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On a narrow stretch of School Road in Austin County, just a couple of miles south of Texas Highway one fifty nine, a small trailer sat in the middle of the Raccoon Bend oil field, roughly twelve miles northeast of Belleville and about sixty miles northwest of Houston.

The land rolled gently toward the Brazis River less than a half a mile away.

Mesquite and scrub brush framed the property, and beyond it were pump jacks, cattle fences, and hayfields, the everyday backdrop of rural Austin County, a place where homicides were so rare that sheriff's investigators typically saw one a year.

That trailer belonged to Will Stetton Pool.

To the people of Raccoon Bend, he was simply mister Will.

He was eighty six years old, a semi retired rancher, a widower since the death of his wife, Emma in nineteen ninety, and a man who lived quietly and modestly.

Years earlier, his house had burned down, destroying nearly everything he owned, and the turquoise and white mobile home was meant to be temporary, but to mister Will it never was.

Instead, it became his permanent home.

Three small rooms, simple furnishings, and a way of life that reflected how he had always lived without much and needing even less.

He kept cash because he didn't trust banks.

He left his doors unlocked and the keys in his truck.

People knew it.

Mister Will raised cattle, sold pecans from trees on his property, and sometimes sold fish he'd caught from the river.

But what mattered more to mister w Will than money was routine and family.

Almost every day his daughter Bernice Schiller came by.

She was sixty two years old, a lifelong homemaker and married to Alden Edward Schiller, sixty seven, a retired Texas State Highway Department maintenance manager.

They always brought mister Will lunch, cleaned the trailer for him.

They washed dishes he left piled in the sink, and made sure he ate something better than canned meat and beans, his usual choice of nourishment if left to his own devices, if Bernice and Alden weren't around, and even when they were, there was someone else hanging out at the trailer.

Ray treat Payne, eighty one years old, lived about a half a mile away.

He and mister Will were fellow small cattleman who had known each other for more than four years.

In fact, they'd seen each other almost every day in that span of time.

Ray would stop by talk cattle and whatever else came to mind.

On a Thursday in November of nineteen ninety six, all four of them were there, and by early afternoon would become the unfortunate victims of what locals began referring to as the Raccoon Bend massacre.

Raccoon Bend isn't a town in the courthouse since so much as it is a named place on the map, an unincorporated community in northeastern Austin County.

Geographically, it sits in the Brazis River country, low flat to gentle rolling coastal plain terrain, where creeks, bottom land and river bends shape the landscape.

The bend in Raccoon Bend is literal.

The area is associated with a large crook of the Brasas nearby.

Early settlement in the area dates back to the early nineteen hundreds, like a lot of rural Austin County, and consisted of small farms and scattered homes tied to nearby market towns rather than its own urban center.

Then the ground changed the story.

In the late nineteen twenties, Humble Oil and Refining Company opened what became known as the Raccoon Bend oil Field, touching off a burst of growth that's typical of Texas oil plays, workers, service businesses, and the quick infrastructure of a boom community.

The field opened in nineteen twenty seven, and in no time Raccoon Bend featured numerous homes, oil related businesses, a school, and a church, the basics of a community that suddenly has money moving through it.

Like many small oil centered places, Raccoon Bend didn't necessarily vanish when the boom cooled.

It just quieted down over time.

Its independent institutions thenned doubt.

The community's school later closed, and the area was then served by Belleville ISD.

Population figures can be iffy for unincorporated places, but the commonly cited estimate is about four four hundred residents circa the mid nineteen nineties.

In a remote trailer home in Raccoon Bend on November fourteenth, nineteen ninety six, a routine visit took place a day far from out of the ordinary.

Bernice and Alden Schiller had planned to check in on Papa.

That was what the grandchildren called Bernice's father, mister Will Stettinpool.

After that, the couple was to head to Conroe for a doctor's appointment.

Mister Will's close friend Ray Payne was also over visiting.

