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The Murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
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  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Tyler, Texas, nineteen eighty seven. A
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  Speaker 1: stone's throw from the East Texas Fairgrounds on the city's
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  Speaker 1: west side, inside an unassuming home, life was ordinary. Mary Hooper,
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven years old and bound to a wheelchair after
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  Speaker 1: illness and amputation, and her longtime partner, sixty two year
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  Speaker 1: old Emmett Lynch passed their evenings together the way they
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  Speaker 1: always had. A nurse stopped by often just to make
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  Speaker 1: sure Mary was all right. But on the morning of
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  Speaker 1: October seventh, that nurse didn't walk into a routine check in.
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  Speaker 1: She walked into a crime scene. Mary was slumped in
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  Speaker 1: her chair, Emmett lay beaten to death just feet away.
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  Speaker 1: There was no fourthd entry, no signs of a struggle,
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  Speaker 1: Valuables inside were untouched, and yet the couple had been
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  Speaker 1: savagely bludgeoned in their own home. The only thing missing
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  Speaker 1: was Emmett's car, and with it the first clue in
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  Speaker 1: a mystery that would stretch from East Texas all the
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  Speaker 1: way to the Arizona Desert, then into a courtroom, where
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  Speaker 1: authorities were still left with more questions than answers. In
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  Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen eighty seven, Tyler, Texas, was already
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  Speaker 1: wrestling with a rising homicide rate. By early October, police
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  Speaker 1: had recorded six killings for the year. Within the first
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  Speaker 1: week of the new fiscal year, there would be three more,
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  Speaker 1: including a double homicide that rattled a quiet neighborhood just
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  Speaker 1: off the East Texas Fairgrounds. At the center of it
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  Speaker 1: was a small duplex on the three hundred block of
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  Speaker 1: South Lyons Avenue. One side belonged to Mary Hooper, a
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven year old living with serious health problems. Despite
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  Speaker 1: her struggles, Mary was known for her strong opinions and
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  Speaker 1: her close circle of friends, especially her best friend Dorothy Denmore,
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  Speaker 1: who visited several times a week and spoke with her daily.
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  Speaker 1: Mary's unit was modest but welcoming, and her door stayed
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  Speaker 1: open to familiar faces. Mary wasn't often alone. Sixty two
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  Speaker 1: year old Emmett Lynch was a constant presence there. Emmett
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  Speaker 1: had a house in the country. He and Mary had
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  Speaker 1: lived there as husband and wife common law until her
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  Speaker 1: health problems became complicated and she needed to move to
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  Speaker 1: Tyler to be near the proper facilities. Both Mary and
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  Speaker 1: Emmett were known to drink heavily, a habit that had
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  Speaker 1: become part of their daily lives. Emmett stayed over frequently
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  Speaker 1: as he was on probation for a DWI. Recently, he'd
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  Speaker 1: bought a gray nineteen seventy seven Ford Ltd. A car
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  Speaker 1: he was proud of and fiercely protective of. His son, sister,
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  Speaker 1: and close friends said he cherished it. It was the
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  Speaker 1: kind of vehicle he would never willingly part with. Mary's health, however,
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  Speaker 1: kept her tethered. A serious illness and a leg amputation
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  Speaker 1: had left her confined to a wheelchair. Because of those
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  Speaker 1: medical needs, a visiting nurse came by on a regular
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  Speaker 1: basis checking on her care. It was routine, a safeguard
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  Speaker 1: in case anything went wrong. On the morning of Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: October seventh, nineteen eighty seven, that routine became the breaking
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  Speaker 1: point of a tragic crime story. At around eight thirty am,
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  Speaker 1: the nurse, Ramona Hale, arrived as usual at the South
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  Speaker 1: Lions duplex, expecting to find Mary at home waiting for her. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: she walked into silence and horror. Facing the front door,
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  Speaker 1: Mary Hooper was slumped and motionless in her wheelchair. Her
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  Speaker 1: head bloodied, she clutched a one dollar bill in her hand.
