Cold Case Files - A Child Remembers

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

In this special episode, Cold Case Files follows Detective Manny Reyes as he works two cases. First, Detective Reyes investigates the 1990 murder of a Fort Worth, Texas woman, which hinges on a 2-year-old witness. Then, as Reyes closes in on a suspect, he is pulled onto a second case involving a known serial killer. The clock is ticking as Detective Reyes works to bring both cases to a close. Check out our great sponsors! LifeLock: Join now and save up to 25% off your first year by going to LifeLock.com/coldcase  Talkspace: Match with a licensed therapist when you go to Talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month with the promo code "COLDCASE" SimpliSafe: Get 20% off your system and your first month of monitoring service FREE when you enroll in Interactive Monitoring at Simplisafe.com/coldcase  Total Wireless: Do amazing with your phone plan at TotalWireless.com  Listen to new episodes of The Vanished on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery App! Progressive: Get a quote today at Progressive.com - It’s one sma ll step you can do today, that could make a big impact on your budget tomorrow!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. In 1990, Jane Thompson was 30 years old and a single mother of two young boys, Val, age 14, and Josh, age 2. She'd recently graduated from the American Trade Institute and was working as a lab technician in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2006, on Val's last day of school,

Jane instructed him to take the bus to his grandparents' house and wait for her to pick him up there. Then, Jane, Josh, and Josh's father, Bobby Woods, left together to run some errands. Jane and Woods were no longer a couple, but kept in touch because of Josh, and also because of the fact that Jane didn't drive. When Jane didn't arrive at her parents' home to pick up Val, Daisy Thompson, Jane's mother, reported her missing. Daisy said that Jane was very dependable and a devoted mother, so she suspected that something bad had happened. And she was right.

On June 9th, a man looking for aluminum cans found Jane's body behind a grocery store dumpster in Fort Worth. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the legend Bill Curtis with a classic case a child remembers. Let me see if I got you some invoice numbers in there. From a pile under his desk, Fort Worth Detective Manny Reyes pulls out a murder file. It starts small. It's just a simple police report, maybe a few pictures, and it just snowballs. Yeah, it's 9-0, C. Charles. Reyes' cold file bears the name of Jane Thompson.

Sixteen years ago, she was beaten to death, leaving behind her two sons, who now want the case reopened. Call Case Reyes. The oldest brother called and just wanted to know the status of the case. I didn't know anything about it. We hadn't even considered looking at that case whatsoever. So after putting them off for a while, I went and got the case, opened it up. It should be under service number 815. Last one.

The more I read, everything's here. What's wrong here? It just seems to be falling in place as I'm reading the case itself. One witness statement in particular catches Reyes' eye. It is from Jane's son, Josh Thompson, two years old at the time of his mom's murder and an apparent eyewitness to the crime. He wasn't being told what to say.

Like, Josh, this is what happened, right? The line of questioning was, what happened? Where is she? And he answered those questions. What I'm going to do is we're going to head towards the location. He said that his mom was hit, left out by some brush and brushes and stuff. And the other part was that it was his dad.

Body was found right here. They've closed this street down since then. And then when I looked at the crime scene reports and I saw the crime scene photos, what he was saying was making sense. The body was a few feet away from the actual curb. Obviously, that's where she was killed. There was no signs of her being dragged and, you know, killed elsewhere. Hello, Bo? Detective Ray is here.

So I called him up, said, hey, look, you know, I read the case. I'm opening it. Hey, is it possible for your brother to be there, or do you just want to be us for now? I need to meet with you, both of you, and I like to do it face-to-face. That way I know who I'm talking to, and at least you'll know you can put a face to a name whenever you call. And so that's when I set up the first interviews. Manny agrees to meet with Josh Thompson and his older half-brother, Val, at Val's house. I'm Manny Reyes. Shake it again.

Josh. Josh, what's your middle name? Earl. Josh Earl. Well, I wanted to hear their version as to what they remembered, and I wanted to see what their attitudes were. He did it, I know he did it, and you guys aren't going to do

anything about it. We get that a lot. Just a question out of curiosity. What made you decide to contact us? Oh man, because it never was closed. Wide open, man. I mean, my little brother was there. They're like, hey, we know you guys are busy and all,

and we're just wondering what the status on our mom's case was. We felt like we'd grown up now, and we had to take care of something that should have been taken care of a long time ago. Do you know what her plans were for that Friday? Well, that day she was going to get a car, and she had cash. And from what I understand... What kind of cash are we talking about? There was maybe $1,500.

