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The Murder of Betty Ann Thomas · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:05
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. A white jaguar sat in the
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Speaker 1: parking lot of the Hilton Hotel at six thousand Middle
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Speaker 1: Fiskville Road, just north of downtown Austin for two days.
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Speaker 1: No one thought much of it. Guests came and went,
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Speaker 1: Suitcases rolled across cracked asphalt, while traffic on the interstate
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Speaker 1: hummed in the background. Austin in the late nineteen eighties
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Speaker 1: was a city caught between two worlds, recovering from the
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Speaker 1: oil bust that had drained Texas through the early part
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Speaker 1: of the decade, while not so quietly paving the groundwork
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Speaker 1: for the eventual unofficial city slogan keep Austin Weird. It
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Speaker 1: was a place of contrasts, part quirky college town, part
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Speaker 1: rising capital city. Sixth Street pulsed with live music, and
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Speaker 1: neon South Congress was still rough around the edges. Downtown
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Speaker 1: was a mix of bankers, politicians, students, and musicians trying
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Speaker 1: to make rent. The Hilton Inn at Highland Mall had
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Speaker 1: been one of the city's crown jewels when it opened
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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, with three hundred and thirty two rooms.
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Speaker 1: It stood out as a modern landmark where traveling executives
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Speaker 1: and celebrities checked in when they came through town. By
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, however, the glamour had faded, the hotel
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Speaker 1: had been sold, and that April it was facing foreclosure
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Speaker 1: over a twenty five million dollar loan default. Guests were
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Speaker 1: mostly business travelers, truckers, and families passing through. It was
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Speaker 1: in that same parking lot, beneath that same faded glow,
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Speaker 1: that a hotel guest finally noticed the white jaguar parked
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Speaker 1: too long in one space. When police opened the trunk,
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Speaker 1: they found a woman wrapped in a rose colored comforter,
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Speaker 1: still wearing a light pink terry cloth robe. Her wrists
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Speaker 1: and ankles were bound with duct tape. She had been blindfolded, gagged,
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Speaker 1: and shot through the back of the head. The woman
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Speaker 1: in the trunk was identified as forty five year old
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Speaker 1: Betty Anne Thomas. Elizabeth Ann Hedrick, better known as Betty,
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Speaker 1: was born on June fourth, nineteen forty two, in Coldwater, Kansas,
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Speaker 1: to William and Mildred Hedrick. She was the thirteenth of
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Speaker 1: sixteen children, six brothers and nine sisters in a family
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Speaker 1: that lived with constant financial strain. Her father drove trucks,
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Speaker 1: often long hours and long distances, trying to provide for
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Speaker 1: so many mouths. By the time Betty reached middle school age,
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Speaker 1: the household was stretched past what her parents could manage.
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Speaker 1: Around nineteen fifty three, when she was about eleven, the
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Speaker 1: Hedrich children were separated and placed into foster care. It
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Speaker 1: was a decision made out of poverty. The family simply
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Speaker 1: couldn't afford to raise sixteen children, and siblings were divided
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Speaker 1: across Kansas and Missouri. Some were adopted, some fostered, and
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Speaker 1: contact between them faded over time. Betty was adopted by
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Speaker 1: Elsa and Marion Holmes in Lawrence, Kansas. Lawrence offered stability,
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Speaker 1: but it also marked a sharp divide from the world
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Speaker 1: she'd come. Elsa Holmes was a chief chemist for Cook
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Speaker 1: Paint and Varnish Company and the Midwest Research Institute. He
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Speaker 1: served as a state director for the AARP's Volunteer Income
4:13
Speaker 1: Tax Program and belonged to numerous scientific and engineering societies.
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Speaker 1: The Holmeses had no biological children of their own, but
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Speaker 1: adopted three, two girls and one boy, creating a structured,
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Speaker 1: academically minded household, far from the hardship Betty had known.
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Speaker 1: She thrived there by her senior year at Lawrence High
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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty, Betty was active and involved. She joined
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Speaker 1: the pep club, leaders club, choir, sports, and school dances.