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  Speaker 1: What had been an ordinary check in on a patient's
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  Speaker 1: health had turned into the discovery of a double homicide,
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  Speaker 1: though the nurse didn't know it yet. Police quickly converged
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  Speaker 1: on the duplex after the nurse's call. What they found
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  Speaker 1: inside was grim but also peculiar in its details. First
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  Speaker 1: they saw Mary, then just a few steps away, they
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  Speaker 1: saw Emmett's body lying on the floor in the bathroom.
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  Speaker 1: At first, police believed and reported that the couple had
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  Speaker 1: been shot in the head with an undetermined caliber of firearm.
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  Speaker 1: The truth was just as shocking. Mary had been struck
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  Speaker 1: from behind as she sat in her wheelchair in the
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  Speaker 1: living room. The blows were fatal. Just down the hall
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  Speaker 1: in the bathroom, Emmett lay sprawled on the floor, beaten
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  Speaker 1: to death with the same or same type of blunt instrument.
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  Speaker 1: They'd been dead no longer than twenty four hours, according
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  Speaker 1: to a preliminary autopsy examination, which was conducted shortly after
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  Speaker 1: the discovery. The violence was undeniable, but the setting around
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  Speaker 1: it told a different story. The rooms were not torn apart,
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  Speaker 1: drawers weren't emptied, cushions, weren't overturned, and nothing suggest jested
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  Speaker 1: a struggle that raged from room to room. Valuables were
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  Speaker 1: still in plain sight. Firearms inside the duplex had not
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  Speaker 1: been touched. Even money small amounts kept around the house
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  Speaker 1: was left unbothered. Investigators said the interior of the residence
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  Speaker 1: was undisturbed, a word that became a touchstone in every
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  Speaker 1: news account of the case. But one thing was gone,
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  Speaker 1: Emmett's prized Ford Ltd. For police, it became the assumption
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  Speaker 1: that the killer or killers had left the duplex in
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  Speaker 1: that car. Within hours, Tyler detectives pushed out state and
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  Speaker 1: nationwide alerts. The Texas plate was listed as two nine
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  Speaker 1: one dash JLA, but officers also believed a paper dealer's
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  Speaker 1: tag number P one eight eight one seven might have
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  Speaker 1: been covering it from the start. The Tayler Police Department
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  Speaker 1: had to admit they didn't know the motive. Mary and
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  Speaker 1: Emmett had been killed in their own home brutally with
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  Speaker 1: blunt objects, but the scene didn't look like a burglary
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  Speaker 1: or theft. In fact, the duplex on South Lions offered
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  Speaker 1: no answers, and as the result, detective's theory hardened. Whoever
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  Speaker 1: killed Mary and Emmett likely knew them, and whoever left
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  Speaker 1: the house almost certainly did so. In Emmett's ford, whoever
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  Speaker 1: swung those weapons had left almost everything else behind, walking
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  Speaker 1: out the door with only a car and the weight
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  Speaker 1: of two lives taken. Days turned into weeks with no
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  Speaker 1: confirmed sighting of the vehicle. The first true break in
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  Speaker 1: the double murder case of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch
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  Speaker 1: hit far from Tyler. In Prescott, Arizona. Authorities encountered a
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  Speaker 1: gray Ford Ltd. And ran it through their system. What
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  Speaker 1: returned pointed back to Tyler, Texas and the double homicide
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  Speaker 1: on South Lyons Avenue. The people connected to the car
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  Speaker 1: in Prescott were a married couple with a familiar Texas
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  Speaker 1: address in their recent past, Terry Lee and Catherine Anne McMahon,
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  Speaker 1: thirty nine and thirty six years old, respectively, former next
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  Speaker 1: door neighbors of Emmett and Mary. After abruptly leaving town
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  Speaker 1: around the same time of the murders, the husband and
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  Speaker 1: wife had been on the radar of the Tyler police,
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  Speaker 1: who presumably couldn't find them. On October eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven,
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  Speaker 1: Prescott officers detained the couple telling them they needed to
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  Speaker 1: come to the station for questioning that they were in
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  Speaker 1: possession of an automobile that was believed stolen and the
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  Speaker 1: person who owned it had been killed. Catherine asked patrolman
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  Speaker 1: Russ Wilder who was killed, adding it wasn't Mary. Don't
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  Speaker 1: let it be Merry. She was so sweet to us.
