Episode Transcript
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The Gone Cold. Podcasts may containviolent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
is advised. Joe Brian was releasedfrom a Huntsville, Texas prison in nineteen
eighty eight after on a technicality,he was granted a new trial. The
judge in his nineteen eighty six trialfor killing his wife, Mickey Brian had
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denied a defense motion that called intoquestion one of the motives strongly implied by
the prosecution, a substantial payout.Being out of prison with nearly everything lost
to him wasn't really much relief.The love of Joe's life was gone,
as was his job, his home, and the trust, respect and friendship
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of Clifton residents he'd spent a decadegaining as the high school's principal. They
didn't understand how or why Joe Briankilled Mickey, but the cops, the
dis strict attorney, and twelve upstandingBosky County men and women all said he
did it, so they believed thathe did. Clifton was a typical small
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Texas town, a law and orderedtown full of folks who believed wholeheartedly in
the justice system. As the resultof this sort of blind trust, many
called Joe guilty as sin. Thoughmany of those experienced cognitive dissonance when they
remembered Joe's exemplary standing in the community, still faith in the balanced scales of
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the justice system generally one out.Even Joe's twin brother had turned his back
on him. Proving he didn't killMickey anyway had become his sole purpose.
The seven day re trial, whichtook place in June of nineteen eighty nine,
besides being moved to Comanche County,wasn't much different than the first,
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at least as far as the prosecutionwitnesses. Texas Ranger Joe Wiley, Harker
Heights Police Sergeant Bob Thorman, andthe victim's brother, Charlie Blue were again
perhaps the most impactful. District AttorneyAndy McMullen, and even Special Prosecutor Gary
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Llewellen returned to retry the case,but this time only five character witnesses came
to support Joe Brian as opposed tothe thirty six plus who'd shown up before.
Seventy five miles from the courtroom wherehe was first tried, there wasn't
a single juror familiar with Joe's impeccablereputation or genuine good nature. There were
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plenty of empty seats in the courtroom. The media was largely uninterested. Once
again, Joe Dale Bryan, nowforty eight years old, was found guilty
and sentence to ninety nine years inprison. He was sent back to the
same maximum security penitentiary in Huntsville he'dbeen released from the year prior. Nicknamed
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the Walls Unit, the last remnantsof hope to clear his name or something
Joe desperately clung to, But thebleak and grim conditions behind the walls of
Texas's oldest prison didn't make it easy. When the father of a slain Clifton
teenager visited the editor of the newspaperthat had published detailed articles about Joe's nineteen
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eighty six trial that heavily and inarguablyfavored the prosecution's case. However, it
gave the convicted man reason to fight. In the summer of nineteen ninety one,
the managing editor of the Clifton Record, W. L. Leon Smith,
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was paid a visit by a desperateman, Don Whitley, whose seventeen
year old daughter Judy had been murderedsix years before, wanted answers and the
Clifton Police. Don told Leon hadwalked away from the case, leaving it
unsolved more by choice than by thelack of evidence. Pointing to a suspect,
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Don asked the newspaper man if hewould attempt to enlist the help of
the syndicated television show Unsolved Mysteries,who he hoped would conduct a proper investigation.
While he was at it, Doninsisted Leon should also mention the Mickey
Brian case to the TV program.It had already been adjudicated. Of course,
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but Don's wife knew Joe Bryan,he said, and believed there was
no way in hell he was responsible. Perhaps the two were connected, Don
wondered, w Leon Smith was agood guy, an old school journalist who
both believed in the truth and felta genuine obligation as a reporter to serve
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his fellow citizen. Of course,he'd help to entice Unsolved Mysteries to take
the cases. Leon began an endeavorof his own after contacting the show.
He'd pour over the evidence himself andwrite something up to publish in the Clifton
Record. When he contacted Joe Brian, hope and appreciation overwhelmed the inmate.
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Absolutely he would cooperate, Joe toldLeon, somewhat to the reporter's surprise.
Leon had assumed the courts got itright, but Joe told him he had
nothing to hide and was excited atthe prospect of also potentially helping the Whitley
family with Judy's case. It too, was a case close to his heart.
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She'd been a student at Clifton Highwhere he was principal. For two
long days, w Leon Smith pouredover the Mickey Bryan murder case file,
of which he'd been granted access byClifton Police Chief Jim Vanderhoof, who'd come
on the job in March of nineteeneighty seven. Right away under his command
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and alongside a few other officers knewto the force, the Judy Whitley case
was revisited, put back on thefront burner, as vander Hoof put it.
