Cold Case Files - Sisters In Death

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

A father discovers his daughters killed in horrific circumstances in March, 1984. The mission to find the person responsible is passed from generation to generation until an informant comes forward with a name. Check out our great sponsors! Cold Case Files is sponsored by BetterHelp! Learn more and save 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/coldcase  If you’re 21 or older - download Slotomania on the App Store or Google Play Store and get one million free coins!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. When my grandmother passed away, I inherited a metal box. It contains original newspaper articles, Wylene and Lilly's death certificates. It was her collection of any kind of investigative material. This crime was extremely horrific.

It just doesn't even seem like another human being would be capable of this. My family was ripped apart. On her deathbed, my grandmother told me never to forget to keep fighting for the family and getting justice for my two aunts, Wylene and Lily. There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case.

Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's the morning of March 5th, 1984, in the neighborhood known as The Heights in Houston, Texas. The historic neighborhood is known for its artistic culture and vibrant scene. Creatives flock to the area to do what they love among people who have similar outlooks on life. It's exactly where the Kennedy sisters, 23-year-old Lily and 33-year-old Wylene want to be. Wylene is a stained glass artist who adores the arts and music. She loves living in an area where she can walk to a club and listen to live music, and she loves having her sister Lily stay with her. Wylene and Lily's father, Jack Kennedy,

also lives nearby in the Heights. On this particular morning, he's waiting to drive his daughters to a doctor's appointment, but they're late. Jack decides to walk over to the house around the corner, and when he arrives, he immediately notices that something isn't right. The front door is open. Jack runs inside and finds Wylene lying on the ground in the entryway. Lily is lying at her feet. Neither of his daughters are breathing, so Jack calls 911 and begs for medical assistance. There is nothing that can be done. Wylene and Lily are dead. Houston police officers quickly arrive at the scene and begin taking notes on the injuries seen on the victims' bodies.

Lily appears to have sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. There isn't much blood on the carpet beneath her, and there are no wounds on her hands or feet to indicate that she had a chance to defend herself. It's safe for the officers to assume she had been killed first. Wylene had suffered more obvious and severe injuries. She had been gagged, and her underwear had been pulled down. Blood is pooled beneath her body and there are knife wounds on her throat.

There's also a wound on her arm that looks like a gunshot. Wylene and Lily's cousin, Deborah, watches helplessly as Jack reacts to finding his daughters. My uncle was shaking uncontrollably and crying uncontrollably. I don't know how he even stood up seeing that scene. Sergeant Bob Deloney and the other officers can tell that the killer had focused their rage on Wylene. Whoever had taken her life had spent some significant

time harming Wylene. She was abused, if not tortured, prior to her death. I feel like Wylene was the target and that Lily was just used as another way to torture Wylene by

killing her first. While the detectives continue searching for a motive, the victim's niece, Jackie, and the rest of their family try to confront the senseless loss. I used to spend the night at that house. My mom was crying because she knew I could have been there. Wylene and Lily are my aunts. Wylene loved dancing and was very social. She had a vintage clothing store in the Heights area. The vintage clothing store was Wylene's passion. That was her

goal, to find the most unique pieces of clothing she could. I loved going to visit my Aunt Wylene and spending the weekend with her because we would go to unusual places, clothing shopping. So some of the clothes I would wear to school, no one else had them. Wylene was always very energetic, outgoing. She accepted absolutely everybody. She was a great person to look up to. Lily was a little more subdued, more calm, and very, I don't know what to say, within herself. Lily was more like your girl next door, soft-spoken, but very goofy. She's the type that would go and play pool with the boys at the bar. My first footsteps were from my grandmother to Lily.

She was a big sister to me. Then all of a sudden, my aunts aren't there. They're just taken away from me. It was unbelievable. It was probably the most horrific day of my whole life. It was like a horror movie for Wylene, being tortured the last hour of her life. Crime scene investigators go over every inch of the house, and they start to build a picture of what happened on the morning of this double murder.

