KDH Dives Deep Into Cold Cases

The Inside Killeen podcast is joined by KDH reporter Ethan Housewright, who is diving into a few of the hundreds of cold cases in the city of Killeen as part of an ongoing series. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode is sponsored by Big Sox Tire Shock. New and quality used tires. Two locations in Killeen and one in Temple. Nearly 30 years in business. Got a flat? They'll get you back rolling.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dalen Che, one of the hosts for the Inside Clean Podcast, a podcast about news, events, politics in the Kleene Ford Hood area. My co-host is Kevin Limity, and I'm Mita Botchway today. Our guest is Ethan Housewright. He's the education reporter. He has also been doing cold cases as well. How are you doing today, Ethan?

SPEAKER_03 0:45

I'm doing well, Dale, and thank you for having me on the on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about the cold cases that you've been covering.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah, so I guess this has been about a month now. We launched a uh podcast series where we're um, you know, or sorry, not a podcast series, we launched a series about cold cases where we cover, you know, some of the unsolved homicides and colleen, you know, from from the past. And this uh this started back in like late April, I want to say. I wrote a story about Denadia Thompson. She was a student that was attending a Colleen um ISD elementary school back in the mid-90s. I want to say this was like 1997. But anyways, yeah, she went to school, left her grandmother's house one day with her with her cousins. And there's a debate if she made it to school or not, but she definitely left her grandmother's house and then she just disappeared. There's a huge you know, search, search for her. They, you know, she couldn't be found anywhere. And I want to say like a week or two weeks later, they found her body, like a rural, rural part of part of uh Colleen, like a few miles, a few miles south of here, actually. But yeah, to this day, nobody's been held accountable for her her murder. I guess, you know, the the police kind of stalled on you know finding any leads or really, really holding anybody accountable or bringing anybody to justice. So that was kind of how this started. And so it kind of made me think as I was working on this story, like how many cult cases does Colleen really have? So I went and I put in a public information request and just asked for, you know, a list of unsolved murders and solved missing persons cases. And I received one back from KPD and it listed out it was 182, you know, manslaughter, homicide, and then murder cases that have not been solved. And the the police say, you know, they're in the in the process of updating their record system. So that number should be treated as a rough estimate. It's not anything definitive, but still, you know, it seems like a pretty significant, you know, number of unsolved, unsolved killings, if you will, you know, to simple simplify it. So and this is from the time span of 1973 until 2021. So it's roughly a 50-year, 50-year period of, you know, unsolved, unsolved crimes. And, you know, it included the address of either where the crime itself occurred or where the body of the you know the person that was deceased was was found. So yeah, there's a lot of data and a lot of you know information you could kind of make make stories out of. So I've been going back and the you know, our our archives here in the office and you know, doing research that way. I even went to AM Central Texas and looked at their microfilm or some of our old coverage to do research on these cases.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Absolutely. What have you found so far or a common pattern in these cold cases?

SPEAKER_03 3:26

You know, I don't know if there's necessarily a common common pattern. I think, you know, one thing I've noticed from kind of talking to detectives and doing my own research is that, you know, given Kaleen's, you know, population and its proximity to Fort Hood, there's always there seems to be a lot of cases where there's kind of a military component, like either somebody that's connected to the military, you know, as like a like a family member that's you know, a family member of somebody in the military or you know, a victim, or you know, I can't think of cases where there's a perpetrator that's been in the military that I've come across. But that seems to be a common theme. Like, for instance, I talked to one one guy for the first story, his name is Matt Henderson. He lives in Florida now, but his mother had recently separated from Fort Hood. His dad was still in the military and she got murdered when he was like two months old. And yeah, nobody's ever been held accountable for for that one. So that's kind of, I guess, yeah, that's kind of a a common, common theme is like a military component or connection.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

And a lot of your studies, why did these cases start to run cold? Because a lot of these murders, it seems like there should be suspects, but they always find dead in leads. What's the little what's the why to that in your research?

