08x10 - The Cookie Lady

[bunniefuu]

[Detective Sayers]
When we work on a case,

anytime you get a little bit
of evidence,

it's like pulling a string
off a sweater.

You keep pulling it,
eventually it unravels.

He's walking up and down the
outer parts of the Whataburger.

He looks like he's waiting
for somebody,

as though
he's looking for a ride.

A few minutes later,
a four-door vehicle pulls up,

and he gets in,
and they drive off.

At this point,
I believe this is my suspect.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] 79-year-old
Avanell Cowgill

is volunteering at her local
church in Casa Linda, Texas.

[Dr. Bazan] Avanell was
just this beautiful, loving lady,

the kindest woman
that you could ever meet.

She volunteered her time. She was
always around, in one way or another.

Hey.

- Hey, Pastor. How are you?
- Really good.

Oh, thank you for bringing
those in. I'll sort them for you.

She was a great cook, and she was
well-known by her cookies. [chuckles]

She was always baking.

I mean, the smell when she
would bring them to the office

was just so enticing...
impossible to resist.

[chuckles]
They're the best.

[narrator] Avanell lost her
husband, Jim, several years ago,

and her daughters, Patty
and Janet, live out of town.

The church was her family,
her extended family.

For people like Avanell,
church was part of who they are.

On March 7th, Avanell was
performing her duties at church,

answering the phone...

Hello, church office.

Just making herself available
to whatever was needed.

She was a lady
that always kept herself busy.

You know what?
I think I'll head out.

That's how she lived her life.

[narrator] That night, Avanell
goes about her normal routine.

In the evenings, she'd watch TV.

And she'd sit there and crochet
caps, the knitted wool caps.

And she would then donate those

to the White Rock Center
of Hope.

And they would give them out
to homeless people.

My mother would... definitely generous
to anybody that needed anything.

She'd have given you
the shirt off her back.

On March 9th,
it was a Saturday...

and it was time
to set the clocks ahead

for the time change.

So I had been trying
to call my mom

to remind her
to change her clocks back.

[phone line ringing]

And couldn't get hold of her.
She didn't answer.

No big deal. She's probably
up at the church,

doing her volunteer work,
or whatever.

That night,
I get a call from my sister

that she'd been trying
to call her also,

and hadn't been able to get hold
of my mom for a couple of days.

We both kept trying to call her,

and she never did answer.

And we were starting
to really get concerned.

[phone line ringing]

Tried that Saturday night,
several times, to call her.

And so we finally decided,
okay, I'm calling the police,

and getting them
to do a well-check on her

and see what was going on.

[phone line ringing]

[Janet over phone]

[911 operator speaks]

[Janet speaks]

[911 operator speaks]

[Janet speaks]

[911 operator speaks]

[Janet speaks]

[911 operator speaks]

[Detective Sayers] Patrol officers
arrived on Health and Welfare checks.

Typically they go to see
if somebody is inside.

And if they are inside,

you know, do they need
medical attention?

They knocked on the door.
There was no answer.

I get a phone call from
the officers on the scene...

Hi, is this Janet?

[Janet]
and she's told me

they were gonna walk around
to the back door.

So she stayed
on the phone with me.

Stay on the line.

[Janet] She gets to the
back door and she asks me,

"Is the back door
normally open?"

No.

I told her,
"At this time of the night,

no doors should be open. They
should all be closed and locked up."

I'm going in.

[Janet] She said
she would call me back,

but they were gonna
go in and check on her.

They never called me back.

[Detective Sayers] When they got
in, they found Avanell on the floor.

It appeared as though
she'd be bludgeoned to death.

They backed out,
they secured the scene,

and they notified
the homicide unit.

I got called late in the night.

And I was going to be
the lead detective,

so got up, got dressed,
and headed into work.

When you walk in the front door,

her body was laying right there,

and there was just blood
all over the carpet,

blood all over her.

You know, there was blood
spatter on some of the furniture.

There was a stool that
was laying there, next to her.

And the blood spatter resembled

that of it being used
as a blunt object w*apon.

It was horrific.

We knew fairly early on that she
wasn't att*cked the night we got there.

She was att*cked
probably several days prior.

Once we find out it's a m*rder,

we kinda look for any evidences.

"Is this a burglary?
Was there a break-in?"

We start looking around

for any kind of property
that might be missing.

Everything was neat
and in its place,

and there was no forced entry.

There are valuables
that are still there.

That kinda confused us as to,
you know, what this was about.

You know, if this was
a robbery gone bad,

why didn't they take
these items?