Also enlisted was the help of criminalintelligence officers from the Texas Department of
Public Safety, Texas Rangers, andbehavioral science agents from the FBI. They'd
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come up with a surprisingly complete pictureof the suspect, Vanderhoof said, and
evidence was being tested four years afterthe fact. However, no arrests had
been made. Chief Vanderhoof liked CliftonRecord editor W. Leon Smith and gladly
let him see the Mickeybrian came becausethe Judy Whitley murder was still open,
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though virtually inactive at this point,Leon's access to that case file was limited.
Because of this, he decided he'dcraft many of the questions he would
present to Joe Brian as ones thathe thought would conjure up common denominators with
Judy's murder. On September seventeenth,nineteen ninety one, Leon conducted his first
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two hour interview with Joe. Whilehe was permitted to record the audio,
no cameras were allowed, though guardsagreed to snap a couple shots of the
two men talking, separated by thickglass and steel mesh, using Leon's polaroid.
A significant portion of the first interviewconcentrated on Joe's life inside the Walls
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Unit, his anger at God,which he'd quickly overcome as his faith was
too strong to break. Joe spokeof it, lack of freedom and privacy,
and his job working in the prisoncompliance office. Next, Leon asked
him about something he had heard thatJoe had been the target of a hired
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hit shortly after he'd come to theWalls unit. Joe confirmed it at three
am on January thirty first, nineteeneighty seven. Joe told Leon. A
guard woke him up and brought himto the captain's office. A lieutenant there
told Joe that the Texas Rangers hadinformed them of a contract out on his
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life. I hope they'd do itand get this over with, Joe remembered
thinking to himself. At the time, many inmates were coming in and out
of the unit, which had beenset up as a medical center briefly temporarily,
Joe was in protective custody. Notlong after, in the compliance office
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where he worked, an inmate cameasking for Joe Brian. He went to
the door and told a man thatwas him, and the inmate said,
that's all I needed to know,turned around and walked out. Prison administration
wished to move Joe to maximum securitylock up, but because he'd known of
another inmate being killed in another unitin max's security, he asked them not
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to. He'd have a better chanceat running in jen Pop. Joe believed
the hit was either never attempted orhad failed because of the watchful eye on
Joe as the result of the threat. As they continued the interview, Joe
told Leon he'd found work in Houstonwhile he was out of prison awaiting a
new trial, at a private schoolthere the only place he could find to
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hire him. He taught English tokids with behavioral or substance abuse issues.
Knowing what he now knew, hewanted to keep them out of the penitentiary,
Joe said, a natural at workingwith teenagers of any kind, He
became principal of the school after onlyone month, but continuing that work became
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impossible not long after when he wasconvicted again. Now he planned to get
that conviction reversed and then teach inthe prison system, a job officials there
had guaranteed him should he be freed. He wanted to use his unique experiences
to help others, but first,Joe insisted he would hire a professional investigator
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to find out who really killed Mickey, who he described as his life.
Hey, it's Wes Ferguson. Iwant to tell you about my new podcast,
The Unforgotten. It's a ten episodedeep dive investigating one murder that you
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might already know about from The GoneCold podcast. Thirty years ago, a
young mom named Shelley Salter Watkins wasfound dead in the Trinity River. She
was wrapped in plastic, bound withduct tape and chained to concrete blocks.
Shelley's case went cold long ago,but my co host Carol Dawson and I
are digging in and believe it ornot, we're getting real answers the public
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has never heard before. We're talkingto key witnesses, friends, family,
law enforcement, and we've turned upa story that will blow your mind.
But story chalk full of power,money, sex, murder, and public
corruption. By the time we're finished, we will have done everything in our
power to get justice for Shelley Watkins. Listen to the Unforgotten wherever you get
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your podcasts. Though at trial JoeBryan's defense team had strongly implied that the
victim's brother, Charlie Blue, hadplanted the supposed blood spattered flashlight in the
trunk of his car, they hadnot provided adequate alternate suspect. Upon his
review of the Mickey Brian murder casefile, one thing immediately caught the attention
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of Clifton Record managing editor W LeonSmith. Something that seemed particularly important Just
after midnight on October sixteenth, nineteeneighty five, the day after Mickey's body
was found, two men had beenspotted at a local Ford dealership. One
of the men was standing next toa van that had just been spray painted
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green over its original color of white. It had no license plates. The
man told a Clifton police officer he'dpainted the van for an upcoming hunting excursion.
