00:00:12
NANCY GRACE: Fort
Worth, Texas, 1974. Carla Walker and her
boyfriend Rodney McCoy
00:00:18
are at their high school's
Valentine's Day dance. They got into
Rodney's car, and they
00:00:23
did what most teenagers do. They started making out. And just within a few seconds,
Carla's door swung open,
00:00:31
and an individual
was standing there. And when Rodney looked up, he
saw a gun pointed in his face.
00:00:38
So this person started
using the gun as a weapon and beating Rodney on
the back of the head,
00:00:43
knocked him into
unconsciousness, and pulled Carla out of the
vehicle and into his own car.
00:00:51
NANCY GRACE: When Rodney
McCoy regains consciousness, he calls for help. For three days, police searched
for 17-year-old Carla Walker
00:01:00
until they make a
gruesome discovery. One officer peers down in
the culvert and sees Carla.
00:01:11
NANCY GRACE: Police want to
know who could have done this and what would the motive be.
00:01:16
I don't know if killing was
necessarily on his agenda, but I think he definitely
was looking for a young girl
00:01:23
to rape. The case goes cold
for nearly 50 years. Will Carla's case
ever be solved?
00:01:30
And can a revolutionary
new forensic tool called genetic genealogy
help police catch the killer?
00:01:39
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." Fort Worth, Texas, 40
miles west of Dallas.
00:02:10
It's a big city today,
but not in 1974. West Side of Fort Worth
was safe, family-oriented,
00:02:20
lots of stuff to do. Our neighbors were not only
neighbors, but family friends. I went to the same
high school that Carla
00:02:27
went to, which was maybe
half a mile from my house. It was a good
neighborhood growing up.
00:02:36
Carla Walker, she was
a junior in high school. She was on the pep squad
team, and her boyfriend,
00:02:42
Rodney McCoy, he was a senior. And he was the high
school quarterback. So they really were
your quintessential
00:02:48
all-American couple. They were attending
a Valentine's dance, Saturday, February 16, 1974.
00:02:59
My dad, as he always
did, said, be safe. And out, out they went. They arrived at their
school, sometime around 9:30,
00:03:11
participated in the dance. And then, they decided to
leave with some friends to go cruising, and they
did for a little while.
00:03:18
But this couple needed to be
back because the young lady had a curfew. So they dropped them
off at the school,
00:03:26
and this is somewhere
between 11:30 and midnight. And Carla and Rodney decided
to go driving around again,
00:03:32
and Carla was hungry, so they
stopped to buy a Taco Bell. And she told Rodney that she
needed to use the restroom.
00:03:39
And so, they made
that fateful trip to the Ridgeley bowling alley. She went in. She used the restroom.
00:03:46
And when they came out,
they got into Rodney's car. She slid across the seat,
leaned up against the door,
00:03:53
and they did what
most teenagers do. They started making out. And all of a sudden,
the door flew open.
00:04:01
Carla's door swung
open, and an individual was standing there, grabbing
her, as she was, kind
00:04:06
of, falling out of the car. And when Rodney looked up, he
saw a gun pointed in his face.
00:04:13
And this individual
pulled the trigger, and, fortunately,
the gun did not fire. So this person started
using the gun as a weapon
00:04:21
and beating Rodney on
the back of the head. And he didn't know what had
happened to him in that moment,
00:04:26
but he knew his
head was bleeding. He was bleeding all
over himself and Carla. As he grabbed Carla's
arm and pulled her out,
00:04:33
Rodney remembers the man
saying, you're going with me, aren't you, sweetie? The last thing
Rodney remembers
00:04:40
is Carla getting out and
saying, I'll go with you. I'll go with you. Just stop hitting him.
00:04:45
And then, she turned to
Rodney and said, go get dad. Then, Rodney passed out. Rodney woke up, just shortly
after being hit on the head.
