The Murder of Lauren Whitener Part 1: A Single Blade of Grass

On July 5th, 2019, a Lake Bridgeport, Texas couple awoke to the smell of smoke. After determining there was a fire in the duplex unit attached to theirs, they called 911. When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they found the body of one of the home’s occupants – 32-year-old Lauren Anne Whitener. It was later determined that the fire wasn’t what killed the woman; instead, it was multiple stab wounds to her back and neck. After an investigation by the Wise County Sheriff’s Office, an arrest was made. But when a defense attorney was appointed to represent the suspect, doubts about his guilt arose. The case, it seemed, hinged on a single blade of grass.

If you have any information about the murder of Lauren Anee Whitener, please contact the Wise County Sheriff’s Office at 940-627-5971 or Texas Crime Stoppers at 940-627-8477

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Sources: The Wise County Messenger, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Morning News, NBCdfw.com, Fox4news.com, CBSnews.com, WFAA.com, and Court Documents 

#JusticeForLaurenWhitener #WiseCounty #WiseCountyTX #TX #Texas #TrueCrime #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #ColdCase #Unsolved #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. Wise County, Texas, located immediately northwest
of Tarrant County, is home to about sixty nine thousand residents.
Lake Bridgeport, a popular destination for boaters and anglers, is

(00:23):
on the western end of Wise County. Located on the
east of the man made Reservoir is the city of
Lake Bridgeport, a tight knit community of around three hundred
and fifty some retired and others still firmly rooted in
the working world. The small town has a city government,

(00:43):
but no police force or other services those in bigger
cities are accustomed to. On Thursday, July fourth, twenty nineteen,
there was a block party on the six hundred block
of North Main Street in Lake Bridgeport to celebrate the holiday.
The small row of duplexes, surrounded by large, rural, densely

(01:05):
wooded properties, was home to a handful of folks, including
thirty two year old Lauren Whitener. Her seven year old
son and roommate were both out for the night, so
Lauren enjoyed time with her friends from an adjacent duplex,
eating Chinese food and day drinking. She was close with

(01:25):
these neighbors, often joining them for backyard cookouts, and their
children played together, usually on the neighbour's trampoline. When the
sun went down, the usual peace and quiet took the
back seat to the pops and bangs of fireworks. After all,
it wouldn't be Independence Day without them. At some point,

(01:46):
things quieted down enough for Chasin and Helen Capehart, Lauren's
immediate neighbors, to go to bed in the middle of
the night. At around four fifteen a m. Now July fifth,
Helen and Chasin awoke to the smell of smoke, the
unmistakable smell of a house fire. Chasin sprung from bed

(02:06):
and raced to search the home, but could find nothing,
no fire. He raced next door to Lauren Whitener's side
of the duplex, and upon reaching the front porch, heard
the sound of a smoke detector. In an attempt to
get Lauren's attention, Chasin banged on the door. Lauren didn't come.

(02:26):
The door was hot to the touch and he could
see the smoke seeping from the unit. He quickly made
his way back to his unit and called nine to
one One. Firefighters were on the scene within minutes. And
began battling the blaze. As they did, they made their
way through the duplex. When they'd finished putting out the fire,

(02:49):
first responders were shocked and saddened to find the badly
burned body of a woman later determined to be Lauren Whitener.
Firefighters and police managed to keep the fire out of
the press for days. For all anyone knew it was
an accidental fire and death, so reporters did little digging

(03:10):
when the public learned that the fire wasn't what killed Lauren. However,
lake Bridgeport and Wise County became embroiled in a terrible
murder mystery that, although an arrest was made, remains unsolved today.

(03:50):
Lauren Ann Whitner was born on April eighth, nineteen eighty seven,
in Fort Worth, Texas, to James Whitner and Julie Johnson
described her as charismatic, adding that she made friends easily.
Whether that had anything to do with her smile or
laughter is up in the air. Both are said to
have been contagious. Once you were a friend, Lauren would

(04:14):
lay down her life for yours. When she graduated high school,
Lauren enlisted in the US Army as a sergeant She
served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, including on the front lines.
After serving a couple of tours overseas, something she rarely
spoke about, Lauren enrolled in college, where she eventually graduated

(04:37):
with honors. She picked up a job as a surgical
scrub nurse at Wise Health System Hospital. Lauren loved her
job and she was quite fond of living down the
road from the lake, but her life revolved around her
seven year old son, Colton. Being a mother came natural
to Lauren, and she's been described as an amazing one.

