Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Torso Murders Part 3: Fort Bend County & Room 636

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The Torso Murders Part 3: Fort Bend County & Room 636 · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone coll Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. By the mid nineteen sixties, the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Texas torso murders were already a story that had spread
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: across the state and even the nation. They'd begun on
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  Speaker 1: the far western edge El Paso County in nineteen fifty nine,
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  Speaker 1: where the Rio Grande snaked through sand and saltbrush. There
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  Speaker 1: a suitcase bobbed against the reeds, and what was inside
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  Speaker 1: changed the county forever, the headless remains of a man,
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  Speaker 1: the work of a hand that understood anatomy and butchery.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Less than three years later, three hundred miles east in
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  Speaker 1: San Jacino County, near Cleveland, another torso surfaced, not far
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: from the Trinity River. It was a woman, this time,
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  Speaker 1: carved apart with much less precision, crude and irregular, as
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  Speaker 1: one pathologist put it, perhaps the work of someone in
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  Speaker 1: a great hurry. No one ever proved the cases were connected,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: but anyone who had ever stood over one of those
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  Speaker 1: torsos felt it in their gut they had to be.
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  Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty four, the killings seemed to have stopped.
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  Speaker 1: The files gathered dust, and even sheriff Bob Bailey out
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in Olpasso had announced retirement, though the cases still sat
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  Speaker 1: on his conscience. The lawman used to tell reporters that
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  Speaker 1: a man like that doesn't just quit if the murders
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: were connected. He was right. Nineteen sixty four brought yet
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  Speaker 1: another case, but even with the addition of this Torso,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the following year would bring about a mystery just as
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: perplexing and horrific, one that would leave many speculating a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: connection to the Texas Torso murders, even though this one
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: left behind nobody at all. In Fort Bend County, daylight
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  Speaker 1: came slow over the Brazis River bottom on June eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. Rice fields glimmered with shallow water, the
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  Speaker 1: soil red and heavy from weeks of rain. Along Farm
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  Speaker 1: Road three point fifty nine, sixty four year old farmer
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: George Rhodes started as tractor before sunrise. By five point
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  Speaker 1: ten that morning, he was easing down toward the Jones
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  Speaker 1: Creek bridge when something caught his eye in the ditch,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: something round, smooth, almost clean, something that didn't belong. He breaked.
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  Speaker 1: The tractor idled, and for a moment there was only
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the hum of insects and the murmur of water through
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  Speaker 1: the grass. Then he saw it, clearly a human torso
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  Speaker 1: lying half submerged in the mud, no head, hands or feet.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Rhoads trembled when he snapped out of the shock, at
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  Speaker 1: least the worst part of it. He drove straight to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: a neighbour's phone. Within the hour, Sheriff R. L. Tiny
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  Speaker 1: Gaston and his deputies were on the scene, joined soon
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: after by Chief Deputy Lloyd Fraser from Houston and A. C.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Martindale from the Medical Examiner's office. The body, what was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: left of it, was taken to Bintob Hospital in Houston.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Martindale estimated the torso had been dumped there no more
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: than twenty four hours earlier. Whoever left it, he told
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  Speaker 1: the press, made no effort to hide or cover it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Whoever did it might have wanted the torso found, but
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: it was obvious. The investigator added that someone didn't want
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: this man's identity known. The ditch was open ground, no
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: trees for concealment, no attempt at burial, just a blunt
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  Speaker 1: message left on the roadside. The autopsy fell to doctor
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Robert V. Bucklin, Associate medical Examiner. He found the victim
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  Speaker 1: to be a white male, around six feet tall, near
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  Speaker 1: fifty years old, weighing roughly one hundred and eighty pounds,
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  Speaker 1: with dark hair still clinging to the shoulders. The head
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  Speaker 1: was gone, the arms removed cleanly at the wrists, the legs,
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  Speaker 1: at the knees. A single rib the sixth was broken,
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  Speaker 1: but there were no defensive wounds or bruising. Every cut
