Carl even though she was seventeen.

To be frank, she looks like she's twelve.

And to see her laying in the calvert and what had been done to her, you know, it just it broke my heart, and you know, I felt an obligation.

I needed to figure out who did this.

The rape and murder of Carla Walker in nineteen seventy four went unsolved for decades.

It became the cold case in Fort Worth, Texas that everyone seemed to talk about, but no one could solve.

It drew national attention when it was featured on a crime TV show years later, but even that didn't lead investigators to her killer.

I'm Ailan Lance Lesser, and this is America's Crime Lab.

This is Part three of the Carla Walker Case.

If you haven't listened to the previous episodes yet, go back and listen so you can follow along to the case.

I'm here with producer Katherine Fenalosa Hey Catherine Hey Aylen.

So when we last talked, Detective Jeff Bennett and Fort Worth had decided to test this second piece of DNA from her dress, sort of a hail Mary, and send it to the new lab outside of Houston.

Yeap.

Detective Bennett had run out of all other options, and both he and investigator Paul Hols are just absolutely desperate to find out the truth of what happened to Carla.

So Jeff Bennett decides to ship parts of Carlo's dress off to AUTH room and then he basically just has to sit around and wait.

I remember it was July fourth, it was a Saturday morning, about nine am.

I get a phone call and I see that it's David Middleman calling.

I knew that he had an answer.

I could not answer the phone fast enough, and David says, well, Jeff, we got a profile from your DNA.

David says, listen, we're able to extract DNA markers from Carlo's clothes.

We've been building out the family trees, and I have a name for you.

Who is it?

The last name is McCurley, And David says, but there's a problem because our genealogists are saying that there is a Glenn Samuel mccurryly.

But he died in nineteen seventy two, and Carla was murdered in nineteen seventy four.

What so it can't be him.

Unless he became a ombie.

But yes, it.

Can't exactly, it can't be him.

The powder blue dress that Carla wore to the Valentine's Day dance.

Her sister Cindy, who was eighteen at the time Carla was seventeen, had worn that dress to a dance before Carla wore it.

So there is some thought right that any DNA that they're pulling off the dress could actually have already been there the night that Carla's abducted.

Oh, that complicates things even more.

And also just to clarify, is this DNA semen or is it just like touched.

I think it's semen, but that's also mixed with some of Carlo's DNA.

Of Carlo's DNA, Okay, I feel like that is very different.

If it's semen, it's not like Carla's sister wore the dress and gave this guy a hug and then it's there.

It's like, no, something happened.

We are talking about teenagers.

True, and who knows what Carla's sister wants to say or exactly.

And these are all like really good kids from everybody I've talked to, But you know, it's it's high school in the early to mid seventies.

They're partying, they're having fun.

So David Middleman gave Jeff Bennett a name, but there's this problem with it in that the name is of someone who passed away two years before the crime exactly.

So Jeff Bennett says, David, I have a question for you.

Did Glenn Samuel mccury have any sons?

And David says, we're not at that point yet in the family tree.

Give me some time and I will call you back.

So he called back about an hour and a half later, and he said, BINGO, Glenn Samuel McCurley had three boys.

Ooh.

Now, remember Jeff is put together a suspect list that has eighty five people on it.

Jeff is immediately scanning down his list of suspects.

Sure enough, number twenty two on my suspect.

List Glenn Samuel McCurley Junior.

Ooh, Jeff does confirm that of the three mccury brothers, Glenn Junior was the only one living in Texas at the time when Carla was killed.

And now he needs to focus in on Glenn.

It was a goosebump moment for me that detectives had worked forty six years to solve this case now as a matter to see if we could locate Glenn mccurly if he was still alive.

It sort of blows Detective Bennett's mind when he gets that information because for forty six years, any leads they've gotten have led nowhere, and now not only did he get a new lead, but he actually has a name, like there is a suspect to now go and investigate.

Why was Glenn McCurley Junior on the list in the first place, because that means something else was indicating it could be him.

So he was in his thirties at the time that Carla was abducted.

And the reason he was on the list is when remember the magazine to the gun that they found in the parking lot of the Bowling Alley At the time, detectives got a list of every single person in the area that owned that type of gun, and Glenn Samuel McCurley Junior owned a Ruger twenty two.

