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The Vanishing of Christine Starrine Byrd · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:04
Speaker 1: Killers don't just take lives, They reshape everything they left behind.
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Speaker 1: A quiet back road, a busy stretch of highway, a
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Speaker 1: house that once felt safe now a shrine to everything
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Speaker 1: that went wrong. Across Texas, deserts, fields and bayous keep
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Speaker 1: their secrets buried, but not forever. From the creators of
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Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Comes of Hell Texas True Crime, a podcast
0:31
Speaker 1: about the state's most depraved killers and the scars they
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Speaker 1: left on every town, every family, every mile marker they touched.
0:41
Speaker 1: Stories that ask one burning question, were there more victims?
0:46
Speaker 1: Some folks aren't just from Hell, they'reo it. Of Hell
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Speaker 1: Texas True Crime coming soon. Subscribe wherever you listen to
0:56
Speaker 1: podcasts Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
1:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. In nineteen ninety two, Tyler, Texas,
1:36
Speaker 1: sat somewhere between a town and a city, still small
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Speaker 1: enough for neighbors to know each other by name, but
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Speaker 1: also big enough for strangers to slip through unnoticed. The
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Speaker 1: rose fields that had once earned it the name the
1:50
Speaker 1: Rose Capital of America were disappearing for decades. The flat
1:55
Speaker 1: stretches south of town along Old Jacksonville Highway, Bullard Road,
2:00
Speaker 1: and Shiloh had been lined with neat rows of grafted
2:04
Speaker 1: rose bushes, tended by families who'd made their living in
2:08
Speaker 1: the nursery trade since the nineteen thirties. By the early nineties,
2:13
Speaker 1: many of those growers had closed or sold out. The
2:17
Speaker 1: town still held its annual rose festival each October, with
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Speaker 1: its floats, gowns, and rose covered crowns, but it all
2:25
Speaker 1: felt more like tradition than livelihood. The big nurseries had
2:30
Speaker 1: scaled back, hit first by rising land values and later
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Speaker 1: by drought, and the old farm land was giving way
2:37
Speaker 1: to subdivisions, small auto shops and warehouses. The oil bust
2:43
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighties had left its mark. II. Tyler
2:46
Speaker 1: had never been a boomtown like Odessa or Midland, but
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Speaker 1: the oil and gas fields that stretched through East Texas
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Speaker 1: had sustained whole families for generations. When prices collapsed, those
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Speaker 1: jobs vanished. Men who'd spent their lives in coveralls and
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Speaker 1: steel toed boots came home without paychecks, and the small
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Speaker 1: businesses that depended on oil field money folded behind them.
3:14
Speaker 1: Nearing the end of the twentieth century, the city was
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Speaker 1: still trying to recover pawnshops dotted Broadway, old strip malls
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Speaker 1: sat half empty, and the promise of easy money through drugs,
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Speaker 1: hustling or petty crime started to look like the only
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Speaker 1: promise some people had left. The news in the spring
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Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety two carried a steady rhythm of unease,
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Speaker 1: break ins, small time hustles, bar brawls. The Butler College
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Speaker 1: community had grown up around the campus of a historically
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Speaker 1: black institution founded in nineteen oh five as East Texas Academy.
3:54
Speaker 1: It became Butler College in nineteen twenty four, and later
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Speaker 1: Butler College and Seminary. Even after the school closed in
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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, the neighborhood kept its name and its pride.
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Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety two, it was a close knit part
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Speaker 1: of West Tyler, older homes, small churches, generations of family
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Speaker 1: who knew every street corner, But like much of the city,
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Speaker 1: it was feeling the strain. Tyler's homicide rate stayed modest,
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Speaker 1: but crack cocaine had taken root, and the police force
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Speaker 1: was stretched thin, juggling narcotics cases and domestic disturbance calls
4:34
Speaker 1: that seemed to multiply every week. On the western edge
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Speaker 1: of town sat Pineburr Road, a narrow strip shaded by
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Speaker 1: pines and oaks. Houses there were close together but modest,
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Speaker 1: each with its own patch of yard and clothesline. People
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Speaker 1: kept to themselves, not out of coldness, but out of caution.
