The puzzle is still currently ongoing and its progress can be followed here. In 1987, Don Henry and his friend Kevin Ives were found dead in Bryant, Arkansas on the railroad tracks near their homes. The following day, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. At the time of her death, Ted Hercutt told the News Sentinel in 2009, father anddaughter were embroiled in litigation over a piece of property. "And everybody who worked for her obviously she was pretty strong-willedbut she had very loyal people whoworked for her. It was September 27, 2004, when the family of 22-year-old Rebekah Gould received the news they were not hoping to hear - her body was discovered in a ditch, bludgeoned to . Rector survived the surgery and was put on trial, his defense arguing that Rector was intellectually impaired and not competent to stand trial. Her possible birthday is 22Jun1862--d. 1936 around Grenola, KS. Other evidence revealed that the victim briefly lived in Shreveport, La. Susie m. Isaac Piner. He found the usually locked front door ajar but no one home. If youre interested in learning about both solved and unsolved Pulaski County murders, you can find information regarding many Pulaski County murders trial with a simple search, and often times you can find all of the crime scene information if the case is solved. Over the years, 7,797 of those murders were solved, leaving over 2,100 unsolved murders in Arkansas today. Although there are around 2,100 unsolved murders in Arkansas, most people with an interest in true crime may only know some of the better-known murders. He also consulted a handwriting expert and Paul Chitwood, an attorney who had previously done legal work for Roberts. Rector then shot himself in the head in a suicide attempt. Here are 10 more mysteries to explore. Some of the biggest unsolved murders in Arkansas include the 1994 murder of Melissa Missy Witt, the 1995 murder of Marlo Taylor, and the 1987 double murder of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, among countless others which receive much less media attention. OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. There are rumors of an unidentified figure in military fatigues loitering in the area before the train ran over Kevin and Don. He died in 196830 years after Hazel and Nancy Frome. Some of those chapters chronicle Holocaust survivors that Jared interviewed throughout the years. Usually, its a quiet whisper because you dont want anyone to know you committed this horrible heinous crime.. Sevier County Sheriff Monte Stringfellow says that they responded to a call at a home in the 300 block of Dogtown Road, just after 11 p.m. Thursday night. Deputy dining at IHOP makes arrest for disorderly conduct, JONESBORO Arkansas State University has released the list of students who were awarded diplomas on the undergraduate and graduate levels during the 2017 Spring Commencement ceremony May 13 in the Convocation Center. Lavinia and her husband were sentenced to death in October 1845. The suspect's race was an important factor in the case, as the hair of black male was discovered in one of the sheets used to wrap the victims. If you enjoy coverage like this, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it. SEVIERVILLE At first glance, it looked like Dawn Shannon Hercutt went for a late-night drive, veered off the roadand plummeted 125 feet to her death. Hailing from Forrest City, Arkansas, Larry Porter Chism is wanted by the United States Marshals for charges related to his escape from the Lonoke County Jail in the December of 1978. This case, I had to use more anonymous sources because people didnt want to talk about it, Jared said. At the sound of the alarm, the exit from the room containing the diamond was blocked by a gate descending from the ceilingbut the thief left the lawn chair in the doorway to keep the gate from dropping all the way to the floor. According to this same report, in 2019, 242 people were murdered in Arkansas. There were, however, plenty of clues. Despite this, the many different law enforcement agencies in Arkansas will never stop trying to solve all of Arkansas true crimes, and seeking justice for the victims. 