Criminology - Latricia White and The Wackerhagens

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

Just after Christmas in 1993, Latricia White was found murdered and her boyfriend Dub Wackerhagen and his son Chance went missing. Police encountered a very bloody scene including what appeared to be a footprint in blood they believed belonged to Chance. But, they have very few clues with which to work. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Latricia White and the disappearance of Dub and Chance Wackerhagen. The police initially theorized that Dub killed Latricia and then abducted his son Chance to keep him away from his mother. They went as far as to put out an arrest warrant for Dub. But, over the years, the police changed their minds and started to believe that Dub and Chance were more likely victims. There are still a lot of unanswered questions in this case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's M-I-R-O-O-com. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 188 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, what's going on with you, buddy? Not too much.

Trying to get my last minute Christmas shopping done and getting our last episode of the year here recorded. And after that, enjoying a little bit of time with the family, some downtime. How about you? Yeah, it's going to be really nice. And, you know, just to let everybody know, we'll be off for the next two weeks to spend time with family, to enjoy the holidays. You know, it's something that you and I really haven't done is take that amount of time off in quite a while. So it's going to be really nice to have that amount of time to spend with the family. Yeah.

And then plus to get the batteries recharge, so to speak, that really refreshes you having a little bit of time to relax. Yeah, no doubt about it. So we had some Patreon shoutouts. Let's give those. We had Sheila Finley, Amy Higginbotham, Marie Cox Baker, Sheila Carroll, Yolandi Venter, and Kipper Westbrook. So that's a lot of great new support, more if we really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to everyone that takes a little bit of time out of their day to go over to Patreon and sign up to help support the show. It means a lot.

and anyone that's on the fence can make the decision, support the show by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Okay, so that out of the way, it's time to jump into this episode. In the case we're talking about takes place around the Christmas holiday, something that many of us are thinking about right now, Christmas for a lot of us is a time to celebrate, being at home with family after a day filled with joy, laughter, food, gifts, For some families, though, these joyful conversations will be the last memories they have of their loved ones. For three families in Texas, Christmas Day also happens to be a day of remembrance, sadness, and longing for their lost or missing loved ones.

This kind of tragedy strikes different families every day. But losing a loved one around the holiday can make it difficult to enjoy the holidays you still have left with the ones you love. We're talking about the brutal night. 1993 murder of Letricia White and the puzzling disappearance of her boyfriend, Dub Walker Hogan, and Dub son Chance. For Christmas in 1993, nine-year-old Chance Walker Hogan was excited to be going to see his father, Lee Walkerhagen, who was known to everyone as Dub. Chance planned to stay with him for a few days.

Dub Walker Hogan and Chance's mom, Gay Walshack had separated in 1990, when Chance was six years old, and Gay had primary custody of Chance following the split. Dub and Gay had never officially been married, but they had been together long enough that it was a common-law marriage. Chance and his mother lived together in Kingsville, Texas, about 30 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. 40-year-old Dub, a truck driver, was living in McMahon, Texas, about three hours north, with his girlfriend, 37-year-old, Letricia White. The couple had been living together for about six months. The agreed upon plan or visitation schedule that Dub and Gay put together was that Chance would spend the Christmas holiday week with Dub from December 17th to the 25th and then come home. But on Christmas Day, Chance and Gay talked on the phone and he asked for her permission to stay with his dad for a few more days.

It sounded to Gay as though he was having fun and he was happy about all of his Christmas presents. he had received some GI Joe's and a Western-style duster jacket, among other things. So Gay told him he could stay and instructed him to call her to arrange when he would come home. Dub and Gay had an arrangement in place where each of them would drop off and pick chance of from the home of one of Dub's aunts. This was designed to avoid any arguments between them. Gay had no idea that this was the last time that she would ever talk to her son. son Chance. On December 27th, Letricia didn't show up for work. She was a nurse in the gastroenterology

department at Central Texas Medical Center in San Marcos. Latricia was a dedicated employee and was very good about staying in touch with her employer if she missed time. So it was odd to them that she just wouldn't show up. When her father, Jack White, found out that she didn't go to work, he was worried and decided to check on her. He knew that something wasn't right. When he went to the home that his daughter shared with Dub, he discovered a gruesome sight. Looking around the house, he found Lettricia in her bed, but she wasn't asleep. She was dead and cold to the touch. Jack called police who soon arrived at the home. It was later determined at autopsy that Lettricia had been shot in the head six times with a 22-calibre gun, most likely a revolver.

