# The Preacher's Daughter

An episode of [Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1526682330), 5 Nov 2025, 56 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/fb8d36cf-b165-4399-b277-ae2701747cf3/ce36d10d-01bd-47c7-a7e7-b38b012db074/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=664846e2-642c-49b7-82d8-ae2701747d14

In Texas: teens are dying. Two teens go missing on a March night in 1983—and that’s only the beginning. A body count of kids and teens, missing and murdered, in a county that many say is run by corrupt cops - with those at the top covering for them. In the first episode of season five, Phelps heads to Weatherford, Texas, to begin one of the most sprawling investigations of his career. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:08] Speaker 1: This is not real. This is not real, this is
[0:11] Speaker 1: not you know, not mine, Shelley, No, you know, and
[0:15] Speaker 1: it's just like a oh, I cannot even tell you
[0:18] Speaker 1: what it feels like. It is feel like something has
[0:21] Speaker 1: just gotten hooked to your heart and just ripped it apart,
[0:25] Speaker 1: crushed it. You know, it's just your being is just
[0:29] Speaker 1: like gone.
[0:34] Speaker 2: In those years before it all began, they spoke mostly
[0:39] Speaker 2: of God country, cattle and cutting horses. Yep, murder has
[0:45] Speaker 2: a way of changing the town and its people and
[0:48] Speaker 2: seems to wash away a lifetime of pleasant memories.
[0:54] Speaker 1: That it's still that, you know. Then you're in the
[0:57] Speaker 1: shock and you but I still didn't want anybody telling me.
[1:05] Speaker 1: I didn't want to hear anything. It was horrible. It
[1:09] Speaker 1: was horrible.
[1:13] Speaker 2: Over four decades have passed, yet the magnitude and pain
[1:17] Speaker 2: of losing a child to murder feels as raw and
[1:21] Speaker 2: real as it did on that morning when she first
[1:24] Speaker 2: heard those unimaginable words no parent should ever have to hear.
[1:31] Speaker 2: Time is no healer whoever said that never lost a
[1:36] Speaker 2: damn child to the hands of a killer. Making matters
[1:40] Speaker 2: even worse is when you and so many others feel
[1:43] Speaker 2: you know, who was responsible, but no one seems to
[1:47] Speaker 2: be doing anything about it. What's more, law enforcement stops
[1:52] Speaker 2: answering your calls, creating a force field of silence around
[1:56] Speaker 2: anyone connected to the case. Because justice in the small
[2:01] Speaker 2: Texas town where your life changed forever is unlike justice
[2:06] Speaker 2: most everywhere else.
[2:09] Speaker 3: So everybody that you taught to will say, you know
[2:15] Speaker 3: it was law enforcement everybody. So just the optics alone
[2:21] Speaker 3: looked bad, right, I mean, if you know, you need
[2:25] Speaker 3: to be careful.
[2:27] Speaker 2: And if what I've found is any indication, the good
[2:31] Speaker 2: Old Boys Club, a seemingly distant memory of the past,
[2:35] Speaker 2: appears to be alive and thriving and even more powerful
[2:40] Speaker 2: than ever, forty plus years after the fact.
[2:47] Speaker 4: My name is Debbie Billingsley. I lived in fort Worth, Texas.
[2:52] Speaker 4: I was born and raised in Weatherford. We moved to
[2:55] Speaker 4: fort Worth about, oh, I don't know, twenty four years ago,
[3:00] Speaker 4: maybe just because I wanted to get away from everything
[3:04] Speaker 4: that was over there in Weatherford. There was just so
[3:07] Speaker 4: much going on that I really became afraid to stay
[3:12] Speaker 4: there when Shelley and Vincent were killed that night. From
[3:16] Speaker 4: that day forward, I had so many people knocking on
[3:20] Speaker 4: my door telling me they were the police, they were this,
[3:23] Speaker 4: they were that, and I found out that four of
[3:28] Speaker 4: them were not police, and so I became very afraid.
[3:34] Speaker 4: I didn't know who to trust at that point.
[3:39] Speaker 2: My name is em William Phelps. I'm an investigative journalist
[3:43] Speaker 2: and the New York Times bestselling author of dozens of
[3:47] Speaker 2: true crime books. This is season five of Paper Ghosts,
[3:54] Speaker 2: the Texas Team Murders. Driving from Fort Worth into Weatherford
[4:11] Speaker 2: about a thirty minute trip, give or take, the one
[4:15] Speaker 2: thing you noticed immediately is the amount of construction going
[4:19] Speaker 2: on everywhere. New apartment complexes, restaurants, strip malls, condos, walk in,
[4:26] Speaker 2: medical facilities, road construction as far as the eye can see.
[4:33] Speaker 2: It's one of two fates that befalls a small town
[4:36] Speaker 2: in America. It either fades away to dust or becomes
[4:40] Speaker 2: one big strip mall full of the same cookie cutter,
[4:44] Speaker 2: fast casual drek that swallows any town that dares to survive.
[4:51] Speaker 2: And yet, looping off the exit ramp heading into downtown Weatherford,
[4:55] Speaker 2: you get this nostalgic feeling that time has stood still,
[5:00] Speaker 2: stuck somewhere around the mid to early eighties. As I
[5:06] Speaker 2: made my way down Main Street, the strip they used
[5:09] Speaker 2: to call it heading to me to contact in a
[5:11] Speaker 2: forty two year old double murder. I get this strong
[5:16] Speaker 2: sense of how life was here back in the day
[5:20] Speaker 2: when these strange and grisly events took place, walking around
[5:25] Speaker 2: talking to people visiting the crime scene and other key locations.
[5:31] Speaker 2: The emotional ripple effect of pain associated with two teens
[5:37] Speaker 2: out on their first card date brutally murdered for seemingly
[5:41] Speaker 2: no reason at one of the more popular locations in
[5:45] Speaker 2: town is still as sensitive as it was on that
[5:50] Speaker 2: first morning after their bodies were discovered. I had been
[5:54] Speaker 2: warned be careful. People asking questions about these cases in
[5:59] Speaker 2: the past have died in accidents and supposedly by suicide,
[6:05] Speaker 2: and there are certain figures in town who will protect
[6:09] Speaker 2: the secrets at all costs. Even now, all this time, Leader.
[6:17] Speaker 4: It takes me back to a long, long time ago.
[6:19] Speaker 4: My dad was an alcoholic and for years, but praise God,
[6:23] Speaker 4: he quit drinking it and was sober thirty years before
[6:25] Speaker 4: he passed away. But our town was a small little town.
[6:30] Speaker 4: Anybody that had authority ran the town, and our sheriff
[6:35] Speaker 4: had his hand in everything that went on. We had
[6:38] Speaker 4: a trades day ground where people used to go and
[6:41] Speaker 4: set up and sell their wares, and there was some
[6:44] Speaker 4: empty houses. He so liquor out of prostitution. There was
[6:50] Speaker 4: gambling going on down there. And the reason I know
[6:54] Speaker 4: that for a fact is years and years later, my
[6:58] Speaker 4: dad told me when he drank. Our town was a
[7:03] Speaker 4: dry county. You had to drive to Fort Worth to
[7:06] Speaker 4: get liquor, any kind of liquor. And so my dad
[7:10] Speaker 4: told me, mister had these places and anybody could go
[7:13] Speaker 4: buy it, you just had to have the money. He'd
[7:16] Speaker 4: go buy the liquor and then sell it for twice
[7:18] Speaker 4: to what it was worth, just because our county was dry.