4. Sheriff's Deputy Courtney Kizer, the public information officer, said Wednesday the case is still active and they "are still investigating all possible leads." "The Hot Springs Police Department and the Watts family are asking for help from the media and public to bring light on this case as it will be one year as of Dec. 29 since this horrendous crime took place," Anaya said, noting they are seeking any information leading to the arrest of the individuals involved. Whether you agree or disagree with the amount of justice served in the courts decisions, theres no doubt that these terrible murders or even the punishments served by the perpetrators will be erased from the minds of Natural State natives anytime soon. The Packard was found abandoned 56 miles east of the spot where the bodies were discovered. (KTHV) - We've shared with you 10 unexplained mysteries of Arkansas, but don't think it stops there. According to Project: Cold Case, from 1965 to 2019 there were 9,951 murders in Arkansas. His hope is that his work will lead to justice for families who have suffered without answers for too long. He was convicted of theft by false pretext and sentenced to a ten-year prison term, and was later convicted on four counts of forgery in Dallas. A third possibility caught the attention of the FBI, which entered the case to investigate a possible obstruction of justice. The 2013 murder of Patricia Collins, the 2009 murder of Terry Sullivan, the 2006 murder of Hosea "Junior" Prince, the 1977 murder of Stanley Smith, and the 1996 murder of Lela Mae Adcock can also be found listed under a separate category of Tennessee murders, unsolved central Tennessee murders. But subtle clues soon tipped off her loved ones that there was more to the story. He had been beaten to death early on the morn- of June 4, only a few short hours after his stepmother Sissy had lost her first bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to Dolph Briscoe. It was one of many reported "airship" sightings that swept the country in the late 19th century. But Jim Parsons is determined to solve the mystery. Hercuttwouldn't have been out driving that late. But Shannon's life was stopped short on a late summer night on August 3rd, 2009. HOT SPRINGS -- The new year began with some homicides still unsolved. Now she was appearing on national television to accuse her father whom she described as a "pathological liar" who made her "fear for her life" of having her sister killed. Investigators said the case remains under investigation. "Yes the kids were in there and when the kids saw it they ran to a neighbor's house where they called 911," said Sheriff Stringfellow. More specifically, the crime rate in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2018 was 1,446.15 per 100,000 residents. Chitwood decided a court of inquiry was necessary, and Judge Dee Brown Walker agreed. Few reporters have covered as many murder cases with the passion of long-time journalist and author, George Jared. Jjesus Anaya, a Hot Springs Police Department public information officer, told the newspaper on Nov. 30, while appealing to the public for help in the almost year-old case. She was last seen chasing fireflies with her friends on the outskirts of the ball fields. It is a different world now. When her mother, Colleen Nick, came to get Morgan to go home, she found no trace of her daughter. Cicada 3301 is the name of a group that has annually for the past three years at least created what's essentially an online scavenger hunt for the technologically savvy. And Nancy and her mother might be alive todaybut they arent. When police found a 21-year-old female brutally murdered in her hotel room, the mystery was just beginning. 2. The area where White was found is part of Hot Springs National Park and on federal land, resulting in both the National Park Service and FBI taking the lead on the investigation. He learned the concerning details of the crash from employees of Hercutt's vacation rental property business, and the family requested an autopsy just in time. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. The real Wick claimed she didn't know the victim. An El Paso truck driver reported seeing a black sedan following the Packard early on the afternoon of the murders; several hours later the two cars passed him going the opposite direction, followed closely by a third car with mysterious markings on the side. Packard stopped making automobiles in 1958, and garages willing to repair cars overnight vanished long ago. Thank you! All rights reserved. He claimed to have sauntered into the Witte carrying a lawn chair and a concealed hammer. No one knows precisely what he is doing today because Tex Roberts and Jessie Forsyth vanished mysteriously from his suburban Dallas mansion six years ago and havent been seen since. A few examples of Arkansas cold cases which have been solved by DNA in recent years include the 2000 murder of Tawana Blunt and the 1985 murder of Mildred Lee Matheny, as well as many others. Leave them blank to get signed up. John Burnett was apprehended and hanged a month later in Fayeteville as well. That autopsy found Hercutt suffered headinjuries she couldn't possibly have sustained in the crash. In the nearly 20 years since her disappearance, Morgan's story has gained national attention. They were partially undressed but had not been raped. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! McCarter, the chief detective, would not releasethe initial report a decade after the crash. Ted Hercutt, his then-wife and his other daughter, Penny Stephens,were vacationing some 380 miles awayin Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when authorities respondingto an alert from Shannon Hercutt'sOnStar safety system found her dead inside her SUV. Explore. The Sevier County Sheriff's Office, he insisted, has not forgotten about the killing. $2000.00 Reward leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or person (s) responsible for the death of Billy Jean Phillips, she was murdered in her Madison County home on September 2, 1994. They may have information. Authorities have always been tight-lipped about the details of thecase. The 2019 homicide rate in Arkansas, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Report, was an 8.0, meaning that Arkansas murders rate showed that roughly 8 individuals per 100,000 residents of the state were murdered in 2019. Mary Isabel Piner/Ball/Johnson lived in Madison Co. AR came from NC and TN to AR. Its available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format. You may find yourself wondering, Why is Arkansas crime rate so high? Although there is not a single, nor a simple, answer to this complex question, it can be assumed that Little Rocks crime rate is higher than smaller towns in Arkansas due majorly to its size and population. Other than Horton himself, no one except Ardis ODell Reed may know for certain where Tex Roberts is, but after he was released on $15,000 bond, Ardis ODell Reed vanished for over two years. After trekking through the woods, they eventually found the source of the light. Despite Rector's mental state, then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton made a point of returning to Arkansas to oversee Rector's January 24, 1992 execution during the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign. Sep 16, 2019 NEA . Theres a possibility that a law officer may have been involved in her murder.. But he would like to. 2009 KSLA-TV & Raycom Media. Over the years, roughly 7,797 of those murders in Arkansas were solved, leaving over 2,100 unsolved Arkansas murders today. All police have is a single description, plus the certain clue that the King must have had close contacts in Dallas society. Valuable jewelry had been ignored. The property had been sold to a management company created and owned by Horton. He owned several businesses, along with nearly 1,000 acres of land. Either way, the murders that took place in Arkansas left a mark on the state and made headlines in the news. Ted Hercutt, for example, said the SUV's airbags did not deploy,there were no skid marks at the scene and an electronic device in the Escalade showed it was going just 7 mph before it wrecked. On August 19, 2011, they entered Alford pleas, which allow them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict them. These cases that involve Arkansas have yet to be solved and victims have yet to see justice. While most of the stories share similar motifs, the legend seems to have emanated from a report published in 1980. He discovered that another elderly woman who had sold real estate to Horton had disappeared in 1969, in an apparently unrelated case. The transaction, according to the indictment, was to have taken place in a Houston motel room, but just as the exchange was about to begin, the group was held up and robbed by a menaced man brandishing a shotgun. Stephens had been outspoken about the case in years past, speaking with local media outlets, offering cash rewards for information and expressing a lack of confidence in the investigation. As for the police, they too have changed. The memo also says the backups were supposed to be delivered to a Huckabee aide. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The cars spare tire had no inner tube; perhaps the Fromes had stopped to fix a flat tire, only to encounter a not-so-good Samaritan. Sevier County Sheriff Monte Stringfellow says that they responded to a call at a home in the 300 block of Dogtown Road, just after 11 p.m. Thursday night. All rights reserved. On Aug. 31, 1997, Garland County deputies found the bodies of 17-year-old Teela Hudson . One caller even told the Jefferson County sheriff's department that he saw a mushroom cloud-like explosion in the vicinity of the fire. Sumpter and McLemore's account isn't without precedent. His large, 300-pound frame had been set on fire and burned beyond recognition. The paper reported that authorities hadn't yet found the precise cause of the fire, but were convinced it wasn't connected to the "meteors." Once Hazel Frome and her daughter Nancy had decided to drive from San Francisco to Parris Island, South Carolina, they