Caldwell County investigators didn't initially realize that they were dealing with a homicide. According to a 2010 KXA news article, Caldwell County Sheriff Dan Law stated that the scene wasn't a bloody mess, as you would expect. It was cleaned up. Somebody had taken the time to clean something up before they left. Authorities believe that Latricia had been killed while she was sleeping. Sometime on the 26th, neither Dub nor Chance were at the apartment, and Dub's truck was gone. But there was a footprint in blood. at the crime scene and it appeared to be a smaller size, maybe a child size, something around the size of maybe chances foot. There was no sign of any struggle in the apartment. It was as if someone had walked up

to Latricia while she was asleep and started shooting. There was no sign of forced entry from a break-in. No signs that anything of value had been stolen. And really, the only things missing were Dub and Chance. And in investigators' minds, and I think more if you could see why maybe in this instance, it would happen, they quickly suspected that Dub had killed Lettricia and then fled the scene in his truck. At the very least, they knew they needed to find Dub and his son Chance, but they also needed to piece together what happened leading up to the murder. Authorities discover that Chance and Dub had been seen together a restaurant on December 26th. Latricia wasn't with them, but the two seemed like they were having a good time and in good spirits. Investigators believed that

Latricia had been killed sometime after this sighting. Authorities called Gay and asked her if Chance was home with her. He wasn't, and that's how she became aware that her son was missing. He had never called back to arrange a time to come home after the extra time for his Christmas visit. The last time Dub, Chance, and Latricia were seen together was on December. 26th when they had visited Letricia's parents at their home. It's been reported that Latricia's mother remembered Dubb asking Lettricia to go with him when he picked up Chance earlier in the day, but she replied, I'm not going. It's likely that these reports have been kind of misunderstood because Chance had been picked up

days before Christmas, so Dubb may have asked Letricia to go with him to his aunt's house to drop Chance off, to which she refused. On December 30th, authorities found Lee's Green, 1986 Ford pickup truck around 1 a.m. It had been abandoned in an Austin, Texas field near Manor Road by the airport, about 30 miles from Lockhart. This airport no longer exists today, but it's been described as an area with a high crime rate. The truck was covered in snow, and it was clear that the truck hadn't been moved in a few days.

Dubs hunting rifle was inside the abandoned truck, and authorities determined that, it had not been fired recently. Just in case they did ballistics testing on it and found that it did not match. The type of weapon Latricia was killed with, which was likely a 22 caliber handgun, not a rifle.

There were a few other belongings in the truck as well, including Dubbs wallet and checkbook, which were in the cab, and some things in the truck bed, like a spare tire and a toolbox. There were also some children's toys, and Christmas presents in the truck still wrapped. But there was blood found on these Christmas gifts and toys,

and investigators first assumed that it was Letricia's blood, as if they had been in the home when she was killed and then moved into the truck later. However, when authorities tested the blood, it turned out that it did not match Letricia's blood type, so it couldn't have been hers. There wasn't enough blood in the truck or on the presents to indicate that anyone had been killed or that they had suffered any type of life-threatening injuries, but still, investigators wanted to know whose blood it was.

Tess could not prove whether the blood belonged to chance or dub. All that is known about the blood publicly, still even today, is that it is not latricious. All right, so more if let's take a breather here. I mean, we've got to analyze what we know so far. obviously we have a woman who has been murdered shot six times in the head. Her boyfriend and his son are missing. I think it would be very natural for police to kind of think right off the bat that maybe Dubb had something to do with this.

He can't be found. He was in the home. Okay. Maybe it was him. At the very least, we have to find him. But then they find his truck. And there's some strange things there. right hunting rifle still inside the truck christmas presents with blood on them inside the truck i think as an

investigator you got to be scratching your head trying to make sense of what has been found yeah i think this is the first point at which investigators really have to question okay is dub uh someone on the run or this other blood could it be his it was definitely a shock to them that it didn't turn out to be Lettrish's, and I think that was the first inkling they had that something was going on here that might not meet the eye. But I'm a little bit curious about the Christmas presents in the truck because they think that Latricia was killed on the 26th. If there's Christmas presents that are wrapped in the truck, to me that means that Chance never opened them, or whoever they were for, didn't open them on the 25th. So I'm a little bit puzzled by that. Why wouldn't

they have opened them on the 25th. Did something happen that day? Or were they meant for someone else, maybe someone that they were going to be seeing after Christmas? I know, you know, that has been part of my life for a long time. You know, my parents divorced when I was younger. There was always a lot of places to go and still are. But we would, you know, have to load up the kids

