# 6 Chilling TEXAS Cold Cases You Need To Know | 169

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 24 Jan 2026, 1 h 07 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3998044647.mp3

Hey everyone. Don't forget to hit the follow button and the notification bell, and check out my channels on youtube for more content. Episode 169 of the true crime podcast. This covers 6 absolutely chilling cold cases from the great state of Texas. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, texas true crime, texas cold case, austin cold case, houston cold case, dallas true crime, fort worth crimes, el paso crime, southern true crime

## Transcript

[0:01] A red sports car sat abandoned on a Houston, TX Hwy. early on
[0:06] August 4th, 1992. Early bird commuters noticed the
[0:11] empty red Pontiac Fiero on the shoulder, its driver nowhere
[0:15] Insight. This is the dawn of a day that
[0:19] would mark the start of one of Houston's most perplexing cold
[0:22] cases. The car's driver is 23 year old
[0:25] Tara Breckenridge, who vanished overnight, leaving behind her
[0:29] vehicle and countless questions. Tara was an aspiring
[0:35] photographer who moved from her hometown of Del Rio, TX to
[0:39] Houston after high school to pay the bills.
[0:42] She worked as a waitress at what's been described as an
[0:45] upscale gentleman's establishment called the Men's
[0:48] Club, where the tips were good for an attractive woman.
[0:53] Friends said the job didn't really suit her, but it was a
[0:56] means to an end for her while she pursued her dreams.
[1:02] On the night of August 3rd, 1992, the Men's Club had an
[1:07] unusually slow evening. Management decided to send a
[1:11] couple of employees home early and Tara did something
[1:14] uncharacteristic. She volunteered to clock out
[1:17] before closing. This surprised her Co workers
[1:21] since Tara usually stayed until closing time to maximize her
[1:24] earnings. Just after midnight, around
[1:28] 12:30 AM, she checked out and was escorted by a security guard
[1:32] to her car. Tara drove off into the warm
[1:36] Houston night, presumably heading toward the apartment she
[1:40] shared with her boyfriend. But she never arrived.
[1:45] When Tara's boyfriend, 21 year old Wayne Hecker, got home
[1:49] around 5:00 AM, he was alarmed to find she wasn't there.
[1:53] Wayne later told police he had been at a pool hall that night
[1:56] and assumed Tara would be home by the time he returned.
[1:59] Worried, he called a friend and they began searching for her.
[2:03] They first checked the men's club, with no sign of Tara at
[2:07] dawn. Retracing her route home, they
[2:10] spotted Tara's red Fiero abandoned on the shoulder of
[2:13] Interstate 610. The car was locked and neatly
[2:17] pulled over, but Tara herself was nowhere to be found.
[2:22] The scene raised more questions than answers.
[2:25] The car hadn't crashed, and it seemed deliberately parked on
[2:28] the roadside. The hazard lights were off and
[2:31] the car's alarm wasn't activated.
[2:34] Inside, investigators found the can of Mace that Tara always
[2:38] carried for protection. Finding her Mace in the car was
[2:42] unsettling as given the environment where she worked,
[2:46] she was known to keep it on her at all times.
[2:50] Its presence suggested she either left with someone she
[2:53] felt safe with, or she was taken by surprise so fast she didn't
[2:57] have a chance to defend herself. No other clues or signs of
[3:01] struggle were found at the scene.
[3:06] One mechanical clue did emerge. The car's alternator belt was
[3:10] missing. Without that belt, the Fiero's
[3:13] engine would have failed, explaining why Tara had to pull
[3:16] over. It's possible this was a simple
[3:19] mechanical failure. Perhaps the belt snapped on its
[3:23] own, but some have speculated that the breakdown was no
[3:27] accident and that it may have been tampered with while she was
[3:30] working that night. Either way, Tara ended up
[3:34] stranded in the middle of the night, a situation that made her
[3:38] vulnerable to whoever might have come along.
[3:43] From the start, police suspected foul play.
[3:45] Since there was nothing to suggest Tara left by choice,
[3:49] investigators immediately looked at those closest to Tara for
[3:52] answers. Wayne Hecker quickly became a
[3:55] focus of the investigation. His relationship with Tara had
[3:59] been under strain and she had talked about leaving him at
[4:02] times. She was also supporting him
[4:05] financially at the time. Wayne claimed he was at a pool
[4:10] hall called Fat Freddy's until around 5:00 AM and insisted he
[4:14] had nothing to do with Tara's disappearance.
[4:17] But witness accounts didn't fully align with his story.
[4:21] People at the pool hall remembered Wayne stepping out
[4:24] around 1:45 and not returning until almost 3:30.
[4:28] That gap of nearly two hours overlapped with the time frame
[4:32] when Tara would have been at home or potentially when she was
[4:35] still driving. In theory, it was enough time
[4:38] for him to leave, intercept Tara on the road, and then go back to
[4:43] the pool hall. This circumstantial window of
[4:47] opportunity kept suspicion on Wayne.
[4:51] Despite the suspicions, police found no hard evidence
[4:54] implicating Wayne. He cooperated with detectives
[4:57] and steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, professing that he
[5:01] loved Tara and would never harm her.
[5:04] Without evidence to connect him to a crime, he was never
[5:07] charged. Still, he was not officially
[5:10] cleared either, and he remained a person of interest simply
[5:14] because no better explanation emerged.
[5:17] Wayne passed away from cancer in 2015, taking any secrets he knew
[5:22] with him, if he did indeed know any secrets at all.
[5:28] Personally, I don't think the timeline with Wayne adds up that
[5:31] well. Tara left work at 12:30, and
[5:34] even if we accept that Wayne wasn't at the pool hall between
[5:37] 1:45 and 3:30, this makes it seem unlikely that he actually
[5:42] intercepted her. One interesting theory to
[5:46] explain this absence is that Wayne has been speculated to
[5:49] have been dealing in Colombian confetti at the time.
[5:53] He may have been busy working at the pool hall, so to speak,
[5:56] which may have been a quote UN quote innocent explanation for
[6:00] that missing time period. If this was the case, it makes
[6:04] sense that he couldn't have told the cops what he was doing
[6:07] during that period, even if he had nothing to do with Tara's
[6:10] disappearance. Also, let's turn to these pool
[6:15] hall eyewitnesses for a moment. I've been at pool halls around
[6:18] 2:00 AM, and the one thing virtually no one is at that time
[6:23] is sober. It's very possible that alcohol,
[6:27] combined with the general atmosphere of late nights at a
[6:29] pool hall just meant that people weren't really monitoring Wayne
[6:33] as closely as they thought they were.
[6:36] That said, on the flip side, this also means that he could
[6:40] have potentially got out earlier than eyewitnesses remember.
[6:44] At any rate, Wayne is deceased now, and given the complete lack
[6:48] of hard evidence at this time, any allegations that he was
[6:51] involved in any capacity are completely speculative.
[6:57] Another lead centered on a different man in Tara's life.
[7:01] Or rather, a man who wished he was in her life.
[7:05] While searching Tara's room, police found a collection of
[7:08] love notes she had received. These letters were from a
[7:12] regular patron at the Men's Club who had become infatuated with
[7:16] Tara. He would give her very generous
[7:19] tips, sometimes $100 at a time, And in his notes he professed
[7:25] deep feelings for her, even talking about marrying her.
[7:30] This discovery LED investigators to wonder if this not so secret
[7:34] admirer could have followed Tara.
[7:36] After work, detectives tracked down the admirer and questioned
[7:41] him. In the end, they found nothing
[7:44] to indicate he was involved in Tara's disappearance.