[7:21] Speaker 4: And he's the sheriff, you know. So we learned real
[7:27] Speaker 4: young in life that just because they were law enforcement
[7:31] Speaker 4: didn't mean they were good people. And he controlled everything
[7:37] Speaker 4: that went on, drugs, alcohol, transportation of trafficking of people,
[7:44] Speaker 4: all of that. He was involved in all of it,
[7:47] Speaker 4: and nobody ever did anything because they were too afraid to.
[7:52] Speaker 4: He made it very clear you either did what he
[7:55] Speaker 4: said or you paid that price. So when all of
[7:59] Speaker 4: this happened and with us, I just became very afraid
[8:04] Speaker 4: to be there. And right now we've lived in Fort
[8:08] Speaker 4: Worth twenty something years. But My kids still live in Weatherford,
[8:14] Speaker 4: and my great grandsons still live both them, and I
[8:17] Speaker 4: don't like that. I only go to Weatherford to see them,
[8:20] Speaker 4: and then I come home. I don't stay. I just
[8:23] Speaker 4: don't trust the people. Even after all of these years,
[8:26] Speaker 4: I still don't trust them.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Debbie Billingsley is much older now, with kids and grandchildren.
[8:34] Speaker 2: She was one of the last people to see the
[8:37] Speaker 2: kids on the night they left the house and never returned.
[8:41] Speaker 2: You will hear more from Debbie as we move forward,
[8:44] Speaker 2: but her sentiment sets the tone. Weatherford, Texas is unlike
[8:50] Speaker 2: most towns, where justice runs its course and the good
[8:54] Speaker 2: guys generally win, the townspeople satisfied in the streets returning
[8:59] Speaker 2: to safety. In contrast, all I have heard from one
[9:04] Speaker 2: person after the next is that you would better watch
[9:07] Speaker 2: your back out here, be it nineteen eighty three or
[9:11] Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, and that the law has its own
[9:16] Speaker 2: way of settling scores, keeping tabs, and intimidating those who
[9:21] Speaker 2: speak out so that they never speak again.
[9:27] Speaker 1: I know then something was wrong, something's wrong. So I
[9:32] Speaker 1: just got down in the car, locked the doors, and
[9:35] Speaker 1: I didn't want to get out because I didn't want
[9:37] Speaker 1: to hear. You know, I don't, no, no, no, everything's fine.
[9:43] Speaker 1: So finally I do get out, and you know, here's
[9:46] Speaker 1: these people in my house and the detectives and and
[9:54] Speaker 1: it was like, huh uh, no, you don't go tell
[9:58] Speaker 1: me nothing. You're not going to tell me nothing. So
[10:02] Speaker 1: I went to her room and I got on her
[10:03] Speaker 1: bed and just started calling everybody I had. My best
[10:09] Speaker 1: girlfriend was there, and now I just kept telling her,
[10:15] Speaker 1: and she said, Johnny, okay, let's stop calling. I said, no,
[10:20] Speaker 1: I want him to know it's okay, she can come home.
[10:22] Speaker 1: He's okay, she's not in trouble, she can come home.
[10:29] Speaker 1: So I went through that for about two days. I
[10:33] Speaker 1: didn't want to hear don't tell me nothing, But I
[10:37] Speaker 1: don't want to hear nothing.
[10:42] Speaker 2: When you lose a child, your world stops. A choking
[10:47] Speaker 2: feeling consumes you, as if you will never breathe again.
[10:52] Speaker 2: It becomes a continuous state of agonizing emotional bondage, which
[10:57] Speaker 2: you know will never let go. You can't function properly,
[11:02] Speaker 2: think straight, do simple things. No, nothing will ever be
[11:08] Speaker 2: the same again. For Janetic Coliflower Smith, forty two years
[11:13] Speaker 2: have passed since her fourteen year old daughter walked out
[11:17] Speaker 2: the door for the last time. She can't sleep anymore,
[11:21] Speaker 2: and the fact that her daughter's killer or killers are
[11:24] Speaker 2: still walking around town is a haunting reality, almost too
[11:29] Speaker 2: difficult to contend with. It's not easy to talk about.
[11:34] Speaker 2: In fact, it's almost impossible. Hearing about it is crushing.
[11:40] Speaker 2: And yet Janetta, just like the families of so many victims,
[11:45] Speaker 2: understands that if you don't talk about it, that pain,
[11:49] Speaker 2: it will suffocate you.
[11:53] Speaker 1: But you know, at that moment, it's you can't even
[11:56] Speaker 1: think of stuff. You just and for days from us,
[12:00] Speaker 1: and then forty years down the road last year I
[12:03] Speaker 1: think it was last year. Then I'm told all this
[12:07] Speaker 1: different that and I hate to say it's hard, hard
[12:11] Speaker 1: heart to say. But then the weather for detectives tell
[12:15] Speaker 1: me no, no, they were not they were shot.
[12:29] Speaker 3: You know it.
[12:31] Speaker 1: It's hard, It just you know, it just comes back
[12:34] Speaker 1: and gives you the in my head, the pictures of
[12:38] Speaker 1: what it was like.
[12:40] Speaker 2: Janetta explains that after decades of not hearing anything from
[12:44] Speaker 2: law enforcement, in twenty twenty one, there they were again,
[12:49] Speaker 2: knocking on her door, asking questions and sharing details about
[12:54] Speaker 2: the case she had never heard before.
[12:58] Speaker 1: And they resided their head. It's what I'm taught and
[13:05] Speaker 1: uh as we went on then h then one of
[13:13] Speaker 1: them told him said they didn't. I said, oh my god,
[13:17] Speaker 1: she was scared. I know, I know she was, and
[13:19] Speaker 1: I did know she was terrified, and I do know
[13:23] Speaker 1: it's me. She's thinking about, you know, where's my mama?
[13:28] Speaker 1: And uhh.
[13:53] Speaker 3: And this is.
[13:59] Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
[14:00] Speaker 1: Oh a real.
[14:01] Speaker 2: I met one of the victim's mothers where she now
[14:04] Speaker 2: lives in a gated community of Catholics, even though she
[14:08] Speaker 2: herself isn't. It was a windy, scorchingly hot day in February,
[14:15] Speaker 2: and what was immediately apparent to me was that shadow
[14:19] Speaker 2: of pain on her face, knowing she was going to
[14:22] Speaker 2: be rehashing the worst moment of her life.
[14:29] Speaker 1: My name is jon Eda Smith, but I was Cauliflower
[14:34] Speaker 1: for years, and that's the name that my daughter goes by,
[14:39] Speaker 1: Shelley Cauliflower.
[14:42] Speaker 2: Like many who live in this Bucolic rural section of
[14:45] Speaker 2: central Texas, out on the outskirts of no familiar place,
[14:50] Speaker 2: Janetta grew up in the general region and has remained
[14:53] Speaker 2: here her entire life.
[14:56] Speaker 1: I grew up in a littletown, Meridi in Texas. I
[15:01] Speaker 1: mean there was no lights, no nothing. When we're talking
[15:04] Speaker 1: streets roll up. And I had a great young life.
