The Pretty Family Slayings

One evening in May of 1978, Robert Pretty came home from work to a nearly silent house. Breakfast was still on the table, and all that could be heard was water dripping. As he looked for his family, he followed the drip. In the bathroom, Robert found his sons Mark and Scott deceased in the bathtub. In the master bedroom, he found his wife Karen also dead in the tub. Though the police tried to find evidence, they discovered almost nothing that pointed them in the direction of a strong lead. A motive was just as elusive, if not more so.  The case went cold fast. The following year, another family was murdered in their Houston home, prompting police to look for similarities.

If you have any information about the murders of Karen, Scott, and Mark Pretty, please contact the Homicide Unit at the Houston Police Department at 713-308-3600.

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Sources: The Houston Chronicle, The Houston Post, and The Austin American Statesman 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised by all accounts. Robert and Karen
Pretty had normal lives. Born August seventh, nineteen forty three,
in Harris County, Texas. Robert was a machinist at Tricolor Incorporated,

(00:22):
a sheet metal and sighting company. His father in law
was his foreman. Karen was born in Saint Louis, Missouri,
on June sixteenth, nineteen forty nine. After marrying Robert in
November of nineteen sixty nine, Karen became a housewife. Seven
months later. On June twenty seventh, nineteen seventy, they welcomed

(00:45):
their first son into their lives, Scott Warren Pretty. Three
years after that, on February third, nineteen seventy three, their
second son, Mark David Pretty, was born. Robert passed down
his red hair to both of his kids. They were
described as pretty little red haired children. Around nineteen seventy six,

(01:09):
the family made their home in North Houston, in the
city's suburb of al Dean. Their neighborhood a quiet, relatively
new subdivision. The house was modest, a ranch style three
bedroom red brick home. Karen shared a close bond with
Mark and Scott. The two weren't allowed to cross the street.

(01:32):
Karen was protective. She was involved with activities and academics
at Evelyn S. Thompson Elementary School as a room mother
and a volunteer in the motor skills lab. The life
of the Pretty family was seemingly typical. They were a
working class family who both thrived and struggled, just like

(01:53):
anyone else. But in nineteen seventy eight, the unthinkable happened, and,
perhaps because of the normal lives they led. The brutal
murders of Karen, Scott and Mark Pretty remain unsolved to
this day. At six pm on Wednesday May tenth, nineteen

(02:37):
seventy eight, Robert Pretty returned home from work. When he
walked in, it seemed quiet, too quiet. He began making
his way around the house. On the kitchen table sat
half a glass of milk and partially eaten cold toast. Immediately,
Robert's heart began pounding with fear was terribly wrong. He

(03:02):
heard the sound of dripping water, which he followed. In
the home's front bedroom. Robert entered to find his two sons,
seven year old Scott and five year old Mark lying
in the bathtub, face down. The water was still running.
Both were barefoot, still in their pajamas. He pulled them

(03:24):
from the water. It was immediately obvious they were gone.
Robert raced to the master bedroom looking for his wife.
There in the master bath, he found Karen, also lying
in the tub, face down. Water still ran through the spout.
Robert quickly called the police. When an ambulance arrived, an

(03:47):
inconsolable Robert stood in the front yard motioning for it
to stop. He was upset, very upset. A police officer
later commented, he just told us therein so police arrived
to find a grueling and complex crime scene. Karen was

(04:08):
still in her flowery housecoat. She was gagged and bound
by the ankles and wrists using telephone cord. A telephone
cord was also tightly wound around her neck. The Harris
County Medical Examiner later determined Karen's cause of death to
be asphyxia due to drowning and ligature strangulation. Five year

(04:30):
old Mark was neither bound nor gagged. A large bruise
was found over the left side of his rib cage.
His death would later be determined as the result of
drowning and manual strangulation. Scott, Karen and Robert's oldest, had
been gagged with a sock, a twisted metal coat hanger

(04:51):
bound his wrists, and a pair of nylon pantyhose bound
his ankles. Because of the condition of his body, police
believes Scott fought his attackers bravely and fiercely. In fact,
he appeared to have been the only one to put
up such a fight because his cause of death was
later listed as asphyxia due to drowning, gagging, and manual strangulation.