There is no sign of forced entry, so it seems as though the sisters knew the person well enough to let them inside. And from there, things escalated. Bloody footprints are found throughout the house. The footprints have a distinctive wavy design, like an athletic shoe. Another footprint with the same pattern is found around the corner and down the street from the murder scene, giving investigators a hint as to where the killer came from or ran to. It doesn't look to be a typical robbery gone wrong, as a couch cushion had been taken from Wylene's couch,

and the investigators wonder if the killer had been looking for something specific. There's been a couple of rumors. Wylene is said to have told an associate that she had hidden some cocaine from her boyfriend in a cushion on the couch. But there was no evidence whatsoever of any kind of dope, anything of that nature. She was a very neat, tidy person, but the house was ransacked and things were missing. That would indicate somebody's looking for something,

but there was $500 cash and there was jewelry left in the house. But the amount of energy expended on Wylene led me to believe that somebody that wanted something from her or she had really, really made somebody mad. The double murder shocks the neighborhood, but the tortuous behavior of the killer puts pressure on the investigators to find the person responsible fast. They begin canvassing the Heights, looking for anyone who had seen or heard anything unusual the night of the murders.

One neighbor recalls Lily knocking at her door at around 11 p.m. She said that she had sprained her ankle and she asked for an ace bandage, but everything seemed to be fine. Another neighbor says that she heard loud noises and shouting and what she thought were very loud thumping sounds at around 6, 6.30 that morning. The noises could well have been gunshots since Wylene and Lily had both sustained gunshot wounds. A third neighbor helps the police narrow down the timeline and provides what could be a description of the killer. At 6.30 or so, he had gone out to get in his truck to get ready to go to work. They see a guy come around the corner,

and he's carrying a multicolored blanket and some clothing inside, and he's stumbling around and dropping stuff. What are you doing here? Why, do I look like a burglar? Yes, you do. Well, I'm really embarrassed. My girlfriend and I just had a big argument, and she threw me out.

And this is the stuff I've got, and I'm just heading on out. That was the extent of that exchange. The person that was seen by the witness was rather clumsy, and he dropped a cushion from a love seat. I had documented a cushion missing from a full love seat from the house, and lo and behold, it's discovered around the corner. We found it. It had blood on it. It was torn open, but there was nothing in it.

The fact that the man had been carrying a cushion confirms that he had been inside Wylene's house, which meant that the investigators had a witness, one who could help them prepare a composite sketch. Composite sketches are based on the description of a suspect by a witness, and they can potentially open dozens of leads. The first time I saw the composite drawing, it could be anybody.

It just looked like a man to me. It was nobody I recognized. Unfortunately, no one seems to recognize the suspect from the sketch, and the police continue to canvas the neighborhood while the medical examiner performs the autopsies on the victims. Lily had been shot in the back of the head. The bullet had been lodged in her skull. But the catastrophic damage it caused led to her death.

Wylene had been cut on her neck with a knife at least four times. She had died from blood loss as a result. Sexual assault examinations are conducted by the examiner on both victims. No seminal fluid is found on Lily's swab, but there is semen present on Wylene's swab. In 1984, the testing that can be performed on seminal fluid is limited to narrowing down the person's blood type. DNA testing is still a developing technology.

The investigators yield no further clues from the autopsy reports, so they turn to Lily and Wylene's father, Jack, to see if he knows anyone who has a grudge against his daughters. Jack had some reservations immediately about Wylene's former boyfriend, and Jack didn't shy away from having some thoughts not positive about Lily's ex-husband. Unfortunately, Wylene and Lily both, I guess you would say, weren't good at picking men.

Jack also tells the detectives that Lily's ex-husband has recently made some threats, and Wylene's ex-boyfriend is involved with drugs. The investigators have two viable suspects, the victim's exes, and there is every likelihood that the killer is one of them. Wylene and her boyfriend are not together at the time of the murders, but they had been in contact.

