In August 1970, 26-year-old schoolteacher Linda Jane Phillips, daughter of Kaufman County School Superintendent Jimmy Phillips, vanished while driving home from a Dallas wedding party. Two days later, her mutilated body was discovered in a hedgerow near Post Oak, Texas.

The case shocked Kaufman County—a quiet, rural community east of booming Dallas—and became one of North Texas’s most haunting unsolved murders. Investigators found her car abandoned along Farm Road 1641, its window shattered, her clothing scattered along the roadside for nearly a mile. Despite hundreds of volunteers searching and an intensive investigation led by Sheriff Roy Brockway, no suspect was found.

Over the following decade, a wave of similarly brutal killings of women swept across North and East Texas. Lawmen speculated about a single “lust killer” operating around Dallas, connecting Linda’s death to others in Garland, Irving, Plano, and Grapevine. Yet no pattern held.

Then, in 1984, serial confessor Henry Lee Lucas—already infamous for hundreds of claimed murders—pleaded guilty to Linda’s killing. Kaufman County briefly marked the case “cleared.” But Lucas’s confession later fell apart. Records showed he was still in Michigan at the time of her death.

Fifty-five years later, Linda’s murder remains officially unsolved. What endures is the picture of a kind, capable young woman caught between the growing city and the fading quiet of small-town Texas—and a reminder of how easily a search for closure can bury the truth.

If you have information about the murder of Linda Jane Phillips, please contact the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office at (972) 932-4337.

Sources: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Tyler Morning Telegraph, The San Antonio Express-News, The Odessa American, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, The Longview Daily News, The McKinney Courier-Gazette, The Austin American-Statesman, The Brownsville Herald, The Mesquite Daily News, and Henry Lee Lucas files

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In the early hours of June 23, 1985, fourteen-year-old Jennifer Leigh Day opened Preston Road Donuts in North Dallas for her usual Sunday shift. She brewed the coffee, stocked the shelves, and rang up her last customer at 6:20 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, the shop was silent. Jennifer’s purse and jewelry sat untouched on the counter, her apron on the floor, and the cash drawer still full.

Three days later, construction workers discovered her body in a field off Preston Road and State Highway 121 in Plano—eleven miles north. Jennifer had been bludgeoned and stabbed through the throat.

Her murder shook a city that believed it was safe. Detectives followed every lead, chased sightings of a white 1970s sedan, and combed the area for evidence, but the case went cold within weeks.

Jennifer’s mother, Patsy Day, turned heartbreak into advocacy, helping other families navigate life after violent loss. Decades later, the case remains unsolved, but her daughter’s story endures as one of North Texas’ most haunting reminders of how quickly ordinary moments can change forever.

If you have any information about the abduction and murder of Jennifer Leigh Day, please contact the Plano Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit at (972) 941-2148, or go to this Plano Police website where you can submit a tip anonymously: https://www.planocoldcases.com/case/1985-7/jennifer-leigh-day

Sources: The Plano Star-Courier, The Dallas Morning News, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, KXAS-TV archives accessed on texashistory.unt.edu

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In June 1964, a Fort Bend County farmer discovered a headless, handless torso in a roadside ditch — a killing so cleanly done that investigators said only someone trained in anatomy could have done it. Sheriff “Tiny” Gaston and the Texas Rangers searched for weeks, but the victim was never identified. Then, just months later, another scene shocked Texas — Room 636 of San Antonio’s Sheraton Gunter Hotel, where blood coated the walls and floor but no body was found. The man who’d checked in under a false name vanished, only to turn up two days later dead by suicide in another downtown hotel. His name was Walter Audley Emerick — a drifter, forger, and former airman who may have been responsible for far more than the crime in that room.

From the rice fields of Fort Bend County to the marble halls of the Gunter, this episode follows the grim trail of the 1960s Texas torso murders and asks whether the mystery that began in the Rio Grande ended that night with a .22 in Room 536 — or if the real killer was still out there.

If you have any information about the Fort Bend Torso Case of 1964, please contact the Sheriff’s Office there at (281) 341-4665.

If you have any information about Walter Audley Emerick or his victim, please contact the San Antonio Police at (210) 207-7635.