(05:16):
Because Mark was so young and small, it's likely he
was incapable of putting up much a fight at all,
and Karen, it could be theorized, didn't fight back in
hopes her children would be spared. For responding detectives, the
crime scene offered both clarity and confusion, but primarily the latter.

(05:40):
The partially consumed food on the kitchen table led them
to theorize that someone had interrupted breakfast, and judging by
the fact that there was no evidence of forced entry,
police theorized that the killer or killers had either entered
through an unlocked door and surprised Karen and the kids,
or had been led in. Oddly, Christmas decorations that had

(06:03):
been stored in the family's attic were strewn across the
Pretty's backyard. It was a detail the cops didn't know
what to make heads or tails of. There was also
something missing. Karen's new nineteen seventy eight blue Mercury Marquis
wasn't in the driveway. As authorities processed the scene, the

(06:26):
phone rang. A paramedic picked it up, Fire department ambulance,
they said, the caller hung up. Another call came in
same thing. The third time the phone rang. The caller
asked for Robert Pretty. Do you know Robert. The man
who answered asked, yes, I'm his mother. The caller was

(06:49):
Verona Jones, Karen's mom. Robert was there, the man told Verona,
but he couldn't come to the phone. You'd better get
over here right away, they told her. Verona had tried
to phone Karen several times that day around noon and
then again at about two thirty pm, but there was

(07:10):
never any answer. She didn't think it was anything too
out of the ordinary, as Karen bowled on Wednesday mornings
and sometimes did some shopping in the afternoon. But Verona
began worrying after she spoke with a friend who bowled
with her daughter, who told her Karen hadn't shown up
at the bowling alley that morning. The friend had also

(07:32):
tried to phone Karen all day, also with no luck.
The murders were devastating to family and friends. The Pretties
were a quiet family, one who minded their own business business,
which was neither nefarious nor abnormal. The kids, particularly Mark,

(07:53):
looked like they were straight out of a television commercial, handsome,
well mannered, and just like any of the other boys
in their school. One second grade classmate of Scott's called
him a real good student who never got in trouble.
Everyone knew Robert as a great and attentive father, as
upright a person as you could ever meet. Karen was

(08:16):
perpetually mother of the year, material and as friendly and
pleasant as they come. The Pretties were the all American
family stereotype. One neighbor said. The boys' school principle described
the family in much the same way, calling them wonderful, ideal,
and exemplary. Not a single person knew of anyone who

(08:39):
might want to harm the Pretty family from the get go.
The Pretty case was marred by lack of evidence and motive.
Robert told the police he left the house at six
forty five am to go to work and returned at
six pm, presumably alibi. Witnesses backed this up, and though

(09:00):
it is not known for certain, its likely detectives looked
him over for injuries. The killer likely sustained, a theory
especially relevant considering the condition of Scott's body. The times
of deaths could not be determined precisely, but a neighbor
reported to police that Karen's seventy eight Mercury was parked

(09:20):
in the driveway at noon, suggesting the assailant or assailants
hadn't left before then, Further suggesting the murders took place
between six forty five am and twelve pm. Another unfamiliar
car was parked alongside Karen's. Not only were there no
signs of forced entry, but there were also no signs

(09:43):
of a struggle, no blood evidence. Police theorized the killer
or killers came in abruptly and with little to no warning.
Multiple fingerprints were found inside the pretty home, all of
which were being examined and checked. As the case progressed,
confusion mounted. Several witnesses reported that they saw two men

(10:18):
in an unrecognized white car in front of the Pretty
family's North Houston home as early as seven thirty am
and as late as twelve thirty PM. As far as
Karen's car was concerned, a bee on the lookout was issued.
At some point early on, an unidentified man told police

(10:38):
that a car with that description and the same license
plate number had attempted to run him down in the
parking lot of the Screaming Eagle Lounge at Old Spanish
Trail and Griggs Road, about twenty miles from the Pretty
family home on the south side of downtown. According to detectives,
the lead was later proven false. It never happened, at

(11:02):
least not with Karen's car. At five point forty five,
the evening of the murders, a resident at an apartment
complex located at one ninety eight Goodson, about a block
west of the crime scene found a car parked in
her assigned spot. After contacting the complex's manager, the car
was towed to a service yard a couple miles away.

