The two asked for a stay of execution. Now, putting aside any remaining semblance of journalistic objectivity, he signed a paralegal agreement to work for Reaves, who offered to help get Washington out of prison pro bono. This, Schonemann felt, was Spences last good shot at a new trial. I dont know how he does it, said one of his fellow officers around the time of the investigation, and I dont want to know. (Simons declined to be interviewed for this story.). He claimed Trapani manipulated Padgett, threatening to fire her if she didnt help. This article is the result of a full year of researchdozens of interviews were conducted with the principal and minor players, and thousands of pages of transcripts, depositions, and affidavits, from the cases six capital murder trials and one aggravated sexual abuse trial, were carefully reviewed. Hale, at least, seemed to reassure her that Simons was on the right track. The trial lasted just over two weeks. Simons told the chief that Kelley had also said that Deeb was about to flee the state because the bank was foreclosing on his store. More important, Tony, in the expectation of getting help with parole, had agreed to give a more detailed statement and testify against Spence. Spences execution date was set for October 17, 1991. Last spring, I tracked Dannen down. One of those was Chief Larry Scott. It belonged to a housewife from Phillipsburg, Kansas. Most journalists who came to Texas after Spence was executed werent interested in him but in finding stories about the Texas criminal justice system, remembered Schonemann. Her brother, Brad, who had refused her request for a ride to Waco on the day of her disappearance, was so distraught and full of rage that Simons feared hed lunge at Spence as soon as he laid eyes on him; the deputy made him promise hed behave himself. You could say that Truman Simons and Ned Butler put the facts of the case in my mouth, and I put them into the mouths of the other guys in the jail.. In late March, he met with two of Bushs legal aides. 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. Hes gone, she said. David Spences hideous cruelty permeates the testimony of each man, Jones wrote. On that Friday, she said, I think Ive found out what happened. We asked Gilbert why he testified and he said, I dont lie to my mother. Eight informants, two of whom had been in jail with Williams, took the stand. A few days later I called Dannen again. To retrieve it, Dannen had turned to Thompson for help; as a relative of Jills, she had the authority to request that her nieces personal belongings be returned. Theyd seen Simons take over an investigation before. That June, Dannen tracked down Williams, who was still living in Waco. Still, what follows is not a legal document; some of the people involved in the case are dead, others dont remember much, and even othersincluding the patrol sergeant who investigated the case and the DA who prosecuted itrefused to be interviewed. A mold was promptly made of Williamss teeth too. Spence seemed more and more bewildered about what was going on in his mind. A fourth suspect, Muneer Mohammad Deeb, was eventually rele Simons, meanwhile, began to work on Gilbert Melendez. Our feeling of being satisfied, of getting justice, was taken away., In the summer of 2013, Thompson stopped talking to Dannen. 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. Williams put down his fork. This is where they say those three teenagers were killed, he said Spence told him. Simons crouched down next to her lifeless body. No, Melendez said, flashing a rare smile. One testified that he had heard Deeb ask Spence if he knew of someone who could get rid of Kelley for a share of insurance money and that Spence had replied he could do it. As a police department, we were totally unprepared for the complexity of this case., Simons in particular seemed to be deeply affected by the brutal scene hed encountered. He had more or less abandoned his life back in New York and dedicated himself entirely to solving the Lake Waco murders. In 1982 a brutal triple homicide shook the city of Waco and soon became one of the most confounding criminal cases in Texas historyone that still haunts the many people who have tried to solve it. When Simons contacted Price, he told her that he already had a suspect. If Id gone to trial, Id be dead. By testifying, she would find out and spare him the pain of telling her directly, Simons said in 2017. Nonetheless, Spence was set to be executed in four days. Im going to see my mom.. He was so obsessivehe would never be satisfied until he had proved the case, nailed the story. But he was lonely at the jail. Nothing like this had ever happened in Waco, Officer Dennis Baier would remember years later. [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. For Feazell in particular, the victory could not have come at a better time. WebThe Vic Feazell show is a primary source podcast featuring practicing attorney and former McLennan County (Waco,TX) District Attorney Vic Feazell and co-host Jonathon Zemek. Fred was interested in David Spence.. I didnt have any idea, Gilbert said in the deposition. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. They kept saying, Tell us the truth. If this was true, then the confessions of the Melendez brothers were decidedly false. 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. David Wayne Spences appeals were unsuccessful, and in April 1997, he was executed for his role in the killings. 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. Though she didnt take part in the investigation, she followed it avidly, and she was relieved when David Spence, Muneer Deeb, and Gilbert and Tony Melendez were finally put away. Two years later, the teenager turned up alive. Both later recanted their confessions. A fourth suspect, Muneer Mohammad Deeb, was eventually released after spending several years in prison. They matched exactly, Campbell told a reporter. Former McLennan County District Attorney Vic Feazell, who had prosecuted Deeb, stated following the trial, "I am perplexed and bewildered, as I'm sure a lot of people are. Times were simpler in 1982. I was hoping their verdicts would get overturned and they would be tried again so all the details about the investigation would come out.. The shocking crime was more confounding because it seemed so random in nature. Baier and Salinas decided theyd focus on the rest of the city and leave the jailhouse world to theirold colleague. The deputy had also heardfrom other officers or his informantsthat White had been bitten by her assailant, and so on March 17 he visited Washington in jail and asked for his permission to take a dental mold. Feazell and Simons were hailed all over McLennan County as heroes. There, in the dirt, lay a gold bracelet. McLennan County DA John Segrest ordered that a sample be sent away for DNA testing and received results in February 2001. It was such a relief, she told me, to know there was somebody who understood how I felt.. When I asked Dannen why he hadnt tried to help free Melendez earlier by publishing everything he had, he said, It wouldnt have made any difference for Tonyabsolutely none. But four years later she was laid off, and wanting to live someplace warm, she applied for a job in Texas. Kari had a full life, not only as a mother and wife, but as an elementary school teacher. When Williams was nevertheless found guilty and given a life sentence, Price was so peeved that she stepped up her informal investigation. Then, within a week, the DAs office asked for all the police files on White. 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. Such was the animosity between the two men, said several witnesses, that when Deeb learned of the murders, he laughed, saying he was glad Kenneth was dead. I believe that. White, the investigators learned, had gotten off work the previous night at nine-thirty, after her shift at Uncle Dans Barbecue, where she bused tables and washed dishes. We have a better shot at freeing Tony now than ever before, he told me. Like Spence, he was given the death penalty. She was a tomboy who had grown up wanting to be a cop, like her grandfather, and joined the Detroit Police Department in 1977. Did you say it to be a big man? He said yes. 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. Is my mother with you? Sixteen months after White was murdered, Hunt and Fuller filed Spences direct appeal with the CCA. She was sure it would result in her sons exoneration. Hunt, who still believed that Spence was innocent, made copies, one of which he sent to the U.S. attorneys office. Kenneth had last been seen with two girls from Waxahachie, a blond seventeen-year-old named Raylene Rice and a brunette seventeen-year-old named Jill Montgomery. 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. On September 9, Simons walked by Salinass desk and saw the case file lying out. I have always had my doubts and never really thought he was a guilty and still dont, Reaves said of Spence. 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. Schonemann found himself without a job. We will always love you, they wrote. The crime received national attention and became known as the Lake Waco murders. I think were really close, said the usually cautious Reaves in late January. Waco Men Were Victims of an Investigation Gone Awry ran an Associated Press headline. I killed them. Though he then apologized and said he was joking, Kelley felt certain he was not. When Gilbert Melendez got through testifying, there was dead silence in the courtroom, Feazell said. They had the rope around my neck, ready to kill me.