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Speaker 1: Her life in Lawrence was a stark contrast to the
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Speaker 1: instability of her early childhood. On January twentieth, nineteen sixty,
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Speaker 1: while still a high school, seventeen year old Betty married
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Speaker 1: Reverend Francis Wilson Hirsch at North Haven Methodist Church in Dallas. Hirsch,
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Speaker 1: originally from Lawrence, was ten years older and had been
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Speaker 1: ordained as a Methodist minister in nineteen fifty eight after
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Speaker 1: attending the Perkins School of Theology. By the time of
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Speaker 1: their wedding, he was pursuing further studies at Southern Methodist
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Speaker 1: University in Dallas. After the wedding, the couple moved to Jonestown, Arkansas,
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Speaker 1: where Betty earned a degree in sociology from the University
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Speaker 1: of Arkansas. Her sisters would later say the field suited her.
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Speaker 1: Betty had a natural interest in people, their patterns, their motivations,
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Speaker 1: what shaped their choices. She could read a room easily,
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Speaker 1: listen without judgment and find humor in even difficult moments.
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Speaker 1: She never worked formally in sociology, but understanding people was
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Speaker 1: something she carried throughout her life. Betty and Francis welcomed
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Speaker 1: a son, Todd, two years into their marriage, but by
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Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen sixty five that marriage had unraveled.
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Speaker 1: Betty filed for and was granted an uncontested divorce. The
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Speaker 1: court record cited indignities, a fault based legal term describing
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Speaker 1: a pattern of conduct that makes espouse his life intolerable
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Speaker 1: verbal abuse, habitual rudeness, neglect, or behavior that creates ongoing alienation.
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Speaker 1: Not long after the divorce, Betty married John Harold Ferrish
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Speaker 1: of Dallas. They had a daughter, Lisa, and Farrish later
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Speaker 1: adopted Todd as his own. The marriage lasted into the
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Speaker 1: mid nineteen seventies before ending in divorce. Afterward, Betty returned
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Speaker 1: to Lawrence with her children for a time, rebuilding her
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Speaker 1: life again in the city where she had once found stability.
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Speaker 1: Those who knew her said she carried her early hardships
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Speaker 1: with a kind of quiet strength. She didn't dwell on
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Speaker 1: the past, but understood it clearly. That steadiness, Knowing where
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Speaker 1: she came from without letting it define her was part
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Speaker 1: of what people loved about her. Everything changed once again
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Speaker 1: on a vacation in Alcapulco. That's where Betty met James
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Speaker 1: bo Thomas, a San Antonio native seven years younger than
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Speaker 1: she was, with a life already marked by early responsibility
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Speaker 1: and heart experience. Bo had graduated from Lee High School,
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Speaker 1: served as a marine in Vietnam, where he reached the
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Speaker 1: rank of corporal, and married at nineteen. He had two
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Speaker 1: daughters from that first marriage, which ended in divorce in
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. By the time he crossed paths with Betty,
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Speaker 1: he was repairing his life and working as a home builder.
