Some fifty copies of this document, "The Carla Walker Story", were distributed to friends and police agencies alike. I received quite a few phone calls and someone suggested that I contact the Fort Worth Weekly newspaper. I was told that they would jump at a chance to write about the murder case. Through the years, there were several stories in other papers, but they did little to help in my efforts.

One day I called the Fort Worth Weekly and the next day the editor came out to visit with me. When she left, she took with her a copy of the document. The next day Jeff Prince, a writer for the paper met with me. The result was the first story, "Murder & Obsession," which ran April 25, 2002, the day after my seventy-second birthday. You can view this story at:

The paper received many letters to the editor in response to the story, all on a positive note. I also began receiving phone calls and e-mail. Not all, but most were from former schoolmates who went to school with Carla and Rodney. There were also calls from people who had known William Ted Wilhoit during the seventies.

He was described as very wild during his last years in school, into popping hubcaps and other things against the law. One person who had followed the stories about Carla, told of Wilhoit having dyed his hair twice, once red, and another time black.

Another person told me that Wilhoit had once bragged that he knew Carla Walker, but did not believe he was capable of murder. They said Wilhoit always dressed well and kept well groomed. Some, even after the stories ran about his confessing to shooting Janelle Kirby, still found it hard to believe he could do such a thing.

A retired cop smokes cigarettes at a small table in his tidy South Fort Worth house and ponders an old case. His kids are grown. His wife passed away years ago. His three old dogs protect the yard but occasionally come inside for an ear scratch.

Terrell was a burglary detective; he became involved in only one murder investigation, but that was enough. That's usually what he thinks about when he sits in the kitchen in the evenings, smoking and sipping whiskey and scratching his dogs' ears.

Carla Walker's murder case won't let go. Terrell became involved in it because of a burglar and rapist named William Ted Wilhoit. Carla died in 1974, and for most of the years since, Terrell has been convinced that Wilhoit killed her. He has powerful reasons, not the least of them Wilhoit's own words. "I was wondering when you were going to come after me for Carla Walker," Wilhoit once told Terrell and his partner.

Terrell has plugged away at the case for years, trying to interest two generations of police officials in his theory. His tenaciousness has gotten him good and bad marks with other cops and those associated with Wilhoit. Some former co-workers say Terrell is seeing shadows and ghosts where none exist. But some victims and family members think him a saint. His perseverance helped put Wilhoit in prison twice, but Terrell has never been able to convince authorities that Wilhoit was Carla Walker's killer. And, in a few months, Wilhoit, now 48, is due to get out of prison again. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Skeptics don't bother Terrell, 72, although he admits relishing the thought of proving them wrong. He wants justice for Carla Walker and closure for Doris Walker. Most of all, he wants Wilhoit to stay in prison.

Terrell suspects Wilhoit might return to this area. The career criminal's parents lived for years in Fort Worth, Wilhoit's stomping grounds, until both died in the past two years. They also owned property near Granbury. Maybe Wilhoit will come, maybe not. Regardless, the retired detective is convinced that Wilhoit, wherever he goes, will succumb once again to demons that trigger an urge to attack women. So Terrell sits and ponders documents and checks facts he has gathered over the years, trying to figure a way to make a case against the well-mannered, soft-spoken, spiritual burglar who came so close, Terrell is convinced, to confessing everything 25 years ago.

It would all have been so easy, if not for a knock on the door.

Terrell grew up in South Texas, in a family of lawmen. His father, Henry Terrell, was a cattle inspector and commissioned law enforcement officer working in the Rio Grande Valley. Several relatives were police officers, and an uncle kept an assortment of crime and detective magazines lying around. Terrell soaked up the tabloid stories and pictures and developed a romantic view of police work. He worked at oil field supply businesses after graduating from Mission High School in 1949, and then moved to Fort Worth in 1959 to work on cars. His fascination with law enforcement prompted him to become a reserve police officer in Lake Worth in 1958, and later to join the Benbrook Police Department. He was told to work speed traps, but he wanted to patrol. "One day I put the machine up and started patrolling," he said. The police chief reprimanded him, and Terrell quit and returned to working on cars.

His career with the Fort Worth Police Department began in 1961. He patrolled streets and worked with the crime-scene unit until becoming a burglary detective in 1972. He developed a reputation for doing things his own way, which rankled supervisors and probably hindered his career advancement. "I did things a little different than a lot of them," he said. "I didn't put down the brass but I didn't kiss their ass either." He never advanced beyond the burglary unit.

Prisoners got a fair shake with Terrell, who offered reckless trust at times. He said he could clear more crimes by treating suspects with decency. While transporting a prisoner one night, he came upon a car wreck. Terrell investigated the scene and gave the prisoner a flashlight to direct traffic. Another time, he allowed a prisoner who had been cleared of suspicion to leave jail without the lengthy process of being discharged. A jailer complained that the suspect had not completed necessary forms, including giving a thumbprint, so Terrell stuck a thumb into an inkpad and put his own thumbprint on the form. He gave personal attention and sometimes money to people if he felt they were honestly trying to straighten out their lives. A heroin addict who was rehabilitated 20 years ago with Terrell's help still calls him to say hello on occasion.

Terrell and his wife, Frances, adopted and raised two children. Frances Terrell died in 1994, and Terrell lives alone with three slow-moving dogs ranging in age from 17 to 20. His wife supported his effort to solve Walker's murder, even after police officers started calling him "a nutcase," he said.

"She never questioned the money I spent or the time I put into it," he said. "She was all for it."

Terrell was working burglary cases in the mid-1970s when a string of abductions, rapes, and murders of women occurred in Fort Worth. Becky Martin, a Tarrant County Junior College student, was apparently nabbed from the college parking lot on Feb. 27, 1973, and later found in a culvert near White Settlement. Carla Walker was taken from a bowling alley parking lot on Feb. 17, 1974, and found in a culvert three days later. On Dec. 23, 1974, three girls disappeared from a department store parking lot and were never found.

The widely reported cases were somewhat out of character for 1970s Fort Worth, which retained something of a small-town character even though its population had topped 300,000. Terrell read the newspaper stories and talked to fellow officers about the cases, but didn't try to assist in the investigations. He had a full burglary caseload. It was one of those cases that led him to Wilhoit.