The four were last seen alive at around ten am that Thursday morning.

The witness who saw them reported nothing out of the ordinary, but by late afternoon something felt wrong.

Sandra Schifflet, who worked at a hospital in Conroe, noticed that parents had not arrived for their appointment.

Worried, she called her little sister, Wendy Lamp.

Wendy and her husband, Mark Lamp, a technician at the power station near Lagrange, lived nearby.

She called her and Sandra's brother, Mark Schiller, an oil field worker, and asked him to swing by mister Will's place.

He drove past the trailer on School Road on his way home and saw his parents' pickup truck parked there.

Thinking nothing was wrong, that they'd simply stayed to help out in lieu of their appointment, he didn't stop.

Mark called Wendy back later and told her what he had seen, but it didn't ease Wendy's mind.

It only worried her more.

It wasn't like her folks to miss an appointment.

She called the Austin County Sheriff's office and asked for a welfare check.

She waighed Wendy was a bank accountant, someone used to precision.

She needed to know.

The minutes crawled by with no response.

Soon she learned why deputies were having trouble finding the trailer.

The back roads of Raccoon Bend twisted through oil leases, pastures and river bottoms.

It wasn't easy to locate a small white mobile home tucked off school road.

Daylight she knew would soon fade, so Wendy went to find help.

She drove to a nearby hayfield where her husband Mark was working, alongside her brother Tracy Shiller, a State Highway Department worker.

She told them what was going on.

The men dropped what they were doing and headed for mister Will's trailer.

When Tracy Schiller and Mark lamp pulled up, as the sun had already begun its descent.

The Shillers pick up and Ray Payne's truck were both still parked out front.

Mark stood outside and called out, shouting for anyone who might be inside.

There was no answer.

Tracy walked to the front door.

It was unlocked, which wasn't unusual, but the trailer was dark inside, no lights on at all.

That was anything but normal.

He stepped inside with a flashlight even with it.

The front room was dim.

As he swept the beam across the floor, he saw broken glass.

Things were scattered around.

It didn't look right.

In the sink were dirty dishes, another red flag.

His mother, Bernice, never left dishes unwashed.

If she had cooked, and it looked like she had, she would have cleaned up.

Mister Will's dog didn't come.

The pit of Tracy's stomach dropped.

He began walking down the hall toward the back bedroom.

Later he would say, the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Something felt wrong in a way that words didn't cover.

Then he saw blood.

After seeing blood on his way down the hallway of his grandfather's trailer house, Tracy Schiller shouted for his brother in law, Mark Lamp, to come inside.

Together.

They continued down the short hall.

In the tiny six by six foot rear bedroom, they found a massacre.

Four bodies were piled on top of each other.

Blood was everywhere.

Tracy went limp.

Mark grabbed him by the shoulder.

We've got to get out of here.

The two men drove to a neighbor's house a couple miles away and called nine to one one.

By the time they had notified family members and returned to the trailer.

Forty five minutes had passed.

Law enforcement was already there.

Yellow crime scene tape went up around the little turquoise and white trailer off School Road.

The worst crime in modern Austin County history had just been discovered.

Sheriff Vernon Bubba Brozowski arrived to a scene that even his long law enforcement career hadn't prepared him for.

Inside the back bedroom, the bodies of eighty six year old Will Stettinpool, his daughter and son in law, Bernice Schiller sixty two and Olden Edward Schiller sixty seven, and eighty one year old Roy treat Pain were stacked in a pile like they fell on each other.

They had been shot at close range with what appeared to be a shotgun.

Investigators believed the four had huddled together there trying to hide or protect one another.

A twenty two caliber rifle was found on the floor near the bodies, broken in half.

There were shell casings scattered on the floor.

Later sources would confirm that eight spent twelve gage shotgun shells were recovered.

A thirty eight caliber bullet hole was found through a window.

At least one victim had been shot twice.

Authorities wouldn't say who.