[7:48] The man had an alibi and no history of violence.
[7:52] His letters, while obsessive, contained no threats, only
[7:55] please and romantic sentiments. By all accounts, he was
[7:59] heartbroken over Tara's vanishing and genuinely
[8:01] cooperative with the investigation.
[8:04] With no evidence tying him to the incident, the secret admirer
[8:08] was dropped as a suspect and the case turned towards the
[8:11] likelihood of an unknown assailant.
[8:16] With those close to Tara yielding no answers,
[8:19] investigators face the disturbing possibility that a
[8:22] stranger had targeted her. Numerous women working in the
[8:26] gentleman's nightlife industry had been targeted in Houston in
[8:30] the 90s. If Tara fell victim to a
[8:33] predator that used these clubs as a hunting ground, she may
[8:36] have been marked long in advance.
[8:39] This individual might have tampered with her car at the
[8:42] club, ensuring that it would break down along her route so
[8:45] they could approach her under the pretense of offering help.
[8:49] In this scenario, Tara may have initially let her guard down,
[8:53] believing that this was a Good Samaritan.
[8:56] Unfortunately, without any witnesses, this remains purely
[9:00] speculative. What actually happened to Terra
[9:04] still remains A disturbing unsolved mystery over 3 decades
[9:09] later. It was a cool autumn night in
[9:13] Arlington, TX in 1987 when 43 year old Patsy Wright, co-owner
[9:19] of the Great Southwest Wax Museum, picked up her telephone
[9:22] and dialed her sister. The Wright sisters were business
[9:26] partners as well as siblings, so a late night call was unusual
[9:30] but not alarming. On this call, however, Patsy's
[9:34] voice quivered with fear. It was after three in the
[9:37] morning and she gasped that something was terribly wrong.
[9:41] She had taken a dose of Nyquil, her night time cold medicine,
[9:46] and suddenly felt as if she couldn't breathe.
[9:50] She took this medication routinely and anyone who knew
[9:53] her well would have known this. Her sister Sally and
[9:57] brother-in-law Steve Horning rushed to her home but by the
[10:01] time they arrived, Patsy lay limp on her bed.
[10:05] Steve Horning immediately tried to resuscitate her using a mouth
[10:08] to mouth technique, a fact which will be important in the
[10:12] analysis of this mystery. Paramedics tried frantically to
[10:16] revive her, yet her pulse was gone.
[10:20] And at 4:15 that morning, Patsy Wright was officially gone.
[10:26] Initially, her passing seemed like a tragic medical emergency,
[10:30] but a week later, laboratory tests revealed A horrifying
[10:33] truth. Someone had poisoned her Nyquil
[10:36] with nearly pure strychnine. Born Patricia Bolton in 1944,
[10:42] Patsy grew up in the affluent Park Cities district of Dallas
[10:46] along with her younger sister Sally.
[10:49] Their father, Tom Bolton, was an eccentric oil man with a passion
[10:54] for history. After visiting Madame Tussauds
[10:58] Museum in London, he dreamed of creating a similar attraction
[11:02] devoted to Old West heroes and outlaws.
[11:06] He commissioned dozens of wax figures of Western icons like
[11:10] Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid and opened the Southwestern
[11:13] Historical Wax Museum in Dallas in 1963.
[11:18] Patsy and Sally worked summers there as teenagers, learning the
[11:22] wax museum business from the ground up.
[11:27] When the initial location began to decline, Tom moved the
[11:31] collection to Grand Prairie near 6 Flags in Texas.
[11:36] Patsy joined the museum's public relations department in 1973,
[11:40] while Sally managed the office. When Tom passed in 1976, the
[11:46] sisters fought A bitter legal battle with their stepmother for
[11:50] control of the museum. They eventually prevailed and
[11:53] became Co owners of what would later be called the Great
[11:57] Southwest Wax Museum. Patsy married Bill Wright, a
[12:03] retail executive, in 1965. The marriage produced two
[12:07] children, Leslie and Wayne, and seemed comfortable, but the
[12:12] couple divorced amicably in 1980 and Bill later moved to Houston.
[12:18] While running the museum with her sister, Patsy pursued new
[12:21] interests and she met a questionable individual who she
[12:25] would briefly marry. But I'll come back to him in a
[12:28] bit. She was a skilled equestrian and
[12:32] became passionate about horse competitions, spending much of
[12:36] her free time at ranches and horse shows.
[12:39] Despite their shared business, the relationship between Patsy
[12:42] and Sally grew increasingly complicated.
[12:46] Friends noted undercurrents of jealousy and frustration, and
[12:50] Sally grew envious of Patsy. Sally was the workhorse while
[12:54] Patsy was out horsing around. Nonetheless, the sisters
[13:00] remained partners in the lucrative wax museum, which by
[13:04] the mid 1980s was valued at several $1,000,000.
[13:09] Each sister carried a $500,000 life insurance policy on the
[13:13] other, an arrangement intended to allow the survivor to buy out
[13:17] the other share of the museum if one perished.
[13:21] This agreement would later become a point of contention
[13:23] during the investigation, though personally, I see it as a bit of
[13:27] a red herring. On Thursday, October 22nd, 1987,
[13:34] Patsy spent the evening at her home on Home Oak Drive in
[13:37] Arlington, TX. She called friends and family,
[13:41] watched television, and prepared for bed.
[13:44] As was her habit, she took a small swig of Nyquil to help her
[13:48] sleep, a fact known only to her family and close friends.
[13:53] Around 3:00 AM, she phoned her sister Sally, and gasped that
[13:57] she had taken the medication and something felt wrong.
[14:01] Within minutes, she started experiencing violent
[14:03] convulsions, a hallmark of strychnine poisoning.
[14:08] Strychnine, A bitter white powder used mostly as a
[14:12] pesticide, works by blocking glycine receptors in the spinal
[14:16] cord, causing painful, involuntary muscle spasms,
[14:21] according to the CDC. Symptoms usually begin within 15
[14:25] to 60 minutes after ingestion. Victims remain conscious during
[14:30] seizures that are induced by the poison, and if a large dose is
[14:34] swallowed, respiratory failure can follow within 15 minutes of
[14:38] the onset of the seizures. That's precisely what happened
[14:42] to Patsy. And when Sally and her husband,
[14:45] Steve arrived, they found her lying on her bed gasping for
[14:48] breath. Paramedics were called but could
[14:51] not detect a pulse and Patsy was pronounced deceased.
[14:57] Initially, medical examiners could find no cause of death.
[15:02] Only after a week did toxicology tests reveal large amounts of
[15:06] strychnine in her blood. Investigators examined her
[15:10] Nyquil bottle and discovered that the seal had been pierced
[15:13] and the liquid laced with nearly pure strychnine powder.
[15:17] The poison used was a rare, highly pure form that is tightly
[15:21] controlled, and it's not available in common rodent
[15:24] poisons or over the counter products.
[15:27] The purity suggested a sophisticated supplier, and law
[15:31] enforcement quickly ruled out random product tampering,
[15:35] meaning that the attack was targeted.
[15:39] Detectives soon realized that only someone with intimate
[15:42] knowledge of Patsy's habits would know to poison her Nyquil.
[15:46] The burglar alarm on her house was turned off, suggesting she
[15:49] felt safe with whoever was there.
[15:52] There were two dinner plates on a table near her bed, which her
[15:56] brother-in-law, Steve, claimed to have moved.
[15:59] This implied she had likely eaten with someone before her
[16:02] collapse. However, paramedics didn't
[16:05] recall seeing the plates. This discrepancy over these
[16:09] plates would eventually be one of the factors that would cause
[16:12] the Eye of Sauron to fall upon Steve.