00:04:55
And when he looked
up, he looked around. He couldn't see Carla anywhere. And so, Rodney starts his car
and takes off for the Walker
00:05:04
family's home,
which is about three minutes from the bowling alley. I remember that as if it
happened five minutes ago.
00:05:13
I heard Rodney screaming. Mr. Walker, Mr. Walker, help me. Help me.
They've got her.
00:05:18
They're going to hurt her bad.
I know they are. Help me. And then, pounding
on the front door.
00:05:24
And the family
comes to the door, and they see Rodney
standing there with blood dripping down
his face and bloody hair,
00:05:31
blood all over his shirt. He's panicked. He's saying, they've got her. They've got her.
00:05:38
You need to do something. And at that point, Mr.
Walker grabbed his own gun and headed to the parking
lot of the bowling alley
00:05:47
to see what he could find. Mrs. Walker called
the police department at 1:45 that morning.
00:05:54
They talked to Rodney. They examined his
injuries on his head. They get his statement, and then
they take him to the hospital
00:06:01
so that he could
get stitched up. We had teams
coming from all over. I know that City of Fort
Worth, Tarrant County
00:06:09
Sheriff's Department, the FBI. The Texas Rangers
showed up the next day. The search was on.
00:06:16
NANCY GRACE: Police
race against time. Can they find
Carla Walker alive? Almost a year to the day,
a girl by the name of Becky
00:06:25
Martin had gone missing from
the Tarrant County College parking lot in a way
that seemed to resemble
00:06:31
Carla's disappearance. She was going to a parking lot,
and she was yanked from a car
00:06:36
and disappeared. And her body was not
found for many months. But when it was found, it
was found in a culvert.
00:06:43
Under the idea of what
if they are related, they started checking culverts,
called a cattle culvert,
00:06:49
and it's a well developed
concrete structure. It is tall enough for a
man to stand up inside of.
00:06:54
Two Fort Worth Police
Department officers were driving down Pearl Ranch
Road, just near Benbrook Lake,
00:07:03
and they were getting out. And they were checking all
the culverts to see if they
00:07:06
could find Carla's body. And about 6:35 PM, on
the 20th of February, they saw a body
laying in the culvert.
00:07:17
And they knew that
they had found Carla. NANCY GRACE: The discovery
of Carla Walker's body
00:07:23
changes the investigation
from a missing persons to a murder inquiry. Fort Worth Police head
to the Walker family home
00:07:32
to tell her parents
the terrible news, but a local reporter
gets there first. A lady from the
local newspaper,
00:07:42
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She just, kind of, pushed
her way up to the front door
00:07:47
and looked at my
parents and said, Mr. and Mrs. Walker,
what are your feelings? What do you think now that they
found your daughter's body?
00:07:54
The police department
hadn't informed my parents. I remember when she said that,
she was quickly escorted off
00:08:01
of our property
by some gentleman and encouraged not to come back. I remember both my parents
turning and looking straight.
00:08:08
Like, my dad had really
beautiful, piercing blue eyes. And I remember that's the
first time I ever saw his eyes
00:08:15
swell up with water tears. Not too long after that
event with the reporter, Fort Worth and
Sheriff's Department
00:08:24
showed up to inform my
parents of the discovery of Carla's body. And I could tell my mom,
she wanted to collapse,
00:08:34
but she was very strong. NANCY GRACE: The
Fort Worth community, shocked by the news
of Carla Walker's
00:08:43
brutal rape and murder. Police tried to act
as quickly as they can to catch the killer.
00:08:52
Carla Walker's
boyfriend Rodney McCoy tells police he's
knocked unconscious when Carla is kidnapped,
but police are
00:09:00
not impressed with his story. He quickly becomes the number
one person of interest.
00:09:08
But the people of
Fort Worth do not believe Rodney McCoy could have
committed such a brutal crime.
00:09:15
Obviously, there were going to
be a handful of people who were critical of Rodney and judged.
00:09:21
But I think, for the most
part, the entire community really rallied around Rodney.
00:09:27
NANCY GRACE: A teenage
girl raped and murdered. Her boyfriend, the
obvious suspect.
