After campaigning on the promise to shake up a complacent DAs office, hed been elected in an upset, and he now set about hiring more prosecutors, tightening protocols for defense attorneys, and increasing security measures. One important question remained: Whose semen was it? He sent gifts to Russ Hunt, including an elaborate stagecoach made out of popsicle sticks and a clock made of matchsticks.

. The more people Price talked to, the more she doubted the case against Washington and Williamsand wondered about the case against Spence, Deeb, and the Melendez brothers in the lake murders. Some reports noted that several people had seen Tab Harper, one of the polices early suspects, at Koehne Park the night of the murders; witnesses also said he had bragged about killing three people.

Following the convictions of Spence and Deeb, some began to question the substance of the evidence on which the convictions had been based and the methods through which it had been obtained. One determined police officer declares to never rest until the person(or persons) guilty are in jail. That claim had reporters from national media outlets flocking to Texas to try to prove that bold statement wrong, and some chose Spence as the poster child for the wrongfully convicted. Simons and Butler had shown him photos and given him details, he explained.

There was a much stronger case to be made, he felt, for the involvement of Tab Harper, whom witnesses had seen at the park that night and whose name he had encountered in police reports and interviews several times.

The shocking crime was more confounding because it seemed so random in nature.

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.

Over the years he had made a name for himself as an investigative reporter with a penchant for penetrating dark and complicated worlds, such as those of the Mafia and the gangs of Chinatown. (Years later, Feazell would tell the Waco Tribune-Herald that the accusation that he had not disclosed exculpatory evidence was a total lie.), But Owen and Schonemann had bought themselves two more months, so they went out on the road again. He had now spent about $30,000 on testing, and the FSA lab had found nothing earth-shattering.

He also played audio from Feazells tapes, including one in which Feazell spoke disparagingly about Simonss investigative methods. In his closing statement Feazell reminded jurors of the substantial testimony against Spence, the pain of the victims families, and the torture the teenagers had endured. He was especially baffled by the question of where the kids had been killed.

In return Melendez got two life sentences. We held Truman on a pedestal for so long. But their curiosity had quickly turned to horror: a young man, in jeans and an orange shirt, lay gagged, his hands bound behind him. Yes, Mikel said, Simons had shown him crime-scene photos and fed him information. I believe in our system.

He had a plan.

Thats hard to believe, said the deputy to reporters as he walked out.

(As for Frankss polygraph, without context, it is just as likely that Richard Franks statement was that he was with them in spirit.), Spences prosecutors, in fact, had long maintained that they had turned over everything to the defense that they were required to. Its amazing the lack of information weve found out there, Sergeant Dennis Kidwell told the Tribune-Herald.

I said, They didnt do this. Eight months after the Fifth Circuits ruling, Schonemann got a call from John McLemore, an investigator who worked for Brian Pardo, a Waco insurance magnate. Not surprisingly, Feazell didnt see it that way, telling reporters that the DNA results changed nothing. The next morning,citizens across Waco awoke to a terrifying headline. I love yall and I miss yall.

This spike in executions began to attract the kind of attention for Spence that had eluded him in life. Fishermen found the bodies of the three teenagers at Speegleville Park on Lake Waco.

People say you prosecuted the wrong guys in the case. Dannen told them he did not think Carroll was connected in any way to the Lake Waco killings, though he did consider the burglary at Whites house after her death to be highly suspicious. Blum was there to help with research but also I think to act as a bodyguard., The two began to make daily trips to Waco, Blum at the wheel of the rental car because Dannen hated to drive. Two years later, the teenager turned up alive.

Each brother now spoke at length, officially recanting his testimony about Spence. When the deputy drove Gilbert out to Koehne and Speegleville parks for the inmate to walk him through the crime, Gilbert said, he had taken his cues from Simons when identifying the spot where the teenagers were killed. In September 1986 Feazell was arrested on federal racketeering and bribery charges; once again, the DA claimed it was a retaliatory move by local and federal forces for the embarrassment hed brought to the Texas Rangers in the Henry Lee Lucas case.

A knife, a sex crime, a violent man: Simons was sure he was on to something. She talked to inmates, some of whom claimed that Simons sources were liars.

