MURDERED: Missy Bevers

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I want to tell you today is another one that was picked by our fan club members. And truly, it is one of the most unusual cases I've ever seen, and one that I've actually been following since it unfolded a few years ago. This was one of the cases that was just so brutal, so in your face, that when it happened, everyone was sure that this was going to just be resolved [01:00] This mystery has only gotten deeper, and a killer is still on the loose. This is the story of Missy Beavers. [01:10] Music

[01:41] In the early morning hours of April 18th, 2016, a group of adults in their workout clothes gathered at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas for their regular fitness boot camp class. Now, the sun isn't even up at this point, but they're all ready and looking forward to the workout because their teacher, Terry Beavers, who most people just call Missy, is one of the warmest, most passionate and most driven instructors around. [02:11] their normal outdoor workout gets rained out, they're still going to be training inside. Now, it takes a lot of energy for Missy to get up that early because in order to be at class on time, she has to leave her home in nearby Red Oak, where she lives with her husband, Brandon, and their three daughters at like 3.30, 3.45 in the morning. And she comes straight to the church to lead this high intensity workout before most people are even like awake. I mean, long before I'm even awake in the morning. For sure. So ready to get started, the students head inside the church [02:41] [redacted address] toward the classroom that they're always in, expecting to find Missy like finishing up her preparations, maybe testing out her mic, getting some equipment ready. But instead, they find something they never could have imagined. Missy's broken and battered body is lying on the floor, surrounded by blood and broken glass. Now, she doesn't look like she's breathing. And although no one wants to think about it, it's impossible not to jump to the

[03:11] So the students hurry to call 911, and according to the Midlothian Police Department's official timeline, officers from both the police and the fire department get to the Creekside Church of Christ within 10 minutes. [03:24] Paramedics are some of the first on the scene and they confirm the worst. Missy is dead and there is literally nothing they can do to try and save her. So amidst the grief and horror, Missy's students are just totally stunned and none of them can wrap their heads around it because who would possibly want to hurt Missy? She was the type of person everybody loved and made friends everywhere she went. Plus, there hasn't been a murder in Midlothian in literally seven years. [03:54] For Dallas and Fort Worth, like all of the big cities a few miles to the north, murder just doesn't happen here. Except it does, because right away, police can tell this was no accident. And the students' darkest thoughts are true. Missy has been murdered. And although they won't know for sure until the autopsy, it looks like she died from puncture wounds to her head and her chest. [04:19] Instantly, police get to work searching the building for any trace of the perpetrator. Broken glass from vandalized interior doors basically trails like breadcrumbs leading investigators on a course of damage through the church. Now, it's weird because in my research, it said that there was broken glass around Missy's body too. But I couldn't find any details on this. And it actually like drove me crazy. Okay, so like was there like a window nearby or was there like a huge...

[04:48] sign of struggle or anything? That's the thing. You know, obviously, I'm not familiar with the church. I couldn't find anything in the police's documentation or news reports after that indicated was there a big struggle? What was the glass from around her? Was it from the room that she was in? Was it carried from a different area? Like literally nothing. And this might not be a big deal. But for some reason, I just like stuck on it so hard. Yeah, that's that's super confusing. That glass is like around her and trailing away or around her. But like you can't confirm [05:18] there's even any glass nearby. Right. And so, again, this might be something that I'm getting stuck on and police are like, yeah, we didn't mention it because it's not a big deal. Like, there's just a broken glass in the room. But it sticks out. Right. And it's something worth noting. So along with the broken glass all over, police also found forced entry marks on the church's back door from a pry bar. So police wonder if maybe this was a robbery gone wrong. That's where their minds go to first. Maybe this person wasn't expecting anyone to be there so [05:48] when Missy showed up and kind of like panicked in the worst possible way. Okay, but like this is a church and not like a huge like mega church that may be having like millions of dollars in the basement or whatever. Like, yeah, this is like a small town. Like what is there to steal? There's no like artifacts. There's no. No, you're like your money being stored there. No, you're totally right. Creekside Church of Christ is definitely not like the mega church you're talking about with overflowing collection plates or something.

