Up next,
two high school sweethearts
celebrate Valentine's Day.
They were just a real
all-American couple.
That night, they're
victims of a brutal att*ck.
It scared the families so much
that they started locking up
their children.
The way that she was taken
from us made it even worse.
Generations of detectives
attempt to identify a k*ller.
It was a big case, and many
people tried to solve it.
And then, a new forensic test
reaches across time
to solve the mystery.
I was hearing the last name
of our k*ller,
something that detectives
have been wanting to hear
for the last 46 years.
In 1974, America was near
the end of the Vietnam w*r
and Richard Nixon was in
the final throes of Watergate.
But that didn't register
all that much
with Carla Walker
and Rodney McMoy.
Their main interest
was each other.
Carla was very,
very in love with Rodney.
And he was in love
with her, as well.
And none of her friends
or family talked about her
even being interested
in anybody else.
Rodney was the captain
of the football team.
He was the quarterback.
Carla was on the cheer squad.
They were the kind of couple
that everybody at high school
kind of knew of them.
On a cold February
night, Carla and Rodney
were going to
a Valentine's Day dance
at Western Hills High School
outside Fort Worth, Texas.
She never missed a dance.
They went to all the dances,
and did all kind of school
activities like that.
Rodney was especially
looking forward to the evening.
He had a surprise in store
for Carla.
He gave her
a promise ring that evening
before they left for the dance.
So, that promise ring also kind
of made that night extra special
for the two of them.
After the dance, at
about one o'clock in the morning.
The couple stopped
at a local bowling alley.
Carla had just gone to
the restroom at the bowling alley.
They came back to the car, and
they were doing what couples do,
which is make out in the car.
They'd been dating for a year,
and they were making out
in the front seat of the car.
Sounds familiar.
All of a sudden,
the passenger's side door
of Rodney's car was ripped open.
A stunned Carla nearly tumbled
onto the ground.
Then, the man who opened the car
door started dragging her away.
Rodney tried to get her
back into the car.
The attacker pulled out a g*n,
and tried to k*ll him.
A stranger actually puts the g*n
to Rodney's face,
and pulls the trigger
three times.
Incredibly, the g*n misfired,
so the attacker used his w*apon
to hit Rodney repeatedly.
Despite this b*ating,
and in shock from nearly
being sh*t to death,
Rodney still attempted
to save Carla.
But Carla apparently realized
that this was no robbery.
The attacker was after her.
Carla was saying,
"I'll go with you.
Just stop hitting him."
And so, that's exactly
what had happened.
Rodney later
told police he passed out
from the blows to his head.
Once he regained consciousness,
he did exactly what Carla
told him to do...
he drove to her house.
Carla's brother remembers
the night.
I heard boom, boom,
boom, pounding on our front door.
"Mr. Walker,
Mr. Walker, help me.
They've got her.
They're going to hurt her bad.
I know they are."
It made an impression,
in my life, at 12 years old.
Rodney was emotional.
I mean, he was just
kind of like,
"They got her. They got her."
And he was bleeding.
Rodney was able to describe
the suspect.
That evening, he described him
as a medium-build White male
with wavy hair,
had a cowboy hat on.
And he also stated
that he talked
with a Western or cowboy accent.
At the scene was
a b*llet magazine,
with b*ll*ts still inside,
from a Ruger mark one
The only sign of Carla
at the scene was her purse.
Oddly, even though
it was late at night,
it was a busy area, and there
wasn't a single eyewitness...
except for Rodney...
which had investigators
questioning whether
they should treat him
as a victim
or a possible suspect.
Most murders are gonna
be committed
by people that you know.
Nobody wanted to believe
that Rodney was involved,
but he always was
a question mark.
In the 1970s,
Fort Worth, Texas had its fair
share of crime,
but violent crime was a rarity,
which had many people...
including Carla Walker's
sister...
hopeful she would
be found alive.
I still thought
she would be dropped off.
Somebody would drop her off.
I just never thought
it would end like it did...
at all.
