By Pete Kendall/reporter@trcle.com
Johnson County has no designated cold case investigator. But that doesn’t mean no one is reviewing cold cases.
Sheriff Bob Alford has a local team, composed mostly of retired peace officers, that meets every Monday morning at 10 except for the holiday season. They kick around old cases. They often provide useful insight.
Alford is also chairman of the Texas Sheriff’s Association Cold Case Squad, which reviews cases statewide and occasionally from elsewhere in the nation.
“That’s an eye-opening experience,” Alford said.
The state group seeks no credit for what it accomplishes, but because of the popularity of CSI television shows, it attracts publicity when it’s able to help break a case.
The state group also includes Texas Rangers Lt. George Turner, a resident of Cleburne, and Cleburne police officer Danny Rogers. It is scheduled to meet again in June in Austin.
“We’re a big think tank,” Alford said. “Seventeen or 18 of the 25 members show up every time. They hear a presentation, look at autopsy reports and photographs, things like that, and they talk about the cases.
“Members may say, ‘Try this. Try that. This worked for me on a case. This didn’t.’ There’s a medical doctor, psychologist, criminal profiler, five sheriffs, four Rangers, three city policemen, three detectives and every element of the Department of Public Safety lab.”
Alford, in his second year as chairman, is only the fourth sheriff to serve as chairman. The group has been together since 1985.
“We meet three or four times a year,” he said. “We help clear four to six cases a year. We cleared one that Florida brought to us. We’ll meet for 2½ days per session and hear four or five cases per day. Of those, if we don’t clear them, we’ll try to give [the local agency] a lead to go back to work on.”
One particularly notorious Johnson County case, the gunning-down of Arthur Eugene Gregory in 1963 in a post-oak thicket near Lillian, would certainly be sufficiently aged for the state cold case unit.
“We’ve looked at cases as far back as the ’40s,” Alford said.
Of course, there are plenty of other local cases that have stumped investigators as bright as Alford, Turner and Cleburne PD deputy chief N.H. Laseman.
The only two unsolved murders from Alford’s watch are Angel Baby Doe and Dick Smith.
The roll of unsolved murder cases presently includes Dick Smith (2001), Angel Baby Doe (2001), Arthur Eugene Gregory (1963), Debbie Clark (1988), Matt Ross (1988), William Siler (1986), Ronald G. Marshall (1980), Bill Randolph (1975), Junky John Ritchey (1993), Donna Williamson (1982), Steven Fugett (1989), Cynthia Gonzalez (1991), Holly Kimbrough (1997), Gary Lynn Manis (1971), James Daryl Clark (1986), Lee Edward Brown (1987), John Doe (1996), Sharon Nickels (1994) and Wilborn Fate Williams (1968).
Word of the state’s cold case group is quickly spreading.
“I went to Reno, Nev., this summer and talked to the Western States Sheriffs about it,” Alford said. “I talked to Utah about setting up a unit.”
The trips were financed by the Sheriff’s Association of Nevada and Utah.
To staff the local unit, Alford looked to former peace officers residing in the area.
“Locally, I had a lot of retired officers with a lot of experience,” he said. “I had Rangers, Arlington PD, Fort Worth PD, Cleburne. Six or eight members will show up every Monday morning.”
They include Mike Russell, retired ATF; Don Steele, former Granbury police chief; Bob Evans and James Ferguson, retired Arlington PD; Garry Darby, retired Fort Worth PD; Fred Raulston, retired Fort Worth PD; Glen Collins, retired game warden; Bob McWhorter, retired assistant commander of DPS intelligence; Bill Hardin, retired Fort Worth PD; and Billy Peterson, retired Texas Ranger.
Among cases they’ve reviewed recently is that of Smith, who was shot to death on July 4, 2001, outside his home between Alvarado and Egan, not far from where Alford resides.
It’s a sticky case with a suspect but scant evidence.
“Richard Smith was getting ready to leave on a trip, taking items back and forth from the house to the car,” Alford said. “He walked out carrying a load, and someone hiding behind a tree shot him three times. His wife wasn’t sure if it was gunshots or firecrackers.
“I’ve got three shell casings. All are over 10 years old. The perpetrator probably bought a Saturday night special and picked up the ammunition who knows where. Or he inherited the gun from grandpa.
“Neighbors saw a guy dressed in black jog down the road about 10 at night. They didn’t call [the sheriff’s office]. Richard managed to get back to the porch before he died.”
As for Angel Baby Doe, “The theory is it involved mental retardation and incest,” Alford said. “The baby died an hour before I got to the body. She was found in a Winnie the Pooh jacket by a gentleman who came by on his tractor. The man went to get the jacket and saw the baby. He rode his tractor down to the house and called in. I believe DNA will catch somebody on Angel Baby Doe.”
Junky John Ritchey, owner of an auto salvage business between Alvarado and Venus, was shot to death in an apparent robbery-murder on March 18, 1993.
The business had been burglarized on several occasions in months preceding the murder. A suspect is deceased.
Alford and retired investigator David Cole said they believed a suspect in the Ritchey case was going to give up information on his deathbed. The suspect did not.
“The [local] cold case bunch really worked on that case,” Alford said. “They had the suspect as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. It’s going to take a confession from someone, since the suspect is gone. I believe it was a contract killing. If the guy who pulled the trigger ends up in the pen, he may give it up on his deathbed.
“I have no idea who that person is.”
As for any other cases to take to the state cold case unit, Alford said, “If I had anything to take to them, I would. I don’t.”
As a matter of course, Alford’s cold case squad has reviewed a number of cases in the Times-Review’s current series on unsolved homicides.