[06:18] building, like they're unable to confirm anything is missing. So even the very few things they might have had there are still there. So right. Like the only things I could think about would be like maybe like sound equipment or stuff like that. And if that's all there, like what's the point? Right. And like on top of this, like nothing's missing. But because this is like a pretty tight knit congregation in a small town, the church didn't have any kind of alarm system and the [06:48] Luckily for police, the church does have a video security system inside the hallways, and it was recording all night long. Right away, investigators hurry to the tapes, hoping for some insight into what could have happened to Missy. And so they go back to the beginning of the day's recordings. And while Missy isn't seen on any of the footage, which [07:11] Again, this is one of those things that I spiraled on. I don't it just says everywhere I sing that she's not seen on the footage. I don't know if she took a path to her class that just wasn't captured by video. I don't know if something wasn't being recorded earlier in the day. I don't know if maybe she's on video, but it just hasn't been released. All I could find is that she's not seen on the footage. Again, no idea what that means. [07:35] BUT! [07:36] Even though she's not seen on the footage, there is someone else seen on the footage walking through the halls. Right there on the tapes is some bone-chilling surveillance footage of someone in the church starting at 3.50 that morning. But I'm going to send this to you so you can check it out right now. One second.

[07:59] Okay, so I'm watching the video, and around the seven-second mark, like, a person kind of just appears out of a doorway. Mm-hmm. [08:07] And... [08:08] They look like they're in SWAT gear or something. Yeah, they're definitely in like, I mean, it looks like very tactical. It looks official and like official police gear of some kind, right? Yeah, for sure. [08:20] And then they... [08:22] kind of walk through the hallway. There's another shot from probably another camera. It looks like a different hall. And they're kind of opening doors around like the 21... [08:31] Second Mark. But like, so this person goes like even, they'll open the door. When the door's open, they'll even go inside. But they don't like bring anything out with them. Yeah. [08:40] So it feels like they're looking for something? Yeah, like obviously I've never been in like a situation where I've had to search a building for anything. But it looks like they're a cop or military like clearing a building, like they're going in. [08:56] through a door. They're kind of looking in the room and then coming back out into the hallway and then going into the next door, clearing the room and coming back into a hallway. And it's very like systematic and slow. It's bizarre. Like there's no rush. It's no rush. There's nothing like even drawn. Like you kind of expect like a gun and the flashlight cross kind of position. And there's kind of like... [09:18] meandering to be honest. Meandering is the perfect word because even the way like I'm looking, I'm at like the [redacted address] they kind of like tilt their head, it's just like a very curious like wonder what's in here, wonder what's in here and this person will like open the door, look in, leave the door open

[09:35] Yeah, and I'm around the 140 mark right now, and there's like a split door, which means that's in like a... [09:41] It's like a nursery setting. Like, that's what my kid's nursery at church looks like. Like, there's a there's a half door so that like parents can look in, but kids can't get out. And like, I was going everywhere. I just caught a glimpse of something around the 146 mark. There's like something in this person's hand. Right. But like, it almost looks like a hammer. That's exactly what I was going to say it looks like. It looks like a hammer. Yeah. [10:04] But like, I can't get a good glimpse of it. But even on the back, so at the 204 mark ish, you can see the back of their jacket actually says police. And it looks like they were hammering. [10:17] at an actual like door or wall or maybe a window that could have been where our broken glass came from. But still with like no sense of urgency. Like if the police were like coming into a situation where they thought that someone was in trouble or they needed to save someone, like you would expect some sense of urgency. And he's just kind of. [10:36] laxadaisically, like pounding the glass like you would to get, you know, a framing done on a house or to break down a wall in your house during a remodel. [10:48] it's very casual. Like there's, [10:50] I don't know. There's just nothing that says that he's urgently trying to help or find anything. [10:56] So the other thing that comes up in this video all the time is, again, this person is walking very slowly, very methodically. But a lot of people see a limp in their walk as well. And, you know, again, because they're walking so slow, it's a little hard for me to see it. I can kind of pick up on it. And it is something that, again, I think police picked up on, that the public has picked up on over and over. Well, it kind of reminds me of the video of the suspect or potential suspect in the Delphi case.

[11:26] you much more than like, is that how he usually walks or is that intentional? [11:30] Right. So the Midlothian Police Department has this footage from day one, and they actually start releasing the footage right away to the press. And they even get it posted on YouTube so that people can watch it, they can share it, and they reveal some key details that they have been able to pick up on. The first is that they tell the public that they estimate this suspect's height to be around or between 5'2 and 5'8, though with a couple of inches for the helmet to either give or take away either way. [12:00] They also asked the public to be on the lookout for what they're calling that strange walk, because whoever the person on the tape is, they have got what Dallas News calls a, quote, distinctive gait that was maybe caused by a possible foot or leg injury. So they think this is something that people should be on the lookout for. About the same time that they released this video, they also tell the public what Missy's official cause of death was. [12:30] multiple punctures to her chest, which according to the police records are consistent with the tools that the person in the video was carrying. Again... [12:39] They don't say what those tools are. I see a hammer. I think other people have seen different things, though, so we know none of that for sure. Within just a few days, the department gets flooded with tips. But even with the help from various federal agencies like the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and even bomb-sniffing dogs from ATF, police are still missing something critical. They still don't have a motive. Robbery is looking less and less likely after the church officials confirmed nothing was taken.