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Speaker 1: Doors stayed locked, blinds half drawn. Everyone knew that the
5:01
Speaker 1: wrong car turning into the neighborhood could mean trouble. At
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Speaker 1: the twenty four hundred block of West Pineburg Road in
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Speaker 1: West Tyler lived forty two year old Christine Starene Bird
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Speaker 1: born July sixteenth, nineteen forty nine, in Tyler, to Ernest
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Speaker 1: Joe Wade and Staris Burger Wade. To everyone who knew her,
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Speaker 1: she was simply Starrene, a devoted mother of four, a
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Speaker 1: lifelong East Texan, and the kind of woman whose warmth
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Speaker 1: filled a room before she even spoke. Her faith ran deep,
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Speaker 1: her laughter carried, and she was almost always singing. She
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Speaker 1: kept a tidy home, worked hard, and doated on her
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Speaker 1: two daughters, Shalina and Shalitha. In photographs, her shoulder length
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Speaker 1: hair framed a radiant smile that never seemed forced. Her
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Speaker 1: daughters remembered her as gentle but firm, the sword of
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Speaker 1: mother who double checked the locks, kept a watchful eye
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Speaker 1: on her girls, and always made sure to be home
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Speaker 1: before dark. On Friday May twenty second, nineteen ninety two,
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Speaker 1: Starrene spent most of the day with Shalina, enjoying some
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Speaker 1: mother daughter time. Shalina later remembered her mother as light
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Speaker 1: hearted that day, relaxed, cheerful, and in good spirits. There
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Speaker 1: was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong. The next morning,
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Speaker 1: a family friend who lived near the Saint Louis Special
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Speaker 1: Education School on Walton Drive, caught sight of Starrene riding
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Speaker 1: in a gray car with a man she didn't recognize.
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Speaker 1: It struck her as odd, but the moment passed quickly.
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Speaker 1: That fleeting glimpse would become the last confirmed sighting of
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Speaker 1: Starrene alive. Later, it would be documented that Starrene had
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Speaker 1: been wearing a yellow shirt, blue denim shorts, and roughly
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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars worth of jewelry, a diamond encrusted bracelet,
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Speaker 1: two diamond rings, and a diamond pen. When Selena returned
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Speaker 1: to her mother's house that Sunday, the scene waiting for
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Speaker 1: her didn't make sense. The front door stood open, several
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Speaker 1: windows were raised, and food was still cooking on the
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Speaker 1: stove long past the point it should have been. Laundry
7:27
Speaker 1: swayed quietly on the line in the backyard. It was
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Speaker 1: as if time itself had stopped. Mid afternoon, inside, the
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Speaker 1: family's cat and dog waited, hungry and restless. Selena felt
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Speaker 1: it immediately, a kind of unease that settles deep into
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Speaker 1: her chest when something that was supposed to be ordinary
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Speaker 1: is anything. But her mother never left food unattended, never
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Speaker 1: left doors unlocked, and never went anywhere without checking on
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Speaker 1: the animals. First Starreen worried about safety, especially in that neighborhood.
8:04
Speaker 1: The open door, the forgotten chores, the absence, none of
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Speaker 1: it fit. Near the entryway, Selena noticed a small dent
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Speaker 1: in the wood, as if someone had struck it with
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Speaker 1: a fist or a hard object. She tried to reason
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Speaker 1: with herself, maybe her mother had gone to visit a friend,
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Speaker 1: maybe she'd just stepped out for a bit. But as
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Speaker 1: the hours passed and the house stayed quiet, hope began
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Speaker 1: to feel heavier than fear. Selena kept returning over the
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Speaker 1: next day, each time expecting to see lights on or
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Speaker 1: hear her mother's voice, but nothing changed. As the days
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Speaker 1: went on, that fragile hope began to unravel. Starren wasn't
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Speaker 1: answering the phone, and she hadn't shown up at work
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Speaker 1: or stopped by any of her friend's houses. On Wednesday,
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Speaker 1: Shalina went to the Tyler Police Department and filed an
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Speaker 1: official missing person report. The case landed on the desk
9:08
Speaker 1: of Detective Bill Horton under the supervision of Lieutenant Charles Chandler.
9:14
Speaker 1: Chandler later told reporters that foul play was suspected from
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Speaker 1: the beginning, but there was no solid proof that Staarren
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Speaker 1: had been attacked or abducted. That evening, the first notices
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Speaker 1: went out to local media, describing her as a forty
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Speaker 1: two year old black female, about five foot two, one
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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty pounds, with shoulder lengthd hair and brown eyes.