[phone ringing]

While we were at the crime
scene...

Hello.

The phone rang.

I normally don't answer
the phone,

but I thought maybe it was
somebody who cared for her.

I'm sorry. I got some
bad news for you.

I mean, there's...

[sighs]
It's the hardest thing...

to be told that
your mother's been k*lled.

I just remember screaming.

I don't remember much else
after that,

but I remember
just screaming and crying.

[Detective Sayers] The following
morning, as we knock on doors,

and we just ask neighbors
if they remember anything,

if they remember
seeing anything.

We're just in the area,
asking around

to see if anybody noticed
any suspicious activity.

We did find out that there
was a van, was driving around,

and dropping people off that
were pushing this cleaning product.

They weren't
taking no for an answer.

One neighbor told us that he
remembers a pushy salesman,

door-to-door salesman,
that came that was refusing

to take no for what it was.

I guess, uh...

[Detective Sayers] He seemed to
think that the guy was aggressive.

When you're working
on a homicide,

everything is possible...

All right. Thank you
very much. I appreciate it.

And either needs to be
included or excluded

from the investigation.

See you later.

[narrator] Back
at the crime scene,

detectives look
for a potential motive.

[Detective Sayers] We're trying
to figure out why did this happen.

Who would do
something like this?

We couldn't find her wallet,
you know, that had her ID,

so it looked like
this was a robbery gone bad,

which made it a capital case.

She still had, like,
a house phone.

We checked the voicemail in.

There had been some attempts
at her credit card.

I started calling
the credit card company

to see what information
they could tell me,

because that could
create a timeline.

They didn't really want to
cooperate with me over the phone,

but gave me times,
and dates, and locations

for two different
Walmart stores.

One was a Walmart
kind of up on Forest Lane,

and there was
an actual purchase made.

[narrator] The transactions
took place three days earlier,

supporting detectives' theory that
Avanell has been dead for several days.

Give me the rest of her
credit card information.

[Detective Sayers] We
had to figure out a timeline

of when she was att*cked.

When we found out that a credit
card was used at this specific Walmart,

uh, they're open 24/7, so we
went over there immediately.

Can you pull up
the night of the 7th?

If you can imagine a Walmart,

every time you see a
bubble camera, they're filming.

At around 2.30 a.m.

We were probably two, three
days behind this individual,

and we know that they have
stolen her credit card.

Getting a good image
of the person's face

is critical
to the investigation.

[Detective Sayers] Approaching
the counter was a larger, white male

wearing, like, a
grayish jacket and a hat.

He's got her credit card,

so this is somebody
who's definitely

at the top of my investigation.

This transaction appears
as though it didn't work,

and he walked away
from the counter.

[narrator]
But ten minutes later,

the same man returns.

[Detective Sayers] The suspect
is approaching the counter,

which looks like it's
in the electronics section.

He's talking
with the salesperson.

[Detective Sayers] It appears as
if he's trying to purchase an iPad.

And once he swipes
Avanell's card,

he completes the purchase,
and he walks off with it.

He's pretty calm, you know. Just
shopping... like any other shopper.

He doesn't look like he's in a
rush or in a hurry or in a panic.

Whoever had k*lled Ms. Cowgill

could have thrown her purse
in the dumpster,

and they...
whoever was using her cards

could have just picked them up

and tried to see
if they would work.

So what you do then,
is you backtrack.

You follow them
through the store.

Can I see him before
going to the register?

And t takes a while.

You have to switch
from one camera to the next.

That's him.

He's walking, going up and down
aisles, pushing a shopping cart.

[Marci] The man who was
using Mrs. Cowgill's cards

wore a hat to try to hide
who he was from the cameras,

and to appear
as inconspicuous as possible.

[Detective Sayers] Well, this
clips shows, not a really good,

but a better image of his face

It's kind of a chubbier face,
uh, somewhat babyish.

It let me know that it was
probably a younger individual.

Now I knew he was a white male,

I knew his size, I knew
the clothing that he wore.

At this point, I believe
that this is my suspect.

My mother was 5'3", little
bitty thing, just real petite.

My sister and I sat there
thinking, who could have done this?

You know, was it somebody
she knew? Was it a stranger?

I mean, who?

We could not come up with
anybody that would have hurt her.

You go through
your mind constantly,

what could
we have done different?

You know, was there something
we could have done to prevent this?

All that goes through
your mind the whole time.

[Dr. Bazan] When I learned
about Avanell's passing,

I just couldn't believe.
It was like a bad dream.

It shouldn't have happened.