00:09:32
But as we see next on
"Bloodline Detectives," things are not
always as they seem.
00:09:47
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. 17-year-old Carla
Walker disappears the night of the high
school Valentine's dance.
00:09:56
Her body discovered three
days later outside the city in a cattle culvert. Almost 50 years
later, Carla Walker's
00:10:06
death, still fresh in the
minds of her surviving family members. That night, we had
to go to the coroner's
00:10:18
office, which was
actually in a hospital in downtown Fort Worth. Mom and dad went into that room.
00:10:24
And about 20 seconds
later, I heard-- I heard that scream,
that guttural, deep moan that a mom would have
when she sees her baby is dead.
00:10:45
When Carla Walker was found,
it was instantly apparent that she had died
a brutal death,
00:10:52
and that she had been
sexually assaulted. Carla was laid,
splayed out, legs open,
00:10:57
with her dress ripped
from the bodice down and over to the side. Her bodice was ripped
and the bra was
00:11:06
pulled up and ripped as well. There was blood
all over the dress, which mostly came from Rodney.
00:11:12
The state of her body was-- there were multiple, horrible
contusions on her face,
00:11:18
on her legs, all over her body. She had what was
clear strangulation marks on her neck.
00:11:24
It was a very very brutal,
brutal, brutal death. NANCY GRACE: Police began
to examine the evidence.
00:11:34
There's a lot of evidence
that was collected. I mean, they collected
everything from her clothes,
00:11:39
her jewelry, her shoes. They collected cans, bottles. They collected dirt clods.
00:11:47
They collected numerous
items from the crime scene. In addition to that,
in the parking lot,
00:11:54
unbeknownst to our killer,
when he was beating Rodney about the head with
his gun, this gun's
00:12:01
unique make and model of a gun,
it's a Ruger 22 mark 1 model. And what's unusual
about this gun
00:12:08
is the magazine release is
on the bottom of the grid. So while he was beating
Rodney in the head,
00:12:14
apparently, that
released the magazine, which fell out onto the ground. So when Mr. Walker got
to the bowling alley,
00:12:22
and the police got there,
her purse and the magazine from this gun were both
sitting on the ground
00:12:28
in the parking lot. The two things we have is a
vague description from Rodney and a magazine from a 22.
00:12:38
That's all we have
in this whole case. And so, they were trying
everything they could.
00:12:42
They were looking at
everyone that knew Carla. They were looking
at all the known
00:12:46
sex offenders in the area. They were looking at anybody
who had any kind of weirdness.
00:12:51
They were looking into
anyone who owned a 22 Ruger. They were looking
into everything.
00:12:56
And so, one of the
thoughts at the time was, maybe, the murderer
would go to the funeral.
00:13:00
And so, the police actually set
up a situation, where everybody who came to the funeral
had to walk by the body
00:13:08
because they wanted to
film their reaction. And so, they sat there
and watched and took
00:13:15
pictures of every single person,
as they filed past the body. NANCY GRACE: Police
began to build
00:13:20
a list of possible
suspects, starting with boyfriend Rodney McCoy. You always have to look at the
closest person to your victim.
00:13:31
So they did look at
Rodney very close. I think he passed two
or three polygraphs.
00:13:37
They put him under
hypnosis to get his story. NANCY GRACE: While police
strongly suspect Rodney McCoy,
00:13:45
Carla's family is
convinced he's innocent. I knew that Rodney was
being talked to a whole lot
00:13:52
by law enforcement, and Rodney
was always, kind of, quiet. Matter of fact, until they
found Carla's body from the time
00:13:59
Rodney came back from the
hospital here in Fort Worth after the assault, until I
think after Carla's funeral,
00:14:04
Rodney stayed at our house. He stayed upstairs. He slept in Carla's bed. That's how much we loved him
and how much he loved us.
00:14:14
It starts to become pretty
clear to original detectives that Rodney did not do this.