Sources: The Houston Post, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, thegunterhotel.com, historichotels.org

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Three years after a suitcase containing a man’s torso surfaced in the Rio Grande near El Paso, another horror emerged—this time in the pine woods of East Texas. On February 3, 1962, two brothers seining minnows in a roadside ditch off U.S. Highway 59 north of Cleveland discovered two cardboard boxes wired together and packed with cement. Inside was the severed torso of a woman. Her head, arms, and legs were missing.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Lewis Woodruff and Constable Collis Everitt called in the Texas Rangers and Houston pathologist Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk. The autopsy revealed crude dismemberment, a missing heart, and faint teeth marks on the torso. Nine pieces of women’s clothing surrounded the body, all stripped of laundry tags. Every clue, as few as there were, pointed toward Houston.

Investigators chased leads across Texas and beyond.

Between the 1959 discovery in El Paso and the 1962 killing in San Jacinto County lay nearly eight hundred miles, three years, and two nameless victims—each drained of blood, each missing a heart. The phantom butcher once dubbed “Mack the Knifer” disappeared without a trace, leaving the questions of who they were and why they died buried with them.

If you have any information about the 1962 San Jacinto Torso Case, please call the sheriff’s office there at (936) 653-4367.

Sources: The El Paso Times, The El Paso Herald-Post, The Houston Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Sarasota Journal, The Fort Lauderdale News

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In June of 1959, a fisherman on the Rio Grande west of El Paso pulled a black suitcase from the slow, muddy current near Montoya, Texas. Inside was a headless, handless torso — mutilated, skinned, and wrapped in the previous day’s newspaper. Within hours, El Paso County Sheriff Bob Bailey was standing over what he’d later call “the most brutal murder in El Paso history.” What followed was a multi-state investigation that spanned Texas, New Mexico, and beyond — an effort to name the victim and find the sadist who cut him apart.

Over the next weeks, more body parts surfaced downstream and across the desert near Tularosa. Each discovery added a new layer of horror — feet in a sandwich box, organs in a cereal carton, and hands packed in plastic and left in the sand. Every clue pointed to someone who knew anatomy and took their time.

Despite help from the FBI, countless missing-person matches, and even a copycat case a year later in New Mexico, the Rio Grande torso murder remained one of the Southwest’s most chilling mysteries. The body was never identified, the killer never found.

This is Part One of Three of The Torso Murders — a case that haunted El Paso lawmen for years and stretched from the cottonwoods of the Rio Grande to the deserts beneath the Sacramento Mountains.

If you have any information about the 1959 Torso Case, please contact the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at (915) 538-2292.

Sources: The El Paso Times, The El Paso Herald-Post, The Carlsbad Current-Argus, The Albuquerque Journal

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On April 5, 1985, 29-year-old Kathleen “Kathy” Ranft finished her shift at Lippe Tire Center in Seguin, Texas, and headed into the weekend. She was in the middle of a separation, moving into a new apartment, and trying to build a fresh start for herself and her three sons. That night, Kathy was supposed to meet friends at the Country Cabaret, a small nightclub off FM 467. She never made it.

The next morning, her 1980 Chevy Citation was found in the club’s parking lot. Inside were two cigarette butts and a child’s wristwatch. Back at her apartment, her purse and makeup sat untouched, but her wallet and keys were gone. Kathy was never seen again.

In the weeks that followed, the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office chased leads that led nowhere. Investigators even called in a Dallas psychic, who led deputies and reporters to dig the clay pits of Acme Brick, where Kathy’s estranged husband worked. The spectacle drew headlines but uncovered nothing.

Decades later, Kathy’s disappearance remains Guadalupe County’s most haunting cold case. With no suspects, little evidence, and only painful silence, her family has spent nearly forty years waiting for answers.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Kathleen Ranft, please contact the Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office at (830) 379-1224 or Guadalupe County Crime Stoppers at (877) 403-TIPS.

Sources: The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, The Wichita Falls Times, The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, The San Antonio Express-News, KTSX.com, FoxSanAntonio.com, SeguinToday.com

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In October 1996, a rancher in rural Wise County, Texas, stumbled on a body hidden in a brush pile. For over two years she was known only as “Brush Girl,” a Jane Doe with no name, no identity, and no justice. Eventually, persistence and forensic artistry revealed her true identity: 14-year-old April Dawn Lacy from Oklahoma City.

April’s story is one of poverty, addiction, instability, and systemic failure — a child caught between parents lost to alcohol and drugs, shuffled between motels and friends’ homes, desperate for stability. Five days after storming out of a seedy motel room following a fight with her mother, she was dead. Strangled. Dumped. Forgotten by many, but not by all.

This episode follows April’s life, disappearance, discovery, and identification, and examines how her murder fits into a chilling pattern of killings along interstates in Texas and Oklahoma — crimes later tied to long-haul truckers like John Robert Williams, the so-called “Big Rig Killer.”