[13:09] had all of her jewelry when she was found and nothing else seemed to be taken from her at all. So without anything obvious or definitive, there's seemingly no motive for why someone would have wanted to kill Missy. And so investigators have to turn to her personal life to learn more about her. And they start by talking to her friends and family to see if anything sticks out. Now, one of her regular workout buddies, a guy named Mark, tells CBS News that Missy had seemed [13:39] and just like a little bit more reserved, just like not her usual perky self. So does the police think that maybe she knew or thought someone was after her? So, I mean, that's what they're trying to figure out, right? Because really this early on, it's the only thing that would make sense of a crime like this. So they subpoena Missy's phone records and take her electronics into evidence so they can start sorting through everything, her emails, her text messages, her phone calls, her social networks like LinkedIn. [14:09] Lucy's been using LinkedIn specifically to do more than just advertise her Camp Gladiator classes. She's also been receiving some private messages that may hold the critical information police are looking for. [14:25] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[14:45] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [14:52] wherever you get your podcasts. [14:56] Missy had been using LinkedIn to chat with a couple of different people before she died. And the tones between, there are like two distinct sets of messages, and the tones between those couldn't be more different. One was friendly and a little flirty, but the other was like strange and kind of creepy. Now, I couldn't dig up the exact contents of these messages, but Tom Steele reported for the Dallas Morning News [15:26] access Missy's account and they actually made that warrant public. So what we could gather from that is that the flirty one started out just as like this polite conversation but the warrant describes the messages turning what police call quote intimate which instantly makes me like perk up a little bit like just kind of like a moment because I mean we know we know Missy's married. This isn't like any kind of smoking gun. [15:49] But, I mean, I automatically want to know, like, who is this person and what are these, like, what are the contents of this intimate message? But what's even more worrying than that, though, is the other set of LinkedIn messages. The warrant goes into detail about how Missy showed what we're calling these creepy messages to one of her friends who basically said, yeah, this, like, isn't okay. I kind of wonder if these messages have anything to do with, like, how her student Mark, like, noticed that she was acting differently.

[16:19] felt [16:20] endangered somehow or something? Yeah. Unfortunately, that friend couldn't remember the name of the person who sent the messages. Like they remember this interaction of Missy showing them and then being like, yeah, this is off, but like no specific details. And police never, again, they never released the details of the messages. They never released the person's contact information or name. But the warrant does say that the sender was male and that Missy didn't [16:50] stranger to reach out to you and be sending you creepy messages, LinkedIn is such a weird platform to do that. Right. Like this isn't like Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram. Like this is a professional networking site. Yeah. And I, you know, again, I don't know how frequently Missy used this to... [17:06] like promote her services. So maybe this is the one that she was just the most active on. But it seems super strange that she was getting contacted by this stranger. How would the stranger find her through LinkedIn? And why are they targeting her? Now, in addition to her LinkedIn account, police noticed that Missy used a lot of social media to advertise her Camp Gladiator classes. Like I did a little bit of research on the program while I was preparing for this episode. And it turns out that Camp Gladiator, they don't have like specific locations, like a dedicated [17:36] places like parks or event spaces or churches, basically in spaces that can accommodate them. So the trainers like Missy aren't employed full time by the company. The Camp Gladiator website calls them independent contractors. And they're the ones in charge of arranging everything for the classes, like getting the times, getting the places sorted, everything like that. And so regardless of like any industry that you're in, like Missy's is obviously this Camp Gladiator, there are two huge parts of successful freelancing, of successful independent contracting,

[18:06] Oh, right. So like advertising yourself, your product and like... [18:11] Getting out into the public, like, that has to be your thing. Exactly. Like, putting yourself out there. I mean, she'd have to answer questions. She'd have to be a friendly, approachable, like, the whole nine yards. I mean, basically, she's in some type of customer service. So if Missy wanted to earn money and make a sustainable living as a trainer, she basically had to give up some of her privacy, even if she wasn't thinking of it as, like, that way. She posted about her classes all over the Internet with dates, times, places. So basically, she is her own brand. Yeah. And so for whoever this person was who wanted her dead, [18:41] or not, it would be pretty easy to figure out where she was and when. All they would have to do is check her pages to figure out her schedule. [18:49] And again, Missy actually posted on Facebook about her Monday morning class the night before she died, reiterating we're still going to have class even if we get like bad weather. So if her killer was tracking her movements on social media, there's confirmation of her location right there. [19:05] Aside from releasing the search warrant, police keep the LinkedIn lead pretty quiet. I think probably to avoid false confessions and having to waste time on like attention seekers. And so while they're quietly pursuing this lead through the World Wide Web, they also focus closer to home, starting with Missy's husband. Her husband, Brandon, is obviously beyond devastated, as you can imagine. But he is trying his best to be strong for their three daughters.