8:05
Speaker 1: Their connection was immediate. The relationship moved quickly, and the
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Speaker 1: two were married in Las Vegas not long afterward. They
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Speaker 1: lived for a short time in Colorado before settling permanently
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Speaker 1: in the Austin, Texas area. By then, he was working
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Speaker 1: for a building contracting firm there. Betty's friends described her
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Speaker 1: as magnetic, warm, funny, quick witted, and generous. She never
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Speaker 1: needed attention, but drew it naturally. She stayed active, loved
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Speaker 1: the lake, and traveled wherever she could. She once called
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Speaker 1: herself a born wanderer, and her life reflected it. Even
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Speaker 1: years after living in different states and building a life
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Speaker 1: of her own, Betty found her way back to the
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Speaker 1: family she'd been separated from as a child. In nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy nine, she helped organize a Hedrick reunion, the first
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Speaker 1: time many of the siblings had seen each other in
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Speaker 1: more than twenty years. It was a gathering filled with
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Speaker 1: relief and emotion, a kind of homecoming that had been
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Speaker 1: postponed for far too long. She began planning another reunion
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Speaker 1: not long after. To her siblings, Betty became the thread
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Speaker 1: that tied everyone back together, the one who understood the
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Speaker 1: past without letting it define her. They remembered her as lively, curious,
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Speaker 1: and full of light. Life for Betty had settled into
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Speaker 1: a piece she had fought hard to earn, a piece
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Speaker 1: that did not last. In the early nineteen eighties, Bo
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Speaker 1: Thomas began building in Lakeway, just northwest of Austin. The
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Speaker 1: town was still young, then, part resort, part retirement escape,
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Speaker 1: part frontier for developers who saw potential in the hills
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Speaker 1: below Lake Travis. Fewer than one thousand people lived there,
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Speaker 1: an incorporated village perched on the edge of the Arkansas
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Speaker 1: Bend Park. Lakeway had started in the nineteen sixties as
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Speaker 1: a private resort built around a golf course and a
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Speaker 1: small airstrip, advertised as an idyllic hill country retreat where
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Speaker 1: you could park your plane, play eighteen holes, and sip
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Speaker 1: a gin rickey while the sun slid behind the limestone cliffs.
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Speaker 1: Over the past two decades, those weekenders became full time residents.
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Speaker 1: Retired oil executives from Houston Airline, pilots stationed at Bergstrom
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Speaker 1: Air Force Base, and Austin's rising class of professionals all
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Speaker 1: settled along the coves of Lake Trebis and the bends
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Speaker 1: of the Colorado River. The community was comfortable, self contained,
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Speaker 1: and quietly proud of its isolation. Bow was one of
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Speaker 1: the builders who helped shape that new lakeway. As lots
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Speaker 1: came onto the market, he snapped them up and began
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Speaker 1: constructing luxury homes to sell. By nineteen eighty three, he
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Speaker 1: and Betty had completed their own house on Coldwater Lane,
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Speaker 1: a modern hill country home tucked between Cedar and Oak,
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Speaker 1: settled so naturally into the landscape that it looked like
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Speaker 1: it had always belonged there. From then on, the Thomases
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Speaker 1: were firmly rooted in Lakeway. Bow continued building homes, and
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Speaker 1: Betty worked part time at the Lakeway Boat Brokerage, played tennis,
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Speaker 1: and spent time on and around Lake Travis. She slipped
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Speaker 1: easily into the town's social rhythm, the steady hum of
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Speaker 1: a community small enough for neighbors to know one another
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Speaker 1: by name. The house on Coldwater Lane became home for
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Speaker 1: the three of them, Betty Bow and Bo's teenage daughter Amy.
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Speaker 1: Like many families in Lakeway during that era, their days
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Speaker 1: revolved around work, the lake, and the routines of a
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Speaker 1: quiet hill country existence. For Betty, it was a good life.
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Speaker 1: After years of moving, she had finally found a place
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Speaker 1: that felt settled. There wasn't much in Lakeway then, no
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Speaker 1: shopping centers, no nightlife, not even a proper grocery store.
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Speaker 1: If you needed anything, you drove to b Cave. If
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Speaker 1: you wanted to hear sirens, you headed into Austin. Travis
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Speaker 1: County recorded around sixty homicides a year in those days,
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Speaker 1: but Lakeway's police blotter read like a small town bulletin
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Speaker 1: traffic stops, loose dog, and the occasional teenage prank that
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Speaker 1: made its way into the weekly report. Chief Tom Evans
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Speaker 1: ran the Lakeway Police Department with ten officers and a
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Speaker 1: single detective. Their approach was preventative, their budget modest, their
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Speaker 1: equipment dated. The assumption was simple. Serious violence just didn't
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Speaker 1: happen here. That assumption died on April thirteenth, nineteen eighty eight.
