Right before the trial, Simons had written out a statement for her to sign; in it he offered various incriminating facts she knew nothing about. Thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring the show!Support our podcast by becoming a patron.Find us on all platforms.Visit us online.Visit us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. The lawyers also found persuasive reasons to doubt the bite-mark evidence. As Simons stood up, WPD detective Ramon Salinas showed him a photograph of an eighteen-year-old named Kenneth Franks, who had been reported missing earlier that day. Feazell, who had followed the trial from Austin, where he now worked as a private attorney, was also taken aback. I felt at risk. His work on the White case had caused bad publicity for Simons and Feazell, and he worried about the enemies he was making with his investigation, even as he got no closer to actually solving the case. T-pop and Sandi join the story about the Lake Waco Murders. In his long career, he had discovered that he could often feel the violence in the air at a crime sceneand later use that sense to connect the perpetrator to the deed. LAKE WACO MURDERS: In Part One: April does a deep dive into the infamous murders by the lake. LAKE WACO MURDERS: In Part 2 April drops a bomb on the solved and sentenced Lake Waco Murder case. Not once did I hear Well beat this, youre innocent, he said. Within minutes, a cry arose from about 75 feet away. Three Waxahachie teenagersRaylene Rice, Jill Montgomery, and Kenneth Frankswere murdered in Speegleville Park, near Lake Waco, on July thirteenth. (He was acquitted of all charges in June 1987, and four years later his libel suit concluded with a jurys awarding him $58 million, the biggest libel verdict in U.S. We have a better shot at freeing Tony now than ever before, he told me. It belonged to a housewife from Phillipsburg, Kansas. It was all mind-blowing, Schonemann told me. If you do enjoy this podcast you can also support the show by leaving a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to favorite shows. Evans threw herself into her job as a patrol officer; though she knew that many Southern cops believed police work should be reserved for men, her fearlessness and forceful attitude quickly earned her a reputation, in the words of Chief Larry Scott, as one of the best officers we had in the department. The Lake Waco murders, which took place a year after she arrived on the force, were a rude awakening. Simonss plan had been forming ever since hed first learned about Spence. Is this what had driven Franks out on a desperate search for his son that night, well before the murders were reported? They had the rope around my neck, ready to kill me. I promise you that this wont be another unsolved murder case in Waco, Texas.. We got the right people, he wrote recently in an email. Price and Turks investigation went through May 1988, when she took their findings to the FBI and the U.S. attorney in Waco. I was now acting as an unofficial investigator for Mr. Washington.. Opening it, he read that there were still no definitive leads. Reaves, who had also represented Joe Sidney Williams, suggested that Dannen take a look at the Juanita White case. As soon as hed heard about Whites death, hed called Dennis Baier, who told him that a black man had been seen exiting Whites stolen car. not only bragged repeatedly that he was responsible for the murders but that he had details [about] how the murders were committed. Seven jailhouse informants took the stand. On that last day, Jill had stopped by to see Thompson on her way to Waco. Spence was executed in 1997, Melendezs brother Gilbert died in prison of complications from HIV in 1998, and Muneer Deebwho won an acquittal in a 1993 retrialdied of, In Hunt, Its All About the River and the Rodeo, Great Moments From the Texas Country Jamboree in Hambriston Throughout Its 123 Years. Honestly, I have not killed anyone. Simons said, What have yall heard about Waco? Blum later recalled in an affidavit. If you don't have one - imagine one. I was amazed, he told me. The trial lasted just over two weeks. Podcasts - share.crimedoor.com In the summer of 1982 the city of Waco was confronted with the most vicious crime it had ever seen: three teenagers were savagely stabbed to death, for no apparent reason, at a park by a lake. I dont know whats happened to you, he whispered in her ear, but I promise you one thing. After three months, Dannen and Blum returned to New York. Williams had blood drawn by a doctor that day, and Dannen had the sample sent to the Tarrant County medical examiner for safekeeping. The fight for Spences life was back on. As he testified in a deposition in 1997, Im a deputy sheriff, Im not an assistant DA or a prosecutor. When youre working under an execution date, every minute not spent on the case feels wasted. He filed motions for stays of execution and successor habeas writs with the Texas