[16:16] From the start, detectives considered and cleared a series
[16:19] of suspects. Patsy's children, Leslie and
[16:23] Wayne were questioned as a matter of routine, but passed
[16:26] polygraph tests and were found to have a close, loving
[16:29] relationship with their mother. Patsy's ex-husband, Bill Wright
[16:34] also cooperated fully and passed a polygraph showing no
[16:38] indication of involvement. Friends and other acquaintances
[16:42] were interviewed to reconstruct her last days.
[16:46] The authorities even considered the possibility that she may
[16:49] have done it herself, but there was simply no evidence to
[16:52] support this. Also, when people do this sort
[16:56] of thing, they just generally don't choose to intentionally go
[17:00] out in the most painful and horrific way imaginable.
[17:04] A number of other suspects were initially investigated but
[17:07] quickly ruled out as well, including the people she boarded
[17:11] her horses with and a chemical entrepreneur.
[17:14] This chemical tycoon had briefly dated Patsy and was also a big
[17:19] lover of horse culture and would go on to dedicate a significant
[17:23] amount of time and resources to helping out investigators.
[17:29] As the investigation progressed, detectives increasingly focused
[17:33] on Patsy's brother-in-law, Steve Horning.
[17:36] Steve had married Sally in 1981 after meeting her through
[17:41] landscaping work at the museum. Although Patsy initially
[17:45] welcomed him into the family, their relationship soured.
[17:49] She considered him irresponsible, complaining that
[17:53] he squandered his wife's inheritance on speculative
[17:55] investments and lavish hunting trips.
[17:58] It seems like he was loading up on obvious pump and dump penny
[18:02] stocks trying to strike it rich. Or rather trying to strike it
[18:06] richer since marrying a successful wax museum heiress
[18:10] already made him very wealthy. Motive was a glaring issue and
[18:17] under the sisters buy sell agreement, if one died, the
[18:21] surviving sister had to use the life insurance payout to
[18:24] purchase the other shares of the museum.
[18:28] Steve, as Sally's husband, would then have a legal claim to part
[18:32] of the museum stock. Patsy had recently discussed
[18:36] changing that agreement to prevent Steve from obtaining
[18:38] control. She scheduled a meeting to
[18:41] revise the contract in early November 1987, and she died 2
[18:46] weeks before the meeting, so the original agreement remained in
[18:50] force. But trust me when I say it, this
[18:54] wouldn't be the only major event involving money scheduled for
[18:57] two weeks after she perished, and the other event would make
[19:01] this matter look small. Investigators learned that if
[19:05] Sally predeceased, her husband Steve would own a controlling
[19:09] share of the museum. Precisely what Patsy feared.
[19:13] However, despite these circumstances, the authorities
[19:17] more or less ended up ruling him out as a suspect.
[19:21] He completely cooperated with the investigation throughout,
[19:24] and perhaps most tellingly, he performed mouth to mouth
[19:28] resuscitation on Patsy. If he had been the one to have
[19:32] poisoned her with such an incredibly deadly chemical, it's
[19:36] highly unlikely he would have put his lips on hers at great
[19:39] risk to himself. And that brings me to the person
[19:42] I've been hinting at all along. Of all the figures orbiting
[19:48] Patsy's life, one of her ex husband's, Bob Cox, cast the
[19:52] longest shadow. Bob was a Dallas businessman and
[19:56] high stakes gambler who owned another wax museum.
[20:00] And from here we get into more Game of Thrones level intrigue
[20:03] in the high stakes world of wax. He first met Patsy in 1981 when
[20:09] he offered to sell his struggling presidential wax
[20:11] museum. She made a low offer and he felt
[20:14] insulted, but as their deal was waning, their romantic interests
[20:18] were waxing and Patsy was swept into his glittering high society
[20:23] life. In 1983 they married, but the
[20:27] relationship quickly deteriorated and Bob ended up
[20:30] gambling with Patsy's money. She also found out that he had
[20:34] significant debts that he hid from her when they got married.
[20:40] In 1985, Bob's own unprofitable wax museum in Galveston
[20:45] mysteriously burned and his insurance company accused him of
[20:49] arson and he faced a civil trial.
[20:52] Patsy was a key witness for the insurer and the trial was
[20:56] scheduled for early November 1987, less than two weeks after
[21:00] Patsy's death. If her testimony was to be
[21:04] believed, Bob would have been completely sunk and he would
[21:08] have been out a substantial sum of money.
[21:12] While we can't say for certain what the outcome of the trial
[21:14] would have been, Bob Cox prevailed against the insurer
[21:18] and collected millions of dollars.
[21:21] Notably, he refused to fully cooperate with the
[21:24] investigators, at least according to those involved in
[21:28] the investigation. One of the indications of a lack
[21:32] of cooperation was his refusal to undergo a polygraph test, a
[21:37] fact that many say shouldn't impact his credibility.
[21:42] And yet another twist involving fire and wax.
[21:45] A calamity befell Patsy and Sally's museum less than a year
[21:50] after Patsy's death. On an early morning in September
[21:53] 1988, the Great Southwest Wax Museum caught fire and burned to
[21:58] the ground. Arson investigators concluded
[22:02] that the fire was intentionally set, but they couldn't determine
[22:05] who was responsible. Insurance covered part of the
[22:09] loss, and Sally Horning quickly rebuilt the attraction with new
[22:13] wax figures and a Ripley's Believe It or Not exhibit.
[22:18] The museum reopened the following year, but the
[22:21] destruction heightened speculation that someone was
[22:24] targeting the family. As investigators dug further,
[22:30] they found another eerie thread involving a potential poisoning
[22:33] link to the wax museum. This involved Lori Williams, a
[22:38] 26 year old receptionist at the museum who fell violently ill in
[22:42] 1984 and died a number of days later.
[22:47] Years after Patsy's slaying, a jail inmate told investigators
[22:51] she believed Laurie had been poisoned.
[22:54] Of course, jailhouse snitches aren't exactly known for their
[22:57] accuracy and reporting, so the cops ended up digging deeper
[23:01] rather than just taking her word for it.
[23:04] Detectives examined Williams's medical records and found no
[23:07] evidence of strychnine poisoning or any sort of poisoning
[23:10] whatsoever. However, her body was never
[23:13] exhumed and the case remains officially unresolved and hasn't
[23:18] ever been classified as foul play related.
[23:21] While the connection to Patsy's death is speculative, it adds to
[23:25] the atmosphere of intrigue that has grown around the wax museum
[23:28] saga. In the end, it remains unclear
[23:33] who did this to Patsy, and while I have my own speculations, the
[23:38] evidence, at least as publicly reported, just isn't there for
[23:41] me to make any definitive statements.
[23:44] That said, I'll say that while a lot of the evidence does seem to
[23:48] suggest Steve Horning's involvement, I personally don't
[23:52] believe he had anything to do with it.
[23:55] In my view, no person who had poisoned someone with such a
[23:59] lethal chemical would ever think of performing mouth to mouth
[24:02] resuscitation on that individual.
[24:05] While awaiting paramedics on a cold December night in 1975, a
[24:12] young Texas woman named Pepper Reed said her goodbyes to family
[24:17] after the Christmas holiday. She was 23 years old and visibly
[24:21] pregnant. Excitedly talking about the baby
[24:24] she would soon welcome, Pepper told her family she planned to
[24:28] move to California with her boyfriend, a decision that at
[24:32] the time seemed like the start of a new adventure.
[24:36] But that winter farewell would tragically be the last time
[24:39] anyone in her family ever saw her.