So back in the seventies, police interviewed every single person in Fort Worth that owned that gun.

Everyone else was able to produce the gun.

Glenn was the only person who couldn't.

He said that he had been on a fishing tree and the gun was stolen and he just never reported it.

Oh that's interesting.

Could be a clue or a red herring.

Now, he did take a polygraph at the time and he passed, so it was sort of like, huh not him and the police moved on.

I mean, they didn't really have anything else to tie him to the murder.

It is also interesting that he was willing to take the polygraph if that was sort of the gold standard at the time.

Yeah, if he did it, you would think he wouldn't want to take the polygraph.

Even if I don't trust the polygraph, it is interesting that he was willing to take it, probably believing that it was an effective way to catch someone.

Lying prove his innocence.

Yeah, so that is interesting to me.

Yeah.

So now detective Bennett has a name.

So started doing some research.

Located Glenn Samu McCurley still living in Fort Worth, just a couple of miles from the bowling alley that Carlo was abducted from.

It was in the middle of COVID, so we kind of used that as a reason to have this.

Police officers show up at mccurley's residence.

So two detectives go out to the house.

This is in twenty twenty, and they want to see does he still live there?

You know, this is forty six years later.

They have no idea and they sort of use it being COVID as an excuse.

You know, they're just going door to door checking on residents.

Do you have enough masks?

Are you okay?

That type of thing.

Oh interesting, a little undercover action happening here exactly.

So they go, they knock in the door.

His his wife came to the door and we asked him we could talk with him.

She said, he's in the backyard.

And I'm not sure if his wife called to him in the backyard, but he comes around the side of the house to come talk to officers.

One of the first things he did is he lifted up his hands and he goes, I didn't do it, and in a joking kind of manner with this officer, and he walks up and they just start joking back and forth and having conversation.

So we knew that he was living there.

And he's laughing.

It does strike me as a little weird that he would come out with his hands up and make this joke about it.

Wasn't me, Like, that's just the type of joke I think someone would make who was super confident in themselves and not at all of afraid of police, and not at all worried that something bigger was happening.

When the officers went there, they didn't get any signs that there was anything amiss.

I mean, they're an older couple, they're at home, they've lived there for over fifty years.

He was a former truck driver and she used to run the daycare at the local church.

They had two boys themselves, and really, detectives are just going on this name that authoram provided.

So the officers leave and the mccurls have put their trash out for pickup, and the police just, you know, look through the trash bag that's on the curb and they take a few things, one being a fast food drink cup and they take that and they test the.

Straw and that profile matched the profile that we had uploaded into kotis.

It was Glenn mccurley's DNA profile.

Hang on, why are they testing the straw?

So the detectives need to confirm his identity basically to make sure that this person is actually Glenn McCurley Junior.

And what does it mean that the DNA from the straw matches the profile and codis.

So it means that Glenn probably had something to do with Carla's abduction.

But remember Rodney, Carla's boyfriend said there might have been more than one man who grabbed her from the car.

Yeah, I remember that.

So that means the investigation is not over, not even close.

So what happens now?

So Detective Bennett knows that Glenn McCurley was somehow involved in Carla's disappearance, but he's got a figure out how So a few days later, he and his partner Leah go back to the mccurly house unannounced.

I got to say, going back to this person's house, you've got some kind of connection DNA wise, I would be pretty nervous, shaking in my boots.

Yeah, he knows that this could be a major break in the case.

They go back and their intention is to ask him to come down to the police station where they can question him.

They knock on the door again.

His wife, Judy answers the door, and they asked to speak to Glenn, and they sort of just say we're looking into an old cold case, and we are just talking to everybody that had been spoken to back in the seventies.

And she said, well, he's got liver cancer and so he just got back from a treatment.

And she said, but I think he'll be glad to talk to you.

So we ended up doing the interview at their home.

So Judy welcomes them into the house and they sit Jeff Bennett and his partner with Glenn at a kitchen table.

They start asking Glenn, hey, I don't know if you remember this young girl was abducted after a dance from the bowling Alley.

And Glenn is kind of a charming guy.