courts. I love yall and I miss yall. Perhaps more significant, however, was the fact that Texas, unlike many states, had no law requiring that a death row inmate be granted legal representation for his writ of habeas corpus. Who committed these murders and WHY?? He and Reaves decided to make a case to Governor Perry for clemency. In July 2001, after Washingtons release, Thompson told Dannen she couldnt keep her doubts quiet anymoreshe had to tell the rest of her family, and she needed his help. David Spence was at the county jail awaiting trial for aggravated sexual abuse. The defense tried its best. He interviewed relatives of the victims, such as Jills aunt Jan Thompson, and won over numerous Waco residents. The more they understood of the case, the more troubling they found it: the types of evidence used against their clientjailhouse testimony and bite markswere well-known in legal circles to be unreliable. I will also provide a link in the show notes.Every contribution helps keep these podcasts running. Dannen found a middle-aged man still mourning his son. The Lake Waco Murders Part 1 Who Killed? podcast - Player FM Could he now prove that Harper was involved in killing the teenagers, that Spence was innocent, that Melendez deserved to be free? The idea that justice had not yet been doneand that he might be able to do something about itenergized him. In January I went to see Melendez again. Feazell had called the charges a smear campaign brought on by the big boys in Austin because of the Lucas case; now the convictions in the Lake Waco murders offered irrefutable proof of his commitment to the law. Pardo set up a war room at his corporate headquarters and hired additional investigators. Anaheim investigator Julissa Trapp is not like other detectives. Leon Chaney, a private investigator who knew the case, remembered, [White] called Hunt and me all the time; she was going to give us all these leads. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. I kept shaking my head, he told me. On the line was a publicist he knew who happened to do work for Brian Pardo; the publicist asked if he wanted to take a look at one of the habeas writs for David Spence. At last, Simons had confirmation of what he had suspected all along. Some forty pounds overweight, his eyes staring blankly, the inmate looked soft and harmless. ), The rift between the WPD and Simons made Price nervous. McLemore and Pardo had recently met Spence when the two were invited by a prison ministry to visit the Ellis Unit. . Three days later, Spence was given the death penalty. Now she hoped she could help free Washington and Williamsand cast some light on the DA and his investigator. They had been looking for a place to fish when theyd spotted the body near the foot of a tree, lying beneath some low-hanging branches. Lanie Lake Waco Murders February 12, 2019 Lanie One of the most compelling [unsolved] cases in Texas history occurred in the small town of Waco, TX. I said, They didnt do this. Though the WPD would continue to respond to new leads, the investigation, Salinas had written in the report, was now officially inactive. To his surprise, Spence was so friendly that they fell into easy conversation; Simons even told him he was quitting the force. Nonetheless, Spence was set to be executed in four days. In other comments to the paper that same year, he was similarly unequivocal. You did it, we know you did ityoure going to die for it. How much those kids suffered, how scared they must have been, she said. The murders put the city of Waco on edge. Despite the fact that U.S. courts had been admitting forensic odontology since 1954, it was a highly contested practice, with no proven record or methodology to show that a persons teeth left a unique impression or could be matched to a mark on the skin. Who had been the caller? It was April 1983; in a few months, the local media would mark the one-year anniversary of the murders, and yet the investigation was still floundering. The evidence is telling us things it never could tell before because the technology wasnt there, he said. The source of the conflict, it appeared, was a sixteen-year-old Methodist Home resident named Gayle Kelley, who frequented the Rainbow Drive Inn and whom Deeb had offered a job. She was a tomboy who had grown up wanting to be a cop, like her grandfather, and joined the Detroit Police Department in 1977. (KPLC in Lake Charles.) In the following months, a complex criminal case unfolded, one that sparked local and national attention. This is the story of the murders of Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice, and Kenneth Franks. A trigger warning for our listeners: this series contains gruesome depictions of murders and mentions of sexual assault. The Court of Criminal Appeals and all of the federal courts, including the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, agreed. As for the journalist who has kept the case alive all