It shouldn't have happened to
anyone, much less to Avanell.

It was heart-breaking.

[Marci] Mrs. Cowgill's
credit card records

show the different locations where
the credit cards had been used.

[Detective Sayers] The next
transaction was at Cockrell Hill Walmart.

I need to see some of the surveillance
footage from the night of the 8th.

We had a list of all the
transactions that occurred,

so we looked for the credit card
swipes and the times with the camera.

The card was swiped
at 5:00 a.m.,

so let's start at the other
entrance before that.

I noticed an individual
who was the same size,

same build, same weight,
but now got a brown jacket on.

This, as a detective, tells me that
he knows he's got a stolen credit card.

He knows that eventually we're
going to come get this video.

It was the same guy. He's
trying to change his appearance

to try to throw us off.

Let's look at the register
when he used the card.

[keyboard clacking]

The same male is attempting
to purchase a laptop.

[Detective Sayers] He does seem
to be a little bit more anxious now.

He is continuing to use
this card, and it's declining.

He might have some fear

that they're gonna call
the police to investigate.

Once again, it's declined.
He just leaves.

See where he goes.

That's him.

[Marci] As he leaves
Walmart, he's got his hood up...

trying to hide his identity.

[Detective Sayers]
We're able to watch

this suspect walk
through the parking lot,

and walk over to an area where
there's fast food restaurants.

That's a continuation
of your case.

We found something,
it led us to something else.

And we were just on this trail
of breadcrumbs.

Can I get a copy of that?

I know there was
a Whataburger next door,

so I go over and start looking
at the surveillance footage

and see if this suspect
comes into the store.

I need to see the footage
for the 8th.

We were gaining traction.

We were getting
closer and closer

with every piece of evidence
that we got.

That's him!

The same individual
who was at the Walmart

is standing in the parking lot
of a Whataburger.

Can you zoom in on that?

He's walking up and down the
outer parts of the Whataburger.

He looks like he's waiting
for somebody,

as though
he's looking for a ride.

Punch in right there.

[Marci] He keeps
his head tilted down,

careful to avoid looking
directly at the camera...

trying to avoid detection.

[Detective Sayers]
A few minutes later,

a champagne-colored,
four-door vehicle pulls up.

He gets in and they drive off.

Now we have a car,
it just adds another element.

We figured this
champagne-colored suspect vehicle

might have dropped off the suspect
in the brown coat, so we backtrack,

looking for that style car
at an earlier time.

[narrator]
Fifteen minutes earlier,

the same vehicle is spotted
in the parking lot.

[Marci] We see an
individual exiting the vehicle.

[Detective Sayers] We
realize it's not the same guy

because his build
is a little bit different,

so he's either going to be a witness,
or he's going to be an accomplice.

That individual walked
into the Whataburger.

He's wearing this
horizontal-striped sweatshirt.

We were pretty excited that

we were hopefully gonna get
a good image of the driver.

Let's look
inside the restaurant.

He's not a big as the other guy,

looks like he's losing his
hair a little bit on the top.

[Marci] He does not have
anything to disguise who he is.

You can see his face.

He's ordering his food and...

leaving with his food.

And gets into the car,
and then he leaves.

[Detective Sayers] So now we know
who's driving the champagne car.

Push in on the license plate.

It didn't capture
any license plates.

The recording
wasn't good enough.

Now we have two suspects...

that potentially
have information

about what
happened to Mrs. Cowgill.

We don't know to what extent
they are responsible for her death.

[Marci] They could have
found the credit cards.

They could have
bought them off the street.

[Detective Sayers] But I've got good
images of both of these individuals,

as well as the car they drive.

Now we're just trying to figure
out who these suspects are.

[narrator] Family and friends
of Avanell

gather at her funeral
to pay their respects.

We had it at the cemetery.
They have a chapel there.

And...
It was standing room only...

that's how many people
loved my mother.

[Dr. Bazan] She built
our faith in humanity,

and we have to be thankful
every day.

What happened to Avanell
was so shocking

that it not only affected
the local community,

her church and family and
friends, but across the city,

people were in shock that something
as terrible as what happened,

could have happened
to a lady like her.

[Janet]
It was a nice service...

I don't know. I was kind of
numb through the whole thing.

[Dr. Bazan] Amen.

We released images to patrol
officers, g*ng unit officers,

who might be working an area

and know the people
who frequent that area.

Those are the type of people
that's going to identify them.

[narrator] Meantime, detectives had
checked with the cleaning company...

Okay, thanks.

[narrator] ...who neighbors
reported seeing near Avanell's home.