Each of the men had significant criminalrecords that included weapons convictions and one
theft an invasion of privacy charges.It was just one of the many leads
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that hadn't been followed up on inthe investigation of Mickey Brian's murder. Once
Joe Brian was arrested and charged infact, investigation into any other possibility came
to a screeching halt. During hisentry with Joe, Leon asked him to
speculate his intentions weren't nefarious. Rather, he wanted to give Joe the chance
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to express his thoughts about the murderof his wife. Joe didn't know anything,
really, he told Leon, butthought it was possible Mickey and Judy's
murders could be connected. As faras Judy's case went, he remembered something
from the time that had been spunby the famous Clifton rumor mill talk that
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a Clifton police officer was responsible andthat there may have been a cover up
as the result. When Leon mentionedthere was a home in the Brians neighborhood
that, after Mickey's murder, hadbecome known as a drug house, Joe
told him neither he nor his wifehad known anything about it. He hadn't
seen or heard anything that might putthe couple in any danger, Joe continued,
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and to his knowledge, neither hadMickey. Interestingly, perhaps the intelligence
the Texas Rangers were given about thecontract on Joe's life was thought to have
had something to do with someone involvedin narcotics. At the time of the
interview, Joe's case was in theappeals process and a private investigator had been
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approved by him to help out.A former Texas Ranger, Joe told Leon
was also interested in working with thePI. During his questioning of Joe W.
Leon Smith covered just about every baseimaginable. Joe denied, ever putting
the alleged blood spattered flashlight in histrunk. The flaps used to close the
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box in which the flashlight was foundwere folded all the way down inside,
Joe said, and reached the bottomof the box. The money bag he
found after the search warrant was executedwas under one of those flaps, though
Texas Ranger Joe Wiley insisted they'd goneaway over every inch of Joe's car and
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the money bag was not there.It's unclear if a photograph of the box
with the flaps folded back out andopen was among the ones documenting the search.
If one did exist, it apparentlywas not shown in court. As
far as Unsolved Mysteries was concerned.Even after releasing his incredibly compelling three part
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interview with Joe, Leon couldn't getthe TV show to come to town,
further investigate and run segments on theMickey, Brian and Judy Whitley cases.
The Newspaperman did, however, walkaway with a nagging feeling that not only
had justice for Mickey not been served, but a great injustice against Joe had
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been committed. As a journalist,Leon felt compelled, if not obligated,
to investigate himself. As Clifton PoliceChief Jim Vanderhoof would not reinvestigate, choosing
instead to concentrate on the Judy Whitleycase. Though the lawmen did agree with
Leon that Mickey's case merited for thereview, Leon obsessively investigated. It was
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claimed at court that a cigarette butthad been discarded in the street by Peace
Justice Alvin James and was tracked allthe way up to the Brian home and
into the kitchen by way of thesoul of Ranger Wiley's cowboy boots. Leon
attempted an experiment to replicate that occurrence. He waited for a storm to come
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and go, and when the groundwas as wet as it had been the
morning Mickey's body was discovered, heattempted to step on cigarette butts with his
own boots to track them a comparabledistance for an hour. Leon conducted this
experiment, but said he could neverget one to stick to his boots for
more than a step or two.In interviews, Joe had told Leon when
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the cigarette butt was presented in courtas evidence, it didn't even appear to
have been stepped on. He andvander Hoof continued to trade notes on their
separate cases, and Leon was granteduncommon access to publicly unknown details in Judy's
case. Soon enough, the Chiefof Police and the editor of the local
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paper were onto a potential alternate suspectfor the murder of Mickey Bryan and a
strong primary suspect in the Judy Whitleycase, a former Clifton police officer.
There was indeed truth to one ofthe rumors going around after Judy's murder.
Dennis Murray Dunlap, a local policemanat the time of Judy's murder, was
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a, if not the primary suspectin the case. Dunlap was something of
a wanderer, having moved from onesmall Texas town police department to the next
for years. He was a policeofficer in Clifton for less than a year,
but in that short pace period hadmanaged to develop a reputation for harassing,
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intimidating, and stalking women while onduty and off. While Dunlap was
never internally investigated for this behavior,he was looked at, albeit briefly and
markedly inadequately, for the murder ofseventeen year old Judy Whitley. Chief Vanderhoof
had kept up with Dunlap's movements fromtown to town since he'd first begun looking
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into Judy's case in eighty seven,tracing his movements before that has proved difficult.
The earliest newspaper reports about Dennis MurrayDunlap as a police officer are in
December of nineteen seventy three, upin Galena, Ohio. He'd shot himself
in the right thigh with a twentytwo caliber revolver accidentally. By nineteen seventy
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seven, Dunlap was in Denton,Texas. In the fall of that year,
twelve year old Susy Murrey Mages wasabducted from Denton and later found murdered
in Dallas. In nineteen seventy eightand into nineteen seventy nine, Dunlap spent
a year as the police chief ofLittle Elm, a small town not far
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east of Denton. In nineteen eightyone, he lived in Lake Dallas.