[24:42] In the decades that followed, Pepper Reed's disappearance
[24:46] became a haunting mystery. For nearly 50 years, there were
[24:51] no answers until an astonishing forensic breakthrough tied
[24:54] Pepper's fate to one of America's most notorious cold
[24:57] cases. Born in 1952, Pepper was raised
[25:03] in the Houston area and had family who care deeply about
[25:07] her. In late 1975, Pepper introduced
[25:11] her family to a new boyfriend, a man named Terry Rasmussen, and
[25:16] revealed she was expecting a baby with him.
[25:19] During the Christmas of 1975, Pepper spent time with her
[25:23] relatives in Texas, appearing happy and hopeful about moving W
[25:29] for a fresh start. Shortly after the holiday,
[25:33] Pepper left Texas with Rasmussen to begin their new life in
[25:36] California. Unbeknownst to her loved ones,
[25:40] this move marked the beginning of a dark journey from which she
[25:44] would never return. Pepper's family never met the
[25:49] baby she was carrying, nor did they hear from Pepper again
[25:52] after she departed Texas. At first, they may have hoped
[25:56] that Pepper was simply busy settling into life in
[25:58] California, or that she had chosen to break ties and start
[26:02] over. As months turned to years with
[26:06] no contact, however, the family's concern grew into
[26:09] dread. That said, Pepper was an adult
[26:14] and there was nothing to indicate that anything had
[26:16] actually happened to her, so the authorities weren't too
[26:19] concerned. What Pepper's family and the
[26:24] authorities couldn't have known in 1975 was that the man she
[26:28] left with, Terry Rasmussen, would go on to be an infamous
[26:33] serial predator. Rasmussen was an Air Force
[26:36] veteran turned nomadic electrician who had a knack for
[26:39] adopting new identities and slipping away from trouble
[26:44] wherever he went. People in his orbit,
[26:47] particularly women and children, seem to vanish under mysterious
[26:51] circumstances. Rasmussen cycled through aliases
[26:55] like Bob Evans, Curtis Kimball and others to cover his tracks,
[27:00] leaving a trail of shattered lives across multiple states.
[27:04] Notably, when he met Pepper, Rasmussen had recently walked
[27:08] out on his wife and children in Arizona, though it's highly
[27:11] unlikely that Pepper knew this fact.
[27:16] By the late 1970s, Rasmussen was living in different places
[27:20] around the country, often working blue collar jobs.
[27:24] He spent time in Phoenix and Houston, and eventually
[27:27] California, moving frequently to stay ahead of suspicion.
[27:33] Over the years, investigators would link Terry Rasmussen to a
[27:37] string of gruesome crimes. He was the prime suspect in the
[27:41] disappearance of at least two women he'd been romantically
[27:44] involved with, including Pepper, and he was confirmed to have
[27:48] slain others. His known victims include a
[27:51] California chemist named Yun Soon June and a New Hampshire
[27:56] woman named Morales Honey Church, along with her two young
[27:59] daughters. By the time law enforcement
[28:02] finally identified Rasmussen's deadly trail, he had already
[28:06] perished in prison in 2010, taking many secrets with him.
[28:13] While Pepper's family agonized over her unexplained absence, an
[28:17] apparently unrelated mystery was brewing nearly 2000 miles away
[28:22] in the quiet woods of New Hampshire.
[28:25] In November 1985, a hunter exploring Bear Brook State Park
[28:31] stumbled upon a large 55 gallon metal drum hidden among the
[28:35] trees. Inside, wrapped in plastic, were
[28:40] the badly decomposed bodies of a young girl and a woman.
[28:44] The case went cold for years, and then 15 years later, in May
[28:48] 2000, a shocking second discovery was made.
[28:54] Not far from the first sight, another rusted barrel was found
[28:59] containing the skeletal remains of two more girls, estimated to
[29:03] have been toddlers. Investigators now realize they
[29:06] were dealing with four victims in total, an adult female and
[29:11] three young children, all hidden in the woods near Bear Brook
[29:14] State Park. For decades, the identities of
[29:19] the Bear Brook 4 remained unknown.
[29:22] In the early 2000s, forensic testing determined that the
[29:26] adult woman and two of the girls were maternally related, while
[29:29] the third little girl wasn't. In 2017, a breakthrough in DNA
[29:35] analysis revealed a clue the mysterious third child was the
[29:39] biological daughter of Terry Rasmussen himself.
[29:43] This was the first indication that the Bear Brook slayings
[29:46] were connected to Rasmussen, and by extension, it hinted that
[29:51] Pepper Reed's long lost child might be among the victims.
[29:56] Still, the little girl's name and her mother's identity were
[29:58] unknown, leaving Pepper's fate unknown as well.
[30:04] Meanwhile, the other 3 victims in the barrels were eventually
[30:08] identified through genetic genealogy in 2019.
[30:12] They were Morales Honey Church and her two daughters, Marie
[30:16] Vaughn, age 7, and Sarah Mcwaters, age 11 months.
[30:22] Honey Church had been Rasmussen's girlfriend after
[30:24] Pepper, and she was last seen alive in late 1978, introducing
[30:29] Rasmussen to her family in California.
[30:33] Shortly after this introduction, all three of them vanished
[30:36] without a trace. By 2023, nearly 40 years had
[30:42] passed since Pepper Reed disappeared and one of the Bear
[30:45] Brook children was still unidentified.
[30:48] The New Hampshire Cold Case Unit, working with non profit
[30:52] DNA sleuths, again turned to genetic genealogy to crack the
[30:56] case. Advanced DNA testing had already
[30:59] confirmed the little girl's paternity, so genealogists
[31:03] needed to find her mother. Using samples from the child's
[31:07] remains, they combed through distant cousin matches and built
[31:11] a massive family tree of about 25,000 people stretching back
[31:16] centuries. It was an investigative needle
[31:19] in a haystack. But finally, the persistence
[31:22] paid off. Researchers hit upon an old
[31:25] obituary from 2005 that mentioned a surviving daughter
[31:29] named Pepper Reed. This was the Eureka moment that
[31:32] the investigators had been hoping for.
[31:35] The family line in the obituary matched the genetic profile of
[31:39] the unknown child, and the team realized that Pepper Reed had to
[31:44] be the missing mother they were looking for.
[31:48] With Pepper identified as the mother, detectives rapidly
[31:52] searched birth records in California during the mid 70s.
[31:56] Sure enough, there was only one baby girl born at the right time
[32:00] with a mother named Reed and a father named Rasmussen.
[32:04] In Orange County, California, a birth certificate from 1976
[32:09] revealed a baby named Raya Rasmussen, daughter of Terry
[32:13] Rasmussen and Pepper Reed. Rhea had been born in early
[32:18] 1976, which fits the timeline of Pepper's pregnancy when she left
[32:23] Texas. Sadly, Rhea only lived a short
[32:27] life, and the authorities believe her father ended her
[32:30] life sometime in the late 70s. With all the other victims of
[32:36] the Bear Brook slayings identified, Pepper Reed's
[32:39] whereabouts remain the final troubling question.
[32:42] Authorities now believe Pepper likely met the same fate as her
[32:46] daughter, but they have yet to find her body or definitive
[32:49] proof. Pepper was last seen alive in
[32:53] California in the late 1970s after moving there with
[32:57] Rasmussen. It's presumed that she was slain
[33:00] sometime after her daughter's birth in 1976 and before
[33:04] Rasmussen resurfaced with new victims in 1978.