00:14:20
With being interviewed by the
police and a cloud of suspicion hanging over him from
his peers, I can't
00:14:27
imagine how hard it was on him. And in fact, upon
graduation, he left the area pretty much for good.
00:14:36
NANCY GRACE: Police clear
Rodney McCoy is a suspect and began looking
for any new leads.
00:14:43
You know, they came in
every form and fashion. The police department received
letters, stating it was
00:14:48
this person that killed Carla. You know, I think that's true
with any cold case, that you're
00:14:53
going to get these,
kind of, letters. We got many, actually,
through the years of people saying
they knew things,
00:14:59
or that they were the killer. I mean, we heard all
kinds of things like that. I think that's true
with any cold case.
00:15:04
What I am particularly
proud to say in this case is that Fort Worth PD looked
into every single lead
00:15:11
they were given. NANCY GRACE: When police looked
into local owners of a Ruger 22 pistol, they find a possible
crack in one gun owner's story.
00:15:24
Every single Ruger
that was accounted for was normal people. They had their guns, still.
00:15:32
They were accounted for. They had their clips. But there was one that
was not accounted for,
00:15:39
and this individual
told police that it had been stolen,
approximately, six weeks before Carla's abduction.
00:15:47
But he had bought a
magazine since for this gun, and police found that
a little bit strange.
00:15:57
But he told them,
well, I'm going to purchase another
Ruger to replace the one that got stolen.
00:16:04
That was his excuse,
and the police said, OK. Well, he took a polygraph
test, and he passed.
00:16:11
And he was on his way. NANCY GRACE: A gun owner
with a suspicious story is eventually cleared after
passing a lie detector test.
00:16:21
One lead after
the next dries up, and the murder investigation
of teen girl Carla Walker
00:16:29
goes cold. It will take years and
amazing forensic science to reopen the case. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:16:49
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. Carla Walker and her
boyfriend Rodney McCoy are at a high school
Valentine's dance.
00:16:59
In the parking
lot, Carla Walker's abducted by a man who
beats the boyfriend Rodney unconscious with a gun.
00:17:08
Three days later, teen
girl Carla found dead-- the victim of a
brutal sex attack.
00:17:18
The case goes cold
for nearly 50 years. Fast forward to 2020, Detective
Jeff Bennett and his team
00:17:26
reopen the case, hoping to
find the teen's killer, once and for all. Started from the
very beginning going
00:17:35
through the original police
reports, the original crime scene photos, and
then, looking at all
00:17:42
the people that had
been interviewed from the very beginning. So trying to determine
if people were excluded,
00:17:49
why were they excluded? And was that a good
enough reason for them to still be excluded today?
00:17:55
We have new technology,
new developments. There were a number
of people who were excluded purely
based on the fact
00:18:03
that they passed a polygraph. When I was going back
through the files, put this individual
back on the suspect list
00:18:12
and ended up with having 83
people on our suspect list. The first thing
investigators want to do
00:18:21
is obtain a crucial DNA
sample from Carla's clothing. If they can get
that sample, they'll
00:18:29
be able to enter it
into the National DNA database called CODIS. We looked at what was there,
Carla's dress, her panties,
00:18:40
her bra, Rodney's shirt. There were just
a number of items that we still had that have
been preserved all these years.
00:18:50
We did some more testing,
and we realized we actually had a semen stain on the
back of the dress that
00:18:55
did have a male profile
that was not Rodney. That was really the
biggest tipping point.
00:19:02
So we send the bra to SERI,
Serological Research Institute in California, and we sent a
couple of items off to SERI
00:19:11
to have tested,
including the dress. And SERI was able to
develop a full DNA profile off of the bra, which
was then uploaded into CODIS.
00:19:25
And we did not get a hit. NANCY GRACE: Cold case
team's frustrated and worried this 50-year-old murder
may never be solved.
00:19:37
First off, it was a surprise. Everyone thought,
well, if we can just find something that can go
into CODIS, we will solve this.