Someone stole a credit card from a Fort Worth house in 1974 and used it to buy $1,000 worth of furniture at a retail store. The large purchase spurred the store manager to jot down the man's license plate number. That led Terrell to a young man with sandy hair and piercing eyes named William Ted Wilhoit. A background check showed Wilhoit had been arrested on several unrelated crimes, including an attempted rape charge that had not yet gone to trial.

Terrell called Wilhoit and arranged to meet at the police station. They developed a rapport on the phone, and Wilhoit arrived with the stolen credit card in hand. "I didn't treat him like a scumbag," Terrell said. "I told him, 'You're caught, so come on in, and I won't be too rough on you.' " Before Terrell arrested him, they stopped to drink coffee near City Hall. While they talked over a cup of joe, Terrell asked about the attempted rape charge. "He implied that it was him, but he said it wasn't like the newspapers said it was," Terrell recalled. The rape victim was a college student living near Texas Christian University. The rape occurred Aug. 27, 1973 -- Wilhoit's 20th birthday.

Wilhoit received a five-year probated sentence for the burglaries. But he was acquitted of attempted rape of the college student -- "attempted" because he technically did not complete the act, spewing semen on the woman's chest.

Wilhoit had gone to the young woman's apartment under the guise of welcoming her to the neighborhood. Then, she testified, he pulled a knife, tied her feet and hands, and threatened to kill her. The 10-woman, two-man jury doubted her story. Some of the women questioned why she had invited a stranger inside her house and why she showed no signs of injury. The trial was six months after the attack, and her minor injuries had healed. Police hadn't photographed her scrapes and bruises. "They didn't take pictures of the marks on my arms and neck," she said recently. "Pictures would have made a difference to at least show I wasn't a willing participant."

She asked to be identified only as Jennifer D. for this story, because she still fears Wilhoit might track her down if and when he is released from prison. She has put the attack and trial behind her, for the most part, but the resentment quickly bubbled to the surface when she started talking about it. She said police didn't pursue her case, and the judge remarked after the acquittal, "After all, it wasn't that bad."

Jennifer has talked many times with Terrell over the years and believes in his theory of the Carla Walker case. "It's a twisty-turny tale, and it just keeps going on for some people," she said.

"I was pretty na•ve at the time, and what happened to me happened because I was na•ve," she said. "I'm not na•ve anymore. To most of them, it wasn't any worse than a fender-bender. The only one who was really harmed was me." After a pause, she added: "And the women who came after me."

Carla Walker was an outgoing, athletic, and popular student at Western Hills High School. She and her boyfriend, Rodney McCoy, went to a Valentine's Day dance at the high school on Feb. 17, 1974 -- a Saturday night -- and, afterward, met friends at a popular drive-through restaurant not far from her parents' South Fort Worth home. At about midnight, Walker said she needed to use the restroom, and McCoy drove her to a nearby bowling alley. McCoy walked her into the building and waited for her. They were getting into the car when someone jerked open the passenger door and grabbed Walker. McCoy said he struggled with the attacker but was hit over the head and knocked unconscious, although he remembered the man saying, "I'm going to kill you." Police later found a clip for a .22-caliber Ruger semi-automatic pistol lying in the parking lot and speculated that it had fallen from the kidnapper's pistol.

McCoy awoke with blood streaming down his face and drove to his girlfriend's house, where Doris Walker had been watching the clock. It was after midnight, time for Carla to be getting home. "That's when Rodney came and started banging on the door," she said. "He had been hit on the head." Her husband, now deceased, went looking for Carla, while Doris Walker called an ambulance for McCoy and rode with him to the hospital.

Doris Walker expected Carla to come home soon and wondered if the kidnapping was a joke. "So many things happened so fast, you sort of get in a daze," she said.

Three days later, Fort Worth police Officers Steve Noonkester and Darrell Thompson were searching along county roads, looking for Walker's body. The day was chilly, and they took turns getting out to look in culverts. It was Thompson's turn when the patrol car stopped beside a farm-road culvert near Benbrook Lake. "I looked over the edge and, sure enough, she was in there in a light blue dress," he said. "It was evident that she was dead due to some discoloration you could see. I walked back to the car, and I was standing outside in the roadway. I said, 'Steve, she's under this bridge.' "

Noonkester thought his partner was joking. "Get your ass in the car, and let's go," he told him. Then he saw Thompson's face and realized his partner was serious. They drove to a nearby phone booth to call homicide detectives. "We didn't want to announce it over the radio, because we knew the press was also scanning those radios," Thompson said. "We didn't need a crowd out there."

Some of the facts surrounding Carla's case made Terrell think of Wilhoit, who was out on probation for burglary. The bowling alley from which the teen-ager had been taken was near Wilhoit's home. The medical examiner said she had apparently been drugged with morphine, raped, and kept alive for about two days before being strangled. Terrell approached homicide detective Claude Davis and told him he should check out Wilhoit as a suspect. Later, he asked another homicide detective if Wilhoit had been questioned about Walker, and the detective claimed Wilhoit had passed a lie-detector test. The detective lied, Terrell said, and Wilhoit was not questioned about Walker's murder until Terrell and his partner, Joe Britt, arrested him for burglary more than a year later.

A policeman's career is invariably marked by ifs. If the homicide detectives had paid attention to Terrell. If the jurors had believed Jennifer. "If he had been convicted" of her rape, Jennifer said, "the next one -- Ruth -- might have had a better investigation."

Or what happened to Ruth Duncan might not have happened at all. The longtime employee of Buddie's supermarket on Camp Bowie Boulevard was abducted from the store's parking lot on July 25, 1974. Duncan told police her attacker pushed his way into her car, threatened her with a knife, and then drove toward Benbrook. He was small in stature, with sandy hair combed forward and then flipped back, soft-spoken, neatly dressed, in his 20s, with intense eyes. Duncan tried to convince him to take her back. "I'm old enough to be your grandmother," she told him. "That doesn't matter," he replied. He took Texas 377 to a spot near the area where Carla Walker's body had been found several months earlier. During the ride, he told her he had killed two girls and dumped their bodies in culverts, she said.