(04:59):
Not only did she love hard, but she was also
very loved. Lauren was doing well. She had her son,
close friends, a good job, and had recently moved into
the lake Bridgeport community. Many were devastated and in states
of disbelief when Lauren's body was found in her burned

(05:20):
out home. As the investigation into her death continued, everything
became even more unbelievable. After the blaze was put out,
Wise County Sheriff's Office Crimes against Persons Unit investigator Philip
Fivang was dispatched to Lauren's home. Upon entering the living room,

(05:42):
investigator Fivang noticed a severely fire damage to couch. He
continued on to the master bedroom, where he inspected Lauren's
body lying on her back. Her white T shirt, the
only article of clothing she wore, was pushed up over
her breath. Guests Lauren's face, chest, and belly were badly burned.

(06:06):
When the body was lifted, investigator Fivang saw what appeared
to be stab wounds on Loren's upper back and jawline.
There were approximately eight wounds there, he observed, and another
on her right side, just under her breast. It was
already a suspected crime scene, but after observing the injuries,

(06:27):
it was certain the mattress under her was badly burned,
an obvious place of origin for the blaze. Fivang noticed
other pieces of furniture around the apartment that it appeared
to have been lit on fire, but that wasn't the
most suspicious discovery. Investigators noticed three out of the four

(06:48):
smoke detectors in the home were missing, most notably from
the master bedroom and hallway. Those detectors, with the batteries removed,
were found in the hall bathroom. As they worked the scene,
investigators took several samples to test for the use of accelerants.
Investigator Fivang proceeded to conduct interviews with neighbors in his vehicle. Meanwhile,

(07:15):
Lauren's body was sent for an autopsy. The Dallas County
Medical Examiner inspected her and discovered she had multiple sharp
force trauma wounds to her upper back and neck, but
investigator Fivang was wrong about the number of wounds. Instead
of the eight he counted, there were actually eighteen total

(07:36):
stab wounds, the majority of which sixteen were in her
upper back. There was also a slicing wound there. Lauren
was deceased before the fire was set. The medical examiner
determined the death, of course, was ruled a homicide. Wise,

(07:57):
County Sheriff Lane Aiken remarked that the case was complicated
and had only become more so with the findings of
the autopsy, but the former Texas ranger added the department
would continue working tirelessly until they had answers. Aiken said
he was cautiously optimistic about identifying the person responsible. The

(08:20):
fire investigators knew was a way to cleanse the scene
of evidence and taking the batteries out of the smoke
detectors was to give the fire time to engulf the home.
Despite the fire, many pieces of evidence were found. Within weeks,
evidence sent to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Science in

(08:42):
Dallas came back multiple pieces of furniture had been doused
with accelerants, as had Lauren's body on her clothing. Heavy
petroleum distillate was found, a flammable ingredient in many substances
that can be used as accelerants, from charcoal, lighter fluid

(09:03):
to kerosene. A few days after those results were released,
Sheriff Aiken reported that they were still waiting on several
items from crime labs in Dallas and Austin, including trace evidence,
physical evidence, and digital evidence. When evidence finally came back
from the lab in Dallas, they'd been unable to determine anything,

(09:27):
so it was sent to Pure Gold Labs in California,
who were able to identify DNA markers quickly. As they
awaited those final results, Sheriff Aiken assured locals there was
no reason to be fearful of another attack. We do
not think this was a random event, he said. This
was targeted. Reading between the lines wasn't difficult. Although the

(09:52):
sheriff claimed his deputies had identified multiple suspects, it was
obvious they had a prime suspect who knew Lauren. On

(10:13):
the afternoon of Thursday, July eleventh, twenty nineteen, exactly one
week after the murder of thirty two year old Lauren
Whitner and the fire set to destroy any evidence left behind,
Wise County Sheriff's Office investigators executed a related search warrant
at six p sixty North Main Street. Several things led

(10:36):
them to this residence, which was in the set of
duplexes directly next to the victims. First, a neighbor reported
a disturbing fight between the couple who lived there. During
the Fourth of July Bloc party, Lauren buddied up with
Rodney Eric Maxwell and his common law wife, Ashley Hill.