[15:10] Speaker 1: My dad was a Baptist preacher, and yes, I was
[15:15] Speaker 1: raised as a preacher's daughter, but I was not the
[15:18] Speaker 1: preacher's daughter. I mean I didn't get a chance to
[15:21] Speaker 1: be that preacher's daughter because my dad was so strict,
[15:27] Speaker 1: so strict. I didn't get that part.
[15:30] Speaker 5: When you say strict, what do you mean.
[15:33] Speaker 1: I really wasn't allowed to do anything. You know, he
[15:37] Speaker 1: didn't want me to play sports because like basketball, I
[15:41] Speaker 1: was never allowed to wear shorts, you know, or pants
[15:44] Speaker 1: or anything like that. He was a wonderful man. His
[15:48] Speaker 1: idea was what would people think? He just you know,
[15:52] Speaker 1: he felt like I needed to be a preacher's daughter.
[15:55] Speaker 1: You know, I needed to be good, you know. I mean,
[15:57] Speaker 1: I guess basically wholesome. But he was wonderful man.
[16:02] Speaker 2: You can hear the anguish in Janetta's voice. Every word
[16:06] Speaker 2: seems on the brink of fracturing. Janetta Collie Flower Smith
[16:12] Speaker 2: has lived the past four decades of her life in
[16:15] Speaker 2: a prison, a self contained box of emotional hell. I've
[16:20] Speaker 2: rarely encountered with murder victims' families. The events of March
[16:24] Speaker 2: twenty fifth and twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three broke. This
[16:29] Speaker 2: woman caught her soul into so many different pieces. She
[16:33] Speaker 2: has no idea even to this day how to even
[16:37] Speaker 2: begin to put herself back together.
[16:45] Speaker 1: I got married very early.
[16:47] Speaker 5: Well how old were you?
[16:48] Speaker 1: Sixteen?
[16:49] Speaker 5: So you were sixteen? And what was your husband's name?
[16:53] Speaker 1: His name? His name was cauch.
[16:55] Speaker 5: Okay, so that's where the couch name comes from.
[16:57] Speaker 1: But I want to make clear, hey never had anything
[17:01] Speaker 1: to do with her.
[17:02] Speaker 5: Nothing, And tell me about that. So what happens?
[17:05] Speaker 2: I mean, so you meet him, you're sixteen, you get married,
[17:08] Speaker 2: and you have a child right away, So you're what
[17:11] Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen and you have Shelley?
[17:14] Speaker 5: And what's that like for you?
[17:16] Speaker 1: Oh? I adored her her, you know it was Oh,
[17:21] Speaker 1: I just adored her. So she was so sweet. She
[17:24] Speaker 1: was a baby that had these you know sometimes you
[17:27] Speaker 1: call them rubber band babies. That's when they had all
[17:30] Speaker 1: of these little rolls in their legs, in their arms
[17:33] Speaker 1: because they're so fat. And she was just amazing. She's
[17:37] Speaker 1: a good baby. It was okay.
[17:39] Speaker 2: After moving round a bit, Janetta, her second husband, Ronnie Colliflower,
[17:44] Speaker 2: Shelley and a second child, Christy settled in Weatherford. Recently,
[17:49] Speaker 2: the town has been put on the map, so to speak,
[17:52] Speaker 2: as major portions of the hit television show Yellowstone were
[17:57] Speaker 2: filmed on a local ranch. It has a homey country
[18:02] Speaker 2: feel about it, steer and cattle horses, cowboy boots, jeans
[18:07] Speaker 2: and stetsons, and up in the moor, spread out flat areas,
[18:12] Speaker 2: those sprawling ranches with the iron gates their names forged
[18:17] Speaker 2: in steel. Generally speaking, downtown looks and feels like any
[18:22] Speaker 2: other contemporary Western settlement. Taco Bell and sonic Walmart, trendy
[18:29] Speaker 2: gourmet coffee shops, plenty of Southwestern architectural charm, dirt roads,
[18:35] Speaker 2: far more trucks than cars, fuel stations with snacks and
[18:38] Speaker 2: soda fountains on every corner. People tip their hats and
[18:42] Speaker 2: say howdy, They smile, ask how you are. Yet, anyone
[18:48] Speaker 2: living in town for more than a few years knows
[18:51] Speaker 2: that Weatherford holds deep, dark, murderous secrets buried just below
[18:57] Speaker 2: its magnetic western charm, a past marred in bizarre suicides,
[19:03] Speaker 2: strange supposedly accidental deaths, and several high profile brutal murders
[19:10] Speaker 2: of popular teenagers.
[19:12] Speaker 6: It was at that time it was a small town.
[19:15] Speaker 6: It probably like any other town in the South, the Texas.
[19:20] Speaker 6: You know, there was no Internet or nothing like that,
[19:22] Speaker 6: so we kind of had our own little heritage here.
[19:24] Speaker 6: You know, there's a lot of cliques and stuff like
[19:27] Speaker 6: people like groups of people had kind of had their
[19:30] Speaker 6: own way of doing stuff and thinking and stuff like that,
[19:32] Speaker 6: and it's still to somewhat. It's still like that today.
[19:37] Speaker 7: Back then, you.
[19:37] Speaker 6: Kind of had a bunch of different groups. You kind
[19:40] Speaker 6: of had like the what they call the ropers, which
[19:43] Speaker 6: was kind of your cowboys types, kind of had your rockers,
[19:48] Speaker 6: the jocks, so the jocks, the go rovers, the hippies,
[19:54] Speaker 6: the preppies, and all everything in between, and that was
[19:57] Speaker 6: kind of a combination of all of them.
[20:02] Speaker 2: The drug culture was thriving then, perhaps as it still
[20:05] Speaker 2: is today. Hardcore stuff like coke, speed, and I kid
[20:11] Speaker 2: you not, stories of methamphetamine labs, cooks and dealers with
[20:16] Speaker 2: ties to law enforcement, straight out of the hit television
[20:20] Speaker 2: series Breaking Bad.
[20:25] Speaker 6: So some of the that was kind of a weird
[20:28] Speaker 6: thing too, because some of the jocks were into the
[20:31] Speaker 6: drug thing, some of the preppies were into the drug thing.
[20:35] Speaker 6: I don't know much about the drug thing. I was
[20:37] Speaker 6: not I was. I wasn't a part of that. I
[20:39] Speaker 6: tried to stay far away from that as I could.
[20:42] Speaker 6: But you know, back then we had rock. We'd go
[20:44] Speaker 6: to rock concerts. You knew it was there, but you know,
[20:48] Speaker 6: if you're not involved with it, you're not going to
[20:50] Speaker 6: know much about it.
[20:52] Speaker 2: Still, for Ronnie and Genetic Cauliflower, along with their children
[20:56] Speaker 2: Shelley and Christy, when they arrived in nineteen eighty, Weatherford
[21:00] Speaker 2: felt like the ideal place to settle down and enjoy
[21:04] Speaker 2: what we're supposed to be the best years of their lives.
[21:08] Speaker 1: Had a very, very very nice house and with some
[21:13] Speaker 1: achorage at a little bit of acreage. And of course
[21:17] Speaker 1: Ronnie's a cowboy. It's always been a cowboy he, you know,
[21:21] Speaker 1: and that was exciting to him, and it was exciting
[21:24] Speaker 1: to make us.