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Speaker 1: The murder of forty five year old Betty Ann Thomas
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Speaker 1: shattered the town's sense of safety. A community that had
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Speaker 1: never recorded a homicide suddenly found itself overrun with investigators
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Speaker 1: from the Travis County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Rangers. Lakeway,
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Speaker 1: the place that sold itself on privacy, calm streets and
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Speaker 1: perfect sunsets over Lake Travis, woke to the reality that
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Speaker 1: violence had arrived at its doorstep. In the early hours
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Speaker 1: of Monday, April eleventh, nineteen eighty eight, bo Thomas and
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Speaker 1: his fourteen year old daughter Amy, left their home on
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Speaker 1: Coldwater Lane bound for Tyler, Texas, to address a custody issue.
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Speaker 1: It was a four hour drive. Forty five year old
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Speaker 1: Betty had originally planned to go with them, but changed
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Speaker 1: her mind late Sunday night. Instead, she told them she
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Speaker 1: would leave for Houston later that morning to visit her
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Speaker 1: daughter and newborn grandchild. It was a simple plan, the
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Speaker 1: kind families make without thinking twice. Bo and Amy pulled
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Speaker 1: out of the driveway around three am, expecting to return
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Speaker 1: to the usual calm of their home. They drove back
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Speaker 1: up to the house at about four forty five that afternoon.
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Speaker 1: The first sign that something was wrong was the garage door.
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Speaker 1: It stood open. The white Jaguar, Betty's everyday car, was gone.
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Speaker 1: Inside the house felt off, not just empty, but wrong.
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Speaker 1: Then they saw the purse Betty's handbag, lay dumped in
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Speaker 1: the hallway, Its contents spilled across the floor, as if
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Speaker 1: someone had gripped it by the straps, turned it upside
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Speaker 1: down and shaken out every last thing. Her driver's license,
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Speaker 1: a makeup bag, a few folded notes, and torn scraps
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Speaker 1: of paper, receipts from Errand's long forgotten the debris of
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Speaker 1: an ordinary life scattered in an unnatural way. Betty wasn't careless,
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Speaker 1: She didn't leave messes behind. Someone else had done this,
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Speaker 1: and whoever it was, had been in a hurry. Farther inside,
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Speaker 1: the office told the rest of the story. Papers from
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Speaker 1: the household safe were strewn across the den floor in
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Speaker 1: wide desperate arcs, tax forms, insurance documents, and folded bank statements.
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Speaker 1: Items usually tucked neatly away, lay trampled and bent, as
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Speaker 1: though someone had waded through them searching for something specific.
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Speaker 1: The safe itself hung wide open, its heavy door tilted
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Speaker 1: toward the room, exposing empty shelves inside. Several thousand dollars
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Speaker 1: in cash were gone, but that was the least of
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Speaker 1: bo and Amy's worries. Near the desk was something else,
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Speaker 1: something final. A dark pool of blood had soaked deep
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Speaker 1: into the carpet, now dried to a dull, sticky maroon.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't an amount of blood someone walked away from.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't a cut or a fall. It was volume
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Speaker 1: evidence of a severe injury. On the floor, officers later
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Speaker 1: recovered a pillow with a bullet hole punched straight through
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Speaker 1: the fabric. The staining around it was so heavy it
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Speaker 1: had seeped through the stuffing. Whatever happened had happened here
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Speaker 1: in this room, and it had not been quick or clean.
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Speaker 1: There were no signs of forced entry, no broken window,
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Speaker 1: no damaged lock, nothing overturned, aside from the papers spilled
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Speaker 1: from the safe and Betty's purse, jewelry sat where it
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Speaker 1: always sat. Electronics remained in their places. Betty's wallet still
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Speaker 1: held her cash and credit cards. Whoever had come into
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Speaker 1: the house had taken only three things, Betty, her car,
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Speaker 1: and the cash that had been locked in the safe.
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Speaker 1: Lake Way Police immediately issued a statewide alert from the
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Speaker 1: missing car, a nineteen eighty five white four door Jaguar.