For reasons that Duncan can't explain, her pleadings seemed to sway her kidnapper. He drove back to Fort Worth, but pulled over and raped her along the way. "He came to a climax and yanked it out and went all over my clothing, mostly on my underwear," she said. The man then drove to a parking lot next door to Buddie's and told Duncan to get out but to leave her purse. She kicked the purse out of the car as she got out, and he sped away. Police found the car abandoned nearby.

Duncan, now 74, recalled that police showed her several photos, and she picked one that seemed to match her attacker. The police officer told her that the man in the photo had recently died in a car crash. She later went to the police department and viewed a line-up, but none of the men resembled her attacker. That was the last she heard from police.

John Terrell, though, had learned about the specifics of Ruth Duncan's case and was struck by some similarities to what had happened to Jennifer D.

Duncan recently sat on her living room couch and looked for the first time at Wilhoit's 1974 mug shot. Was this the man who raped her almost 28 years ago? "It looks similar," she said. "That's the way he combed his hair." But she couldn't be sure. The sky was dark that night, and so many years had passed. "It could have been him," she said.

It was March 1975, and William Wilhoit was back on John Terrell's radar. He had pawned several stolen items, including guns. At about the same time, a bank officer called police to say a man had tried to cash two $500 savings bonds that had been reported stolen. The suspect matched Wilhoit's description. When Terrell and Britt drove to his house, Wilhoit was standing in his yard. Terrell rolled down the car window and asked him to get in the back seat.

As he climbed in, Wilhoit's first words stunned the officers.

"Well, I was wondering when you were going to come after me for Carla Walker," he said.

"That really did get our attention real quick," Britt told Fort Worth Weekly recently. "I took it to mean he was probably involved. We got to thinking about the description of the suspect in that, and he fit pretty well. It sure did open up some new pages. We didn't say anything else to him about it until we got him downtown and had his full Miranda warning."

A search warrant allowed them to pick through Wilhoit's home, and they found stolen guns. In a police interrogation room, Terrell first began to question the young man about the burglaries. Eventually the detective moved the conversation toward religion. Wilhoit talked openly about his religious beliefs and even expressed disapproval of Terrell's frequent and casual use of curse words. Terrell told him that Carla Walker was also a Church of Christ member. The burglar began to cry. Terrell pushed gently onward. Wilhoit was "too good a Christian" to live with Carla's murder on his mind, he said, and he should talk about what had happened. Wilhoit sighed, Terrell remembered, and the young man said in a quiet voice, "I guess I might as well."

Wilhoit began to crumble. "He broke down and started crying, and I thought he was going to confess right then," Britt said. "He said he couldn't handle it anymore. I thought, we got it made and he's going to 'fess up. About that time there was some banging on the door."

A federal agent entered and said he wanted to discuss the stolen savings bonds, which were taken from a post office, making it a federal offense. By the time Terrell ushered the agent out of the room and returned to Wilhoit, the moment was lost. Terrell and Britt were flabbergasted. "That broke everything, and we never got Wilhoit back to that point again," Britt said. "I will always believe that he was involved. With his reactions that day we showed up with the arrest warrant, I just really believe he was the perpetrator in that offense."

The knock still haunts Terrell. He refers to it often when talking about Walker's case. "If the Secret Service guy hadn't knocked on the door, it would all be over with," he said.

Carla Walker's case had initially been assigned to well-respected homicide detective Claude Davis, and then later reassigned to detective George Hudson. Terrell paid Hudson a visit after Wilhoit's near-confession. They reviewed the Walker case file and looked at other rapes and murders that might involve Wilhoit. The next day, Terrell, Britt, and Hudson searched Wilhoit's home, looking for jewelry missing from Walker's body. Terrell found paperwork for numerous pawned guns, including a .22-caliber Ruger that had been stolen about two weeks prior to Walker's murder. It was probably the same type of weapon used during the Carla Walker kidnapping; the clip police found at the scene had dropped from the same kind of gun, possibly saving McCoy's life.

Also found among the stolen items were several pairs of women's panties. "What have we got here?" Terrell said as he sorted through some stolen goods that Wilhoit kept in a large bag. "Those belong to my wife," Wilhoit said. At that moment, his wife walked into the room, overheard her husband, and denied that the panties were hers.

The church-going Wilhoit had a young wife, a baby daughter, and dreams of becoming a minister, yet he was driven to steal and rape. Terrell was confused by the alternate personalities. "If Ted Bundy ever had a clone, it was Wilhoit," he said. "Strangely, I liked the son-of-a-bitch. He's quiet, respectful, he doesn't cuss, he is well-spoken, and very cooperative as far as the burglaries."

Terrell filed burglary charges in 1975; Wilhoit's probation was revoked and he was sent to prison. Months passed. Terrell worked other burglary cases and left Hudson to investigate Walker's murder. Terrell became concerned, however, after he heard through the grapevine that Wilhoit wasn't considered a suspect. In early 1976, Terrell drove to the bowling alley where Walker was abducted. He talked to patrons, including a woman who was bowling the night Walker was snatched. The witness recalled being unnerved by a man with intense eyes who kept staring at her as she bowled. Her description mirrored that of Wilhoit, Terrell said.

Terrell later went to the witness's home and asked her to turn her back to him while he spread out mug-shot photos of seven men. He told her to turn around, and she immediately pointed to Wilhoit's picture. The witness was named in the original police report, but she told Terrell that no detectives had ever questioned her.

Terrell relayed the information to Hudson but felt his effort was unappreciated. Police departments can be cliquish, and homicide detectives typically view themselves as the elite. Retired detective Leonard Schilling, who would later assist in the Walker case, described Hudson as a good detective and honest cop but one who had his own ideas about the case and resented Terrell's intrusions. "He didn't want to listen to John Terrell," Schilling said. "That's like a podiatrist trying to tell a heart surgeon how to do that valve."

Still, Hudson, Terrell, and a polygraph operator drove to the Coffield Unit near Palestine and asked Wilhoit to take a lie-detector test regarding Walker's murder. Wilhoit agreed and failed the test, Terrell said. Afterward, Terrell urged him to confess to Walker's murder. But Wilhoit's personality had changed during his time in prison. He was hardened, and Terrell recalled that the convict coldly replied, "That won't work; you almost got me the last time. I've learned a few things since I've been in here."