So she was going to buy a car. There was no mention of that before. Yeah, she was going to buy a car that day. And from what I understand, the gentleman that she was with, his father was using drugs at that particular time. Everything was leading to one suspect from the very start, and there was no indication of anybody else other than Bobby Woods. Bobby Woods is Josh Thompson's biological father, and according to the two brothers, the man who killed their mother.

Other than the feeling that you have, give me the reason that you think of or know of that this guy is the one that did this to your mom. Well, number one and foremost is my little brother. His story never changed from the time we was little kids to this day. Josh? For Reyes, the credibility of this case

rests with Josh Thompson. What did he see as a two-year-old? What does he actually remember? For the first time in almost 20 years, Josh tells his story to police. I remember as soon as we got out the car, they was arguing. And I was in the backseat, of course. So when she let me out the car, she sat me down.

And they just kept arguing. They kept arguing. And he swung and hit her with his hand, just bare fists. Do you, by chance, remember what the argument was about? No. And the thing is, he didn't come out and tell us, OK, this is the conversation my mom and dad were having that night.

This is the location we were at. It wasn't like that at all. He just remembered a certain event that was extremely unusual for a two-year-old to see. And he hadn't seen it before, and it was really dramatic.

And that's what he told us. The reason I remember is because it's the first time I saw my dad hit my mom. And she felt she got up and put her hand in his face, and then he hit her again. Then once that happened, he took an object and he started beating in the head with it. And then the next thing I know, I'm back in the car.

And for me, I remember it was a purse sitting in my lap. It was my mom's purse, and it was blood on it. And I asked him, where's mom? And he was like, oh, she's fine. She'll be OK. I'm going to take her to your granny house. And that was it. She never got back in the car?

No. I remember she was surrounded by a whole lot of leaves. I saw her laying on the ground. And the one shocker of all that I got out of that first meeting was that the day that this happened, when Bobby Woods dropped off his son at the grandmother's, from that on, he had never made contact with him. He just left and abandoned him that one day and never turned back.

When did you next see him again? Never again. Never? Never seen him again? Never again. Never? Never seen him again? After that day he came and brought my brother? He never came back to the grandmother's house? Never seen him. Didn't see him at the funeral. Didn't see him at any wakes.

Didn't see him at any gatherings. Nothing. Nothing? I mean, it's apparent. He disappeared for a while? Disappeared. Forever. Forever.

It is unusual. Too much of a coincidence. The last day your father saw you was that Friday afternoon. A blind man can see there's something going on here for the guy to drop off his two-year-old and never look back. So I realized there's a lot more here. What we know and what we can prove are two different things. Correct.

And can we prove this? We just started today. Give me time to see what I can come up with on this. Anything else comes up, call me, guys. That's good. I appreciate you coming out. No problem. No problem. You all be careful, y'all.

We'll do good. Can a 2-year-old remember something traumatic like that? Of course they can. And the thing is, on his part, he was asked back then what it is that he saw because he is the last known person to see his mom alive. And what he told us now, it's what he told us back then. He saw his father hit his mother,

and then he never saw his mother again. After hearing him talk and after looking and seeing what I had in regards to the case file, it left no doubt that Josh's dad is the one that had done this. Monday be okay? Detective Reyes suspects he might know who killed Jane Thompson. Proving it, however, is another matter. It's a towel.

That's what you want? Yeah, I need to look at that. Inside the Fort Worth evidence locker, he finds an old towel and perhaps the smoking gun he's been looking for. What's that look like to you? Josh and Val Thompson, the sons of Jane Thompson, contacted Detective Manny Reyes about their mother's unsolved murder case, 16 years after the case had gone cold.

Though Josh had only been two at the time of the murder, he believed he had a clear memory that could help the investigation. Detective Reyes talked with the brothers, whose stories led him to reexamine the evidence collected from the crime scene, and he uncovered a new lead. It's almost as traumatic as if you cut your finger off. You've got to remember that. Walking along an empty stretch of Texas highway, Manny Reyes shows two sons the spot where their mother, Jane Thompson, was murdered 16 years ago.

Back in 1990, we found a female, partially nude and thrown on the side of the road. It looked like someone had hit her over the head a couple of times. It was strange for the self-reflective to drive past her all the time. That's why it was strange. It was like, oh, it's right there. The car was parked right here. This right here is strictly for the family. Them coming over here and looking and stuff, it doesn't help in any way.

