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The Broad Daylight Murder of Valerie McPherson · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
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is advised. In northwest San Antonio, Texas, there are several middle class
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to upper middle class neighborhoods, including Verde Hills, French Creek, and Country
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View. Residents of all three of these particular neighborhoods enjoy the convenience of good
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schools and just about any grocery store and restaurant you could ask for close by,
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while also living in communities where large pockets of old and expansive trees break
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up the monotony of the many clusters of cookie cutter homes. Within Nestled between
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Verde Hills, French Creek, and Country View is o P Schnoble Park.
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A significant portion of the sprawling two hundred and two acre park includes miles of
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twisting trails through dense woods and brushy patches of land, separated only by ball
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courts, a public swimming pool, and a small YMCA facility. Schnobbles jogging
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and hiking trails are popular places for both nature enthusiasts and folks training for marathons,
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since it's quiet, extremely accessible, and known as a safe place.
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But on new Year's Eve twenty thirteen, it was anything but the latter.
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On the afternoon of Tuesday, December thirty first, twenty thirteen, as University
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of San Antonio history professor Michelle Debs did her rounds on one of the secluded
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trails located in op Schnoble Park's northwest, she heard the rustling of leaves and
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the eerie whistling of a song she recognized from a movie that came out a
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few years before Kill Bill. The song called Twisted Nerve by Bernard Herman and
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originally used in a film by that same name, was used in Kill Bill
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by the character l in the scene where she walks the hallway of a hospital
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on her way to intravenously poison the main character Beatrix Kiddo as she lay in
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a hospital bed comatose. As Michelle saw the origin of the rustled leaves and
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the whistling a strange man who was slicing tree branches with a knife, she
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became frightened. The man made eye contact, Michelle later said, and looked
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her up and down with quote this absolutely horrid, malicious look end quote.
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He began following her. Michelle grabbed her cell phone and began talking loudly to
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a fictitious friend also on the trails, pretending that the two were going to
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cross paths at any minute. The strange man walked slower and slower. When
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she got to the trailhead, Michelle Debs dashed to her car and immediately called
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police as she left the park. Michelle wasn't the only person who'd had an
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encounter with the strange Man that day. San Antonio firefighter Andrew Billings forcefully got
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between his wife and this man as they passed him on the trails. Andrew
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later said he felt a strong instinct to do so because of the terrible feeling
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he got. Edward and Sierra Wagner, along with their toddler, also crossed
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paths with the strange man that New Year's Eve day. It was unsettling,
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and the Wagner family continued on toward another area of the park to have a
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picnic. Later, Edward and Sierra jokingly speculated the strange man was a serial
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rapist, as their little boy played on the play. But their creepy encounter
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with this individual would unfortunately become the least of their troubles that day. At
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around five point thirty pm, The Wagoners packed up their things and began walking
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a trail toward the spot where their car was parked. When they neared the
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area where they'd seen the strange man on the trail, Sierra and Edward were
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startled when they saw a woman laying face down at that very location. Edward,
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an English teacher, immediately scanned the perimeter, but not for a killer.
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He was looking for signs of a film crew. Unable to fathom what
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was happening, his brain had insisted someone was filming a gruesome scene for a
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horror movie. He snapped back into reality as he saw the large pool of
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blood under the woman. Shock set in. Sierra, unable to process her
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thoughts, quietly blurred out he fucking killed her. As she recalled the strange
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man they'd encountered earlier in the afternoon, she bent down to check for a
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pulse, but there wasn't one. As she looked for signs of breathing,
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Sierra noticed the woman's back had been mutilated. Edward called police and tried to
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keep his little boy from laying eyes on the nightmarish scene. Police and other
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emergency responders met the Wagoners on the scene shortly thereafter, a paramedic later remarked
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that almost every ounce of blood had drained from this woman's body. The victim
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was twenty four year old Lauren Michelle Bump. Three years earlier, in twenty
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ten, Lauren became the second student at McMurray University in Abilene, Texas to
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earn a bachelor's degree in biomedical science. Active in missionary work, she traveled
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to Guatemala the previous year on a medical mission trip and was to return in
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twenty fourteen. After graduating McMurray Hugh Summa cum Laudie and a semester early,
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Lauren began clinical rotations for a graduate program as a physician's assistant at Harding University
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in Arkansas, of which she was entering her final year. Lauren Bump had
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come back to the San Antonio area for the Christmas and New Year's holidays and
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was supposed to return the following Monday. A self described running enthusiast, she'd
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gone for a run at the Northwest Trails at opesch Noble Park that Tuesday,
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one of her favorite places to do so. Had Lauren's life not been cut
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short by a strange and malicious man, the charitable and highly intelligent young woman
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loved by anyone who'd ever met her, would have undoubtedly touched and perhaps apps
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helped save countless lives. At autopsy, Bear County Deputy medical examiner doctor Rahish
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Khannan counted twenty seven stab wounds and cuts to the body of Lauren Michelle Bump.