(11:26):
The car was Karen Pretty's nineteen seventy eight Mercury Marquis.
No one had seen the vehicle being abandoned, nor had
any of the pretty's neighbors seen it leave the house.
When they finally discovered where it was, police scoured the
vehicle for prints and evidence. No usable fingerprints were found

(11:48):
inside or outside of the car, and if any evidence
was found, it was kept quiet. Detectives were having about
as much luck figuring out a motive. Though the home's
attic had been rifled through and Christmas decorations scattered throughout
the backyard, nothing else in the house appeared to have

(12:08):
been taken or even touched, with the exception of a
couple places. One drawer of a dresser in the master
bedroom had been ransacked, as had Karen's purse on the
kitchen table, but Karen still wore her jewelry. The only
things taken from the home, in fact, were Karen's car

(12:28):
and car keys, which probably explained her purse being rifled through.
Since they had been abandoned shortly after the abhorrent crime
was committed, it's unlikely they were ever intended to be stolen.
Early on, robbery, burglary, and drugs were ruled out as motives.
Police entertained the thought that sexual assault was the motive,

(12:52):
but after autopsies and further testing, it was determined neither
Karen Mark nor Scott had been sexually as. Because of
the lack of clues and a motive, the Pretty Family
murders were cold almost as soon as the bodies were discovered.
Six detectives worked the case for the first several weeks,

(13:13):
putting in thousands of man hours and interviewing more than
one hundred people, But after an exhaustive effort to find answers,
they remained baffled. They did agree on a theory, the
only one that seemed to make any sense. The detectives
believed the case involved a murder for hire scenario, one

(13:34):
in which the predees were not the intended victims. The
killers were at the wrong house, the Houston Police theorized.
After an intensive investigation, it was more or less proven
the family had no enemies and were not involved in
any criminal activity. However, it was reported that there was

(13:55):
an informant in the neighborhood who had caused the arrest
of a known drug dealer. Perhaps police thought the killers
were not familiar with the area and found a house
that looked similar and had a similar vehicle outside. It's
reported the informant had a family situation and car that
closely resembled the Pretty family and their home. More than

(14:20):
five months after the murders, in October nineteen seventy eight,
a seven thousand dollars reward was offered for information leading
to the arrest and conviction of any suspect. Ten days
after that announcement, the reward offered by friends of Robert
Pretty and his late family increased to ten thousand dollars.

(14:41):
Detective Johnny Bonds told a reporter for the Houston Chronicle
that the department had almost nothing to go on, virtually
no clues, he said, but hoped that the reward will
be the thing that brings a witness to the table.
According to Detective Bonds, only one truly promp mussing call
came in during the entirety of the initial investigation, when

(15:04):
a man called the Houston Police Department saying he had
information about the case. He was afraid for his life,
he told police, and subsequently arranged to meet with detectives
to tell them what he knew. After waiting an hour
at the meet up place with no sign of the man, however,
the police left. The man never called back. Because of

(15:29):
the initial conversation, Detective Bonds believed that the man indeed
had information about the case, but the law man wouldn't
elaborate any further than that. After almost a year had passed,
in March of nineteen seventy nine, some information came into
the department, but what it was isn't known publicly. Nothing

(15:51):
anyway developed from the new information. Then came the Wanstrath
family murders. Judging by all outward appearances, John and Diana
Wanstrath were a normal and happy couple. They were coming
up on ten years of marriage and had a fourteen
month old son named Kevin. On the afternoon of July sixth,

(16:16):
nineteen seventy nine, the family's housekeeper arrived at the Wanstrats
Southwest Houston home to perform her normal duties, but there
was no answer. When she returned later that day, there
was still no answer. Something was off. She peered into
the living room window and saw thirty five year old

(16:38):
John Wanstrath slumped and still in a chair. Not far
from John, by the fireplace laid thirty six year old Diana.
The housekeeper rushed to call police. When homicide detectives arrived
at the scene, they discovered both Diana and John had
been shot execution style, her once in the left temple

(17:02):
and him twice in the back of the head. One
of the responding detectives, Sergeant Johnny Bonds, believed at first
John had committed a murder suicide. After all, there were
no signs of forced entry or a struggle, and the
way the bodies were positioned made it look like John
had shot Diana, immediately sat down in the chair, and

(17:24):
then killed himself. But John's wounds didn't make much sense
as self inflicted and anyway. After searching for a gun
near the bodies and everywhere else in the house for
that matter, detectives came up empty handed. There was no
murder weapon at the crime scene. John and Diana's bodies