He stopped Kelley mid-sentence. Then the lawyers waited. The family was impressedand heartened when Dannen told them he planned to publish his findings in his book, which would be out in about a year. In return Melendez got two life sentences. She wondered about Tony; if he was indeed innocent, surely Dannens discoveries could help exonerate him somehow. The grass around the girls was flattened, as if theyd struggled with whoever killed them, but there was no knife, very little blood on the ground, and no semen anywhereeven though the medical examiner eventually determined that the girls had been sexually assaulted. After talking, the brothers refused to take the stand against Deeb. But the judge ruled the evidence irrelevant to the case against Spence and refused to allow it.

Simons hurried over. That dude did it, he said. We held Truman on a pedestal for so long. She interviewed Washington and Williams again. Later that day, when Simons returned to see him, he had something to say. Hed driven that road many times, and as he crossed the reservoir, he looked out over the water. I thought, How can you put someone on death row without evidence? They knew they had to attack the jailhouse testimony; if Robert Snelson had lied, they figured, other inmates probably had too. Im not a forensic expert, but I feel the case has taken a turn, he said. Its Hummingbird Season in Texas. Every now and then I think I should not have gotten this personally involved, but I felt like Tony needed to have someone on his side, she told me. For Fred, Texas was as exotic as a foreign country, remembered Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for the New Yorker (and a former TexasMonthly staffer), who hosted Dannen and Blum in his home, in Austin.

As in Whites case, the assailant had kicked in the door; he had also stolen her purse. As Scott would later recall, Simons said he would solve the case in a week.

Feazell didnt have to rely as heavily on the murder-for-hire theory; thanks to Simons, he had new ammunition. Every court the case could possibly go to upheld the convictions. The states case was based on the theory that Deeb had hired Spence and the Melendez brothers to kill Kelley for insurance money, but that Spence and the brothers had mistakenly killed Jill because she looked so much like Kelley. The evidence is telling us things it never could tell before because the technology wasnt there, he said. McLemore and Pardo had recently met Spence when the two were invited by a prison ministry to visit the Ellis Unit. Feazell, who is back to being a lawyer, in Austin, still considers the lake murder convictions one of his biggest triumphs. But at the end of the hearing, she walked up to the DA and gave him a message. Well, it didnt, but what was significant to me was that they never submitted DNA from their own clients. It was denied. Even the judge sat there in dead silence. Spences attorneys made a stronger case for prosecutorial misconduct than the state had made against him for murder. Ive paid for the bad things I did., Melendez, now 55, is short and muscular. No one had heard any screams. 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. The girls cashed it at a supermarket and drove to Kenneths house. He was already serving a 99-year sentence in the unrelated aggravated sexual assault case, and Feazell and his first assistant, Ned Butler, were intent on seeing Spence die by lethal injection. A word about the reporting. Melendez gave it some thought. But that didnt change the truth. Schonemann visited Tony and Gilbert again. He had never been to Texas before, and he hired Peter Blum, a retired police detective and friend whom hed met while reporting on Chinese gangs, to go with him. He also played audio from Feazells tapes, including one in which Feazell spoke disparagingly about Simonss investigative methods. He introduced himself to her after the trial and they were married less than a year later. He tried to interest national media outlets in the story, even sending a pitch to 60 Minutes, but every journalist passed. (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.) The whole community was just in shock. But he hadnt felt any violence at Speegleville. Simons, who died in November at the age of 78, also locked his sights on Jordanian national Muneer Deeb, who owned a convenience store across the street from the Methodist Childrens Home. We used to fight. 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. 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. He accepted it and said, Im going home. Thompson was making a chocolate cake, and Jill, who had recently lost a lot of weight, asked for a slice. By then Schonemann had lost his most important cohort: Owen had received a job offer in Kentucky and left the TRC. Even Feazell was won over.

