tony Arnold said, sitting in the grave intensely
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examining a human skull. Director of the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Human Identification
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Department at the University of North Texas and Denton, doctor Harold gil King,
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remarked, this is definitely a female skull. The question of whether all the
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bones within belonged to the same person was one asked long ago, but Ranger
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Arnold made it clear to reporters at the scene of the exhumation that this inquiry
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wasn't theirs to determine at the moment. Instead, Arnold insisted the priority was
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to give the young woman, one of around forty five thousand unidentified decedents in
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the United States, her name back. She was potentially a young female between
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the ages of nineteen and twenty one. Arnold told a reporter for The plain
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View, Harold, I'm thinking that's somebody's daughter out there, and they don't
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know where she went. They've had a void in their life. As he
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collected stick bags from the baby sized coffin, each holding a particular bone and
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marked accordingly. Doctor King said that the remains will be taken to Denton to
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be tested at the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas.
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DNA from both the bones and the skull will be lifted separately, then entered
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into a national database. If they don't match, King said, they'll know.
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The exhumation in twenty fifteen was the necessary first step in identifying plain View
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Jane Doe, which in turn was the crucial first step at solving a gruesome
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and brutal murderer that had long gone cold decades earlier. A series of terribly
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bizarre incidents began when the body of an unidentified woman was found in rural Hale
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County along a dirt, followed eventually by the man at the center of the
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investigation's entire career becoming called into question. The story of Plainview Jane Doe is
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rife with twists and turns at the hands of this man's incompetence, ineptitude,
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glory seeking, and downright corruption. Further confusion due to a serial confessor and
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his lawman manager, and the eventual identification of the young woman as twenty year
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old Deborah Mackey using a state of the art forensic technology decades later. It
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all started on the very first day of nineteen eighty two, in a shallow
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ditch on a dusty, rural desert road in Hale County, Texas, just
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east of Plainview. On February ninth, nineteen eighty two, an area farmer
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made a gruesome and horrific discovery the nude, badly decomposed body of a woman.
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Her hands were bound behind her back with a brawl and she was headless.
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Hale County Sheriff's Office investigators responded to the scene, and not long after,
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the body was placed in the care of doctor Ralph Erdmann of nearby Childress.
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Erdman was a respected and busy pathologist who police had come to trust and
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utilize for particularly the cases that baffled them the most. A headless body the
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Hale County Sheriff's Department knew was likely to be a tough case to crack,
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according to doctor Erdman, who performed the autopsy not long after the body was
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found, she was a white woman between the ages of eighteen and twenty five.
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She was determined by the pathologist to have never been pregnant. She died,
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doctor Erdman said as the result of the decapitation. The lungs contained aspirated
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blood, which Erdman said means she was gasping for air as her throat was
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cut. Though the Jando's body was badly decomposed, she was partially frozen,
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which preserved at least some of the woman's chances of being identified. Fingerprints of
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the woman were taken, but no match could be found. For months,
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the case of plain View Jando's identity sat cold with no leads at all.
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That changed on October second, nineteen eighty two, when hunters found a woman's
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skull in the desert beneath a cactus just north of Scottsdale, Arizona, in
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Maricopa County. The skull, or more precisely, cranium, was missing the
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mandible, but one had been found by hikers on February twenty third, nineteen
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eighty two, many months earlier, and just a few weeks after a Jane
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Doe in Hale County, Texas, was discovered missing her entire skull. This
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mandible was found around the same area, just outside Scottsdale, Arizona, as
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the cranium would later be found in the desert just northeast of where Jomax and
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Pima Rhodes intersect. The hikers quickly turned their discovery over to police. A
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single nawmark on the job bone suggested that a coyote or some other type of
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wildlife had got a hold of it at some point at the time, and
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after extensive searches in that particular desert, Sheriff's deputies found no other bones.
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But when the skull was found in October, two big city dentists and a
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University of Arizona anthropologists agreed that the two sets of bones belonged to one another.
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Several months later, now that they had a skull to go along with
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a jaw. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office moved fast. The area was once
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again swept for more bones or clues. None of either were found. It's
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awfully unusual that we didn't find more bones in the area where the head was
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found. I've never been on a case where they've just found the skull and
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nothing else, Maricopa County Sheriff's Detective Robert Barrett told the Arizona Daily Sun.