and take them to a lot of different houses. some of that would be done before Christmas some of that would be done after Christmas so I mean I think that could have been part of the puzzle as well authorities continued to suspect that Dubb had killed Atricia he was on the run with his son Chance in the minds of police the footprint at the crime scene

proved that chance or another child had been there during the murder just after it happened and left the footprint in blood before the blood dried because Dub drove a truck for living, he would be familiar with the routes to get away from the crime scene, and he could be any place. And because he was used to driving and fighting sleep as a long-haul trucker, he could have covered a lot of ground. But even if Dub did drive off with chance, what was he driving? It certainly wasn't his pickup truck. There's nothing in the research to indicate whether Dub owned his own big rig or if any trucks that he drove for another company were missing.

Police looked into Dubbs past and they talked with people who knew him. They found that he was known to have a bad temper. Even Dub's friends admitted that he was violent and had previously shown jealousy towards Latricia. He also seemed to be suspicious of her. Latricia and Dub who had gone to high school together and briefly dated while they were teens had heated arguments often, and the majority of those arguments seemed to be about Chance and his behavior. In fact, on December 23rd, they had been arguing about Chance, and Dub was so angry.

He actually started packing his things up, and he threatened to leave and take Chance with him. Chance had left the faucet in the kitchen on, and the overflow had caused water to spill onto the kitchen floor. after Letricia yelled at chance, she and Dubb started arguing. All of this happened in front of some of their friends who were visiting their home. I think any time you have a relationship where one person's child is being yelled at or reprimanded maybe by the other person in the relationship, to me, that seems like it could cause friction because you're always going to take your kid's side, I think, a lot of the time anyway, and you're always going to want to do. offend them. So I could see how an argument like this might start over someone, even though you're living with them in a relationship, but you're not married to them. If they start yelling at or correcting your child, you might, an argument might start off that way. Well, more if I, I just mentioned it,

that my parents divorced when I was younger, you know, I have a stepmom. I have a stepdad. I'm sure many people listening are very familiar with this situation. It's never easy because one person in the relationship is not the child's mother or father. It's like walking a tightrope. It's a fine line to figure out, you know, what should I do? What should I not do? I don't know how to say it other than it's a tough situation, especially in the beginning of relationships. It can be very tough.

Yeah, and I think listeners out there with children know exactly what you and I are talking about. If my kids do something stupid or bad, my wife and I have no problem disciplining them, yelling at them. But if someone besides my wife or I yells at them for the same thing, that's where your mama bear, Papa bear, you know, sense kicks in and you want to defend them, even though they're reprimand, them maybe for the same thing that you would have yelled at them over. Yeah, I think that's going to resonate with some people for sure. Despite this big argument over Chance, a couple days before Christmas, Dub and Latricia remained together.

And following that argument, but before Latricia was killed, others remember seeing the three together at a restaurant. They appeared happy, and it didn't seem like there was any tension between Latricia and Dub. They spent Christmas together, and Chance was happy with his gifts they had received from his father. He was having such a good time that he called his mom and asked her if they could stay longer. By the time Chance called Gay, it appeared as if the fight between Latricia and Dubb had blown over. The sighting of the three at the restaurant together is the last time Dub and Chance were seen with Latricia, and the last time she was ever seen alive. Though Dub had no criminal record, Gay Williams' Chance's mom has claimed to have been a victim of Dub's awful verbal and emotional abuse in the...

the past. The abuse extended to her son from a previous marriage, which is what actually drove her to finally leave Dub. She told her friends that she was afraid of him, but she also said that she did not think that he would have ever killed Letricia or her chance. Dub's friends shared gay's opinion that Dub would not have killed Latricia or her chance, though they knew about his character flaws. They were adamant, that he was not the person responsible. for Letricia's murder, Dub's sister Barbara told police that the fights between Dub and Latricia weren't even serious and that she thought that her brother and nephew were missing

and possibly victims themselves. So more of I think this is interesting here. You know, we're talking about a man in Dub who had some character flaws, as many of us do, right? He might have had a quick temper. He might have been emotionally abusive in the past, at least according to his ex, but even so, you know, all of these people in his life, his ex, his friends, they didn't think even with that that he was capable of killing Latricia or hurting his own child. I think all abuse of any kind is something that shouldn't happen.

but in this instance, there's no record of dub being violent, striking anyone, attacking them physically. So the fact that Gay would come forward and say, well, he was emotionally abusive, but he never did anything violent. I don't think that he is the person that killed Latricia. I think that's a very big character reference for him, as well as his friends, saying the same thing, backing her up. Yeah, I would agree, at least when it comes to the murder of Latricia. Now, it's not to say that he didn't have his issues because he did, but who among us is is without issue? I mean, probably not many.