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  Speaker 1: At first, it was the stolen car that kept the
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  Speaker 1: McMahons in custody and that got them extradited back to
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  Speaker 1: Smith County, Texas, but the charges that ultimately followed were
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  Speaker 1: far more serious. At the station, police recorded separate interviews.
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  Speaker 1: Those tapes and that car would later carry the case
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  Speaker 1: straight into a Smith County courtroom, and the contradictions were
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  Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. It would take a year and a half, however,
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  Speaker 1: before the District Attorney brought the case to a grand jury.
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  Speaker 1: In June of nineteen eighty nine. The state presented evidence
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  Speaker 1: and testimony after Terry and Catherine McMahon indicted for the
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  Speaker 1: capital murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch, and after
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  Speaker 1: almost a month of jury selection, they were also charged
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  Speaker 1: with theft for taking Emmett's car and driving it halfway
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  Speaker 1: across the country on tape. The McMahons said they were
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  Speaker 1: close friends with the deceased couple. They placed themselves at
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  Speaker 1: the South Lions Duplex on a night Emmett returned from
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  Speaker 1: a DWY class. Both said the four of them played cards.
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  Speaker 1: They told detectives someone came over to buy beer from
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  Speaker 1: Emmett and Mary. The McMahons both said the pair sold
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  Speaker 1: individual cans of beer for the inflated price of one dollar,
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  Speaker 1: a belief defense attorneys would later use to try and
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  Speaker 1: introduce alternate, though mysterious suspects. The defense referred to Mary
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  Speaker 1: and Emmett as bootleggers in their incredibly hyperbolic attempts to
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  Speaker 1: frame the couple as less than above board. No other
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  Speaker 1: testimony at the trial supported that notion. When it came
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  Speaker 1: time for the McMahons to leave Texas, they said there
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  Speaker 1: were hugs and kisses at Mary's door, then a short
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  Speaker 1: walk next door to load up for their move to Arizona.
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  Speaker 1: They insisted they hadn't stolen the ford, rather, they had
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  Speaker 1: bought it. According to both, Emmett needed three hundred dollars
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  Speaker 1: bad and agreed to take two hundred dollars down that night,
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  Speaker 1: and three one hundred dollars payments on the fifteenth of
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  Speaker 1: the next three months. It was far less than the
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  Speaker 1: one thousand, eight hundred ninety five dollars Emmett had purchased
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  Speaker 1: the car for the June prior to his and Mary's murder,
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  Speaker 1: which he still owed a substantial portion of. According to
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  Speaker 1: the McMahons, Emmett also wrote a receipt with a promise
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  Speaker 1: to mail the title in temporary plates once they were settled.
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  Speaker 1: The dealer who sold Emmett the ford had given him
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  Speaker 1: multiple paper tags because he believed the man couldn't afford
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  Speaker 1: to pay tax, title and license costs. The McMahons said
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  Speaker 1: the paperwork never arrived. All three temporary paper license plates
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  Speaker 1: were found under the sink at the McMahon's home during
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  Speaker 1: the execution of a search warrant. Terry McMahon had told
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  Speaker 1: police he'd thrown one set of them in the woods.
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  Speaker 1: That was one of the many lies they were caught telling.
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  Speaker 1: When Prescott police asked about what looked like blood on
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  Speaker 1: the car seat, Catherine said it was Emmett's chewing tobacco spit. Earlier,
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  Speaker 1: as she was being detained, she had told Officer Wilder
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  Speaker 1: that the blood had come from her husband after he
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  Speaker 1: had a fight with some Iranians with whom they'd been
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  Speaker 1: involved in a fender bender. Terry, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: floated the idea that one of their cats had bled
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  Speaker 1: in the vehicle. He also said the last time he
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  Speaker 1: drove the Ford was while moving to a new apartment,
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  Speaker 1: that the car had been in a minor accident, and
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  Speaker 1: that police warned him not to drive it because it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't licensed, so from Thanksgiving to a few days before
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  Speaker 1: they were taken into custody, he parked it in a
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  Speaker 1: nearby garage. Terry said, despite claiming ownership, the couple never
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  Speaker 1: obtained plates or registration. When prosecutors lined those statements up
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  Speaker 1: against the facts in court, critical seams showed in their
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  Speaker 1: separate tapes the two disagreed about where em It was
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  Speaker 1: when they left. Catherine said he was lying on the bed,
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  Speaker 1: Terry said he was passed out on the bathroom floor.