[19:35] He says, listen, I was out of town in Mississippi on this fishing trip when she was killed. And when police press him and ask him if he knows anyone who would want to do this to Missy, again, because this seems like such a targeted attack. He says, no, I can't think of any reason that Missy would be targeted by anyone, not at least anyone that he would know of. But he does say that he'd been worried about Missy in general just because of teaching those classes so early in the morning. [20:05] alone in the dark in a building by herself like that but Brandon knew how much Missy loved the camp gladiator program and how dedicated she was to teaching so I mean though he was worried he never tried to stop her and Missy might have agreed a little bit with him about the safety risk on some level because police did find a gun that was registered in her name in her car but it's totally possible I mean [20:29] It's Texas. It also could just been like a very regular part of her life to carry. Yeah, like for me, especially in my family, like we grew up in a really rural area. It's not that uncommon for my parents. [20:41] dad and brother to be carrying like pretty consistently and even my sister sometimes. Yeah. And I think about that again and especially I mean Texas is kind of known for being a gun state. Definitely. And I think a lot of people have have concealed carry permits. And even though she might have seemed off to her her student mark and maybe if she didn't even think it was 100% safe. I think it just kind of goes to show you that like I don't think she expected anything to happen that morning because if you were worried about your safety or you thought anyone was coming

[21:11] leave it in the car. Exactly. So as Brandon continues to paint a picture for police of Missy and of their marriage, he tells them that his and Missy's relationship was solid. They'd been married for almost 20 years. Things were great at home. And listen, like this isn't everyone's like first rodeo. Police are all too aware that appearances can be deceiving. So while they have no reason to doubt what Brandon's telling them, they do keep like a close eye on him just in case. [21:41] knows Missy very well, does something shocking. On April 22nd, just four days after Missy was murdered, her father-in-law, Randy Beavers, shows up at a dry cleaners in town with a woman's white long-sleeved shirt that's covered in blood. Now, Randy tells the cashier at the dry cleaners that it's animal blood from breaking up a dog fight, but this employee is no rookie. They've been [22:11] And this does not feel right. They're super skeptical about the dog story. So they call police. According to the search warrant police get for the dry cleaners, the shirt Randy dropped off looked like someone had already tried to clean up the blood before deciding to leave it to the professionals.

[22:41] video and even more than his build it's kind of interesting to them that he walks with a very distinctive gait here let me send you a comparison video [22:54] So this video is also going to be up on our website. And that is Randy in the pink shirt leaving the Midlothian police station with his son, Brandon. [23:03] And it's side by side with the video we have from the church. [23:08] I mean, I can definitely see where there are some build similarities and especially how he walks, like you said, like his arms kind of swing at the same spaces and there is sort of a lilt to his gait. I wouldn't say it's like a full on limp, but... [23:25] It is distinctive. [23:26] It's strange, right? Like what I keep looking at is the way his arms swing specifically. There's something about the way he kind of holds them out a little bit. And even if you look at the feet position from the person on our church video and Randy walking, they both kind of walk with their toes pointed outward. [23:56] suspicion on Randy or Brandon in a small town like Midlothian. Gossip spreads like wildfire there. Now, the police are already under a lot of pressure to solve this case. And now it's like whipped into a total frenzy because in the court of public opinion, that video of Randy walking is all the proof that some people need.