Wylene and Lily's relatives have their suspicions about who had a motive to kill them. After the murders happened, it became clear that Wylene's boyfriend had been involved in drug dealing. My family was convinced it was him. As a child, I knew Wylene's boyfriend as an uncle. He, to me, was a part of my family. I have a lot of great memories spending time with him. He was outgoing, made a lot of people laugh. So it was very hurtful for me to think

that he had harmed my aunt. The police interview Wylene's ex-boyfriend. They are hopeful that they can close the case quickly, but her ex is cooperative. He doesn't ask for a lawyer and is open about his involvement with drugs. He's even willing to go in a lineup so the neighbors who saw a man in the area can see if he matches the description. The witness doesn't recognize him, and to fully clear his name, Wylene's ex takes a polygraph test. He passes with flying colors.

With one ex in the clear, the police turn their attention to Lily's ex-husband. The 10-year-old gap between the sisters meant that they hadn't been especially close until they had both graduated from high school. As adults, they developed a close bond, and when Lily needed support, she turned to her older sister, Wylene. Lily had been staying with Wylene to escape a turbulent marriage. Her divorce had gone through just days before she was killed. Information came from the family members that he had made threats to harm her. Certainly the overwhelming number of victims know their assailants in the first place, but now we've got an ex-husband. We interviewed him in

Pasadena, which is a suburb city. We found that he was big and strong and strapping and not anything resembling the drawing. Also, he was on crutches. We found that he had had surgery and had had discs removed. Doctors at the hospital confirm that there was no way Lily's ex would have been physically capable of committing the double murder. And with that, the only viable lead in the case disappears. It's disheartening to the detectives who have spent 10 days trying to track down the sadistic killer.

And they turn to Wylene's friends and associates to get an idea of the lifestyle she had been living. She was just a young, beautiful woman wanting to have fun in many ways and experimenting in many ways. Being in the partying atmosphere, you are exposed to being around all sorts of people. Some of the people in the vintage clothing business were really, really into some cocaine dealing. Not to imply that she was a part of that, but had some associates that gave us pause. We spent some time pursuing leads

that Wylene's ex-boyfriend had been involved with stealing some drugs from some people. We spent a lot of time searching for people that might have been seeking revenge on him through the girls. There was a lot of dead ends. After two weeks, the case has stalled. But then, a tipster calls Crime Stoppers and claims that he has seen shoe treads similar to those reported in Wylene's house.

The police head to an alley by a small apartment around the corner from the crime scene, that he has seen shoe treads similar to those reported in Wylene's house. The police head to an alley by a small apartment around the corner from the crime scene, where the anonymous caller reported seeing the distinctive wavy shoe treads. Sergeant Deloney has a good feeling about the lead when he spots the footprints in front of the door to the apartment. The occupant did not speak English. I speak Spanish, so I was able to converse with him. He granted us entrance to his house, and immediately we found 24 marijuana cigarettes,

and we found LSD in her freezer and found a big pistol that he had wrapped up. It turned out he was unlawfully in this country. We took him into custody, and we immediately submitted the shoes to the crime lab. This offered hope and promise, but his shoes did not match the pattern from the house. The gun was tested.

It was obvious that it had not fired the bullets. Our joy was short-lived. He was not our guy. We were back to square one. We were striking out. It's definitely disappointing. The investigators aren't ready to give up. Sergeant Deloney still can't forget seeing Jack Kennedy after he had found his daughters murdered in such a horrifying way.

But it's been three months, and Wylene and Lily's loved ones are daughters murdered in such a horrifying way. But it's been three months, and Wylene and Lily's loved ones are mired in a state of grief and despair. The thoughts never leave your mind. How can this person get by with murdering two young women, and then there's no word, no evidence, nobody says anything. The murderer is never going to be found. The trauma has a lasting impact on Jackie, the victim's niece, who's just 11 years old at the time. At such a young age in fifth grade, all I could think about, if that happened to my aunts, anybody could break into the house and kill me. I had difficulty sleeping, walking around the house,

locking doors, locking windows. Every adult around me was completely falling apart. I felt like I had to, even though I was so young, I just, I had to be strong. My grandfather, as a father, finding his daughters like that, he had PTSD, he had nightmares. Wylene and Lily's parents had separated

after many years of marriage, and their already strained relationship worsened as their mother rose, felt that their father should have known more because he lived so close to Wylene and Lily. Jack Kennedy blamed himself for not being there to protect his daughters, and the tragedy has a ripple effect throughout the entire family. My mom went down a very bad path. She didn't know how to live after this.