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Speaker 1: For several days, the investigations stayed small. Police checked with neighbors,
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Speaker 1: family members, and local hospitals. There were no credit card transactions,
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Speaker 1: no bank account activity, and no sightings. Then around two
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Speaker 1: thirty pm one afternoon, Shalna Wade picked up the phone
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Speaker 1: to a man's voice. He said her mother's body could
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Speaker 1: be found at Bellwood Lake, then hung up without giving
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Speaker 1: his name. Lake Bellwood sits just west of Tyler's city limits,
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Speaker 1: a shallow, man made reservoir on Indian Creek, ringed by
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Speaker 1: pine and oak trees, cattails, and red East Texas clay.
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Speaker 1: It covers roughly one hundred and sixty acres, fed by
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Speaker 1: creeks running down from higher ground north of Highway sixty four.
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Speaker 1: Deputies and divers described the area as heavily wooded, thick
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Speaker 1: with brush and fallen trees. Along the shoreline, locals fished
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Speaker 1: for bass and catfish there by day. The murky water
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Speaker 1: made it an ideal place to hide something or some one.
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Speaker 1: The call was enough to set a full scale search
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Speaker 1: in motion. By three o'clock, Tyler Police, the Smith County
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Speaker 1: Sheriff's Mounted Search team, and the Lake Patrol Unit had
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Speaker 1: converged on the body of water. East Texas Medical Center's
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Speaker 1: Air one helicopter circled overhead, scanning the tree line and
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Speaker 1: shoreline as deputies moved through the brush on horseback. Starrene's
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Speaker 1: family came out to watch the search unfold from the roadside.
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Speaker 1: They waded through the evening as officers combed the woods,
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Speaker 1: the lake's edge, and the trails leading back toward town,
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Speaker 1: but as darkness fell around nine thirty PM, nothing had
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Speaker 1: been found. Crews suspended operations until the following morning. A
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Speaker 1: week after forty two year old Starrene Bird vanished on
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Speaker 1: Saturday May thirtieth, nineteen ninety two, and the day following
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Speaker 1: an ominous call that claimed she could be found at
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Speaker 1: Bellwood Lake, a search had grown into a large scale operation.
12:10
Speaker 1: After more than twenty hours of continuous effort, the Sheriff's
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Speaker 1: Department deployed its mobile command center while Sergeant Greg Binkley
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Speaker 1: oversaw teams working the area around the lake. Divers stood by,
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Speaker 1: ready to enter the water if needed. By early afternoon,
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Speaker 1: with no results and no new evidence to guide them,
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Speaker 1: Binkley ended the active search, returning the investigation to its
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Speaker 1: earlier status until fresh information surfaced. Searchers on land came
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Speaker 1: across a pair of blue jean shorts and a yellow shirt,
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Speaker 1: clothing that matched the description of what Staren had last
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Speaker 1: been seen wearing. Investigators noted that the items could not
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Speaker 1: be definitively linked to her, but also could not be
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Speaker 1: dismissed as unrelay. The garments were taken into custody and
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Speaker 1: preserved as potential evidence. The next day Sunday, May thirty, first,
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Speaker 1: the search shifted to the water. Nine divers from the
13:13
Speaker 1: area Law Enforcement Rescue Team or ALERT, entered the lake
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Speaker 1: under the supervision of the Smith County Game Warden. The
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Speaker 1: water was dark and nearly opaque, visibility close to zero.
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Speaker 1: Divers focused on the spillway and the boat lodge, areas
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Speaker 1: locals said could easily conceal something weighted down. After more
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Speaker 1: than four hours in the water, the dive team surfaced
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Speaker 1: empty handed. The operation had been based on a promising lead,
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Speaker 1: and crews had thoroughly examined all accessible areas of the shoreline,
13:51
Speaker 1: concentrating on sections where the water ranged from six to
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Speaker 1: ten feet deep. Despite the exhaustive sweep, there was nothing.
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Speaker 1: By Monday, June first, the formal search was over. Weeks
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Speaker 1: went by without a single lead. Investigators suspected foul play,
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Speaker 1: but had no evidence to prove it. For Starrene's daughters,
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Speaker 1: the waiting was unbearable. They printed flyers and covered grocery stores,
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Speaker 1: bus stops, and telephone polls across Tyler, hoping someone might
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Speaker 1: come forward. They reached out to friends in nearby towns,
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Speaker 1: chasing any possible tip. The community buzzed with rumors, some
14:35
Speaker 1: pointing to drug activity, others to personal disputes, but the
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Speaker 1: sisters dismissed them all. They knew their mother, and they
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Speaker 1: knew she would never have simply walked away. Summer gave
14:48
Speaker 1: way to fall, then winter, and the silence never broke.