[33:11] One prevailing theory is that Rasmussen quickly eliminated
[33:14] Pepper to gain full control of baby Rhea and took the toddler
[33:17] with him when he entered a relationship with Honey Church.
[33:21] Under this theory, it's thought that he manipulated at least one
[33:25] woman by tricking her into thinking he was a widower single
[33:29] dad who was raising his daughter on his own.
[33:33] If this theory is correct, Pepper's slaying likely occurred
[33:37] in California, and her remains could be anywhere between Texas
[33:41] and the Golden State, given his travels.
[33:44] Despite extensive searches, no unidentified remains have yet
[33:48] been linked to Pepper. Another theory based on
[33:53] Rasmussen's pattern is that Pepper's disappearance was part
[33:57] of a broader series of crimes that spanned multiple states.
[34:01] Investigators note that between 1974 and 1985, Rasmussen popped
[34:07] up in various other states, including New Hampshire,
[34:10] Arizona, Oregon and Virginia, often under fake names.
[34:16] For example, in 1981, another girlfriend of his, Denise Boden
[34:22] of New Hampshire, went missing and was never found.
[34:26] Rasmussen then fled that state with Denise's infant daughter in
[34:30] tow before abandoning the child in California.
[34:34] This idea supports the speculation that he was tricking
[34:38] women into believing he was a widowed single dad.
[34:43] Notably, some are hanging upon the extremely faint hope that
[34:47] Pepper herself may be alive. It's theoretically possible that
[34:51] Rasmussen threatened her and then stole Rhea, perhaps telling
[34:55] her that he would eliminate the child if she went to the
[34:58] authorities. Personally, though, I don't buy
[35:02] this theory for a moment, since Rasmussen's modus operandi
[35:06] indicates that he wouldn't leave anyone alive who he considered a
[35:10] loose end. Today, Pepper Reed's case is
[35:15] officially an open investigation.
[35:18] Ultimately, my personal belief is that Pepper is likely one of
[35:22] the nation's innumerable Jane Doe cases at present.
[35:27] We'll probably have to wait until a breakthrough in one of
[35:29] these cases connects Pepper to that still unknown Jane Doe.
[35:37] Just after midnight on July 22nd, 1990, thirteen year old
[35:42] Deanna Merrifield slipped out of her grandmother's home in
[35:45] Killeen, TX and vanished into the night.
[35:49] She had gone to visit her twin sister, but by dawn she was
[35:53] missing. Deanna grew up in a difficult
[35:56] home environment. She and her three sisters
[35:59] endured an unstable household with a mother struggling with
[36:02] alcoholism. Worse, Deanna had been abused by
[36:06] her stepfather, a secret that came to light in 1989 when she
[36:11] testified against him and he was convicted for these horrific
[36:14] offenses. After this, the sisters were
[36:17] split up among relatives. 13 year old Deanna went to live
[36:21] with her grandmother despite a new home.
[36:25] The significant trauma she suffered at the hands of her
[36:27] stepfather left its mark. On July 21st, 1990, Deanna spent
[36:35] a quiet evening at her grandmother's house.
[36:38] After her grandmother fell asleep, Deanna slipped out into
[36:42] the darkness. She headed about 2 1/2 miles to
[36:45] the Oak Springs trailer park where her twin sister, Rebecca
[36:49] was staying with an uncle. Around 3:30 AM, Rebecca awoke to
[36:54] a tapping on her bedroom window. It was Deanna.
[36:59] She had arrived in a brown car driven by two young men.
[37:03] The sisters whispered to each other through the window.
[37:06] Deanna showed no sign of distress.
[37:09] It seemed she just wanted to see her twin.
[37:12] Their late night meeting was cut short when their uncle woke up
[37:15] and told Deanna to go back home. She climbed into the car with
[37:20] the two unknown men and left, and that was the last time
[37:23] anyone saw her. When Deanna's grandmother
[37:28] discovered her missing the next morning, she called the police.
[37:32] It was obvious that Deanna hadn't packed a bag or left a
[37:35] note, and nothing indicated a well planned departure.
[37:38] Even so, the initial police response treated her as a
[37:41] runaway. Because of this assumption, the
[37:44] case never received an urgent investigation.
[37:48] No large scale searches were organized and only minimal press
[37:52] attention was given to the disappearance.
[37:55] Crucial leads went unpursued. For example, the identity of the
[38:00] two men in the car was never determined beyond the fact that
[38:03] they were either white or Hispanic and were quite young.
[38:07] Her sisters would later express frustration that these early
[38:11] decisions lost critical time. With no strong family advocate
[38:15] pushing the police, the case quickly fell through the cracks.
[38:22] In the years after 1990, a few strange clues emerged that
[38:26] strongly suggested that Deanna might have survived.
[38:29] In 1992, Rebecca received a collect call from someone
[38:34] claiming to be Deanna before the line abruptly went dead.
[38:39] The call was traced to a payphone in Kentucky, leaving
[38:42] the family to wonder if it was truly her trying to reach out or
[38:46] just a cruel prank. Then in 1995, police in Hurst,
[38:52] TX pulled over a young woman whose name and birth date were
[38:56] an exact match with Deanna. Unaware of her missing status,
[39:00] the officer let her go. Unfortunately, this incident
[39:04] only came to light years later, and without more details, the
[39:07] lead went nowhere. That said, it may be the
[39:11] strongest piece of evidence to suggest that Deanna indeed
[39:15] survived. The last reported sighting of
[39:19] Deanna happened around 2001. A family member claimed that a
[39:24] young woman resembling Deanna had briefly visited and hinted
[39:28] she wanted to stay hidden. That story couldn't be verified
[39:31] by the cops, but there's also no reason to believe that the
[39:35] relative wasn't telling the truth.
[39:39] In 2007, Deanna's sisters succeeded in persuading the
[39:43] police to reopen the case as a cold case investigation.
[39:47] A detective re examined the evidence and took steps that had
[39:51] been missed. Initially, he ensured Deanna's
[39:54] DNA and dental records were in national databases and checked
[39:58] unidentified remains for any possible match.
[40:02] He also interviewed Deanna's old friends, classmates, and
[40:05] neighbors to see if anyone remembered her discussing plans
[40:09] or had heard from her later. Tracking down people decades
[40:13] later was challenging in a community like Colleen, which is
[40:18] largely populated by people associated with Fort Hood who
[40:21] move frequently. Despite this, he managed to
[40:25] locate many who still remember Deanna.
[40:28] These efforts confirmed Deanna had been unhappy and craving
[40:31] independence, but uncovered no new significant leads. 2 main
[40:39] theories have emerged about what happened to Deanna. 1 is that
[40:42] she ran away and managed to stay hidden.
[40:46] Supporters of this theory note that Deanna was resourceful and
[40:49] streetwise, capable of surviving on her own.
[40:54] In this scenario, the two young men in the car were helping her
[40:58] escape to start a new life. She may have cut off contact and
[41:02] even assumed a new identity. The clues over the years hint
[41:07] she might have lived at least a few years under the radar.
[41:11] Her sisters cling to this hope, imagining Deanna living
[41:15] somewhere under a different name.
[41:18] Naturally, in this scenario, a darker spin on this take also
[41:22] exists. Many have wondered if the two
[41:24] men seen in the brown vehicle had decided to traffic Deanna.
[41:29] The quiet calm of a Texas summer afternoon was shattered on
[41:32] August 2nd, 1997 when a passerby stumbled upon a gruesome find on
[41:37] the east side of Lake Arlington. There, near the water's edge,
[41:42] lay the decomposed body of an unknown man.