[24:13] And many people are totally convinced that Randy's the killer just because of this video, even though he's adamant that the blood on the shirt really is from his dog. And Brandon's sister, Christy, even backs her dad up. She's like, listen, the dog fight happened at my house. It's a totally legit story. [24:30] So as soon as this comes out, Brandon, Randy and the rest of the Beavers family get right back in front of the media as soon as the warrant from the dry cleaners is released to the public on April 27th. Because in Brandon's own words at a press conference, the warrant is, quote, a non-issue. And they basically want to go in front of the public to clear the air before speculation gets too out of control, which, I mean, unfortunately, with just the way the Internet works, like it's too late. It only takes two seconds. Yeah, it's too late at this point. [25:00] this. Yes, this video is out there, but I was gone. The dry cleaners thing is legit. And they actually thank the dry cleaners for being vigilant enough to call the police. They're saying like, listen, eventually you're going to see this is going to go nowhere. We actually thank the public. So anyone who wants to come forward, please do, even though we believe that this one is wrong. OK, but going back to the shirt, like I assume they tested it, right? They do. And the results come back just like Randy said. The blood is, in fact, canine. And

[25:30] Wendy made an emergency vet visit with his wounded dog, who actually, I mean, horribly ended up later passing away. [25:37] After police announced this, that yes, it really was dog blood on his shirt, they still keep their focus on Missy's in-laws because just a few days later... [25:48] Both Missy and Brandon's cell phone records start coming back, and the results shed a totally new light on their relationship. [25:59] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [26:19] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [26:26] wherever you get your podcasts. [26:30] So remember how Brandon previously told police that their marriage was in good shape at the time of Missy's death? Yeah. Well, despite Brandon's assurances, police are able to sit down, unlock the phone, unlock Missy's iPad, see all of her texts. They get all the results back, both like the ones in her inbox, the ones that she had deleted, like that's what they're getting from the records. [26:59] show Missy and Brandon's relationship was strained by both money problems and infidelity. And that, to me, sounds like a critical final ingredient police could have been missing. A possible crime.

[27:13] motive. [27:14] So now that they have this, according to the search warrant for Missy's cell carrier, police now want all of the information they can get about the digital interactions between Missy, Brandon. And there are nine specific persons of interest who own, quote unquote, target numbers. And apparently these like nine numbers communicated regularly with both Brandon and Missy. [27:38] Now, some of those numbers belong to some family friends. One is a male camp gladiator instructor and his wife. And one of them, one of these target numbers, also belongs to Randy. [27:48] beavers [27:49] And this is where kind of the speculation still continues and takes a little bit of a turn. Because the public is wondering, what if Randy got upset that his son was unhappy in a bad marriage? Like, we know there were financial troubles. There's this possible alleged infidelity. I don't know whose side it was on. But people are thinking maybe Randy saw a way to free Brandon without risking him losing anything in a divorce. [28:19] in a difficult situation, but this seems a little bit extreme. Like, not only is his adult son fully capable of handling his own problems, but like, going rogue like this means taking away your grandchildren's mother. Like, [28:35] I guess I don't see it. Well, one of the popular theories among people in online forums like Web Sleuth and stuff like that, and again, the people who are like kind of going rogue online, is that possibly Randy and Brandon might have conspired together on this. And obviously police had to have had this thought as well, which is why police keep looking at him for a bit. But ultimately, they're able to corroborate Randy's alibi. He wasn't even in Midlothian when Missy was murdered. Neither was Brandon.

[29:05] Brandon was gone, but then his dad did it. And I remember, like, again, reading on these crazy forums, like, back when this happened, everyone being like, well, maybe they both booked trips and then they came back. But no, police verified both of their alibis. Randy was out in California. [29:35] 20th. Now this is just a little over a month after Missy was murdered and they're able to officially say her family had nothing to do with it. [29:44] While the Beavers family looks to be a dead end, police aren't totally giving up hope. Because at the same press conference where they announced that they're not looking at the family anymore, police also announced that they are looking for a new vehicle of interest. A silver Nissan Altima built between 2010 and 2012 with an oval-shaped bumper sticker. Wait, I thought you said that the cameras outside the church weren't working the morning that... [30:09] Missy was killed. [30:10] Yeah, they were broken. And I mean, and according to Bethany Kurtz's reporting in the Waxahachie Daily Light, the church, like, again, already knew that the cameras weren't working. It's not like they got tampered with or anything like that. But lucky for investigators, they actually had some outdoor cameras from a sporting goods store just down the street from the church that were working that night. And it's that camera that managed to capture some interesting footage. Like, again, this got released, too. It's eight minutes long.