Now, I have to back you up. Verbal abuse, emotional abuse. That's not a good thing. It's bad. But when you look at it in the context of this case, does it mean that he was capable of murder. I don't think it does, and I don't believe that his friends, his ex, I don't believe all these people thought that he was either. I think on the flip side of the coin, we also have to realize that it only takes a brief, a quick second to

lose control and do something that you've never done before. There's always a first time for someone that murders someone that, in a fit of rage, they've never done that before. But in that moment they do it and it could have happened here that's something that's got to be considered. Well, and it's a great point because how many cases do we do where it comes out that a person is a killer, sometimes even a serial killer, you know, the news outlets, the media, they go to talk to neighbors and friends. And what do they hear? Oh, this was a great guy. I would have never thought in a million years that he was capable of X. So I think what you're saying is the flip side of the coin, and it's absolutely true.

Despite the insistence by many that knew Dubb that he wasn't responsible for the murder, on December 30, 1993, an arrest warrant for Lee Dub Walker Hogan was issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was charged with murder, interference with custody, an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. In Texas, it's illegal to interfere with child custody, and it's a felony offense that they do prosecute throughout the state. Since Doug was a trucker and was no place to be found, it was possible he had fled Texas. But if Lee was on the run, why did he leave behind his wallet, checkbook, gun, and his only method of transportation? And how was he planning to hide Chance and raise him while hiding out?

Chance was only nine years old at the time, and a nine-year-old could definitely slow down someone who's on the run. run and doesn't want to be found. In April 1994, Chance's maternal grandfather, O.P. Williams, was at home and he answered the phone. He heard a faint voice, possibly a child's voice say, help me before the call disconnected. And it wasn't as if someone had simply hung up the phone. According to O.P., it sounded as if the phone was forcibly jerked out of the caller's hand and slammed out. Unfortunately, this call was not traced because even if police had set up O.P.'s phone to trace incoming calls, which they hadn't, it was too short. And while in 1994, caller ID was available, not everyone had it, and this included O.P. But Chance's grandfather told police that he believed

this call really did come from chance. But since the call has never been traced or verified, there's no way to know for sure. The rest of the Walker Hogan family has always believed that this was a hoax phone call. All we can really do is say that Chance may have called his grandfather in April 1994 with a short plea for help. And, you know, it is kind of sad, Morph, and I think we've talked about it in the number of episodes. Many families waiting for the return of a loved one get false calls with tips, ransom

demands, sometimes even cries for help. this could have been what happened to Chance's grandfather. We just don't know. I think if you're chance as family members and you get a call like this, your mind races, whether it's chance or not, to it possibly being him. And you're hoping that by some miracle chance is alive. So when you get a call like this,

even if it's a prank call or some other kid or whatever, I could see why O.P. would think this could be chance. Well, he wants it to be chance, right? And that's a, it's a big part of it. Now, for me, the other side of it is if you're a person who is going to make a hoax type call like this to a victim's family, man, that is low. It's nasty. To me, you're a sick person. If you think that that's funny or you get some kind of cheap thrill out of that,

It's an evil thing to do. Yeah, I think there's a lot of despicable people out there that somehow get their kicks out of hurting people that are going through something bad like this. Police didn't have much to work with, so the case stalled. There were no credible leads, no eyewitnesses, and police were desperate. On February 17, 1995, this case was featured on a memorable segment in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Investigators hoped that the segment would help solve the case, and while it did generate tips and interest in the case, nothing panned out, and the case grew colder. In 1999, Dubbs' father, Lee Walker-Hoggin Sr., took his own life. Some people viewed this suicide with suspicion, thinking that Dubbs' father took his own life because of guilt of having something to do with his son and grandson's disappearance.