This was just for the family. It's always good to know. I mean, you may not be able to do much about it. It may not help in my hurt, but you know. All right, guys, anything else, you just let me know. I'll be in contact with you both. Cool. All right. You know, when you have really good families like this that are really, they really want

something done and stuff, you know, I mean, you got to try just as hard, but when you do finish it off, it's a little better feeling. I'm feeling optimistic, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be taken care of. I know it's going to be taken care of because I know it's going to be taken care of. Because he seems like a straightforward guy. He gets the job done. He's very persistent. Persistence is a trait many Reyes grew up with.

His parents were migrant workers and wanted a better life for their children. Just like in the movie, The Grapes of Wrath, they put a canvas over my dad's truck, and the younger kids in the back, and the baby in the front, which is either me or my sister, and they'd load up and we'd take off to Colorado in the truck. You know, they never pushed us as to, I want you to do this or try to do that. The one thing they always stressed was education. Finish high school, move on, go to college,

and they never would tell us or even hint as to what they wanted us to do. They just wanted us to keep going to school. Twenty years later, Detective Reyes has inherited his parents' persistence. Now he uses it to help two boys find their mom's killer. Hello, Noella. This is Detective Manny Reyes, Fort Worth Code case. I needed to get a 1990 autopsy report. At the top of Reyes's suspect list is Jane Thompson's boyfriend at the time, and Josh's biological father, an ex-convict named Bobby Woods. It turns out she was last seen on June 5th. Depositions were taken. Reyes zeroes in on depositions taken between the time of Jane's disappearance

and the discovery of her body. Again, just tell me what you remember from back then. We had a close relationship at one time. Reyes unearths a former associate of Bobby Woods, one who claims Bobby confided in him about the murder.

He's critical because he's pretty much a witness to what he said. You know, you go out there and you tell people what you did or what happened. You know, you do that, it's going to come back. Let's get to the part of Jane's disappearance. He told her to turn around or something like he saw a rabbit or something, he went and got the shotgun, he come disappearance. He told her to turn around, or something like he saw a rabbit or something, he went and got the shotgun, he come back, he told her to turn around, and that's when he hit her in the back of the head with the shotgun. And the shotgun broke, which is consistent with what the autopsy showed, blunt force

trauma to the head. And the best part here for me is, you know, the reason I never said anything about this in the past was I did not want to get him in trouble. I was pre-and-true to the gang. Now, in regards to that shotgun, you had also told me a little bit more in regards to, I believe it was your aunt or your mom,

she remembers or she saw that shotgun at one time. In her house. In her house. And she didn't know exactly where it come from. She asked me about it because, you know, I was in the streets. And I was like, well, it ain't mine. And she mentioned that it was her and stuff in the stock of the gun, and the stock was broke. It was hair on the stock, and the stock was broke in the shotgun.

Any idea whatever happened to that shotgun? I have no idea. Detective Reyes picks through old records looking for the shotgun. He finds an arrest report with Bobby Wood's name on it. He was arrested for robbery. During that arrest, his car got towed in. And the detective at that time went ahead and conducted a search on the vehicle and collected some pictures plus he found a white towel that had some blood on it it's a towel yeah that's i need to look at that reyos's next stop the police locker. Act like you own this place. This may not fit me.

I got fat fingers. Ten days after the homicide, they arrested our suspect, Mr. Woods. During that arrest, they confiscated his vehicle. They did a search of his vehicle, and they found this towel in the trunk of the car. By looking at it back then, they saw something that looked like blood, appeared to be blood on it. So they had it, they tagged it in.

And what's that look like to you? Skinner's in a wood chip. That wood, little piece of wood, ain't it? Looks like a little piece of wood, ain't it? Looks like a little piece of wood. This is wood chips. I mean, just from the bare eye, you can tell that they were little wood chips. And if you look closely at one, it has like a little varnish finish on one side of the chip. That's consistent with the stock of a gun.