[30:40] seconds of this. [30:42] Okay, so there's this car driving down the road, and as they're turning into the parking lot, they turn off their headlights, which is bizarre. And you can tell that it's raining, which makes sense because, you know, Missy had said, like, we're going to have some poor weather, but we're still going to have our practice or our training, whatever. [30:59] And this is from like a handful of different angles, which is really helpful. But what throws me the most is in the description of this video, it tells you the timestamps of when this car entered and then exited the parking lot. And it entered at... [31:13] a little bit before 2:00, 1:58 AM, and left at 2:04 AM. So there's like six minutes where we have no idea what's going on. Yeah, and skip ahead to the 1 minute, 48 second mark. [31:27] Oh my goodness, they're just like... [31:28] kind of prowling the parking lot. They're just driving around like... [31:32] you can't really see [31:34] anything super descriptive like a license plate in the video, but [31:39] Like, okay, it's raining, the quality isn't great. [31:43] But... [31:44] I mean, maybe they were checking their GPS or something. I guess I don't know. [31:48] I guess I don't understand why they would turn their lights off and on while circling this building. [31:53] No, that's... [31:54] That's exactly the thing. I can't think of a reason [31:59] anyone doing anything normal comes into a parking lot at that hour, turns off their lights. I mean, again, even if you're stopping to do something, if you wanted to turn off your car, turn off your lights, whatever, to look at something, but you don't turn off your lights and then like [32:10] drive around. Like, you're prowling. Right. And like, again, like, even if you're checking your GPS, like, you kind of want to stay stationary so that the GPS can figure out where you are. Yeah. So everything about this feels wrong. And that's why police are so eager to talk to whoever this person was that was driving this car. Because while they're very clear that this driver isn't necessarily a suspect, their behavior is super unusual. And since they were in such close proximity

[32:40] They saw something crucial without even knowing what they were looking at. But unfortunately, it doesn't pan out. No one comes forward with any kind of credible information about the car. And despite getting over a thousand tips just in the first month after Missy's murder case, the case starts to cool off. And even with the continued assistance from the FBI, what looked like an open and shut investigation turns cold. [33:08] Months pass. The spring turns into another hot Texas summer that eventually gives way to autumn. And it's then. [33:15] Seemingly out of nowhere, that word of a new lead hits the public radar. [33:20] Numerous tips called into Midlothian Police Department throughout 2016 all point to... [33:26] to one man. [33:28] A man named Bobby, who, get this, is a former police officer. Police get a warrant to search Bobby's house in December 2016. And while the warrant was sealed initially, a man named Tim Coville filed a FOIA request to actually get it released. And since he was kind enough to post it online, I've read it. And it's a doozy. [33:58] He's also a tactical officer during his time in law enforcement, and he's admitted to police that he still owns some of his old gear, just like we saw in the video from the church. However, he tells police that that gear doesn't fit him anymore.

[34:13] Now, the warrant also says that he's been on police's radar for far longer than anyone even realized. And he even came in to the Midlothian Police Department for an interview all the way back in early May, like when Randy Beavers was still under suspicion for that bloody shirt at the dry cleaners. Wait, you said that... [34:32] Law enforcement got like a ton of tips on him. Like what made him suspicious? So there was like this whole group of things. One of them, Bobby attended services actually at Creekside Church of Christ, just like Missy and her family. So he would have been familiar with the building and the nearby area. Now, it wasn't a secret that he used to be a cop. And he had a second career as a licensed security guard who would work local events like... [34:59] a funeral for a certain nationally publicized murder victim? No, he did not do security at Missy's funeral, did he? He totally did. And probably the thing that made him stand out the most to those around him is that Bobby walks with a very distinctive voice. [35:18] limp, similar to the one seen on the surveillance tape. So similar, in fact, that police call in a forensic podiatrist to compare Bobby's walk to the person on the tape. I've never even heard of a forensic podiatrist, by the way. I didn't know it was a thing. But I also saw in the warrant a little gem of info that police didn't reveal to the public before. There's actually a second vehicle of interest, a dark SUV that was seen leaving the church parking lot at around 4.30

[35:48] on the morning Missy was murdered. Now, we know that the students got there at like 435. So to me, this is a really interesting vehicle. And wouldn't you know it? [35:59] Bobby drives, at least at the time, a dark brown 2014 Honda CRV that matches the second vehicle's description. Of course. Now, this also isn't Bobby's first time on police radar. According to a 1996 article from the Waxahachie Daily Light, he was suspended from his job in law enforcement after being charged with aggravated sexual assault. Do we know if Missy was sexually assaulted at all? So I can't say for sure. [36:29] confirmation of that on the flip side though I was also never able to find any statements where they explicitly say she wasn't but in just I mean comparing the two incidences like what he was charged with and Missy's case Missy's case was very brutal and to me seems very targeted and at least from everything out there I mean it [36:50] it seems like it was really about violence against her, whereas the assault that Bobby was charged with was kind of planned differently than this, it seems. Like, he allegedly had, like, lingerie, this whole twisted setup. So this other thing seems very sexually focused, where... [37:05] I don't see any of that in Missy's case, though that could be because the police haven't released any of that information. I really don't know. So we have Bobby's history. There's the limp. There's the car. There's the police tactical gear, all of which make him look pretty bad. There's one big problem, though. He's over six feet tall and outside of the suspect's estimated height range. But police aren't totally ruling him out yet.