He's joking around with them.

He doesn't know who Carla was.

He doesn't really remember the case.

His wife does.

Now.

She's sitting at the dining room table off to the side, and every swaften she's sort of chiming in and oh, yeah, I remember that case.

Of course, that poor girl, it was all over the news.

They never who killed her.

But you know, Glenn is very comfortable, he's relaxed, he's chatting with the officers.

So neither of them seem super suspicious, at least in how they're behaving.

Not at all.

So Jeff Bennett asks Glenn, so where were you that February nineteen seventy four?

Where were you that evening?

And Glenn says, well, you know, I am was probably driving my wife around because she doesn't drive, and that's what I used to do.

She ran a daycare center out of our local church, and whenever she had errands to run, I would drive her around.

His wife spoke up and she goes, well, no, Glenn, don't you remember that was the week my dad was having surgery in Midland, Texas.

I was out of town that week.

And remember him looking back at her kind of like, really.

Oh, that's the first inkling that Jeff Bennett gets that Glenn's not so thrilled with what his wife has just said.

Do we know?

It was that the story he was giving years ago when they questioned him that he was driving his wife around.

There were two stories about Glenn back at the time.

One that he and his wife sort of did everything together because she didn't drive.

The other thing was he was a long haul trucker and his route was basically from Texas to California.

He was out of town for stretches.

He did actually have a little bit of a criminal history, but it was very minor.

His parents had sent him to a boy's home when he was a teen major.

Kind of like a juvenile crime type home.

I don't know exactly why his parents sent him, other than they found him difficult at home, so he was sent to this boy's home.

He left that boy's home and ended up stealing a car.

So he did have a criminal record based on the car theft.

But other than that, now he's in his seventies, all of that time, he's having ero police interaction.

Right.

Yeah, So Jeff and his partner say, listen, thank you so much for answering our questions.

Everyone that we're talking to.

We're just asking if we can take what's called a buckle swab, which is a swab of the mouth to get a fresh DNA sample.

Oh so they asked Glenn, you know, hey, would you mind And he says, oh, you know, I already gave one the first time the police came and asked me.

Had he and his wife Judy at the dining room table says essentially, Glenn silly, There was no such thing as DNA evidence in nineteen seventy four.

You couldn't have given them a sample.

Ough, she's a little beacon of truth over in the corner.

Duty is keeping it real.

Good, Judy's totally keeping it real and frankly, just like you said, did he give a DNA sample back then?

Yeah, I think we're so used to DNA being in the conversation about things now that we forget that it's actually fairly recent.

I mean, certainly since the eighties that the FBI's been using it, but you know, even more in just like thinking about you know, know, like doing your own genealogy and things like that, that's much more recent.

But we forget how recent it is.

So Glenn sort of screwed at this point, right, like, what is he gonna say?

No?

He probably should say no, but yeah, maybe also just the social pressure with his wife there and the police, and I mean if he did it, I mean that's a risky thing to do, to give your DNA.

But also maybe he's like, oh, they'll fumble the evidence, or maybe they won't actually test it, they won't get around to it.

So I also get the argument for just trying to fly under their radar.

Also, don't forget he had been investigated before and they didn't have anything on him, and he's already passed a polygraph and a previous investigation back in the seventies.

Are you implicating yourself by not giving your DNA, now, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's also interesting that he probably doesn't know what evidence they do have, like do they even have DNA to compare it against or are they just collecting it?

And so it's no harm to give it if I did it.

But also, I mean, I do think it's so interesting with solving crime, how just the social dynamics of a particular conversation can change the trajectory of what happens.

Because honestly, if Glenn McCurley knew that they had solid DNA to compare his DNA against, that would point to him he should not be giving over his DNA in his mind.

Obviously, I also feel like he could easily come up with an excuse like I'm tired of doing this.

I already gave a polygraph.

I don't really trust DNA analyses.

I don't like the idea of my DNA getting out there into the system and potentially pull it off in a compelling way.

Yeah, and Alen, there's another reason that Glenn might not have been too worried that detectives were there.

So over the years there have been other suspects that police have investigated.

Oh wait, tell me about those people who are they?

Let me take a step back.

There are few things I should fill you in on.