Wilhoit told the officers he'd failed the test because he had used a weapon to hurt somebody in a similar crime, which probably skewed the test results -- and that he wasn't worried because police would never be able to prosecute him for that offense. From that point on, he said, he would cooperate with the detectives regarding burglaries, but he no longer wanted to discuss Walker.

Wilhoit's new cryptic confession sounded to the detectives like a reference to an attack on Janelle Kirby, who had been shot five times in the head on June 11, 1974, but survived. She was living in a garage apartment near TCU when a young, short, neatly dressed man came to her door and asked to use her telephone. After she invited him inside, he pointed a pistol at her and produced a pair of thumb cuffs. Kirby refused to be cuffed, they struggled, and the man shot her and ran. Kirby crawled to a neighbor's house for help.

Police showed her many mug-shot lineups in the coming weeks, and she noticed that one man's photo seemed always to be among the choices. She would later identify the man, Fort Worth resident Kenneth Leslie Miller, as her attacker. Miller was a young Vietnam veteran and mechanic who liked motorcycles, women, booze, and weed. He had recently accused two Fort Worth police officers of violating his civil rights by beating him, injuring his spleen. Two narcotics officers were suspended, and an internal investigation ensued. After Kirby named Miller as her attacker, police waited a month -- until the day of the hearing on the beating -- to arrest him. Some police officers, including Terrell, felt that the arrest's timing and the fact that Miller had no history of attacking women indicated a frame-up by Fort Worth police attempting to protect their own.

Terrell kept up with newspaper accounts of the Kirby case and plied fellow officers for information. He said the original physical description provided by Kirby matched Wilhoit more closely than it did Miller. Also, Kirby's apartment was adjacent to the Church of Christ that Wilhoit attended, and a witness described seeing a vehicle that resembled Wilhoit's car.

Jennifer D. read the newspaper accounts of Kirby's assault and thought of Wilhoit. She called a homicide detective, who said, "What a coinky-dink, I'm looking at a picture of William Ted Wilhoit right now." She later learned from Terrell that Wilhoit was not questioned about Kirby's assault, and police instead pursued Miller. "I think they had an agenda," she said recently. "They railroaded the other guy."

Terrell talked to Miller, who told him, "Terrell, I've done a lot of things but I didn't shoot that girl." Miller was convicted, but skipped bond and became a fugitive for 12 years.

Wilhoit was the adopted son of two respected public school teachers, and seemed to have a sweet disposition. Despite his neat appearance and interest in the church, however, he began getting in trouble in his teens. In 1970, the 17-year-old was arrested on a stolen motorcycle. Later that year, he stole guns and ammunition from a Fort Worth pawnshop owner and was arrested in Missouri for unlawfully carrying a weapon. Numerous burglaries, but only two convictions, would follow. He periodically worked as a house painter, fry cook, dishwasher, and bus driver, but favored thievery. During burglaries and, later, assaults, he used no disguises and often focused on people who lived near him and would be more likely to identify him.

Terrell, Jennifer, and others believe Wilhoit wanted to be caught. "In my heart, I always felt like he wanted help," Jennifer D. said. "He was so obvious in what he did. He was practically saying, 'Catch me.' "

In 1978, Wilhoit was paroled from state prison. Terrell learned from prison officials that Wilhoit was living in Abilene and attending Abilene Christian College. Fearful that Wilhoit would again attack women, the detective called the Abilene Police Department and asked a lieutenant if there had been any unsolved rapes or murders. The lieutenant said no. Terrell described his suspicions about Wilhoit and sent a letter to Abilene police describing Wilhoit's criminal activity and possible involvement in rapes and murders. Terrell included Wilhoit's mug shot.

About the same time, Terrell was hearing about advances in DNA testing and began to inquire about Walker's semen-stained dress and the pubic hair found on her body, and asking whether they had been compared with Wilhoit's samples. He heard different stories, including that the evidence was lost, contaminated, used up in testing, or destroyed. He still doesn't know the truth. The Fort Worth Police Department didn't answer his questions then, and the current administration ignores him now, he said. "Believe me, they hate my guts because I keep this shit stirred up," he said. "If the damn police department would jump on this, it could be solved."

Neither Police Chief Ralph Mendoza, department spokesman Lt. Duane Paul, nor homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton returned any of nine calls from Fort Worth Weekly for this article.

In September 1978, a man carrying an antique pistol raped homemaker Debra Hankins at her Abilene residence. Abilene police recalled Terrell's letter and showed Hankins the mug shot. She identified Wilhoit as her attacker. Police arrested Wilhoit at the church on the college campus. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

More years passed; Terrell worked burglary cases but kept his ears tuned to information about the Carla Walker case. Detective Leonard Schilling, meanwhile, was keeping an eye out for fugitive Kenneth Miller.

Schilling had made catching Miller a priority, even listing the fugitive as the city's most-wanted criminal. He found it odd, though, that his supervisors didn't appear interested in finding Miller. "When he ran off, nobody seemed to care," he said recently. "When I put him on the Top 10 list, they laughed at me. Nobody seemed interested in catching Miller except me. Then I got that fateful phone call."

In 1986, the fugitive Miller was arrested in Las Vegas and returned to Fort Worth. Schilling, his partner Detective Danny LaRue, and others were celebrating at the now-defunct Albatross club on Jacksboro Highway when Schilling received a phone call from a former narcotics officer who told him Miller didn't shoot Kirby. To find the truth, the caller said, Schilling needed to talk to Terrell.

Schilling and LaRue went to visit Terrell, who outlined his suspicions about Wilhoit's role in shooting Kirby. "Boy, when I pulled that case, I got cold chills because he matched perfectly," said Schilling, who retired from the police department in 1987 and is currently a Fort Worth attorney. "And how they could get Miller and overlook this guy is unreal. Something was dead up the creek." Wilhoit, not Miller, fit Kirby's original description of her attacker, Schilling said.

Wilhoit was brought to Fort Worth for questioning and given immunity in exchange for information. He confessed to shooting Kirby. Miller was freed, and Wilhoit was returned to prison.

Paroled again in 1992, Wilhoit moved to Corpus Christi to live with his wife and his teen-age daughter, who had been born while he was in prison. On March 25, 1995, he was seen breaking into a house where a single woman lived. He admitted to burglary, his parole was revoked, and he was returned to prison. In January, he is expected to complete his prison sentence for Hankins' rape and go free.