In June of nineteen eighty four,Dunlap was accused of sexual harassment in Newark,
Texas, where he was the onlypolice officer the chief. He resigned
and skipped town as the result ofthe allegations. Dunlap arrived in Clifton after
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that and joined the force there.On January fifteenth, nineteen eighty five,
at thirty eight years old, hemarried a local woman named Elaine in April
of that year, though two weekslater she threw him out for watching her
as she slept and stalking her.On June nineteenth, nineteen eighty five,
seventeen year old Judy Whitley was abducted, bound, raped, and slain.
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By July thirteenth, nineteen eighty five, Dunlap had once again moved on.
That's an important date as far asthe Judy Whitley case is concerned. We'll
get to that. Dunlap, anyway, changed wives about as often as he
skipped town. His many divorces includedaccusations of neglect, absence, and extreme
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cruelty. In nineteen ninety one,Chief vanderhoof New Dunlap was living just southwest
of Houston and suburban Nadville, andnewspaperman W. Leon Smith began corresponding with
him that fall. Leon was lookingfor police officers on the force when Judy
was murdered and asking some questions hetold Dunlap. The ex Clifton cop replied
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with brief answers to the standard questions. It was just a warm up for
Leon. Eventually, over the courseof four life, he interrogated Dunlap on
paper, asking him to explain hisbeing named a suspect and Judy Whitley's murder.
Dunlap, when he finally answered thefinal letter now early nineteen ninety two,
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denied ever being told he was asuspect, and in fact had been
told by then police Chief Rob brennandthat he was not one. He moved
away, he said, simply becausehe didn't like it there. Chief Jim
Vanderhoof felt he didn't have the proofhe needed to arrest Dennis Murray Dunlap for
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the murder of Judy Whitley since someof the evidence mysteriously vanished from headquarters.
During the initial investigation, a fellowClifton police officer suspected thirty eight year old
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Dennis Murray Dunlap of the rape murderof seventeen year old Judy Whitley, and
no matter what he told w LeonSmith via handwritten letters in nineteen ninety one
and ninety two, he was lookedat in the initial investigation. Briefly,
the rumor going around town that apoliceman was being investigated for killing Judy was
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true, at least in part.According to detectives working the case, Dunlap
knew specific details about the crime thathe shouldn't have, things known only to
them and the killer. Within weeksof the murder, Texas Ranger Joe Wiley
took Dunlap to Texas Department of PublicSafety headquarters in Waco to undergo a polygraph
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examination. Wiley said the results wereinconclusive and any further investigation into the officer
pretty much ended there. It shouldnot have. Judy Whitley's sister, Patricia,
met Dennis Murray Dunlap when he cameinto a convenience store where she worked.
He asked her out and she agreedto the date. Although he was
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a police officer, he had kindof a bad boy look, disheveled,
dirty blonde hair, cowboy boots underhis police blues, and intense mysterious eyes,
not to mention character. When theywent to his apartment, however,
Patricia decided Dunlap wasn't the guy forher after she noticed photos depicting women in
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bondage, wearing and bound by leatherand chains. She was done with him
after one date. Not long afterthat, Judy went missing, and the
next day Dunlap delivered the news tothe Whitley family that she'd been found deceased.
He hadn't been among the authorities atthe scene, but described the crime
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to the Whitleys in more detail thanhe should have known at that time.
The policeman, not detective, immersedhimself in Judy's rape and murder case,
whether it was asking questions about itsprogression or consoling the family. Sometimes.
Patricia later said it seemed like he'dappear out of thin air, like he
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was always around watching. Dunlap eveninsisted on being a pallbearer at Judy Whitley's
funeral. For just shy of amonth. He continued to be fixated on
the Whitley family until one day hewas gone. In the early morning hours
of July eleventh, nineteen eighty five, the home of Judy Whitley's grandmother exploded
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and became engulfed in flames. TheClifton police had gotten word that Judy kept
a detailed diary there that might containclues as to the identity of her killer.
Although the diary was just a rumor, Judy never kept one, The
cop were scheduled to search her grandmother'shome for it later on the day it
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burnt down. It was after theexplosion and fire that Dunlap underwent a polygraph
examination, which again proved inconclusive andmore or less stopped the investigation into him,
at least at that time. Twodays after the explosion, Dennis Murray
Dunlap handed over his badge and serviceweapon and left Clifton, Texas. He
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skipped town so abruptly, in fact, that associates of the man were left
to clean his residence and discard ofhis personal belongings, including a Honda motorcycle.