We do not have the shotgun, but that is wood. So that kind of a gun. We do not have the shotgun but that is wood so that kind of matches up you know they told us that when she got hit over the head with it it broke the stock broke so if that's the case this would match up. I think what they're gonna be able to tell me is first off it is wood and it does have some varnish on it, which would, to me, that would be more than enough right there. Plus, another thing I just found out, and it's not listed here, and it's not listed in our evidence report, but it was in here,

is they removed some hair from the towel. The hair, they just collected it. They didn't do any work on it. So we'll get that looked at, see if they can even tell us if it's a female's hair or something. This is ready to go back? I might leave this side for you guys

because I'm going to get the crime lab as soon as I get a chance to do some more work on it. Okay. The blood is human, but it does not belong to Jane Thompson. Reyes, however, believes the wood chips to be consistent with the stock of a shotgun and another possible link between the murder and Bobby Woods. I'll still ruin his weekend.

There's no more investigation to be done. It's time to arrest my suspect. What am I going to do? Do I just walk up there and arrest him? Do I call him to come downtown and talk to me? What kind of arrest am I going to do? I'm trying to talk to somebody to verify if you have a certain person employed there. I'm just going to go to his job and pick him up there.

Those are his hours, 6 to 2.30? He's off on Fridays. He'll know it's a little more serious when a detective shows up at your place of work and says, I need to talk to you. Can you still be there tomorrow? Tomorrow what time? Oh, about the same time. 3 o'clock.

3 o'clock? 3 o'clock's fine. You can do that. Reyes meets with Jane Thompson's sons and tells them of the pending arrest. But we'll talk tomorrow. I'll give you a call. I'll tell you exactly how to get to the office and all that. Okay.

And we'll shoot. If you can be there by between 2.30 and 3, it'll work out really good. That's a deal. I'm not nervous. I'm pretty excited. I want to see it happen. I want to see him go down for what he did. I mean, I'll be able to see who my father is,

because basically I don't know if he's walking beside me every day. I don't even know what he looks like. 16 years ago, he just dropped his son and never came back. Is he going to cry or acknowledge him? Chances are the father doesn't even know what the son looks like either. So what's going to be the reaction when they meet? No telling. Reyes prepares to arrest Bobby Woods.

Meanwhile, a second cold case heats up. This one involves a suspected serial killer and the secrets he keeps underneath his mattress. We got problems. We got two little girls. We have no idea who they are at this time. And their picture was found underneath the bed of a guy that we know has killed three women,

one of which was a child. We had a guy, Juan Segundo. He's already good for two. We're looking at several other cases on him. Juan Segundo is a suspected serial killer. Three months ago, he was arrested and charged in connection with a rape and homicide. A month later, he was linked to a second murder by DNA.

Well, just an hour ago, we were advised by our crime lab that we have another DNA hit on him, and another unsolved murder. Reyes worked one of the original Segundo cases and remembers it well. The victim was an 11-year-old named Vanessa Villa. He showed up to the 11-year-old girl's funeral, the one he killed, and was number five

to sign in on the book. That's his signature up there. He signed it Mr. and Mrs. J. Segundo. I met the guy there at the funeral home, didn't even know it. That was the weird part of it all. Now with a third DNA hit, the list of potential Segundo victims grows.

So what we're doing is we're going back now and trying to see how many unsolved female cases we have that match a little bit of his M.O. We thought he was just going to be responsible for Hispanic females. Sure enough, this third victim was a black female. And now we have to start looking not only at black females, but we're going to have to start looking at white females also, see, you know, this guy's capable of anything. On the timeline, we just find out when he was actually

out and about. And during the time that he was out, this is a list of females that we have. You know, knowing and proving are two different things, and we know he did more. We just have to prove. Mr. Segundo, how did you know him? While Reyes works a timeline on Segundo,

word filters in from the jail where the suspect sits. A fellow inmate wants to talk to Reyes about some pictures in Segundo's possession. Me and him was talking one day, man. He was drawing a picture of that girl, man. Which girl was that? The 11-year-old? Yeah, the little 11-year-old, man. I asked him, I said, who's that? He said it was a friend of mine. He goes, she's dead now. I said, yeah, what happened to her? And he goes, I don't want to talk about it.

To me, he was a pedophile, man. You know what I'm saying? What gave you that impression about him? I saw that your pictures of little kids, man. How many? Man, I could have had a photo of pictures. He's got a bunch in there? He did, yeah. You got any kids? Yeah, I got a daughter.

She's about 20 years old, man. I got a niece and a nephew. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That could have been one of mine. You know what I'm saying? At least he hates pedophiles. Juan Segundo is a very good artist

and was actually making portraits of, he said, told me, between 15 and 20 different females, young females. So we're gonna find out what I need to do and get those photos. I'm doing a search warrant for something that's inside his cell right now. Mr. Reyes? Yes, sir.

