Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

In May of 2004 12-year-old Rosa Sandoval missed the last day of elementary school and the class party that was to take place and was never seen again. San Antonio Police sprung to action fast, but by the time Rosa was found to be missing, at least 14 hours had passed. Or so everyone originally thought. The cops later found out that perhaps almost 24 hours had passed since Rosa Sandoval was last se...

Part 5 of 5. Convicted a year and a half later of a crime that could easily be considered similar to the prevailing theory in Rachel Cooke’s disappearance, an Austin area man was no stranger to violent crime. On the day Rachel went missing, and for some time before, this individual had been working as a foreman for a crew doing work in the area of the North Lake subdivision and is known to have se...

Part 4 of 5. In 1998, policeman Jimmy Fennell, Jr quit his job in Giddings, Texas after getting new work in Georgetown. Tragically, Fennell’s fiance, Stacey Stites, had been killed in 1996 and, perhaps, many thought the man was coming to a new city as final step in moving forward with his life. Fennell certainly did move forward behaving as he had at his old department. Though far from the only al...

Part 3 of 5. Rachel Cooke’s parents believed their daughter was no longer alive, but still held out a sliver of hope that she was. In 2006, four years after her January 2002 disappearance, those hopes were completely dashed when a convicted killer confessed to bludgeoning, raping, and killing Rachel. Among this convicted killer’s many disdainful qualities, however, was a predilection to lying simp...

Part 2 of 5. 19-year-old Rachel Cooke’s disappearance consumed her father, Robert Cooke. While the month following saw incredible activity in the form of searches from incredibly valuable Texas-based organizations and The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office, that activity dwindled as the year went on. New composite sketches and heightened media presence due to the Cooke family’s persistence seemed...

On January 10th, 2002, back home in Williamson County on winter break from college in San Diego, 19-year-old Rachel Cooke slept in a little. When she woke up, her parents and sister had all gone about their day. Rachel spoke with her boyfriend back in California for a few minutes, put on her workout clothes, and went for her usual 4 to 6 mile run. Then, as Rachel walked toward the Cooke home, her...

On this episode of gone cold, we cover two unrelated stories from the city of El Paso; both likely impacted, or were impacted by, the 1987 desert killings thought by law enforcement to be perpetrated solely by David Leonard Wood. Before listening, we highly suggest you check out our episodes “Lost in the Desert” Parts 1 & 2. First, the disappearance and murder of 16-year-old Angie Irsay in 1988, f...

During the Summer of 1987, the disappearances of girls and young women were stacking up in El Paso. Though the police seemed to think most were simply runaways, they changed their tune when the bodies of two missing females were found in the city’s Northeast desert on September 4th. When two more bodies were found a month and a half later, El Paso police acted fast and arrested their suspect – but...

Almost immediately after rapist and pedophile David Leonard Wood left prison in Huntsville, Texas and paroled to his mother’s house in El Paso, teenaged girls and young women began disappearing. Though the bodies of six of the females were eventually found, and Wood convicted of killing them, three remain missing to this day. This episode of gone cold is the story of the Desert Killer’s known vict...

Part 3 of 3. The initial investigation into the slayings of 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson was meticulous, with no stones left unturned, but it resulted in virtually no breaks. Though DNA obtained as the result of the attacker raping Cheryl produced a strong profile, no one Detective Billy Belk and company could find was a match. Then, almost 20 years later, the biggest bre...

After the bodies of 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson were found, on August 23rd and 24th 1990 respectively, Houston Homicide Detective Billy Belk was called to the scene to begin the investigation into their murders. Alongside other homicide detectives, Belk scoured the city for leads – first questioning and taking blood samples from all Andy and Cheryl’s known friends and pa...

When 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson met in August of 1990, it was almost as if fate made it so. Both of them had just moved back to Houston, Texas earlier that summer. And both seemingly fell hard for the other the moment they were introduced. But fate turned cruel when only weeks later something terrible, something beyond reason and comprehension happened to the couple cut...

On November 1st, 1980, the body of a young female was found on the side of Interstate 45 near Huntsville in Walker County, Texas. For 41 years, this girl was unidentified and known as Walker County Jane Doe. It wasn’t for the lack of investigative effort – the case had been revisited periodically over the years. Rather, the Jane Doe’s identity remained unknown because the technology didn’t exist u...

