Based on his reporting, he felt sure it involved Harper, who was allegedly both a drug dealer and close to Kenneth, and two henchmen. 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. When he got on the trail of something, remembered Officer Richard Ashby, who patrolled the streets with Simons in the late sixties, you couldnt get him off. Police chief Larry Scott agreed. 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. I can tell you he shouldnt have been prosecuted for it., Far from Waco, in Louisiana, Spences ex-wife looks back on the past three decades with deep sadness. [6] Spence and both Melendez brothers were, at the time, already serving prison sentences for various crimes.[7]. Yes, Mikel said, Simons had shown him crime-scene photos and fed him information. He is mostly confined to his cell; he gets two hours daily in the dayroom, where he can watch TV, and two hours outside. After Jills parents divorced, when she was in middle school, the girl spent a lot of time at her aunts house. When they returned to Waco, Simons set about gathering information on the young man, talking assiduously to sources both in and out of jail. Then, in August, the journalist visited Washington in prison; he too agreed to provide blood. 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. Dannen, on the ground in Texas, immersed himself in the case. The inmate was also heartened when Walter Reaves took up his case pro bono a year later. It wasnt right, he said. 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. 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. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Its immoral to go forward with this much doubt.. He got tattoos: dice on his right arm, Harley wings on his left. He had a plan. Last April 3, David Wayne Spence was executed for the murders. He began working on a proposal for a book about the lake murders, and in September 1998 he sold the book to Simon & Schuster. [13] Brian Pardo, a wealthy Texas businessman, met Spence a few months before his execution and, on becoming convinced of his innocence, launched a campaign to delay his death sentence so that a new trial could be commenced. Sitting in his cell, he writes a letter every few weeks to Jan Thompson. I was going to get convicted of those murders whether I did it or not. All Dannen needed at this point was DNA from the crime scene. But the system failed in this case. Well, we got three jury verdicts convicting them. But in a case of mistaken identity, they had attacked Jill, and Raylene and Kenneth had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would later point out that the only thing the DNA proved was that neither Washington nor Williams had raped White; it did not exclude them from the crime scene. This story examines the case through the viewpoint of five people: a patrol sergeant who investigated the crime; a police detective who became skeptical of the investigation; an appellate lawyer who tried to stop the execution; a journalist whose reporting has raised new doubts about the case; and a convict who pleaded guilty but now vehemently proclaims his innocence. They also sought out Spences former attorney Walter Reaves, who was now representing another death row inmate with innocence claimsCameron Todd Willinghamand Raoul Schonemann, who was still doing work for the Capital Punishment Clinic in Austin and representing death row inmates. Hunt even got an insurance salesman to explain that Deebs insurance policy on Kelley was the kind often used to cover employees in case of accidents. Whoever did it wont just go to jailhe is going to pay for this. Despite some qualms about Simonss methods, he included the deputy on his team, along with the two cops most familiar with the case, Salinas and Baier. waco murdering kari She was David Spences mother. Dannen and Blum also tracked down Truman Simons, who was still a sheriffs deputy in Waco. She knew of the deputys reputation for relying on informants and had heard negative things about him from her fellow officers; as she would later say in a deposition, people arrested by the WPD were getting right back out of jail because they were supplying information to Simons. (Simons has always denied that he made deals with suspects, saying he didnt have the power. But later he told the police that he was out driving around the parks at about eight in the evening; this inconsistency, among other details, had prompted Detective Ramon Salinas and Lieutenant Marvin Horton to briefly consider Franks a suspect. But he hadnt felt any violence at Speegleville. There was no evidence of a boat, and there were no tire tracks around the Speegleville gate, which closed at eleven. Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. Dannen was preoccupied with his article but asked the publicist to messenger it over. If there was the possibility of any DNA being there, why didnt they turn it over to the proper authorities who could maintain a chain of custody? he wrote in another email. He wore a pair of half-tinted aviator glasses, which were slightly cocked on his face. The family gathered in the living roomJills parents, her brother and sister, another aunt, Thompson, and Thompsons husband and two daughtersas Dannen laid out his case for Spences possible innocence and Harpers involvement. He was so obsessivehe would never be satisfied until he had proved the case, nailed the story. When Simons had shown it to her, all she could say was that shed bought Jill one that looked similar. They met with Lieutenant Horton, who stated in an affidavit that the medical examiner had initially told him that marks on Jills breast were definitely not bites; it was only after she reexamined the photos and talked with Butler that she changed her opinion. Franks had originally told a newspaper reporter that when his son didnt return home, he became anxious that Kenneth might be in trouble and went out looking for him at four-thirty in the morning. I said, They didnt do this. (Simons has said that he got involved only after he received calls from a few of his informants. One night, driving home at midnight after a long interview with Dennis Baier, a discombobulated Dannen was pulled over by a cop for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. So someone would keep coming back to talk to you? Yes. He told me he didnt have any idea it would get so out of hand., Though Schonemann never saw this side of Spence, some of the inmates other lawyers did. Dannen felt light-headed, as if he had vertigo. But four years later she was laid off, and wanting to live someplace warm, she applied for a job in Texas. Product Details About the Author Feazell, now 71, and Simons spent years defending the investigation and jury verdicts. (Simons would later disagree and say that it was Price who fingered Williams as a suspect after his arrest.) Feazell brought him to the jury room. This didnt surprise his fellow officers; it was this kind of dedication that had helped him solve difficult cases in the past. I get people talking, and then I shut up and listen, Simons would later explain. They were the worst I have ever seen. Even Jills brother, Brad, who had been so vocal in his hatred for Spence, was stirred. 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. But at the end of the hearing, she walked up to the DA and gave him a message. Washingtons exoneration made news across the state. Pardo was intrigued. The lawyers worked nonstop, often juggling several cases at once in a race against the clock, filing appeals and motions up until the very hour of a scheduled execution. The woman survived and identified her attacker, a young man named Benny Carroll, who had been dating her granddaughter. He was awarded a Soros Justice Media Fellowship a year later; in its commendation, the foundation wrote that Dannens would be the first book to prove a wrongful execution has taken place in America. But the manuscript was not, in Dannens opinion, ready to publish. 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. February 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? $85.00. With Thompson and her husband present as witnesses, Chapman transferred every item to a representative of the Tarrant County medical examiners office. Every court the case could possibly go to upheld the convictions. That October, Feazell announced that his office was steadily putting together a puzzle where someone is trying to hide some of the key pieces., One month later, the puzzle was finished. I was hoping their verdicts would get overturned and they would be tried again so all the details about the investigation would come out.. Id heard he was claiming he did it. He still thought was going to get out, she says. Simons had searched Washingtons sisters apartment, where he had been arrested, and found a sweatshirt that appeared to have blood on it, as well as some tennis shoes whose treads Simons thought might match the footprint on Whites door. This spike in executions began to attract the kind of attention for Spence that had eluded him in life. It had been created in 1930, when engineers dammed the Bosque River, and now there were six parks along its edges, with pretty white-sand beaches. David Wayne Spences appeals were unsuccessful, and in April 1997, he was executed for his role in the killings. Ive paid for the bad things I did., Melendez, now 55, is short and muscular. Simons informed him that if he confessed and testified against Spence, hed almost certainly avoid the death penalty. Even if someone elses DNA is found, the state can be expected to argue that that doesnt prove Tony is innocent, only that another person was involved in the crime. Rob Owen, now a clinical professor at Northwestern University School of Law, is also pessimistic about Melendezs chances, having worked similar innocence cases. The killers propped Franks body sitting up against a tree and took the time to put his sunglasses on his face as if he were mockingly posed there on display. Kelley, he posited, had been the target of the killers. The nonprofit didnt get many wins in its fight against the death penalty, but Spences case was looking promising. Waco didnt get much credit for physical beauty, but this lake, just inside the citys western border, was a jewel, deep and blue. 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. WebIn 1982, three teenagers were murdered at Lake Waco. A lot of them had a lot of reasons and motivation to make up something. But what was taking so long? A word about the reporting. In return Melendez got two life sentences. WebShow Crime Shots, Ep Lake Waco Murders - 33 - Jun 19, 2021 Deebs trial, which began on February 25, lasted twelve days and featured forty witnesses, many of whom had testified against Spence, including one jailhouse informant. (The charge was indeed dropped, but Simons has said repeatedly that only the DA had the power to drop charges. In his letter, Snelson wrote that he had made his testimony up. All went to their deaths proclaiming their innocence. 