Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Texas Teen Snatched From High School Boyfriend Car, Raped, Tortured, Murdered

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

17-year-old cheerleader, Carla Walker, and her boyfriend Rodney McCoy,  quarterback on the football team, are the poster couple for high school sweethearts. The couple attends a Valentine’s Day dance at  Western Hills High School in Fort Worth, Texas. After the dance, the couple hangs out with friends and then stops quickly at Ridglea bowling alley for a bathroom break, but when they get back in the car,  the unthinkable happens. Carla is in the passenger’s seat when someone jerks the door open. Carla is pulled out of the car.  Rodney McCoy is pistol-whipped and knocked unconscious.  When McCoy wakes up, Walker is gone and McCoy is bleeding from his head. Carla Walker's partially nude body is discovered three days later stuffed in a storm drain. Carla had been beaten, raped, strangled, tortured, and drugged. The case goes unsolved for more than 45 years.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Dr. Kristen Mittelman - Chief Development Officer, Othram Inc., DNAsolves.com, Twitter: @OthramTech Kim D'Avignon - Assistant Criminal District Attorney, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, Chief: Adult Sexual Assault Unit, 8 years in Crimes against Children  Dr. Alan Blotcky Ph.D. - Clinical and Forensic Psychologist  specializing in Criminal, Child Custody and Abuse  Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: University of Texas and Texas A&M, Affiliated Faculty: University of Texas Medical Branch Gina Tron - Crime Reporter, Oxygen.com, Twitter: @_GinaTron, Author: "Star 67" on Amazon  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A 17-year-old girl is kidnapped. This is a time when she should be thinking about high school prom and whether she's going to make an A or a B on a final exam. But Carla Walker is kidnapped. Think about it. My twins are now 14. Carla is just 17 years old when she becomes a victim of violent crime. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at NBC5.

This parking lot was a hub of activity, a place where all the young Westsiders would escape for entertainment. Certainly, no one ever imagined what would happen the night of February 17th. The doorbells just started ringing frantically in my parents' house. I mean, it was just banging, banging, banging. Cynthia Stone says it was then her family's living nightmare began. She was just 18 when her younger sister Carla vanished. Had blood just coming down his face, just screaming,

they got her, they got her, they got her, they took her. Carla Walker was abducted. Investigators say the petite blonde was snatched from the passenger seat of her boyfriend Rodney's car in the bowling alley parking lot. Rodney told police he was hit over the head, knocked unconscious. When he woke up, Carla was gone. All he could remember were her last words. I know she was terrified. I know she was terrified. And for her to say, go get help, I'll go with you, don't hurt him, that was the kind of person she was. You were hearing her family in the middle of a nightmare. Did you hear what they said? Phones start ringing, doorbell starts buzzing,

and then they find out the worst, that Carla is gone. Now, from what you just heard, I guess the first thing cops are going to do is take a hard look at the boyfriend who managed to somehow survive while Carla was kidnapped. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. First of all, Dr. Kristen Middleman joining us, CDO, Authoram, Inc. Kim Davignon, Assistant Prosecutor, Tarrant County Criminal DA's Office. Her specialty is the Adult Sex Assault Unit, eight years in crimes against children. She knows her way around a courtroom, I can tell you that much. Dr. Alan Blotke joining us, forensic psychologist joining us out of Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in criminal child custody and abuse. Cheryl McCollum, founder, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. You can find her at coldcasecrimes.org. Dr. Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner, and that's not

easy to attain. Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, and at University of Texas, Texas A&M, Faculty University of Texas Medical Branch. But first, to Gina Tron, Crime Reporter with Oxygen.com. Thank you so much for being with us, Gina. I want to take it from the beginning. So Carla is on a date with her boyfriend just after Valentine's, Feb 17. And she's allegedly snatched from the passenger seat of a car. Is that correct? Yeah, they went on a date just a couple days after Valentine's Day.

You know, they went to the Valentine's Day dance. And afterwards, they partied with friends and stopped by a local bowling alley to use the restroom. And it was there they were attacked after returning to Rodney McCoy's car. He was a starting quarterback for the Western Hills Cougar football team. And you know, they were just a couple teams out having a good time. And as they were getting back to his car in the parking lot of the bowling alley, he was beaten unconscious. And when he came to, Carla was gone. According to police reports, the boyfriend was actually pistol whipped. To you, Cheryl McCollum, you and I have seen plenty of cases where a victim is pistol whipped.