He claimed Trapani manipulated Padgett, threatening to fire her if she didnt help.

After all these years, he doesnt remember exactly what he was doing on the night of July 13, 1982, but he knows he wasnt in Waco. Like Spence, he was given the death penalty. On February 16, 1994, Schonemann got his answer. There is far too much doubt to carry out an execution. Compelled by his vow to avenge the teenagershed whispered the same promise to Raylene and Kenneth as he had to JillSimons kept tabs on investigators progress, even stopping by police headquarters after his shift to read their reports. Going into a separate office, he sat on the floor, absently tracing his finger on the carpet as he and Scott discussed what to do next. Melendez pleaded guilty to the savage 1982 murder of three teenagers in Waco; he also testified against another man, David Spence in 1985. The two became fast allies. And I know that you know it too, Vic! As before, the jury found him guilty. He was so sincere and earnest, recalled Thompson.

I am perplexed and bewildered, as Im sure a lot of people are, he told the Waxahachie Daily Light. At a quarter before six, Governor Bush, Spences last hope, also denied a reprieve. She was beaten with a hammer, raped, and left for dead. Discussing the case had become so painful that she and Thompson quit talking about it. One of these was a woman named Angela Miles, who had been serving time for burglary. The girls, friends from Waxahachie, had driven to Waco so Montgomery could collect her last paycheck from her job at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Hes one of the bravest people I ever met, Dannen told me. I have been fighting this for 40 years now. He pointed to the informant testimony and said there was pretty solid evidence that Williams had left a bite mark on Whites body.

Wileys willingness to meet with interested parties on matters of criminal justice should never be construed as support for, or against, a person or issue being discussed.) Dannen made a presentation, and UT gave him more funds, which he sent to FSA for another round of testing.

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Forty years ago, before mass shootings became regular occurrences and flags routinely fly at half-staff, the gruesome murders of three teenagers at Lake Waco terrified the community and sent shock waves across the state. Melendez was still wary of false assurances, and he was tight-lipped about what Dannen had promised. Ill testify, said Melendez.

The girls, friends from She uses a cane to walk, and because of failing eyesight, she cant drive.

White had struggled with her attackerher nose was broken, her ear torn, her body battered.

In July New York Times op-ed writer Bob Herbert dedicated three columns to Spence and the death penalty.

Who had been the caller?

Then the lawyers waited. I suffered. In early 1999 he obtained a copy of Whites autopsy report, which noted the presence of semen. (Raylenes family chose not to attend the trial, and later they refused to comment on the case.) But at the end of the hearing, she walked up to the DA and gave him a message. [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. The more traumatic the killing, the more intricate the web.

The girls father, Rod Montgomery, owned a granite company and cut tombstones, but he had been so devastated by her death he had found it impossible to put up a marker. (The medical examiner said she had not recognized the bite marks at the autopsy, but she was now certain that some of the victims wounds had a pattern that sug-gested teeth.) It began to dawn on both lawyers that the Spence case was going to be different from any they had handled before. A crowd of deputies from the sheriffs and constables offices stood around talking; several reporters milled about as well. 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. She smiled and said, That would turn anybodys head around, and let me go with a warning.. Spence raped and stabbed Jill, then Raylene, and finally he killed Kenneth. As Pardo worked through the documents, he grew incredulous. For one thing, Simons wasnt filing any reports.

(There were times I thought I was going to be ambushed at my house, she told me.) To make matters worse, seven hours after the officers finished searching Whites home, they received a call to return to the scene: the house had been broken into again.

When Simons contacted Price, he told her that he already had a suspect. WebThe story of River Road Counseling and Consulting Services actually begins on May 14, 1973. Three Waxahachie teenagersRaylene Rice, Jill Montgomery, and Kenneth

Williams put down his fork. Our parents wouldnt let us go to the lake anymore. Afterward, when the crowds and cameras had dispersed, the jurors asked to meet Simons, about whom they had heard so much. Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten him. However, though he couldnt say Spence was the biter, he also couldnt exclude him. The testimonyeveryones bite mark is different, like a fingerprintwas very convincing.. Sitting in his cell, he writes a letter every few weeks to Jan Thompson. Sentencing will take Simons informed him that if he confessed and testified against Spence, hed almost certainly avoid the death penalty.