[21:24] Speaker 2: The house was so nice, a gorgeous ranch with lots
[21:29] Speaker 2: of fenced in flat land out front, like an enormous
[21:33] Speaker 2: carpet leading down toward the road, horses, a gate down
[21:37] Speaker 2: at the end of the driveway to the Collieflowers. It
[21:41] Speaker 2: was paradise. What a place to raise a family. And
[21:46] Speaker 2: what did you think of Weatherford when you got there?
[21:48] Speaker 2: It was Okay, how did Shelley like it?
[21:51] Speaker 1: Oh, she loved school. She loved church, you know, she
[21:54] Speaker 1: loved it, happy, happy, happy.
[21:56] Speaker 5: So you guys were a church going family, and yeah,
[22:00] Speaker 5: and she like going to church.
[22:02] Speaker 1: Oh, she loved church. Church was her best thing. And
[22:07] Speaker 1: at the funeral, you know, I don't remember a lot,
[22:12] Speaker 1: but somethings stand out to me, and like at the funeral,
[22:16] Speaker 1: I remember her pastor saying Shelley was one of the
[22:20] Speaker 1: most faithful members they had. I mean, her best friend
[22:26] Speaker 1: and her parents were real, very very church oriented, and
[22:31] Speaker 1: of course Shelley went with her every time.
[22:33] Speaker 2: If I didn't understanding this case, it's complexities and how
[22:39] Speaker 2: for over four decades this town has so many questions
[22:43] Speaker 2: left unanswered. Began a few years back from me, the
[22:48] Speaker 2: administrator of a Facebook group, Justice for Vincent, and Shelley
[22:53] Speaker 2: reached out. Please please help us. She wrote to me,
[22:59] Speaker 2: feeling from stonewalled and patronized by a bureaucratic court system,
[23:06] Speaker 2: refusing her even the most basic case documents, police reports,
[23:12] Speaker 2: witness statements and so on. She pleaded for me to
[23:16] Speaker 2: take a look into the case. We had several conversations.
[23:21] Speaker 2: She introduced me to good honest people seeking justice. She
[23:25] Speaker 2: hoped that once I got a sense of the underlying
[23:28] Speaker 2: silence and as she claimed cover ups, I'd want to help,
[23:34] Speaker 2: because as far as she and the victims' families were concerned,
[23:39] Speaker 2: no one else would.
[23:54] Speaker 3: My name is Lorie Kates and I'm from Weatherford, Texas.
[23:58] Speaker 5: Have you grown up in what Ford? Your whole life?
[24:01] Speaker 3: Pretty much? We moved from Arlington, Texas back in nineteen
[24:08] Speaker 3: eighty three. December of eighty three, I was nine years old,
[24:13] Speaker 3: and we you know, I grew up out here. My
[24:17] Speaker 3: mom was a real estate agent in Parker County and
[24:23] Speaker 3: my dad worked at General Motors in Arlington.
[24:30] Speaker 2: At fifty A hairdresser by trade, Laurie is a quintessential
[24:34] Speaker 2: Texan with that noticeable Western accent and old fashioned appeal.
[24:40] Speaker 2: She wears a silver cross and earrings in the shape
[24:44] Speaker 2: of Texas. She's proud of her roots and who she is.
[24:48] Speaker 2: She carries a twenty five caliber pistol with a pink
[24:51] Speaker 2: pearl handle and doesn't mince words when it comes to
[24:54] Speaker 2: her opinions, especially when we get into Shelley. In Vincent's case,
[25:01] Speaker 2: she may come across suite and innocent, and yet for
[25:04] Speaker 2: the years I have known her now, Laurie is anything
[25:09] Speaker 2: but passive and soft spoken, a steel hand and a
[25:14] Speaker 2: velvet glove.
[25:16] Speaker 3: Because we need help, we need help, we need And
[25:22] Speaker 3: Shelley was fourteen, I mean, and Vincent was sixteen, and
[25:27] Speaker 3: these were kids, and we're just trying to get answers
[25:33] Speaker 3: to family. Is they've been denied any answers from weather
[25:37] Speaker 3: for PDA. They hate the chief, hangs up on the family.
[25:43] Speaker 3: They will not talk to the family.
[25:45] Speaker 2: Weatherford is the seat of Parker County. Today, there are
[25:49] Speaker 2: some one hundred and fifty thousand people, three times more
[25:53] Speaker 2: than there was in nineteen eighty three when all of
[25:56] Speaker 2: this began. Although data for that year doesn't exist, it's
[26:00] Speaker 2: safe to say Weatherford house between ten and fifteen thousand souls.
[26:06] Speaker 2: So it was very much small town Texas.
[26:10] Speaker 3: I grew up on the outskirts in a smaller little
[26:14] Speaker 3: town called Peaster, and we didn't even have a gas station,
[26:19] Speaker 3: so we had to go to Weatherford for everything. Grocery store,
[26:23] Speaker 3: you know, that type of thing, if we wanted to
[26:25] Speaker 3: go to movies. I mean, as far as I knew
[26:28] Speaker 3: as a kid it, you know, it was just growing
[26:32] Speaker 3: up in a normal country, you know, country town small town,
[26:36] Speaker 3: very family oriented. Our Friday nights consisted of cow tipping
[26:41] Speaker 3: in pastures, you know, after drinking a perhaps blue ribbon
[26:46] Speaker 3: or something. It has a courthouse, beautiful courthouse built in
[26:51] Speaker 3: the eighteen hundreds. The town were known for peaches. Actually,
[26:56] Speaker 3: they have a peach festival every year. They have farmers
[27:00] Speaker 3: market where everybody goes and gets their fresh troops and vegetables.
[27:04] Speaker 3: It's just a cute, nice, little, you know, little small
[27:09] Speaker 3: typical town.
[27:13] Speaker 2: The idea that evil exists in what's known as the
[27:17] Speaker 2: peach capital of the state seems out of place for
[27:21] Speaker 2: the people who call Weatherford home. And yet the past
[27:26] Speaker 2: doesn't lie.
[27:30] Speaker 3: Weatherford is the cutting capital of the world. There's a
[27:33] Speaker 3: lot of ranches out here, big you know, cowboys everywhere,
[27:37] Speaker 3: wranglers and boots. That's what everybody wears, cowboy hats. It
[27:41] Speaker 3: wasn't uncommon to see police officers riding horses. There's a
[27:45] Speaker 3: shriff's posse which rides horses. You know, it's a country
[27:51] Speaker 3: western cowboy town.
[27:54] Speaker 2: I think there is a cliche or maybe judgment that
[27:57] Speaker 2: small town America, especially in the South and West, consists
[28:02] Speaker 2: of families sitting on porches at night in rocking chairs,
[28:06] Speaker 2: a piece of straw in the corner of their mouths
[28:09] Speaker 2: after a day of rustling upsteer and cutting horses in
[28:12] Speaker 2: the dry, blowing dirt. There's the conception that things are
[28:18] Speaker 2: run by the local sheriff, boots up on his desk,
[28:21] Speaker 2: bella hanging over his belt, buckle, deputy standing around just
[28:26] Speaker 2: waiting to do his bidding. Thank Hollywood for those images. Yet,
[28:33] Speaker 2: as I got to know Laurie Moore and she introduced
[28:36] Speaker 2: me to others involved in this case, and an investigator
[28:41] Speaker 2: you will meet later on in the podcast, it became
[28:44] Speaker 2: clear that the old cliche of the bully sheriff and
[28:48] Speaker 2: his cronies running around doing his business is no bastardized
[28:53] Speaker 2: version of reality, particularly when the body count begins to
[28:59] Speaker 2: grow end when you consider what happened up on ten
[29:04] Speaker 2: Top Road in Weatherford in March nineteen eighty three.