Bernice appeared to have tried to secure the bedroom door, but both she and the door were blasted down by shotgun fire.

Another victim.

Again, it was never disclosed who had been trying to escape through a small bedroom window when they were cut down.

Bloody towels were found near the front of the trailer, suggesting the killer or killers may have been wounded, but there was no blood trail leaving the home.

Also, something was missing.

Mister Will's twelve gage shotgun, the one he kept loaded in the front room to guard against de varmints and prowlers, was gone.

He was believed to have several other shotguns that were also missing.

There was no handgun found that could have caused the thirty eight bullet hole.

Despite the extreme violence, investigators quickly realized something that might otherwise seem strange.

There was no four entry, but knowing mister Will rarely locked his door, this didn't narrow it down at all.

Anyone could have come up and opened it.

Also, nothing had been ransacked.

There were no vehicles missing.

All the men's billfolds were still there, and a purse with a wallet sat in the Shiller's truck outside.

Relatives had estimated that mister Will usually kept eight hundred to one thousand dollars in the house, and they were close.

About seven hundred dollars was found inside the trailer.

Sheriff Brozowski admitted the case had left investigators baffled.

He was a lame duck lawman set to be replaced by Dwayne Berger in January nineteen ninety seven, just a couple months away, but he vowed to take the case just as seriously as if he had four more years office.

This doesn't happen out here, he kept saying, a sentiment echoed by everyone else in the community, and he was right.

By Friday morning, blood spatter experts, Texas Rangers, and a fourteen member Department of Public Safety task force with a mobile crime lab arrived at the scene.

Austin County Sheriff's Department Chief Investigator Richard Holloman began fielding calls.

Tips were pouring in.

District Attorney Travis Cohne promised justice, but even in the first days, it was clear how difficult this case would be.

The victims had no known enemies, they lived quiet lives, yet each was struck down by shotgun fire in a small bedroom of a trailer house off School Road.

By the morning of Saturday, November sixteenth, nineteen ninety six, the home had become the center of one of the largest investigations Austin County had ever seen.

Inside, DPS crime scene technicians worked alongside Texas rangers and Sheriff's deputies, documenting every bloodstain, every shellcasing, and every shattered surface.

Outside, the quiet of Raccoon Bend was broken by the hum of a crime lab van and the steady arrival of law enforcement vehicles from across the region.

The bloodiest crime in Austin County history had happened here, and nobody knew why.

The four bodies will Stettinpool, Bernice Schiller, Alden Schiller, and Ray Payne were taken to the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office in Houston.

Chief and Investigator Holloman told reporters that the department was waiting for those autopsies to determine the exact nature of the injuries.

The Sheriff's office expected results later in the week.

Investigators already knew that at least eight shots had been fired, and it reinforced the idea that what happened inside that six by six foot bedroom had not necessarily been quick.

It had been a gunfight.

Sheriff Brezowski had said from the start that it appeared the victims may have returned fire.

By November twenty third, nineteen ninety six, the case had already reached the point where local and state investigators needed help.

The FBI joined the investigation.

Federal agents traveled to the Raccoon Bend trailer and examined what had been described as paltry evidence.

They with Austin County authorities and Texas Rangers to help build a crime scenario and develop a profile of the person or people who had committed the murders.

Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Ruiz said the FBI was serving primarily as a consultant, trying to make sense of what little physical evidence existed.

Investigators were still combing the trailer and the surrounding area.

So far, nothing pointed clearly to a suspect.

One lead did emerge.

Workers in the Raccoon bind gas field, not far from mister Will's trailer told investigators that around noon on November fourteenth, they heard what sounded like gunfire in the distance, They didn't see anything unusual and were leaving for lunch around that same time.

The timing matched.

Because of this, investigators were able to theorize with at least some evidence that the four victims were killed around twelve pm.

That meant whoever had come to the trailer had done so in broad daylight in the middle of oil field and pasture land, with trucks parked outside.