They weren't
in the neighborhood the time

that this would've happened.
They were in another neighborhood.

We knew that we had somebody
using her credit card,

and it wasn't the guy that was
pushing the cleaning products.

I had exhausted every way

of trying to figure out
who these guys were.

[narrator] Then, records of Avanell's
ATM transactions come through.

They reveal
an attempted withdrawal

on the night of her m*rder.

We were pretty excited because
those have facial cameras at the ATMs.

Is it on the system yet?

The bank ended up emailing
the footage for the ATM.

This suspect used the credit
card right after her m*rder.

This is the person I believe
k*lled Avanell Cowgill.

[Detective Sayers] He's
wearing a camouflage jacket.

Based on his size
and his build...

I believe
it's the same individual

that we saw
at both the Walmarts.

But he's now wearing
a totally different jacket.

[narrator] Detective Sayers
switches to the ATM camera.

It's eye-level.

It looked like he had a mask
up over his face.

He knows what he's done,

and he doesn't want us
to find out who he is.

[Marci] And at this point,
we still have no leads.

We have all of this video
surveillance of this person,

but still no way
of identifying who he is.

We suspected that they were
buying electronics

so that they could resell 'em.

We knew that the iPad
is an electronic device.

It has unique identifiers.

And I came up with the idea
that maybe I could

send a search warrant to Apple

with that iPad's make,
model and serial number,

and see any time
that it logged into Wi-Fi.

They were able to call me back.

And they gave me
three Wi-Fi addresses.

Two of 'em were useless
Wi-Fi addresses that change.

The other was Entertainmart,

the resale electronics company.

Thank you.

I drove straight to the store...

I'm here to inquire about a transaction
involving an iPad around the 8th.

And found out that Entertainmart
had actually bought the iPad

that was purchased
from the Walmart.

In order to pay for the iPad,
they had to make sure

it was in working order,
so they had to turn it on.

The person who sold the iPad
had left his ID.

They made a copy
of his Texas driver's license,

so it gave us a name, an
image of who it looked like,

and it looked exactly like the
babyface guy in the Walmart.

And is name turned out to be
Daniel Brooks

This was the turning point.

Well, now we've got the name
of the suspect

who's using Avanell Cowgill's
credit card after her m*rder.

And he's my number one suspect.

Do you have any
surveillance footage?

Unfortunately, the footage had
rolled. We were one day late.

All right. Thank you.

Once we have a name,
we search out database

for any kind of records
of the individual,

and we realize that he had
recently been arrested

in a city just north of us
named Richardson...

along with another
individual, David Herron.

Herron looked just like
the guy in the Whataburger.

I mean, he was pretty easy
to recognize when you saw him.

Yeah, you got two guys
for theft.

I need you to hold them.

They tried to swipe a purse.

They were later captured
at a motel room.

After they were arrested, they
left all their belongings in the hotel.

So we went and collected
all their clothing...

Detective Sayers.
You have some items for me.

Sorted it all out,
took pictures of all of it,

and logged it,
and put it into evidence.

Thank you.

We found the champagne
sedan in the parking lot.

It looked like they had been
living out of their car for a while.

[Detective Sayers] We did
find clothing that matched

the clothing that
Daniel Brooks was wearing

when he was
using her credit card.

I need a tow truck at the motel.

[camera clicks]

[Marci] They had a ton of
clothing and items that were found,

items that were missing
from Mrs. Cowgill's house.

We found her driver's license.

There were blood stains
on different items of clothing,

and they bagged those,
and sent them off for testing.

[narrator] Detectives
can now question

the men they suspect are
responsible for Avanell's m*rder.

We chased you for several
weeks. We finally caught you.

Now I hope
one of them cooperates.

Kinda wanna start with the one who you
think is the weaker, who's going to break.

So we started with David.

David had said
that he didn't wanna go,

so he was dropped off
at a nearby pharmacy.

He said that when he came back,

he had stolen a purse, jewelry,
some antique coins, silverware,

and some church envelopes.

Then they went to a pawn shop,

where they sold the antique
coins. And they got $40 for them.

Police canvassed certain
pawn shops in the area,

and put a call out to be on
the lookout for these coins.

He said that Daniel didn't
look right.

He was really pale and looked
like something bad had happened.

[narrator] Next,

Detective Sayers
interviews Daniel Brooks.

Any time I go in to interview
a potential suspect,

I hope to get a confession,
you know, a full confession.

[door opens]

[door closes]

I told him that he was a suspect

in my capital m*rder.