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There was immense pressure on the Bear County Sheriff's office to find Lauren's killer,
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and when they received a call about a suspicious person at op sch Noble
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Park, they jumped right on it. The man, twenty nine year old
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Christian Bautista, who bore tattoos on his back that showed he had a connection
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to the Mexican mafia, authority said, quickly became a suspect. Also known
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by the name Plex. Bautista was released from prison just two months prior to
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Lauren's murder on October twenty ninth, twenty thirteen. He'd served six years for
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aggravated robbery, the aggravated part due to his attack on the robbery victim with
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a crowball. Before that, Bautista had been arrested and charged with various crimes
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since two thousand three, when he was nineteen. The cops collected enough evidence
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to bring charges and to ultimately indict Christian Bautista. During a trial to ascertain
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whether he was competent to stand trial for the murder of Lauren Bump, doctors
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and social workers told the court that they didn't feel Bautista was mentally unwell.
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Rather, he was anti social and hostile, particularly to females. He'd prove
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as much during the competency hearings by making lude sexual remarks and exposing himself to
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a female prosecutor, even as he feigned otherwise. In several other ways,
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Bautista, a Bear County court determined, was competent to stand trial. The
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determination that the alleged murderer was a total creep was seemingly unanimous at his twenty
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sixteen trial. Even Bautista's own attorney described him as such during defense arguments,
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before getting to his greater point that the only evidence against his client was witnesses
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placing him at Olpies Noble Park the day Lauren Bump was murdered. In cold
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blood. Evidence was presented as the prosecution's expert witness took the stand, who
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told the court that neither Bautista's nor Lauren's DNA could be excluded as the contributors
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to blood found on his T shirt and underwear. The prosecution themselves told jurors
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this is a match, as they pointed to those items. Although these two
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statements do not in fact match, Christian Bautista was found guilty and sentenced to
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life in prison, shaky evidence or not. Since Bautista didn't appeal his conviction
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on the grounds of the DNA, but appealed only on the grounds that being
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found competent to stand trial was an erroneous decision by the court, it stands
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to reason he is indeed guilty. The random murder of Lauren Michelle Bump reminded
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area law enforcement and area residents old enough to remember of another twenty five years
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before. While it is impossible for Christian Bautista to have been responsible for the
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nineteen ninety one jogging murder of Valerie McPherson, his brutal and random attack against
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Lauren might provide cold case investigator's insight into the possible motive, or rather lack
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thereof. Join me forty eight hours correspondent Aaron Moriarty on my podcast My Life,
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Life of Crime, as I take on true crime investigations like no other.
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This season, I'm looking into the labyrinth of crime and secrets within families.
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I'm cutting straight to the evidence and talking to the people directly involved,
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including investigators and the families of victims. Listen to My Life of Crime with
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Aaron Moriarty wherever you get your podcasts. Ulmas Park, Texas, was founded
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by real estate tycoon and prominent oilman HC. Thorman, who purchased the land
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from an Austrian count In the years leading up to its purchase by Thorman,
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the land was a training site for United States Army balloonists known as Camp John
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Wise. Thorman sought to develop an upscale neighborhood for San Antonio's business elite.
