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[Music] The story I have for you today is truly one of Houston's most brutal cold cases.
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One that still haunts the city to this very day. But cold doesn't mean unsolvable. This is the story of Andy
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Atkinson and Cheryl Henry. When 19-year-old Shane Henry pulls up to give her older sister Cheryl a ride to
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work on the morning of August 23rd, 1990, she does what most teenagers do in the pre-ell dark ages. She lays on the
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horn and waits. Shane's got to get to work herself. So, she's like a little peeved when she has to go inside. More
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peeved when she realizes that Cheryl isn't even there. If she was going to like catch a ride or not go or not be
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there, like a heads up would have been nice. But now Shane is running late, so she kind of just like scoots without
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giving it much more thought. At least not until she gets a call at work that morning at around 10:00 a.m. And it's a
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friend and a coworker of Cheryl's and she wants to know where Cheryl is because she just hasn't shown. And
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that's when Shane's stomach drops. Although she's not quite sure why because she knows that Cheryl was out
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the night before with her new boyfriend, Andy Atinson. like Shane had actually been out with them too. She dipped
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around 11 to give the love birds some like time alone, some space. So in her mind, the most likely scenario is that
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her sister just overslept or something. But still, Shane can't kick this uneasy feeling. So she actually asks for
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permission to leave work early. She's told no, though, which I feel like is pretty messed up, like if you think your
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sister is missing. And before long, like the whole family knows what's going on.
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The whole family is worried. And Shane just wants to join Cheryl's friends and family who are already out there looking
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for her. So, Girl is out the door the second her shift is up, racing to the family home where her mom Barbara and
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her stepdad Dan are waiting anxiously. Now, by now, hours have passed since everyone has realized that Cheryl was
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missing. Where's Andy? Well, so that's the thing. No one can find Andy either. And by the time Shane gets home, she is
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ready to break glass. Like, look guys, we need to call the cops. something is wrong and Barbara doesn't need
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convincing. So, the police are called and a missing person's report is filed. And then Shane is like right back out
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the door ready to hit the city streets with Cheryl's friends searching for the couple and for Andy's white Honda, which
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they were in the night before. But nearly 4 hours later, they are no closer to finding them. So Shane's heart skips
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a beat when she walks back in and sees her mom on the phone looking worried. and she can only hear one side of the
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conversation, but it feels bad. It's like, "Yes, yes, yes, that's my daughter. Where are
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you? We'll come right now." After what feels like an eternity, Barbara hangs up and announces that it was a security
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guard on the phone. And I guess this guy works for a local food distributor and he called because he found Cheryl's
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purse with her number inside. and it was on the floorboard of an abandoned white
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Honda. So, this place that they go to, it's this really undeveloped area near the Cisco office. The Cisco is the
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building the security guard worked at. And it's on this dark, desolate street, which is known to people because it's
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known as Lover's Lane. And it also runs along this big open field leading into a
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big wooded area. And it's popular with young locals for obvious in the name reasons. And Shane says that it doesn't
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strike her as super weird that the couple would have gone there. I mean, they're both living with family.
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22-year-old Cheryl with her mom, her stepdad, and her little Brady Bunch like kind of family. And 21-year-old Andy,
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who is new to Houston, he's living with his grandmother's. So, in less than 2 weeks, Cheryl was actually planning on
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moving in with Shane, like they were going to move in together. But until then, privacy was a hot commodity. So,
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heading out to Lover's Lane checks out for the couple. But what the guard hadn't found anywhere near the car was
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Cheryl or Andy. So the security guy is like what? Rumaging through a random car he found. Like that feels weird to me. I
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thought the same thing, but Shane actually gave us a rundown of the day and it makes a little more sense the way
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that she explains it. I guess the guard had found the car for the first time like way earlier in the day on his
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rounds, but he wasn't concerned until it was still there hours later, right? And
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so that's when he decided to check it out. and the windows were rolled down, the seats were reclined and the key was
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in the ignition in the idle position. Those are all very bad signs, right? Red flags, which is why he called them. So,
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that's the scene when Cheryl's family and friends start showing up, desperate to find some sign of the missing couple.