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Speaker 1: The search had long faded, and Starrene's case slipped into
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Speaker 1: the growing stack of unsolved disappearances gathering dust in the
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Speaker 1: Tyler Police Department's files. The years moved forward, but her
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Speaker 1: investigation did not. Advances in forensic technologies came and went
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Speaker 1: DNA testing, computerized records, but none of it touched her case.
15:18
Speaker 1: The file held nothing new to chase. Her case was
15:22
Speaker 1: entered into state and national databases, tagged as an endangered
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Speaker 1: missing person, but in truth, she had become another forgotten
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Speaker 1: face in a folder no one opened anymore. Starne's house
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Speaker 1: stood less than a mile from Sunnyside Drive, a detail
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Speaker 1: that seemed meaningless at the time. No one recognized it
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Speaker 1: as a clue. Not then, but years later, when the
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Speaker 1: truth about what happened on that quiet street began to surface,
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Speaker 1: the proximity would take on a chilling significance. What once
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Speaker 1: looked like coincidence was in hindsight, a thread connecting her
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Speaker 1: disappearance to one of Tyler's darkest crimes. In October nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety one, seven months before Starren vanished, eight year old
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Speaker 1: Earnest Chadwick choice known to everyone in Tyler, Texas. As
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Speaker 1: Chad vanished from his family's home on West Oakwood Street
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Speaker 1: one morning. They noticed that Chad was gone, his bed empty,
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Speaker 1: and there was no sign of where he had gone
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Speaker 1: or how he'd left the house. His disappearance shocked the
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Speaker 1: community and left a quiet unease that lingered. At first,
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Speaker 1: the case was treated as a possible runaway. There were
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Speaker 1: no signs of forced entry, no struggle, and nothing that
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Speaker 1: immediately pointed the foul play. Investigators noted that Chad's older
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Speaker 1: sister had reported her house keys missing the day before
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Speaker 1: the disappearance. She remembered leaving them by the back door
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Speaker 1: of the family's home. Two days after he disappeared, everything changed.
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Speaker 1: On October fifteenth, nineteen ninety one, Chad's uncle, Greg Sterling,
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Speaker 1: a local funeral director, received a letter at his business
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Speaker 1: demanding a ten thousand dollars ransom for the boy's safe return.
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Speaker 1: Following the instructions in the note, the family attempted to
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Speaker 1: deliver the money at a bus station, but no one
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Speaker 1: ever appeared to collect it. After the failed ransom drop
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Speaker 1: at the bus station, the investigation into Chad Choice's disappearance
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Speaker 1: began to unravel in multiple directions, each one more frustrating
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Speaker 1: than the last. Soon after, an anonymous caller told the
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Speaker 1: family that Chad had been abducted to settle a drug
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Speaker 1: debt allegedly owed by Greg Sterling to three Columbian traffickers.
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Speaker 1: On the surface, the Sterling family appeared well off. Greg
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Speaker 1: was a local funeral director respected in the community, but
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Speaker 1: behind the scenes his business was faltering under mounting debt
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Speaker 1: and financial strain. Sterling publicly denied owing money to anyone
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Speaker 1: involved in drugs, and at first investigators treated the supposed
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Speaker 1: connection as nothing more than rumor. Tyler police and the
18:24
Speaker 1: FBI started working together, inspecting the ransom note for fingerprints
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Speaker 1: and searching for any trace of the writer. The letter
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Speaker 1: was handwritten, and investigators noted certain phrases that suggested the
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Speaker 1: writer was familiar with the Sterling family. Still, nothing definitive
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Speaker 1: came from forensic testing. The phone call about the Columbian
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Speaker 1: drug dealers was traced, but it led nowhere. Every lead
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Speaker 1: seemed to be a dead end. Days turned into weeks.
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Speaker 1: The Choice family waited by the phone, praying for another
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Speaker 1: call that never came. Law enforcement canvassed neighborhoods, distributed flyers,
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Speaker 1: and interviewed anyone who might have seen something. Neighbors, classmates,
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Speaker 1: even employees at the funeral home. No one had. There
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Speaker 1: were no witnesses, no vehicle description, and no sign of Chad.