Three days after her
abduction, Carla's partially clothed body
was found in a drainage culvert
just outside the city.
Carla's brother Jim
remembers getting the news.
I remember looking at
my dad, and my mom, expressionless.
Never saw my dad cry
once, all my years.
He was looking straight ahead,
straight ahead.
His eyes teared up.
And I think that was the point
I started getting angry.
It was clear this was
a sexually motivated crime.
The medical examiner found
what looked to be seminal fluid.
In 1974, testing was not quite
as available as it was now.
So, we know for sure
what happened,
but at the time the testing
was a little less exacting.
She had quite a bit
of bruising and scratching on her body.
During the autopsy
it was determined
that she had been strangled.
Investigators turned
to their only witness...
Carla's boyfriend, Rodney McCoy.
And we understand that
the boyfriend,
the one who's with her,
is always the first suspect.
Rodney appeared traumatized,
but there were questions.
He had sustained
no life-threatening injuries.
He claimed a g*n placed to
his head misfired three times.
And for reasons no one
could explain,
Carla's promise ring...
the one Rodney gave her
just a few hours
before she was k*lled...
had apparently been
pulled off her finger,
and left at the scene
of her m*rder.
And to this day, we
don't know how that ended up there...
if it was purposely taken,
or if it was removed
in a struggle.
Despite these questions,
no one who knew
this young couple
thought Rodney could possibly
have harmed Carla.
My parents loved Rodney
like a son.
I mean, he was able to just come
in and out of the house.
He didn't have to knock.
He'd go in the kitchen,
fix himself
something to eat or drink.
Detectives now turn to
their only piece of solid evidence...
the b*llet magazine
at the scene.
The Ruger .22 mark one model
of g*n
that was used during this crime
is unique in that it has
a magazine release
at the bottom of the grip.
And so, during the time that
Rodney was in an altercation
with the attacker,
and being p*stol-whipped,
it appears that that magazine
release was pushed,
and the magazine was released
from the bottom of the g*n.
A partial print was
lifted from the b*llet magazine,
but it had so little detail
it could not identify a suspect.
So, detectives turn to the A*F
to see who in Texas
owned a .22 caliber
Ruger mark one p*stol.
It was a new g*n.
It had only been released
for a little while,
and so, they had kind of a small
window of people to look into.
Still hundreds of leads.
While these g*n owners
were questioned,
detectives,
and even Carla's family,
were flooded with possible tips.
The tips,
information coming in...
my parents would still get phone
calls, and they would answer.
Or somebody would just drop by,
and say,
"Well, I know this,"
or "I heard this."
And my parents would go
investigate it themselves.
But it was an arrest
nearly three months
after Carla's m*rder
that appeared to be
the key break in the case.
A 21-year-old...
Tommy Ray Kneeland...
was arrested near Fort Worth
for an att*ck
that bore eerie similarities
to Carla's case.
Tommy Ray Kneeland attempted
to abduct
and sexually as*ault a female,
and she got away.
And when they picked him up
on that warrant,
he confessed to k*lling
two other people,
a 15-year-old
and a 17-year-old kid.
And they thought, "Well,"
you know, "he's in the area.
He likes to k*ll kids.
Maybe he k*lled Carla, too."
When a suspect in
Carla Walker's m*rder emerged
in the person of self-confessed
k*ller Tommy Ray Kneeland,
Kneeland was placed
in a police lineup.
Carla's boyfriend,
Rodney McCoy, was called in.
They had Rodney McCoy present.
And Rodney asked that they have
each of the people
in the lineup say
"Come with me."
And when Kneeland spoke,
Rodney picked him.
He was number three
in the lineup.
And Rodney picked him
as the person who he believed
to be the suspect.
But Kneeland...
who freely confessed
to three other murders...
insisted he hadn't k*lled Carla.
He claimed he was at a youth
retreat the night of the m*rder,
and other people confirmed
he was there.
But he failed a polygraph.