[41:45] Authorities were called and a baffling mystery began that
[41:49] endures to this day. The victim was a white male,
[41:54] estimated to be between 40 and 55 years old and around 5 foot
[41:59] 10. Forensic analysis suggested he
[42:02] had been deceased for about one to two months, likely since June
[42:06] or July of 1997. There were no signs of any acute
[42:11] injuries, and the medical examiner couldn't determine A
[42:14] cause of death from the remains found in a relatively remote
[42:18] spot by the lake. This John Doe raised many
[42:21] questions from the start and his mystery continues on today,
[42:25] nearly 20 years later. The man had medium length brown
[42:31] hair and was discovered wearing casual summer attire.
[42:35] He was dressed in cut off Wrangler denim shorts, white
[42:39] Converse sneakers with red trim, and a pair of Ray Ban
[42:42] sunglasses. Along with his clothing, several
[42:46] personal items were recovered which could serve to identify
[42:50] who this man is. These included a silver colored
[42:53] necklace, a lighter, a folding pocket knife, a purple comb, and
[42:59] a gold tone token emblazoned with a riverboat and the words
[43:03] No cash value. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to
[43:08] find any photographs of these items online on Name Us or on
[43:12] any other sources. This is, of course, a bit of an
[43:15] issue, since silver colored necklace doesn't serve to narrow
[43:19] things down very much. At any rate, these belongings
[43:25] painted a rough sketch of his life, at least to those
[43:28] investigators who were able to view them directly.
[43:31] Notably, the token was what has been described as a generic
[43:35] arcade or casino token. Investigators checked its
[43:38] origin, but that went nowhere since such tokens were mass
[43:42] produced. Personally though, without
[43:44] seeing the token itself, I'd be wary of any such conclusion, and
[43:49] I suspect there may have been some minor distinctions added
[43:52] that could be a clue. Despite the evidence recovered,
[43:58] nothing found with the body gave away the man's identity.
[44:01] Unfortunately, he carried no wallet, no identification, and
[44:06] no other forms of identifying paperwork.
[44:09] Authorities released a forensic sketch as well, which is quite
[44:13] distinctive, but this too led to nothing.
[44:18] Notably, his fingerprints were taken but they didn't match any
[44:22] entries in law enforcement databases.
[44:25] Dental records were also compared against missing persons
[44:28] reports with no success. Years later, ADNA profile was
[44:33] eventually obtained from his remains and uploaded to national
[44:36] databases, but as yet it returned no matches either.
[44:43] It quickly became clear that this case wasn't about to be
[44:46] cracked with 90s forensic technology, so detectives looked
[44:50] at the context in which he was found.
[44:52] He was on an isolated patch of shoreline littered with empty
[44:56] bottles and trash, and there was evidence it was a local party
[45:00] spot. This environmental clue hinted
[45:04] that he might have been there socializing or camping, but the
[45:07] cops were unable to find any abandoned campsite that might
[45:11] have been his. That said, this isn't
[45:14] necessarily unusual given the post mortem interval on this
[45:18] case, and any number of factors could have led to his camp being
[45:22] taken down within that interval. Unfortunately, despite police
[45:27] requests, no witnesses ever came forward to say they saw a
[45:31] stranger in the area in the relevant time period.
[45:34] That said, investigators didn't find his body until months
[45:38] later, and of course, memories had already begun to fade at
[45:42] that point. With each Ave. turning up empty,
[45:47] the case went cold. In the absence of answers,
[45:52] several theories have been put forward about who this man was
[45:56] and how he perished. One theory is that he was a
[45:59] transient or homeless drifter who lived off the grid.
[46:03] Perhaps he had no fixed home and moved from place to place, which
[46:08] would explain why no missing person report ever matched him.
[46:12] He might not have had close family in touch or those who
[46:15] knew him didn't realize he was missing.
[46:19] However, running against the homeless theory is that he
[46:22] wasn't dressed in the layered style that homeless people
[46:25] generally adopt so they can carry their entire wardrobe with
[46:28] them. Another possibility is that his
[46:33] death was a misadventure or a simple accident.
[46:37] He could have been fishing or drinking by the water and ended
[46:39] up drowning or suffering A fatal fall or medical emergency.
[46:44] The fact that the area appeared to be a party spot supports this
[46:47] idea. He might have been out there
[46:50] with others late at night and something went wrong.
[46:54] If he was intoxicated or unwell and collapsed, the people with
[46:58] him might have panicked and left him, especially if they were
[47:02] afraid of legal trouble. Notably, under this theory, both
[47:07] the John Doe and the other people involved may have been
[47:09] partaking in less than legitimate pharmaceuticals.
[47:13] An accident in such a secluded area could easily go unreported
[47:17] and undocumented under these circumstances.
[47:21] There is also the theory of foul play, though evidence for this
[47:24] is limited. The remote location raises the
[47:27] question of whether someone could have slain him elsewhere
[47:30] and dumped his body by the lake to avoid detection.
[47:34] However, without obvious trauma on the remains, there's no clear
[47:39] indication of this actually happening.
[47:41] That said, it's possible he was suffocated, something that
[47:45] wouldn't necessarily leave a mark on bones.
[47:49] But again, this is purely speculative.
[47:52] Investigators didn't have enough information to label the case as
[47:55] foul play, so it remains classified as an unexplained
[47:59] event. As of 2025, this John Doe found
[48:06] on the shores of Lake Arlington is still unidentified.
[48:10] However, forensic science is advancing rapidly, and there's
[48:15] hope that forensic genetic genealogy can finally crack the
[48:19] mystery of his identity. From there, the cops will
[48:22] theoretically be able to build out the last days, weeks, and
[48:26] months of his life and determine what actually happened to him.
[48:31] On a warm 4th of July night in 1988, two Texas teenagers
[48:35] vanished without a trace. 18 year old Sally Mcnelly and 16
[48:39] year old Shane Stewart had reunited that holiday evening to
[48:42] watch the fireworks in their hometown of San Angelo, TX.
[48:46] It was the first time they'd been together in months and,
[48:49] tragically, the last time they would ever be seen alive.
[48:54] By the next morning, Shane's prized Camaro was found
[48:58] abandoned near the lake, keys resting on the dashboard and
[49:02] fast food wrappers littering the front seat.
[49:06] There were no obvious signs of a struggle and initially some
[49:09] hoped the young couple had simply run off together.
[49:13] But as days turned into weeks, that hopeful notion faded and
[49:17] four months later, in November 1988, hunters made a grim
[49:22] discovery that would set this mystery into motion.
[49:28] The Sally Mcnelly and Shane Stewart case is built on
[49:31] fragments of facts and long held suspicions, as well as a
[49:34] surprise twist that wouldn't be revealed until 2017.
[49:39] What is definitively known is that on July 4th, 1988, Sally
[49:44] and Shane spent the evening together at Lake Nasworthy,
[49:48] enjoying the Independence Day festivities.
[49:51] They were former high school sweethearts who had recently
[49:54] reconnected after a brief breakup, and both had only just
[49:58] returned to San Angelo that summer.
[50:01] Sometime around 9:00 that evening, they watched the annual
[50:05] fireworks show at the lake, and they likely left the crowded
[50:09] area late that night. In the early hours of July 5th,
[50:13] a park Ranger discovered Shane's copper colored Camaro abandoned
[50:17] near Fisher Lake, another reservoir in the area.
[50:21] The car's presence was puzzling. It was parked in a different
[50:25] section of the park than where the fireworks took place, and
[50:28] Shane's keys were left in plain sight on the dash.
[50:32] Inside, nothing seemed to miss, and there were no obvious signs
[50:36] of foul play. That said, because no crime had
[50:41] knowingly been committed at the time, it's unclear how closely
[50:45] the authorities examined this vehicle.