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Speaker 1: By November, the case was growing cold, leeds had dried up,
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Speaker 1: and the story that once filled headlines was fading from
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Speaker 1: the front page. Investigators still believed Chad had been abducted,
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Speaker 1: but with no credible suspects or sightings, they were working blind.
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Speaker 1: Then quietly, a new theory began to take shape. Detectives
19:48
Speaker 1: started hearing the same name from multiple sources, Patrick Horn.
19:54
Speaker 1: At just seventeen, Horn was already known around West Tyler
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Speaker 1: as volatile and street smart, a teenager who ran with
20:03
Speaker 1: people involved in drugs and small time crime. He was
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Speaker 1: questioned as he had been at the Choice home the
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Speaker 1: day before the kidnapping, spending time with Chad's older brother,
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Speaker 1: his close friend. As investigators dug deeper, they discovered that
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Speaker 1: Horn had rumored ties to a group of Colombian drug
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Speaker 1: traffickers operating in East Texas, men known by the names
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Speaker 1: Paco Junior and Carlos. If Chad's uncle did owe drug money,
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Speaker 1: perhaps the debt was large enough that the traffickers wanted collateral.
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Speaker 1: It might explain an eight year old boy's disappearance, but
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Speaker 1: there's nothing publicly released that solidly backs up the theory. Efforts
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Speaker 1: to find Chad anyway led nowhere. Investigators pursued hundreds of tips,
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Speaker 1: but each one ended in frustration. The national television program
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Speaker 1: America's Most Wanted aired a segment on his disappearance, sparking
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Speaker 1: a wave of reported sightings across Texas and beyond, yet
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Speaker 1: none brought Chad home. On October thirteenth, nineteen ninety two,
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Speaker 1: the one year anniversary of Chad Choice's disappearance, hope briefly
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Speaker 1: flickered again. Chad's mother discovered a note tucked beneath the
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Speaker 1: passenger side windshield wiper of her car, demanding a six
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars ransom and claiming that her son was still
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Speaker 1: alive and could be returned if the money was paid.
21:45
Speaker 1: The letter was immediately turned over to police, but Like
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Speaker 1: every lead before it, it led nowhere. For years, no
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Speaker 1: one knew exactly what had happened. Chad's family kept Hope alive,
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Speaker 1: hosting flyers, giving interviews, and waiting for news, but there
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Speaker 1: was never any true sign that Chad was still alive.
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Speaker 1: The case grew cold, collecting dust in the Tyler, Texas
22:12
Speaker 1: Police Department's files as new crimes and tragedies replaced the
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Speaker 1: old ones. Then, in nineteen ninety four, Patrick Horn's criminal
22:22
Speaker 1: life caught up with them. On October fifth, he took
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Speaker 1: part in the carjacking and murder of eighty year old J. C. Levisar,
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Speaker 1: a beloved Tyler fruit vendor. Five days later, federal agents
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Speaker 1: arrested him for a series of bank and credit union
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Speaker 1: robberies across East Texas. By early nineteen ninety five, Horn
22:45
Speaker 1: began making deals to lessen his time behind bars. In March,
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Speaker 1: he pleaded guilty to federal carjacking charges in the Levesar
22:54
Speaker 1: case and promised to cooperate with investigators. Less than two
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Speaker 1: weeks later, just before testifying before a Smith County grand jury,
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Speaker 1: he entered additional guilty pleas for aggravated robbery in the
23:08
Speaker 1: Levisar killing. And for another at the United Federal Heritage
23:12
Speaker 1: Credit Union. He drew a life sentence for the murder
23:16
Speaker 1: and ten more years for the robbery. That November, Horn
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Speaker 1: testified against one of his old crime partners, helping convict
23:25
Speaker 1: him of capital murder. By the end of nineteen ninety five,
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Speaker 1: Horn was already serving life in prison, a young man
23:33
Speaker 1: whose violent trail had left an old man dead and
23:37
Speaker 1: a community shaken. While behind bars, he started to talk more.