[29:11] Speaker 3: The first time that I ever heard about corruption, the
[29:18] Speaker 3: good old boys club, so to speak, was back in
[29:23] Speaker 3: I was probably in sixth grade and my best friend Marlene,
[29:27] Speaker 3: her parents owned the skating rink. They had picked me
[29:32] Speaker 3: up and we were on the way of the skating
[29:34] Speaker 3: rink and my friend Marlene looked at me. We were
[29:37] Speaker 3: probably twelve years old, and she said, Hey, did you
[29:40] Speaker 3: hear about the meth lab that blew up an over house.
[29:46] Speaker 2: The man Laurie mentioned was in law enforcement at the time,
[29:51] Speaker 2: a name I have heard now from most everyone I
[29:53] Speaker 2: have spoken to as being connected to the case in
[29:57] Speaker 2: some way.
[30:00] Speaker 7: If he's not involved directly, he knows what happened, you know.
[30:04] Speaker 7: I think there was some information floating around about uh,
[30:08] Speaker 7: he was pulled over by the at that time. Instead
[30:11] Speaker 7: of getting the DWI, he gave him a ride home,
[30:14] Speaker 7: you know, And that kind of just that stuck out
[30:16] Speaker 7: in my head, like, Wow, you're thinking that did this,
[30:21] Speaker 7: or the rumor and yet that's been known out there
[30:25] Speaker 7: that you know, you're thinking they were part of it.
[30:28] Speaker 7: Thatn't really. Yeah, it kind of clicks a little funny,
[30:30] Speaker 7: you know.
[30:33] Speaker 2: To get up the truth in any cold case, weading
[30:36] Speaker 2: through rumor, speculation and talk inside the local diners and
[30:41] Speaker 2: dive bars can be a cumbersome dance. You have to
[30:47] Speaker 2: weed out fact from fiction. What brought me here and
[30:51] Speaker 2: piqued my interest all those years ago is the sheer
[30:56] Speaker 2: number of young people whose lives were lost during in
[31:00] Speaker 2: the late seventies and mid eighties, when several serial killers
[31:04] Speaker 2: were active in this part of the country. When a
[31:08] Speaker 2: certain group of victims are basically the same age, hang
[31:12] Speaker 2: around the same circles, and disappear or are murdered within
[31:16] Speaker 2: the same general region, it's almost a given you go
[31:19] Speaker 2: straight to the serial killer theory. Yet I am not
[31:25] Speaker 2: so sure that would be productive in these cases.
[31:37] Speaker 3: There was a lot of meth that was being run
[31:40] Speaker 3: through Parker County, and as long as you sold for
[31:49] Speaker 3: there was no problem. You got arrested by another officer,
[31:53] Speaker 3: you were let out, no problem. But if you stopped
[31:58] Speaker 3: and you tried to get clean, and you said no,
[32:01] Speaker 3: I'm not going to do it, then things would happen.
[32:05] Speaker 3: Kids would come up missing, to the point where the
[32:09] Speaker 3: justice of the peace at the time would make the call.
[32:11] Speaker 3: If you showed up at a scene where somebody had
[32:15] Speaker 3: passed away, he would make the call whether to send
[32:19] Speaker 3: the body for an autopsy or not. There was a
[32:23] Speaker 3: guy named Jimmy Joe Hayes nineteen eighty six. He was
[32:27] Speaker 3: found hanging by the Brass River with his feet and
[32:31] Speaker 3: his hands bound. So the local funeral hunt went because
[32:38] Speaker 3: declared it a suicide. Mister had showed up and when
[32:43] Speaker 3: he saw the suicide, he said, Oh my gosh, how
[32:48] Speaker 3: could the guy commit suicide with his hands tied and
[32:52] Speaker 3: his feet tied together.
[32:57] Speaker 2: When you add hard drugs to the equation with truckloads
[33:01] Speaker 2: of money at stick, it changes the dynamic of murder
[33:06] Speaker 2: investigation considerably. And when you have a corner on the
[33:10] Speaker 2: ground seemingly working for law enforcement and not the truth,
[33:15] Speaker 2: those murders can be easily buried in the depths of silence.
[33:20] Speaker 2: Yet within a case where there is so much information
[33:24] Speaker 2: centered around forty two year old stories and so many
[33:28] Speaker 2: people are still scared of speaking out, where do you
[33:32] Speaker 2: even begin.
[33:35] Speaker 3: It was really bizarre for me when I started researching
[33:39] Speaker 3: this case to look back and think, oh my gosh,
[33:46] Speaker 3: my parents moved us out here for a better life.
[33:51] Speaker 3: Arlington was getting big, and then to come to find
[33:54] Speaker 3: out there was so much going on that we didn't
[33:56] Speaker 3: even know about. My mom was a real estate agent
[34:00] Speaker 3: and had never heard about Shelley and Vincent. People don't talk.
[34:04] Speaker 2: Since twenty twenty two, Laurie Kates has spent just about
[34:08] Speaker 2: every free moment she has invested in searching for answers
[34:12] Speaker 2: in two of the cold cases. I am here to
[34:14] Speaker 2: look into Michelle, Shelley Colliflower and Vincent t Jerina. She
[34:21] Speaker 2: makes phone calls, interviews witnesses, knocks on doors, digs into
[34:26] Speaker 2: county land and arrest records, chases leads down one rabbit
[34:30] Speaker 2: hole after the next. She has become a saving grace
[34:33] Speaker 2: for these families and also a bug in the ear
[34:37] Speaker 2: of those hoping to keep the secrets of the past buried.
[34:42] Speaker 2: I would probably not be involved without Laurie being persistent
[34:46] Speaker 2: and convincing me that there is so much going on
[34:50] Speaker 2: behind these murders. The deeper you get into the muck,
[34:54] Speaker 2: the thicker and greener the swamp water becomes.
[34:59] Speaker 3: When we move here in nineteen eighty three, I mean,
[35:02] Speaker 3: this was a small town, and it just floored me
[35:07] Speaker 3: when I found when I come across this case and
[35:09] Speaker 3: then found out about all the other things along the way,
[35:14] Speaker 3: and has floored me. It's been shocking.
[35:18] Speaker 2: Sixteen kids in the high school that year nineteen eighty
[35:22] Speaker 2: three where either murdered, died in strange accidents, or committed suicide.