Simons thought the inconsistencies were likely due to Melendezs drug- and alcohol-addled memory, but the changing statements, plus the fact that Melendez claimed it had been Spence alone who did all the raping and killing, made other investigators suspicious. He interviewed relatives of the victims, such as Jills aunt Jan Thompson, and won over numerous Waco residents. But the case went nowhere. From The Left. He was obsessed, remembered Thompson, whom he talked to almost every week. The nonprofits executive director scrambled to find a firm to represent him, but no one wanted to defend a man whod twice been convicted of butchering three teenagers. The case languished for nearly a year until the work of Simons and others had produced enough evidence again to arrest Deeb and three alleged accomplices in the plot. Feazell, who had followed the trial from Austin, where he now worked as a private attorney, was also taken aback.

A fourth suspect, Muneer Mohammad Deeb, was eventually rele That compounded the mystery for Waco police, who were under considerable and increasing pressure to solve the case as the weeks and months went by. By mid-April, Prices frustration had turned to suspicion of Simonss techniques. He died from cancer six years after being released. Owen tracked down one informant, Jesse Ivy, who had testified that Spence had admitted to killing the teenagers; now Ivy told Owen that Spence had said nothing of the sort. Kathy Blackwell is an executive editor at Texas Monthly. I wouldnt doubt that he started saying the police thought he did it, or he might have said he did it, to make himself look like a badass. This is very important. There was no time to lose, and the group feverishly got to work. This was a homicidal frenzy. There was one person in particular who Dannen figured might offer insight on the matter: Kenneths father, Richard Franks, whose accounts of that night had troubled a few police officers.

Spence insisted he couldnt remember murdering anyone, but he began to wonder if it was possible that he had really done it. WebWaco Murder Kari with her beloved daughters, Kensi and Grace. Im still pissed offI cant talk about the case for very long before I start to get upset, Russ Hunt, the attorney in Spences first murder trial, told me. George W. Bush, who was running for president at the time, said the state of Texas never executed an innocent man during his watch. 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. Other officers werent so surprised. Leave them blank to get signed up.

Id say, David, if you did this, you deserve to die, she told me when we talked last May. Every court the case could possibly go to upheld the convictions.

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. A week later, Simons felt like taking another look around the lake. A middle school dropout with a fondness for beer, marijuana, and amphetamines, he had married at 16, become a father of two by 18, and divorced at 20. Baier and Salinas decided theyd focus on the rest of the city and leave the jailhouse world to theirold colleague.

Hed had a real crappy childhood, Driggs remembered, and probably had a lot of anger, but I never read him as a dangerous guy, unlike some others we worked with. There was no reliable forensic evidence that Spence had killed the teenagersand to all his lawyers, he had consistently maintained his innocence. Like Price, Reaves was certain that Williams and Calvin Washington had been convicted with faulty evidence. via lakewacomurders.com. The evidence against the men largely consisted of testimony provided by other inmates, who claimed that the defendants had admitted to their involvement in the killings in private discussions, as well as confessions made by Anthony and Gilbert Melendez.

(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. WebJill Montgomery, Raylene Rice and Kenneth Franks were tortured and stabbed multiple times at Speegleville Park at Lake Waco on July 13, 1982.

Each man was charged with three counts of capital murder, and each would stand first for the killing of Jill Montgomery.

WebBefore the murders Wiley had been grounded over her relationship with an 18-year-old who testified that he would often sneak into the teens bedroom to spend the night with her.

), The truck being destroyedthat was huge. Krauss did, choosing five experts around the country. Who would do something like this? No, Melendez said, flashing a rare smile. Dannen rented an expensive high-speed scanner and began uploading pages and pages of court transcripts, case briefs, and medical reports onto his computer. He did it! she screamed. He seemed to prefer the company of hustlers to that of his fellow cops, and he was known among local law enforcement for his distaste for rules. He didnt want to tell you anything beyond This is what Ive got, Price told me.

Simons, meanwhile, became one of the most well-respected officers in the state.

He was a little twitchy, she told me.

Before long, other inmates were also coming forward with things Spence had told them: he had been in a satanic cult; hed been paid to kill the teens but had killed the wrong ones; a foreigner named Lucky had paid him to kill the three because a girl had dishonored him.