But he reportedly had been ill, so we really just don't know if there was anything to his death being related to the case. And I get that. I understand why maybe some people would view that with some suspicion. I could also see where you could view it as maybe this was a man who was absolutely heartbroken over the disappearance of his son and grandson. Yeah, I think in a case like this, people are looking to connect all kinds of thoughts and figure out if anything is linked to some of the clues and things that happen in people's lives connected to these. case. Could that be part of the mystery here? Well, and I think that's the amateur detective and everyone, right? That's part of what happens in an unsolved case. You have to try to put the dots together. But, you know, I think at least for you and I, it's important to look at both sides of it. Almost a decade following his disappearance in 2012, the Texas Department of Public Safety added Lee Herman Walker Hogan Jr. to its list of 10 most wanted fugitives.

They were looking for a man who in their belief had killed his girlfriend in front of his son Chance, denying Chance's mom custody, and they feared that Chance may have been injured or traumatized or maybe himself in danger. This manhunt was not solely due to the custody interference, but it certainly helped keep the search a lot. Three years later in 2005, Letricia's father, Jack White, passed away. He was 73 years old. He had hoped that he would find out who murdered his daughter, but he never got to chance. In 2010, U.S. Marshals became part of the investigation into the murder of Letricia White and the disappearances of Dubbin Chance Walkerhagen.

U.S. Marshal Hector Gomez reiterated that the blood found smeared on the unopened Christmas presence in Lee's truck didn't but along to Letricia. Gomez revealed new information to the public, telling KX-A-N news, there's no question in our mind that Lee Walker-Hagen was at least alive several days after Latricia was murdered. The Walker-Hoggin family had published an obituary for Dub and memorial announcements over the years following his disappearance in their local paper. This stood out to the marshals investigating. Marshal Gomez told KXAN, if you want to make somebody dead, you put an obituary in the paper. Apparently, the authorities were suspicious of Dubbs' family. This, of course, could have been an attempt at closure for a grieving family that looks suspicious

when looked at through the lens of skeptical investigators. The family never claimed Dubbs' life insurance policy after they published the obituary. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. In fact, the policy is still unclaimed to this day.

And Morph, I have to talk about this for a minute. You know, when I read this and the research, it immediately jumped out. at me as feeling strange. Number one, you don't know for sure that dub is dead. So, you know, to put an obituary in the paper, I did find that to be a little strange. Now everybody does things a little differently. I understand that. But the fact that they did that for dub and didn't do it for chance, that also kind of caught my attention. Yeah, you could maybe go down a rabbit hole. thinking that they know somehow that Dub is dead, but chance isn't. Yeah, you obviously could go down a number of rabbit holes here.

It just seems strange to me to believe that, okay, Dub is dead, but chances somehow still alive. By 2010, an electrical fire had caused Letricia's home, the crime scene to burn down. It's now completely gone. Gay still had the same telephone number she had in 1993, just in case Chance was out there somewhere and wanted to call home. But her son never did. In 2010, she felt that Chance could still be alive somewhere and hope that he would one day be able to contact her. She told KXAN News. I believe Lee killed his girlfriend and took my son. And I believe his family knows something. Dub's family has claimed that they don't know anything and that the person who killed Letricia

also killed Dub and Chance for whatever reason. So, more, if there is something here that I want to talk about, and it's the fact that over the years, at least up to this, you know, 2010 time period, Gay had changed her stance on whether or not she believed that Dub was involved with Lettricia's murder. We talked about it. Early on, she came out and said she did not feel that he was. She didn't think he was capable of killing Latricia. But obviously something changed over the years.

Yeah, without asking Gay herself why she sort of changed her mind over the years. We don't know if that's because she came into some information or heard some rumors from police or just reflected on things and came to. this conclusion, but it definitely seemed like she changed her mind a little bit about what had played out in this case. Marshall Gomez also revealed to KX-A and that investigators found records of a 10-minute call made from the mounted cell phone in Lee's truck after Latricia's body was found. This phone call painted a clear picture for detectives. Lee had killed Latricia, fled to the field in Austin, Texas with chance, and called someone

for a ride. Whoever he had called was on the phone with him pretend. minutes, long enough for him to explain what happened, asked for help, and give directions to his current location, or maybe somewhere nearby where the two of them would be laying low until their ride arrived. Sheriff Dan Law said, he's probably in Mexico somewhere, and that's just where all the signs lead to. It appeared to investigators that someone had helped Lee flee the country with chance after he killed the Trisha in a fit of rage. In early 2016, investigators took a look at the case with fresh eyes and authorities announced that the investigation into dubs and chances

disappearance was being reopened and the Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers were on the case. The Kingsville crime stoppers offered a $5,000 reward for information that led to chances whereabouts since his residence was in Kingsville at the time he disappeared, even though he was last seen near Lockhart. And it was this look at the case from a fresh perspective that changed the course of the investigation. Dub and Chance Walker Hogan are now considered missing persons, and quite possibly the victims of murder back in 1993. Dub is no longer considered fugitive by the authorities.