might have chosen the northern transcontinental route instead of the southern road through El Pasobut they didnt. Unfortunately, it seems there may never be an end to the growing number of Arkansas homicide and true crime stories in Arkansas, although advancements in forensic technology gives us hope that we can finally see justice for many cold cases which have remained unsolved for decades. (It was still working.) Arkansas, USA : C : Hoyt Franklin CLINES March 25, 1981: 1: Arkansas, USA : Johnie Michael . In old interviews, Ted Hercutt openly acknowledged his status as a suspect but consistently denied any involvement. Arrests were made, some jewels recovered, but the King himself was never caught. Cherry was initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but upon appeal of his conviction, his sentenced was reduced to 30 years. Or their Packard might not have developed a noise in the motor just before they reached the Texas border citybut it did. More specifically, in Little Rock, Arkansas most populated city, in 2018 the homicide rate was 20.07 per 100,000 residents. Unsolved Murder in Sevier County. We've shared with you 10 unexplained mysteries of Arkansas, but don't think it stops there. In January 1975, Carolyn Dianne Zachry of Ashdown paid two men (the exact amount is in dispute) to kill her husband -- the men took Curtis Eugene Zachry to a remote location under the pretense of. Mathis was lying next to the road in a driveway with "what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds. (The independent Roberts kept no servants.) Uncovered is where the most passionate true crime enthusiasts can learn from and teach others. The local Packard garage might have had the necessary parts to repair the carbut it had to order them and wait five days instead. Then in January 1971, Bergeron received a Christmas card from Tex which had been mailed from Homer, Louisiana (population 4483), located near the Arkansas border. Rumors swirled. Authorities found Banks' body not far from his vehicle, mutilated and tied to a tree. Today (Friday, August 16) is the official release date for Jareds new book. It's unknown whether or not they were Kevin and Don. In January 2007, outgoing Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee made a peculiar request of his staff: destroy the office computers. At first, her mother was uncertain, but eventually let her go. Main Page; Discuss; All Pages; Community; Interactive Maps; Recent Blog Posts; Netflix series. Golden was released on May 25, 2007, also his 21st birthday, after spending nine years in prison. Huckabee briefly addressed the issue in 2007, saying the hard drives were destroyed to "protect the privacy" of people whose information was stored in the data. Friday Sept. 8, Bausdell and Stewart Ownby two huntsmen came upon a skeleton of a human being about a mile and a half from the . Her body was found in a nearby ditch. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The case remains unsolved and is shrouded in mystery. Some examples of the most gruesome murders which you can find on their list of unsolved murders include the 1998 abduction and murder of Brittany Locklear, the 2000 murder of Keke Jefferson-Moore, the 2001 murder of Michelle Howard, the 1992 murder of Tammy Zywicki, the 1994 murder of Melissa Witt, the 2017 murder of Brandi Seals, and the 1985 Texarkana Siblings Charged in Burned Bodies Case. Police believe she was abducted before she was tossed in the ditch. Miller county sheriff's deputies have charged a brother and sister with the murders of two Texarkana men who's bodies were found inside a charred car. The pair were believed to have been seen together at a truck stop in Missouri, which is where the murders are presumed to have taken place.Hendricks was left at the crime scene, while Mills was found in Mississippi County, Arkansas. 2023 www.knoxnews.com. The search centered for a while on a young gigolo, but the police could prove nothing. The couple's son's are now in the custody of relatives. Hobbs had a history of child abuse and was reportedly the last person seen with three boys. Robbery certainly had to be considered; there was no money on the corpse, but there was an expensive waterproof wristwatch. James Hendricks and Kimberlin Mills (known as Jimmy and Kim respectively) are American murder victims who were discovered on June 17, 1978. When investigators arrived at the scene, they say Timothy Sharp began approaching from behind the house and he did not have a weapon. The first victims, Jimmy Hollis, 25, and Mary Jeanne Larey, 19, were attacked while parked at a local lovers' lane. At the time it was thought he had been caught in a bear trap, frozen to death and thrown aside. On June 4, 1968, while the museum was open to the public, a thief smashed the display case and snatched the jewel. Get more stories delivered right to your email. Tommy Sevier, Jr., age 25, and Samantha Sevier, age 19, both of Texarkana, Arkansas are each charged with two counts of capital murder.On February 16th, hunters found the bodies of Patrick Dickey, 22, and Billy Drumm, 32, both of Texarkana, inside a charred vehicle on a hunting lease in Doddridge. Further complicating the case was the mysterious "Mr. Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? Anyone with information regarding Frazier's death is asked to email sheriff's Investigator J.D. Public Domain/Wikimedia. January 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? If you have an interest in learning more about the statistics and data surrounding crimes in Arkansas, you can easily find multiple law enforcement agencies which release annual reports on their websites that show, in detail, the crimes in that area. In those halcyon days the dollar seemed like a good investment, and so the diamond found its way to New York, where it was purchased by E. B. McFarlin of San Antonio in 1956. On November 11, 2009, Vance was convicted of capital murder, residential burglary, rape, and theft of property. The report was []. Her case received assistance from the FBI, was the subject of several television specials, and inspired her mother to establish the Morgan Nick Foundation. On April 30, shortly after 5 p.m., the body of Joseph Darnell Frazier, 48, of Hot Springs, was found in the 2500 block of Glazypeau Road. - A poem titled "New Lite" sparks memories of an old, dark secret. According to Project: Cold Case, from 1965 to 2019 there were 9,951 Arkansas murders. Two days after Roberts disappeared, Horton filed deeds to virtually all of Roberts real property, including the mansion on Spring Valley Road, at the Dallas County courthouse. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. The siblings are being held without bond.Captain Toby Giles of the Miller County Sheriff's Department says interviews and good police work led them to the suspects. All three were murdered. "And I think that sometimes it takes years and years to solve a case. A successful businesswoman,Shannon Hercutt founded her company,Auntie Belham's Realty and Nightly Rentals, as the demand for vacation rental properties in the Great Smoky Mountains skyrocketed in the 1990s. If youre interested in learning about the statistics surrounding the number of murders in Arkansas by year, multiple law enforcement agencies offer reports and statistics on their websites. If you should happen to spot a short, muscular man with a long stride walking down the street with a screwdriver in his hand, wearing cheap rubber rain shoes and surgical gloves and possibly even a handsome piece of jewelry or two, Walter Fannin would like to hear from you. BOONE COUNTY, Ky. - Cold case detectives at the Boone County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky are investigating any possible connection between an unsolved double murder in 2011 and the 2017 . You don't have to tell us who you are, but please tell us what you know," the release said. Madewell recalled drivingbackto Sevier County from Ohio the day after Hercutt's death on Aug. 3, 2009. Email Map. "Even though an arrest has not been made, it's never been put on a shelf and ignored," said Sevier County Sheriff's Office Chief Detective Jeff McCarter, who worked on the case back in 2009. Authorities also discovered that the names in the Bible belonged to a family the victim stayed with while living in Dallas. Little is known about the puzzle's creator(s). Even Rudolf Nureyev would have difficulty performing such a feat. This date marked the first woman executed in Arkansas since 1845. But only nine months after Clinton won the White House, Parks was gunned down in West Little Rock. Without a doubt, the most famous murders in Arkansas, as well as the most controversial and infamous Arkansas murders case, is the 1993 triple homicide of 8 year olds Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, more commonly known as the West Memphis Three case. No conclusive proof of their cause of death has ever been established. Police were summoned to the scene, but officers took the report via the drive-thru window and never entered the building to interview the suspect. On the night of the fire, local authorities were besieged by reports of the fireballs in the sky. Rector was convicted on both counts and sentenced to death. There's just something that comes together at some point, and I truly believe that it will here, too. Email him at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @travdorman. All of the links in this post refer back to the author's references. 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