Explain what we're talking about. They just take the butt end of a gun, the handle, and they use it as their weapon. So they don't shoot them, but they use that wooden you know, wooden handle to, you know, beat the day like that of somebody. And in this case, beat her boyfriend unconscious right off the bat. You know, when you started that off, Cheryl, you made it sound so, let me just say you really put perfume on the pig because you go, well, they just take the barrel of the pistol. Like, that's not going to hurt. Well, it is going to hurt, Nancy. Especially when you're being beaten by the handle, you could call it the grip of a pistol, about the face and the head.

Oh, it could kill you. I've seen pistol-whipped faces where the person had broken facial bones, their nose broken, the eye sockets broken. I mean, Dr. Kendall Crowns, you ever seen a victim that's been pistol whipped? I have. You can do quite a bit of damage with the end of a gun. You can fracture the skull and fracture the facial bones, etc. So it's actually quite a lethal weapon if you want to use it as a blunt object. To Kim DeVignon, Kim, can you talk to me about the scenario, a generic scenario, not necessarily

this one, where you've got a couple, a man and a woman in a car. The man happens to be the starting quarterback on the football team in high school, and the girl is just gone. And the man survives. See, that would raise the hair on the back of my neck in a general, typical scenario where he somehow survives the attack and she disappears. Certainly. And when you add in loss of consciousness and you add in a lapse in time, that boy in a generic scenario would obviously become a person of interest. When you say lapse of time, what do you mean by that? There was certainly a time period that could not be accounted for. And in this case, there was such a lapse in time, wasn't there, Kim?

Yes, there was. What kind of time lapse are we looking at? You know, that's the thing. We don't really know. You're right. Everyone was intoxicated and everyone was out partying. And so it wasn't like people were watching the clock. So we'll never know for sure.

But there is certainly a gap in time from the attack on Rodney in the car and when Rodney shows up at the Walker's house. Wow. Now, the only thing that makes Rodney somewhat believable at this point is the degree of his injuries. I want you to take a listen again to Ashley Berry, our friend at NBC5. This parking lot was a hub of activity, a place where all the young Westsiders would escape for entertainment. Certainly, no one ever imagined what would happen the night of February 17th.

The doorbells just started ringing frantically in my parents' house. I mean, it was just banging, banging, banging. Cynthia Stone says it was then her family's living nightmare began. She was just 18 when her younger sister Carla vanished. Had blood just coming down his face, just screaming, they got her, they got her, they got her, they took her. Carla Walker was abducted. Investigators say the petite blonde was snatched from the passenger seat

of her boyfriend Rodney's car in the bowling alley parking lot. Rodney told police he was hit over the head, knocked unconscious. When he woke up, Carla was gone. All he could remember were her last words. I know she was terrified. I know she was terrified. And for her to say, go get help, I'll go with you, don't hurt him. That was the kind of person she was. To Kim Davignon joining us from Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office. Kim, what time of the day or night was this? I know they had been to the dance.

So it was a cold night in February. It was the kind of night where the teenagers after the dance were all hanging out and drinking and having a good time after the dance. Just kind of a regular evening in juniors and senior years of high school. What time of the day or night was it? It was very late in the evening. It was after midnight. Okay. You know, Cheryl McCollum, you've been in the courtroom with me many, many times. He was an investigator.

He's a prosecutor. How many times have I told the jury nothing good happens after midnight? Nothing. Nothing. You've said it almost every single case we've ever worked. And, you know, it's anecdotal, which means I'm recounting from stories, not from statistical data. But I bet you anything, I bet you anything, Kim Davignon, the later it gets at night, the drunker people get, the higher they get, they're tireder, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. I can't explain it in any other terms than that. But I know for a fact, Kim, nothing good happens after midnight. Yeah, our moms were all right about that, weren't they? Yeah, they moms were all right about that, weren't they? Yeah, they really were. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Think about it. This young girl, it's a very odd scenario. Very odd indeed. Because you've got Cheryl McCollum in an open parking lot where there could be witnesses. You've got a young girl with a date. For Pete's sake, he's a quarterback. Who's going to approach a quarterback and steal the girl? And pistol whip the quarterback for Pete's sake?