Okay, he is at 26L-02. O-2. Okay, give me about an hour and a half or so, and I'll be over there. It's all facts. Simple, simple, simple. There's nothing hard about an arrest warrant. There's nothing hard about a search warrant. You put them down on paper, you give them to the judge. He says yes or no.

On a Friday afternoon, physically finding a judge is tough. Try the sixth floor. Floor number six. Let's look. Auxiliary trial room. Just before 5 o'clock, Reyes finds a judge to sign off on the search warrant for Segundo's cell. Thank you, sir.

Let's go. Go over to that building right there. Go in there with the jailer and look through his entire little pod area, and any and all photos of females will be confiscated. We found one of two young girls here. Hidden beneath a mattress in Segundo's cell, Detective Reyes uncovers a photograph of two adolescent females. It looks like one's in the front seat of a car and the other one's in the back seat of a car.

And then for whatever reason, there's another face over here, and that got cut out, so he just kept the faces of the two young girls. Now I just need to find out who they are. He has no daughters, so they're not his. We'll see. We'll see where they come back to. Hopefully it's nothing serious. Strange thing about this, this is found under the mattress in a cell of a capital murder suspect

who has already killed three females, one of which was 11 years old, and then we find this photo of two young girls under his mattress. It just doesn't quite look good. I'm going to go out to his current wife and try to identify who those two girls are in that photo. We have to eliminate the possibility that they're relatives which could be easily explained by his wife like Manny was

saying. Segundo's wife still live there? Yeah. I just contacted Johnson County and they verify that she's still there, same phone number, same place of work as before. You know I can't call her ahead of time and let her know that I'm coming out and I want to talk to her. I can't do that. It's like a salesman saying, hey, I'm selling encyclopedias. I'll be there in 30 minutes. You know, they'll either not open the door or leave. That's his house right there, that gray two-story house.

What I need to do is get that picture ready. Reyes knocks but gets no answer. So the detective tries a different tech. What I need to do is get that picture ready. Reyes knocks but gets no answer. So the detective tries a different tech. She still lives here. They just put out mail, so she was here earlier. This is country life. He cut out the photo of his head before he took the picture.

That's kind of strange. No kidding. Detective Reyes meets with the local cops and enlists a little help. You know, if you can go tomorrow, if she's at work tomorrow or something, and just like you are right now, just walk up to her and say,

do you know who those two girls are by chance? All right. We'll look it after. All right, man. Thanks a lot. See you. Less than 24 hours later, Detective Reyes has his answer. We have a tape.

On the tape is a recording of the conversation between the local police department and Juan Segundo's wife. We got problems. We got two little girls. We have no idea who they are at this time. You know, if they were adults, it'd be easy. We could just, you know, put that out. But they're juveniles,

and even if that picture's four or five years old, the girls are still juveniles. The picture is sent to missing persons, where it's compared against thousands of missing females, one face at a time, all to no avail. We ran out of options. We had checked with family members. We had checked with missing persons. We were not getting any kind of information. Really don't want to, but this is what I need to do. I need to get this picture out in the media. Fort Worth police hope someone will recognize two girls in a picture found in the jail cell of an accused serial rapist and killer. Most of the background has been cropped out, but

police say the girls were in a car and believe a man was cut out of the picture. Cold case, Reyes. The next morning, a woman calls Reyes, claiming to be the girl's mother. We found this in his cell, and we just needed to know why it was there. Is this the only picture they found? That's it. And I'm the one that went in there and looked in his cell. The woman tells Reyes her husband once shared a cell with Segundo, and apparently a photo of his two daughters, both of whom are alive and well.

No, no, no, this guy's never going to get out of jail. Yeah, he will never get out of jail whatsoever, so you don't have to worry about that also. Couldn't have asked for a better ending on this story in regards to the pictures. It's good to know that they're safe and they had nothing to do with him whatsoever. His last name is Woods, W-O-O-D-S. Meanwhile, Detective Reyes continues to work

the Jane Thompson case and prepares to arrest his suspect. When you pick him up at work, he knows it's serious. It's his serious stuff. Josh Thompson shared information with Detective Manny Reyes claiming that his father, Bobby Woods, had murdered his mother. The case had gone unsolved for 16 years, until a memory Josh had from childhood provided a new lead.