Terrell retired in 1985, but he has continued to write letters to prison and parole officials and talk to police about his suspicions. His dark, short hair and carefully trimmed mustache from his police days have grown long and white in retirement. He eats little, usually a single meal a day, and rarely leaves his home. He has groceries delivered but will make forays to the liquor store for 1.75-liter bottles of W.L. Weller. He works around his house or in his tool shed during the morning, but by early afternoon he relaxes with his menthol cigarettes and cocktails. This is when his thoughts turn to Wilhoit, Walker, and the police's refusal to show him Walker's file or allow him to help with the investigation. "At this point I wouldn't put anything past the police department," he said. "Nobody likes to admit they screwed up." He's talkative, but publicity-shy. He bristles when a camera is pointed his direction -- he wants justice, he said, not credit.

The Walkers eventually buried their grief in order to survive. "We had to go on to be a family," Doris Walker said. "You don't ever forget, but you learn to live with it." She agrees that Terrell makes a convincing case but is unsure whether a jury would agree. She knows that the current police administration is not interested in pursuing it further. "I don't have a feeling that it's ever going to be solved," she said. "There won't be closure whether it's solved or not."

Regardless, she is a Terrell fan. "If it had not been for John, nobody would remember," Doris Walker said. "He's given many, many hours and a lot of money. There are not many people who would take their retirement time and spend it working on Carla's case."

Jennifer D. agrees. "John Terrell is a hero, somebody who sets out to make a difference and does. There's not enough people like him in the world," she said.

There is no questioning Terrell's conviction about Wilhoit's guilt. Former co-workers' opinions vary. Many express an affinity and respect for Terrell, describing him as a likeable but independent cuss intent on doing things his own way. Some say quietly and off the record that the retired cop is so consumed with Wilhoit that he's lost objectivity. "I'm surprised Terrell hasn't got Wilhoit involved in the Kennedy assassination," a former detective said.

Others remember Davis, Hudson, and other homicide detectives as hard-working cops who would have checked out Wilhoit and busted him if evidence showed he was involved. They see Terrell as having his heart in the right place but perhaps being unfamiliar with the details surrounding the Walker investigation. "I know John, and I'm not critical of him, and I could be proven wrong, but my personal opinion is it was not a situation he should have been involved in," said Thompson, the police officer who found Walker's body and is now a chief forensic death investigator with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. "The investigation was being handled by the people who should have been handling it. (George Hudson) is one hell of an investigator, a good guy, and took this case to heart and worked diligently on it even after he left the police department."

Hudson could not be reached for comment.

Former Tarrant County Sheriff Jim Minter, now a Fort Worth attorney, worked with Hudson on the Walker case and said DNA evidence could probably link someone to her death. But he doubts Wilhoit murdered her. "If there was any evidence, I think you'd find people jumping up and down to do this," he said. "But there has to be proof. There's law you have to follow. If the information is not there, sometimes you just can't do anything with it, as much as the officers working the case would love to do it. I've never seen so much effort put forth on a case."

Jerry Blaisdell worked with the Fort Worth Police Department for 24 years before leaving in 1989 to become Weatherford police chief. He worked with Hudson on the Walker investigation and said the energy spent on the case was immense. "We re-ran leads and re-interviewed people and developed some other stuff on that," he said. "When I was there, George [and others] were running down every piece of information that anyone would send in. We turned over every rock we could turn over."

Schilling and LaRue assisted Hudson in the Walker investigation in the early 1980s. They said Hudson was a good cop and consumed with the Walker case, just like Terrell, and had taken to carrying the case file in his car trunk. Schilling and LaRue, however, disagree on Terrell's accusations.

LaRue, who retired from police work and became a private detective, said Wilhoit didn't match the description of the Walker assailant, and the attack didn't match Wilhoit's method of operation. "That sure breaks his pattern on what he's admitted to and been convicted of," LaRue said. "Wilhoit talks his way into single women's houses, not abducting her from a parking lot after pistol-whipping her boyfriend. I'm not eliminating him, but there is no evidence to support it. There is not anything close to take him to a grand jury to support his guilt on Carla Walker."

Still, LaRue said he considers Wilhoit a threat to society. "I don't know if he's been rehabilitated any due to his confinement," he said.

LaRue's former partner, Schilling, sees things differently and calls Wilhoit "suspect No. 1 in the Carla Walker case and possibly some other killings." Semen or other evidence might connect Wilhoit, he said. "They should reopen the Carla Walker case," he said. "Wilhoit had this MO where he would ejaculate on their stomach after he raped them. I understand they have some semen samples still."

Schilling recalled hearing about Terrell's claims and dismissing them. "Terrell had been screaming for years, and nobody would listen to him," he said. "When I was a young detective, he was like the little boy who cried wolf. That's how the upper echelon viewed him. Nobody really took him seriously." Schilling eventually became a believer, however. He says his inability to pin Walker's murder on Wilhoit was his biggest disappointment in law enforcement. He said he told former Fort Worth Police Chief Thomas Windham, who has since died, that Wilhoit killed Walker, but Windham reassigned him. "I kind of got frustrated with the whole thing and quit and went to law school," he said.

DNA tests, if possible, should be done to clear the matter, he said. Meanwhile, Wilhoit's pending prison release is only nine months away, and Schilling is worried that other innocent women could be harmed. "William Ted Wilhoit is the most dangerous man in the state of Texas if you are a female," he said. "I think he is as dangerous as Ted Bundy."

I had sent the Carla Walker case to the newly formed Cold Case Unit of the Texas Rangers. Learning this, Jeff Prince wrote another story, "Heating Up Cold Cases." You can view this story at:

A murder that haunted and bewildered Fort Worth in the 1970s has taken a twist and landed in the hands of a newly formed detail of the Texas Rangers. However, in order to make headway on the case, Rangers need cooperation from Fort Worth police, who seem to have lost interest years ago.

Fort Worth in 1974 retained a small-town feel despite 300,000 residents, who were stunned when a sweet teenage girl was kidnapped, injected with morphine, raped, then strangled and dumped in a muddy culvert. The city's shock took awhile to subside, especially when police failed to find the murderer.