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And right away, they zero in on some cigarette butts stained with lipstick on the ground near the car. The lipstick
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looks a whole lot like it was Cheryl's. And when they peek inside the car, they see something that the security guard
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hadn't mentioned. Something more ominous than lipstick stains on cigarette butts.
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They see deep, dark stains on the inside of the driver's door. Blood. They're not
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sure, but it looks an awful lot like blood. So much so that they do a kind of like back away slowly kind of thing.
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Like the last thing they want to do is contaminate what could be evidence. But how did the security guard miss that? I
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mean, wasn't he in the car? Well, in this area, there are no street lights and it's dark by now. So, my guess is
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that the headlights from all the cars that are now there from everyone who came. Maybe he's making it easier to
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see. They also probably are like bringing lights in. I don't know. Whatever they have is definitely more
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light than like a lone patrol car would have provided. And Andy's car battery is
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dead from the car being left in idle. So there probably were no overhead lights like at the time. Now in 1990, no one
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has a cell to call 911. And by the time they see all of this, the security guard
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is like on the other side of that big field walking the tree line with one of Cheryl's friends. They're just like
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searching over there. So Shane races to the Cisco building with Cheryl's best friend. And they go inside and get the
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person at the front desk to call 911. And then they wait and wait and wait for like 30 or 40 minutes, but no one shows
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up. What? No cops, no first responders, no fire trucks, nada. So, the girls have
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to actually go back and have them call 911 a second time. And this time, the response is immediate and overwhelming.
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A response like, "Oh, there are two missing kids in a bloody car." Like that. Yeah. So, this army of cops and
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first responders get to work. They search with helicopters up in the sky. They have sent tracking canines on the
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ground. Like, the works. And a little after 11:00 p.m., Shane watches a scene unfold. And she told us that to this
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day, it like plays out in her mind. It is pure chaos. There's just so many people bustling around. She was like
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walking up to her dad in a dazed when out of the corner of her eye, she sees an officer say something to her mom and
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then she just hears this blood curdling scream. And to Shane, it looks like the officer like catches her mom from
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falling when she howls. And it's like there are no words. It's just these like guttural primal shrieks. And Barbara
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actually says later in reporting for KO1 that the officer holding her up is also
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holding her back from running towards the area across the field where there's just this like sudden flurry of
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activity. And Shane can't even process it all. She turns to ask her dad what's wrong. Like what happened? Why is
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everyone so upset all of a sudden? And I don't know if he's been briefed or if he's just like putting two and two
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together, but he responds with the last two words that Shane is prepared to hear. She's
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gone. And in the blink of an eye, investigators surround them, like coring them towards their car, saying like,
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"Listen, we're so sorry, but like you have to leave now. This is a crime scene." And the entire family is
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thinking like, "How how can they leave Cheryl out there?" But they don't have a choice. So they go and investigators
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have to get to work. Body had been found by a scent tracking dog about 200 yd from Andy's
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car just like barely into the wooded area past the field. When she's found she's naked, lying face down on the
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ground and her hands are actually bound behind her back with rope and she has what looks like jagged wounds to her
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head and her neck and her throat has been slashed. And her killer, it seems, made a half-hearted attempt to conceal
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her body under some pieces of like wood from this like rotting fence. And then they find her clothes nearby, a single
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$20 bill as well. Her pretty turquoise summer dress with like red accents had actually been cut from her body. And
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Shane thinks maybe her underwear had been to, she told us, which suggests to investigators that whatever horrors
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Cheryl had been met with probably involved a sexual assault. Now, at this time that they find Cheryl, there's
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still no sign of Andy. Though, as they secure the scene and get Cheryl to the morg, searching for him does continue.
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But by the wee hours of the morning, they decide they need to break till sunrise. This is all absolute torture
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for Andy's dad, Garland. He got to the scene not long before Cheryl's body was found and he like set out walking the
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treeine too only to be hustled away almost without explanation. And Garland passed away recently actually in October
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of 2024. But I found an interview he did with Linda Sheldon Fel for a series that
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she hosts called Moments of Hope. And when he's talking to her, he gets choked up because he talks about this HPD
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officer who actually asked to stay at the scene until the search could pick back up at sunrise. And he explains that
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at the first hint of daylight, that officer starts walking the same treeine that Garland walked multiple times the
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night before, like taking things in, looking for anything that might have been missed in the dark. I mean, looking
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for Andy. And out there all alone, it's that officer who stumbles on this grizzly scene because there Andy is
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sitting at the base of this enormous tree tied to the tree with rope. His legs like stretch out in front of him
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and he's facing the woods. And like Cheryl, his throat was slit so deeply though that he was nearly decapitated.