Nearly three decades later, April’s grave still bears no headstone. Her case remains unsolved. But her story is more than a case number — it is a call for justice, and a reminder of the children who slip through the cracks.

If you have any information regarding the 1996 murder of April Dawn Lacy, please contact the Wise County Sheriff’s Office at (940) 627-5971.

Sources: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Houston Chronicle, The Daily Oklahoman, The Bryan-College Station Eagle, The Tyler Morning Telegraph

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In October 1987, a visiting nurse walked into a Tyler, Texas duplex and discovered a scene of unimaginable violence. Fifty-seven-year-old Mary Hooper, confined to a wheelchair after a long battle with illness, had been bludgeoned to death. Just steps away, her longtime partner, sixty-two-year-old Emmett Lynch, was found beaten in the bathroom. Nothing in the home appeared disturbed. Valuables remained untouched. The only thing missing was Emmett’s car—a gray 1977 Ford LTD he cherished and would never have willingly sold.

When the car turned up more than 1,000 miles away in Prescott, Arizona, so did two suspects: Terry and Kathryn McMahan, former neighbors of the victims. What followed was one of the most expensive capital murder trials in Smith County history—filled with contradictions, unanswered questions, and ultimately, an acquittal.

Decades later, the murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch remain unsolved. This episode explores the crime scene, the investigation that stretched across state lines, and the courtroom drama that left a grieving community with no justice.

If you have any information about the murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch, please contact the Tyler Police Department at 903-531-1000 or Tyler / Smith County Crime-Stoppers at 903-597-2833. Sources:

The Tyler Morning Telegraph, The Tyler Courier-Times, cityoftyler.org, KETK.com

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Most disappearances leave echoes—missing persons flyers, TV reports, police pleas for tips. But when James Robert “Jimmy” Farenthold vanished in the spring of 1989, there was only silence. No bulletin. No headlines. No public outcry. Just absence.

Jimmy wasn’t just anyone. He was the youngest son of one of Texas’s most prominent dynasties, a family bound by oil, politics, and power. But behind the legacy was a private story of grief and dysfunction. Jimmy had been born a twin—and when his brother Vincent died suddenly, Jimmy became the “one who lived,” carrying scars that shaped the rest of his life.

Charming yet reckless, Jimmy drifted through addiction, rehab programs, and cities across the South. In April 1989, he promised a fresh start. Bags packed, ticket in hand, he was set to enter a Florida treatment program. Instead, he disappeared. His car, his passport, even his clothes—left behind.

What followed was not the frantic search you’d expect for the son of a famous family. Instead, his disappearance became another fracture inside an already divided household. A father chasing rumors. A mother haunted by silence. A family dynasty unraveling.

Part 3 of 3 of our series follows Jimmy’s apparent final days, the dead ends that followed, and the generational weight of a name built on both power and tragedy.

If you have information about the disappearance of James Robert “Jimmy” Farenthold, please contact the San Antonio Police Department at 210-207-8939. 

Sources: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Port Aransas South Jetty, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, texashistory.unt.edu, The Los Angeles Times, The University of Texas School of Law – Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Archives Project

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On June 6, 1972, the Gulf of Mexico gave back one of its secrets. The body of Randolph “Randy” Farenthold, 32 years old, oil money in his veins, and gambling smoke in his lungs, washed ashore on Mustang Island. His hands were bound, his body chained, his skull fractured. The brutal murder of the South Texas “sportsman” triggered one of the most intensive investigations in Nueces County history, pulling in local lawmen, Texas Rangers, and even the FBI.

But this was no simple killing. Randy had been scheduled to testify in a federal fraud case against men tied to shady financial schemes, leaving investigators to question whether his death was a mob-style hit meant to silence him. His movements in the final hours were traced from Corpus Christi’s nightlife to the waters he loved, yet every lead pointed to a tangle of gambling debts, betrayals, and organized crime connections.

Though suspects were named and one man, Bruce Lusk Bass III, eventually indicted and convicted, Randy’s murder remains clouded by unanswered questions. His violent end became one more curse in a dynasty already fractured by addiction, politics, and loss.

Randy’s death was only the beginning. Seventeen years later, the family would face another devastating silence—the disappearance of his younger brother, James Robert “Jimmy” Farenthold.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Jimmy Farenthold, please contact the San Antonio Police Department at (210) 207-8939.

Sources: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Port Aransas South Jetty, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, texashistory.unt.edu, The Los Angeles Times

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