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  Speaker 1: was straight, not hacking, not hesitation. Straight. Doctor Buckland said
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  Speaker 1: it looked as though a sharp knife of surgical quality
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  Speaker 1: had been used, possibly even a scalpel. There's an easy
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  Speaker 1: way and a hard way to remove limbs, he told deputies.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Amateurs never find the easy way. This person did. He
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  Speaker 1: concluded that whoever performed the dismemberment had at least a
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  Speaker 1: working knowledge of anatomy. Doctor, mortician, medical student, butcher, take
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  Speaker 1: your pick, he said. But they knew exactly where to
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  Speaker 1: cut on the corpse. There was no sign of gunshot
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  Speaker 1: or knife injury. Buckland determined the man had died first,
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  Speaker 1: likely of a wound to the head or neck, and
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  Speaker 1: only afterward was the body taken apart. Gaston's men scoured
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  Speaker 1: the roadside and nearby rice paddies for any trace of
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  Speaker 1: the missing parts. They found nothing. The ditch itself was
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  Speaker 1: dry of blood, meaning the killing and dismemberment had happened
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  Speaker 1: somewhere else entirely. Whoever the victim was, he'd been transported
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  Speaker 1: here and discarded like waste. Fort Ben County called in help,
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers, the Harris County Sheriff's office, and the
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  Speaker 1: Houston Police. Every missing person report from the region was
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  Speaker 1: compared against the medical description. Families from Galveston and Harris
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  Speaker 1: County came to view the torso at Ben Tobb, clinging
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  Speaker 1: to hope and dreading confirmation at the same time. None
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  Speaker 1: recognized him. There were no tattoos, no scars, no surgical marks,
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  Speaker 1: not even a birthmark. That Thursday night, the story hit
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  Speaker 1: the front page of the Houston Chronicle. Acts believed used
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  Speaker 1: to chop victim apart. It was sensational and contradicted the
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  Speaker 1: medical examiner's comments that a scalpel or other surgical quality
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  Speaker 1: blade was used. The next day, the post followed with
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  Speaker 1: another grim line killer skilled in anatomy. This one closer
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  Speaker 1: resembled the truth. Sheriff Gaston told reporters that they were
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  Speaker 1: looking first and foremost for a name without one. There
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was little else to chase, but without a head, fingers,
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  Speaker 1: or other identifiable parts, it was a long shot. Investigators
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  Speaker 1: questioned an iron worker from Oklahoma, picked up in Austin
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  Speaker 1: after luring a boy away from a ballpark. Deputies found
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  Speaker 1: no sharp tools in his car, no blood, and no
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  Speaker 1: link to the murder. He was cleared of involvement in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the Torso case. By the weekend, the search widened. Deputies
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: took to the air in a small plane, hoping to
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: spot an abandoned vehicle somewhere in the farmland. From above,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the roads cut straight through flooded paddies, nothing but the
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  Speaker 1: shimmer of water and the dark rectangles of planted rice.
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  Speaker 1: They found no car, no sign at all. On June nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: Sheriff Gaston organized a twenty five mile sweep of the
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  Speaker 1: Brazas River from Simonton to Richmond. Rangers in flat bottomed
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: boats probed snags and eddies with long poles. The river
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  Speaker 1: was high and brown, carrying driftwood and the occasional foul odor,
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  Speaker 1: but it gave up nothing human. Our first and foremost thought,
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  Speaker 1: Gaston said, grimly, is to identify the victim. The goings
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  Speaker 1: rough with no leads over the next two months, his
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: office checked the names and descriptions of more than fifty
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  Speaker 1: missing men. Not one matched the build or age of
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  Speaker 1: the victim. Every rumor runaway laborers, missing sailors from Galveston,
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  Speaker 1: a drifter gone from a Houston boarding house ended the
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  Speaker 1: same way dead ends. By late August, the newspaper admits
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the investigation had stalled. The Houston Post noted that the
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  Speaker 1: sheriff had traced every bit of information and so far
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  Speaker 1: has nothing. The tone was weary, almost resigned, But the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: whispers started again about the other torsos, one discovered in
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: June nineteen fifty nine near ol Passo and another February
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two near Cleveland, both butchered and both without heads.