Woods was no stranger to the legal system, and after talking to the wife of his former cellmate, the detective had enough information to arrest Bobby Woods for the murder of his former girlfriend, Jane Thompson. His last name is Woods, W-O-O-D-S. On a Wednesday afternoon, Detective Manny Reyes prepares to arrest Bobby Woods for murder. The victim is Woods' old girlfriend, Jane Thompson. Reyes' best piece of evidence, the couple's only child, Josh Thompson,

just two years old at the time and an alleged eyewitness to the crime. You know, there's no telling on a guy like this. It could range anything from being super nice and polite to it wouldn't surprise me if he takes off running. When you pick him up at work, he knows it's serious. It's a little more serious when somebody shows up at your work than they show up at your home.

It's just serious stuff. Detectives transport the suspect downtown, where Josh is waiting, with half-brother Val and Val's fiancée. I want to bust his head to the white meat, but that ain't always the right way. Nah, man, I'm not going to mess with this dude. I'm going to let the people handle it like they supposed to.

I just don't want this guy to end up beating the case. It wasn't much anger. It was more, like, anxious. You know what I mean? He wanted to see. I know I wanted to see because I ain't never seen him, like, anxious. You know what I mean? He wanted to see. I know I wanted to see because I ain't never seen him, like, you know, what, 14, 16 years. Just have a seat right here.

I'll be right back. You can sit in the jacket. You want to take yours? No. You okay? I'll be right back. As the boys wait, the questioning begins,

and the first question is thrown out by Woods himself. Sir, what am I here for? Please. Bobby, you're I here for? Please. Bobby, you're in custody, like we've told you before, because of something that happened a long time ago. As a matter of fact, the offense was in 1990. We'll get to more details on that in a little bit.

But we are investigating the death of Jane Thompson. What is it that you remember about that? How much I loved. Let me get you some tissue. You don't have to do that. Let me get you some tissue. You don't have to do that. I'll get you some tissue. I should have stayed at the fashion boutique with her. At the what? At the fashion boutique. Fashion boutique? Boutique. Okay.

That's where she came up missing at. At the fashion boutique? Yes. Okay. A 1990 Woods statement made no mention of a fashion boutique. Instead, he told police that Jane had disappeared when he took her to get food stamps. It really surprised me.

I would have expected him to have rehearsed his story in his mind at least a thousand times. If I'm ever arrested, if I'm ever questioned again in regards to Jane Thompson, this is the story that I gave, and this is the story I'm going to stick to. And it turned out that he changed it all. What'd you do the rest of that afternoon once you couldn't find her? My second five went back across the street with Joshua. We sit there. His new story turned out now that he spent hours there where he had dropped her off at the boutique. He spent hours there looking for her, walking up and down,

checking all the locations. Then all of a sudden, another shop was closing. And I asked the guy, I said, did you see a black woman wearing a brown shirt and yellow shorts? He said, yeah. He said, she was talking with two guys. And I said, two guys?

I said, where did they go? He said, they were sitting in the car down here. I said, how long ago? Oh, he said, hours ago. The thing is, if that had really happened, you would have at least brought that up, if not to the family, but to the police back there and say, hey, you need to look for two guys in a car

because that's where she was last seen. That would have been brought up back in 1990. That would have been investigated in 1990. And, of course, he didn't bring any of that up in 1990. My nephew robbed the place. Reyes turns the questioning to Woods' criminal past, including his conviction for armed robbery. Woods lays blame for the crime on his nephew.

What kind of weapon did your nephew have then? He had a short, sawed-off shotgun. So it was a sawed-off shotgun? What I took from him. So that was good to know, that we could actually put the possession of a shotgun on him a week prior to the murder. And the day of the murder, we believe the shotgun

is what was used to hit her. And you never were told, or you have no idea how she died? You don't know if she was shot or strangled, drowned, anything like that? No one would tell me nothing. It's a good show. The crying part, it's a good show. Here you go.

Oh, no! I'm gonna be like you! I think he was doing it more to get me away, get me to believe him. And that's what people do, you know, when they cry. Believe me, look, I'm crying. How can you not believe someone that's crying their eyes out in front of you? Do you ever remember coming to this office here at this building that we're in and giving a, what we call, a deposition to a detective who was working on Jane's case?