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They came, and they built homes on lots shaded by expansive live over ooks
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and tall sycamores, not quite mansions for the most part, but certainly more
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architecturally stylistic than the mic mansions that would take over the area in the last
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quarter of the twentieth century and beyond. Though it is surrounded on all sides
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by the city of San Antonio, Ulmas Park was eventually incorporated as its own
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city, with its own local government and police force in nineteen ninety one,
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when the population was around two thousand residents. Ulmas Park police chief Mike Oulovig
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explained that the department's worst calls were burglaries, and those were few and far
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in between, but by August of that year, the department was investigating two
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murders, the first there in nearly a decade, including that of thirty two
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year old Valerie McPherson on October six, sixteenth, nineteen fifty eight. Valerie
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Lorraine Evans, or val as she was better known, was born to Billy
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and Audrey Evans at Camp Zema, a United States Army post located about twenty
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five miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan, in the cities of Zama and Sagamihara
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in Kanagawa Prefecture. She grew up alongside two sisters and a brother. Due
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to the unavailability of records and documents concerning military families, we know little about
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Vow's life before she met her husband, Sandy McPherson, other than the fact
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that she graduated from San Antonio's Winston Churchill High School around nineteen seventy six and
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attended San Antonio College for an unknown period of time. Where she majored in
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art. Sandy McPherson, a resident of San Antonio whose family owned the McPherson
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for Na Ranch near Sonora, Texas, met Val while the two were on
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skiing trips in Colorado. They hit it off, and, after a whirlwind
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romance, married in May of nineteen eighty seven. Val helped Sandy run the
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twelve thousand acre McPherson four M ranch, which offered guests lodging, guided hunting
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excursions of game such as axis and follow deer, wild turkey, black buck,
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antelope, and fishing at a catfish and largemouth bass stock pond. The
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prominent socialites lived in Ulmas Park and by the end of nineteen eighty nine welcomed
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their first and only child into the world, a little girl named Lauren.
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Lauren's birth prompted Val to give up a private catering business she had undertaken early
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in the marriage, though she rested her passion for cooking on a larger scale
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and was happy to do so to raise Lauren. Val continued to produce art,
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her other passion. She was a talented artist, Sandy later said,
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and by the early nineteen nineties her art began developing into southwestern themes. He
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also described his wife as a dynamic personality, adding without even saying anything,
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people notice her. Both Val and Sandy were avidly athletic, and the morning
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of Monday, August fifth, nineteen ninety one began like any other. Sandy
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left their almost park home on the two hundred block of Sandford Drive to work
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out at their gym, and at about eight a m. Val loaded up
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nineteen month old Lauren in her red three wheeled stroller to take her along for
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a jog. Pushing little Lauren, Val began her run, heading east on
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Stanford before turning north on EA East Contour Drive. The tree shaded streets were
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quiet, with cars seldom passing, making the thirty two year old woman's normal
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daily jogs safe and uneventful. Usually. As Val neared the edge of Olmus
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Basin, a small creek separated from East Contour by McAllister Freeway or US Highway
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to eighty one, a man was just ahead of and facing her, walking
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the opposite direction, of course, and on the opposite side of the street.
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When Val and the man were almost parallel to one another at the very
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last moment before their paths crossed, the man rushed her and punched her in
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the eye. The mother immediately and instinctively put herself between baby Lauren and the
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man and attempted to flee, but the attacker never relented. It all took
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place in a matter of seconds. The man finally stopped his attack and Vow
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ran up about fifty yards before she could go no further. Moments later,
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a jogger named Tibo Bowman, who knew the McPherson's, approached and saw Vou
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hunched over the stroller. Though the temperature hadn't yet reached eighty degrees. Tebo's
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first thought was that Val had suffered a heat stroke or was simply out of
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breath. She was down on one knee, te Boat later said, and
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appeared to have been using the stroller to keep from collapsing. But after quickly
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running to her, aid he saw the blood. I'm hurting all over,
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Val told him. The next thought that entered Tibo's mind was that Val had
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been the victim of a hit and run accident. Whatever the case, the
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scene was brutal and he had to do something. Tebo grabbed baby Lauren from
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the stroller and rushed her to his house. He told his wife to call
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nine one one and quickly returned to Valle's side. At eight thirteen am,
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an ambulance was dispatched to the scene. With all the strength she could muster,
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Val explained to Tbau that someone she didn't know had beaten her. She
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had no idea that she'd been stabbed repeatedly. The man who attacked her,
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she told Tibau, was black, between thirty and forty years old, about
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six feet tall, with a stocky build. He was right handed, she
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continued, and good looking, dressed stylishly in a dark blue shirt, pants
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and bright red tennis shoes. Val continually asked where Lauren was. When first
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responders arrived at the scene, val macpherson was quickly loaded onto an ambulance and
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eventually sent to Brook Army Medical Center at San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston. It's
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reported she also gave the description of her attacker to paramedics. One of them
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said that while on the ambulance, she repeatedly did so between asking about Lauren's
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whereabouts. At some point, VAL's husband, Sandy, was found and notified
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that she'd been assaulted. Thinking the attack was a mugging, Sandy later remarked
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he didn't realize the severity until he arrived to see her. For a total
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of four hours, emergency room doctors and nurses fought to keep val McPherson alive,
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but she succumbed to her wounds at twelve oh seven pm. Nineteen month
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old Lauren, thankfully was physically unharmed. The following day, Tuesday, August
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sixth, nineteen ninety one, police received about one hundred calls from folks providing
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descriptions and leads after an article about the murder was published in the San Antonio
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News Express. In that news report, Ulmas Park Police Chief Mike Olovig commented
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that the suspect might also be a weightlifter. Witnesses calling the department reported a
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muscular man walking in a direction away from the scene, presumably as he fled.