Part 3 of 3. The October 1981 slaying of 27-year-old Clarence Ray Hudgins at his home near Kilgore, Texas is still unsolved, but it’s not for the lack of effort on his mother’s part. For 40 years now, Kathryn Hudgins has collected documents and evidence concerning her son’s case. This evidence makes one thing strikingly clear: that Ray’s business partner, who he cut ties with not long before his a...

When two drifters were apprehended states apart in 1983, one began confessing to any and every unsolved murder under the hot Texas sun and beyond. Though the slaying of Clarence Ray Hudgins in Gregg County, Texas had all the signs of a well-planned out hit, and these two drifters’ crimes were nothing of the sort, Texas Ranger Glenn Elliot still wanted to explore the possibility that Henry Lee Luca...

The oilfield business in East Texas, once upon a time, was wrought with shady characters who’d gladly revert to egregious crimes to stay on top of the game. Perhaps that is the reason Oilfield Sandblasting & Coating Incorporated’s owner, 27-year-old Clarence Ray Hudgins, was gunned down on the porch of his home in October of 1981. But that theory is almost too easy, and besides that, shady figures...

In January 2018, 19-year-old Caitlin Denison boarded a plane from Reno, Nevada to Midland, Texas. The following day, she briefly spoke with her sister but hasn’t been heard from since. Though the man she traveled to Midland with was found and questioned after Caitlin was reported missing, Midland authorities had no cause to arrest the man – no evidence that he’d harmed the missing young woman. Mon...

On Labor Day 1993, Shelley Lou Watkins, her husband Jerry, and others gathered at their cedar Creek Lake home to celebrate the holiday. But after an argument broke out between the couple, Shelley disappeared and since the manner in which she was reported missing is suspect at the very least, no searches were conducted. By the time the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office found out about the missing m...

In December of 2002, Japanese exchange student Mikiko Kasahara was excited to have completed her freshman year at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. She acclimated to her new environment well, made several close friends, and was excelling academically. On the night of the 13th, Mikiko through a celebration party for her and her friends’ accomplishments – a low key get-together with just a...

In October of 1979 7-year-old Elizabeth Lynne Barclay, along with her little brother and a neighbor friend, headed to a convenience store near home to get some ice cream. Just minutes after they left, Elizabeth’s brother came running back to the Barclay apartment, telling his mother that his big sister had been taken by a man. What followed was a massive search effort conducted by the Dallas Polic...

On August 4th, 1992, 23-year-old Tara Breckenridge vanished without so much as a trace after leaving her job at Houston’s The Men’s Club. Besides a theory that her car was tampered with, Houston Detectives were ultimately unable to find a single solid lead, even after discovering that Tara had an admirer and that she and her boyfriend were having relationship trouble. After a 2007 DNA match betwee...

Glen Samuel McCurley’s heinous and depraved act against Carla Walker was confident and brazen; it was as if the man had done it before. There are many murders in the city of Fort Worth in which McCurley’s involvement can be speculated, particularly the several victims of what became known as “The February Slayings.” Victims of those murders include Becky Martin, June Ward, and Christy Tower. This...

In a surprise move, Glen Samuel McCurley changed his plea from “not guilty” to “guilty” on Tuesday, August 24th, 2021, the third day of his trial for the February 1974 murder of Carla Jan Walker. On Part 3 of Justice for Carla, Emily Dixon speaks with us about what the third day of trial had in store if it had proceeded and Carla’s siblings, Jim and Cindy, share with us their thoughts on everythin...

After Glen Samuel McCurley was arrested for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder of Carla Walker, Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Kim D’Avignon and Emily Dixon, along with DA Investigator Chris Lachance, began their work to obtain a conviction. First, the case had to go before a Grand Jury, followed by a series of pretrial hearings in which the man’s defense attempted to...

It wasn’t for a lack of effort and determination that past Fort Worth Police Detectives couldn’t solve the February 17th, 1974 murder of Carla Walker. It was because her killer was a complete stranger and the technology needed to find the perpetrator didn’t exist. Forty-five years after the terrible crime, Detectives Leah Wagner and Jeff Bennett began working the case from scratch, and their dilig...