This time it was sent to Homer Campbell, the expert in Spences trial, along with Washingtons mold and Whites autopsy photos. The trial judges postponed Spences execution to give the state time to respond, rescheduling the date for December 19. March 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? (The charge was indeed dropped, but Simons has said repeatedly that only the DA had the power to drop charges. Feazell, who had followed the trial from Austin, where he now worked as a private attorney, was also taken aback. The original case seemed to be unraveling before the lawyers eyes. Price was astounded to find that a few days before her death, White had received a letter from Spence that had been sent to him by Robert Snelson, one of the men who had testified against him; he was the informant who told jurors that Spence had confessed to biting off Jills nipple. The lawyers also found persuasive reasons to doubt the bite-mark evidence. 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. WebGUN RIGHTS, Happy Ending, harry storm, KWTX anchor, Lake Waco Triple Murder, law enforcement opportunities, nra, oprah winfrey, Parnell McNamara, Parnell McNamara Re Election Campaign, Pat Swanton, Uncategorized, unsolved murder, unsolvedmystery, Waco 2 Comments July 30, 2019 2 Minutes HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE B.S. 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. 2023 National City and Regional Magazine Awards Finalists Announced, Texas Monthly Receives a Nod From the American Bar Association, HBO Max Releases Official Trailer for Love & Death, Two Assistant Editors Join the Texas Monthly Staff. Not once did I hear Well beat this, youre innocent, he said. He was continually unnerved by Feazell, who seemed to enjoy provoking him: during jury selection, for example, as Spences lawyers questioned potential jurors, the DA passed him taunting notes (Youre drowning and your lifeguards dont swim! read one). It began to dawn on both lawyers that the Spence case was going to be different from any they had handled before. Everyone strained to catch a glimpse of the accused killer, who had gotten a haircut and wore a suit and tie. He thought he could outsmart Simons, she said, and used the jailer to get phone call privileges with Juhl. 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. Both Melendez brothers had testified that they had used the vehicle to transport the teenagers bodies to Speegleville Park. 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. The case was a slam dunk for prosecutors, who presented the same type of evidence in Whites murderinformant testimony and bite-mark evidencethat had been used against her son just a few years earlier. This made for an awkward arrangement, since Simons and the WPD officers had been on cool terms after hed left the force. Simons turned his patrol car around and headed for Texas Highway 6 and the Twin Bridges that spanned Lake Waco. If they execute me on April 3, he told the camera, it will be a cold-blooded, calculated murder. Dateline would eventually follow with an hour-long show, in January 1998, that questioned Spences guilt. Washington, however, remained in prison, and Dannen decided to examine his case. But the hairs did not implicate anyone in particular, and eight weeks into the case, there was simply not enough evidence to make any arrests. Sitting calmly nearby, Simons would tell him to let it all out. Im tired of lying. A lot of them had a lot of reasons and motivation to make up something. Reaves, who had also represented Joe Sidney Williams, suggested that Dannen take a look at the Juanita White case. After her familys long heartache, Thompson felt, Dannen was finally going to bring her niece true justice. In return Melendez got two life sentences. It wasnt right., But does that mean Spence was innocent? . Whi Source: About | 1 On December 18, the day before Spence was to die, the lawyers filed for a stay of execution as well as a federal habeas corpus petition, citing 25 grounds for reversal.