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Yeah, you know, one thing I've heard is that you know, the community, again, given that it's a very, you know, has a heavy military population, that like people don't stay here and settle for a long time, like in, you know, traditional, like, you know, suburban neighborhoods that people are on the move. So I talked to one um former homicide detective, and he's like, you know, people are here visiting their family in the military. They don't have you know as much roots, roots here, maybe. It's like they could be in Fort Hood one day and then Chicago, Chicago the next day. So it's kind of hard to you know establish, you know, patterns and just kind of find, I guess, you know, connections and family members to talk to when people live like all over the United States. And it's more like of a of a transient community, if you want to, if you want to use that word. But I think that's one of the difficulties. And I think also just people, people not talking, you know, people maybe thinking it's not worth getting involved or they're you know scared to come forward with information. I think that's probably a common theme that law enforcement, you know, officers and detectives face everywhere. There's a real fear of you know retaliation, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Absolutely. And how many officers were cold cases on average?

SPEAKER_03 5:53

So I couldn't really tell you that for sure. I think that I'm not I'm not sure exactly how many homicide detectives are all are on you know, KPD's force, but I think as things slow down, they kind of start to pick up cold cases and start solving that or trying to solve them, you know, periodically. But just recently in in June, they established a cold case unit where there's one detective, his entire job is you know dedicated to looking back and solving solving cold cases. And the other one of the one of the ones he's actually looking into is the Donatia Thompson Thompson case and then the uh Diana Deanna Mayfield. Is it May Mayfield Maryfield?

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Uh Merryfield?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Yeah, Deanna Merrifield case. That's something Kevin Kevin looked into, right?

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Uh yeah, well, a little bit of interesting trivia. Sorry. Uh I just didn't indicate that I wasn't talking into the microphone. A little bit of interesting trivia. So that case was actually like the pilot episode of this podcast. Now the podcast has become more discussion-based now, but but yeah, the Deanna Merrifield case was something that we were first I was first looking into like when I was developing like the podcast. And then, you know, at the time, the the I don't remember the name of the detective I spoke with, I even might know, but he told me at the time that they weren't sure how many cold cases there were including. So even being able to find out like the 180-something number, uh I thought was pretty pretty useful information. And I guess which just goes to show sometimes it really just takes filing some of these open records requests to get that sort of information, you know. And he also told me at that time that they were starting a cold case unit soon, or either he or maybe Chief Lopez might have mentioned it at a town hall. So, you know, that was like a year ago.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

So it finally finally came to fruition after about a year to establishing a dedicated, dedicated cold case team to look into these cases.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

Yeah, no, I mean I think that's I think that's great. I think that giving families some kind of reason to hope that they'll find because when you know when somebody dies in your family, like especially in such a situation like a murder, it tends to linger with the family as like a like sort of like unclosed wound or something that you have to just live with and you know helping them gain closure, I think, is important.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, and I really think people that go missing as well, like they have no idea whether that person is still gone or if they're dead, and they have no closure, they don't know what happened, and they're just left with that question.

unknown 8:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

What's happened? And what is just closure?

SPEAKER_05 8:50

Yeah, and that's something that the sister of Deanna Maryfield kind of conveyed to me when I spoke to her. So I think it's common for across the board.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Yeah, it makes me wonder too, because the information I got back, it didn't really have anything about specifically pertaining to missing missing persons. It makes me wonder if they're, you know, they had they surely they'd have to have records on that as that as well. But that's originally what I asked for, and then the you know, open record records request that was returned to me didn't have any information on that. So it makes me wonder, you know, are they keeping keeping tabs on missing missing people here locally, like you know, Diana Merryfield?

SPEAKER_05 9:29

Yeah, the last thing I heard about that was that it was some there was supposed to be some kind of new information, possibly, but then I don't think that there was ever actually any I don't think anything actually came of that. So I think it might actually be worth maybe following up with KPD to see if like they've you know learned anything new. I mean, I have tried in the past to try to talk them about it. And you know, these honestly, these cases are difficult though. I mean the Deanna Merrifield case happened in the 90s, you know. That's that's a long time ago. You know, like it's I'm sure it's very uh challenging for police officers to go back that far to try to solve a murder that didn't have too many clues to begin with at the time. And I mean technically speaking, it wasn't a murder because we don't actually know what happened to her, but still.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Yeah. Especially, you know, given I don't know, like, you know, going back and solving solving cold cases from the early 90s, mid-90s is probably difficult when you have, you know, tons of you know, recent, recent cases popping up, especially like I want to say, you know, like before before COVID time, like probably like the mid like 2010s, there was like a pretty big increase in in you know, and and murders in the area. I think one year we maybe logged like uh I need to you know verify this. I think maybe 30 homicides in one year in 2017, maybe 2020. I don't want to guess, but I don't want to I don't want to say specific number specific number either, but it was a high volume of homicides. Yeah, yeah. So it's like uh you'd want to you'd probably want to prioritize the more recent recent ones, you know. Or be I guess the impulse from detectives to maybe want to prioritize the more more recent ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Do you know what the majority of the cold cases are? Are they missing persons or murders?