these years, Mr. Simons turned his patrol car around and headed for Texas Highway 6 and the Twin Bridges that spanned Lake Waco. Texass execution tally attracted the interest of antideath penalty activists everywhere, and in 1988 a federally funded nonprofit known as the Texas Resource Center opened its doors in Austin to offer pro bono help to death row inmates, either by connecting them with law firms who could help with their habeas appeals or by representing them in-house. Though it was supposedly key evidence, the truck then sat outside for more than two years before Simons sold it to a junk dealer, who scrapped it. Now it was possible hed orchestrated the whole thing.. I was hoping their verdicts would get overturned and they would be tried again so all the details about the investigation would come out.. Spences lawyer in the abuse case, an earnest attorney just three years out of law school named Walter Reaves, had instructed his client not to speak to Simons, but Spence ignored him; when Spences father asked Simons if he should hire a lawyer for his son for the murder case, the deputy said Spence didnt need one because he hadnt been charged with murder. When she didnt show up for church the next morning, her Sunday school teacher stopped by the house and found her. Dannen and Blum also tracked down Truman Simons, who was still a sheriffs deputy in Waco. On the streets he could also stay away from the politics and backbiting within the police department, which at times had made him consider quitting. It was one crisis after another, Schonemann told me. Heart pounding, Simons peered around the immediate surroundings. But Melendez later recanted, saying he had only confessed because hed been threatened with the death penalty. He did it! she screamed. This, and only this, would ultimately lead to a hearing where Reaves could question the men who put Melendez and the others in prison and sent Spence to his death, making them answer for their actions a generation ago. This is very important. One testified that he heard Spence say hed bitten off one of Jills nipples; another stated that Spence told him that when he saw the teenagers, hed said, Theres the motherfucker that beat that Iranian on a drug deal. David Spences case came before the TRC that same summer. No one had heard any screams. An attractive blonde from Detroit, the 29-year-old thought the citys name was pronounced Wacko and assumed its residents got around on horses. He asked an investigator with the DAs office to accompany him, and the two men wandered through Koehne Park. On May 1 a woman who lived a few blocks from White was violently attacked in her home. But Scott knew this case had to be solved. These days theres increasing credibility given to the idea that innocent people do plead guilty; the National Registry of Exonerations recently found that nearly 1 in 5 of the 87 inmates who were exonerated in 2013 had pleaded guilty to charges against them, often because of the guarantee of a lesser sentence. I was afraid to die, he told Texas Monthly in 2014, insisting he was painting houses in Bryan, as several alibi witnesses had told police he was. Unless they get something powerfully exculpatory, Tonys not getting out, he told me. every Friday, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.For the second year in a row, I will be representing Who Killed?, Who Killed Amy Mihaljevic?, and My Passion Case on Podcast row at CrimeCon 20-20 in Orlando. She was devastated. Based on his reporting, he felt sure it involved Harper, who was allegedly both a drug dealer and close to Kenneth, and two henchmen. As the mild-mannered Schonemann knew, Spence had a rough historyhis ex-girlfriend Christine Juhl had told the police that he beat her, and testimony at the close of his first trial had included allegations of violent rape. Hed robbed a Fort Worth convenience store with a hatchet at 21 and served fifteen months. Those 5 stars help keep the important cases I cover in the spotlight.I will be dropping new episodes of my other series, Who Killed.?If youd like to stay up to date on the cases I have covered, as well as the new shows I have in the pipeline, please follow me on Twitter @billhuffman3. They too were missing. My responsibility to Calvin Washington took precedence over my interests as a journalist and book writer, Dannen told me. Wed paint all day, then throw down our sleeping bags, turn on the radio, cook, and go to sleep. He gave Simons a cryptic message: soon, Butler said, hed be able to tell the deputy whether his theory that Spence had killed the teenagers was correct. Evans had seen plenty of murder and mayhem in her career, but nothing this macabre. The criminal trials for the lake murders were the most anticipated in Wacos history. I dont trust Reaves or Dannen, he told me. He said one of them had some big tits, Gilbert told his lawyers. Grab a beverage and join us as we try the Texas Single Malt Whiskey from Balcones, and wade through the twists and turns of this case.