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Before asking and why just one namark jaw, Authorities there determined that whoever the
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skull belonged to had met their terrible fate around a year and a half prior
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to the discovery of the jawbone. Investigators were optimistic that the skull could be
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identified since there were several distinct characteristics, including protruding upper teeth and dental fillings
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that had been done not long before she died. Maricopa County detectives, however,
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quickly became discouraged nothing was panning out. The skull, which had been
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bleached out by the hot desert sun, had a five inch fracture near its
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base, perhaps a clue as to how the victim died and they were confident
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about the details. They were sure that the skull belonged to a small framed
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white woman aged fifteen to nineteen, probably with brown hair and a thin face.
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Newspaper reports all over Arizona read they could find no one there missing who
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matched. An Arizona Department of Public Safety investigator was asked to make a clay
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sculpture around the skull so they'd have a composite to work with. A nationwide
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bulletin featuring the composite was sent out. It was within hours that Maricopa County
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Sheriff's Department received a call from over seven hundred miles away Hale County, Texas.
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Authorities thought for sure that the skull belonged to the headless Jane Doe they'd
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found, and in no time the skull was sent to Childress, Texas,
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to be analyzed by doctor Ralph Erdman. By mid December nineteen eighty two,
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doctor Erdman had determined, with what he considered to be ninety five percent accuracy,
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that the skull found in Maricopa County, Arizona matched the body of a
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woman found outside Plainview, Texas in Hale County. Though authorities back in Arizona
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were hesitant to make a final determination. Based on that percentage of certainty,
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it was plenty for pathologist Erdman. That also meant it was good enough for
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Hale County authorities, who trusted the doctor unquestioningly, at least on the surface.
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Perhaps sparing the public the boring details of just how the determination was made,
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Erdman told reporters only that the age range and the delicate bone structure found
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in both the body and the skull were deciding factors and determining the match still,
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though they had little to go on as far as the woman's identity was
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concerned. The case was getting cold again, But when a serial confessor into
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town on loan by his confession agent Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell, things heated
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enforcement in both Maricopa County, Arizona and Hale County, Texas frantically compared the
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one hundred and twenty or so dental charts of missing women that were sent in
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from California clear across to New York to their jain doe. No matches could
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be found. Doctor Ralph Erdmann's special technique of lifting fingerprints from a body in
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a badly decomposed state produced nothing. Neither Texas nor Arizona authorities could find a
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match, nor could the FBI. We've been flooded with calls from all over.
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The pathologist remarked, there are a lot of missing women, but most
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of them are teenagers, and most of them are taller. But even as
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the case grew colder through the last days of nineteen eighty two and into the
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first months of nineteen eighty three, Hale County lawman didn't have to wait long
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for things to heat up again. Shortly after his nineteen eighty three arrest,
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Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the murder of sixty five year old widow Glenna Fay
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Biggers at her home in Petersburg, Texas, about twenty seven miles south of
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Plainview, while he and his accomplice, Otis Tool, burglarized her home.
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Lucas told Hale County Sheriff's Office investigators Glinda confronted them, Tool grabbed her from
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behind, pinning her arms behind her back, and Lucas plunged a butcher knife
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into her stomach. The serial confessed a claimed a large serving fork was also
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thrust into the sixty five year old's neck. He and Tool were in the
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home looking for guns or money. Lucas went on and made off with about
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one hundred and eighty bucks, according to Hale County detectives. A statement he
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gave police in early nineteen eighty four contained details only Glinda's killer would know.
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Tool had broken a window from inside the home. For instance, The confessing
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drifter also supposedly led lawman to the slain woman's home, showed them which bedroom
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the heinous crime took place, described the inside of the house right down to
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the Christmas tree before even getting there, and the vehicle Lucas said he and
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tool were in just so happened to match a description of a car speeding out
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of the neighborhood the night of the murder. The confession was signed, sealed,
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and delivered to the Hale County District Attorney's Office. DA ron Felte subsequently
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returned to charge against Henry Lee Lucas for the binding and decapitation of an unidentified
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woman in his jurisdiction plainview Jane Doe in a statement that could only have been
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nudged or dare I say the idea skillfully planted by investigators looking to clear a
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case off their books, whether it was a complete fabrication or they chose to
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blindly and naively look the other way. Lucas had told investigators that there was
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another victim of his in the area. He and Toole had just broken his
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underaged girlfriend out of a juvenile detention home and were on their way to California
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in a stolen car to beat the rap, Lucas said, between Abilene and
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Colorado City on approximately January twenty sixth, nineteen eighty two. Lucas continued,
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he and tool bound raped, repeatedly, stabbed and beheaded a woman after picking
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her up as she hitchhiked alongside Interstate twenty Oddis did the decapitation tool himself,
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later confessed and told authorities he did it in three separate parts. They dumped
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the body and pieces of her neck off a desolate dirt road east of Plainview.