Retired cop John Terrell thinks he knows the killer, and he shared his beliefs with Fort Worth Weekly ("Murder & Obsession," April 23, 2002). He slammed Fort Worth police for bungling the investigation and wondered whether they have lost crucial evidence that -- with modern DNA testing -- might connect former Fort Worth resident William Ted Wilhoit to the crime. Police homicide investigators have refused to share case information with him, even after Terrell, a retired burglary detective, offered to investigate the case on his own time.

A victims' group whose members have lost friends and family to murder became so disenchanted with Fort Worth police that they paid $500 for statistical research to document hundreds of unsolved murders in the past two decades and another $1,800 to publish a page-and-a-quarter ad in the June 27 Weekly, listing the victims' names and criticizing a city that has allowed such a large number of murders to go unsolved.

Fort Worth police analysis showed smaller, but still staggering, numbers: 500 of the city's 2,075 murders in the past 20 years are unsolved -- 500 people whose lives were snuffed out, their murderers never found. Yet, the numbers are better than statewide statistics. More than 23,300 murders were reported in Texas from 1987 to 1998, Department of Public Safety records show. Texas law enforcement agencies solved 16,562. That means 6,738, or 29 percent, were never solved.

Those statewide numbers prompted the creation of an elite team of Texas Rangers to assist overburdened law enforcement agencies in cracking such tough cases. The DPS Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team, also called the Cold Case Unit, comprises a commander, four officers, and a criminal profiler. The team was formed in March and quickly helped solve a year-old murder in Eagle Pass. Another investigation led to a recent arrest in connection with a decade-old murder in Seguin. That's two cases solved out of five that the team has assisted on thus far.

Another 22 cases are set for review by the team, including Carla Walker's case. However, the Rangers said they probably won't pursue the case unless Fort Worth police are willing to share information. "We'd rather be invited -- our only goal is to provide assistance," said Lt. Gary De Los Santos, who heads the Rangers unit. "It's all-around good business to work with someone rather than taking over. It's better to work together rather than second-guessing somebody."

Fort Worth police have shared little information with Terrell, Carla Walker's relatives, or news media during the past two decades, despite evidence that points to investigative lapses. De Los Santos' unit will be diplomatic and "cross that road when we get to it" should the Rangers get a chilly reception from a law enforcement agency, he said. "We're not there to make anybody look bad."

The Rangers are expected to review the Walker case in the next six to eight weeks to determine whether they want to get involved. Most of the 27 cases submitted for the team's review so far have come from police departments seeking help. The Walker case was submitted by Terrell, who is excited despite the possibility of another dead-end. After 28 years, any movement in the case is cause for celebration, he said. "This is rewarding that the Rangers got it on their desk and are considering it," he said.

Terrell's a realist, though, and he wouldn't be surprised if the Rangers lose interest. "They won't get a nod of approval from the Fort Worth Police Department," he said. "That department will do everything they can to wash it off. I don't have any reservations about the qualifications of anyone on the Texas Rangers. But they have to get along with everybody. I'm afraid the police department will downplay this, and the Rangers will push it aside."

Fort Worth homicide detectives would probably not oppose Rangers participation, said police Sgt. J.D. Thornton, who confirmed that the Walker investigation stalled years ago and gets little attention these days. "Providing they do contact us, we would consider exchanging information with them about the case if we believe it would be beneficial to the case," he said. "It depends on what leads they want to pursue. Some leads have been pursued all they can be. If they want to get a different slant on it, we normally will cooperate and provide information to any police agency, and I don't think this would be any different."

Thornton disputes Terrell's assertions that police bungled the case. "I'm not going to discuss what we've done on it, but every avenue that can be explored has been," he said. "That includes the physical evidence."

Department of Public Safety spokesperson Tela Mange said the team's purpose is justice. "We don't always go where we're not wanted, but that doesn't mean we won't go," she said.

The Rangers team was created by legislation in 2001. "The driving force has been victims' groups," De Los Santos said. "They're the ones who pursued their legislators to create some sort of team to work these cases."

Victims' groups and legislators are less worried than the Rangers about stepping on local law enforcement agencies' toes.

Rep. Helen Giddings, the Dallas Democrat who authored the bill that created the cold-case unit, said it was envisioned as a resource for police agencies. "I quite frankly did not foresee a situation where citizens on their own would be calling upon the Rangers to investigate a cold case," she said, but added that the legislature might consider changing the law to expressly allow that.

Even if the Rangers decide to pursue the case, they might not launch a full investigation for months, and perhaps not until next year, because cases are reviewed in order of submittal. "I can't tell you when we're going to get started," De Los Santos said.

Meanwhile, the man who Terrell believes is responsible for Walker's murder is serving time in a south Texas prison on an unrelated rape charge. He is scheduled for release in January.

The Texas Rangers ultimately chose not to get involved in the Walker case unless invited by Fort Worth. I cannot help but wonder if their decision was based on a statement made by Fort Worth Police Dept. Sergeant J.D. Thornton: "It depends on what leads they want to pursue."

Another story, entitled "A Mystery Re-Opened," that in part, related his interview with the Fort Worth Homicide office, followed this story.

Wiliam Wilhoit in 1992

Renewed interest by Fort Worth police might help to solve a murder mystery that rocked the city 30 years ago and has haunted a former cop for much of his life.

The investigation of Carla Walker's 1974 murder grew stagnant and eventually cold over the years until almost everyone, with the exception of former Fort Worth burglary detective John Terrell, had given up. Now, the man that Terrell believes killed Walker is about to re-enter society.

William Ted Wilhoit, a habitual burglar and convicted rapist, will be paroled from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Jan. 10 after serving more than 22 years in prison.

"I hope those involved in the investigation of the Carla Walker case -- when it occurred and at the present time -- can live with their consciences if someone else is murdered," Terrell said.

Walker, a pretty, blonde, 16-year-old Western Hills High School student, was kidnapped in February 1974, injected with morphine, raped, and strangled. Her body was found two days later in a muddy culvert in south Fort Worth. Kept as evidence were a semen-stained dress and a pubic hair believed to have come from her attacker, Terrell said, but DNA testing was still evolving and rarely used in 1974 and Terrell was never able to confirm whether it was done in this case.