[50:50] Authorities at first treated the situation as a possible runaway
[50:54] or teenage escapade gone awry, but the families of the teens
[50:58] felt in their gut that something was very wrong.
[51:02] Shane had promised to be home by 11:00 PM on the 4th and it
[51:06] wasn't like him to disappear. A search was launched when the
[51:11] pair failed to turn up after a couple of days, with friends and
[51:15] family frantically checking any places the teens might have
[51:18] gone. On November 11th, 1988, the
[51:24] first breakthrough came in a devastating fashion.
[51:27] Remains later identified as Sally's were found on a remote
[51:30] ranch property off a rural farm Rd. in Tom Greene County.
[51:35] Three days later, on November 14th, searchers discovered
[51:39] skeletal remains of Shane in the same general vicinity.
[51:43] The two were found only a short distance apart, confirming they
[51:47] had met the same fate. The condition of the remains
[51:51] indicated they had been exposed to the elements for quite some
[51:54] time. Any forensic clues that might
[51:57] have lingered had likely been eliminated by West TX weather
[52:01] and scavengers. Over those four months,
[52:04] investigators could determine little beyond the cause of
[52:07] death. Both teens had been slain by a
[52:10] shotgun blast, likely on the night they disappeared.
[52:16] As the investigation unfolded, an unsettling picture emerged of
[52:20] the teenagers lives before their deaths.
[52:23] These allegations involve alleged occult activities and a
[52:27] circle of friends that many in town would later describe as a
[52:30] satanic cult. In the year leading up to the
[52:34] event, both Sally and Shane had become involved with a
[52:37] clandestine group of local youths engaged in bizarre
[52:41] rituals. And I should note here that the
[52:44] existence of this group has been confirmed by the authorities,
[52:48] for what that's worth. Sally's close friends and even
[52:53] her mother Pat Wade, recalled that the 18 year old had been
[52:58] attending strange late night parties featuring black magic
[53:02] ceremonies. When Sally started dating Shane
[53:06] in late 1987, she introduced him to these new friends and their
[53:10] so-called ritualistic parties. Marshall Stewart, Shane's
[53:15] father, noticed an abrupt change in his son's behavior around
[53:18] that time, claiming the once easygoing teen was now getting
[53:22] into fights and acting out. The influence of this group was
[53:28] clearly negative, and both sets of parents feared the teens were
[53:31] in over their heads. And unlike most of these stories
[53:35] involving the occult, those fears weren't unfounded, since
[53:39] this occult group really sounds more like a local gang with some
[53:42] occult trappings. In March 1988, just a few months
[53:48] before their disappearance, Sally and Shane themselves went
[53:52] to the police with alarming information.
[53:56] Sally contacted a sheriff's deputy, Larry Counts, and
[54:00] reported that members of the cult were involved in serious
[54:03] crimes. She handed over a weapon that,
[54:06] according to her, a cult member had given the couple.
[54:11] The person allegedly told Sally and Shane that the weapon had
[54:14] recently been used in a slaying. Skeptical at first, Deputy
[54:19] Counts checked the serial number and discovered it was indeed
[54:23] stolen property, which lent some credibility to the teens story.
[54:31] The teens confided to law enforcement that they were
[54:33] trying to extricate themselves from the cult, but they feared
[54:36] retaliation if they were caught betraying the group secrets.
[54:40] This chilling warning that their lives could be in danger would
[54:45] prove to be eerily prophetic, but at any rate, even with the
[54:49] stolen weapon being turned over, the cops didn't seem to take the
[54:53] case overly seriously. In fact, this led to rumors at
[55:00] the time that there was a cover up related to the occult group,
[55:04] A theory which leaned fully into the Satanic Panic memes of the
[55:08] time. This theory essentially
[55:10] suggested that all the institutions in this Texas town
[55:13] had been infiltrated by agents of the Devil, a theory that has
[55:17] later been dismissed as mass hysteria.
[55:21] But I'll come back to this peculiar phenomenon shortly, so
[55:25] just hang tight for a moment. Shortly after turning over the
[55:29] weapon, Sally and Shane took steps to distance themselves
[55:33] from the occult group and appear to have initially had some
[55:36] success, at least for a short time.
[55:39] They moved out of the apartment they had briefly shared and
[55:42] actually left San Angelo for a time in the spring of 1988, But
[55:47] by early summer, both teens found themselves drawn back to
[55:50] their hometown. In mid June 1988, roughly 2
[55:54] weeks before she went missing, Sally made a distressed phone
[55:58] call to her friend Helen. Sally was frantic in the extreme
[56:03] and claimed someone was trying to eliminate her due to her
[56:06] connections with the group she had been trying to distance
[56:08] herself from. Helen, not fully understanding
[56:12] the gravity of the situation, tried to calm her down and
[56:16] didn't report the incident to Sally's family at the time.
[56:20] With hindsight, this plea for help was another ominous red
[56:23] flag that went unheeded. Piercing together, the events of
[56:29] July 4th, 1988 has been critical to understanding what might have
[56:33] happened to Shane and Sally. Thanks to witness accounts,
[56:37] investigators have a general timeline of the couple's last
[56:40] hours. After watching the 9:00 PM
[56:43] fireworks at Lake Nosworthy, the pair left the busy lake area and
[56:48] at some point travelled in Shane's car to a secluded spot
[56:52] by Fisher Lake a few miles away. Why they went there remains
[56:57] uncertain, though it's been speculated that they may have
[57:00] been using it as a lover's lane of sorts.
[57:04] This theory makes a lot of sense to me since they were just
[57:07] reconnecting and they no longer had a shared private apartment
[57:11] where they could spend some alone time.
[57:16] One eyewitness later came forward to say he saw Sally and
[57:19] Shane near a park at Fisher Lake in the late night hours.
[57:23] This witness, fishing from a boat, noticed a pickup truck
[57:27] approached the couple's parked Camaro.
[57:30] He distinctly heard Sally's voice carrying over the water,
[57:33] telling the truck's occupants that they didn't want to be
[57:36] involved with the group anymore. An argument ensued, but the
[57:40] witness assumed it was just some teens partying or quarrelling
[57:44] and paid little attention as he departed the area.
[57:50] That snippet of overheard conversation, if accurate, is
[57:54] incredibly telling. It suggests that the people who
[57:57] met Sally and Shane at the lake that night were likely connected
[58:01] to the very group the teens were trying to escape.
[58:04] Notably, this was the last known sighting of them alive and by
[58:09] daylight on July 5th, when the Camaro was found abandoned, the
[58:13] teens were nowhere to be found. Marshall Stewart, who never
[58:19] believed the runaway theory in the wake of July 4th, took it
[58:23] upon himself to investigate. He recalled that Shane had been
[58:27] having trouble with a particular individual.
[58:30] This was another teenager from the cult crowd whom Shane didn't
[58:33] get along with. According to Marshall, Shane had
[58:37] once said that if he ever saw this person again, a fight would
[58:41] be inevitable. Now, in the wake of the
[58:44] disappearance, Marshall went to that young man's home to
[58:48] confront him. The teen refused to talk about
[58:51] Shane and Sally, but Marshall noticed something.
[58:54] Chilling scratch marks on the boy's face, as if he'd been in a
[59:00] recent scuffle. It was suspicious, to say the
[59:03] least. But with no further evidence,
[59:06] nothing was ever done further. Yet.