[37:35] makes him look even worse. [37:39] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [37:58] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [38:05] wherever you get your podcasts. [38:09] According to a second warrant, this time for Bobby's arrest, the police search his house in December and turn up 12 suspicious electronic devices that police took into evidence. After months of analyzing, those devices were found to contain child pornography. [38:39] like thinks it's relevant to mention why he's actually in jail. But in this interview, he denies even knowing Missy's name. [38:47] Okay, so let me get this straight. [38:50] He's a person of interest... [38:52] He's in jail for child porn, but... [38:55] There's nothing about Missy's murder. Yeah, he's not in jail for anything related to Missy. But here's the thing, like what I can't figure out is what motive Bobby would have for killing Missy. As far as I can tell, there wasn't any kind of definitive link between the two. Whatever motive he may or may not have had, though, Bobby's alibi for the day of Missy's murder ends up checking out.

[39:25] to definitively match his walk to that distinctive gait of the person on the surveillance tape. So according to the WFAA broadcast, he spent over 70 days in jail before being released, I'm guessing, on bail. I'm not 100 percent sure. And I really have no idea how the case panned out because he's not on the Texas sex offender registry list, which seems like maybe not amazing. And he's officially ruled out as a person of interest in Missy's murder. And once again, a promising lead to the Texas sex offender registry list. [39:54] turns to nothing. [39:56] But just because the leads aren't panning out anywhere, that doesn't stop the gossip around town. Because where the official investigation leaves off, the public jumps right in. One of the best and worst parts of the Internet is all of the information right there at your fingertips. And people in Midlothian and even outside of Texas used this to their advantage. They were looking up names, addresses, personal information. I mean, the public... [40:20] latched themselves to this case and they wanted every scrap of information and detail that they could get their hands on desperate to finally crack this case and bring Missy's killer to justice. [40:31] Now, a little bit of private speculation is harmless, but Missy's daughter Hannah told Inside Edition in 2019 that... [40:38] I mean, it got taken to a new level. She was getting Facebook messages from total strangers saying that her dad killed her mom, like horrible stuff like that. And the online craziness ends up getting so bad that the assistant chief of police himself had to speak to the Dallas Observer about it. And he says basically like, I need everyone to just be cool.

[41:00] Talking about these people like they're murderers with literally zero proof and nothing from actual investigators on the case can ruin lives, which is absolutely right. I mean, that's what we like were so adamant about saying on the show, like everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You can't go online and be accusing people of that. And you can't go messaging this girl. I mean, her father's been cleared. She's lost a mother. And now she has to be just like bombarded by strangers who are attacking her family. [41:30] But I think, though, everyone's like passion about this case is a mark of how much Missy's death unsettled people and how terrifying it is to see someone right there on film and knowing that they're still walking free, unpunished for committing a terrible crime. You brought up the Delphi case earlier today. This reminds me so much of that. How can we have this person on film, walking on film? [42:00] person is. So with lead after lead just pushing police to dead ends, the first anniversary of Missy's murder passes, then the second with still no suspects, no arrests, and no step closer to the truth. Which, to me, begs one very important question. What if the killer is? [42:20] Isn't what they seem. In 2018, two years after Misty was murdered, the case gets a new detective and police make something clear to the public. In the very early days of the investigation, police used male pronouns to talk about this suspect. But they backed off of that pretty quickly and clarified that they actually couldn't tell the person's gender and that it could, in fact, be a woman.

[42:45] And though they try and correct it that early on, like this was like a big push, I think, later in the investigation. It has more importance now than ever since no one has been arrested. They want everyone out there to make sure they notice that police never determined a gender for the suspect in the church surveillance videos. In other words, there's nothing to suggest that Missy's killer couldn't be a woman. And Brandon Beavers, her husband, is actually pretty on board with this theory right from the beginning of the investigation. [43:15] that he thought Missy was murdered by a woman who knew her. And he actually pointed to Missy's wedding ring still being on her finger as proof that she was targeted. But what does that have to do with, like, gender or motive? I don't know. So it doesn't connect for me either. But that was his logic, at least from this article, or at least how the article portrayed it. Missy's wedding ring and the rest of her jewelry were there with her body. I mean, we've already talked about how nothing was missing from the church, which makes robbery seem unlikely to me. So I don't know if he was thinking... [43:41] Robbery was more often committed by men. I mean, again, I have no idea what I'm missing. I feel like he's piecing something together that I'm not privy to. I mean, if we go back to whether or not she was sexually assaulted, I think if police or family know for sure she wasn't, maybe that would lead them to believe that it could be a woman as well.