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  Speaker 1: The first was dissected with the care of someone who'd
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  Speaker 1: done it before, someone who wasn't in a hurry. The
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  Speaker 1: other dismemberment was considered crude and irregular by the pathologist
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  Speaker 1: who examined the parts, Perhaps hurried. A reporter asked Fort
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  Speaker 1: Bend County Sheriff Tiny Gaston if the cases might be
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  Speaker 1: linked to his He did not answer directly. In fact,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: he skirted around the question entirely, just said we've checked
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: on about fifty missing persons. This time, the leads were
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  Speaker 1: even fewer and farther in between, and law enforcement officials
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  Speaker 1: were quieter about the case. As a result, the news
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  Speaker 1: cycle moved on quickly. The body in Fort Bend County
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  Speaker 1: was placed in a freezer and labeled as John Doe
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  Speaker 1: sixty four Dash six. The case file was as thick
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  Speaker 1: as a dictionary, but evidence slim as a single piece
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  Speaker 1: of the paper within. For the next several months, the
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  Speaker 1: Texas Torso murders once again stopped. Then came February nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty five and a new case that didn't look like
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  Speaker 1: the others at first, but would soon feel like a
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  Speaker 1: connection was possible. The Sheridan Gunter Hotel stood like an
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  Speaker 1: urban palace on Houston Street in downtown San Antonio, eight
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  Speaker 1: stories of buff masonry trimmed in limestone, its lobby full
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  Speaker 1: of polished brass, and the echo of leather souls on marble.
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  Speaker 1: Guests came for conferences and the Riverwalk, not headlines, but
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  Speaker 1: there was plenty going on at the Gunter to ride about.
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  Speaker 1: Named for local rancher and investor Jonathan Jot Gunter, the
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  Speaker 1: hotel was designed to signal ambition and elegance in a
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  Speaker 1: city on the move. Its architecture and scale were unlike
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  Speaker 1: anything yet seen in San Antonio, marking it as a
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  Speaker 1: first class destination for business travelers, visitors, and celebrated guests alike.
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  Speaker 1: Over the decades, the Gunter witnessed history. President Harry S. Truman,
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  Speaker 1: baseball icon Joe DiMaggio, and even the pioneering air cadets
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  Speaker 1: of the Second World War danced in its ballrooms. Its
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: rooms also heard the echoes of some of the most
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  Speaker 1: important American music ever recorded. In Room four fourteen, legendary
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  Speaker 1: blues musician Robert Johnson laid down the first sixteen of
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  Speaker 1: his twenty nine recorded songs. Less than two years after
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  Speaker 1: making those recordings, Johnson, who was so adept at playing
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  Speaker 1: the guitar that some believed he sold his soul to
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  Speaker 1: the devil, died at age twenty seven, becoming the first
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  Speaker 1: member of the so called twenty seven Club, whose unfortunate
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: roster includes names like Jimmy Hendricks, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain.
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  Speaker 1: Truth is, however, there was no devil involved. Then infamy
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  Speaker 1: came to the Gunter in early February of nineteen sixty five,
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  Speaker 1: a man under the alias Albert Cox, a man whose
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  Speaker 1: work was truly devilish, checked into the Gunter Hotel at
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  Speaker 1: about five point forty on a Monday evening, the eighth
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  Speaker 1: day of the month. Housekeeper Maria Luisa Guerrera thirty seven,
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  Speaker 1: carried fresh towels to room six thirty six. She had
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  Speaker 1: knocked twice when the door creaked open, slowly, stopping halfway.
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  Speaker 1: A man in his thirties stood there, lean, dark haired,
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  Speaker 1: lifting a large wrapped parcel from the floor. He raised
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  Speaker 1: one finger to his lips, sh and walked past her
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  Speaker 1: into the corridor. Carrying the parcel from the doorway, Maria
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  Speaker 1: saw the blood, a thick pool of red amid disheveled bedding.