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When I hear all of that, my mind instantly goes to like like the Lake Waco of all, right? I thought the same
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thing. And listen, for anyone who hasn't listened to our Lake Waco episode, so it
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was like a a two-parter that we did recently, I'll try and link out to it in the notes, whatever. But I agree, it's
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got some like eerie similarities to this case. Like the second I heard about Andy, that's what I thought about. But
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you got to think about this. No one at the time is thinking there's a possibility of a connection because by
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the time Cheryl and Andy were murdered, they already had people in prison for the Lake Waco case. I was going to ask
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about the timing. Right now, knowing what I know now, to me, that means nothing. But back then, no one is
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screaming serial killer. But to go back to Andy. So Andy's fully clothed. His hands are bound behind his back. And
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where the injuries to Cheryl's neck were kind of like jagged and imprecise. I guess Andy's throat had just like one
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clean slash. And how far is he from where Cheryl was found? Uh, I don't know exactly. I've seen like everything from
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like 75 yards to 150 yards. So, I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that Jill Tyer's report says there
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aren't any obvious defensive wounds on Andy. It says the same about Cheryl, actually. But we actually reviewed both
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autopsy reports and I don't think that's actually accurate for her. Like girl went down fighting. And there's this
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weird thing about the crime scene that I haven't mentioned. I'm not sure when investigators notice it like before or
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after Andy's body is found. I mean, but reporting for KO11 says that a golf club
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and golf balls from Andy's car had been like laid out in the field in like this line that was pointing to Cheryl's body,
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which to me is just like extremely weird. And clearly like someone wanted them to be found. Yeah. Now, I think
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it's helpful at this point if we talk through the scene in terms of likely series of events because spoiler alert
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answers are hard to come by in the coming years and there's not a ton of reporting on how it all would have
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unfolded. The broadstrokes are this. The thinking is that there's some kind of blitz attack when the two are in the car
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and somehow they're then taken to the tree that Andy was tied to. So theoretically it could have just been
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one guy, but my money is on two. So that's something that investigators are going
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to debate for years. It could be either. I think I mean I think it's again I think the thing that's clear is that it
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started with the attack on Andy in the car because of all the blood that's on the door and then either they would have
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had to hurt him enough to like prove a point like I'm not messing around. Follow me. Cooperate. I have a weapon.
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Like I'm going to walk you out. Or maybe Andy was fully incapacitated by whatever happened to him in the car,
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which to me that definitely means you would need multiple people to get him out to the tree and keep Cheryl
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cooperating, right? One way or another, their hands get tied behind their back. Remember, Andy doesn't have defensive
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wounds. So, either he's cooperating because again, there's a threat to hurt Cheryl or him, or he's incapacitated and
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can't even fight back. And then Cheryl either makes a run for it and they catch up to her or they walk her to a
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different area. But when they get her over there, they cut off her clothes, assault her, and kill her there where
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she was found. According to reporting for KHO1, investigators tell Garland that they do think for some reason that
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she was killed first. I don't know their reasoning. That's never fully explained,
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but that's the theory. Did they get any biologics from the autopsies? Like anything that they can get DNA from?
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Yes. And yes. So even though 1990 is super early for DNA science, the detective who works this case the
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longest, this guy named Detective Billy Belk, he knows what a powerful tool DNA is shaping up to be. So from like day
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one, he asked the higherups to have evidence processed at this special lab that has the tech to detect DNA, which
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has to be a long shot and super expensive. Expensive, right? You're not wrong. But you know the saying, you miss
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100% of the shots you don't take. So, Detective Bel decides to shoot his and it works. He gets the okay. The lab hits
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per. They're able to build a suspect profile from the seaman in Cheryl. But downside of early days DNA, no database.
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There's nothing to compare it to, right? No amount of evidence is going to replace the grueling work of boots on
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the ground investigating. So, detectives start interviewing family and friends, and they start working their way out
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from there. Now, neither family knows of anyone who would want to hurt Cheryl or
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Andy. They're both really good kids. They weren't wrapped up in anything shady, and everyone loved them. But
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Cheryl's loved ones do offer up a couple of names that peak detectives interest.