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Some provided very detailed descriptions, down to his pants. They said his
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blue jeans were tapered and tailored. Private investigator Charlie Parker later told reporters Caller's
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descriptions of the man matched vals, but added more detail that his haircut was
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neat and that he wore a black baseball cap. Witnesses reported the attacker as
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casually walking toward San Pedro Avenue from the two hundred block of Dora Street,
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which was a mile away from the scene and very near the McPherson home.
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Others described him as erratic, though what made them use that particular word was
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not expounded upon. Funeral services were held for Valerie Lorraine McPherson at Saint Luke's
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Episcopal Church. She was buried in Sonora Cemetery. Meanwhile, a sketch artist
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on loan from the Texas Department of Public Safety worked on a composite drawling of
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the suspect, who hadn't tried to unclothe val hadn't taken any of her jewelry,
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and hadn't tried to harm baby Lauren. The crime had no outwardly apparent
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motive. The suspect also left no physical evidence on the scene no clues as
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to his identity. Texas Ranger Captain Jack Dean, who along with Ranger Bob
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Steele, joined the investigation almost at the get go, told a reporter for
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the San Antonio News Express, We're up against a stone wall. We just
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haven't come up with anything. The broad daylight murder was brazen. Captain Dean
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added the quantity of our leads has been very high, but the quality has
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been very low, since most murder victims were killed by someone close to them.
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fifty percent off. Though the results of the autopsy of Vow McPherson weren't known
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publicly for some time, a composite sketch of the suspect was released the week
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of the murder. Although tips came into the Ulmas Park police, Vow's killer
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was never identified, and, according to a private investigator, the murder weapon
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never found. Vow was stabbed a total of ten times, the first to
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the right center of her chest, the knife threat rusting upwards. The rest
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of the stab wounds were inflicted as Val shielded her child. Those were just
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below her neck, on the left side of her back, just above her
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right shoulder blade, and then several times in her lower back. Almost police
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detectives and Texas Rangers interviewed and polygraphed two close family members of Vows. Neither
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showed signs of deception, though they were never named by law enforcement. One
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was VAL's husband, Sandy McPherson. Sandy himself offered to undergo the polygraph exam
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and later commented that he felt he was the prime suspect. Still, he
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cooperated with the investigation fully and held no anger or resentment against the cops for
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looking into him, since he focused all his energy. Sandy said on raising
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Lauren whether police and rangers ever truly had Sandy at the top of the list
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isn't really known, but they almost certainly had no evidence against him. The
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man was from a very wealthy family and very wealthy himself. He would not
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have needed VAL's life insurance payout, assuming there was one. Sandy McPherson began
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offering a fifty thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of
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his wife's killer. The press went silent concerning the case by August nineteen ninety
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one's end, and police were no closer to making an arrest. On Monday,
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June first, nineteen ninety two, at about six thirty am, sixty
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eight year old Lawrence Monroe leading him, was found lying in a pool of
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blood outside his car in a parking lot at Ulma's Sports Center, a little
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less than a mile northwest of where Valerie mc fearson was slain. He'd been
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stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen, and knife wounds to Lawrence's arms suggested he'd attempted
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to defend himself. Blood spatter was found in and out of the car,
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and Lawrence's emptied wallet was not far from his body. Because of this,
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police assumed the motive was robbery, but the extremely violent death this elderly man
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suffered seemed pointless, almost overkill. Though newspaper and television reports couldn't help but
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comment on the close proximity and similarities between Lawrence Leadingham and Vow's murders, it's
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unclear if authorities ever investigated the possibility that the cases were connected. In twenty
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thirteen, when twenty four year old Lauren Michelle Bump was stabbed to death as
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she jogged through Opiche Novel Park not too far from where Val suffered a very