00:19:43
And also, it was
just heartbreaking. NANCY GRACE: Since there are no
matches from the CODIS National
00:19:50
Database, detectives decide
to use another and newer forensic technique,
the same one that
00:19:58
cracked the infamous
Golden State Killer case. It's called genetic genealogy. And they were
unable to develop
00:20:09
a profile sufficient
enough for them to work the genetic genealogy. So it was at that point that
we were pretty devastated, felt
00:20:17
like we had hit a brick wall. Jeff Bennett was
pretty frustrated, and he reached out
to Paul Halls, who
00:20:26
had done a television
show for them and said, look, you know, we have
a little bit of DNA left.
00:20:33
Is there anywhere
we can send this? And he told me about David
Mittleman and Arthur Othram.
00:20:38
And he said, they had
been in contact with him, that they told him that they
were bringing new technology
00:20:44
into forensics, whole
genome sequencing, and that they were able to work
with very small amounts of DNA,
00:20:50
as long as it was not degraded,
and it was good quality. Othram is the
first and only lab
00:20:58
in the world that is purpose
built to use advanced genomics for forensics. So all we do is
identify perpetrators
00:21:07
or victims from evidence
found at a crime scene. I've been doing DNA
for 20 plus years.
00:21:15
I met David, who is a CEO of the
company, but also my husband, at Baylor College of
Medicine, 20 plus years ago.
00:21:22
Question is, what's
been done in this case? What didn't work? Why didn't it work?
00:21:27
Is there an opportunity
for our technology to help. We have really great
technology, but not every case
00:21:31
is a perfect fit
for this technology. You cannot examine DNA
without consuming it,
00:21:36
without destroying it. It's a destructive process. You try to use as
little as possible,
00:21:40
but it's a destructive process. So you don't want to touch
any more than we have to,
00:21:43
unless we know we
can bring value. Genome sequencing
is a reaction that's done in the lab
that allows you to look
00:21:51
at the makeup of
your DNA or the DNA that was found in the evidence. Jeff Bennett and Leo Wagner
actually came out in person.
00:21:59
They drove down,
spent several hours to the lab toward the facility. They were
understandably a little
00:22:05
bit cautious because
they had just been through this experience
and had a negative outcome.
00:22:09
It was a high quality lab. They had all of their chain
of custody protocols in place,
00:22:14
and we were very
comfortable with Othram. So we had that DNA
shipped off to him.
00:22:22
They sent us this final
remaining quantity of DNA, and it's the last of the DNA.
00:22:26
There's really
nothing else there. So a little bit of pressure
because we didn't want to,
00:22:31
of course, let the agency
down, the family down, and then also let Paul
Halls down after we had
00:22:35
told him to give us a chance. When we received it, it
was an extract already. And we were able to take that
extract do our analysis on it,
00:22:47
be able to figure out
what was in the extract, make it look as single source
and fresh as you possibly could
00:22:53
so that you can get one of
the best sequencing profiles. They take our DNA
sample, and they
00:22:59
try to figure out who in the
world through ancestry DNA is the most like you. And so, they take the whole
genome, and they look at it.
00:23:09
And they look for similarities. Because that goes to
show relationships. And they try to get
as close as they can
00:23:16
to a relationship that involves. The way I like to think
about it is, when we do
00:23:20
normal genetic genealogy,
we are the tree, and we're looking
for the branches. But when we're doing this,
we have the branches,
00:23:28
and we're looking for the tree. And so, you put it
in GEDmatch, and you try to figure out how
close a sample do I have
00:23:35
just out there in GEDmatch. And then from there, how does
that relate to public records,
00:23:41
or birth and death records,
or marriage records to try and get to a certain family--
00:23:47
not a certain name,
but a certain family of people that we should
look at for a suspect.
00:23:53
The quantity was
actually pretty decent. It's low quantity, low
quality for a typical process.
00:23:58
But for Othram, it
is on the higher end of things we had seen. So we were very fortunate.