So, he remained a suspect,
but there was not enough
evidence to arrest him
for the crime.
Years passed, but the
work on Carla's case never flagged.
It was just all legwork
back then.
All legwork,
and interviewing people,
and driving to other cities
that they had information.
It was just tips...
tips from people.
That's all they had to go on,
really, was tips.
And as the those tips dried up,
detectives had to face
the possibility
that Carla's k*ller
would never be caught.
Carla's parents d*ed
while the case remained open.
But her brother, Jim...
a man of deep faith...
remained convinced
the case would be solved.
In fact, he was so hopeful
he refused to sell
the family home.
I didn't want to sell the house,
and somebody be knocking
at this door at three o'clock
in the morning,
saying, "Hey,
I got a story to tell you."
I wanted to be here
in case that happened,
and they decided to come by,
and get this off of their chest.
While Carla's family
prayed that knock would come,
forensic experts were
revolutionizing crime science.
Fort Worth detectives
thought Carla Walker's case
was a prime candidate
for re-examination.
One of the hardest
parts about working a cold case
is there's so many factors
that work against you.
You're working against witnesses
who have forgotten
or witnesses who have d*ed.
But, after all this time,
was there was any physical
evidence left to test?
It turned out there was plenty.
The first time I went
into the property room,
and looked at the property
from Carla Walker,
I remember turning
to my investigator,
and saying, "It's like
they knew what DNA was."
Because you got to remember,
in 1974, no one tested for DNA.
And so, every single thing
they did was done correctly,
and they didn't even know it.
Incredibly, Carla's clothing
had been kept in storage
for decades.
A partial DNA profile from an
unknown male was generated,
but it was very weak.
It's not enough
to put into CODIS,
and it's really only enough
to exclude individuals.
And so, it's more of
a working lead
than it is something
to clinch a suspect.
So, we had something
to work with,
we just didn't have enough.
This partial profile
eliminated potential suspects
in the case,
including Rodney McCoy
and confessed k*ller
Tommy Ray Kneeland.
To see what more information
the DNA might provide,
the profile was sent to the
Serological Research Institute
in Richmond, California,
better known as "SERI."
They were able to replace
elements of the profile
that had degraded,
and produced a full DNA profile.
That was extremely exciting,
to know that we now had
a full DNA profile.
We were very hopeful that, when
it was uploaded into CODIS,
that, after this many years,
that profile would be in CODIS.
But it was not to be.
In a shocking development,
there were no hits...
incredibly unusual in a case
with this type of v*olence.
We were pretty disappointed,
and it felt like
we had hit a brick wall.
This was a setback,
but also an opportunity.
With this DNA profile in hand,
detectives thought they might
finally have a way
to identify Carla's k*ller.
We still had hope.
Because we believed that there
was somebody out there,
and we were definitely gonna
find out who it was.
The full DNA profile
recovered from Carla Walker's m*rder
turned up no CODIS matches,
but forensic analysts
were not out of tools.
In 2020, the profile was sent
to OTHRAM,
the world's first
private DNA laboratory
devoted exclusively
to identifying people
by using old, damaged,
or degraded DNA samples.
We are able to enrich the DNA,
and work with amounts of DNA
that are super, super low.
We usually are the go-to when
all other methods have failed,
and there is no more hope left
for the case or for the family.
OTHRAM...
their motto is
"justice through genomics"...
was perfect for this case
because there was just
a miniscule amount
of fresh DNA... about
one nanogram... left to test.
We are able to
work with quantities of DNA
that are 0.12
or 0.15 nanograms.
That is equivalent to
And, if I touched my body
right now,
I would leave hundreds
of human cells.
And so, that should give you
a comparison as to what
looks like.
OTHRAM takes these tiny
bits of DNA, and amplifies them.
They're not adding anything
to the sample.
Instead, they say they're
enriching what's already there.
Once this is done,
they employ a process
known as
"parallel DNA sequencing."
We are able
to look at tens to thousands
to hundreds of thousands
of markers.