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similar violent death at the hands of a complete stranger and at random, Perhaps
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police realized that seemingly motiveless and senseless murders happened more often than they like to
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believe. Some, however, don't believe the murder of thirty two year old
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Val Macpherson was random at all. During the years surrounding VAL's murder, a
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collection of folks around San Antonio who called themselves the Unsolved Crimes Cold Case Group
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was forming, described most often as a group of amateur detectives. The description
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of them and their associates was and is slightly more nuanced than that. Forensic
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artist Betsy James Cooper was involved in the group. She'd helped the Bear County
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Medical Examiner's office identify John and Jane Does by drawing post mortem sketches and sculpting
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faces out of clay over skull model likenesses she constructed. Not only was Cooper
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well schooled, but she'd also watched the Bear County Chief Medical Examiner perform autopsies
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and was a licensed private investigator. The other head of the Unsolved Crimes cold
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case group was Charles Parker or Charlie as he's more commonly known. Parker once
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worked as a reserve deputy for the Nueces County Sheriff's Office, where he saw
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some action, including witness interviews and victim or suspect searches. He also became
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a private investigator. These two folks who were clearly familiar with the inner workings
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of criminal investigations, at least partially, and a local attorney, psychological profiler,
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and a nearby police chief, among other professionals, often helped the group
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performing particular duties that pertained to their areas of expertise. Because the Park Police
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and Texas Rangers were stumped and the murder case of Valerie McPherson had gone cold,
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Sandy McPherson welcomed the help of the Unsolved Crimes Cold Case Group when they
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asked him if they could come in in the summer of nineteen ninety four.
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The case was, in fact the first murder case private investigator Charlie Parker had
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ever worked. He was given Vow's journals, other various writings, and her
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check books. After some time, Parker, Cooper and their associates said they
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uncovered evidence that suggested Voo had been involved with drugs at one time, though
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they never explained in what capacity. They believed whoever killed Vow was hired or
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sent to do so, presumably, though again the connection is never explained because
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of some past drug exchange or interaction that went wrong. Their work, according
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to an article in Texas Monthly by Anne Dingis, wasn't well received. The
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group neatly collected their evidence and delivered it to the Texas Rangers, who told
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them, Parker says in the article, to butt out the suggestion that her
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death was drug related angered Sandy McPherson. He said the group was on the
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wrong track. Still decades later, in twenty sixteen, Sandy and Parker were
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still in touch. Sandy and the police not so much. Parker had continued
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to work the case free of charge and was determined as ever to find VAL's
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killer. He suggested he'd done plenty of new work on the case in the
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past decades, though he did not elaborate Sandy's fifty thousand dollars reward was still
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in place and likely still is. Though his hopes the case will ever be
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solved were dashed long ago. If nothing's come up by now, he commented,
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I think the chances are pretty slim. Baby Lauren, who vow McPherson
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shielded from the attack, turned twenty six years old in twenty sixteen. Like
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her mother, she was an adept athlete growing up. She graduated from the
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same school as her father, Alamo Heights High and then Texas A and M,
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after which she began a professional career in finance. Although she called her
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father the best she could imagine, the fact that Lauren never got a chance
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to know her mother angers her. She keeps a framed photo of Val at
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her bedside, Lauren said, and though she doesn't remember her at all,
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loves living up to what her mom would have wanted for her. If you
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have any information about the murder of Valerie Lorraine McPherson. Please contact the Texas
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Rangers at a one hundred three four six three two four three. You can
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remain anonymous and eligible for a reward of up to three thousand dollars by calling
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Texas Crime Stoppers at eight hundred two five two eight four seven seven. Find
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