[35:29] Speaker 2: For a town where there are only about twelve hundred
[35:33] Speaker 2: students in the entire school, that's a hell of a lot. Today,
[35:38] Speaker 2: more than that, any other time, you cannot bypass or
[35:42] Speaker 2: overlook the large amount of online slothing and social media
[35:46] Speaker 2: involved in cold cases. I have mixed feelings about online
[35:51] Speaker 2: true crime sleuthing groups, armchair investigators, and social media influencers
[35:57] Speaker 2: trading exploitation for and viral views. Laurie is not one
[36:03] Speaker 2: of those people. She is someone who gets up every
[36:06] Speaker 2: morning and answers her calling in life to find answers
[36:10] Speaker 2: for the Teagerina and Collie Flower families. That is her purpose.
[36:15] Speaker 2: This case is in her blood. It happened in her time.
[36:21] Speaker 2: She feels a kinship and connection to these kids and
[36:24] Speaker 2: their families who trust her unconditionally. And so why did
[36:29] Speaker 2: you begin getting involved with this justice page?
[36:33] Speaker 3: So? I was part of a group called the Fort
[36:37] Speaker 3: Worth Cold Case Club, and they were working on the
[36:41] Speaker 3: Carla Walker and murder, which has now been solved. They
[36:46] Speaker 3: had other little cold cases and we started researching and
[36:51] Speaker 3: that we hit a wall on this one case that
[36:54] Speaker 3: we were researching. And so I was just flipping around
[36:58] Speaker 3: on Facebook and show cousin had posted about Shelley Vincent's
[37:03] Speaker 3: murder and I thought, oh my gosh, I've never even
[37:07] Speaker 3: heard about this, and this was in my hometown. I
[37:11] Speaker 3: reached out and I got involved and I started sharing it,
[37:16] Speaker 3: and then COVID happened, and so you know, from twenty
[37:21] Speaker 3: nineteen till February twenty two, we didn't do a whole
[37:25] Speaker 3: lot because of COVID. That kind of shut down a lot.
[37:29] Speaker 3: But that's when I really started getting involved. Chief Lance
[37:34] Speaker 3: Arnold had private message me on Facebook. I've got all
[37:37] Speaker 3: the messages and wanted to set up a meeting. So
[37:41] Speaker 3: me and my friend went to this meeting. It was
[37:44] Speaker 3: a three hour meeting and that's when he told us
[37:48] Speaker 3: that there was evidence that was destroyed. There was a
[37:53] Speaker 3: city dup truck that backed up, There was supposedly a
[37:56] Speaker 3: rat infestation in a flood in the evidence room. And
[38:00] Speaker 3: they have no idea what was thrown away. They can't
[38:04] Speaker 3: find showing Vincent's clothes, They have no idea what happened
[38:07] Speaker 3: to them. The car, which was part of the crime
[38:10] Speaker 3: scene was given back to the family within a week
[38:14] Speaker 3: and then it sat out in the elements. It was
[38:16] Speaker 3: a three hour conversation with no dead space.
[38:20] Speaker 5: Why did he want to tell you all of this?
[38:22] Speaker 3: I think in the beginning he was he was being open,
[38:27] Speaker 3: and I think because it had got spread all over
[38:30] Speaker 3: because he told me that after I had made that post.
[38:35] Speaker 3: The reason he had reached out to me was because
[38:39] Speaker 3: within about an hour of that post, he had gotten
[38:42] Speaker 3: about ten phone calls and his wife was in the
[38:46] Speaker 3: kitchen cooking. He was in the living room, and she said, honey,
[38:49] Speaker 3: have you seen this? And he said, yep, I've gotten
[38:53] Speaker 3: you know, ten messages over this, and that's when he
[38:56] Speaker 3: reached out to me. So I don't know. You know,
[39:00] Speaker 3: that's a good question in a way, because at first
[39:03] Speaker 3: I thought that he was really wanting to help. So
[39:06] Speaker 3: he had told me, and I asked him too. He
[39:09] Speaker 3: said that they had five scenarios that they were working
[39:12] Speaker 3: on and they had marked it down to four. And
[39:17] Speaker 3: I asked him if we were in one of those
[39:19] Speaker 3: scenarios and he said yes. He said, well, that's really
[39:24] Speaker 3: not the direction we're heading, but if we need to,
[39:28] Speaker 3: we will. We'll go down that road because it's the
[39:30] Speaker 3: right thing to do.
[39:31] Speaker 2: The names I redacted you will here mentioned throughout the podcast,
[39:37] Speaker 2: and I apologize for the obstruction, but they have not
[39:41] Speaker 2: been charged with the crimes. So many different people are
[39:46] Speaker 2: accusing them of and if I am being straight up,
[39:50] Speaker 2: I am not yet convinced that scenario so many belief
[39:55] Speaker 2: is a viable answer for these murders.
[39:59] Speaker 6: All right, So you.
[40:01] Speaker 5: Reach out to me, and your hope is to.
[40:04] Speaker 3: Get justice, to get some answers. We want to get
[40:06] Speaker 3: who did it? The family deserves it.
[40:09] Speaker 2: And what made you think I could provide that?
[40:13] Speaker 3: You know what's so crazy is I saw you on
[40:15] Speaker 3: twenty twenty and I thought, because honestly, we have talked
[40:21] Speaker 3: to other podcasters. We've talked to some other people, but
[40:27] Speaker 3: I can see you telling their story. I listened to
[40:29] Speaker 3: your podcast. I'm like, Okay, this guy is a bulldog.
[40:34] Speaker 3: He will go out for the answers and he doesn't
[40:37] Speaker 3: care if he steps on some toast. And that's who
[40:40] Speaker 3: we need. We need somebody that's not scared.
[41:04] Speaker 2: March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, was a Friday. It
[41:08] Speaker 2: started out overcast. The rains would come later on that evening.
[41:13] Speaker 2: The day began like most others for Shelley Colliflower and
[41:18] Speaker 2: Vincent t Jerina. They had been dating for a few
[41:21] Speaker 2: months by then. Janetta Collie Flower Smith liked Vincent. He
[41:27] Speaker 2: was two years older than Shelley and Mexican American, which
[41:31] Speaker 2: will become important as racially motivated accusations later emerge. Some
[41:37] Speaker 2: people didn't like the idea of a white girl dating
[41:41] Speaker 2: a Mexican American boy, and in the eighties this type
[41:45] Speaker 2: of direct racism was rampant and hardly hidden in any way,
[41:51] Speaker 2: as was in this part of the country. The ku
[41:55] Speaker 2: Klux Klan Kkk. Janetta and Ronnie had plans. That weekend
[42:03] Speaker 2: was their wedding anniversary and they were heading out of town.
[42:11] Speaker 1: Ronnie and I were going to Brownwood for our anniversary.
[42:17] Speaker 1: That's where we bought our first house, and that's where
[42:19] Speaker 1: Shelley started school. So that morning we got up as normal.
[42:26] Speaker 1: It was on a Friday, on the twenty fifth of March,
[42:31] Speaker 1: and they rode the bus. But Shelley says, Mama, don't
[42:38] Speaker 1: you take to school today? And I said, okay, because
[42:41] Speaker 1: you know we were going to be gone, It's okay.