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Let's call them Lance and Aaron. So, Lance is the boyfriend of a friend that Cheryl had been kind of on the outs with
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recently. Dude, like I guess skipped town the morning after Cheryl was found. more than the town. He skipped the whole
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country, like took off for St. Lucia. And it seems like this was no planned holiday either. Lance's girlfriend tells
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them that she didn't even know anything about this trip. Like he didn't even mention that he was going to go to St.
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Lucia. What? Yeah. So, when detectives end up reaching him on the island, he agrees to come back to Houston. He sits
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down for an interview, and when they ask him for a DNA sample, he's cool with that, too. When the comparison gets run,
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Lance is ruled out. He's not their guy. Which leads me to Aaron, who ironically enough is the kid of a cop, or maybe a
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former cop. Not totally sure. He is Cheryl's ex from like middle school and high school, and he doesn't share
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Lance's cooperative spirit. I'm not sure if he officially lawyers up or if he talks to investigators or any of that.
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All I know is that when they ask him for a DNA sample, he refuses. doesn't give a
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reason, just no. Shane told us that the cop dad is straight up offended that they even would ask. So, there's that.
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She also told us this weird story about Aaron showing up at their house like the
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day after Cheryl died and kind of just standing there like at the end of their driveway like didn't say a word, didn't
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come any closer, just stood there. That's so weird and kind of creepy. Detectives think so too. So does
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Barbara. Shane said she actually kind of got it. She told us like she always liked Aaron. He'd always been decent to
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her sister and she's like I think he was in shock like kind of like the rest of us. I don't know this standoff between
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detectives and Aaron over his DNA. This goes on for years. And like on the one hand totally his right but on the other
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hand like you got to know this is going to look bad. And what are you hiding? Why not give your DNA? Right? Because of
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all the male friends and acquaintances that they approach during their investigation and in these years, and
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there are a lot, he is the only one who won't give a sample. And they're not getting hits on anyone else that they're
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testing. And so for years, everyone is side eyeing this guy. But you can't hide forever. Though in a lot of cases we've
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covered, actually you can, but it like it's very frustrating. But not here. Not with this case. Detectives again, years
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later, finally get a warrant for Aaron's DNA. Hopes are high that they're about to solve this case that has haunted the
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city once and for all. When the results come back, everyone is probably holding their
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breath. But Aaron is not a match. Okay, but if there was more than one killer, that's a big if, isn't it? Like,
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and to state the obvious, that same logic applies then to all the men who have been ruled out like so far through
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DNA comparison. Like, unless you've got an airtight alibi or something, which I'm I'm sure some of them do, but I
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don't have insight into any of that. Who was ruled out through alibi? Who had an
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alibi when their DNA was ruled out? I don't know. All I know is at some point in the '9s, the suspect profile does get
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entered into Cotus when Cotus becomes a thing, but there are no hits in Cotus. And that activity on the case, it kind
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of just like es and flows then throughout the years. Like it picks up a little bit in the mid '9s when a reward
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is announced, but like nothing happens. It's just like dead end after dead end. And in all this time, there are no like
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really viable suspects. No. Like that's what makes this case so challenging. It truly felt completely random, like this
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killer blew into town, committed one of the most heinous crimes these officers would see in their careers, and then was
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gone before the sun came up, never to return again. Or at least that's how it seemed for many years. But one day in
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early 2001, detectives get this very strange letter in the mail and it's addressed to HPD. But the return address
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says Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson. No address, but I'm going to have you read it for us because I mean this is wild.