[59:09] The authorities were still treating the case as a runaway
[59:12] at the time and wouldn't have interviewed Shane's scratched up
[59:15] rival. Also, I note that this
[59:19] individual's name has never been released to the public, and
[59:23] you're going to want to keep this in mind going forward since
[59:26] it may be important given the eerie circumstances of the case.
[59:32] A number of theories have been proposed to explain who
[59:35] eliminated Sally and Shane and why.
[59:38] The most prevalent theory, especially at the time, was that
[59:42] their slayings were connected to Satanic cult activity.
[59:46] The late 1980s were the height of the Satanic Panic in America,
[59:50] when fear of cults and ritual crime was rampant.
[59:54] According to the media, teenagers would get together,
[59:58] listen to heavy metal while summoning demons and Dungeons
[1:00:01] and Dragons, all for the glory of the devil, as was the style
[1:00:05] at the time. Sally and Shane's story,
[1:00:09] teenagers dabbling in devil worship who then mysteriously
[1:00:12] disappeared, fit neatly into that narrative.
[1:00:18] In 1991, Unsolved Mysteries ran a segment on the case, heavily
[1:00:23] implying that the couple might have been slain as part of a
[1:00:26] satanic ritual or cult retribution.
[1:00:30] This is where I first found out about the case, and where I'm
[1:00:33] sure most of you who heard about it previous to this segment did
[1:00:37] as well. The show dramatized the occult
[1:00:41] angle, suggesting that sinister ceremonies or even a sacrifice
[1:00:45] could be involved. However, as time passed,
[1:00:50] investigators began to question whether the slayings were really
[1:00:53] ritualistic at all. Despite the rumors, no concrete
[1:00:57] evidence of an actual Satanic ceremony or symbols was ever
[1:01:01] reported at the crime scene. In fact, decades later, law
[1:01:06] enforcement has stated they don't believe the teens were
[1:01:09] slain because of a Satanic rite. More likely, the cult story
[1:01:15] provided A dramatic backdrop, but the real motive may have
[1:01:18] been more mundane. Notably, the so-called cult was
[1:01:23] also involved in a lucrative side business for Satan.
[1:01:27] They were pushing the devil's lettuce on the local youth and
[1:01:30] making a tidy profit doing so. Shane and Sally had recently
[1:01:34] turned over a weapon to the police and were clearly
[1:01:38] interested in getting out of this group.
[1:01:41] Under this theory, the two of them were seen as liabilities
[1:01:45] who would sink a profitable St. pharmaceutical operation and
[1:01:48] land the ringleaders in the slammer.
[1:01:53] Another theory that has been floated over the years involves
[1:01:56] specific suspects within the victims social circle.
[1:01:59] As mentioned, Shane had conflict with at least one other teenager
[1:02:04] who was involved in the occult group.
[1:02:06] Marshall Stewart's encounter with that individual noticing
[1:02:10] scratches on his face is often cited as a clue that a fight
[1:02:14] happened around the time of the slayings.
[1:02:17] Some have speculated that this teen confronted Shane and Sally
[1:02:20] on July 4th and things turned violent.
[1:02:24] Under this theory, while this teenager may have been a social
[1:02:28] connection from the occult group, he didn't commit the ACT
[1:02:31] on the authority of the group. For nearly three decades, the
[1:02:37] mystery of who slew Sally McNally and Shane Stewart saw
[1:02:40] little movement until a shocking break in 2017 injected New Hope
[1:02:46] into the cold case. And trust me, this is going to
[1:02:50] be one of the weirdest and most disturbing twists I've ever
[1:02:52] discussed and suggest the occult group wasn't your typical group
[1:02:56] of edgy teenagers. In June 2017, a 47 year old San
[1:03:03] Angelo man named John Cyrus Gilbreth was pulled over by Tom
[1:03:08] Greene County deputies on a routine stop.
[1:03:11] This minor incident quickly escalated into something far
[1:03:14] more significant. Gilbreath's passenger made a
[1:03:18] remark to officers that he was involved in the street pharmacy
[1:03:21] game, prompting investigators to obtain a warrant to search his
[1:03:25] home. What they found instead was a
[1:03:28] trove of items that appeared to tie Gilbreath directly to the
[1:03:32] 1988 double slaying. According to police statements
[1:03:37] and reports from local media, the search of Gilbreath's
[1:03:40] residence uncovered personal writings and notes explicitly
[1:03:43] mentioning Shane and Sally. There were also three cassette
[1:03:48] tapes, all of which contained the initials of the couple,
[1:03:52] though the sound quality was so degraded that it was impossible
[1:03:55] to determine what was going on. Even more damning, they
[1:04:01] discovered physical evidence, including hair and fingernails,
[1:04:04] that are believed to have belonged to the deceased pair.
[1:04:07] The revelation was stunning, and for the first time, authorities
[1:04:11] publicly named John Gilbreath as a person of interest in the
[1:04:15] slayings of Sally and Shane. It turned out Gilbreath was not
[1:04:20] an unknown figure in the case. Investigators acknowledged that
[1:04:24] he had been on their radar from the very beginning, and he was
[1:04:27] one of the teenagers involved in the same occult group back in
[1:04:31] 1988. In other words, Gilbreath was
[1:04:34] one of Sally and Shane's alleged friends who had a penchant for
[1:04:38] Satanic themed gatherings. He had a checkered past in the
[1:04:44] years after the slayings, including a felony theft
[1:04:47] conviction in 1989 and a substance related conviction in
[1:04:52] 1994. Gilbreth was eventually
[1:04:55] convicted on unrelated charges based upon an arsenal of
[1:04:59] weaponry that was also incidentally found during the
[1:05:03] search. As a convicted felon, he was, of
[1:05:07] course, not allowed to be in possession of these items, and
[1:05:11] he was sent to federal prison in 2018.
[1:05:14] Notably, however, he has never been charged with the slayings
[1:05:18] of Shane and Sally. The evidence found at his home
[1:05:22] is strongly suggestive, but likely not enough on its own to
[1:05:25] secure an indictment without corroborating proof or
[1:05:28] testimony. As of now, the slayings of Sally
[1:05:34] McNally and Shane Stewart remain officially unsolved.
[1:05:38] Cold case detectives and Texas Rangers continue to follow
[1:05:41] leads, and advancements in forensic technology offer new
[1:05:45] possibilities. Perhaps the most interesting
[1:05:48] potential new forensic opportunity will come from those
[1:05:52] cassette tapes. If new technology improves the
[1:05:55] ability to restore the tapes, these recordings may contain the
[1:05:59] truth of what happened to the young couple.
[1:06:03] My own theory is that while John Gilbreath sits in federal
[1:06:06] custody, investigators are quietly stacking evidence
[1:06:10] against him and re examining items seized in 2017.
[1:06:15] Given that he's out of the game for the foreseeable future, the
[1:06:19] authorities have been gifted the ability to build the absolute
[1:06:22] strongest case possible against him.
[1:06:25] Prosecutors have strong incentives to wait until the
[1:06:28] case is airtight. Cold cases can hinge on so many
[1:06:31] different factors, and an acquittal triggers double
[1:06:34] jeopardy protections in almost all cases.
[1:06:40] Of course, it may be that there's simply no evidence that
[1:06:42] this guy actually did it, and he may have received these
[1:06:45] disturbing mementos from the person who did.
[1:06:49] After all, they all hung out in the same spooky cult like group,
[1:06:53] so it's very possible that biological material from the
[1:06:56] victims was distributed amongst the members.
[1:07:01] Also, personally, I wonder if Gilbreath is the guy that
[1:07:05] Shane's dad confronted back in the day.
[1:07:08] If he's not, I would hope that the cops have paid that guy a
[1:07:12] visit as well.

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