(10:57):
Lauren spent the day with them. She was with Maxwell
and Hill. In fact, according to the witness, they'd previously
had a threesome. That night, after a long day of drinking,
Maxwell and Hill got into a heated argument, one the
neighbor said was the result of jealousy about Hill and
Lauren's relationship on Maxwell's part, meaning he believed his common

(11:22):
law wife would rather be with Lauren than with him.
At one point during the argument, Maxwell grabbed Hill by
the jaw, the witness said, and Lauren jumped in between them.
She and Hill left and went to Lauren's house to
set off fireworks. Maxwell walked to the neighbor's house, where

(11:42):
he told the story of what had happened. The witness
told detectives that based on the way Maxwell looked as
they spoke, he felt in retrospect that Maxwell had killed Lauren.
Although she'd tried to convince Ashley Hill to stay with
her due to the earlier argument, the woman declined and
went back home. Because of their friendship with her and Maxwell,

(12:06):
Lauren had become close friends with Hill's mother, who she
called at around ten twenty five pm. That call lasted
seven minutes, according to court documents, and a second call
began at ten thirty seven pm, lasting about fifty three minutes.
Lauren and Hill's mother then exchanged text messages until about

(12:28):
twelve oh three am now July the fifth. Investigators also
felt Maxwell had lied to them. According to investigator Fevang,
Maxwell told them he'd never performed any repairs inside Lauren's home,
but when investigators brought up the fact that there might
be DNA on the smoke, detectors and or batteries. Maxwell

(12:52):
changed his tune, telling them that he might have replaced
the batteries before. Many ideas of interest were found as
they performed their search on Maxwell's home. On the front
porch was a red gasoline can. A bottle of lighter
fluid was found in the home's pantry. Some items lit

(13:14):
up when sprayed with blue Star, alumina based chemical that
tests for the presence of possible blood. According to a
warrant affidaphit, later items also tested positive for the presence
of gasoline. The affient investigator, Philip Fivang claimed. Investigators came
back to Lauren's home on July seventeenth. This time, they

(13:38):
sought to perform more presumptive tests for blood, focusing on
the backyard and the space between her home and maxwell
and Hills. Using blue Star again, deputies sprayed the fifty
foot area. According to the affidaphit, the area illuminated, showing
a path of blood. However, only a single blade of

(14:02):
grass was sent to a forensic lab. This blade of
grass was found around the halfway point between Lauren and
Maxwell's homes. Possible blood was also said to be found
on Lauren's back porch and back doorknob. Lauren's best friend,
Ashley Fowler, recalled her experiences with Rodney Eric Maxwell to

(14:25):
the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Later on the day of
the murder. She, Maxwell and others were outside the crime
scene on Lauren's porch. Each time Maxwell described what had
happened the previous day, his story, Ashley said, changed. His
fingernails looked like he had a fresh manicure. They were

(14:48):
so clean, more than a normal clean, and I remember
that stuck in my head, she told the reporter. There
was at least one more suspect. On August first, twenty nineteen,
an unnamed man's recently abandoned residence was searched and he
was given a polygraph exam. According to a court document

(15:11):
penned by Maxwell's defense, this individual also allowed deputies to
take his DNA. Wise County authorities traveled to Austin to
seize and search this man's truck on August fifth. Little
else is known about this person of interest. On Wednesday,

(15:31):
September fourth, twenty nineteen, an arrest warrant was issued for
thirty nine year old Rodney Eric Maxwell. Two days later,
at around noon, he was taken into custody during a
traffic stop just south of Decatur without incident, though the
warrant affidavit lacked the proverbial smoking gun. Sheriff Lane Aiken

(15:55):
told the Wise County Messenger there was additional evidence in
the form of witness interviews and data that had been developed.
Maxwell was arraigned and his bond was set at eight
hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. On November twentieth, after
spending more than a month in county jail, Maxwell was

(16:15):
indicted for capital murder punishable by a sentence of life
without parole or death. Specifically, the indictment details that he
caused Lauren Whitener's death by cutting or stabbing her with
a knife. The aggravated charges included kidnapping, arson, and sexual assault.