<br>Follow Us On All The Things<br>Facebook . I can do the time., But as that time stretched into a decade and then another and each parole was denied, Melendez grew increasingly hopeless. He and Simons, who continues to work as a private investigator in Waco, maintain that there is abundant evidenceincluding the trial records and Melendezs confessionthat shows that the four men convicted in the murders were guilty. She said, You already lied once, why lie again? I said, I want to come home. She said, The truth will come out. Thompson seems pleased to be there for her friend, happy to be part of what she hopes is the redemption of Tony Melendez. At a court hearing in Waco, Feazell accused Dannen of not returning his tapes; Dannen, in an affidavit, said he had made copies and given them back. 1,539 episodes. On the morning of April 3, Spence met with his loved ones, including June, one of his sons, and his brother. When the night passed, their families feared the worst. We've got well-researched gruesome, bizarre, true stories! Dannen rented an expensive high-speed scanner and began uploading pages and pages of court transcripts, case briefs, and medical reports onto his computer. Their suspicions about the jailhouse testimony were further confirmed when they met with Jan Price. Gilbert said that he had been clueless too, throwing in details he had heard on the news. Schonemann and his team appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 1994. I was absolutely crushed, he told me. At the time of Whites murder, in 1986, DNA testing was not yet an established practice; the first conviction in the United States based on DNA evidence did not occur until 1988, and it was only in the mid- to late nineties that genetic testing became widely used in courts. That October, a second trial for Spencethis time for Kenneths murderwas just as straightforward. Jills mother, Nancy, who was scheduled to be a witness, had forced herself to study the crime-scene photos as a way of bracing herself for the gruesome details shed hear in testimony. She didnt make any changes, she didnt say anything was wrong with it, and she signed it.). Price soon learned that White had been conducting her own investigation into the lake murdersgoing to bars and asking questions, interviewing figures in Wacos demimonde, looking for evidence to prove that her son hadnt killed the three teenagers. I heard Truman Simons say to Gilbert Melendez, Gilbert, were going to turn the recorder off now and get our story straight, and then well turn the recorder back on, he said in an affidavit. Hunt and Fuller pointed out that none of the hair or blood found at the crime scene tied Spence to the murders, and they insisted that Deeb had been joking about getting rid of Kelley and that Spence knew it. The way the investigation went, the way it was handled with the jailhouse informants, the way the bite marks were matched. I love you all, he said with tears in his eyes. We were finally going to find out what happened to our kids.. In his letter, Snelson wrote that he had made his testimony up. White was poor and had had a hard life; shed been married four times and had lived long enough to see her son vilified as a monster, only to die like this. Within days, Butler got remarkable news: Campbell was certain that Spences teeth had made the marks. The even will feature a diverse array of vendors, food trucks and live music . To uncover any facts that might help save their clientsthat prosecutors had concealed evidence, for example, or that an inmate had suffered an abusive childhood or was mentally disabledthe attorneys had to reinvestigate every case, searching through files and trial transcripts, visiting with inmates, and traveling far and wide to find old and new witnesses. We advise proceeding with caution.In a shivering hand, David Spence scrawled a chilling account of a conversation that had taken place between Deeb and himself. In early March Feazell announced that he was creating a task force to take a new look at the Lake Waco murders. Somebody went in there looking for something, she told me years later, recalling the strangeness of the case. But Im still here.. Why is it taking so long?. (With the four men safely behind bars, the DA chose not to prosecute further.) A tough 28-year-old from Waco whod served time in the mid-seventies for assault with intent to murder, Melendez had been given seven years after pleading guilty in the aggravated sexual abuse case. There is far too much doubt to carry out an execution. Two others did match a mark to one of the molds, but it was not Spences. Brad, meanwhile, had subjected himself after Dannens presentation to ruthless second-guessing about his behavior at Spences execution. Thanks Hayli! Jan Evans didnt know anything about Waco before she moved there, in June 1981. Standing over her, he felt overwhelmed by the evil that