I got frustrated because it
wasn't happening

as quickly
as I thought it should be.

Like, I really thought
he was going to cave.

He just kept saying he didn't have
any idea what I was talking about.

[Detective Sayers]
I don't file cases on people

unless I'm 120% sure
that they did it.

But we needed to convince
a jury, so we're at a standstill,

until we get a confession, or we needed
to get some kind of physical evidence,

putting one of the two, if not both
of them, at the scene of the crime.

A week later, David Herron
came back with his attorney.

He gave us something
pretty significant.

He had mentioned
that Daniel was wearing

a pair of cowboy boots
when he committed this m*rder.

We never knew
he had these boots.

Those boots were transferred
in his property

when he was transferred from
the Richardson jail to the Dallas jail.

We pulled all
of his property out,

brought the boots back to head
quarters and looked at them.

Clearly we could see
droplets of blood on the boots.

[narrator] Herron also provides
the detectives with the location

of where Brooks pawned
Avanell's antique coins.

Detective Sayers.

So I went and communicated
with the owners,

looked at surveillance footage.

It's clear that
you can see the boots.

And this is the exact thing that
David Herron said he was wearing

when Daniel
committed the offense.

If the blood on them
would match my victim's blood,

that's the evidence
that you need

to put him
inside the crime scene.

There was no DNA evidence
in her house that was found

that either showed that Daniel Brooks
or David Herron were in her house.

We found no trace of her blood
on any clothing items,

but the DNA evidence showed
Avanell Cowgill's blood

on Daniel Brooks' cowboy boots.

- We got him!
- [cheering]

We were happy because this
is kinda like the nail in the coffin.

You know,
this is the icing on the cake.

This is what's going
to get him found guilty.

[Marci] Going into the
trial, we were very confident

that we knew who was guilty,

and that we were going
to be able to prove that.

The defense attorneys
attempted to say

it was some other person
that committed the m*rder,

and that Daniel Brooks just
happened to conveniently find a house

with a m*rder*d victim,
and took her purse.

Big thing was
the blood on the boots.

The defense said
that this was transfer blood,

that he's walking
around the body,

and blood just transferred
from her to the boots.

[Marci] Unfortunately, we
were not able to prove it

beyond a reasonable doubt

to every member
of the 12 -person jury,

and so we ended up
with a hung jury.

I felt like I had let
Avanell's family down.

It was devastating 'cause we'd
been through two weeks of trial,

and then to just have it end
with nothing.

That was hard.

[narrator] But prosecutors
refused to give up on the case.

[Marci] We were able to
find a blood spatter expert

and let him come
and look at the boots.

I specialized in violent crimes
and blood stain pattern analysis.

The size, shape and appearance
of the stains on the boots

indicated that blood was
deposited while it was in flight,

therefore indicating the boots
were in the crime scene

at the time of an active
blood-shedding event.

[Marci] I believe he went
through that back door.

And I believe that he walked
into her house,

and that he startled her...

[yells]

[Marci] ...and that
she turned to run...

and he chased her.

And he picked up the stool
and kept hitting her.

We went to a retrial
in May of 2015,

and I testified
about my inspection

and my opinion of the boots
based on that inspection.

[Detective Sayers] He was
successfully able to convince the jury

that it was droplets that had
dropped onto the boots

while the offense
was being committed.

It's unimaginable that someone
can k*ll such a helpless lady.

Daniel Brooks was found
guilty of capital m*rder,

which is an a*t*matic life
sentence without parole,

so he will spend
the rest of his life in jail.

Boots are made for walking,
and in this case,

these boots walked Daniel
Brooks right into prison.

[narrator]
Due to lack of evidence,

the capital m*rder charge
against Herron is dropped.

David Herron, because we were
never able to place him in the house,

was only charged with
the burglary of a habitation.

He plead guilty.

[narrator] Herron receives
a sentence of five years.

Justice was served,
but we'll never get her back.

She was a 79-year-old
grandmother

that lost her life
for no reason.

After she passed away,

they still had a box of the
cookies up there at the church.

And everybody was afraid
to eat the last one.

Nobody wanted
to eat the last one

'cause it would be
the last 'Cookie Lady' cookie.

[speaking Spanish]

I think Avanell
would like to be remembered

as someone
that cared deeply for others.

I think that's what
she will like us to do,

to follow her footsteps, making
things better for all people.

I talk to my mother
all the time...

and I tell her
how much I miss her,

and that I try
not to be afraid...

but it's still there.

I just, sometimes, need her to
be there, to talk me through it,

and to give me a hug.