23:43
Speaker 1: During interviews with federal agents. Horn began dropping hints that
23:48
Speaker 1: he knew what had happened to Chad Choice. In October
23:52
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, four years after the boy vanished, a
23:56
Speaker 1: small human skull appeared on Greg Sterling's port, accompanied by
24:01
Speaker 1: a note referencing an unpaid debt and ending with a
24:04
Speaker 1: chilling line, you only paid part, so here is part.
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Speaker 1: Forensic testing confirmed the skull belonged to Chad. Then, on
24:15
Speaker 1: April fifth, nineteen ninety six, while still in the Smith
24:18
Speaker 1: County jail, Horn received a package containing human bones and
24:23
Speaker 1: a typewritten note referencing Chad Choice. The message was cryptic
24:29
Speaker 1: but clear someone was taunting him, or perhaps trying to
24:34
Speaker 1: shift the blame. It wasn't until May nineteen ninety six
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Speaker 1: that Patrick Horn finally gave a full statement. He told
24:42
Speaker 1: investigators that drug dealers had forced him to steal the
24:46
Speaker 1: house keys so they could kidnap Chad and use him
24:49
Speaker 1: as leverage to collect what Greg Sterling owed. According to
24:54
Speaker 1: his account, Chad was taken from his bed using the
24:57
Speaker 1: stolen keys, shot shortly afterward, and buried behind Horn's family
25:03
Speaker 1: residence on the four hundred block of Sunnyside Drive. When
25:08
Speaker 1: the ransom schemes failed, Horn ordered the skull to be
25:12
Speaker 1: dug up and delivered as a grotesque warning. On May
25:16
Speaker 1: thirty first, nineteen ninety six, Horn led investigators to a
25:20
Speaker 1: shallow grave on Sunnyside Drive. Inside, searchers found human bones
25:26
Speaker 1: wrapped in a bloodstained blanket, along with spent bullet casings
25:30
Speaker 1: and the stolen keys to the Choice residence. In June
25:35
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, Keithan Horn, Patrick's younger brother, told FBI
25:40
Speaker 1: agents about his role in the events that had haunted
25:43
Speaker 1: Tyler for years. He was only fifteen years old in
25:47
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one when Patrick first asked him to dig
25:51
Speaker 1: a shallow hole near the family's doghouse. Patrick never said
25:55
Speaker 1: why he needed it, and Keithan never asked. It wasn't
26:00
Speaker 1: until years later that he realized he had unknowingly helped
26:04
Speaker 1: bury an eight year old boy. Keithan told investigators that
26:08
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one he had dug the grave behind
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Speaker 1: their family's home at Patrick's request. Keithan told investigators about
26:18
Speaker 1: digging the hole at Patrick's request, then in nineteen ninety five,
26:23
Speaker 1: again following his brother's instructions, he dug up the skull,
26:27
Speaker 1: cleaned it, and placed it on the steps of Greg
26:29
Speaker 1: Sterling's business, the funeral Home, along with a ransom note.
26:34
Speaker 1: He also admitted that he later packaged the human bones
26:38
Speaker 1: sent to Patrick in jail and had a friend mail
26:41
Speaker 1: the package, completing a gruesome series of acts that confirmed
26:45
Speaker 1: what investigators had long suspected. Police confirmed through DNA and
26:51
Speaker 1: forensic testing that the bones recovered from the Sunnyside Drive
26:55
Speaker 1: property were indeed those of Chad, finally revealing the truth.
27:01
Speaker 1: Patrick Horn was indicted for capital murder and went to
27:04
Speaker 1: trial in nineteen ninety nine. Prosecutors painted him as the
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Speaker 1: ringleader of a kidnapping for ransom plot that ended in execution.
27:14
Speaker 1: They showed how he orchestrated the abduction at just seventeen
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Speaker 1: years old, leveraged fear for money and shifted his stories
27:23
Speaker 1: blaming Columbian traffickers before finally implicating himself. The defense argued
27:29
Speaker 1: that Horn exaggerated his role and that the case hinged
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Speaker 1: too heavily on his confession. The jury was not swayed.