Somehow, at first blush, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make a lot of sense. The other thing that we need to make sure we understand is what he's telling us is an ambush like blitz attack. So immediately, there wasn't a threat of violence. Immediately, right off the bat, there was violence. The first place you start, Kim, I don't know if you do this as well when you're prosecuting cases. Cheryl, I don't know if you do this, but I look at the parties involved.

Credibility, who to believe is the sole province of the jury. And I want to make sure I believe my witnesses when I put them up on the stand and swear them on us to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God. I want to know first that they're telling the truth. So who are these people? Take a listen to our friends at crimeonline.com. Carla Walker and Rodney McCoy are the poster couple for High School Sweethearts. At 17, Walker is a 4'11'' blonde with blue eyes, a cheerleader. Rodney McCoy, with his boyish good looks, is a quarterback on the football team. It's just after Valentine's Day, February 16th, and the couple celebrate attending a Valentine's Day dance at their

Western Hills High School in Fort Worth, Texas. After the dance, the couple hangs out with friends at a Taco Bell, then go to Ridgeley Bowling Alley. When they get back to McCoy's car, Carla Walker is in the passenger seat, and the couple takes Valentine's Day to heart with some kissing. You know, Dr. Alan Blotke, PhD, is that not a little redundant, Blotke? I mean, you've got Dr. Alan Blotke, PhD. I don't know. I didn't type that, I don't think. Okay, you know what? I'm going to give you the full Monty. Dr. Alan Blotky, PhD.

A forensic psychologist joining us out of Birmingham. Did you hear what even my friends at Crime Online did? His boyish good looks. You know, they said that about Ted Bundy. They said that about Scott Peterson.

I didn't think either of them were even remotely attractive. Maybe I already knew the facts of the case or suspected. Why do people fall for the school quarterback and his boyish good looks? Probably because he uses his good looks to his advantage. He's probably a nice guy. He's social. He's communicative. He shows interest. But again, the major thing, I go back to it. Haven't you ever heard, don't judge a book by its cover?

Of course. I mean, I certainly didn't get my PhD in psychology, but I know that much. But there's got to be that initial attraction, that initial interest in somebody before you discover that they're not so good. You know, I'm curious about the search that ensued for Carla. To prosecutor joining us from Tarrant County, Kim Davignon, did he go straight to police or did he stop at Carla's home first? So he went straight to the Walker house. You know, it's kind of interesting looking back now. There's not 911 in 1974.

I think all of us, we have this instant, I'm going to call the police. But in 1974, you got to get to a phone. And she actually lived less than a mile away from the bowling alley. So that's where he went, to the Walker's house. Okay, at first, I didn't like that, that he didn't immediately go call 911, such as in the bowling alley, but knowing that the Walker's home

was that close, he didn't have a cell phone, so he went there first. Okay, I can't make as much of a big deal about it as I thought I could, so that's just one of those, you know, that proves, Kim, a lesson which I'm sure you have have learned as have I in court, never ask the question in front of a jury that you don't know the answer to because you will, it will blow up on your face. Once in a while you might get lucky, but you know, sometimes on a cross, you just have to ask it

because you're not going to get another chance. It's not your witness. But typically, that's just the kind of question you'd ask and get a blow up in court. Aha, why didn't you call 911? Well, because their house was, you know, six houses down. All right. So, he goes straight to their house. And that is what the sister, one year older, is describing, hearing their doorbell. And, you know, Cheryl McCollum, I've heard that from victims' families so many times. They get the, at the door, the doorbell, and they never forget it. They open it up, and they see a cop there. That's just what you don't want to see at 1 a.m., and this boyfriend, the quarterback, shows up with blood streaming down his face, and he says, she's gone. She's missing.

I've heard that over and over that people have a sense of premonition, a sense of dread, even before they hear the news, Cheryl. Well, what she's describing, too, is panic. I mean, he's ringing that doorbell just repeatedly trying to get some help. And, you know, from what we've heard, the last thing Carla said to him was go get my dad. And these are young people. These are high school kids. Go get my dad. Yes. And I'm sure he was thinking if I get her dad, it'll all be okay. You know, he can do something. He can save her. He can help us. So it makes sense to me. You know, that just breaks my heart. You know, there's those certain facts in cases,