He has long suspected that evidence was lost and has accused police of flubbing the investigation. Over the years, he developed an antagonistic relationship with homicide detectives, who refused his help and shut him out of the case.

The investigation was recently reopened as part of Fort Worth police's stepped-up effort to investigate cold cases. "We have a detective who is actively working on it," said police Sgt. J.D. Thornton. "She's located all the evidence, all the files."

Thornton revealed for the first time that prior DNA testing had been done. "I can't really give you a year but there has been some testing done in past years, but not to the extent that [the current detective] is doing it," Thornton said. "I can't get into exactly what we're looking at. We've submitted several pieces of evidence for DNA testing. We've got some results back and are going to submit more as a result of the initial tests. I can't say if it's going to result in any arrest."

Some evidence is being tested for the first time, while other items that were tested earlier are being resubmitted, he said. "It's being tested with new technology they didn't have in the past," he said.

Thornton would not say if Wilhoit has provided DNA samples for testing. "I'm not going to get into suspects or who we've eliminated or haven't eliminated," he said. "I don't want to sound like arrests are imminent or we're about to solve it, but we have looked into it and are continuing to look into it and haven't exhausted all leads that we can follow."

Meanwhile, Terrell continues to spend his retirement time and money investigating Wilhoit. "I ain't going away; he might as well accept that," Terrell said.

Wilhoit's parole calls for super-intensive supervision -- the highest level of parolee supervision -- until April 5, 2020. He is forbidden from contacting his rape victim, he must register as a sex offender, and he cannot enter Tarrant or Dallas County without permission from his parole officer. He will also be required to wear an ankle monitor that shows his whereabouts and signals his parole officer if he tampers with it. "They click it to you and you can't get it off," said prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald. "The parole division has had great success with it."

Wilhoit, as he has done several times in the past year, declined to be interviewed by Fort Worth Weekly. He has filed plans with the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole to move to the Corpus Christi area. Terrell has already contacted Corpus police to warn them of Wilhoit's past violent tendencies.

This isn't the first time Terrell has warned a city about Wilhoit. When the former Fort Worth burglar was released from prison on parole in 1978 and moved to Abilene, Terrell called police there. A short time later, an Abilene housewife was raped. Police, using Terrell's tip, connected Wilhoit to the crime. A conviction in that case earned him 40 years in prison. He is being released early after earning time for good behavior.

Wilhoit's good behavior in prison doesn't surprise Terrell, who describes him as diminutive, soft-spoken, polite, and an avid Bible reader. In a free society, however, he has shown an inclination to burglarize homes and brutalize women.

Fort Worth homicide detectives blew a chance to put Wilhoit away for good, Terrell said.

After police discovered Carla Walker's body on Feb. 20, 1974, Terrell thought of Wilhoit. Walker's abduction occurred at a bowling alley near the home of Wilhoit, who was on probation for burglary and had previously been suspected of rape. Terrell asked homicide detective Claude Davis to check out Wilhoit as a suspect. Later, he asked another homicide detective if Wilhoit had been questioned about Walker, and the detective claimed Wilhoit had passed a lie-detector test. However, Terrell believes Wilhoit was not questioned about Walker's murder until Terrell and his former partner, Joe Britt, arrested him for another burglary more than a year later.

In 1975, a bank officer called police to say a man had tried to cash two $500 savings bonds that had been reported stolen. The suspect matched Wilhoit's description, and Terrell and Britt drove to his house. Wilhoit was standing in his yard when Terrell rolled down the car window and asked him to get in the back seat. Terrell has no trouble recalling Wilhoit's first words: "Well, I was wondering when you were going to come after me for Carla Walker." The detectives hid their surprise and took their suspect to the police station for questioning.

Terrell had arrested and questioned Wilhoit on numerous occasions, and the detective's police style included developing a familiarity bordering on friendship with suspects, an easy manner that helped convince them to talk. During an interrogation, he urged Wilhoit to discuss Walker's murder, and remarked that Wilhoit was "too good of a Christian" to live with Walker's murder on his mind. Britt watched the suspect crumble.

"He broke down and started crying, and I thought he was going to confess right then," Britt told the Weekly earlier this year. "He said he couldn't handle it anymore. I thought, we got it made and he's going to 'fess up."

At that moment, a federal agent knocked on the door and said he wanted to discuss the stolen savings bonds. By the time Terrell got the agent out of the room and returned to Wilhoit, the moment was lost. "That broke everything and we never got Wilhoit back to that point again," Britt said. "With his reactions that day we showed up with the arrest warrant, I just really believe he was the perpetrator in that [Walker murder]."

Police in 1986 questioned Wilhoit about the rape and attempted murder of Fort Worth resident Janelle Kirby, who in 1974 was shot five times in the face but survived. Wilhoit confessed to the attack, thereby clearing an innocent man who had been convicted of the crime -- allegedly to cover up the actions of two corrupt cops. Wilhoit was granted immunity for his testimony.

Wilhoit was paroled in 1992, after serving time for the Abilene rape, and moved to Corpus Christi. Terrell sent the police department information about Wilhoit's background. On March 25, 1995, Corpus police discovered him crawling out the window of a window where a single woman lived. He admitted to burglary, his parole was revoked, and he was returned to prison.

Seven years later, he is again ready to walk.

Fort Worth resident Doris Walker said she is thrilled that police have reopened her daughter's case, but she remains skeptical after years of frustration and disappointment. "It seems like everything that's tried, there's some stumbling block," she said. "This would be wonderful if something did come of the investigation. I would give anything if something would pop up. But with DNA you never know. It would be such a comfort to John for it to be solved, too, because he has worked so hard on it. He spent many hours on it and not many people would do that. It takes a special person to work that hard."

The follow up article, entitled "The DNA That Wasn't There," brings you up to date on the current investigation.

William Ted Wilhoit

The Fort Worth Police Department's renewed focus on hundreds of unsolved murders, according to information provided to the city council, has thus far resulted in 601 cases being reviewed and prioritized, 66 cases being assigned to detectives, and 20 cases being solved.

Still, confusion, suspicion, and doubt continue to swirl among observers. Among the doubters is retired police detective John Terrell.