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The letter says HPD. If you want to know who killed C Henry and A Atkinson, it will cost
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$100,000. Reply Hugh Chronicle personal column mun 3121 only. A lawyer will be hired to
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make sure you play straight. Anon and Hugh Chronicle and Houston Chronicle is like the Houston Chronicle and Mun is
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Monday, I think. So, and an I think is just supposed to be anonymous, but it's weird, right? Ah, please tell me they
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play along with this though. They do. They do exactly as they're told. They publish their reply in the Houston
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Chronicle basically like, "We hear you. We want to play ball. Tell us what like to do next kind of thing." And they keep
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all this on the download. Like the public doesn't know a thing about this letter at the time. So like even when
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they publish their reply, the the public like doesn't even know what they're looking for or to look for it. But when
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they publish this, it's just radio silence. They never hear from that letter writer again. They even try
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having the envelope processed to like see if there's DNA or fingerprints, whatever. That's a dead end, too. And
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the case is more than 10 years cold by this point. And once again, like with after this letter, when this leads
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nowhere, like they're out of leads. Now, I haven't touched on this yet, but Detective Bel, remember, he has been on
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this case from like day one. Over the years, he builds a super solid relationship with Cheryl's family. And
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what are solid relationships based on? Trust. How do you earn trust? Transparency. And that's what he's been
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giving them. Like he doesn't share anything that could jeopardize the investigation of course, but he has been
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keeping them in the loop step by grueling step which has given them like all along this sense of like yes,
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Cheryl's case is actually being actively worked by one of the best. Yes. Which is
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like what so many families want. And in all honesty, this case is like his great
00:22:14
white whale and he really wants to solve it before he retires. And because of all
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this transparency that he was giving them, Shane actually shared a 2005 email chain with us. It was between them and
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Detective Bel or Detective Bel and Barbara. And in this, Detective Bel lists out all of the men who have been
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excluded based on the DNA evidence, which at that time was 17 names deep. He even assures them that in this list, the
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infamous railroad killer, Raphael Rescendez, has been ruled out thanks to Cotus. Now, just for clarification, like
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no one has placed this guy in Houston at the time of the murders, as far as I know, but like I know he was in the
00:22:56
state in July of 91 when he killed a man in San Antonio. And that's like 3 and 1/2 hours away from Houston, but like
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duh, he's the railroad killer, right? Like dude got around. I don't have any context about like how or why or when he
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slid onto like the investigation's radar. So, giant grain of salt here. I was just like I was surprised to see his
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name on that list. I thought it was worth mentioning. But here's his name of people who were ruled out. They're
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they're obviously trying. They're working hard. By 2007 though, Detective Bel has come to terms with the fact that
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his dreams of solving the case before he retires actually might elude him. He's been with HPD by that point for 20
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years. and like it's his time. So he turns in his badge and gun admitting like this kind of defeat for him like
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his great white whale got away. So to be a fly on the wall when his phone rings the very next week and
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he's told that this could be it. They finally got a hit in Cotus after all these years. Except there's always an
00:24:03
accept, right? Yeah, the hit isn't a person that they've linked to his case. They've
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linked his case to another case. A brutal like with a capital B sexual assault case also there in Houston. So,
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this guy is still there. Not so fast. The sexual assault wasn't recent. In fact, it happened 2 months before Cheryl
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and Andy were killed. I'm sorry. The backlog is that deep. I have no idea why, but the victim's
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sexual assault kit was never processed for 17 I was going to say four almost decades. Yes. And it wasn't the only one
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sitting untested either. I mean, far from it, although that's like a whole another podcast. The good news in that
00:24:55
one though is the victim in that sexual assault case was still alive when detectives went and tracked her down in
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Galveastston County. And she tells them her story is so basically she got off work as a dancer at a club at around
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2:00 in the morning one morning in June of 1990. According to reporting by Lindsay Wise in the Houston Chronicle,
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she was staying at her pilot boyfriend's place and he was off like flying a plane
00:25:20
somewhere. So, she came home to an empty house, apartment, whatever. Or at least
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it should have been empty. So, she walks in, kicks off her shoes, has a bite to eat downstairs, and then heads upstairs
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to go to bed. And that's when this man lunged out at her from a dark room. I mean, it is the stuff of actual
00:25:38
nightmares. And here, I think the best thing to do is just have you read an account from Wise's reporting.