SPEAKER_03 11:22

None of the none of the ones I received back were pertained to missing persons. They're either just listed as uh homicide, manslaughter, and then murder, which I don't really know the like how they're making the, you know, differ how they're differentiating like murder from from homicide in this case. But you could just say, you know, unsolved, unsolved killings.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Hi, this is Eric Walsh. I'm a reporter for the Clean Daily Herald, and I focus on community reporting in the Coppers Cove area. Do you love staying connected to what's going on at the Clean Fort Hood area through this podcast? Independent reporting takes real work. By purchasing a digital subscription to KDH News, you don't just unlock full digital access to the stories on our website. You become an integral part keeping boots on the ground as we deliver the in-depth reporting you care about most. For less than $4 a month, you can help us keep bringing the news you rely on. Visit kdhnews.com and start your digital subscription today. That's kdhnews.com slash subscriptions. And thank you for supporting local journalism.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

So, with the unsolved killings, what's the most recent one you've been working on?

SPEAKER_03 12:41

The most recent story we did was about the July 4th, 2007 double murder at Dollar General off of Stan Schluter Loop, where someone snuck into a Dollar General. Well, they actually entered into the store without a mask during the day and they hid in the storeroom of the Dollar General overnight. Um, the next morning when the two employees by the name of Griselda Ramos and Sheila Reed, they came in to, you know, open up the store and everything, he snuck out of the stu snuck out of the storeroom and you know gunned them down. And um, yeah, they haven't found, you know, they haven't, you know, held anybody accountable for that. Nobody's been charged. I don't even know if anybody's been arrested, but I got to talk directly to the detective that kind of handled that. And it's interesting because this one they actually have the guy on camera without a mask, but the video quality is just so terrible, so grainy, you can't really make out his features, features very well when he enters the store. And then the next morning, of course, he emerges from the storm with a mask, so you can't really can't really tell either.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Now, one thing that's interesting about this case was he didn't rob the store. He had just killed them, correct?

SPEAKER_03 13:51

I think maybe that's another that's another case, but for this one, I'm pretty sure pretty sure, yeah, he took money out of the out of out of the safe, according to what the what the detective that worked a case told me.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

And it was just hard for him just to identify who he was because he had no masks. The quality was grainy.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Quality's very grainy, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting. I talked to a uh a professor at Texas State University. She actually runs this this cold case team where it's like, you know, interns at Texas State and the criminal justice, justice school there, they work alongside the um attorney general of Texas, his cold case unit, and they actually assist detectives across the state trying to solve cold cases. But one thing she told me was that there's like you know, software available, you know, are AI tools available to you know do visual like reconstruction. Like if you have a really grainy, grainy image, you could take like a still or like a screenshot maybe of like the of like the footage and remaster it with AI. She said even tools like Chat GPT, which are you know, there's free versions of that you could well is it trustworthy?

SPEAKER_04 14:56

Because it's still generative, so it can it could restructure it to something that looks like the person at all.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

I mean, yeah, I don't know how trustworthy you know Chad GPT would be in my and my like I don't know if I would rely on that, but maybe more, maybe more paid paid versions could give you a better, better estimate if there's softwares that are specifically made for that. But maybe it could be treated in the same way as like a police like composite or police sketch. Like it's not a you know exact like depiction of what the person looks like, but it could kind of give you give you a lead, maybe. That's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

Because I've for me, I know there's every when it comes to generative systems, Chat GBT isn't the one for any given situation. There are many other AI apps that are built for certain situations. Right. But when we're talking about a cold case, especially when it comes to identifying someone's face, something can go wrong in a heartbeat, and now you're chasing the wrong person.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yeah, it could be a terrible, terrible room for for error, you know, like holding or you know, resting resting somebody that's you know innocent for the mistake that AI an AI tool made.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

And outside of AI, what other tools have they been using to try to identify these suspects?