and I've told you this before, Jackie, in my first carjack murder case, you know, I've been to many an autopsy, a homicide scene, but there's something about this poignant fact that almost, almost brought me to tears in front of the jury. The young guy that was the murder victim, carjack murder victim, was shot in his driveway outside his family home. He lived with his mom and dad and the rest of his family. He was gunned down dead to get his car. And the neighbor saw it and ran out, then ran back in and got a pillow and put under his head, even though he was already dead. He just, just that pathos was very upsetting. And in this case, we're hearing, go get my dad, like dad could somehow be Superman and save her from what was to come. What do we know about the search for Carla Walker, this teen girl that's yanked out

of the passenger seat at a bowling alley? How did the search go down, Kim? Well, it was the kind of search that, you know, this was the kind of crime that just shook our community. And so all resources were pulled to begin searching. And they searched high and low in every inch of Tarrant County. There had been some murders in years past, that specifically one named Becky Martin, who had gone missing the year before and her body was found in a culvert and so a lot of resources were spent looking in kind of unincorporated areas rural areas in cattle culverts and ditches and places like that because there was a thought was this a serial situation? Oh, my stars. So everybody immediately thought it was a serial killer or attacker. Back to Gina Tron joining us, crime reporter with Oxygen.com.

So the search is on, and everyone is looking for Carla in ditches, similar to where Becky was found. The search goes on for several days. Then what happens? Yeah, and also her boyfriend described the assailant as a 5'10 man, so they were

looking for, that's basically all they had to go off of. Gina Tron, that's a really good point. He describes the perp as a male five foot did you say 10 and you got to take into account that he was seated at the time he saw the perp he was sitting in the driver's seat so with that description in mind the search is on take a listen to our cut to our friends at nbc5 the first 48 hours were agonizing. Tireless search efforts turned up nothing.

No phone calls, few leads. We just waited for her. We kept thinking, honestly, somebody would drive by in the middle of the night and push her out of the car. In reality, though, it would be much worse. Three days later, just alongside of the road in a culvert here near Benbrook Lake, Carla's body was found. She had been beaten, raped, and strangled. Police say repeatedly tortured for days. And in an interesting twist and a puzzling discovery, the medical examiner ruled she had been injected with morphine.

To medical examiner joining us from Tarrant County, the chief medical examiner there, Dr. Kendall Crowns, how can they determine that this teen girl had been tortured for two days? They find her body on day three. How did they know she had been tortured for two days? Not three days, not one day, but two days. Well, it'd be a combination

of things. So the torture aspect, it would be the cluster of the injuries about her body. You know, she could have abrasions or possible injuries that look like she's been bound or even burn marks or whip marks, things of that nature that aren't necessarily immediately lethal, but them being about her body shows that she's been tortured. As far as the number of days are concerned, if she's not showing a decomposition changes, then they were probably theorizing that she was alive up until a certain point. And that's why with the number of injuries, it looks like she had survived for a period of time while sustaining the injuries so that would lead to the opinion of torture. Was her body out in the open? So first off her body was found in a culvert but I will say the idea that she was

alive for days has has been it was a theory at the beginning that has since been debunked and so I want to make sure that we're clear about that. Due to the temperature, it was particularly cold. And in the culvert, it was the on-scene police officers described it as feeling like a refrigerator. Also with her blood alcohol level, we know for sure she died pretty soon after being abducted. And so the original theory was that perhaps there had been days, and she certainly was tortured. I want to be very clear about that. But there was not a period of days. It was a period of days until we found her.

So let me circle back with that knowledge. What about it, Dr. Kendall Crowns? Explain how the body will still look as if she had only been killed recently because of the temperature. How does that work? being turned into, you know, basically simpler forms of matter, eventually dirt. And that happens with the activity of bacteria. And if the body is in a cold environment, the bacteria are slowed or even inhibited so the body doesn't decompose at a faster rate. So you can be out in a cold environment and not show any signs of decomposition, even though you've been dead for days. I know that this is a very elementary comparison, but it's like putting

food in the fridge versus leaving it out. You put it in the fridge, it stays fresh for a period of time. Here, her body looked as if it had just been left there. But in fact, it had been there, according to Kim Davignon in the DA's office, for a couple of days. And another interesting fact to you, Kim, she was found in a culvert, of course, which is a tunnel carrying a stream or an open drain under a road or even under a railroad. Was her body covered by a road or railroad? Had she been dragged underneath the road? So she definitely had been placed underneath a road. The culvert in particular ran underneath a kind of county road. We don't believe she was drugged there given the way the debris was settled around. And it was a completely dry culvert at the time. So if she wasn't dragged there, then how did she get there? I mean, the assumption would be she was carried into the culvert.