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Speaker 1: Officers fanned out across the neighborhood, knocking on doors, asking
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Speaker 1: the same questions again and again. Had anyone heard anything unusual,
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Speaker 1: seen anyone unfamiliar, noticed a car that didn't belong. Neighbors
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Speaker 1: said no, no shouting, no barking dogs, no hurried footsteps
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Speaker 1: or idling engines, nothing that interrupted the quietness in a
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Speaker 1: community where even a new lawn guide drew attention. No
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Speaker 1: one had seen a thing that mattered. By the next morning,
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Speaker 1: the case had already grown beyond Lakeway's ten man department.
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Speaker 1: Unmarked sedans and county cruisers rolled in. Investigators from the
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Speaker 1: Travis County Sheriff's Office, the Texas Rangers and DPS crime
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Speaker 1: scene units converged on Coldwater Lane, a street that hours
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Speaker 1: before had just been another quiet Lakeway cul de Sac
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Speaker 1: was now a hive of movement, gloved hands, camera flashes,
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Speaker 1: evidence bags, and the low, steady murmur of law enforcement
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Speaker 1: coordinating a homicide investigation the city had never expected to face.
18:58
Speaker 1: Every surface inside the Hull home was documented. Blood swabs
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Speaker 1: were taken, hair strands collected. Fibers were lifted from carpet,
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Speaker 1: bedding and furniture. The pillow, the safe, the scattered paperwork.
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Speaker 1: Anything that might later make sense was logged and sealed.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, DNA testing wasn't something most law
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Speaker 1: agencies had access to. Blood typing was as far as
19:27
Speaker 1: the science went, as far as forensics were concerned, but
19:31
Speaker 1: investigators gathered up everything anyway, hoping that one day when
19:36
Speaker 1: technology caught up, the evidence would still be waiting, quiet, preserved,
19:41
Speaker 1: and finally ready to speak. Two days after Betty and
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Speaker 1: Thomas disappeared, leaving behind a pool of blood and a
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Speaker 1: partially ransacked home, her body was found in the trunk
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Speaker 1: of her Jaguar in the parking lot of the Hilton Hotel,
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Speaker 1: just north of downtown Austin, about forty three miles away
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Speaker 1: from Lakeway. She was bound at a wrists and ankles
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Speaker 1: using duct tape, Betty was blindfolded, gagged, and had been
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Speaker 1: shot through the back of her head. Due to a
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Speaker 1: lack of evidence or perhaps lack of forensic advancements, and
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Speaker 1: arrest was far from imminent, and the investigation continued. As
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Speaker 1: detectives began branching out from her immediate family life, they
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Speaker 1: found an unsettling echo, one that pulled them eight years
20:42
Speaker 1: backward and forty five miles south to Guadalupe County. Bo Thomas,
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Speaker 1: Betty's husband, had been through something like this before. On
20:53
Speaker 1: October seventh, nineteen eighty, his father, William Lamar Thomas, a
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Speaker 1: San Antonio roofer and handyman with a long arrest history,
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Speaker 1: was found shot to death on a hunting lease near Kingsbury.
21:07
Speaker 1: William had driven his plymouth out to the Pat Baker
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Speaker 1: ranch to check his lease, something he did often enough
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Speaker 1: that no one thought twice when he didn't return right away.
21:18
Speaker 1: It wasn't until a ranch hand noticed his car sitting
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Speaker 1: motionless for hours beside a small shack that anyone approached
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Speaker 1: inside the scene was stark. William Thomas had been executed
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Speaker 1: two nine millimeters shots to the back of the head
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Speaker 1: at close range. Powderburns surrounded both wounds, and there were
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Speaker 1: signs that William had tried to defend himself. Nothing had
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Speaker 1: been stolen, His wallet was still in his pocket, his
21:48
Speaker 1: watch still on his wrist. Tire tracks suggested a second
21:52
Speaker 1: vehicle had been there. Guadaloupe County Sheriff Pete Cally's and
21:58
Speaker 1: his deputies processed the but the conclusion came quickly. Whoever
22:03
Speaker 1: killed William Thomas had been someone he knew, someone he
22:07
Speaker 1: trusted enough to turn his back on his past offered possibilities.