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. They had been stabbed repeatedly and the two girls He was executed in Huntsville in 1997. White rushed the letter over to Russ Hunt, Spences trial lawyer. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. But first he needed to figure out if his evolving theory about the night had any credence. I do know that just about every one of the witnesses who said that Calvin or Joe murdered Mrs. White would say anything to benefit themselves. (In a deposition Simons gave in 1989, he said, I only talked to Angela Miles one time, and she said that she couldnt write a statement out, and as she quoted it to me, I wrote it out. He insisted that he let her examine it. I hope that Mr. Spence is still alive when I do so. He then called the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, though by the end of the conversation, he was convinced that Spence had no chance of a reprieve. UPDATE:Tony Melendez, the last living Lake Waco murders defendant, died on Friday, January 13, 2017, at 57 at a prison hospice at the Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony, not far from Palestine. He was so sincere and earnest, recalled Thompson. Truman Simons, who was with the Waco police department and had been one of the first respondents on the crime scene, also assisted the investigation in an informal capacity. Theyd killed Kenneth and Raylene to prevent them from talking. Vic Feazell was the McLennan County district attorney at the time, and his office gave Simons free rein to try to solve the triple homicide. This whole experience changed my life, radicalized me, he said. Private and Luxury. An HBO documentary released two months later, The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row, featured Spence in his final week. 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. We started with nothing, and we have found pieces literally in the dark and fit them together, a spokesman told the Waco Citizen. Dubbed the 'Lake Waco murders', three teenagers were found dead with numerous stab wounds, slashed throats, and evidence of sexual assault. Simons hypothesized that Deeb had hired David Wayne Spence to murder her and that Spence and two friends, Anthony and Gilbert Melendez, had seen the victims and mistaken Montgomery for the target. He didnt know a lot about the death penalty, yet when he read the writ, the inmates conviction didnt make sense. The lawyers pleas were ignored. On instinct, he kept returning to Jill, who he sensed had been the main target. Toward the end of last year, I began to hear from various sources that it was just a matter of time, maybe weeks, before the DNA results came out. He wasnt very intelligent. She had been a detective for only two years at that point, and they were after a vicious killer. via lakewacomurders.com. Within a few days, the first arrest in the case was made. Simons hurried over. per adult. He and Owen found plenty of evidence implicating others, yet little that pointed to their own client. I love you all, he said with tears in his eyes. On her first visit, shed demanded to know the truth, and then shed kept asking. Though the experts identified several patterns that were possibly bite marks, they couldnt go much further. Other evidence, meanwhile, had never been turned over to defense attorneys, including dozens of police reports that seemed to contradict the murder-for-hire theory. Her husband died in 2005, and her daughters often stop by to visit the retirement village where she lives, in Waxahachie. Convinced he was on the right track, Dannen shared some of his own suspicions with Thompson. 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. Lake Waco murders (1982, Waco TX) Johnny Gosch abduction (1982, West Des Moines IA) Rashell Ward murder (1983, Red Bluff CA) Roy Radin murder (1983, Gorman CA) Vicki Morgan murder (1983, Los Angeles CA) Beth Miller disappearance (1983, Idaho Springs CO) Gary Lauwers murder (1984, Northport NY) Eugene Martin Dannen rented an expensive high-speed scanner and began uploading pages and pages of court transcripts, case briefs, and medical reports onto his computer. As IVs were placed in each arm, he looked through the glass at relatives of the Lake Waco victims. The teens had been bound with shoelaces and strips of towel and stabbed a total of 48 times. 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. Their decision would prove pivotal: after two weeks of testimony, in a ruling that sent shock waves through Waco, Deeb was found not guilty. It was denied. Shes gotten me through the last year or two, he told me. ), On November 19 a furious Feazell dragged Price and Scott before a grand jury, cross-examined the detective, and demanded that she turn over her files on the White case. In 2004 Dannen finally finished a draft of his book. 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. After the trial, Feazell went on the offensive against Price, announcing that he was considering launching a probe for witness tampering, retaliation, and subornation of perjury by her and the WPD. 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