00:24:02
It was like five weeks
later, the profile comes off the machine. My lab director
is looking at it.
00:24:07
We take a look,
and we're looking at some of the information
that we got from it.
00:24:11
And it was July 4. It was when this
happened on a Saturday. We were like, I think we
have an answer already.
00:24:16
And so, we wanted to pass
the initial information back to Jeff Bennett. They made this discovery.
00:24:22
They worked all night. And they realized,
oh, my gosh, we have a family that has
men in their family
00:24:29
that would be about the
right age, that live in Fort Worth, which is just-- it's
literally what we've been
00:24:34
waiting almost 50 years for. And so, they wait
as long as they can to call Detective Bennett.
00:24:41
When I see his name on my
phone, I know, at that point that he has an answer for me.
00:24:47
And I felt like it was going
to be good news, or else, he wouldn't be
calling on a holiday.
00:24:52
And we start walking
through the tree. And what we do is, we like
to talk about the families.
00:24:57
And then, we get to
the possible parents. And then, if the parents have
had a number of children.
00:25:02
So we're beginning to
narrow in there, but we got, I think, to the family
and to the surname.
00:25:06
And he cut us off. And he said, wait a second. I know the surname. And he told me McCurley.
00:25:14
And I recognized that
name immediately. In fact, I told
David, I said, I think that individual's like
number 22 on my suspect list.
00:25:23
Let me grab my binder. Othram thinks they're
going to give him this name, and Detective Bennett
will be like, great.
00:25:28
Let me get to work on that. I'll call you back. But instead, he
goes, wait a minute.
00:25:33
Hold on. Because it was a name that
Detective Bennett knew from the file, which,
first off, goes
00:25:39
to show you how well Detective
Bennett knew the file. Because that file
had hundreds, if not
00:25:43
thousands of suspects
in it, and people who had been interviewed. And Detective
Bennett remembered,
00:25:49
there had been a man with that
last name interviewed in 1974. I told him, is it
Glenn Samuel McCurley?
00:25:59
And David says, well, we're
down to Glenn Samuel McCurley, but the problem is, he died in
1972 and your offense is 1974.
00:26:08
And I asked him, I said,
did he have a junior? Did they have a son that was
Glenn Samuel McCurley Jr?
00:26:14
And they said, bingo, we have
a Glenn Samuel McCurley Jr. And he had two brothers, and
Glenn was the only one living
00:26:23
in Fort Worth at the time. The other two brothers, one
was living in the Northwest,
00:26:27
and one was in the
military overseas. There was a gentleman with
the surname that had actually
00:26:33
come up earlier in
the investigation, back when Carla's
body was found. He had owned, at
some point, a weapon
00:26:39
that resembled the
remains of a weapon that was left at the scene. Because he had this a
serendipitous moment in which
00:26:47
he already had
information on someone that was under consideration, he
took that lead and ran with it.
00:26:52
When Detective Bennett first
opened this case in 2019, one of the first things he did
was go through and just make
00:26:57
a list of people that he
thought, from the file alone, maybe weren't
completely cleared.
00:27:03
And number 22 on his list
was Glenn Samuel McCurley. NANCY GRACE: 50 years after
Carla Walker's sex assault
00:27:11
and murder, investigators
finally have a prime suspect and a name to go with it--
00:27:18
Glen Samuel McCurley. But now, they've
got to find him. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:27:33
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. Teen girl Carla Walker and
her boyfriend, Rodney McCoy,
00:27:41
brutally attacked after a
Valentine's Day school dance. Rodney, beaten
unconscious with a gun.
00:27:49
Carla, kidnapped. Three days later,
her body found. She has been brutally
raped and murdered.
00:27:59
The case goes cold
nearly 50 years. But thanks to Othram Labs
and its incredible work
00:28:05
with forensic,
genetic genealogy, cops finally have a name-- Glenn Samuel McCurley.