Gay has mentioned that investigators told her that the blood in the back of Dub's truck belonged to two different people. and that those two people were related to each other. We don't know exactly what police told Gay, but it seems that the reference to blood in the back of the truck from two different relatives may very well point to Dub and Chance, having met with foul play. Gay has also mentioned that she was informed by police that the report of a 10-minute phone call made after Latricia had been murdered

was an error. The call in question had, according to her, been made in the year before the murder. So obviously, you know, I think those circumstances changed things drastically. You know, police went from having what they thought was this 10 minute phone call made just after the murder to finding out that the phone call had been made in the year before the murder. Well, that changes things. You know, no longer is it, okay, I've killed somebody, come help me, pick me up. up, drive me across the border. That phone call now has no relevance to the murder at all.

And then I think the revelation that the blood found on the presence belonged to relatives. And we don't know who those relatives are. They haven't been specific, but I think at least from gay standpoint. And she may know the truth, but it does seem at least to her that that blood may very well belong to Dub and Chance. Yeah, I think this is a good reminder of just why police need to not have tunnel vision in the case and keep an open mind and pursue all different possibilities, because in the outset after the murder, it seemed like Dub was a dangerous person on the run with his son. And now all these years later, police are thinking, wait a minute,

he's probably a victim along with chance and that that just completely changes the investigation. Yeah, I think the tunnel vision is a big deal. And we've talked about it a number of times. Now, I get it. Please have to follow something. They have to follow the most likely scenario. I think where authorities get in trouble is where they do so to the exclusion of of other evidence that comes up. I think we've seen that in cases, especially in cases of wrongful conviction, where, you know,

authorities start to fixate on either an individual or a scenario, despite the fact that there's all this other type of evidence that's popping up that kind of contradicts it. That's really where they start to get in trouble, in my opinion. And we discuss the Dardine. family murders previously on an episode of criminology. And in that case, Elaine Dardine and her two children were found dead in their mobile home. But Keith Dardine was nowhere to be found.

Authorities assume that Keith had murdered his family and fled until his body was recovered in a field. He had been shot and mutilated. The murders of the Dardine family, which happened in 1987, are still unsolved to this day. 34 years later. So, you know, we know that just because something looks like the most likely scenario, it's not always correct. It's not always the right one.

So if it wasn't Dubb who killed Letricia, then who was it? Who might have had a motive to kill Latricia and make Dub and chance vanish? Authorities have called her murder a crime of passion. Six shots directly to the head may mean that this was a murder born out of extreme anger, or it could point to inexperience. It appears that Lettricia was asleep when she was shot. So six shots to the head seems like overkill. Latricia had recently divorced before she started dating Dub,

but authorities had still focused on Dub as the most obvious suspect. Letricia had two children, and since there is never any mention of them being missing in relation to this case, it's assumed that they were with their father, either he had custody, or they were there for a Christmas visit. It's been reported that Letricia was in the middle of a contentious battle for the custody of her children after a divorce, and at the time of her death. It seems a bit odd that Dub would be the main focus as a fugitive following the murder, and that Latricia's ex wasn't looked that closer. I can understand why police would be a little skeptical of someone abducting Dub. He's a big guy. He was six foot tall and 230 pounds.

So it's hard to imagine someone like that being abducted. And it may have seen more likely to police that Dub took chance rather than someone overpowering him and taking him away. And more food, we just don't really know how much police looked at Gay Zex. but you do have to kind of, you know, take this contentious custody battle into perspective. There's motive there. So at the very least, I would hope that they would have looked into him. Now, your point as to them thinking, okay, it's probably going to be difficult for someone to overpower dub at six foot tall, 230 pounds, but it's not impossible.

And we know that. You know, someone shot Latricia six times in the head. Could they have hurt Dub and incapacitated him in some way? Yeah, it's extremely possible. Yeah, I think any time you have a divorce followed by custody battle, I don't know how many cases we've seen in the news for the years where there's a murder and it turns out it's related to something like a breakup or custody of children. That's a very explosive situation and a lot of emotions come boiling over,

and that's been the motive for many murders over the years. So we don't know how closely they actually looked at the axe if he was questioned, if he cooperated, those are things we don't know because they haven't talked much about that, but they certainly should have. The next bit of information comes from a blog post, from someone who claims to be in contact with gay. And this information is also on the Unsolved Mysteries Wiki about the case. Now, it has been reported that Letricia's ex-husband actually admitted that he went to her home on December 26th.