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  Speaker 1: Em It was found beaten to death on that floor.
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  Speaker 1: One statement from the couple mentioned picking up some kitty
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  Speaker 1: litter on their way out of town, and another talked
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  Speaker 1: about picking up a hitchhiker in Dallas, even an overnight
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  Speaker 1: stay with that hitchhiker and visit to bars. The other
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  Speaker 1: statement did not. Detectives later said they could not confirm
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  Speaker 1: the hitchhiker story, and while the McMahons described a cash
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  Speaker 1: strapped Emmett selling his car on a Monday night before
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  Speaker 1: they headed west, the record in Tyler included a recent
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  Speaker 1: car payment and testimony from people who said he prized
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  Speaker 1: the Ford Ltd. And never spoke of selling it. To
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  Speaker 1: test the portrait, the McMahon's painted good friends, a friendly
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  Speaker 1: card game a desperate sale, the state turned to someone
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  Speaker 1: who actually knew Mary's daily life and the rhythm of
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  Speaker 1: that duplex on South Lyons Avenue. Dorothy Denmore was Mary
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  Speaker 1: Hooper's closest friend. The two saw each other several times
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  Speaker 1: a week and spoke every day. If there was anyone
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  Speaker 1: who knew who came to Mary's door and who did didn't,
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  Speaker 1: it was Dorothy. From the witness stand, she contradicted the
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  Speaker 1: McMahon's point by point. She told the court she had
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  Speaker 1: never once seen Terry or Catherine visiting Mary's home. She
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  Speaker 1: said her friend didn't just keep her distance, She actually
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  Speaker 1: disliked Catherine, describing her as a white bitch who comes
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  Speaker 1: around here trying to be my friend. The picture of
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  Speaker 1: warm friendship and parting hugs did not square with what
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  Speaker 1: Dorothy observed or what Mary apparently said. In fact, in
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  Speaker 1: earlier testimony, nurse Ramona Hale remembered Catherine visiting Mary to
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  Speaker 1: use her telephone frequently, but noted that the two weren't
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  Speaker 1: exactly on friendly terms. Dorothy also fixed the timeline with
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  Speaker 1: something more than durable memory. On Tuesday, October sixth, the
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  Speaker 1: day before the bodies were found, she saw Emmett drive
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  Speaker 1: the gray Ford Ltd. Into Mary's yard at about four
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  Speaker 1: point thirty in the afternoon and go inside, just as
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  Speaker 1: he usually did. When she passed the duplex again at
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  Speaker 1: around five thirty, the car was still there. After learning
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  Speaker 1: of the double homicide the next day, she marked Tuesday
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  Speaker 1: on her calendar to anchor what she had seen. The
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  Speaker 1: detail cut directly against the McMahon's account that they bought
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  Speaker 1: the car on Monday night and left town. A couple
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  Speaker 1: of weeks before the killings. Emmett had told Dorothy that
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  Speaker 1: things were going well and that he even had some
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  Speaker 1: money set aside. To prove it, he opened up his
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  Speaker 1: car trunk to show her about three hundred dollars he
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  Speaker 1: had in a costume jewelry box. During testimony, she even
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  Speaker 1: recalled what else was in the trunk, some clothes, boots,
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  Speaker 1: a chainsaw, and a meat cleaver. In the police recordings,
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  Speaker 1: Terry McMahon and also claimed to have bought that chainsaw
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  Speaker 1: for twenty dollars to Dorothy and likely to police. The
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  Speaker 1: money Emmett had was proof he wasn't in the kind
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  Speaker 1: of bind that would force a sudden sale of the car.
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  Speaker 1: Elsewhere in the testimony, Emmett's son described how his father
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  Speaker 1: guarded that Ford had bought it that summer and had
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  Speaker 1: just made a payment on October second. Emmett was so
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  Speaker 1: protective and proud of the car, his son testified that
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  Speaker 1: he wouldn't even let him borrow it. He was only
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  Speaker 1: allowed to drive the LTD if his father was in it.