SPEAKER_03 16:09

I think you know, besides I guess just like interviews and just like classic, you know, police police work, like bringing people in for questioning and trying to generate leads that way. I guess, you know, DNA, DNA is a w is uh a you know a tool that detectives have have relied on for a while. It's another interesting interesting thing after you know talking to the detective, she kind of she kind of said that like you know, regardless of all the tools and like the technology that's available. Sorry, not the detective, the the professor. She said that you know, like just good police work and then like community involvement is what's you know paramount to solving these crimes instead of just like technology. Like technology is a great tool to assist detectives, but overall, you know, it just takes like you know, great police work and doing the doing the legwork, interviewing people and tracking down leads that way.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

Absolutely. Now, what all this technology? This is the next question I want to ask. Is it harder for them to use a new technology the technology that they have now to solve older cases such as 90s back to the 70s?

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Like in what in like in like what what sense, like is it is it harder to access like evidence, maybe?

SPEAKER_04 17:26

Yes, because since the cases are so old and that technology didn't exist from to the trace it, whereas if it was a 2010s case, they'll probably get to it quicker. Is it harder for them?

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah, I imagine it would be, especially like, you know, I don't know when corner stores really started switching to having video. I'm guessing that was sometime in the 90s, but I mean going back to the you know 70s and 80s, maybe early 90s, you wouldn't even have like you know, video footage in the store. So there's probably not much for detectives to work with, you know, from that time period, you know, especially if everyone that was connected to a you know murder victim or connected to a suspect is dead. Like I don't really know how you would go about solving something from that from that long ago. I imagine that's extremely, extremely difficult. And I imagine there's not, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people really advocating for a victim that was killed in like the early, early 70s, you know. I mean, you know, it's likely they're they don't have many family members around, you know, many loved ones that are, you know, calling the detectives or contacting the police department wanting information. So I imagine those are a lot less likely to become become solved.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Do they have a term for that after a cold case has been going on for so long that most of the people involved are probably not here anymore?

SPEAKER_03 18:47

That's a good question. I don't think there really is a specific term for that, but I guess that would just fall under the under the you know umbrella of of cold cases. But yeah, I imagine that just makes it like you know way, way more difficult to solve, you know.

SPEAKER_05 19:05

But I do think that you know, true crime and that sort of thing, like is a very, very like poignant part of our culture. I mean, a lot of people like really enjoy watching true crime. I'm not really sure now that I'm saying that poignant is exactly the right word, but but people do really get some farces out of watching or reading about cold case stories. So I was just kind of wondering, do you think that there is there is some value in like a news organization kind of like looking into this sort of thing? Because, you know. Because I I mean I can imagine that some people would and this is something that's broader than just like cold case crime coverage in general. Some people have the opinion that it's not such a good thing or use of journalist time. So I was just wondering what you thought about that.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Yeah, I think there's there are ways that you know true crime can be produced to where it's just kind of like you know, it doesn't really have much of a redeeming news value, like it's sensationalistic or it's just you know, infotainment, basically. But I mean, one thing I've learned from this is that the community has a you know huge role in solving solving crimes. Like there's you know, Bell County Crime Stoppers and things like that. They offer rewards for information, and that's led to a lot of crimes being solved. And so I've thought about it. I think that's the biggest, the biggest part of that is continuing coverage on these, on these cases to just keep you know, awareness of them in the public, keep people talking about it, keep people reading about it, because you never know, like, you know, it's really hard to commit a murder or com to commit a crime and then have nobody, nobody know about it. Like, you know, it's one thing I keep hearing from detectives is that somebody has to know something, you know. So maybe, you know, one day someone will read the read the article and they'll remember something like, oh yeah, I saw this strange vehicle, or they'll remember something out of place and want to talk to detectives, and that might be the missing link to solving, solving, solving a case, you know, or somebody might directly know who's responsible for it, and that might be the you know, the thing that makes them come forward after all these years. So I think that's the I think that's the maybe the most important important factor factor in all of this. The reason, or I guess the reason why it's you know important.