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Lucas said she was a white woman, the confession claimed, and they
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drove all the way to Scottsdale, Arizona. Before disposing of the head.
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Lucas drew detectives a sketch of the victim. It looked authorities probably determined with
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little to no surprise, just like the facial reconstruction of Plainview Jane Doe composed
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of clay by Maricopa County, Era Zona authorities. Shortly after the skull was
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found. Although it looked like it was copied from photographs in the newspaper,
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Lucas had drawn it by memory. The investigators claimed, though the timing was
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certainly off substantially, if not incredibly, this confession piqued the interest of detectives
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investigating a case in a nearby jurisdiction. Twenty year old Elizabeth Teresa Bishop,
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who went by Terry, was last seen speaking with a couple men who are
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apparently still unidentified, just outside an Abilene nightclub called Diamond Gems off Butternut Street
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on October fourth, nineteen eighty one. The hitchhiker he picked up could have
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been Elizabeth Bishop, Lucas told authorities, which might make her and plain View
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Jane Doe one and the same. There were so many victims, he just
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couldn't be sure. Lucas likely muttered with that childlike smirk of his, the
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one he'd so often given on the many confessions that would later prove false.
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Little has been publicized about Elizabeth or her disappearance. She was about five feet
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six inches tall and thin. Her hair was brown and eyes hazel. Elizabeth
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wore blue jeans a white or beige top with multi colored stripes. The last
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time she was seen, she worked both at an auto repair shop days and
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part time nights as an adult dancer. The last night Elizabeth Bishop was seen.
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In fact, she and some friends were together at one of the clubs
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she worked for. When her friends left, she stayed behind and none of
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them ever heard from her again. Henry Lee Lucas said it was possible Elizabeth
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Teresa Bishop of Abel was the woman he and Oddas Tool had picked up hitchhiking,
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raped, stabbed, decapitated, and raped again before dumping her body in
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plain View and head in Scottsdale. In a Hale County courthouse, after both
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his confession to the murder of sixty five year old Glenda Fay Bigger's and his
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in Tool's confession to the murder of the unidentified woman there, he was charged
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and indicted for the murder of Plainview Jane Doe. More recent news reports suggest
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it was later determined that Lucas's confession was false that, along with the fact
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that the remains were still not identifiable, these articles would have you believe were
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the reasons the case involving Lucas regarding plain View Jane Doe's murder was dismissed on
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March seventeenth, nineteen eighty six. But this is simply not the case.
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In exchange for his guilty plea for the murder of sixty five year old Glenda
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Fay Biggers. On Friday February twenty third, nineteen eighty five, Hale County
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District Attorney Ron Felty dismissed the charges and indictment against Lucas for the slaying of
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Plainview Jane Doe. Although he had dropped the charges and Lucas began denying involvement
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in the case, Felti told reporters outside the court house that the case of
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the unidentified woman in his mind was cleared, meaning his office was still considering
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Henry Lee Lucas the killer. Elizabeth Bishop's dental records were obtained and did not
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match the skull that doctor Ralph Erdmann said matched the body of the Plainview,
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Texas Jane Doe. Lucas too began denying involvement in Elizabeth's case, probably at
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the direction of the Williamson County Sheriff and the serial confessor's manager, Jim Boutwell,
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after they found out there was a timing problem. Other statements he made
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conflicted with his earlier confession to the murder of Plainview Jane Doe and Elizabeth Teresa
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Bishop of Abilene there was another missing woman nearby, but because of missteps not
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at the hands of police, but rather on the forensic pathology side of things,
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she never came on the radar of investigators as associated with Hale County's unidentified
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woman. Just over a month before the body of Plainview Jane Doe was found,
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and about forty seven miles to the south in Lubbock, lived Deborah Denise
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Mackie born Deborah Denise Tarrell in Lubbock on July third, nineteen sixty one,
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to parents Clyde and Ella Marie Arrell. Her life, relatives said was far
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from normal for a time. The Terrell family lived in Martin County, the
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boundaries of which form a perfect square that encases the scant residence within, located
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about one hundred miles south of Lubbock on the north side of Interstate twenty between
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Big Spring and Midland. Less than five thousand folks made up the entirety of
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Martin County in the late sixties and seventies. Deborah has been described as happy,
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go lucky, a vibrant and a loving young spirit who got along with
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everyone she met, but had developed a wild streak at an early age,
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probably because of her difficult childhood. She became pregnant at age eleven and gave
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birth to a baby girl she helped raise as a child herself. As a
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girl close to her family, However, Deborah made it through those rough times.