According to testimony at the trial, her parents had asked the

Remains found in May 2022 in the Callville Bay area were identified in August 2022 as those of Thomas Erndt, a 42-year-old Las Vegas father whose family said he drowned during a nighttime family boat outing late Aug. 2, 2002 at the lake.. Other skeletal remains discovered over a three-week span in late July and early August along July 28, 2022.

She also fell in love with a fellow officer, J.R. Price, whom she married; the two bought some land out in the country and acquired a few horses. 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.

She also had marks on her skin that looked as if theyd been made by teeth. I didnt even notice it until he shifted in his chair and exposed something on his chest, something winding along his skin. Dannen and Blum also tracked down Truman Simons, who was still a sheriffs deputy in Waco. In April district judge George Allen made a decision: Spence would be tried first, followed by Gilbert, Tony, and then Deeb.

All three victims had been repeatedly stabbed, and both of the women's throats had been slashed. Over time, many of his peers had gravitated to desk jobs, but Simons remained committed to the streets. The next day he spoke with Jills mother, Nancy Shaw, and her aunt, Jan Thompson, and revealed a theory that was beginning to take shape in his mind. By then Schonemann had lost his most important cohort: Owen had received a job offer in Kentucky and left the TRC.

I left him because he was drinking and smoking too much weed., June became convinced that Spence had bragged falsely about committing the murders to earn jailhouse status. But Scott knew this case had to be solved.

Simons decided to share his findings with Wacos new district attorney, Vic Feazell.

The two had engaged in verbal confrontations on multiple occasions. To this day, they were the worst photos I have ever seen.

After further DNA tests on the sweatshirt revealed that the blood on it did not belong to White, as Simons had theorized, Judge Allen ordered Washington released on July 5. In 2004 Dannen finally finished a draft of his book. You all just fucked up the whole goddamn case, a disgusted Horton told Simons and Baier in front of a crowd of detectives the morning after Deeb was brought in. Simons would allow him long phone calls to Juhl, sometimes until three or four in the morning, but she failed to turn up any new leads. When Simons then learned that, two weeks before the murders, Deeb had taken out an accident insurance policy on Kelley that paid $20,000 in the event of her deathand listed himself as Kelleys common-law husbandhe felt his instincts confirmed. Just ten weeks earlier, a father of five had been beaten to death by a stranger in his front yard because he wouldnt light the guys marijuana cigarette.

Bite marks on the victims were also presented as evidence of Spences involvement. (Touch DNA, one of the latest developments in genetic testing, isolates and profiles the DNA in skin cells left on physical evidence when a person touches it.) After serving seven years, Williams was released in June 1993 and eventually received $31,250 for his time behind bars. The case spent over a decade in the courts before resulting in a death sentence for David Wayne Spence, and that is only a small portion of the story. Several other witnesses reported the suspicious remarks Spence had madeabout raping two girls at the lake, about being scared he might have killed someone.

Hed driven that road many times, and as he crossed the reservoir, he looked out over the water.

In January 1985 Gilbert wrote out a sixteen-page confession, pleaded guilty for two life sentences, and agreed to testify against Deeb. I believe that David Spence was an innocent person who was murdered at the hands of the state, Hunt said.

This, Schonemann felt, was Spences last good shot at a new trial.

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Then Simons got a surprise visit from Ned Butler, an assistant DA who had recently been hired to try capital cases.

Most of them ended up recanting later.. Yet only 52 days after the gruesome triple-murder was discovered, frustrated authorities suspended the case indefinitely. Simons arrested Deeb initially because he learned that Deeb was going to return to Jordan. People naysaying the convictions found other suspects and submitted DNA. Dubbed the 'Lake Waco murders', three teenagers were found dead with numerous stab wounds, slashed throats, and evidence of sexual assault. 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. His name was David Spence, and he had just been arrested with his friend Gilbert Melendez for cutting a teenage boy on the leg and forcing him to perform oral sex on Melendez. Jan Price was arresting our witnesses on the Juanita White case and holding them in the city jail, incommunicado, without access to a magistrate or attorney, trying to pressure them to change their stories, he wrote in an email.). The police investigation and criminal trials that followed the murders lasted for more than a decade and resulted in the execution of one man, David Wayne Spence, and life prison sentences for two other men allegedly involved in the crime, Anthony and Gilbert Melendez. The results sent Simons into despair. Im tired of lying. That same month, after succumbing to complications from HIV, Gilbert Melendez died in prison, a development that only fueled Dannens determination. He was going to find the one person who would give him the answer. By testifying, she would find out and spare him the pain of telling her directly, Simons said in 2017. We were finally going to find out what happened to our kids.. 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. That case will stand on its own, he said. She occasionally writes about travel, too. More important, Tony, in the expectation of getting help with parole, had agreed to give a more detailed statement and testify against Spence.