But none of the rest of what's in the blog is backed up by available sources. The blog on the website, lost and found blogs.com, refers to the two, 26 as the last day she was known to be alive, but never actually provides a date. So we're using December 26 based on the last reported citing of Latricia, which was said at three days after her argument with Dub on the 23rd and also based off the belief of investigators that she was killed while sleeping on what seems like the night of the 26th. Letricia's ex-husband told police that he was at her house because he had to pick up something that one of the kids had left there. But when he knocked on the door,

no one answered. Also posted on lost and found blogs.com is a letter that Gay Walshack wrote to who is referred to as the man she believes is responsible for the murder of her son. The tone of this letter, particularly the words, I do not believe you really meant to hurt anyone. Things got out of control and all you wanted to do is protect your son could be interpreted different ways by different people. Some may think that she's directing that towards Dub Walker Hogan, while others may think she's talking about someone else. But if it is someone else, whose son other than Dub's son would need a protection. If she believed that Latrish's ex-husband had done something and his parents were involved in a cover-up to protect him, it could fit in a

letter directed to them. She could have also been addressing Dub's own father. But why would she have written a letter to him after he passed away in 1999. Unfortunately, we just don't know who this letter is directed at or who gay thinks is responsible for this terrible crime. But I do think more if it's important to analyze this letter. Now, we don't have all the details. We don't know for sure 100% that Gay Walshack even wrote this letter. But if she did, and let's assume that for the sake of this argument,

this phrasing, things got out of control and all you wanted to do was protect your son. Well, we mentioned it, right? That could be directed at a number of people because there are quite a few people connected to this story who had a son. But let's consider Letricia's ex-husband for a second. If he was the killer, how did he know he would have enough time to kill him? Latricia and clean up without being seen by Dup. The road that Latricia lived on was rural, so there wasn't a lot of traffic to worry about

hiding from. But as we've talked about, she had a live-in boyfriend. It seems very risky to show up, commit a murder, clean up that murder, and then leave the scene without knowing where Dub was or whether he was going to be gone long and enough to get all of this done. On top of that, it would be risky with two people, dub and chance there to witness it. Then you would have to force them to comply and leave with you. I think another question worth asking is whether there could have been more than one person

involved in this crime. I think that's very plausible. It would make cleaning up the scene and forcing dub and chance out of the home much easier. We also have to consider could dub and chance have been out some place when Latricia was killed and they came home interrupting the killer? And they were abducted and killed to silence them. We know at some point they had to be there, or at least Chance had to be there, as evidenced by what police believed was his shoe print at the scene in blood. Or if it wasn't Chance who left the print, could the killer brought a child with them? Unfortunately,

we have a lot of possibilities and very few answers. And I think this gives listeners just a little taste of what investigators had to deal with. I mean, we did mention that Dub Walker Hogan was 230 pounds. He was six feet tall. He was a big guy. We also talked about that he reportedly had a violent temper. He doesn't seem like the type of guy who would have been easy to overpower by physical force. So, you know, by my way of

thinking a weapon would truly have needed to be involved. We know the killer brought a gun to the scene. Some police believe it was a revolver and six shots were fired into Letricia's skull and then the killer may have reloaded his or her gun or had a second gun with them or possibly there was a second gunman. Of course, even without a gun being loaded, the killer could have held the gun to chance his head, forcing Dub to cooperate and without knowing whether it was really loaded or not, he likely would have cooperated in order to protect his son. One scenario I just thought of while you were going over that information is it's

been long assumed that Dub and Chance disappeared together. But what if somehow, some way Dub was abducted, killed whatever first, the person had chance and then went back to the crime scene, killed Letricia and somehow Chance left the footprint at that time. That could still happen in that order and they weren't ever abducted together. But at different times, you know, maybe Dub was taken away, killed, and the killer brought Chance back to Lettricia's house, then killed her and then abducted Chance and then fled. Yeah, again, there are so many different avenues that you can run down when, when it comes to this case.

What happened that day and how things played out may never be known? But the key question is, what is the motive here? Letricia clearly wasn't killed during an argument. She was asleep in her bed. So this isn't a case of someone making a split-second decision during an argument. They executed her and pulled the trigger over and over. On one hand, it seems like the motive may point to someone that was angry with Latricia. On the other hand, perhaps someone was jealous of her and wanted to be with Dub.