(16:36):
An assault with a deadly weapon charge was included, meaning
the fire. Maxwell was also indicted for the attempted murders
of Helen and Chasin kpe Part along with their unborn child,
Lauren's neighbors on the other side of the duplex, who
could have died in the fire. On September twelfth, twenty nineteen,

(17:00):
Barry Green was officially appointed to represent Maxwell in a
motion for bond reduction. Maxwell's attorney described several issues with
the case against his client, as well as a general
timeline of events. Maxwell had been cooperative with the Wise
County Sheriff's Office during their investigation of Lauren's homicide, having

(17:24):
first gave investigator Philip the Vang an interview on the
morning of July fifth, twenty nineteen, just hours after the
body was found. Later that day, Maxwell and his wife
traveled to the Sheriff's office to give formal videotaped statements.
He also readily provided his fingerprints and gave his DNA.

(17:47):
The next interview came on July eleventh. This time, Greene's
motion for a bond reduction state was much different, much
less friendly. Texas ranger James Holland was there, a man
who is well known for his ability to drag out
confessions from suspects, even like in the case of Larry

(18:10):
Driscoll in twenty fifteen, incredibly questionable confessions that actually contradict
the known facts in the case, but somehow land the
suspect in jail. Anyway. After an hour interview, Holland asked
Maxwell to submit to a polygraph examination. He'd brought along

(18:31):
an expert polygraph operator from the Justice Department in Washington,
D C. Holland told Maxwell, who agreed to take the
test without hesitation. Maxwell was immediately given the polygraph examination.
After it was completed, he was told he failed the test,

(18:51):
something Barry Green explains in his motion for a bond reduction,
a suspect is always told that they have failed the test.
Defense attorney states, even when there are no results to interpret.
When used by law enforcement, the point of the polygraph
isn't to determine what is or isn't the truth, but

(19:11):
instead it's used as a tool to get a confession.
A suspect will take the polygraph, Green explains, will then
be told by the polygrapher in harsh and certain terms
that he had failed the test, that the test cannot
be wrong, and then a law enforcement officer will enter
the room and attempt to obtain a confession. And that's

(19:35):
exactly what happened next. After taking a polygraph examination voluntarily,
Defense attorney Barry Green said Rodney Eric Maxwell was interrogated

(19:57):
by Texas ranger James Holland for hours. According to Green,
the session was textbook to put further pressure on the suspect.
Holland confronted Maxwell with the fact that a search warrant
was being executed on his home. As they spoke something
Maxwell didn't know what was happening. The ranger showed the

(20:20):
suspect photos of the search in real time from his
cell phone, pointing out the presumptive blood evidence in an
attempt to crack him. Items later referred to in the
arrest warrant affidephids, namely a bottle of lighter fluid, were
said to test positive for blood. Other items included a
cutout swatch from a love seat and a portion of

(20:43):
a towel found in a trash bag on the front porch.
The interrogation lasted for several hours, nine and a half
of which were recorded, but Maxwell never budged. He did
not kill Lauren Whitner, he told Holland. The following day,
Maxwell's vehicle was searched and a tracking device was put

(21:04):
on his car, unbeknownst to him. Six days after that,
his home was searched again. At every search, Green said
evidence was obtained that presumptively tested positive for blood and
was suitable for DNA testing. On August fifteenth, twenty nineteen,

(21:24):
both Rodney Eric Maxwell and his wife Ashley Hill were
asked to come in for an interview again. They were
both cooperative and never lawyered up. Then, on September sixth,
Maxwell was asked to come to the Texas Department of
Public Safety office for another interview. Listen for a second,

(21:46):
does you have an opportunity here? I didn't do this.
I can't say I did anything. Couldn't do again, Till
out for a second. Okay, I'm not undermining y'all or anything.
I didn't do this, but I didn't do it. Know
what's gonna happen. I'm in so it understand they have
been through this evidence insight now. They've been studying it
while I've been gone. They've had experts from the Department

(22:07):
of Justice coming and look at it to see if
there's anything I wish. You wouldn't make this decision, man.
He was intensely interrogated. Defense lawyer Barry Green said, allowed
to leave, and then a short distance later arrested at gunpoint,
cuffed while lying face down in the street. What to

(22:36):
the bat? Come over here? You want to come the riter?
Why all we go to the crown? What you like?
Puts your head? Wake your head? Way come there in
the crowd go more. Green points out that when sent

(23:13):
to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas, the
five items collected in the first search again tested positive
for possible blood, but further serological testing determined that the
presence of blood could not be confirmed on four of
the items the sample size was too small, though DNA