had befallen her. A charismatic, headstrong lawyer, Feazell had stepped into office that month, at the age of 31. Though he was not officially assigned to the investigation, he spent hours at the lake, devoting much of his free time to searching the woods and talking to people. Theres not a day that goes by when I dont think about it. Salinas, one of the officers to first discover the teenagers bodies, still wrestles with his memories. Back in Waxahachie, Thompson was glad to learn of the new tests, but as a year passed, then another, and then another, she and her family began to despair. She asked Dannen to make a presentation, and she set up a meeting at Nancys house. From the start, Dannen had been working on a theory, based in part on Schonemanns writs, that the murders had taken place after a drug deal gone bad. At a pretrial hearing in 1984, Spences lawyers Russ Hunt and Hayes Fuller had requested that all evidence in the states files, even documents the prosecution did not consider exculpatory, be turned over to Judge George Allen for an in-camera inspection in his chambers. I think you all know whats going on, the DA told news cameras as he was taken into the federal courthouse in Austin. A conservative who favored the death penalty, Pardo had asked to see his hometowns most infamous killer, expecting to find a monster. But as Baier soon pointed out, there was a problem: when asked for details on Spences car, Melendez had said it was a station wagon. Thats hard to believe, said the deputy to reporters as he walked out. I followed the direction that has been pointed out to me.. Furthermore, in her view, the evidence that Simons had gathered was not very impressivethe blood on the sweatshirt, it turned out, was barely a drop, and the sneakers did not match the shoe print from the front door. He still thought hed be exonerated.. She was ex-cited about the trip and changed clothes several times before going to meet Raylene. Outside the majestic McLennan County courthouse, news crews set up cameras on the lawn; inside, the third-floor courtroom was jammed with spectators, who crowded into seats, stood in the aisles, and even sat on the floor. Listen to this episode from Going West: True Crime on Spotify. In the end, she went on, justice had been delivered when one dogged police officer, Truman Simons, volunteered to pursue the investigation., Spence by this time had grown resigned to his fate. The nonprofit didnt get many wins in its fight against the death penalty, but Spences case was looking promising. He signed the paperwork for disposition of his personal property and recited the 23rd Psalm, saying it gave him peace. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Episode Website More Episodes 587214 Spence was strapped onto the gurney in the execution chamber. In fact, it was standard practice for judges to set death dates before inmates had even filed these appeals. Spence wasnt so lucky. And theres not a shred of doubt in my mind that Anthony Melendez is innocent. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. In September 1999, in a conference room at a Fort Worth Marriott, Chapman delivered boxes containing pieces of clothing, the bloody bindings, the stray hairs, the two beer cans, and more. The writ was full of typos but also cogent arguments; Deeb was granted a new trial when the court ruled that the jailhouse informants testimony that had been used against him was hearsay. Abandoning hope that he would ever print the truth, she destroyed her journals and shredded all the documents shed collected related to the case. Their parentsits horrible what theyve been through. If Simons had a job at the jail, he could get close to Spence and use him to solve the lake murders. Melendez had been suffering from multiple maladies, including bone cancer and kidney failure. Three Teens go missing one Summer in Waco Texas. Im really getting tired of this shit, Spence whispered to his father, Edwin, before being sent to the Ellis Unit, outside Huntsville. In September, worried that Feazell would subpoena him so he could be questioned about his work on the lake murders, Dannen packed up the Blazer with his keyboard, a kitten hed named Calvin, his clothes, and all his hard driveswhich held transcripts of the seven hundred interviews hed conductedand left the country, driving to San Miguel de Allende, where a friend had offered him a place to stay. The contents of Whites purse were strewed across the floor, and her car was missing; the vehicle was found several hours later at an apartment complex about fifteen blocks away. When Reaves and Dannen explained that they had exhausted their funds, Wiley recommended they seek help from the Texas Center for Actual Innocence, at UTs School of Law. His lawyers, Russ Hunt and Hayes Fuller, were convinced their client was being railroadedin their view, Spences long-running interrogation by Simons had been unorthodox, and the jailhouse