First, Carla was murdered in February, and apparently every February, Fort Worth hosts a rodeo.

I don't know if you've ever been to one.

I actually did go to one one time, so you.

Can picture what it's like.

The one in Fort Worth is massive, and it attracts people from all over and it's basically sort of a temporary city springs up around the rodeo site totally for all of the horses and the cowboys and the hand and trailers and tents, and they're there for several weeks.

Yeah.

I mean that adds a whole bunch of extra people that could have somehow been connected to the Carla Walker case.

Yeah, so a ton of people every February descend on Fort Worth.

And one year before Carla is murdered, another young woman is abducted from her car and strangle in February.

In February, and then the same thing happens three years after Carla's murder.

Also in February, a young woman is sexually assaulted and murdered, also around the time that this rodeo is taking place in Fort Worth.

Oh so maybe somebody is coming into town committing these crimes and then leaving.

Yeah, so keep that in mind.

And then at one point someone actually confesses to killing Carla.

Who So, this guy, Jimmy Dean Sasser actually walks into a police station three years after Carla's death and he says he's the killer.

And he was arrested for killing Carla.

And he's ultimately indicted by a grand jury for Carla's murder.

Whoa yeah, and he spent seven months in jail awaiting trial.

But then he has a change of heart and Jimmy Dean comes forward and says, you know what, it was all a lie?

What who does that?

I know, it's kind of crazy, I think as it was preparing to go to trial, he realized what he had done, basically falsely confess to this crime.

And I guess all along police were a little suspen vicious of his confession because he didn't know a lot of details about Carlo's murder.

He claims that he kidnapped her and then ended up murdering her because he was angry that she didn't go with him willingly.

But he didn't know anything about Rodney or the attack you know that Rodney says happened in the car, so he sort of like leaves Rodney out of the story entirely.

The only info he knew about Carla's case was what had been printed in the newspaper, so kind of early on, I think police weren't totally confident, but he ended up being indicted and jailed.

That is pretty intense because also I admittedly somewhat late in life, only realized fully what a grand jury was and the fact that it based is a mini trial with a kind of jury where they decide there is enough evidence to actually go to a real trial, which means like they were on board to actually try to convict this man based on evidence.

So my point is they got pretty far in the process.

I mean, it just shows yet again how you can't necessarily trust a case just based off of a confession.

And the reason he lied was that his marriage was falling apart and he was sad, like what the Heck, people do very weird things and I don't understand it, but it happens like it.

It is not uncommon for police to have a suspect who has confessed to something.

Jimmy Dean Sasser actually turned himself into a police station saying I did it.

It's not like he was even on a suspect list.

Wow, that is strange because I get how if police are questioning you and they're pressuring you, they want to build their case against you, you end up just telling them what they want to hear, almost out of social pressure.

I get that, But to go out of your way to turn yourself in when you're not even a suspect, that that is Honestly, I haven't heard many stories like that.

So over the years, detectives have investigated a ton of suspects, and now Glenn Samuel McCurley Junior is the latest that they're looking into.

So does he agree to give his DNA to Detective Bennett?

Well, he's kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, you know what I mean, Like he looks guilty if he refuses, but he could incriminate himself if he does.

And ultimately he agrees to give them a DNA sample a buckle swap.

Of his mouth.

Next time on America's Crime Lab, she asked me, you know, Jim, let me ask you a question.

What do you want?

Do you want a conviction or do you want the truth?

I said, absolutely, I want the truth.

He raised his hand and I was like, oh my god, he's bleeding.

He's bleeding.

I tell everybody around he's bleeding.

They're like pleading to what I said, kept it a murder.

I have to be honest with you.

That was a real surprise who had ended up being at the end of the day.

America's Crime Labs produced by Rococo Punch for Kaleidoscope.

Erica Lance is our story editor and sound design is by David Woji.

Our producing team is Katherine Fedalosa and Jessica Albert.

Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hadikadour and David and Kristin Middleman and from iHeart Katrina Norville and Ali Perry.

Special thanks to Connell Byrne, Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etour, Nathan Etowski, John Burbank, and the entire team at Authrum.

I'm Alan Lance Lesser thanks for listening,