Physical items from the Judy Whitley murderinvestigation, tape recordings, and other
materials vanished from the Clifton police evidencelocker right along with him. Later,
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after finding similar duct tape as thatused in the crime, when they cleaned
out Dunlap's belongings, it too disappeared. Dunlap moved to an unknown place in
the Dallas Fort Worth area and stayedfor an unknown period of time before moving
to Nedville. On April twelfth,nineteen ninety six, a call was placed
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to nine one one in Rosenberg,Texas, just southwest of Houston. Police
responded to the scene at twelve fiftypm, where they found forty nine year
old Dennis Murray Dunlap hanging in hisgarage. What Rosenberg police detective Brad Rawlins
referred to as a nine knot noosewas tight around his neck. The other
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end of the rope tied to asecured pole and draped over an ibeam.
Five minutes before his girlfriend found hisbody, Dunlap spoke to her on the
telephone and asked her to bring hima coke. Two suicide notes and a
suicide tape recording were found at thescene. In one of the notes,
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he described being disgusted with his lifeand the rotten hand in that life he'd
been dealt. As they searched Dunlap'sapartment, they discovered the letters Clifton newspaperman
W. Leon Smith had wrote tohim, and it became clear their suicide
victim was also a suspect in adecade old murder investigation. Authorities in Rosenberg
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promptly called and then released the sceneof Dunlap's suicide to an investigator from Clifton.
Sergeant Rex's childress drove the two hundredand twenty miles to comb through Dunlap's
apartment, and over the course ofseveral trips, interviewed folks who knew him.
Texas ranger Christine Nix also joined theinvestigation. Dunlap was always in fear,
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the investigators learned, always looking overhis shoulder, expecting law enforcement to
come for him at any time,and it's no wonder for years. In
a heroic effort, Clifton Police ChiefJim Vanderhoof had been anonymously mailing Dunlap newspaper
clippings about Judy Whitley's ongoing murder investigation. Vanderhoof later said he wanted Dunlap to
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know he was being watched. Afterreceiving the clippings, one associate of the
man's said he'd become despondent and onceremarked he was glad they didn't find the
gray duct tape in the trunk ofhis police cruiser. Judy Whitley's mouth had
been covered in such tape. Theinvestigation into Dunlap intensified after his suicide,
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and after the public answered law enforcementsplease for information via the media, the
picture of a violent and predatory manbegan developing. He'd once choked out a
woman who refused to have sex withhim, warning her that he could kill
her if he wanted to. Andshe knew it. One of the many
women he stalked in Clifton had filedseveral complaints against him, but nothing came
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of any of them. Dunlap apparentlywas known for killing household pets for no
reason, including dogs and bunnies,interviewees told police, and often threatened to
burn down houses. Witnesses told policehe built bombs. Folks who knew Dunlap
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claimed he described to them in detailwhat he'd done to Judy, handcuffing her,
taking her to the woods, handcuffingher to a tree, placing the
tape over her mouth, and sexuallyassaulting her. She died while Dunlap raped
her. Unable to properly breathe,He described it as gurgling on her own
saliva, one individual said, listeningas she struggled to breathe in her final
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moments. During the course of hisfour and a half year investigation, Clifton
Record managing editors W. Leon Smithwas able to collect evidence and information in
both cases that had been missed orsimply not investigated. After Dunlap's suicide,
the Clifton Police and Texas Rangers beganan intensive investigation of their own. Finally,
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and fourteen years after Judy Whitley wasmurdered on Tuesday June fifteenth, nineteen
ninety nine, Rex Childress, who'dsince taken over as police chief after Vanderhof's
death in nineteen ninety seven, announcedthat Dennis Murray Dunlap was the killer and
that the case was now cleared.Attempts at landing a posthumous indictment, however,
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had failed. The Whitley family,though they experienced some relief, were
angered at law enforcement's failure to nailDunlap while he was still alive. In
the weeks following the heinous crime.Then police Chief Rob Brennan had actually told
dun Lay it would be best ifhe left town, he later admitted,
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and the Merit at the time vehementlydenied there was a police officer under investigation
at all, but the Whitleys hadsuspected him almost since the beginning. The
victim's sister, Patricia also suspected Dunlapfor the murder of Mickey Bryan, and
it wasn't something she had just pluckedout of the clear blue sky. That
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and the hearing that should have landedJoe Dale Bryan a third trial next time
on Gone Cold, the final episodein this series. If you like Gone
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