00:25:43
[Music] The man wore a fishnet stocking over his face, black gloves, and a dark shirt and
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pants that matched, possibly a uniform. He held a long-barreled handgun in his left hand. "Where's Randy?" he asked,
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referring to her boyfriend by name. He taunted her, putting the gun to her head and cocking it. He bound her hands
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behind her back with gray duct tape before taking cash from her purse. He then duct taped her eyes and mouth shut,
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threw her on the bed, and shoved a bag or pillowcase over her head. Like, you know what happens next? When the whole
00:26:23
thing was over, he forced her down onto the floor and told her that she better stay there because he might be gone in
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minutes. He might not be, and it would be bad for her, basically, if she like got up while he was still there. So,
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when she finally does work up the courage to get up, she finds that her phone line had been disconnected. So,
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when they're piecing this together from this victim, like 17 years later, there's something like weird that
00:26:48
pops out in her interview because they learn that she had actually worked for Andy's dad, Garland. And this is at a
00:26:56
different club than I believe that she like the one at the time. But guess who worked as a bouncer at Garland's club
00:27:03
every so often? Andy. There was also this mention in KOU that the first victim said the perp had this quote like
00:27:11
very forceful military type stance. So people start to wonder if maybe maybe this guy was a bouncer, maybe he was a
00:27:20
security guard like Andy. Is there a reason though? I mean to me it's just as likely that he was a customer at the
00:27:26
club. No, totally. I mean, I think I think the reason they're coming up with this is like the combo of like the dark
00:27:32
or uniform like clothes, but I mean like absolutely he could have just been a customer or maybe he wasn't part of the
00:27:38
club scene at all. I don't know. Except as far as investigators are concerned, the possible connections only get
00:27:45
stronger when they factor in that Cheryl had worked at another club for a short period of time. Like she and a close
00:27:52
friend had applied to be bartenders or like cocktail waitresses or whatever. Like I say it was like kind of like a
00:27:57
mutual dare. I'm sorry. There's no way that all of this is coincidental. That's what I thought too. Like the suspect
00:28:05
pool just got like so small. And so the media goes wild with this when they find
00:28:11
out. However, like all these years on there hasn't been anyone in particular that has popped out from that scene or
00:28:20
whatever. And actually, Cheryl's family swears that too much has been made of this whole thing. Shane told us that
00:28:26
Cheryl worked like a few shifts the summer before she was killed at a club. So, like this is like a year plus prior
00:28:33
and she decided really fast it like just wasn't for her. Okay, so that part might
00:28:38
be coincidental. But when this guy attacked the first girl, he was looking for her boyfriend. Calls him out by
00:28:44
name. Maybe Cheryl and Andy's attack was about Andy, possibly, except there's something that confuses me about that.
00:28:53
So, the dancer, the thing I haven't told you, she got a good look at the guy, like albeit he had like a smooshed face
00:28:59
because of what he was wearing. She definitely heard his voice, but she didn't recognize him either. Like, not
00:29:05
as an employee at the club, not as like a regular customer. In fact, she tells HPD that she had always assumed her
00:29:12
attacker was someone from a moving company that she had beef with. So, who knows? What we do know is she sits down
00:29:22
with HPD's forensic artist. She has a composite sketch drawn of the man that she can still picture all these years
00:29:28
later. She says he's tall. He has olive skin, dark hair. And as Michelle Homer and Sherman Chow report, she thinks he
00:29:36
was somewhere in his like late 20s, maybe early to mid30s. Hold up. How old was that security guard that found
00:29:43
Andy's car? Uniform military stand. I'm always skeptical of security guards who are like the first on the scene. So, and
00:29:51
HPD was too. Like he was actually one of the guys who was ruled out with DNA. So,
00:29:55
probably one of the first, I would assume. So, not him. But whoever this guy is who attacked our first victim and
00:30:03
then Cheryl and Andy, he's a ghost. The sketch that's published in 2008 doesn't generate any promising leads. And that
00:30:10
in 2008 was the last real update in this baffling case. So when everything with Lake Waco basically unraveled, did
00:30:20
anyone go back to see if there like could have been a connection? if they did, that was never like reported. It
00:30:29
never made it into reporting. And keep in mind, like just how much Lake Waco unraveled is in the eye of the beholder.
00:30:37
And if the beholder is the great state of Texas, it never unraveled at all. Like sure, Munir Dee won his appeal. He
00:30:44
was acquitted at a retrial, but the convictions of the other three defendants were upheld. And the official
00:30:50
party line is that they all died in prison, guilty men, including David Spence, who was executed in 97 for his
00:30:58
supposed involvement. And if you remember, like there have been a few attempts pushed by
00:31:05
like private parties to test DNA evidence in the Lake Waco case, which there is DNA evidence in the Lake Waco
00:31:10
case, but all of those have either been unsuccessful or have stalled for reasons
00:31:15
that are like too convoluted to get in here. Again, go listen to the episode. The long and the short of it is, as far
00:31:21
as I can tell, no DNA profiles from Lake Waco have ever been entered into Cotus.