We had reached the point where I was going to start telling him, OK, now wait a minute. You know, you said this, now it's this. You said this, now it's this. And everything that he had told me was going to be contradicted. OK, let me go get that statement that you gave back then, and I'll show it to you, see if it will refresh your memory a little bit.

Can I have an attorney or somebody because all this is going through and I don't know if I'm going on or what's going on and you want to show me statements and I don't know what's... No, it's your statement I want to show you. The one that belongs to you. Can I have an attorney to look at it with me? Because right now, I don't know what I'm getting into. So I think he realized, well, what I just said, I don't think is what I said back then. What I'm being charged with, it's murder. So he realized that it wasn't going to be very good after that.

I definitely need an attorney. If you think that I killed my wife... Yes. He's going to get what he deserves. In a room down the hall, Jane Thompson's sons have been joined by more family members, all hope for a confession and an end to 16 years of waiting.

And I'd always even read Star-Telegram and Dallas newspaper and I'd see cases closed for years and I often wondered what's wrong that this is not happening for my family. So I didn't know. I didn't know if this day would ever come or not.

With the interview at an end, Detective Reyes agrees to let Josh and Val get a look at Bobby Woods. It's a small room, so just once we get everybody in here. It's kind of hard, and it's hard for people to imagine. You walk into a room, you look at a window, and for the first time in 16 years, you see a man that you're being told is your father. And you see a man that you know killed your mom.

You okay, Josh? Yeah, I'm straight. It was self-evidence to me that it was him. When I saw that, I knew it was him. I know that was the guy, the guy I see in my head. We can't say anything to him. What do you want to say? I just want to say something to him. I won't strike him. I promise you. Sure, I don't have a problem with that. He's, uh, I can't talk to him anymore. So, uh, he's like said he's asked for a lawyer. So me and him, the conversation's over with.

ROBERT STACK- Vol is eager to speak to Bobby Woods while Josh declines. I don't want to talk to him. I don't even want him to see me, because he doesn't desire to see me. Bobby? Yes, sir? I'm not going to talk to you anymore.

I got nothing more to say since you requested a lawyer. But this young man here would like to say a word for you. You remember him? You know who I am? Come on, you gotta know who I am. You know his name? You gotta know me, man. Exactly.

It's not Ball. Ball, B-O-L. Wouldn't it be honest with you if I tried to leap over that table and rip his face apart? For real. I think the anger came afterwards when we found out he was denying it and he was making up stories and stuff like that. That's when the anger came.

He's lying. He's a dirty sucker. You lying. See, he's a weakling. Any weak man won't beat up on a woman. Let's see what you're going to do with me. I ain't no woman. Yeah, what you going to do with me?

Let's work this you're gonna do with me. I ain't no woman. Let's work this now. Come on. I think I was kind of angered when he was like, uh, he forgot my name. He didn't even know who I was. Just special simple fact, like the officer told me, he said he don't know who I am. He'll know who I am in court. I hope this helps you a little bit.

A lot of bit. This is a good day. It's a good day for our family. Half of our family's gone, and they were looking forward to this day. They didn't get to see it, but we will. Now, the case is considered filed. I already talked to the DA. Thank you.

All right, I can sleep now. I can go home and go to bed now. At day's end, Bobby Woods sits in a jail cell. But the investigation is far from over, as Detective Reyes digs deeper and discovers the women in his suspect's past. You know, there were times I remember, I remember

one time he choked me in the bedroom. You know, he just, he just started choking me up. What can you tell me about this Bobby Woods in this case? Do you know anything about it yet? 24 hours after Bobby Woods is arrested for the murder of his former girlfriend, Jane Thompson, Detective Reyes spends his day fielding calls from the press. Hello?

It's something you need to do. I mean, the public needs to know that we're working. We're actually getting things done. So what are all these cases? Unsolved murders. We had enough probable cause to arrest him. Press coverage on Woods generates a buzz about the case, and Detective Reyes cultivates new leads,

hoping to strengthen his case. Uh-oh. Attack dog. I'm Detective Reyes with the Fort Worth Police Department. How you doing today? Reyes tracks down an old girlfriend of Bobby Woods, one whose name Reyes unearthed on a police report dated 1985. It showed where Bobby had been arrested for some outstanding warrants that he had,

and the passenger to the vehicle was a black female. So I started checking around, and she has a different last name now. Sometimes you get really lucky and find who you're looking for in the case file from old police reports. The ex, it turns out, is eager to talk about Woods. Let me ask you this. Did Bobby ever... Yeah, he was abusive, yes. He was? Yes, yes, yes.