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  Speaker 1: Dorothy's account harmonized with that a proud owner not a
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  Speaker 1: desperate seller. In a case built from a quiet room,
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  Speaker 1: a missing car, and two competing stories, Dorothy Denmore supplied
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  Speaker 1: the plain facts of a friend who was there. She
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  Speaker 1: placed the Ford in the yard on Tuesday, not Monday,
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  Speaker 1: when Emmett had his DWY class, and the McMahons told
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  Speaker 1: police they last saw him and Mary. She said the
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  Speaker 1: McMahons were not regular welcome visitors. Dorothy gave the jury
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  Speaker 1: a simple counterweight to the tapes from Prescott. Whatever the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: defendants said about friendship and a hurried sale, Mary did
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  Speaker 1: not act like their friend, and Emmett did not act
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: like a man unloading his car. At trial, forensic pathologist
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  Speaker 1: doctor virgil V. Gonzales testified that the head injuries to
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  Speaker 1: Mary Cooper and Emmett Lynch had been caused by more
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  Speaker 1: than one object. Mary had been struck twice, causing skull fractures.
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  Speaker 1: She did not die immediately. The wounds were not consistent
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  Speaker 1: with a single weapon. Instead, more than one different blunt
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: instrument had been used. Three hammers became the focus of testimony,
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  Speaker 1: a claw hammer, a regular hammer, and the handle of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: a hammer the head broken off. All three were confiscated
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  Speaker 1: from the McMahon home in Arizona, where Terry and Catherine
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: were arrested. Doctor Gonzalez said Mary's injuries could be produced
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  Speaker 1: by an object like the claw hammer, and emmetts could
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: be produced by either of the other two. The victim's
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: son identified the claw hammer and the broken head hammer
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  Speaker 1: as tools his father kept around the house and in
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  Speaker 1: the trunk of his car, but he did not recognize
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the third hammer seized in Arizona. No single instrument was
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  Speaker 1: declared the murder weapon, and there was testimony that no
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: blood was found on any tool presented by the state
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  Speaker 1: or on any item except Mary's housecoat. Gruesome crime scene
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  Speaker 1: photographs were admitted when one jury became sick at lunch.
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  Speaker 1: Judge Joe Tunnell ruled the images would remain in evidence
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  Speaker 1: for jury viewing during deliberations, but would no longer be
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  Speaker 1: displayed repeatedly in open court. District Attorney Jack Skeene told
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  Speaker 1: the jury that although circumstantial, the evidence was strong enough
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  Speaker 1: to convict. He framed the Ford Ltd. As the key
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: family members had testified that Emmett cherished the car the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: October second payment reinforced that he wasn't about to sell.
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  Speaker 1: Skeene highlighted the contradiction on the Prescott tapes not as
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  Speaker 1: trivial mis remembrances, but as signs the couple simply wasn't
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  Speaker 1: telling the truth. He argued the steps taken in Arizona
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: failing to secure plates and registration, and as he described
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it living and working in a way that minimized driving.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Were choices to conceal the vehicle that tied them to
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  Speaker 1: the Tyler killings. Where Catherine placed Emmett and where Terry
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: placed him the last time they claimed to have seen
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: him were not just inconsistent. Terry's version matched where Emmett
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: was found dead. Skene's point was blunt. The car was stolen,
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  Speaker 1: The statements did not square with the facts, and the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: couple's conduct fit consciousness of guilt. During the trial, defense
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: attorney's f. R. Buck Files and John Hannah answered the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: prosecution's witnesses with a narrow, methodical attack. They argued there
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't a bit of evidence that either defendant killed anyone,
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  Speaker 1: that no conclusive murder weapon existed in evidence, and that
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the indictment should have read that a person or person's
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: unknown killed the victims with an object unknown. They pressed
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: investigative gaps. Defense attorney Hannah said the person living next
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: door at the time of the murders had never been contacted.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: He listed leeds police acknowledged but did not run down,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: describing conclusions reached too quickly. He pointed to a North
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Texas man known to police for waiting outside clubs to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: assault elderly intoxicated patrons from behind and rob them. One report,
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  Speaker 1: he said, claimed a man went into Mary's house and
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  Speaker 1: came out with blood on him. Tyler police detective Jim
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  Speaker 1: Johnson testified he interviewed that man once in a field
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  Speaker 1: and eliminated him. Informants Johnson said had been reluctant and
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  Speaker 1: tips could not be confirmed. The defense told the jury
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  Speaker 1: that detectives focused on finding the car in the first
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  Speaker 1: two months and let other work trail behind. Johnson acknowledged
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: he hadn't used the city directory to identify neighbors, and
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  Speaker 1: that the detective's time in Arizona was shortened by an
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: impending snowstorm. The defense also tried to recast certain acts
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  Speaker 1: by Terry McMahon as the opposite of flight voluntary encounters
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  Speaker 1: with police, statements to softball teammates about going to Arizona,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: even driving back toward Dallas to get gas behaviors. They
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: said that didn't match a man running from a double homicide.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: After seven days of testimony from both sides and two
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  Speaker 1: hours of closing arguments, the jury, seven men and five women,
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  Speaker 1: received the case at about one forty five pm. Judge
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  Speaker 1: Tunnel had warned sequestering would follow if no verdict came swiftly.