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  Speaker 1: The odor of iron spilled into the room. She dropped
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  Speaker 1: her towels and ran. By six thirty pm, homicide detectives
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  Speaker 1: had arrived. The scene stopped even veteran officers. Cold blood
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  Speaker 1: was everywhere on the walls, the bed, pooled on the
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  Speaker 1: tile in the bathroom. Shoe prints found were of two sizes,
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  Speaker 1: some large and some small. A twenty two caliber shellcasing
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  Speaker 1: lay on the bedspread, and a slug was buried in
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  Speaker 1: the wall behind a dresser. A chair by that dresser
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  Speaker 1: had been soaked until the stuffing bled through its seams.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Scattered among the gore were four empty wine bottles, a
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  Speaker 1: half eaten package of imported cheese, a ten of sardines,
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  Speaker 1: women's nylon stockings, strands of blonde hair, and a tissue
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: with lipstick print. Right away, detectives knew they had a
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  Speaker 1: mystery on their hands. They just had no idea how
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: significant it would be and for how long. Doctor Reuben Santos,
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  Speaker 1: Bear County Medical Examiner confirmed the blood from room six
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  Speaker 1: point thirty six was human, more than any person could
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  Speaker 1: lose and survive. He told investigators flatly that this was
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: no miscarriage or botched medical procedure. Someone died in there,
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  Speaker 1: he said, and they didn't walk out. There was no body,
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  Speaker 1: no identifying items to be found, only the smell, the stains,
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  Speaker 1: and the certainty that murder had happened inside the hotel room.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Inspector Joe Hester, head of the city's Criminal Investigation Division,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: took command that night. The register showed the guest had
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: arrived February second and paid cash. His address was fictitious.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: By dawn, San Antonio police had issued a statewide alert
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: for the man known as Albert Cox. Detective Frank Castillone,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: a thick shouldered man with a quiet voice, carried the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Gunter Hotel in his head for the next two days.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: He and partner Bob Holt carted a suitcase from stored
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  Speaker 1: a store, asking clerks if they recognized it. Inside for
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: empty wine bottles, sardine's and imported cheese. Now reeking with Rod,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't heavy, Castillon later said, just awful. At the
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  Speaker 1: San Antonio Trunk and Gift Company on Alamo Plaza, a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: salesman remembered selling that same suitcase on February third. The
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: customer had paid with a personalized check signed John J. McCarthy.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Across town, at Shiloh's Delicatessen, clerks recalled a man using
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: another McCarthy check to buy twelve dollars and eighty cents
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: worth of food, cheese, sardine's, and olives. But it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a mister McCarthy. One employee explained it was his step son,
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  Speaker 1: Walter something Urick. Maybe Back at headquarters. A quick call
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  Speaker 1: to the District Attorney's hot Check division confirmed it. A
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: forgery complaint had been filed just two days earlier by
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: missus John J. McCarthy against her son, Walter Emerick, thirty
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: eight years old. Fifty checks were stolen, and there was
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a warrant already open. Fingerprint expert A. M. Davenport compared
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: latent prints from room six thirty six of the Gunter
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: with Emerick's nineteen sixty record, a charge of forgery which
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: later became a conviction. The Prince matched Ridge for Ridge
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: detectives already knew they were onto something, but now they
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: had evidence. By eight pm on Wednesday, February tenth, a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: statewide bulletin went out naming Walter A. Emerick, unemployed accountant,
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  Speaker 1: habitual drinker, and ex Air Force veteran. Three hours later,
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  Speaker 1: a security officer at the Saint Anthony Hotel, only two
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  Speaker 1: blocks from the Gunter, phoned police. A guest in an
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: room five thirty six, registered as Robert Ashley, had refused
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: MAIDE service since checking in on Tuesday. When staff knocked,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the man barked through the door. I don't want anything.