testimony against him was suspect. a Slo Burn Podcast Listen HERE As a reminder, I drop new episodes of My Passion Case every Monday, and Who Killed? That dude did it, he said. Though two investigators, Ramon Salinas, of the WPD, and Leon Chaney, who worked on Melendezs behalf, found several alibi witnesses for him in Bryan, the inmate says he was never informed of their reports. There was some hope, he told Spencethere were still petitions pending. Its not that I thought he was innocent, but I thought, They cant execute him based on this record.. Melendez had been suffering from multiple maladies, including bone cancer and kidney failure. The twelve jurors found Spence guilty in less than two hours. The inmate was also heartened when Walter Reaves took up his case pro bono a year later. If the DNA test excludes Tony, Spence, and Gilbert, said Reaves, and it includes somebody else who was originally considered a suspect, that would be enough for an actual innocence writ or a clemency petition to the governoror both., But even those results wouldnt necessarily mean a get-out-of-jail-free card. When Schonemann arrived for work, in the summer of 1991, he was immediately enthralled by the TRCs pace. No signup or install needed. The task force now gathered momentum as investigators found witnesses who told of suspicious things Spence had said the previous summer: that he thought he had killed somebody, for example, and that he had raped two girls at the lake. Not a shred of doubt., For almost thirty years now, Tony Melendez has sat in a Texas prison cell and considered his life. But that following evening, their bodies would be discovered at a different park across the lake, and an intense investigation would begin. Simons, meanwhile, began to work on Gilbert Melendez. Let us help you so you dont go to death row. It was Melendezs lawyersChuck Youts and Jim Barlow, both now deceasedwho urged him to plead guilty. In a written confession, he stated he had participated with Spence and Gilbert in raping and killing the teenagers. But they were running out of time: Spence had been convicted of murder twice, which meant the lawyers had to file a habeas writ in two trial courts, and it had already taken a month just to read all the documents. He probably thought that a credible investigation would show he didnt do it. Owen concurred. This is episode 4 in our Murder at Lake Waco series. Dannen wasnt fully convinced of Spences innocenceas a veteran journalist, hed made a career out of being skepticalbut hed learned enough to know he had the makings of a great story. No signup or install needed. ), The truck being destroyedthat was huge. [Simons] brought to my office no less than five separate confessions. The WPDs policy, he said, was simple: If its additional information that you are wanting to put in their confession, you put a supplement to it, you dont take a whole new confession., Horton had also been suspicious. Youre confusing courage with wisdom). Her personal opinion, she continued, was that this Frueh guy had something to do with it. Frueh was no longer alivehe had been stabbed to death by a teenager in 1991but Dannen discovered that he had lived less than a block away from Franks. He did it! After Simons calmed her down, she explained how, earlier in the evening, Deeb had taken her and a friend to a gory movie. It would mean a cut in pay and status, but Simons didnt care. Simons was sure the DA would be interested in his jailhouse findings, but when he approached one of Feazells assistants, he was told that, as hearsay, the inmate testimony was probably inadmissible in court. . Anthony Melendez talks about the Lake Waco murders during an interview from prison in 2013. Schonemann and Schwartz had no time to lose. Though he had money from his book advance and a few movie options on his magazine stories, paying for the DNA tests had exhausted his savings. I was brought up to do things the right way, she told me. Ive got to go to Texas and find out what the hell happened, he told her. The bedroom, Price discovered, had been Spences. Then, within a week, the DAs office asked for all the police files on White. Allen never disclosed anything from the file to the defense. Truman Simons (far right) helping carry the body of the teenagers out from the brush in Speegleville Park on July 14, 1982. But Thompson had never stopped wondering if theyd made a mistake. We remember your smile. And, simply, We remember you., One letter in particular moved Thompson. He had also recently undergone gall bladder surgery. Now Driggs asked Krauss to set up the study. How that might happen remains to be seen. Three lives were inexplicably taken from this world, and 4 men were put on trial for their deaths. She recognized the inconsistencies in Gilberts testimony but said his words had been corroborated at Spences second trial by Tonyas well as by the bite-mark evidence.
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