Carried into the culvert. So out in the elements. It's a pretty tall culvert. Like it's a person can stand in it. It's about, it's a tall culvert. And that leads me to the morphine, which is a huge clue in this case. And in my mind would rule out the high school quarterback, the all American scrubbed in sunshine quarterback for the high school team. Cheryl McCollum, agree, disagree.

I completely agree. In 1974, morphine is not something you buy on the street. It's not something a 17 year old kid would have that he bought in or near the high school. Not at all. And plus, there was no indication that he had ever used morphine or had access to morphine. Correct. So who would have morphine? Take a listen to our cut three, our friends at NBC5.

Who would have such access to a powerful drug like morphine? Did the suspect have a medical background? Over the years, detectives asked those questions and many others, honed in on several suspects. But evidence collected from the crime scene turned up nothing. Cynthia believes much of it was tainted. Who do you think killed your sister? I don't know, really. I don't know. Just imagine all these years later, not knowing a case gone cold. I want justice for her. Taken from a parking lot, now silent testimony to a decades-old murder mystery. And the family is left to hang in the wind to suffer as weeks, then months, then years go by with no resolution. Take a listen to our cut for our friend Alice Barr. I've sat in this parking lot many, many

cold nights on. 45 years is a long time to wonder. Where, when, what happened to someone you love for her I just want it done I want it closed Carla Walker was just 17 the night she and her boyfriend parked outside of a West Fort Worth bowling alley in the passenger door uh what flew open and a guy leaned down with a cowboy hat and a gun and grabbed Carla started pulling her out. Her boyfriend was knocked unconscious and when he came to Carla was gone. Her body found three days later in a culvert beaten raped and strangled. I'll never forget the sadness and grief my mom had. I would always whisper in her ear that we're going to find who did this to Carla. You know, that's pretty bold. It's giving me an insight into the killer's mind to walk up to a car with a football quarterback in there with his date and drag her out of the car and pistol whip the quarterback. Who is this guy?

I mean, what does that tell you, Cheryl? Brazen, bold, deliberate. This guy, Nancy, you and I talk all the time about how critical, not just the first 48 are, but when you have a young person abducted, it's the first three hours that are critical. The reason they were taken will become apparent in the first three hours. To Dr. Ellen Blotke, joining us, forensic psychologist out of Birmingham, Alabama, The reason they were taken will become apparent in the first three hours. To Dr. Alan Blotke, joining us, forensic psychologist out of Birmingham, Alabama. What does that tell you about the mind of the perp?

Maybe that he's committed a violent crime before, because he certainly has a lot of bravado walking up in a cowboy hat and with a gun in his hand. And snatching, not trying to, but snatching a teen girl from her quarterback boyfriend. Yeah, I doubt it's the first time that he's been aggressive and harmful. And let's not remember, it was late at night where there were probably fewer people around. I'm sure he planned it. He knew what he was doing and he executed it. Makes me think this is not his first time at the rodeo. Let's hear it from the horse's mouth. Let's hear from Carla's boyfriend. Take a listen to our cut five. This is Todd Unger, WFAA. It was outside of a one-time bowling alley on Benbrook Highway where the hours after Valentine's week dance turned for the worse. He opened the door and she was falling out and I went to grab her and he started beating me over the head back here with a pistol.

Rodney McCoy, Carla's boyfriend, was left knocked out. She vanished. Said and done in just a matter of seconds. He was a high school football player she a pep squad member and as one officer put it we're looking everywhere a WFAA report from the days after showed her photo but investigators had little else to circulate until the body was found a few days later for me there they won't do them never be any. Rodney's not a suspect in the case, one that has admittedly turned very cold.

Then out of the blue, the case is cold, comes an anonymous letter. And it's not the first time we've seen an anonymous letter. I think of BTK, buying, torture, kill Dennis Rader, and many others where somehow someone either wants to help solve the case or they want attention. Take a listen to our cut six, Alice Barr. It's an anonymous letter written and sent to police the same year that Carla died. It points to a potential suspect. Now, police want to find who wrote it, hoping they'll have more evidence to finally solve a decades-old case. Now, a whisper from the past could bring long-sought answers.