27:38
Speaker 1: After days of testimony, Patrick Horn was convicted of the
27:42
Speaker 1: capital murder of Chad Choice and sentenced to death. The
27:47
Speaker 1: Choice family continued to endure suffering in the twelve years
27:51
Speaker 1: that followed. After Chad's remains were recovered in nineteen ninety six,
27:56
Speaker 1: they were entered into evidence as part of Patrick Horn's
27:59
Speaker 1: capital murder case. Because the case involved homicide, the remains
28:03
Speaker 1: came under the jurisdiction of the Smith County District Court
28:07
Speaker 1: and the Medical Examiner's Office, becoming part of the official
28:11
Speaker 1: court record. Once Horn's conviction was finalized, the remains could
28:17
Speaker 1: not be released for burial without proper authorization and after
28:21
Speaker 1: certain appeals had been filed. Under Texas law, Horn's signature
28:27
Speaker 1: was required because the remains were considered evidentiary property. In
28:31
Speaker 1: his own case, it was a legal technicality he exploited
28:36
Speaker 1: to maintain control and to continue inflicting pain on the
28:40
Speaker 1: Choice family from behind bars. Despite serving federal life sentences
28:46
Speaker 1: and a state death sentence, Horn reportedly refused to sign
28:50
Speaker 1: the waiver that would have allowed Chad's remains to be released.
28:54
Speaker 1: For years, the Choice family was forced to wait, unable
28:58
Speaker 1: to bury their son. Finally, in early two thousand and three,
29:03
Speaker 1: Smith County Judge Cynthia Kent signed an order authorizing the
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Speaker 1: release of the remains without Horn's consent. Twelve years after
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Speaker 1: Chad's disappearance, the family was at last able to lay
29:16
Speaker 1: him to rest in Tyler soil. Also in two thousand
29:21
Speaker 1: and three, Starrene Byrd's case came roaring back. On April
29:26
Speaker 1: twenty second of that year, the attorney Jack Skeene Junior,
29:30
Speaker 1: had confirmed Patrick Horn was and always had been, the
29:35
Speaker 1: prime suspect in Starrene's disappearance. Court records from Horn's nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety nine trial showed that the FBI had questioned him
29:44
Speaker 1: about her case but received no cooperation. Skeen announced a
29:49
Speaker 1: joint meeting with the FBI and Tyler Police to review
29:53
Speaker 1: evidence and plan new interviews. He called it an investigative
29:58
Speaker 1: strategy to pursue Lee and locate Starrene's remains. Demitra Bradley,
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Speaker 1: Starrene's sister, said her family has consistently believed Horn was
30:10
Speaker 1: involved in her disappearance and murder. Their homes shared the
30:15
Speaker 1: same subdivision, only a one minute drive apart. Her sister
30:19
Speaker 1: said she may have witnessed something pertaining to Chad's murder.
30:24
Speaker 1: Demitra believes she knew they had the little boy. Information
30:29
Speaker 1: on the streets surfaced alleging Horn and two fellow drug dealers,
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Speaker 1: Junior and Carlos, cut Starrene up because she knew too much.
30:39
Speaker 1: Demitra said people familiar with crack cocaine traffickers in the
30:43
Speaker 1: Butler College neighborhood gave police such information years ago, but
30:48
Speaker 1: the tips were not taken seriously. Even though Horn continued
30:53
Speaker 1: to insist that others had been involved in Chad's murder,
30:56
Speaker 1: investigators never found them. The rumors of Columbian traffickers faded
31:01
Speaker 1: into myth after an article came out in the Paper.
31:06
Speaker 1: Authorities had received tips suggesting Starrene's body had been moved
31:11
Speaker 1: more than once. They also identified a second suspect, Christopher Wells,
31:17
Speaker 1: then twenty six, a convicted murderer and Horn's partner in
31:21
Speaker 1: several robberies. Both men were already serving life terms. After
31:27
Speaker 1: that brief surge of attention, the trail went cold once again.
31:34
Speaker 1: Starrene Bird would be seventy six years old today. She
31:38
Speaker 1: vanished in broad daylight in a neighborhood where everyone seemed
31:42
Speaker 1: to know everyone, and her daughters have never stopped asking
31:46
Speaker 1: why the Tyler Police Department still lists her disappearance as
31:51
Speaker 1: an open investigation. If you have any information about the
31:57
Speaker 1: disappearance of Christine Starring, please call the Tyler Police Department
32:02
Speaker 1: at nine zero three five three one one thousand or
32:07
Speaker 1: the Tyler Smith County Crime Stoppers at nine zero three
32:11
Speaker 1: five nine seven two eight three three. If you'd like
32:16
Speaker 1: to join Gon Cold's mission to shine a light on
32:19
Speaker 1: unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get the show at
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Speaker 1: written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen.
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32:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all,