They either didn't care who saw them, or they never expected anyone too.

By January nineteen ninety seven, the case was already slipping out of the headlines.

Then something changed.

An anonymous local business donated twenty five thousand dollars to the reward fund.

Up until then, the fund had only held one thousand dollars.

With the new amount, investigators hoped money might do what fear and conscious had not.

Sheriff's investigator Richard Holloman said autopsy and lab results would soon help clarify the status of one or more suspects.

He said arrests were expected in the near future, but might not come until a new grand jury was convened later that month.

But something else happened instead.

In late November, nineteen ninety six, the victims of the Raccoon Bend massacre were laid to rest.

Alden Schiller was buried in Seeley and Ray Payne in Belleville, or at least that's what everyone thought.

In January nineteen ninety seven, families began raising concerns, although it's unclear exactly what led them to believe so something wasn't right.

After long delayed DPS forensic testing, investigators made a disturbing discovery.

The bodies had been switched.

Alden Schiller had been buried in Ray Paine's plot, Ray pain had been buried in Alden Schiller's plot.

Investigator Holloman said the condition of the bodies had made identification difficult but not impossible, and the mistake occurred after they had been properly identified.

They were exhumed and reburied in their correct graves.

Jennifer Zuradnik, Rai's daughter called it heartbreaking.

It's unfortunate this had to come in the middle of things like it did, she said, referring to the still unsolved murder investigation.

Arrests were the kind of movement family wanted, and something like this only exacerbated their grief.

Also in January, a new man was in charge of the investigation.

Dwayne Berger had taken office as Austin County Sheriff.

He was fifty one years old, a former Houston vice police officer, and someone who knew Will Stettinpool personally.

Before the murders, Burger had already been visiting the old rancher's trailer.

He had worried about mister Will's messy habits, his erratic eating, and the way he sometimes wore dirty clothes.

They weren't alike Burger in a jacket and tie, mister Will and worn overalls, but they had one thing in common.

They liked hunting with dogs.

They would walk behind the trailer toward the Brazas River, running dogs through the brush, treeing raccoons, or tracking some other kind of game.

Sometimes they would just sit on the front porch talking about cattle and the weather while Ray Payne wandered over.

So when Berger took office, this wasn't just a case, it was personal.

He relied heavily on Richard Holloman, the Sheriff's departments lead investigator, and Texas Ranger Brian Taylor, both of whom had been on the case.

Since the first hours, the three men knew every detail and every theory, and they knew how little evidence they actually had.

From the beginning, investigators believed the motive was robbery, but it was a strange one.

There had been money in the trailer.

It was hidden, but the killer or killers had made no attempt to find it.

Nothing was ransacked.

The only confirmed missing property was will Stettinpool's shotgun, the one he kept low in the front room.

Investigators believed that shotgun might have been taken and then used as a murder weapon.

Other firearms were thought to be missing as well, but apparently no one knew what all he had for sure.

Burger said mister Will was known for doing business in cash.

He bought and sold pecans and sold fish from the river.

People came and went, and he carried money with him, but nineteen ninety six was a drought year.

There were no pecans, Sheriff Burger said.

Still, mister Will's grandchildren remembered seeing him with too much cash in his wallet or stuffed into the bib pocket of his overalls.

Perhaps someone else had seen it too.

A check from a livestock auction was still sitting in his mailbox at the time of the murders.

What really baffled investigators was not just the killing, but the ferocity.

Four people shot at close range by shotgun blasts, gunned down while trying to escape it a door was blown open.

If it was robbery, why not just take the money and leave.

Berger and his men didn't know, but they still believed the robbery theory.

They wouldn't say what led them to be so stubbornly attached to it.

Sheriff's investigators also wouldn't say what FBI profilers told them, only that the suspects would likely show signs of anxiety.

A year after the killings, Sheriff Burger revealed something new.