00:28:15
So the first thing we do
is, we identify where McCurley lives, then we have an officer
go over to that neighborhood
00:28:22
and knock on the McCurley store,
basically do a welfare check. They're an elderly
couple at this point.
00:28:30
He was 31 at the time
that Carla was attacked. He's now 77 years old. We first need to get a
covert or surreptitious sample
00:28:39
to make sure that the
person you're targeting does actually match the
DNA that is on the bra.
00:28:46
After we determined that
they lived in this house within the next
couple of days, we
00:28:51
had officers go out there
in the middle of the night and collect the
trash off the curb
00:28:57
so that we can locate
items to test for DNA. There were a lot of food
containers, cups, cans.
00:29:05
We had a number of items
that we sent off for testing. And in this case,
SERI called and said,
00:29:12
yes, you've got a match. And so now, the detectives are
able to get a search warrant.
00:29:18
We elected to interview
him in his living room, and Mrs. Mccurley was
present during the interview.
00:29:27
More times you can get a
suspect talking, the better. And when they don't
know that they're
00:29:32
a suspect, even better, right? And so, they want
to come in and start doing a consensual
interview, and the McCurleys
00:29:40
were absolutely welcoming. Come on in.
Have a seat. Let's chat. At some point,
Mr. Mccurley starts
00:30:03
not being quite as forthcoming,
but his wife continues to be. So I asked Mr. Mccurley
what he was doing the week
00:30:11
that Carla was abducted. And he said, well, my
wife doesn't drive. And so, I was probably driving
her to work and back and forth.
00:30:20
And we were always together. And Mrs. Mccurley very clearly
remembered that she was out
00:30:27
of town that week, that her
father was having surgery, and reminded Glen that
she wasn't in town.
00:30:33
She was in West Texas,
visiting her family All of that is
on the tape, which is just gold, because
there goes an alibi, right?
00:31:01
It's out there, that he
is alone that weekend. Detective Wagner asked him if
it would be OK if we got a swab
00:31:44
from him to obtain his DNA. And he told us that they did
that back in 1974, when they
00:31:51
talked to me the first time. And Mrs. Mccurley
made it clear to him that, no, they
didn't because they
00:31:59
didn't have DNA in 1974, honey. And I guess he felt
somewhat obligated to give us his buccal swab after that.
00:32:09
That comes back
in about six days. And that buccal swab is a
match to the straw and the bra.
00:32:18
So we got an arrest
warrant written and signed that day by a
judge, and Mr. Mccurley was
00:32:25
arrested on September 21, 2020. At that point, I had to
be honest with you, I-- I was just thanking God
because we now knew who he was.
00:32:43
50 years, hundreds of police
officers, and thousands of man hours have passed,
Fort Worth Police
00:32:50
are finally ready to make
an arrest in the 1974 rape and murder of teen
girl Carla Walker.
00:32:59
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." Fort Worth, Texas, 2020. Police staked out in front
of now 77-year-old Glenn
00:33:20
Samuel McCurley's home. And they are ready to nab him
in the 1974 rape and murder
00:33:28
of teen girl Carla Walker. So we have a fugitive
unit, and they went to the McCurley's residence.
00:33:39
And they placed Glen under
arrest for capital murder and brought him
back to our office,
00:33:45
where we interrogated him. They needed to get some
information from him. And when they first bring
him into the interview,
00:33:52
McCurley is very much
denying knowing anything, even though a week before,
he had spoken with them
00:33:57
and admitted he knew
who Carla Walker was. He remembers lots of details. All of a sudden, when they're
in this interview room,
00:34:05
and he's under arrest
for her murder, he's claiming he doesn't
even know who she is.
00:34:27
Which is a lie. We know he knew her. Besides the fact he'd been
interviewed multiple times now
00:34:31
at this point, his own children
went to the same high school as Carla. And there was a big
memorial for Carla,
00:34:37
that you had to walk across
to even go into the school. Even if he was not
involved in this case,
00:34:42
he would have known
who Carla Walker was. It was an exciting moment,
but it was still a sad moment.