(17:45):
weren't where the carnage ended. Upstairs, Kevin, barely more than
a year old, lay in his crib among his favorite toys.
He too, had been shot in the head. Detectives scoured
these for clues but found few. A motive was even
more elusive. The Wanstrath family went to church, spent evenings

(18:10):
on their patio. They were seen at dinner parties of
friends and neighbors, never showing any signs that anything at
all was going wrong in their lives and seemingly nothing
to keep secret. John was a hell of a neighbor
who'd fix your car if you needed him to. Diana
was as friendly and warm as they come, and simply

(18:32):
adored children. Even the idea of them having enemies seemed absurd,
and evidence certainly didn't point to any. Perhaps, detective Bonds
theorized the Wanstraths were killed for money, but at first
there was nothing there to support the theory. The cops
didn't have a thing. Bonds couldn't help, but think of

(18:55):
the murders of Karen Pretty and her sons Mark and Scott.
Even though the method of the murders differed significantly, the
cases were similar, and at least a couple ways, both
seemed senseless, no readily apparent motive, and few workable clues.
As in the case of the Pretty family murders. The

(19:18):
reward in the Wanstrath case was ten thousand dollars, but
as the weeks turned a months, no one came forward
with any viable leads, and there was another wrench thrown
in based on a slipshod psychological profile completed by a
psychologist slash Catholic priest Harris County Medical Examiner doctor Joseph

(19:42):
Yahemchik ruled that Diana Wanstrath had killed her baby, then
her husband, than herself. Though he'd since been transferred to
internal affairs, Sergeant Johnny Bonds was hell bent on proving
that conclusion wrong. The Wanstrath family case is perhaps imperative

(20:13):
to understanding how and why the Pretty Family murders were
never solved. That all begins and essentially ends with the
work of one of the most renowned Texas pathologists of
all time, Harris County Medical Examiner, doctor Joseph Jahemchic. Though
he was transferred from homicide to internal affairs, Sergeant Johnny

(20:36):
Bonds kept a copy of the Wanstrath family murders file.
He wasn't buying the murder suicide determination because most obviously,
there was no murder weapon found at the scene. The
murder suicide conclusion was based upon a psychological profile completed
by doctor Thomas Whelou. One thing that made doctor Whelou

(20:59):
so sure Diane and Wanstrath would have killed her family
was the observation that she was having trouble adjusting to
having a child. Her perfectionism made that all the worse.
According to Weelu. There was evidence Diana was on a
downward spiral in the eight months prior to her death,
he said, and she had told her brother in a

(21:21):
recent telephone conversation about her decision to donate her body
to science, and there were no signs of forced entry,
no foreign fingerprints found in the house. Plus ballistics had
determined the weapon used in the supposed murder suicide was
a twenty two caliber single action revolver, a type of

(21:43):
weapon rarely used in the commission of, say a robbery,
since you have to pull the hammer back each time
before you fire. However, and interestingly, without the revolver in hand,
even modern day ballistics practices can determine with accuracy whether
a revolver was single action or double action. That and

(22:06):
the lack of the murder weapon itself were telltale signs
of murder to Sergeant Bonds and likely any other detective
who's worth their weight. Then, as he continued looking for
commonalities between the Wanstrath case and the Pretty Family Slangs,
Bonds discovered something shocking. A few years before, in October

(22:29):
of nineteen seventy five, Diana Wanstrath's sixty year old grandmother
Gertrude was found dead in her home. Harris County Medical
examiner doctor Joseph Yahemchik, ruled the death of suicide, but
there was one glaring detail that made Gertrude's husband and
Diana doubt that a pair of pantyhose were wrapped around

(22:52):
the woman's neck. After this discovery, Houston Post reporter Rick
Nelson called Sergeant Bond with a tip. The newsman had
received a call saying that thirty four year old Markham
duff Smith, Diana's brother, had killed his mother for money
and was likely responsible for the murders of the Wanstrath

(23:14):
family as well. Bonds leaned in heavily on this theory.
Upon giving relatives of Diana and John Wanstrath polygraph examinations,
only one family member failed, Markham duff Smith. Duff Smith,
who was adopted by the family when he was just
two weeks old, was described as a loaner who lived