Perhaps there was a love triangle of some sorts, and the killer was a woman who saw Latricia as being in the way of being with Dubb. Someone who came to the house with the express intent of killing Latricia could easily have killed Dub and Chance as witnesses right there on the spot and slipped away undetected, as opposed to trying to force the father and son from the home. The Unsolved Mysteries Fandum Wiki states that as of 2016, 23 years after the murder, the new person of interest in the case, was Lettricia's ex-husband. But none of the sources they list there seemed to mention that. If investigators could determine the motive here, they could possibly determine who the killer was. But the issue with this case is that there doesn't seem to be a clear motive.

I mean, one question that you have to ask is, who benefited from Latricia being killed? Or by abducting Dub and Chance, and possibly murdering them as well, we mentioned there was no big life insurance payouts. There really was no clear financial gain. The one thing that we really haven't talked about because police really haven't talked about it much

is whether or not there was physical evidence, such as DNA, that they may be trying to link to someone. We just don't know. But we have seen in many instances that despite not being able to figure out a motive, something like DNA can lead to the killer and then police can piece together what happened. It remains to be seen if something like that can happen in this case. If they were still alive and out there, Chance Lee Walkerhagen would be 37 years old at the time of this recording

and Dub would be 62 years old. The Unsolved Mysteries episodes covering the murder of Letricia White and the disappearances of Chance and Lee Dub Walker Hogan are still available online today. There are two episodes, one in season seven with host Robert Stack, and one in season six with host Dennis Farina. For their part, investigators still believe that this murder was most likely a crime of passion, committed by someone closely associated to one or more of the victims. As of 2018, Texas Crime Stoppers was still offering a $5,000 reward

for any information leading to the location of Chance Walker Hogan. If you have any information about the murder of Latricia or the disappearance of this father and son, contact the Texas crime stoppers line or Kingsville Crime Stoppers at 1877-553-2374. You can give tips anonymously. You can also report tips relating to the murder of Latricia White. at the same phone number. So morph as we wrap up this case, you know,

it is a fascinating one. It's tragic. We have a mother who was brutally murdered, shot in the head six times. We have a father and son who disappeared. I do think this is one of those cases where, you know, as an armchair detective,

you can really kind of go down so many different paths. with the information that is available. Now, there's not all that much information that is available, but with what is known, you can make quite a few different arguments about what possibly happened in this case. Yeah, there's so many questions here and so many things to consider. I think one important thing is who was the main target here?

Was it Latricia and dub and chance were collateral damage, or did someone just want to get her out of the way so they ultimately could take dub and chance away? It's just, on one hand, you've got that six shots to the head. Seems like a really angry situation directed towards Latricia. Well, and I think that goes back to motive, right? Establishing a clear motive is very important

in solving a case. And I don't think as of right now, we know for sure what the motive was. And like you said, who was the main target? Yeah, another thing that jumps out to me is the blood on the Christmas presents in the back of Dub's truck. They really haven't given a lot of details about that, but apparently the blood on the presents are from two different people that are related to each other. We believe that that in this scenario, that could be dub and chance. But I'd like to hear some official confirmation of that from police because that would go a long way to considering whether or not they are victims of the same killer.

I also am interested to know, and this is behind the scenes stuff too that they haven't talked about, but do they have some kind of smoking gun DNA evidence or something along those lines that they're sitting on and working with that could one day identify who was responsible for this crime. Yeah, I'm with you. The DNA is always important and even more important today, right, with the technology that we know exists. The two things that really kind of stand out to me. You mentioned one of them is the presence with the blood on them. And then the second is this footprint in blood that police believe most,

likely came from chance, but I don't know if they've ever definitively proven that. And so that's kind of, you know, one of those mysterious things to me. But like with a lot of cases we do, we're going to have to keep an eye on this one because I do that depending on, like you said, what DNA they may have, there could be a break in this case in the future. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research. assistance in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating, you can leave a review. That really helps the show. The other thing that

really helps the podcast is word of mouth. Make sure you tell all of your true crime loving friends about criminology. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts, Discussion and Fans. So, more, if that is it for our episode on the murder of La, Tricia White, and the disappearance of Dub and Chance Walker Hogan, we mention it up front.

We're going to take a couple of weeks off. We'll be back after the holiday break with an all-new episode of criminology on January 8th, 2022. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you in the new year. Happy holidays, everyone.