[42:44] Speaker 1: So here we go and there's a convenience store and
[42:48] Speaker 1: Shelley wanted to stop, so we went and we stopped
[42:53] Speaker 1: and they got well, Shelley did, Christy couldn't because she
[42:56] Speaker 1: wasn't old enough, you know, to take something to school
[42:58] Speaker 1: or whatever. And I won't ever forget ever. When she
[43:03] Speaker 1: walked out I thought how pretty she was, you know,
[43:07] Speaker 1: I mean, that's just in uh, you know. And she
[43:10] Speaker 1: had a coke in one hand and a sucker in
[43:14] Speaker 1: the other one, a lollipop yes, And I said, you know,
[43:19] Speaker 1: there's the big girl in her and there's the other one,
[43:23] Speaker 1: the child in her. But I thought she was so
[43:26] Speaker 1: beautiful that day. So we take Christie's school first, you know,
[43:34] Speaker 1: when it's the usual routine. We get a kiss and
[43:38] Speaker 1: you know, I love you, and you know, I love you, mama,
[43:42] Speaker 1: and that, and so then I take Shelley to school
[43:48] Speaker 1: and she just happy, go lucky, you know, she had
[43:50] Speaker 1: her books share then you had books. And she gets
[43:55] Speaker 1: out of the car and she she turned around and
[43:58] Speaker 1: looks at me, and it was a different kind of
[44:02] Speaker 1: I mean, and she goes, Mama, I love you, goodbye.
[44:06] Speaker 1: That was the last words I heard from when that
[44:10] Speaker 1: was the last time.
[44:11] Speaker 3: I saw her.
[44:18] Speaker 2: Ronnie didn't want Shelley dating Vincent, let alone going out
[44:21] Speaker 2: with him at night by themselves, but they had not
[44:25] Speaker 2: told Ronnie about the date. Vincent had borrowed his father's
[44:29] Speaker 2: Monte Carlo for the night so he and Shelley could
[44:32] Speaker 2: go on their first card day. As most everyone put
[44:36] Speaker 2: it later on, they had been talking about this night
[44:40] Speaker 2: for weeks. The Collie Flowers neighbor Debbie Billingsley, whom you
[44:46] Speaker 2: heard earlier in the episode, babysat for Janetta at times
[44:50] Speaker 2: after school because Janetta and Ronnie were heading out of town.
[44:54] Speaker 2: Janetta picked the girls up and dropped them off at
[44:57] Speaker 2: Debbie's where they would stay the weekend. Ronie got home
[45:00] Speaker 2: from work, he and Janetta would leave dev How did
[45:06] Speaker 2: you meet Shelley's family? When did you meet them?
[45:10] Speaker 4: Well, we lived on a little corner house and the
[45:15] Speaker 4: elementary school was two blocks from our house, and I
[45:19] Speaker 4: met Shelley's mother. I volunteered to head off a group
[45:25] Speaker 4: for campfire girls. I had two daughters. They were both
[45:29] Speaker 4: young enough and wanted to do that, so we got
[45:31] Speaker 4: involved in campfire and john Etta brought her youngest daughter,
[45:37] Speaker 4: Christi and signed up for campfire, and sometimes Shelley would
[45:42] Speaker 4: come with her and we would all work together with
[45:45] Speaker 4: the kids. That's how I met her, and we just
[45:49] Speaker 4: became good friends. Ronnie Cauliflower was very well known in
[45:52] Speaker 4: Weatherford in his younger days. He played football and at
[45:56] Speaker 4: one point in time probably had the possibility to go
[45:59] Speaker 4: pro and he was in college and busted up his
[46:04] Speaker 4: knee and couldn't play anymore. So they moved back to
[46:07] Speaker 4: Weatherford settled in, and john Wait was a very pretty girl.
[46:13] Speaker 4: Of course, our family came from, like I said, my
[46:17] Speaker 4: dad was an alcoholic and our family came from the
[46:19] Speaker 4: wrong side of town. So Ronnie didn't like me at all,
[46:23] Speaker 4: and he kept telling john Etta this, she shouldn't have
[46:25] Speaker 4: anything to do with us, and she said, well, Debbie's
[46:28] Speaker 4: been a good friend to me and we just kind
[46:31] Speaker 4: of grew to know one another that a way. And
[46:34] Speaker 4: she told me that they were having a lot of
[46:36] Speaker 4: marital problems and their anniversary was coming up, and she
[46:40] Speaker 4: wanted to know if I could keep the kids for
[46:42] Speaker 4: the weekend, the girls, and I told her, I said, yeah,
[46:44] Speaker 4: it's no problem. And she said, well, i'll bring them
[46:48] Speaker 4: to you on Friday. And she said, Shelley has a
[46:51] Speaker 4: date with a young boy named Vincent, and it's okay
[46:56] Speaker 4: for her to go on this date. And I said,
[46:59] Speaker 4: so you're given me your permission for her to go,
[47:03] Speaker 4: and she said yes, but I want her home by midnight.
[47:07] Speaker 4: So that's how that all came about.
[47:10] Speaker 2: And had you ever met of Vincent?
[47:12] Speaker 4: No, not until that night.
[47:14] Speaker 3: No.
[47:15] Speaker 4: I had heard a lot about him, that he was
[47:18] Speaker 4: really a nice young man. I don't think I ever
[47:20] Speaker 4: really heard anything bad. He was real into karate, very
[47:27] Speaker 4: motivated with his school work. I'd never really heard anything.
[47:32] Speaker 4: I knew of his family because of the karate, and
[47:36] Speaker 4: there was always stuff in the newspaper about him. And
[47:40] Speaker 4: of course back then there was no cell phones, you know,
[47:42] Speaker 4: it was just all public phones on the corners and this,
[47:45] Speaker 4: that and the other. But I had never really heard
[47:48] Speaker 4: anything bad about him at all. I didn't know anything.
[47:52] Speaker 2: I asked her if there was any talk about Vincent
[47:55] Speaker 2: being Latino Shelley being white.
[48:00] Speaker 4: Yes. Ronnie did not like that. He told Johnetta, I
[48:07] Speaker 4: do not want her dating that boy. It's not allowed.
[48:11] Speaker 4: But I didn't know that at the time. I found
[48:13] Speaker 4: that out later on, and I don't think, well, I
[48:18] Speaker 4: know when this all happened. Ronnie did not know that
[48:21] Speaker 4: john Etta had gave me permission for Shelley to go
[48:24] Speaker 4: on this date, and he held me accountable for it
[48:29] Speaker 4: happening because I allowed her to go.
[48:33] Speaker 2: I wondered if Debbie could comment about Shelley's demeanor that Friday.
[48:38] Speaker 2: Looking at this objectively, you have to consider that the
[48:42] Speaker 2: kids had some sort of plan beyond just driving around.
[48:48] Speaker 2: They're teenagers. They tell their parents one thing, do another.
[48:52] Speaker 2: That's normal and realistic. Tracing their movements every moment becomes vital.
[48:59] Speaker 2: Who they to, where they went, who they saw, who
[49:04] Speaker 2: saw them.