[44:11] she was murdered, I do think Missy's death was a crime of passion. If she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and walked in on a burglary or something like that, like why not just hit her once or twice, knock her out and then run? Right. And even more than that, like this wasn't a cold clinical like bullet between the eyes. No, it seems very passionate. Kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, we have multiple puncture wounds, penetration, rage. This is an angry crime. This whole thing feels personal [44:41] to Missy's text messages and that flirty stuff that we've heard about on LinkedIn. Now, to be very clear, police never specifically said if the infidelity within the marriage was caused by Missy or Brandon or both. But if we speculate for a second that it could have been on Missy's part, say the person she was having an affair with could have been married to. Maybe their spouse could have been upset about the affair, blamed Missy, gotten mad, maybe mad enough to kill. [45:11] maybe an affair with a married man. His wife finds out. [45:14] kills Missy. Like, jealousy is, like, something that we see all the time in these stories. Yeah. And so obviously this is another theory that you'll see online all the time. And, I mean, you saw the tape and how, I think what I find is interesting, and we talked about it earlier, like, the limp was hard for us to pinpoint on. And I think that's because the limp that everyone made such a huge stink about... [45:34] To me, it's not even super consistent. Like, the more I watch the tape, the more the limp looks off. And

[45:42] Honestly, I think it could have been faked. And that's why even the forensic podiatrist couldn't trace it. Because, I mean, what if this limp didn't ever exist? Okay, here's my thing about the limp. Like, I grew up on a farm in the middle of northern Indiana, and I would wear, like, [45:58] coveralls like head to toe in the winter to do chores and my gait changed wildly when I was wearing those outfits because it was just way bulkier clothing and usually I had like my full outfit on underneath and it was just awkward to walk and so it maybe wasn't super consistent but if you aren't used to wearing that or even if you are sometimes like that can really change how you carry yourself especially your arms because you have multiple layers that you aren't used to kind [46:28] like, [46:28] moving around the world in. That actually makes a lot of sense. So if this person, again, if we're going to operate for the second thinking, what if this is a woman? [46:36] This person's walking down the hallway. I mean, you've got all these extra layers. It would push your arms out a little bit more. It pushes the way your feet move a little bit more. I mean, that actually... Yeah, your legs are literally heavier. That actually makes a lot of sense. And listen, I kind of... [46:53] wonder if police are looking at a woman too because according to the affidavit for missy's cell phone records whoever made that affidavit describes the person as having a quote feminine sway i mean that is police's exact phrasing and the height range of the suspect is right in line with the average height of an american woman like literally i'm totally just spitballing here but i really think that there's more here than meets the eye and i think that the person on the tape

[47:23] we're valid, but like, [47:24] I guess my thing is I have a really hard time believing that it's [47:27] as simple as, you know, an affair, [47:30] that gets found out and a jealous wife explodes. [47:35] They have so much, and it's been years. Police have phone records, names. They knew who to look at. And the fact that they're still looking years later makes me think that there's something bigger or stranger or darker than we can even imagine. And I think you very well could be right. It's been almost four years since an unknown person strolled casually down the halls of the Creekside Church of Christ early on that April morning. [48:05] and the murder of Missy Beavers remains unsolved. [48:09] If you have any information to help bring this killer to justice, please call the Midlothian Crime Stoppers at [redacted phone]. [48:17] 937. [48:19] 7297. [48:21] you can find all the videos we talked about in this episode along with our source material on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com and just a little heads up crime junkies brits out next week so we were going to take next week off but instead i'm going to drop something special in your feed [48:51] a week without me and Britt, be sure to get your fix over at our fan club. You can find that on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. You can get over 40 full-length episodes for $5. And we also added a bunch of little audio extras, like Britt and I kind of have this theory about Missy's case that I'm going to share with you there. Oh, and plus, I don't know if you all knew this, but when you sign up for the fan club, you also get every one of our regular episodes ad-free. So head to the

[49:21] ad free and to get exclusive content you won't find anywhere else. And then, [49:27] Britt and I will be back with your regularly scheduled fix on March 23rd. We'll see you then. [49:33] Thank you. [49:33] *music* [49:35] you [49:35] you [49:38] you [49:40] you [49:43] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [49:51] Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [50:09] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [50:13] I think you'll love it too. [50:14] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.