22:13
Speaker 1: William's criminal record reached back decades and crossed counties. He
22:19
Speaker 1: had multiple arrests for burglary, a theft conviction, and various
22:23
Speaker 1: other run ins with law enforcement, often tied to property
22:28
Speaker 1: crimes or bad debts, and often landing him in jail.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't a hardened criminal, but he lived the kind
22:36
Speaker 1: of life that made enemies, or at least the kind
22:39
Speaker 1: of life where favors and debts blurred into danger. But
22:43
Speaker 1: there was something else. When investigators reached one of William
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Speaker 1: Thomas's sons to notify him of the death, the conversation
22:52
Speaker 1: left an impression. The son did not ask how William died,
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Speaker 1: whether a suspect existed, or even what it had haden.
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Speaker 1: At the scene, officers described the voice on the other
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Speaker 1: end of the line as flat, unmoved, offering little more
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Speaker 1: than acknowledgment. In a case this strange, it became one
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Speaker 1: more detail. Investigators never forgot one they wrote down. It
23:18
Speaker 1: wasn't evidence of anything, but it stuck with the officers
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Speaker 1: who documented it. When a man is executed on a
23:26
Speaker 1: ranch road in the middle of the day, most sons
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Speaker 1: react with shock or questions. This one did not. Whether
23:35
Speaker 1: that meant estrangement, resignation, or something else entirely, perhaps guilt.
23:41
Speaker 1: No one could say the case went cold. There were
23:45
Speaker 1: no suspects, no arrests, not even a clear motive. It
23:50
Speaker 1: was a clean, deliberate killing, carried out with precision, and
23:54
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, after Betty's murder, investigators compared notes
23:59
Speaker 1: between counties. The parallels felt impossible to ignore. To Thomas
24:05
Speaker 1: family members eight years apart, both shot in the head
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Speaker 1: at close range, both killed with calm, practiced efficiency, no witnesses,
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Speaker 1: no weapon recovered, but ballistics ruled out a match. The
24:20
Speaker 1: gun used on William was not the same gun used
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Speaker 1: on Betty. There was no evidence at all that the
24:27
Speaker 1: crimes were connected, only gut feelings felt by investigators who
24:31
Speaker 1: had learned to be wary of coincidences. Through nineteen eighty
24:37
Speaker 1: eight and nineteen eighty nine, detectives chased every lead they
24:41
Speaker 1: could find. They examined Betty's phone records, bank activity, and
24:46
Speaker 1: insurance policies. Her will, written in nineteen eighty three, left
24:51
Speaker 1: everything to her husband, three houses, two additional lots in Lakeway,
24:57
Speaker 1: and personal property, totaling about three hundred ninety two thousand dollars.
25:02
Speaker 1: Life insurance policies added roughly another three hundred thousand dollars,
25:07
Speaker 1: a total equivalent to almost two million dollars. In twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty five, investigators subpoenaed the family's medical and financial records,
25:17
Speaker 1: along with the guest logs from the Austin hotel where
25:20
Speaker 1: Betty's car and Betty were found. None of it pointed
25:24
Speaker 1: them toward a suspect. Bo Thomas eventually sold the Coldwater
25:30
Speaker 1: Lane house and moved to Anderson Mill. By nineteen ninety one,
25:35
Speaker 1: Police Chief Tom Evans told reporters that investigators had a suspect,
25:40
Speaker 1: someone outside the family, but added that the evidence wasn't
25:44
Speaker 1: strong enough for charges. With no arrests, the case slipped
25:49
Speaker 1: out of the headlines for the next two decades. The
25:53
Speaker 1: box labeled Thomas Betty Ann sat in Lakeway's evidence room,
25:59
Speaker 1: aging like everything else in the building. Lakeway grew around it,
26:04
Speaker 1: a small resort town turning into a bustling suburb, but
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Speaker 1: the murder stated exactly where it had been left unsolved.