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  Speaker 1: Four hours later, with no decision, he sequestered the panel
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  Speaker 1: at five forty five pm to resume liberations at nine
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  Speaker 1: am the next day. The jurors carried transcripts of the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Prescott interviews, the photographs they could consult in private, the hammers,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the calendar note of Tuesday's sighting of the car in
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the yard, the car payment ledger, and two clashing narratives,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the States, which said the web the car contradictions conduct
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: held together, and the defenses, which said the web was
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: spit and glue, an illusion laid over gaps and oversights.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: After twenty two hours, the jury still couldn't agree on
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: a verdict. When the dust settled, the capital murder trial
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of Terry and Catherine McMahon ended in a mistrial on
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: June seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine. After nineteen months in jail,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: they walked out of custody, each posting a bond on
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the theft counts tied to Emmett Lynch's missing Ford Ltd.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Judge Joe Tunnell set conditions the McMahon's had to remain
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: in Smith County and check in weekly with their attorneys,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: but they were free. That freedom came at a staggering cost.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: The McMahon trial had quickly become one of the most
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: expensive capital murder cases in Smith County history. Commissioners approved
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: a four hundred thousand dollars budget amendment just to cover
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: ballooning court appointed attorney fees. Nearly one hundred and twenty
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars of that was directly linked to the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: McMahon case. Defense lawyers John Hannah and fr Buck Files
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: together were paid more than one hundred and six thousand
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: dollars more than the district attorney himself earned in a year.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Jury expenses, witness fees, expert testimony supplies, transcripts, all of
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: it piled up until the case made up nearly a
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: sixth of the county's budget for indigent defense. District Attorney
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Jack Skene vowed to retry the McMahons. He told reporters
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: his office was still investigating, still committed to taking the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: case back to court, but no date was ever set.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Thirty eight years later, that retrial never came, but it
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't for the lack of trying. Both Terry McMahon and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Katherine Anne McMahon who died as Katherine Anne Miller in
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, had telling police records. In the nineteen nineties
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and into the two thousands, Terry was convicted of several crimes.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: This included aggravated robbery, felony theft, and aggravated assault with
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a deadly weapon. Katherine saw a few felony theft charges.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: On Friday, December twentieth, two thousand and three, a hearing
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: was held for Terry, who was to be tried again
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: for the murders of Emmett and Mayor, though this time
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: separately from Catherine. Judge Jack Skene, the prosecutor of the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: original trial, had to recuse himself. Terry McMahon wasn't too
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: hard to find. He was serving time in a Texas
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: penitentiary for the assault and robbery of a man. He
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: beat this man with a hammer. Catherine was living in Seattle, Washington,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and didn't make the hearing due to an apparent miscommunication,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: but it was no matter. DNA couldn't be pulled from
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the hammers in evidence, as the bloodstains on them didn't
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: provide enough material for testing at the time. A second
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: trial never took place and the charges were ultimately dismissed.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: If you have any information about the murders of Mary
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Hooper and Emmett Lynch, please contact the Tyler Police Department
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: at nine zero three five three one one thousand. If
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: you'd like to join gon Coold's mission to shine a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get the
• 28:11
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• 28:14
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• 28:20
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• 28:22
  Speaker 1: rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold, we
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.