Officials believe the teens first were confronted by their killers while they were drinking a few beers at Koehne Park off Lake Shore Drive, with their bodies later dumped at Speegleville Park off Highway 6. One said the photos were of such poor quality that he refused to compare them against the molds. 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. In late 1999 he felt a spark of optimism when he received a couple of visits from Fredric Dannen, who interviewed him for his book and told him about the DNA testing being done on the crime-scene evidence. Most murder victims know their assailants, but there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason for the deaths of these three teens. He was especially baffled by the question of where the kids had been killed. WebThe 1982 Lake Waco Murders refers to the deaths of three teenagers (two females, one male) near Lake Waco in Waco, Texas, in July 1982. Abandoning hope that he would ever print the truth, she destroyed her journals and shredded all the documents shed collected related to the case. Pardo set up a war room at his corporate headquarters and hired additional investigators. 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 on the edge of town. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. 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. Though Price had been the police departments investigating officer, she wasnt called as a state witness. The two lawyers hit the road, driving all over Central Texas to interview as many original witnesses and jurors as they could find. He began working on a proposal for a book about the lake murders, and in September 1998 he sold the book to Simon & Schuster. I believe that by confessing, I saved my life.. Some cases were the kind hed seen before, like Schonemann also cant escape the past. After closing arguments, in which Feazell likened the store owner to Judas Iscariot for his dirty hands in the killings, Deeb was found guilty in less than two hours. 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. The big difference was the first trial was based almost entirely on jailhouse witnesses and jailhouse snitches. There was some hope, he told Spencethere were still petitions pending. I dont have any guilt feelings about causing their deaths.. WebAnthony Melendez talks about the Lake Waco murders during an interview from prison in 2013. This spike in executions began to attract the kind of attention for Spence that had eluded him in life. 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. Also considered was the confession Deeb had made to the two young women about his involvement in the killings and the life insurance policy he had taken out for his employee. When they returned to Waco, Simons set about gathering information on the young man, talking assiduously to sources both in and out of jail. Yes, Mikel said, Simons had shown him crime-scene photos and fed him information. An innocent man has been charged with this crime and is very likely going to be convicted in state court and sentenced to death, they wrote. Krauss did, choosing five experts around the country. Soon after Simons began his new job as a sheriffs deputy, working the graveyard shift from midnight to eight, he and Spence began having regular conversations, often about the Lake Waco case, which the inmate clearly enjoyed discussing. 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. WebWaco attorney Walter M. Reaves filed a motion asking for the DNA testing in the Lake Waco trople murder case Wednesday. But Melendez later recanted, saying he had only confessed because hed been threatened with the death penalty. Lets go right now, he said. Dannen reached out to Franks to learn more, but for almost a year, he refused to sit for an interview. She first reached out to him a couple of years ago, and the two developed a correspondence. Nancy, who had seemed receptive to Dannens ideas in 2001, re-embraced Simonss theory, telling anyone who asked that Feazell had convicted the real killers. He sent gifts to Russ Hunt, including an elaborate stagecoach made out of popsicle sticks and a clock made of matchsticks. 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. 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. The trials began in May, with testimony from dental specialists supplementing the evidence that the prison witnesses had provided. The crime struck Price as unbearably sad. Both were sexually abused. Simons knew Deeb: he was a 23-year-old Jordanian immigrant who ran the Rainbow Drive Inn, a convenience store across the street from the home. 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. He had been working on the lake murders in his spare time, he told his boss, and he wanted permission to take over the case. Feazell, now 71, and Simons spent years defending the investigation and jury verdicts. I acknowledge that I am not in possession of all the facts, he wrote, but I cannot fathom why, if there is new evidence that casts doubt on the states case against Mr. Spence, he should be executed without a hearing. Dannen added that he planned to look into the case for a magazine story. Dannen found a middle-aged man still mourning his son. WebThe story of River Road Counseling and Consulting Services actually begins on May 14, 1973. I told her I was exhausted after talking with Baier for five hours.

WebTop ways to experience nearby attractions. [12] Also, one of the victims, Kenneth Franks, was later alleged to have been an associate of Harper's in the drug trade. Ill testify, said Melendez. Though hed ended up retracting all his statements, Gilbert now told Schonemann, he had agreed to testify against Spence at his second trial because it looked like it was just a hopeless cause. Spence had already been found guilty; what would a jury do to a two-time felon who was Mexican American? Now she hoped she could help free Washington and Williamsand cast some light on the DA and his investigator. But the world that she and Turk were investigating was so shadowy that they never got anywhere on the Lake Waco case.