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Family later recalled that she was living a fast life after the family moved
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up to Lubbock from Martin County when she was fifteen years old. In nineteen
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seventy six, Deborah Terrell married a twenty year old man named Joe Lee Mackie
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and became Deborah Mackee. Like Deborah's, Joe's life was also seemingly difficult.
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At seventeen years old, he was shot in the shoulder. The summer before
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his marriage to Deborah, Joe was arrested for burglarizing cars. The month after
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tying the knot, he was stabbed in the back after arguing with a man
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who he said he did not know, outside a house on Lubbock Avenue B.
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It's unclear if either of these assaults against Joe were adjudicated in any way,
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but the events suggest life wasn't going to be easy for the newlyweds.
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It is important to note here that we could find no criminal record for Joe
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Lee Mackie, Deborah's life, her sister later said, certainly seemed to be
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going downhill. On the last evening of nineteen eighty one, Deborah Mackey arrived
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at her mother's house on the seventeen hundred block of Avenue E in Lubbock to
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ring in New Year's Eve with her family. She was her usual self,
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the life of the party and always smiling, not because she had to,
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it was genuine. At about two am now Friday, January first, nineteen
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eighty two, however, Deborah no longer wore a smile. She had set
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her goodbyes and headed out to a waiting car, but then immediately returned.
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Something crazy just happened, she told her family. Deborah did not elaborate and
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instead left again. Moments later, according to reports, she stepped into the
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passenger side of a brown car, which drove off into the darkness of the
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night. Deborah was never seen again. The mystery of Plainview Jane Doe's true
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identity that she was twenty year old mother, sister, cousin, friend,
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and daughter Deborah Mackie, was one that took forty one years to unravel,
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and will get to just how later. But there's still another it couldn't be
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more unlikely that Henry Lee, Lucas, and Oddas's Tool are actually involved with
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Deborah's disappearance. According to Oddis Tool's landlord, Betty Goodyear, he and Lucas
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were living in one of her apartments and performing handyman type work for her in
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Jacksonville, Florida, when Deborah vanished. Statements by Goodyear also account for the
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time Lucas and Tool were supposed to have killed the woman that brought them on
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the radar for plain View, Jane Doe in the first place. But still
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serial confessor, Lucas was given a life sentence for the murder of sixty five
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year old Glenda Faye Beggars, stabbed to death with a knife in the stomach
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and fork in the neck after she caught the two drifters they said, during
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the course of a burglary, your money's safer on the bet that Lucas and
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Tool had absolutely no involvement in Glenda's brutal and senseless end. That case is
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unfortunately and most likely wrongfully, officially cleared from the books. There were also
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huge problems with Lucas being responsible for the disappearance of Elizabeth Bishop. She was
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last seen October fourth, nineteen eighty one, and Lucas was in a Cecil
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County, Maryland jail until the fifth, and was released to Florida a few
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days later by the Maryland Office of Parole and Probations, his probation transferring there.
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Unless Elizabeth Bishop quit work and was in hiding from her friends for several
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days before Lucas could have gotten to her, it seems incredibly unlikely he was
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responsible for her disappearance. Deborah Mackey's disappearance wasn't really even investigated for thirty three
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years, with literally nothing about her missing person's case in the papers or television
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news. It wasn't until twenty sixteen that her family, at the point just
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a few folks, was able to have their voices heard in a couple of
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Lubbock News articles and one who the FBI calls the United States most prolific serial
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killer a moniker once bequeathed upon Henry Lee. Lucas seems to have unaccounted for
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time and whereabouts during the period when Deborah Mackey vanished. Even if West Texas's
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sort of freelance pathologist wasn't more interested in playing detective and making unscientific determinations among
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much worse. It's difficult to imagine police and Hale County would have made the
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connection between Deborah Mackey and Plainview Jane Doe in the days before DNA science technology
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looked like what it does today, But without doctor Ralph Erdman at the helm,
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the case might have at least had a fighting chance. Next time on
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Gone Cold, The Criminal Pathologist and Samuel Little. If you have any information
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about the murder of Debra Denise Mackie, please contact the Lubbock Police Department Crime
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Line at eight zero six seven four one one thousand, or reach out to
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Metropolitan Special Crimes Unit Detective George Madregal at eight zero six seven seven five three
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