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  Speaker 1: It was unusual enough, particularly considering the recent headlines. The
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: security officer, Sandor Ambros Junior, had been following the Gunter
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: story and noticed the coincidence Room six thirty six at
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: one Hotel five thirty six. At the other, Ambros called
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: his friend in homicide, Lieutenant George Martin, came himself. He
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: checked the signature on the card. The lawman recognized it
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: as the same slanted hand in which the registry at
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the Gunter was signed. Lieutenant Martin gathered a small team, Martin, Ambrose, Castillone,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and District Attorney Investigator Jose Lucero. At eleven pm, they
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: stood in the fifth floor hallway outside room five point
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: thirty six with a maid and a master key. Ambros
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: called through the door, Sir, do you need any fresh towels? No,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the voice answered, I don't want any service. The hall
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: smelled faintly of cigar smoke. Ambrous slid the key into
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the lock. A gunshot cracked, once, small as a firecracker,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: then silence. The officers pressed against the wall and waited.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Castillone heard nothing and drove his shoulder through the door
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: inside Walter Oddly. Emerick lay across the bed, a twenty
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: two caliber pistol still in his right hand, a hole
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: in his temple. He gasped a couple times. Castillone quickly
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: took the gun from his grip and tried to speak
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to him, but the man was already gone. Emeriic was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: clad in only blue shorts and a sleeveless undershirt. On
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the dresser sat a new suitcase packed with clean clothes.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: A white shirt hung damp from the sink. Someone had
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tried to rense blood from it. It matched exactly one
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: found in Room six thirty six by size and brand.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Nearby were cigar butts of the same blend snuffed out
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in the gunter. A woman's cigarette lighter lay beside the bed,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: engraved with the initials CR. Doctor Reuben Santos pronounced Emeric
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: dead at eleven twenty five pm. With that gunshot, the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: investigation lost its only living witness, but with the lighter,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: detectives held onto the hope that the mystery in Room
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: six thirty six would be solved by sunrise. On Thursday day,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: February eleventh, nineteen sixty five, the front pages of local
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: newspapers screamed what happened in Rooms six thirty six. Meanwhile,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the police were hunting for a body. They had dragged
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the San Antonio River, scoured downtown sewers, searched bus station lockers, dumpsters,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and hotel trash bends nothing, not one trace of human remains.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Inspector Hester confirmed that the small footprint found in blood
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: on the tile came from a woman's shoe. It raised
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: a serious question for detectives to consider, did Emerik have
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a female accomplice. The blonde hairs found in Rooms six
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: thirty six matched those recovered from the bathroom drain. Witnesses
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: had seen a young woman five eight slender, late twenties
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: enter the hotel room on the Saturday night prior to
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the possible murder. Sunday morning, a woman's v VO had
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: told the maids to skip the room today. At Shiloh's Deli,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: employees reported that Emeriic often dined with a blonde. In fact,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: employees had seen them together on February first, the day
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: before he checked into the gunter. Detectives believed the victim
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: was a woman, probably shot with a twenty two caliber
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: pistol and dismembered afterward. The lighter with the initials CAR
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: became the only tangible clue. Then, two saleswomen from Sears
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: added a chilling detail. On Tuesday, one day after the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: maid discovered the blood, a man they later identified as Emeeric,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: tried to buy a meat grinder. He asked for the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: biggest model available. When told it would take time to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: bring one from the stock room, he snapped, I need
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it now and walked out. Later that afternoon, he checked
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: into the Saint Anthony under the alias Rode Robert Ashley.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: On February thirteen, police divers and explorer scouts joined a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: flotilla of sixteen boats sweeping the river as far south
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: as Berg's Mill. They found nothing but beer cans and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: used tires. A call about a dog chewing what looked
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: like human ribs came in, but they turned out to
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: be pig bones. That day, Walter Emerick was buried with
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: full military honors at Fort sam Houston National Cemetery, an
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: honor guard over a man most of the city now
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: called a butcher. His mother, missus Rosemary McCarthy, attended quietly.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Detectives continued fielding calls about missing women from across Texas,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: but none fit. Then, on February fifteen, a woman in
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: her late thirties came forward to claim the lighter engraved car.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: She told Sheriff Bill Howke and Inspector Hester that she'd
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: met a man named Casey at a downtown bar, and
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: recognized his photograph in the newspaper as Walter Emeriic. On
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: February sixth, after a dental appointment left her dizzy, Emeric
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: offered his hotel room at the Gunters so she could