[49:06] Speaker 4: It was a Friday afternoon when john Etta brought the
[49:09] Speaker 4: girls to my house. We talked standing out in the
[49:12] Speaker 4: front yard. She was getting ready to go home because
[49:15] Speaker 4: her and Ronnie were leaving that evening, and she said,
[49:17] Speaker 4: now they can go on the date. It's fine, don't
[49:20] Speaker 4: worry about it. Everything will be okay. And I said, okay,
[49:23] Speaker 4: so I've got your permission for her to go. She
[49:26] Speaker 4: said yes, So they left and the girls and I
[49:29] Speaker 4: all went in. Shelley was very excited about the date,
[49:33] Speaker 4: you know, just giddy like a fourteen year old girl
[49:36] Speaker 4: would be, telling me how nice Vincent was or respectful
[49:41] Speaker 4: he was, and that she had never had anybody pay
[49:44] Speaker 4: that kind of attention to her. They got to the
[49:47] Speaker 4: house about four thirty or five that afternoon and he
[49:50] Speaker 4: picked her up. I'm going to say between six and
[49:52] Speaker 4: six thirty. He came to the house, he come up
[49:56] Speaker 4: to the door, he came in introduced hisself. She look
[50:00] Speaker 4: hands with My husband was very nice, very polite. He said,
[50:04] Speaker 4: I'll have her home before midnight, he said, because I
[50:07] Speaker 4: have a karate tournament tomorrow. He said, so I have
[50:10] Speaker 4: to be home by eleven. He said, so I'll have
[50:13] Speaker 4: her home way before then. He said, I promise I'll
[50:16] Speaker 4: take care of her.
[50:18] Speaker 2: One of the things Shelley and Vincent had in common
[50:21] Speaker 2: was their love of horses. Vincent was in the tenth grade,
[50:25] Speaker 2: Shelley a freshman. Vincent had talked about wanting to be
[50:29] Speaker 2: an Air Force pilot. Shelley mentioned cosmetology school and teaching.
[50:35] Speaker 2: Vincent's mother later recalled that Vincent read the Bible every day,
[50:39] Speaker 2: could recite verses, and she had hoped he'd going to
[50:43] Speaker 2: the priesthood. Everyone I have spoken to had nothing but
[50:47] Speaker 2: praise and love for both of these kids. They got
[50:51] Speaker 2: excellent grades, never caused problems, didn't get into trouble, and
[50:57] Speaker 2: did not hang around the kids taking drugs or They
[51:01] Speaker 2: had found each other, seemed content and even distanced themselves
[51:05] Speaker 2: from the clicks.
[51:07] Speaker 4: They left, and it was a really stormy hunt, lots
[51:12] Speaker 4: of storms. My grandmother was at our house, and so
[51:17] Speaker 4: I loaded the three girls up and my grandmother took
[51:20] Speaker 4: her to my mom's and I took the younger girl's
[51:23] Speaker 4: roller skating, and I stayed at the skating rink with them,
[51:28] Speaker 4: and we got back home around ten or so. The
[51:33] Speaker 4: girls got their baths and made popcorn and went in
[51:35] Speaker 4: to watch a movie, and midnight rolled around. She wasn't home.
[51:41] Speaker 4: I was really getting scared and worried. Before she left,
[51:47] Speaker 4: I gave her four quarters and a piece of paper
[51:50] Speaker 4: with my name and phone number written on it, and
[51:53] Speaker 4: I told her, I said, if you get in a
[51:55] Speaker 4: situation that you're uncomfortable, all you have to do is
[51:59] Speaker 4: call me and I'll come in get you. There'll be
[52:00] Speaker 4: no questions asked. And when they found her, the quarters
[52:05] Speaker 4: were still there, but the piece of paper with my
[52:07] Speaker 4: name and number was gone, So I had no idea
[52:11] Speaker 4: who had that.
[52:12] Speaker 5: As midnight rolls around, what are you doing?
[52:16] Speaker 4: I'm pacing the floors because it's really storming out. My
[52:21] Speaker 4: husband and I are getting really antsy because she's not home.
[52:27] Speaker 4: Because Vincent said he had to be home by eleven
[52:29] Speaker 4: and that he would have her home before then. My
[52:33] Speaker 4: husband said, Hey, I'm just going to get in the
[52:36] Speaker 4: car and I'm gonna go drive around town and see
[52:38] Speaker 4: if I can see anything. And he left and came back,
[52:42] Speaker 4: and he said, I didn't find them. I didn't see
[52:44] Speaker 4: their car anywhere. He stayed there for a while. One
[52:48] Speaker 4: o'clock rolls, around two o'clock, he goes out again, looking again.
[52:52] Speaker 2: As the night turns into the early morning hours of
[52:55] Speaker 2: March twenty sixth, fear turns to dread. There is no
[53:00] Speaker 2: way Vincent would keep Shelley out all night long and
[53:04] Speaker 2: not call or come back and explain why they were
[53:07] Speaker 2: so late. He was an extremely responsible, dependable boy. Also,
[53:15] Speaker 2: Vincent was a disciplined student of karate and had a
[53:18] Speaker 2: tournament the next day, so he had to get up early.
[53:23] Speaker 2: Debbie knew in her gut something was very wrong because
[53:28] Speaker 2: Janetta and Ronnie were out of town. The first thing
[53:31] Speaker 2: she did was called Vincent Tejerina Senior, Vincent's father, and
[53:36] Speaker 2: explain what was happening. Vincent Senior immediately set out in
[53:41] Speaker 2: the second family vehicle to search for the kids. After that,
[53:47] Speaker 2: Debi tracked down Ronnie and Janetta and told them what
[53:51] Speaker 2: was happening. That Shelley was missing, and.
[53:57] Speaker 4: The next time we saw it was in the funeral.
[53:59] Speaker 2: Home coming up in the next episode of Paper Ghosts.
[54:07] Speaker 6: And then I heard it again. I heard like a
[54:09] Speaker 6: thunder noise, and then I heard what sounded like a gunshot,
[54:13] Speaker 6: and then I think I may have heard it maybe
[54:16] Speaker 6: one or two more times, and then that was it.
[54:18] Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, if they did not want you in
[54:21] Speaker 1: the city, they would run you out.
[54:24] Speaker 7: Period.
[54:25] Speaker 3: We were always told.
[54:27] Speaker 1: Never say when it gets dark.
[54:29] Speaker 3: As soon as it even starts to get dark, you
[54:31] Speaker 3: leave immediately because that was known to be where the
[54:34] Speaker 3: KKK would come and you know, do their nightly things
[54:37] Speaker 3: or whatever meetings.
[54:39] Speaker 2: So if you were in the wrong place at the
[54:40] Speaker 2: wrong time, then you would get.
[54:42] Speaker 1: Caught at that.
[54:43] Speaker 8: Oh the girl passing your side, she was laying back ester,
[54:48] Speaker 8: she was dressed. He was on the driver's side. She
[54:54] Speaker 8: was landing more toward the door than the window. Okay,
[54:57] Speaker 8: and back who would right on the grounded the ground
[55:05] Speaker 8: origin We're leaked out of the car Lake dele Car.
[55:09] Speaker 2: Check out my weekly podcast, Crossing the Line with m
[55:12] Speaker 2: William Phelps, where I delve into a new missing person
[55:15] Speaker 2: and cold case murder each week. Wherever you get your
[55:19] Speaker 2: favorite shows. Paper Ghost season five is written and executive
[55:28] Speaker 2: produced by me M William Phelps. Script consulting by iHeartMedia
[55:34] Speaker 2: Executive producer Catherine Law, Production by toc Boom Productions, Audio
[55:40] Speaker 2: mastering and mixing by Brandon Dicker. The series' theme number
[55:45] Speaker 2: four four to two is written and performed by Thomas
[55:49] Speaker 2: Phelps and Tom Mooney

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