I'm trying to find who wrote this letter and... The letter was written in 1974 and rediscovered when new detectives took over the case. It lists a suspect name police have blanked out. Kill Carlo Walker in Benbrook. P.S. It is hard suspect name police have blanked out. Kill Carla Walker in Benbrook. P.S. It is hard to say, but it is true. What's he talked to back then or her and what came of that? Investigators won't say any more, but found it important enough to go public. You know, we have social media. We have more exposure now than we ever did before, right? He said something to somebody. Somebody's going to recognize that type of thought process in writing,

and that's all we need is a phone call. A family that still feels deep loss. You've got that missing part. Praying for justice long overdue. We'll get resolution either in this life or in a better place. crime stories with nancy grace it reminds me very much of robert durst the real estate, Skion, the multimillionaire. And in his case, a letter emerges, an anonymous letter that was used years later

to link him to a murder because of a misspelling of Beverly Hills. Guys, an anonymous letter comes forward. What about it, Cheryl McCollum? This to me is a huge clue because the handwriting is real distinct. The way they sign it is unusual. And I think that's something law enforcement needs to center on. But also the fact that they're reaching out.

The fact that somebody, because of guilt or whatever their reason is, has to contact law enforcement. But they specifically sent it to Lieutenant Oliver Ball, which is, again, I think a clue. Somebody's watching the news. Somebody knows who to send this letter to. So not only does an anonymous letter emerge, but we need DNA. It's just that simple.

Straight out to our DNA expert, Dr. Kristen Middleman, Chief Development Officer, Authram, Inc. You can find her at DNAsolves.com. Dr. Middleman, thank you for being with us. Is it possible to extract DNA in a case this old? And if so, where would you find the DNA at the crime scene? It's absolutely possible to extract DNA from evidence in a case this old. At Osborne, we've been able to extract DNA successfully and identify someone from a case in 1881. Whoa, wait, 1881? Yes, that's correct. I've got to just ask you, in the 1881 case, where'd you get the DNA? Well, it was remains in that case, and we identified the victim. So we were able to get the DNA from the remains.

In this case, the DNA was extracted from the bra, Carla Walker's bra. And there was an unknown profile found on the bra and that is the DNA that was used to solve the case. Dr. Middleman, did you say the DNA in this case of Carla Walker was found on her bra? It was. Was it epithelial skin cells? Was it touch DNA? Was it semen? Was it blood? What was it? It was semen DNA, which made it very probative in case there was a trial. Why do you say DNA from semen makes it very probative? In other words, it's very strong evidence that proves something. In a sexual assault, if there is semen DNA, it usually can be attributed to the unknown male. And because in this case, Rodney's DNA is something that they could go back to and

compare. If there is another male, female DNA there, it would make sense to think that that person had something to do with the attack. Yeah, you know, it's very, it's one thing, if you have DNA that's there innocently, like a male DNA on her coat or on her arm or on her hand, as opposed to male DNA in semen found on her bra when we know that she has been raped, tortured, and murdered. That's a whole nother ballgame. So in this case, how do you take, how do you extract the old DNA now, many, many decades later? In this case specifically, Siri Labs actually created the DNA extracts from Carla Walker's clothing. There were several extracts created and the one that was the

least degraded and the highest quantity was sent to a different lab for advanced forensic testing and unfortunately did not build a profile. And people thought this case was sort of stalled, cold forever, because there was advanced forensic testing done, there was standard forensic testing done, and no answers were found. And Awesome is actually purpose-built for cases just like this, where DNA testing hasn't worked, even advanced DNA testing hasn't worked, and we're able to go in and create what we call a high-performing profile. It's almost like taking a better picture, a clearer picture of the DNA that was found at the crime scene and looking at that and being able to make an identity and provide that investigative lead back to the detective so that this cold case can now be solved. And as you said earlier,

the family in this case was suffering. The family had spent 46 years trying to figure out what happened to their sister. 46 years. Yeah. Jim Walker lived in the same house. He wouldn't move because he hoped that someone would come and knock on the door and let him know, like at the end of their life, what they had done so that he could have closure, so his sister could have closure. And like we talked about Rodney, he was living under this cast of suspicion this entire time. He lost the person he loved most, yet he was still living under this cast of suspicion

where he couldn't prove his innocence for 46 years. So you've got the victim's family suffering. And then you have the quarterback boyfriend now grown. And his whole life, people thought he may have killed Carla and gotten away with it. And then suddenly, take a listen to our cut nine, our friends at DFW5. DNA technology didn't exist in February 1974 when Western Hills High School junior Carla Walker was kidnapped outside a bowling alley her body found three days later near Benbrook Lake.