The leads dwindle. Months pass, and nothing new comes up. After two years, the case of the murdered Kennedy sisters goes cold. Crimestoppers victims advocate Andy Kahn knows how stalled investigations impact those left behind. I can tell you from someone who's worked with homicide survivors now for just about

30 years to have a case like that go cold. It's got a gnaw at you. It scares you because you think the same thing is going to happen to you or to your child. Like my only daughter, could somebody come back and do that to her? It's so hard to think that a murderer got away. Wylene and Lily's mother, Rose, makes it her life's work to ensure her daughter's stories are not forgotten.

On each of the anniversaries of the murders, Rose visits the grave sites and contacts media outlets to keep the tragedy in the minds of the public. It's 2007, and after decades without a decent lead, Jackie Elliott carries on her grandmother's fight for justice for Wylene and Lily. When my grandmother passed away, most people inherit a jewelry box. I inherited a metal box. It contains original newspaper articles. It has a newspaper clipping of the composite drawing.

It was her collection of any kind of investigative material. On her deathbed, my grandmother told me never to forget and tried to make sure I continue the effort of getting the story out there. Jackie spent her life looking for ways that the case would get known and that the murderer could be found. Seven more years pass and it's now 2014, three decades since Jackie's aunts were murdered. On the 30th year anniversary, I decided to pick up the phone and call it Houston Police Department. I was nervous. They connected me to the cold case detective. I was able

to find out some great news. The Houston Police cold case detective assigned to the case found that there was still a viable sample of fluids that had been collected by the medical examiner at the time of the autopsy. The sample is sent off to the lab, and a DNA profile is developed. There is finally some substantial evidence that can definitively connect someone to the crime, but they just have to find a suspect to compare it to. We'll see you next time. After decades of fruitless searching, a DNA profile provides a much-needed ray of hope. But that hope is quickly dashed when no matches are found on the national DNA database, CODIS.

It's now September 10, 2014, and a single phone call to Indiana attorney Roy Dominguez changes everything. I got a phone call early morning, maybe 12, 30, 1 o'clock in the morning from someone who was in jail in our community in Lake County, Indiana. This person whom I had met before had important matters to discuss about a cold case in Houston, Texas. A defendant who has been convicted and sentenced to spend a long time behind bars wants to barter some of his information for his freedom. He mentioned the Kennedy sisters, but he right away mentioned who had committed these murders.

The name of the murderer was Edmund Deegan. That morning, I called Houston Police Department. The cold case investigator travels to meet with the jailhouse informant. He tells the investigator that Edmund Deegan came to him back in 1984 in Houston and asked for his help. So my client and Edmund Deegan were associates. Deegan came over, and with the duffel bag with stuff in there, Deegan told my client that he had just killed two people and that he needed to get rid of this evidence.

I asked my client for a sledgehammer because he also had a gun and a knife, but she broke into pieces. He had a purse and some personal belongings that belonged to the Kennedy sisters. They went in the back and they started a fire and he threw the items in there. The investigator begins to cross-reference

the information that's provided and learns that Deegan was working in the same circles as Wylene in the vintage clothing business. My uncle, the brother of Wylene and Lily, immediately recognized the name Edmund Deegan, being one of Wylene's business associates, and had met Edmund Deegan.

So it was a little startling that it was someone that Wylene actually knew. The Houston police tracked down Deegan and questioned him on December 9th, 2014. Deegan denies having any sexual relationship with Wylene or being present on the night of the double homicide. But he agrees to come back to the station two days later and speak with detectives again. I appreciate you coming down. No problem.

And I'll be honest with you, somebody's naming you. Well, it's not me. It's 30 years later. Right. And they've got it. Okay. It's not me, officer. On the up.

