I believe that David Spence was an innocent person who was murdered at the hands of the state, Hunt said. Though several people had seen them arrive at Koehne, and Raylenes car was found there, no one had seen them leave. 
Feazell said he has never doubted that his office prosecuted the right men. Those kids were stabbed forty-eight times. 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. Their mother also urged him not to. He had now spent about $30,000 on testing, and the FSA lab had found nothing earth-shattering. As the trials for Spences accomplices approached, the discovery seemed to be a sweet validation of all his work. Feazell had called the charges a smear campaign brought on by the big boys in Austin because of the Lucas case; now the convictions in the Lake Waco murders offered irrefutable proof of his commitment to the law. Theyd killed Kenneth and Raylene to prevent them from talking. But when the book never came, Melendez sunk into bitterness and depression. Feazell, who had followed the trial from Austin, where he now worked as a private attorney, was also taken aback. 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. 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. Price and Turks investigation went through May 1988, when she took their findings to the FBI and the U.S. attorney in Waco. But Thompson had never stopped wondering if theyd made a mistake. WebLast Lake Waco triple murder defendant dies in prison After almost 35 years, perhaps the final chapter of the saga was closed Friday with his death. Spence had grown so dependent on their conversations that he would sometimes call Simons at home, waking him up to talk. (Simons would later disagree and say that it was Price who fingered Williams as a suspect after his arrest.) Within a few days, the first arrest in the case was made. After Anthony Melendezs death in 2017, Simons said Anthony Melendez initially denied his involvement in the murders but failed polygraph tests. Spence was executed in 1997, Melendezs brother Gilbert died in prison of complications from HIV in 1998, and Muneer Deebwho won an acquittal in a 1993 retrialdied of. At the time of Whites murder, in 1986, DNA testing was not yet an established practice; the first conviction in the United States based on DNA evidence did not occur until 1988, and it was only in the mid- to late nineties that genetic testing became widely used in courts. 
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. I have heard so many people who have read the book, Careless Whispers, or heard me talk about it on my podcast, and they say, I remember that my mom wouldnt let us go out. He wore a pair of half-tinted aviator glasses, which were slightly cocked on his face. He and Spence had been riding around in Spences car, he said, drinking and smoking, when they went to Koehne Park. It was only in December 2012 that theyd finally reclaimed the material; now it was at Arkansas Genomics, a lab in Little Rock that does touch DNA testing. [5] Those who had been involved in the initial prosecution were stunned. He was not persuaded that this evidence [was] material, he wrote of the TRCs findings. 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. Kelley, he posited, had been the target of the killers. It was around six-thirty on a summer evening in 1982, and the 39-year-old officer had just returned to his squad car after visiting his wife, Judy. Though he insisted he had been in Bryan painting apartments the day of the murders, he failed a polygraph, and jailhouse informants claimed theyd heard him say he was at Lake Waco. He asked an investigator with the DAs office to accompany him, and the two men wandered through Koehne Park. 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. [12] Spence's lawyers also discovered an alternate suspect in Terry Harper, a local thug with a history of knife-related offenses. Simonss plan had been forming ever since hed first learned about Spence. Though he had money from his book advance and a few movie options on his magazine stories, paying for the DNA tests had exhausted his savings. Washingtons exoneration made news across the state. Private and Luxury. He had a mold taken of Spences teeth, then personally delivered it and the photos to Homer Campbell, a forensic odontologist in Albuquerque who had helped solve the Amarillo case. 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. They kept us locked up. Until we made an arrest in that case, nobody knew who did it and they were afraid their child might be next.. Sentencing will take Simons turned his patrol car around and headed for Texas Highway 6 and the Twin Bridges that spanned Lake Waco. Im just an old country boy, he would say, but behind his self-deprecating manner were a sharp intellect and an insatiable drive for justice. The semen found on Whites body had never been tested for DNA, Dannen realized with excitement. These are serious allegations against public officials sworn to seek justice, read the response. I want you to understand I speak the truth when I say I didnt kill your kids, said Spence. 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. About 25 yards from the spot where Tony had said Jill was murdered, Simons was suddenly overcome by a strong feeling. Price continued investigating too, but she became increasingly frustrated with her partner. Bernadette Feazell, who knew Perry, arranged for the two to present Melendezs case to the governors deputy general counsel, Mary Anne Wiley. She used to find notes and letters from Jills old friends. 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. 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. Franks' body was found propped against a tree, with sunglasses over his eyes. If theres one thing for certain, its that the Lake Waco murder case does indeed stand on its own. But what is happening is wrong.. Pardo hired a blood-spatter expert, who concluded from crime-scene photos that the teenagers could not have been transported from one park to another; the blood, which had flowed from each body in predictable lines and had not smeared or intermingled, seemed to indicate that they had died where they were found, in Speegleville. Then the lawyers waited. [8], In January 1985, Gilbert Melendez also pleaded guilty to the murders and agreed to testify against Deeb. I get people talking, and then I shut up and listen, Simons would later explain. Every murder involves a vast web of people, from the witnesses and the detectives who first come to the scene, to the lawyers and the juries who examine the facts, to the families of the victims, who must make sense of the aftermath. White had struggled with her attackerher nose was broken, her ear torn, her body battered. Had Frueh called Franks because he had seen Kenneth in trouble? Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. A word about the reporting. When Schonemann arrived for work, in the summer of 1991, he was immediately enthralled by the TRCs pace. How that might happen remains to be seen. (Simons has said that he got involved only after he received calls from a few of his informants. Schonemann and Schwartz had no time to lose. Schonemann visited Tony and Gilbert again. Dannen would have to find evidence to support his ideas in other ways. In early March Feazell announced that he was creating a task force to take a new look at the Lake Waco murders. 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. McLennan County DA John Segrest, who had succeeded Vic Feazell, filed a blistering answer. A native of New York and an accomplished pianist, Dannen had a small build and an intense disposition, and he was known for his ability to get interviews with tough subjects, from Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates to New York drug kingpin Lorenzo Nichols. Simons said Anthony Melendez told him he also wanted to testify against Spence because he never told his mother he and Gilbert were involved in the killings. 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. She didnt make any changes, she didnt say anything was wrong with it, and she signed it.). The former DA remained confident of Spences guilt and felt he had nothing to hide; he was even contemplating filing a libel suit against Pardo for maligning him in Capitol Watch. Copyright 2022 KWTX. I dont know how many times he told me that Harpers sister was going to open up to him and say, My brother did it. Then he went to Richard FranksI dont know how many times he tried to get him to talk., Dannen was also growing increasingly nervous about his safety. Melendez was one of four men charged in the July 1982 murders of Raylene Rice, 17, Jill Montgomery, 17, and Kenneth Franks, 18, in what prosecutors say was a murder-for-hire scheme gone wrong. Two years later, the teenager turned up alive. Hed also be the featured protagonist in a best-selling book about the murders, Careless Whispers, which won the 1987 Edgar Allan Poe Award for fact crime book of the year. The crime struck Price as unbearably sad. I was out there, he told the deputy. Unfortunately, however, the odontologists took a long time completing their assessments, and as the October 1993 deadline for the depositions approached, the TRC team realized the full odontology report was going to be late. He thought the cavalry was coming, he told me. 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. When Campbell reported his results, his conclusion was different from Halesit was Williams, he said, not Washington, who had bitten White. Deeb loudly protested his innocence, claiming he knew nothing about the killings. . Dannen had paid for all the DNA testing himself; by the time the results came in, hed spent close to $10,000. The original case seemed to be unraveling before the lawyers eyes. I dont have any guilt feelings about causing their deaths.. The trial judges postponed Spences execution to give the state time to respond, rescheduling the date for December 19. The call was urgent: a body had been discovered at Speegleville Park, near Lake Waco. In a wide-ranging presentation that spanned more than three hours, he offered details about Deeb, who had died of liver cancer in late 1999; Simonss methods; the informants; and the confessions of the Melendez brothers. 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. Times were simpler in 1982. All rights reserved. I love yall and I miss yall. Schonemann had never felt so low. Thompson tidies the grave and inspects the mementos left by visitorsflowers, coins, ceramic unicorns (Jill loved unicorns, she explained). They couldnt all be lying. Because Melendez pleaded guilty, the burden to prove his innocence is especially great. All three victims had been repeatedly stabbed, and both of the women's throats had been slashed. 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. He spoke as if he were getting ready for battle. Within days, Butler got remarkable news: Campbell was certain that Spences teeth had made the marks. I know he put in many hours and sleepless nights, but I also know he raised hopes for people and didnt follow through., Lawrence Wright, who hasnt talked to his friend since 2002, recalls Dannens single-mindedness. 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. Yet by 2008, he was no closer to proving Melendezs innocence. $85.00. I dont know if I want to see an innocent man get freed or if I just so deeply want to know who the guilty people are. He interviewed relatives of the victims, such as Jills aunt Jan Thompson, and won over numerous Waco residents. 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. Feazell, who is back to being a lawyer, in Austin, still considers the lake murder convictions one of his biggest triumphs. Simons parked and made his way to one of the deputy constables, who pointed out two young men standing nearby. Even Hunt, who never believed the jailhouse informants, remembers speaking at trial with a bailiff at the courthousewhom he did consider a credible witnesswho told him, I know you dont think Spence did it, but he told me he did. Other lawyers also still wonder about the incriminating things Spence said over the years. Like his brother, he received a term of life imprisonment in exchange for this confession. According to Dannen, Reaves, and Bernadette, after a nearly three-hour meeting, Wiley appeared convinced that Melendez was possibly innocentand that Spence might have been too. 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. (Simons later testified that he didnt file reports because the WPD and the sheriffs office had different reporting systems and it would mess up the statistics.) And although Simons initially shared leads from his informants, Price told me that when she tried to corroborate their claims, several of them said Simons had instructed them not to talk to her. Whoever did it wont just go to jailhe is going to pay for this. Yet there was one nagging question: How to explain the many people whod heard him say he was the murderer? He was especially baffled by the question of where the kids had been killed. Many times Simons fed me specific pieces of factual information about the crime, he said in his affidavit, and then later asked me to relate the information back to him for one of my statements. Simons showed him crime-scene photos and had been the one who told him about the bra tied around Raylenes ankle. 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. 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. Kader had mentioned a rough biker character known as Chilihis real name was David, she thoughtwho hung around the convenience store. Well, why do you think that was?. Yet during his interrogation, Simons made another breakthrough. Simons knew Waco well. His hair is cut close to the scalp, and his close-set eyes are dark with worry. Dannen, on the ground in Texas, immersed himself in the case. 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.
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