In the 46 years since, police have searched for clues, but no arrests until now. I'm so thankful for the Fort Worth Police Department. Carla's brother, Jim. The feeling that I had when I was notified. The word that came across my brain was finally, finally. Glenn McCurley, a 77-year-old retired truck driver, was living quietly with his wife in this modest home off Vickery Boulevard when police picked him up and booked him on capital murder. Wow. Kim Davignon joining us from Tarrant County DA's office. It's one thing to get DNA

off the victim's bra, but how in the world do you know where to go then with that DNA? It's like when people go, hey, can you get a fingerprint? And you say, yeah, I've got a fingerprint from the crime scene, but I got to find somebody to match it to. So let me go straight back to Dr. Middleman. How was the DNA of Carla's bra connected to this perp, Glenn McCurley. So we were able to build a high-performing DNA profile that was uploadable to genealogical databases consented for law enforcement use. This profile had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of markers. So when uploaded, we were able to identify all of the masses that were in the databases and where this person fit on a family tree. And we were able to identify that it was a McCurley and contact the investigators and let

them know that there were two possibilities, a few possibilities of who the person could be. And once the investigators heard that, he immediately recognized it was detective menace he immediately recognized that that name was on his suspect list from 1974 amazing so you have to go all the way back the family tree and then come back down and figure out who lives in the city who was in the city at the time she was kidnapped. Take a listen to our cut eight. This is Lily Zhang. According to the arrest warrant, Fort Worth officers collected trash from a bin outside McCurley's home. They were tested, trying to find a match to DNA found on Walker's clothing, DNA that would later match McCurley. The feeling that I had when I was notified, the word that came across my brain was finally.

Walker's brother Jim says the family has lived through dark days waiting for justice. But this resolution, he says, is something they've prayed for. Prayers which now extend to McCurley too. We don't hate you. We really are praying for you. I hope that the city of Fort Worth has prayers for the family. It's not their fault. going all the way back for about 100 years, literally, they narrowed down the possible male perps. Then they identify who was in the city at the time the murder occurred. Then they find that suspect and they obtain his DNA out of the trash. But I want you to hear the perp, Glenn McCurley, in his own words, whining to police.

This is from NBC5, our Cut 11. Glenn McCurley, in his own words. The then 77-year-old, first defiant, insisting he did not kill Carla Walker in 1974, didn't even know her, then seemingly confessing. A false confession detectives forced out of a sick elderly man, argues his defense. McCurley had been a suspect after the murder for owning a gun magazine like the one found on the scene of walker's brutal kidnapping there you're hearing mccurley in his own words whining i didn't do anything and literally crying and boohooing and um snotting the whole shebang until finally he says, I guess I choked her to death.

Well, the defense claims that police brutalized the defendant and forced a confession out of him that he really didn't do it. Yeah. What about that DNA match? What does that mean? In the end, Kim Davignon, what happens in court? So we spent many, many, many weeks in suppression hearings because this was new technology. And the court ruled the DNA was going to be admissible. And so at that point, we thought perhaps he would plead guilty, but he didn't. And so we prepared for trial. And we got to our trial and three days into the trial when we were on our last few witnesses, honestly, he changed his plea to guilty. And in Texas,

when you're charged with capital murder and we're not seeking the death penalty, the only sentence is life. And so he was immediately sentenced to life in prison. So Kim, you got him. We got him. You got him. PTLT-L. After all the suffering that family has been through, to all the suffering the quarterback boyfriend has been through, with this cloud hanging over his head, people still whispering, he did it, he did it, and now it's a done deal. The guy pled guilty. He did it. All that crying and slobbering in the end, he admits he did it. Dr. Milliman, how does it feel? Amazing. It was the first time this technology, advanced forensic DNA testing, has been admitted in court. I think this shows the importance of working with a lab like

Othram where chain of custody is maintained from the very beginning beginning where there's not DNA going around the country or having volunteers work on this case. It's extremely important. Man, it really is, Dr. Middleman. I mean, you, the chief development officer at Authram, hand in hand with the prosecutor, Kim Davignon, has brought this family who suffered over 40 years peace, finally, justice. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.