Police appeared to have given up long ago on solving the 1974 murder of 16-year-old Carla Walker, despite Terrell's longstanding claim that the murder was the work of a local man already serving time in prison for an unrelated rape ("Murder & Obsession," April 25, 2002). William Ted Wilhoit, a habitual burglar and convicted rapist, was paroled from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in January after serving more than 22 years in prison. He is currently living in Corpus Christi.

Years ago, Wilhoit hinted to Terrell that he had been responsible for Walker's abduction and murder. The Western Hills High School student was kidnapped in February 1974, injected with morphine, raped, and strangled to death. Her body was found two days later in a south Fort Worth culvert.

Terrell has accused police of bungling the Walker investigation, losing evidence, and closing the case to cover up an embarrassing chapter in the department's history -- the arrest and conviction of an innocent man to cover up the actions of corrupt police officers.

Janelle Kirby was living in a garage apartment near Texas Christian University when a young, short, neatly dressed man asked to use her telephone on June 11, 1974. After she invited him inside, he pointed a pistol at her and produced a pair of thumb cuffs. Kirby put up a struggle, and the man shot her five times in the head and ran. Kirby crawled to a neighbor's house for help.

She recovered, and police showed her many mug-shot lineups. She noticed that one man's photo seemed to always be among the choices, and she would later identify the man, Fort Worth resident Kenneth Leslie Miller, as her attacker. Miller was a young Vietnam veteran and mechanic who liked motorcycles, women, booze, and marijuana. He had accused Fort Worth police officers of violating his civil rights by beating him and injuring his spleen. Two narcotics officers were suspended, and a hearing was scheduled. After Kirby named Miller as her attacker, police waited a month -- until the day of the police officers' hearing -- to arrest him. Some police officers, including Terrell, felt that the arrest's timing and the fact that Miller had no history of attacking women indicated a frame-up by Fort Worth police attempting to protect their own.

Miller fled Fort Worth and spent years on the lam before being recaptured. Fort Worth attorney Leonard Schilling, a former Fort Worth police sergeant who headed a task force that pursued Miller, became convinced that Miller had been framed. Wilhoit would eventually confess to raping and shooting Kirby but was never prosecuted because police had granted him immunity for his testimony.

Schilling, too, now considers Wilhoit the "number one suspect" in Walker's murder.

Through the years, Terrell has relied on inside contacts and former co-workers for information on the Walker case. He has been told that physical evidence for DNA testing was no longer available. "Four different times I've inquired about it, and I've got four different answers -- the DNA evidence was lost, destroyed, used up, and contaminated," he said.

Last summer, Terrell heard that the Texas Department of Public Safety was initiating a statewide cold-case unit headed by a group of Texas Rangers, called the DPS Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team. Terrell referred the Walker case to them. The Rangers said they would pursue it, but Terrell feared that police would prevent the state officers from getting involved.

In July, Fort Worth police Sgt. J.D. Thornton, who heads the homicide unit, said he would not block the Rangers but doubted they would make headway on Walker's murder. "Every avenue that can be explored, has been," he said. "That includes the physical evidence."

Sure enough, the Rangers passed up the case -- Thornton told them it was being reviewed internally. The Rangers team was created to help police agencies that seek their assistance and is hesitant to step on the toes of local authorities. So the Rangers backed off, and Thornton assigned the case to Detective S.J. Waters. Terrell characterized the police's reopening of the case as a "smokescreen" to prevent an outside agency from becoming involved.

In December, less than six months after Thornton had said that every avenue had been explored, he told Fort Worth Weekly that new DNA testing was being done. Meanwhile, Wilhoit was released from prison.

Terrell sent a letter to Waters on Jan. 27, offering information about Walker's murder. Waters never responded. Homicide detectives view him as an agitator and resent his interest in the case, Terrell said, but "a good detective should follow up on every lead they get, regardless."

Last week, Thornton said the testing had been completed to no avail. "We did some more DNA testing that came up negative on some of the existing names we had as possible suspects," he said. "We received the results of those, and they said they were negative as far as any matches."

Thornton declined to say what kind of bodily evidence was tested or which suspects it came from.

Terrell doubts that any testing occurred. "I continue to believe that Fort Worth police don't have any evidence to check," he said. "Why don't they just come out and say that the evidence is messed up or contaminated or lost, or that they can no longer do it? Why won't they say what the evidence is? The case is almost 30 years old."

Thornton disputed Terrell's claims, but said he doesn't view the retired detective as a crackpot or agitator. "That's not my opinion of him," he said. "I knew him when he was here, and he worked in burglary the same time I did. He has never contacted me about this case. Any correspondence he has done, if it's been with Waters and if he is not satisfied with what's being done, he should talk to me. I don't view him as anyone other than somebody trying to give information about a case, and if the information is credible and valid, we will look into it."

Terrell said Fort Worth police have snubbed him for years. In situations where other police agencies have listened to Terrell, good things have happened. In 1978, Wilhoit, released on probation after being convicted of burglary, moved to Abilene. Terrell called police there, warned them that Wilhoit had been involved in several violent crimes, and sent a photo. A short time later, an Abilene housewife was raped. Police, using Terrell's tip, connected Wilhoit to the crime. That earned him 40 years in prison.

Wilhoit was paroled in 1992 after serving time for the Abilene rape. He moved to Corpus Christi, where, on March 25, 1995, police discovered him breaking into a window of a home where a single woman lived. He admitted to burglary, his parole was revoked, and he was returned to prison.

Terrell is in contact with Corpus Christi police and probation officers again, warning them that he believes Wilhoit will be unable to resist the demons that drive him. "He'll strike again," Terrell said.

These stories created interest from the public and more phone calls. I had established a couple contacts (that I won't name) in Corpus Christi, after Wilhoit's release from prison on parole. One contact suggested that I contact some colleges to determine if there had been any missing girls during the seventies. The result was my fortunate luck in meeting Jonathan Hutson in December of 2003; he has agreed to join me in my efforts.

Thus far, our combined results have resulted in this website.

As a final thought, Jonathan and I hope that those who are police officers and those who will someday become police officers will follow their oath and do everything within their power to bring justice to those who are victims of crimes. The reward of knowing that you have done your best is well worth the effort.

Detective J. F. Terrell (Retired)
Fort Worth Police Department
Terrell@JusticeForCarla.com
January 24, 2004