00:31:26
I don't even know if they were fully processed cuz again, there was no COTUS when Andy and Cheryl were murdered. Lake
00:31:31
Waco was even years before that. And at that point, it was closed. Yeah. And to me, to me, this is like baffling and I
00:31:36
can't even understand why they wouldn't. But but this goes back to like the whole first case where it's like
00:31:42
they they want to be right more than they want to find the truth. Mhm. But Cheryl and Andy's case, this case is
00:31:48
still unsolved today. Before you ask, yes, they have considered genetic genealogy. It might even be in the works
00:31:58
or not IGG exactly. A lot of reporting seems to conflate familial DNA with genetic genealogy. And the HPD declined
00:32:06
to give us a comment. So like I couldn't get a ton of clarity to be exact. They told us they had to respectfully decline
00:32:11
to comment due to the sensitivity of the investigation, but they didn't elaborate
00:32:16
on that choice of words. So, we tried reaching Detective Bel, too, who was retired. We couldn't get a hold of him.
00:32:24
And in all the years, like since Belk left, I think things have kind of broken down between HPD and Cheryl's family.
00:32:30
So, they're not even in the inner circle at the moment, which to me doesn't feel
00:32:34
like an option. like you don't have to be on the inner circle, but I think they deserve a yes or no. Like, are you using
00:32:42
this new technology to solve my family member's case or not? That seems like it should be a basic right for a family to
00:32:49
get. Now, I mentioned earlier that Garland passed away super recently. When I read his obituary, I had to
00:32:57
like it was tough to get through because like he when his final wishes are mentioned, including his wish to be
00:33:03
buried next to his son back home in North Carolina, like it's it's tough. And I mentioned that because I think it's easy
00:33:12
for people to overlook just how radically the loss of a child, especially in like such a horrific way,
00:33:19
impacts like every last second of your life for your afterlife, too. Like whatever you think that is. Like his
00:33:26
final wishes were his testament to that. Like that like it it literally followed
00:33:31
him to his grave. Once you've become the parent of a murdered child, like there is no unbecoming it. you have joined the
00:33:38
worst club on earth and you're like stuck. And of course, it goes so far beyond the parents, too. Like, I mean,
00:33:44
take Shane and her younger twin brother and sister, Chris and Meredith. They're 12 years younger than Cheryl, 9 years
00:33:51
younger than Shane. And Shane says that the second that she and Cheryl met them,
00:33:55
and I say met like, you know, they're newborns, you know what I mean? But the second they met them, it was just like
00:34:00
kismmet. They had like found each other's soulmates, she said. Like, that's how it felt. Cheryl ran straight
00:34:06
toward baby Chris and Shane ran straight toward baby Meredith. And from that day
00:34:10
on, that's like how it was. Cheryl and Chris, Shane and Meredith until one day it wasn't. And it devastates Shane to
00:34:17
know that Chris lost who was his soulmate that day in 1990. It's just like it's just unfair. It's so and it
00:34:23
just feels like it's the wrong word to use for this, but like so unfair. So, I'm going to close out this
00:34:30
episode with the same plea that I make at the end of every unsolved case. Someone out there knows something.
00:34:37
Confess to someone or has confessed to or someone out there can do something. If that's you, Crime Junkies, please
00:34:44
call the Houston Crimestoppers tip line at 7132228477. Garland Atinson died without
00:34:52
ever finding answers or justice or peace. But maybe the loved ones who are still alive today won't have to. In
00:35:00
honor of Andy and Cheryl, we made a donation to the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children. We're
00:35:06
going to link out to them in the show notes, and we encourage anyone who can to do the same. You can find all the
00:35:12
source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkypodcast.com. You can also follow us on Instagram,
00:35:18
CrimeJunk Podcast. We'll be back with a brand new episode. But don't forget, you
00:35:23
can find all of our episodes on our wide feed, Crime Junkie Podcast, wherever you
00:35:28
listen to podcasts. [Music]