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: rest before catching a cab. She stayed about forty five minutes,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: saw a suitcase and shopping bag, but no blood, and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: left at around eleven pm. She'd simply forgotten the lighter there,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: which was a gift from her mother. She described Emeric
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: as courteous, quiet, a gentleman. The woman's statement cleared the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: lighter from suspicion, but deepened the mystery of the blood.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Hester told reporters right now were more interested in
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the dead than the living. They needed an identity, They
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: needed a body. Police traced Emeric's movements after the encounter
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: with the woman. He likely spent Sunday cleaning the room,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: disposing of evidence, then checking into a second motel Monday
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: night without luggage, skipped the bill and moved to the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Saint Anthony the next day. A clerk at CNS Sporting
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Goods remembered selling him a pair of golf shoes on
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: February second, accompanied again by a blond woman. By March fifth,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: only one piece of physical evidence remained untested, a green
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: powder caked to the soles of Emeric's shoes. Hester sent
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: them to the Department of Public Safety lab in Austin.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: The analysis came back inconclusive ordinary paint dust, maybe copper corrosion.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: With that, the case ran out of road. Hester told
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: reporters they could now track Emeric almost minute by minute,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: but the trail of his presumed victim disappeared completely. Without
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a body, there could be no official murder case, only
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a bloody room, a dead suspect, and a story that
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: refused to fit into any report. By the summer of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, the mystery of Room six thirty six
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: at the Gunter Hotel had already become a haunted legend
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: in San Antonio, but the city moved on Walter Audley Emerick,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: after all, couldn't harm anyone else. For lawman who remembered
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the older cases, the torso in Opaso County, the woman
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: near Cleveland, the headless man in Fort Bend County. The
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: echo was unmistakable, a transient man skilled with a blade,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: comfortable in hotels vanishing between counties. A traveler whose habits
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: fit the pattern of every unsolved torso from the last decade,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Emeric seemed to fit the bill. Five hundred and fifty
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: miles to the northwest of the Gunter Hotel Hell and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: its room six thirty six in Opaso County, former Sheriff
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Robert Bob Bailey was enjoying retirement, although the law enforcement
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: bugs still nipped at him. Bailey became officially retired only
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: about a month before Emerick did whatever it was he
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: did in that hotel room. Given the theorized nature of
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the crime in San Antonio, had he been in office
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: in February of nineteen sixty five, its likely Bailey would
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: have been chomping at the bit to investigate Emeric for
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: his torso case, just as its likely authorities in San
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Jacino County, about two hundred and forty miles to the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: city of the Alamo's northeast. Lawman in New Mexico, as
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: well as the case of the brutal murder and mutilation
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of school teacher Charles Cox was and still is unsolved
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: when he strayed from home, particularly on drinking binges. Emeric
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: was now to travel and stay in hotels, and Cox
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: was last seen leaving one. But because of a lack
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: of press coverage or interest, it seems the question of
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: whether Walter Audley Emerick could be responsible for the Elpaso,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Sanjacento or Fort Ben County Torso murders was never even
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: asked in the court of public opinion. Those puzzles, and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the question of what happened and to whom in Rooms
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: six thirty sixth of the Gunter remained just that. More
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: than sixty years later, had Emerick been the phantom that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: haunted Texas law enforcement since nineteen fifty nine? Sheriff Bob
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Bailey had once said that a man like that doesn't
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: just quit. Maybe he was right. Maybe he quit only
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: when he put a twenty two to his own head
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: in room five thirty six. Either way, Emeric took it
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to the grave, and in San Antonio it remains a
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: ghost story because whatever happened in Room six thirty six
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of the Sheraton Gunter Hotel, whatever body was cut apart
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and carried out in that brown package, it remains six
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: decades later, one more name missing from the long cold
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: story of the Texas Torso murders. If you have any
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: information about the Fort Bend County Torso case of nineteen
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: sixty four, please contact the Sheriff's office there at two
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: eight one three four one four six sixty five. If
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you have any information about Walter Audley Emerick or his victim,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: please contact the San Antonio Police at two to one
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: zero two zero seven seven six three five. If you'd
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: like to join gon Cold's mission to shine a light
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get the show
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: at free and have access to bonus content, you can
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold Podcast. You can
• 30:02
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• 30:05
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• 30:10
  Speaker 1: However you choose to support Gone Cold, we appreciate you.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all,