And then, later,
we use computational methods
to put those fragments
back together.
And we're able to piece together
the letter code
that makes up your genome.
OTHRAM now tested
the enriched DNA sample
from Carla Walker's case
against the huge amounts of DNA
in a consumer DNA database
known as GedMatch.
And this ultimately identified
a family... the McCurleys.
There were three brothers...
one, Glen, lived in Fort Worth
at the time of Carla's m*rder.
Every single time we're
able to give an investigative lead
that does lead to
an investigation moving forward,
it is the best feeling
in the world.
And it never changes.
Despite all this time,
Glen McCurley's name
was in the case file.
Back in 1974, he'd been
questioned after Carla's m*rder
because he owned a .22 caliber
Ruger mark one p*stol.
In 1974,
he was interviewed in April.
She was k*lled in February.
He said it was stolen
while he was fishing.
At the time, McCurley
was put on the back burner
because he'd passed a polygraph
and had no v*olence
in his record.
Nearly a half century later,
to the surprise of detectives,
he still had no recorded
incidents of v*olence.
A long-haul trucker,
he'd been married
for more than 50 years,
and was the father
of two children.
Could the DNA be mistaken?
There was only one way
to find out.
Detectives sifted through
McCurley's trash,
found a plastic straw,
and lifted a genetic profile.
It also matched the DNA
from Carla's clothing.
McCurley, 77-years-old
and unaware of the DNA evidence,
was brought in for questioning,
and shown a picture
of Carla Walker.
When told that DNA tied him
to Carla's m*rder,
McCurley changed his story.
He said he remembered
seeing a man
attacking Carla in a car
that night.
He said he pushed the man
off of her,
and pulled her to safety,
and later, he and Carla
had consensual sex.
He started using words like,
"She was compliant."
And that word...
the minute I heard that word
in that interview...
it just sent chills
down my spine.
Because that is how
a r*pist talks.
"She was compliant."
Finally, McCurley,
apparently realizing
the evidence was against him,
confessed,
and ultimately pleaded "guilty."
After 47 agonizing years,
the mystery of what happened to
Carla Walker was finally solved.
I can remember Detective
Bennett saying, "We got him."
I cried.
And then, I cried.
I just cried.
And then, I called Rodney.
I said, "We got him."
There was a pause.
And Rodney said,
"Got him?"
And I said, "Yep.
We got him, buddy.
We know who did this
to you and Carla."
Then, Rodney started crying.
So, that was a good day.
McCurley's confession
and the evidence
gives detectives a good idea
of what happened that night.
It was McCurley and his wife's
but the marriage was in trouble.
He was angry.
He was drunk.
He saw Rodney and Carla
making out
in the bowling alley
parking lot, and,
for reasons he has never
explained, att*cked them.
Armed with the Ruger .22,
he tried to pull Carla away.
Rodney tried to keep her
in the car,
and suffered a severe
p*stol-whipping.
Carla, realizing Rodney
would likely
get k*lled trying to defend her,
left with McCurley.
It was the last time
she was seen alive.
I believe Glen McCurley
was out hunting that night.
And I don't believe that
this was the first time
or the last time that he had
committed an act of this type.
In 2021, nearly a half century
after Carla Walker's m*rder,
Glen McCurley got a sentence
of life in prison.
A community, and a family,
suffered for decades,
but a few microscopic clues
at last told the story
of what happened,
and finally provided some peace
for the victims
and for investigators.
The technology gave us
the critical lead.
And then, you still have to have
amazing detectives
like Leah Wagner
and Jeff Bennett
to push it over the line.
It's a team effort.
But the technology...
thank you, God.
This is something
we hope becomes a standard.
If something doesn't work
with CODIS,
and CODIS doesn't have a match,
then, we hope that this type
of testing is required,
because it is able to provide
answers that CODIS alone is not.
I think the science
that was used in this case
is bringing law enforcement
into a new era of solving cases.
And I think,
if you're a m*rder*r
that hasn't been caught,
I would be worried
if I were you.