(23:35):
testing would possibly be viable. The fifth item, the portion
of a towel collected from a trash bag at Maxwell's residence,
tested negative. Not only did these results render the July
eleventh search meaningless as far as evidence goes, but it
could also be interpreted as proving deception in the arrest

(23:56):
warrant affidaphit other less than onest language in the arrest
warrant affidaephits included the red gas can confiscated from Maxwell's
front porch, an item that wasn't collected until the July
eighteenth search. It's unclear why it wasn't collected during the
July eleventh search. After obtaining permission from the owner of

(24:19):
the properties, investigators conducted another search of Laurence home. That's
when they determined there was a so called path of
blood leading from her back porch to Maxwell's back gate. However,
from that path, investigators apparently only collected one blade of
grass from around the halfway point to be sent in

(24:42):
for testing. That blade of grass contained laurens DNA along
with another contributor, but the sample of the second contributor
was insufficient to create a profile. Still, the blade of
grass seemed to be the Wise County Sheriff's Office US
smoking gun in the Lauren Whitner case. According to defense

(25:05):
attorney Barry Green, on the day Lauren's body was discovered,
after taking pictures of the crime scene itself, the crime
scene photographer wandered out into the backyard of the residence
to take more photographs there, potentially becoming the source of
the trail of blood. Green also points out that the

(25:26):
affidaephet uses the term charcoal lighter fluid to describe the
bottle found at Maxwell's home, a term then used to
describe a possible source of the ingredient heavy petroleum distillate
which was found on Lauren's body. That bottle of lighter fluid,
Green points out, did not actually presumptively test positive for blood,

(25:49):
as the affidaephitt says, and the item is an item
that can be found in every household with a charcoal grill,
which the suspect had. The red guarascan, too, is an
item found in most households. Attempts were made to locate
Lauren Whitener's DNA in Maxwell's home, but those efforts were

(26:11):
unsuccessful for police. Perhaps this was suspicious, after all, Lauren
spent a lot of time over there. However, it seems
unlikely Maxwell would be able to get rid of all
DNA traces of Lauren inside his house while also being
careless enough to leave the accelerants in plain sight. Finally,

(26:34):
the four smoke detectors in the home, three of which
had been taken down the batteries removed, contained the DNA
of at least four individuals. While the arrest warrant Affidaphet
suggests Rodney Eric Maxwell tried covering his tracks by saying
he might have switched out the batteries and the smoke detectors.
Neither his DNA, his wife's DNA, or the unknown person

(26:58):
of interests DNA could be found on them. All three,
in fact, were absolutely excluded as contributors. Loren's DNA was
found on all six of the items. The three smoke
detectors and the three batteries, and an unknown female's DNA
profile was discovered on one of the batteries. In his

(27:20):
motion for bond reduction, defense attorney Barry Green also suggests
the police weren't so sure Maxwell was their man, since
they continued to investigate the person of interest as well.
On October two, twenty nineteen, according to Green, Texas rangers
interrogated the person of interest using the same techniques they'd

(27:43):
used on Maxwell. Apparently, the person of interest had no
alibi witness, a matter that was pressed on during the investigation.
He maintained his innocence, as he had from the beginning,
but the mere fact that he was being investigated after
Maxwell's arrest certainly showed at least a shadow of a

(28:03):
doubt that Maxwell was responsible for Lauren's murder. Items found
in his truck, including a white cutoff T shirt with
presumptive blood, were sent off to a California lab for testing,
though those results remain unknown. A single blade of Grass
would be an apt title if Lauren's case was a

(28:25):
true crime novel. Green said in closing, that's what the
entire case against Maxwell rested on, But the argument against
the man's guilt didn't end there, and perhaps another potential
suspect other than the person of interest, one whose known
method of operation resembles the terrible crime against Lauren Whitener

(28:50):
casts further doubt on Maxwell as the prime suspect. That's
next time on Gone Cold, Texas True Crime. If you
have any information about the murder of Lauren Ann Whitner,
please contact the Wise County Sheriff's Office at nine four
zero six two seven five nine seven one or crime

(29:14):
Stoppers at nine four zero six two seven eight four
seven seven. If you'd like to join gon Cold's mission
to shine a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases,
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(29:37):
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