SPEAKER_05 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

And go ahead, Mita. Yeah, and we're gonna be making videos about each of these cases so we can spread the word even more and help the community see it. Cause I think it's really important to spread these, like you said.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Yeah. Where will people where can people find these videos?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

They can find them on Facebook, YouTube, on our website and now on TikTok and on Instagram, hopefully.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yeah, it's I guess important to have multiple forms of you know, media that people can consume. I guess kind of more more passive things like podcasts and and and video, you know, it's important to getting out that information because not, you know, some people they don't want to sit down and read a newspaper, especially, you know, the younger, younger generation. But I think that'd be a great way to reach a broader, broader audience, of course, is with multiple multiple mediums.

SPEAKER_05 22:28

I have an agreement with that.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah. Because you know, a lot of kids like pass by and sometimes kids see things and they don't want to speak up when they're young, but they can like see see the paper or see videos when they're older.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

You know what? True. I want to come out about this.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah. It's a good point down the road when they've had more time to reflect on something, something they saw. You know, maybe they're more likely to come forward as like a young adult. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

Absolutely. Now, as we're beginning to wrap up, you've seen a lot of cases, Ethan. Out of all the cases you've seen, which one was most not interesting, but it was very you had a lot of questions about it. It just raised a lot of red flags for you.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

I think for this, this one, I don't know if there's specifically, you know, red flags that came to mind, but I think the one that's, you know, is the most memorable to me still is the Denadia Thompson case. Just because it's something I had never heard of until I started looking into it, you know, like her, you know, a family, a family friend of her, you know, her sister, I mean her aunt, they they called and they just gave me a news tip about it and said like the anniversary's coming up and asked me if I'd be interested in covering it. So I started looking back and it's you know, it's impactful to me because I just didn't realize, you know, the sheer like scope of like the search for Denati Atompson when she went missing. Like there is Texas Rangers involved, the FBI, the local, local police. There is, I think, you know, neighboring sheriffs, sheriff's departments, they're lending like you know, hounds to go and and look for her. So it's just like it's impactful to me just thinking of like how how much the community was involved, you know, getting into search, search parties. And I think, you know, that's reflected on social media when we posted, posted stories about her. Like people are like, oh yeah, I remember this. And something they still think about, it's something that's still still stuck with the community to this day. So I think that's um the most memorable to me as far as community involvement, and then just like the brutality and just I don't know, just evil, evilness of you know, killing a seven-year-old and and and dumping their body. It's just, you know, pretty heinous, and it's something that I think I'd love to see solved. And I think, you know, everyone that remembers this case would love to see solved as well.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Absolutely. Now you have an upcoming cold case story coming out. You give the audience a little bit of details about that.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

So that's our uh our intern, um Elias Tremassini, he's working on a story about Kintaro Cooper. He was a uh gas station store clerk that was he was gunned down while on a shift. I want to say it was a circle, Circle K gas station near Ellison High School. Someone walked in with a mask, gunned him down, and left without without robbing, taking anything from the store. So basically, you know, an execution, execution style, killing where no one's been held accountable. And Elias has been working on that, doing some research and talked to the victim's father. Has been in communication with the with the police about it. So that that should be the next cold case story to look out for. I believe Jacob said that'd be out around August 17th, August, August 12th. Is that do you do you recall correctly?

SPEAKER_05 25:36

Uh that does sound correct, but in the coming weeks, I guess you could say. Yeah, I guess keep an eye out for it on uh kdhnews.com and our Facebook pages and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

It'll be August 16th. August 16th, okay, close. Absolutely. Kevin, how many has anything else that y'all like to add?

SPEAKER_05 25:55

Uh not really. I mean, uh the only thing that I will say, and I appreciate Ethan doing this because some sometimes talking to like the victims' families is very hard to do. And I don't envy anybody that does that. But it it also is part of what makes doing certain types of journalism so rewarding at the same time. So that's all I'd have to say.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

Amita. Alrighty. Well, Ethan, thank you so much for stepping up. Thanks for having by today and really giving a great conversation about cold cases and information that people need to understand, look out for, and why it's important to speak up to these things because these cases are turning 30, and yet there's still not enough information being known. So, everyone listening, if you see something, please say something. And with that, thank you for thank you for listening to Inside Colleen. Once again, the co host is Hamida Botche and Kevin Limity, and she was Hamida Bauchway was also the producer. And our guests again is Ethan Housewright, the education reporter and lead on Cold Case Stories. Y'all have a good one. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And we'll see you on the next one.