00:35:37
You know, we felt very
strongly that his family, that they were
victims, too, in this.
00:35:46
Under intense questioning,
Glen Samuel McCurley confirms most of the facts
about Carla Walker's last night
00:35:54
alive, but, still,
there's one piece of the puzzle missing
where's the gun he used,
00:36:01
that Ruger 22 pistol. He had told us about his gun. That's why they initially
went out and talked
00:36:10
with Glen McCurley was to ask
him about his gun, which he said had been stolen
about six weeks prior
00:36:17
to them talking to him,
which was prior to Carla being abducted. At the very end
of the interview,
00:36:23
just we continued to
press him on the gun. And he dropped his
head at one moment.
00:36:30
And he said, I've got it. So he described an area
off of his laundry room, up in a ceiling in a soffit
behind some paneling.
00:36:39
He described the exact location. NANCY GRACE: At a
pretrial hearing, something truly
remarkable happens
00:36:47
in the courtroom, something that
may restore faith in mankind. Out of the corner of my
eye, I saw Jim Walker starting
00:36:56
to cross across the courtroom. And I remember turning
to my investigator, like you need to go get him.
00:37:01
Like, this is about to be bad
because that is my experience in the courtrooms. And I look over,
and I see him lean
00:37:10
in and speak to McCurley's son. What I saw was a man who was
a victim in a different way.
00:37:20
His dad had victimized his
own family, and I had-- God just put on my heart
to show compassion, love.
00:37:28
And then, I see
them embracing. And then, I just stood there,
like what is happening?
00:37:34
That show of grace
that I can't even begin to understand myself. And I get emotional
even thinking about it.
00:37:40
Because the reality
is, you don't see this in court, moments
of beautiful humanity,
00:37:47
but on this day, I did. NANCY GRACE: Glen Samuel
McCurley finally admits his guilt after 47 years.
00:37:59
On day three of trial,
he changes his plea from not guilty to guilty. And he's sentenced
to life behind bars.
00:38:07
Police are hopeful that
both families can now move forward and come to peace
knowing the truth, especially
00:38:15
Rodney McCoy. Rodney is truly-- he's a victim. Rodney is a survivor. Rodney is good.
00:38:25
He's kind. He would have given his life
for Carla without hesitation. If I could say the one biggest
regret I have about this case
00:38:37
is that I never got
to know the Walkers, and I know, through their
children, the legacy of love,
00:38:45
and of dedication,
and of devotion. But I would like to have
been able to tell them
00:38:51
that we solve the case. This case will stay with
me for the rest of my life, and I've developed a lifelong
friend in Jim Walker.
00:39:04
NANCY GRACE: The
"Bloodline Detectives" also reflect on how critical
genetic genealogy
00:39:10
is to solving this case. I think genetic
genealogy is the future of police investigations
in real time,
00:39:20
eventually, as a matter of fact. David Mittleman and Othram,
they're doing incredible things
00:39:26
with DNA, and we look
forward to working with Othram among many, many
more cases going forward.
00:39:34
Carla's case
has been resolved, but there's so much
more work to do. And I think that's the reason
God brought me into alignment
00:39:43
and relationship with Detective
Wagner and Detective Bennett and David and Kristen Mittleman.
00:39:50
Resolution in
Carla's case is good, but we've got a
lot of work to do, and we're going to
work to help a lot
00:39:55
of other Carla Walker families. Finally, Carla
Walker's case is solved, thanks to the incredible
science of genetic genealogy.
00:40:08
You know, the more people
whose DNA becomes available, the more crimes, like
Carla's case, can be solved.
00:40:16
But Carla Walker's case is
about more than science. It is about the sheer
will of hundreds
00:40:23
of people who work
to bring a resolution to the victims' families. It's also a lesson
about forgiveness,
00:40:33
when the family of a
victim actually comforts the family of a killer. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:40:42
Thank you for joining us
on this incredible episode of "Bloodline Detectives."