But I did not kill anybody, honestly. What I believe is that you did go over there, and you did get involved in this whole thing. I promise you, I did not kill anyone. I don't care what anybody says. I was not involved in that murder of that girl. Right. It's not true, officer. I mean, I'm serious.

You willing to give me a swap? Like a buckle swap? Sure, I guess so. All right. I mean, I don't have any choice, though. Well, it's better if you just go along with it. Yeah, I'm going along with it. Instead of arguing with me.

Yeah. Yeah. Deegan continues to deny any part in the murders, but he agrees to a buckle swab on the inside of his mouth, which provides the investigators with his DNA. The swab is sent to the lab to be compared to the sample taken during Wylene's autopsy. And while they are awaiting the results,

Jackie is confident that they will finally be able to put a name to the sketch made 30 years earlier. I believe that the composite drawing from the neighbor was Deegan. If you compare a picture of Deegan at that time of his life to the composite drawing, you will see how similar both look to each other. On December 26, the results come back, and Deegan cannot be excluded. They have their guy, and it is a one-in-1.4 billion match.

The finding and the chance of long-awaited justice feels bittersweet. It's very sad that my grandmother, my grandfather, and my mother did not live long enough to see the arrest. Edmund Deegan was arrested for the murders of Wylene and Lily, but the prosecutor was very clear to me that this case was going to be hard.

Just because someone raped someone doesn't automatically mean they murdered them. Unfortunately, other than the DNA, there's no other tangible evidence. Without a strong enough case against Deegan to try him for both murders, the prosecutors are forced to make a deal. They could connect him to Wylene's death

by the DNA evidence, but not Lily's death. So Deegan is offered a plea bargain. If he pleaded guilty to Wylene's murder, he would avoid the rape charges. Lily was not listed on the charge sheet, leaving her as an unnamed victim. Deegan accepts the deal deal and as a result, receives a 15-year sentence for Wylene's murder.

For Edmund Deegan, that was the deal of a lifetime. Was I happy with that? No. A human's life, to steal one and deprive one is worth more than that. And it wouldn't hurt to know precisely what happened that morning. I believe that he went to find cocaine according to the story that she had some hidden from her ex-boyfriend. And things did not proceed the way he anticipated, but he did have a weapon with him. He had two weapons with him. And when things went south, he ended up using those weapons.

While the short sentence leaves Jackie and her family reeling, there is one more crushing blow of injustice ahead. In December 2021, Edmund Deegan is released from prison after serving just a few years of his sentence. The murderer Deegan's back on the streets. He's out whether I like it or anyone likes it. A Texas law let him out after serving less than seven years of a 15-year sentence. I had such a difficult time, but Andy has been a major support to me. He was the one that helped me learn and understand the law and why all these things were happening. This quirky law that Texas enacted in 1977 to alleviate prison overcrowding. It's called a mandatory release law. Basically stated any inmate, it didn't matter if you murdered somebody, if you raped somebody,

even if you were a serial killer, who committed a crime in Texas between 1977 and 1987 was eligible for automatic release as long as they maintained good behavior in prison. I guess they never thought that the after effects will haunt this state forever. Six years, really, for such a violent, disgusting act. The only place he belongs is behind bars or in a grave.

I've been told he's not allowed to be in Harris County here in Houston for the next 10 years. You're asking for a criminal to follow rules when they've broken so many already. Honestly, the only way I'm ever going to feel safe in this world is going to be either me dying or him dying. Wylene and Lily Kennedy have not been forgotten. And thanks to their dedicated family members, their memory will live on. I miss them.

And I want to hold them. And I want them back. I want to see their smiling faces. I love them, Wylene and Lily. Even though they're not physically here with me to help me through this, they're still around me. They're like my angels. Thank you. and our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold Case Files, visit aetv.com. I love you. Medea's witness protection, and Medea's big happy family. Join Tyler Perry as he goes on a couples retreat with Sharon Leal in Why Did I Get Married? Or Idris Elba and Gabrielle Union in the Tyler Perry-directed film Daddy's Little Girls.

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