When the bodies of three teenagers were found on the shores of Lake Waco, Texas in July, 1982, even seasoned lawmen were taken aback by the savage mutilation and degradation they had been subjected to. 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.
There was the gold bracelet, entered now as conclusive evidence of where the teenagers had been killed. Times were simpler in 1982. As reported The police had seen the letter, and theyd questioned Frueh back in 1982 before letting him go. (Spence was found guilty in late March and given ninety years; he was allowed to remain at the jail because he was helping with Simonss investigation.)

About 25 yards from the spot where Tony had said Jill was murdered, Simons was suddenly overcome by a strong feeling. Things were about to get crazy, he said, and Melendez might want to consider talking. 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. Simons, who had become a private investigator after retiring from the sheriffs department in 2000 and now did work for Feazell, agreed. Dannen had a sample of the carpet sent to the Tarrant County medical examiner; the lab, Dannen told me, was unable to exclude its gold fibers from the gold carpet fibers found on Kenneths body. Dannen also managed to locate the two men he believed were with Harper that night; they were in prison for other crimes. 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. Getting Tony out will be the other greatest thing., Was Dannen about to solve the 32-year-old mystery?

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. I live with this case every day, he said. Thompson tidies the grave and inspects the mementos left by visitorsflowers, coins, ceramic unicorns (Jill loved unicorns, she explained). The nonprofit didnt get many wins in its fight against the death penalty, but Spences case was looking promising. David Spence was at the county jail awaiting trial for aggravated sexual abuse. He tried to interest national media outlets in the story, even sending a pitch to 60 Minutes, but every journalist passed. WebUPDATE: 10/26/05 Jeremy Jones was found guilty on all 4 counts of capital murder and on 10/27/05 the jury recommended the penalty of death in a 10 - 2 vote. On November 17 they spoke with Otis Douglas, an informant who had testified against Williams.



After a lengthy investigation, 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.



On March 30 Dannen was busy writing in his apartment when the phone rang. The idea that there could have been flaws in the Lake Waco convictions was no longer far-fetched. Price and Turk made quick headway. Simonss exchanges with the Melendez brothers had never been revealed to Spences defense lawyers.

Now there was a financial motive too. Truman Simons, a former Waco police sergeant who is credited with solving the case in award-winning author Carlton Stowers bestselling book, Careless Whispers, and later in a television movie based on the book, left the police department and went to work as a jailer to focus his attention on his primary suspect, David Wayne Spence, who was in jail on an unrelated aggravated sexual assault charge. Getting Calvin out was the greatest thing Ive ever done. Melendez had been suffering from multiple maladies, including bone cancer and kidney failure. Kari had a full life, not only as a mother and wife, but as an elementary school teacher.

The original case seemed to be unraveling before the lawyers eyes.

There was no internet, no cell phones, no social media, and major advances in modern law enforcement, such as DNA testing, were decades down the road. per adult.

I know that we didnt do this, he cried out in exasperation at one point. Melendez had always denied any involvement in the lake murders, but now Simons, encouraged by the headway hed made with Spence, began to press the inmate. Throughout the proceedings, Spence exhibited little of the calm hed shown during his first trial. I could never have asked for the death penalty if I didnt sincerely believe they were guilty. He has already raised doubts about the DNA evidence, saying he believes the material has been tampered with. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. For Jills family, the day was especially excruciating. 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.

I promise you that this wont be another unsolved murder case in Waco, Texas.. There were so many witnesses they wanted to call that they first persuaded Judge Norman Black to let them collect depositions instead of having everyone testify in court.

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