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Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, Sergeant Jason Brown assumed responsibility
26:17
Speaker 1: for the cold case files. By then, Lakeway had grown
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Speaker 1: to nearly twenty thousand residents, but Betty's murders still defined
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Speaker 1: the department. Brown reopened the case, reevaluated the evidence and photographs,
26:33
Speaker 1: and sent previously untested items to the DPS lab. In
26:38
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, scientists developed a partial mail DNA
26:42
Speaker 1: profile from one of those items. It didn't match anyone
26:47
Speaker 1: in Texas databases or in the National CODIS registry. It
26:52
Speaker 1: was a breakthrough and a dead end at the same time,
26:55
Speaker 1: proof that the killer had left something behind, but no
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Speaker 1: name to attach to it. Still, the profile was preserved, uploaded,
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Speaker 1: and stored for the day technology would catch up. That
27:09
Speaker 1: day came sixteen years later, in early twenty twenty five,
27:14
Speaker 1: nearly forty years after Betty and Thomas was killed. The
27:17
Speaker 1: Texas Department of Public Safety's upgraded fingerprint matching system triggered
27:23
Speaker 1: an unexpected hit. Two latent prints collected at the Thomas
27:27
Speaker 1: home in nineteen eighty eight now matched known individuals who
27:31
Speaker 1: had never been connected to the case. Neither man was family,
27:36
Speaker 1: neither was a friend. Neither had any documented link to
27:40
Speaker 1: Betty or Bow. Lakeway detectives moved quickly. They filed search
27:46
Speaker 1: warrants to collect DNA from both individuals. According to those warrants,
27:52
Speaker 1: the latent fingerprint matches came from items inside the Thomas
27:56
Speaker 1: home that had been collected as evidence in nineteen eighty eight,
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Speaker 1: objects purchased around the time of the killing. Investigators noted
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Speaker 1: that neither man had any known connection to the family
28:09
Speaker 1: or the case. The new DNA samples were rushed to
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Speaker 1: the DPS lab for comparison to the unknown male profile
28:17
Speaker 1: developed in two thousand and nine. If the DNA matches,
28:21
Speaker 1: it could solve the only homicide in Lakeway's history. If
28:26
Speaker 1: it didn't, investigators planned to move forward with forensic genealogy,
28:31
Speaker 1: tracing relatives through public databases until a name surfaces. Either way,
28:37
Speaker 1: the case is no longer idle. Over the decades, rumors
28:44
Speaker 1: swirled in Lakeway. Early reportings suggested the killing resembled a
28:49
Speaker 1: professional hit, and investigators even explored whether Betty's murder was
28:53
Speaker 1: connected to the nineteen eighty execution style killing of her
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Speaker 1: father in law. Both theories led nowhere, but the speculation
29:02
Speaker 1: lingered in the community. Somewhere in those microscopic traces lies
29:08
Speaker 1: the truth about who walked into the house on Coldwater
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Speaker 1: Lane on April eleventh, nineteen eighty eight. Betty's family has
29:16
Speaker 1: carried that uncertainty for nearly four decades. Her daughter, the
29:20
Speaker 1: one who had just given birth the same day her
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Speaker 1: mother was killed, still answers investigator's calls with the same
29:28
Speaker 1: hope for those who remember Betty, not the victim in
29:32
Speaker 1: the headlines, but the sister, the mother, the woman packing
29:36
Speaker 1: her jaguar to meet her first grandchild. The hope is
29:39
Speaker 1: simple and unchanged, that the evidence will finally speak, that
29:44
Speaker 1: the name behind her murder will no longer be unknown,
29:48
Speaker 1: and that justice will prevail. If you have any information
29:55
Speaker 1: about the murder of Betty Ann Thomas, please call the
29:58
Speaker 1: Lakeway Police to Apartment at five one two two six
30:02
Speaker 1: one twenty eight hundred if you'd like to join con
30:08
Speaker 1: Coold's mission to shine a light on unsolved homicides and
30:11
Speaker 1: missing persons cases, get the show at free and have
30:15
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30:19
Speaker 1: slash Gone Cold podcast. You can also support the show
30:24
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen. However you choose
30:31
Speaker 1: to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.