Investigators, he said, were watching three men closely.

One had attended Seely High School, another had gone to school in Belleville, came from Houston.

The men were in their mid twenties and described as gangster wannabes.

They were believed to be involved in drugs, and Burger was confident they were involved in the Raccoon Bend massacre.

But there was a problem.

There was no hard evidence tying them to the crime.

We're dealing with pretty smart crooks, Burger said.

They know that we know.

Still knowing wasn't enough.

Investigators needed something that could stand up in court.

Another lead also developed during the course of the initial investigation.

On the day of the murders, oil field workers said they had seen a light colored car within a mile of the scene.

Inside were two men.

The driver was white, the passenger black.

Sheriff Burger said the car could not be connected to anyone in the community.

He warned that it might mean nothing, but it bothered him.

Nonetheless, it seems strange that car was out there that day, he said.

A missing shotgun, a boot print, the light colored car, and the three unnamed suspects.

That was it.

No eye witnesses, no confession, no murder weapon, which was likely one of the victim's own guns.

As Sheriff Berger put it, this is a case where the eye witnesses are either all dead or they're the people we're after, meaning only the killers knew what happened, because the dead Alden, Bernice, mister will and Ray can tell no tales.

When a year had passed, Raccoon Bend and Bellville were losing faith.

I don't think they'll ever get anyone, said Da Swartz, a clerk at a local autoparts store.

People stopped talking about it as much, but they didn't stop worrying.

Sheriff Berger insisted progress was being made, though it was a painstakingly slow progress, as he called it.

He said investigators had several possibilities near suspects.

The reward fund grew to forty thousand dollars.

Forty billboards went up across southeast Texas.

One stood outside the Cochrane General Store where mister Will used to buy cookies, canned beef, stew and gasoline.

Store owner Teddy Burnham said it hadn't helped much.

When nobody is willing to say anything, there's not much else they can do.

The Sheriff's phone lines had been flooded at first, and then they stopped.

None of the calls led anywhere.

The killers were still out there and nobody was talking.

By November nineteen ninety nine, more than one thousand and ninety five days had passed since four people were slaughtered in a small trailer near the Brazis River.

The story had become something far worse than an unsolved crime.

It had become a wound that refused to close.

On the evening of the third anniversary, reporters from the Houston Chronicle sat inside the home of Mark and Wendy lamp Around the living room sat Mark and Wendy Alden, and Bernice's daughter Tracy Schiller, Marty Schiller, and Mark Schiller, the couple's sons, and their spouses, Venetia and Sandra.

The Shiller children had lost their parents and lost their grandfather, and they had lost Ray Payin, the neighbor who had been like family.

On the table was a framed photograph of Bernice and Alden that Thursday in November nineteen ninety six.

They were doing what they always did, and by noon all four were dead.

By the time they all gathered to discuss the unsolved murders, Austin County Sheriff Dwayne Berger had been living with the case for three years.

He also knew the victims and had become close to or perhaps closer to their families.

They want closure, Burger said, so does this whole community.

Texas Rangers, FBI agents, Houston police detectives, and Harris County Sheriff's Office investigators had all worked the case alongside Austin County authorities, but there was nothing to show for it.

No arrests, no official susse even the motive remained murky.

I see nothing but robbery as the reason, Burger said, But there wasn't much in that trailer to rob He knew how simply mister Will lived.

No TV, no radio, just raggedy overalls, well worn shirts, and cookies and canned beef stew from the Cochrane General Store.

Investigators had little, but they still had the light colored car with a white driver and black passenger, the bootprint, and the possible DNA evidence.

They refused to discuss that was it unless someone talked.

We just want to know how this could happen.

Mark Lamp said, We've got to believe someone with one ounce of compassion will turn these killers in, but nobody ever did.

If you have any information about the Raccoon Bend massacre, please call the Austin County Sheriff's Office at nine seventy nine eight six five three one one one.

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