Well, that's a good way of putting it. Yes, he was abusive. Can I ask what it was that he did? Beat me. He beat you? Yeah, he would, like, just say something to me, and I'd be cooking or something. So he would lose his temper with you.

Let me ask you, how bad was it between you and Bobby when he got abusive? Real bad? He punch you in the eye? The ex tells Detective Reyes that Bobby once threatened her with a.357 and provides details on a shotgun Reyes suspects might have been used in the Thompson murder. Did you ever see that? Yeah. You seen it?

Yeah. He had it back then? I took it. He stole it from me because I had to give it to my brother. This is really good information. Beat her up. Assaulted her numerous times. Bobby Woods' past has come back to bite him. There is, however, even more past to come. Bobby's in the paper.

They arrested him for murdering his ex-girlfriend, and I said, oh, my gosh. That could have been me. Nice house. No, Mom, I'm trying to make it. Hey, what happened today? Have a seat. Have a seat right here. I'll sit next to you here. I got another call from another female,

and she just wanted me to know that she, too, had dealings with him. And, you know, he broke my collarbone one morning because I had left and gone to Fort Worth in the car to see my kids. You know, there were times I remember, I remember one time he choked me in the bedroom. We were in the bathroom part, and he said, you know,

he just started choking me up. From my understanding on Jane Thompson, no one had ever seen black eyes or bruises or broken bones or anything. So a defense attorney would probably do the old, you know, hey, there's no history here of abuse. That right there was eliminated. So there is, they can't use that.

There is a history. But the last time was the last straw when he threw this weight at me. It was that moment. I said I can't do that. He had pulled all the hair out of my head. When I took off running he reached for my, he reached for me and he grabbed my hair and There was a handful of hair. Then he threw the weight at me and knocked this big hole in the door and I just couldn't, I couldn't do it anymore. People write books about stuff like that where first it's just an argument, then it's a shove, then it's a push, then it's a knock down. It's just terrible to think, you know,

when we read that in the paper, the first thing my mother says, you know, that could have been you. Cheryl left Bobby Woods in 1996 and never looked back. She does, however, have one reminder of their relationship. A 10-year-old girl named Babette, who also happens to be half-sister to Josh Thompson. I was sure Ray had called me.

He was like, want to meet your little sister? No one had thought about that before. I'm sure they would have eventually gotten together, but I just asked, hey, you want to meet your little sister? I was like, sure. He was like, OK, I'll be over there in 30 minutes. I was like, more like, oh, I thought it was going to be, like, next week or a couple of days. Hello.

Hello, Cheryl. Hello, how are you? Cheryl, this is Josh. Josh. Hello, Josh. It's very nice to meet you. You too. It's very nice to meet you.

Hi, I'm Josh. This is Bobette. Bobette. It's very nice to meet you. Hi, I'm Josh. This is Babette. Babette. That's your sister. Oh. My little sister. She is so cute. Oh my god.

Aw. It's great. It's like very exciting. It was like, wow, I have a big brother. It's like, at first, it's just me. And then, like, wow, yay. I got a baby picture. You got a baby picture?

I think I got a baby picture. That's more than a purse. You can call me every day, somebody try to pick on you. You know, first she read the part about Bobby, and she just kind of dropped the paper, and I said, no, keep reading, because there's something really wonderful in there you need to know. And she read it, and she just said,

I have a brother! That was a great day, to see them together. And they just hit it off. I mean, they... It's like they've never been apart. It's a blessing. I mean, to have more people that you can care about, somebody that can care about you,

and somebody you can lean on, it's just, it's better. It lets you know that you have someone you can always turn to. It does make you feel good. To be able to end this whole ordeal by, you know, seeing them together and they're both really happy, you really couldn't ask for anything more in a case like this. On June 15th,

the jurors deliberated for around five hours before finding Woods guilty of murder. At a sentencing hearing, Bobby Woods was given a 50-year term, which he is still serving. It's customary for family members to be allowed to address the defendant during a sentencing hearing, and several of Jane's family

members told Woods how he had altered their lives. When it was Josh's turn, he asked Woods to look at him, and when he was looking into the face of his father, Josh only said one sentence, I want you to know I forgive you. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater.

Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis.

You can find me, at Brooke Giddings on Twitter, and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group, Podcasts for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV.com slash realcrime.