(23:37):
one day at a time. He argued with Gertrude about
money often. He was always asking her for some and
she was less than obliging nearly every time. Upon Gertrude's
determined suicide, duff Smith and his sister Diana Wanstrath were
given ninety thousand dollars each. There's little doubt duff Smith

(24:00):
blew all his on his favorite pastimes, fast cars and women.
Eight months before his sister, brother in law, and nephew
were slain, he had sold John Wanstrath a two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars life insurance policy. Sergeant Johnny Bonds
learned John's aunt was also recently deceased, and the family

(24:23):
was to receive a part of that estate. In November
of nineteen seventy nine, duff Smith was given his share
of his sister's estate four hundred and thirty five thousand dollars,
an amount equal to about two million dollars in twenty
twenty five money. He blew a sizeable portion of that

(24:43):
right away, some on a Mercedes Benz and some on
a lavish, though sparsely attended Christmas party in his new home,
which he had just put a down payment on. With
the estate money. He lost another huge chunk of the
money playing the stockm market. Two. In the spring of
nineteen eighty, duff Smith's friend, twenty seven year old real

(25:07):
estate agent Walter Waldhauser Junior, moved into his house after
both men kicked their wives to the curb. It was
a grave mistake. Both women opened up to Houston Police
Sergeant Johnny Bonds and allowed him and his partner to
go through Waldhauser's papers. In them, the law men discovered

(25:28):
that the man knew a two time ex convict who
was the prime suspect in another murder, Alan Wayne Yeneska.
Bonds was getting closer, he could feel it. At Yeneska's
girlfriend's house, police found something promising a twenty two caliber
cult frontier, potentially their murder weapon. Yeneska was arrested and

(25:51):
after a few days, confessed to the murders of Diana
John and fourteen month old Kevin Wanstrap. With the t
Biggerman down, the other conspirators fell. Like Domino's Walter, Waldhauser
had enlisted the help of his friend Yeneska. Former Houston
bail bondsman Paul McDonald had acted as a middleman, and

(26:15):
the money to pay for the murders twenty thousand dollars,
was supplied by none other than Gertrude's adopted son and
Diana Wanstrath's brother, Mark duff Smith. Although a strong case
against these men was built Harris County Medical Examiner, doctor
Joseph Yahimchik, refused to change the murder suicide ruling to homicide. Still,

(26:39):
a grand jury indicted them. Finally, two months after that indictment,
doctor Yahimchik changed it. Paul McDonald, the former bail bondsman
slash murder middleman, was sentenced to sixteen years in prison.
Walter Waldhauser was given thirty years. Man Alan Wayne Yanesco

(27:02):
was given the death penalty. He was put to death
in two thousand and three. Markham Duff Smith, unlike all
the others, never confessed to his role as the mastermind
and moneyman. Not only was he convicted of the murders
of Diana, John and Kevin Wanstrath, he was also convicted

(27:22):
of the murder of he and Diana's mother, Gertrude. He
received the death penalty as well, which was carried out
in nineteen ninety three. There's no doubt that the murders
of the Pretty family were wholly unconnected to the murders
of the wan Straths, but because of the many mistakes

(27:43):
made in their case, particularly the determinations of the Harris
County Medical Examiner, its entirely possible errors were also made
in the case of the predies. It is difficult not
to wonder what was missed or misconstrued, difficult not to
wonder if that's why the case remains unsolved to this day.

(28:04):
In the decades that followed, little news or even anniversary
stories about the Pretty family murders saw print or a
television screen. Later, in nineteen ninety seven, a childhood friend
of Scott Pretty tried to bring renewed attention to the case.
Though she tried to get the TV show Unsolved Mysteries

(28:25):
to do a segment on the case, one never aired.
After thousands of man hours investigating, the cops came up
with little more than a few working theories. Evidence in
the case was checked for DNA testing viability in nineteen
ninety seven, but it's unclear if the suspect profile was found.

(28:46):
Robert Pretty married again in nineteen eighty five, but divorced
in nineteen ninety six. After his death in twenty fifteen,
Robert's ashes were scattered over Karen, Scott and More's graves
at Memorial Oaks Cemetery in Houston, a testing perhaps to
the man's lifelong grief. If you have any information about

(29:13):
the murders of Karen Scott and Mark Pretty, please contact
the Homicide Unit at the Houston Police Department at seven
one three three zero eight three six zero zero. If
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(29:36):
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