Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. Welcome to Part 2 and the conclusion of “Justice for Carla.”

 When we left off, Paul was well into the reopened investigation of the 1974 brutal rape and murder of 17-year-old Carla Walker. Carla’s boyfriend Rodney had been under the cloud of suspicion pretty much from day one until Paul had an idea. He got a car that was the same make and model as the one Rodney was driving the night he and Carla were on a date and Carla was abducted. Then Paul had Rodney reenact everything he did when the attacker began his assault on the couple.

 During this reenactment, Rodney leaned across the car to close the passenger side door which had been left open when Carla was snatched. This small detail was everything because now Paul had an explanation for how Rodney’s blood had dripped all over the passenger seat that Carla had been sitting in.

 There’s loads more, of course. Here’s Paul to bring us up to speed.

Paul:  The front passenger door whips open and a man with a pistol sticks his head and  grabs Carla. There’s a big search out for this abducted 17-year-old girl and three days later her body is found.

 Carla was abducted around 12:20. AM Rodney doesn’t show up at the Walker residence until 01:50 AM, an hour and a half later, the whole set of circumstances are suspicious. I want to talk to Rodney.

 Rodney walks Loni and I through what happened. If the front sight had hit this part of Rodney’s face, it could cause that type of injury.

Yeardley:  So here you are, Paul, 50 years later, finally lifting the cloud of suspicion on Rodney.

[music]

Yeardley:  Hi there, I’m Yeardley.

Dan:  I’m Dan.

Dave:  I’m Dave.

Paul:  And I’m Paul.

Yeardley:  And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan:  Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave:  -and retired detectives from small town, USA.

Paul:  And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the golden state killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan:  Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Dave:  Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul:  Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan:  And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave:  -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

Unison:  Thank you.

[music]

Yeardley:  So, Small Town Fam, here we are back at Part 2. Just as a quick refresher, Paul, in this case where you’re investigating the murder of Carla Walker through your former TV show, the DNA of Murder. You’ve basically driven a truck through this idea that Carla’s boyfriend at the time, Rodney, was involved in her murder. Meanwhile, this poor guy Rodney, he’s been under suspicion since 1974. I can’t even imagine but I love that science has corroborated Rodney’s story.

Dan:  Yeah. I just want touch on one thing. It’s brilliant work, Paul. So, you read the initial reports and you get a statement from Rodney in those initial reports and then Rodney’s changed his story over the years. It’s evolved and changed in different ways, but this is why you read the report. And then you go above and beyond and say, “Hey, I want to put him in the environment that this incident actually occurred in.” So, you’ve got Rodney in there and he’s explaining things. This is probably the first time you ever heard of Rodney reaching over and trying to pull the door closed.

Paul:  Absolutely.

Dan:  If you didn’t do that interview with Rodney and go the extra mile to get the actual vehicle, then you don’t ever get that information. And you’re probably still maybe a little part of you is stuck on Rodney as being the suspect. It’s great work and it just shows how thorough you are and detail oriented, you and Loni.

Paul:  Thanks. Having explanations for some aspects of Rodney that now I can’t put weight on that as showing that he had any involvement in Carla’s homicide. But it didn’t clear up my suspicion of him. I have an hour and a half that I can’t account for in Rodney’s timeline. And to be frank, I still to this day don’t know what he did during that hour and a half. My suspicion is he was drunk, possibly had been smoking marijuana. He’s not wanting to show up at Carla’s parents’ house blasted like that, especially now that Carla has been abducted. That’s one thought I had. That would account for it.

Yeardley:  Was Rodney 17 as well, like he was young, like Carla?

Paul:  Yes. Rodney, I believe was 18 years old at the time that Carla was abducted.

Yeardley:  Right. So, it makes sense that he wouldn’t want Carla’s parents to know that they’d probably been drinking, maybe smoking weed.

Paul:  Right. So, I end up talking to the living members of Carla’s family, which was her brother Jim and her sister. And Jim was 12 years old. He remembers Rodney coming in covered in blood. And Jim, over the decades did have his own suspicions about Rodney and his involvement in his sister’s death. I ended up bonding with Jim. And this is where, as I’m interviewing Jim and he’s talking about Carla going missing. He remembers going to the morgue and his parents going inside to do the identification of Carla. And to this day, he can still hear his mom scream. I can’t imagine, this old style, bringing parents in to identify their daughter in the morgue, how traumatic, it’s barbaric.

Yeardley:  Is that not how they do it anymore?

Paul:  No. Typically, we’re doing identification using science, fingerprints, DNA, and of course, there’s other methodologies in order to formally identify the body, at least out of my jurisdiction, it is not a common practice to have a loved one do this visual identification.

 Like with Carla, she has these significant injuries, these abrasions. She’d been out there for three days, and now her parents are having to go in and take a look at her body like this. So, sitting there talking to Jim, that was a little bit of insight in terms of how devastating this type of crime is to a family.

 And as Jim ends up telling me, he was 12 when Carla was killed. When he could drive, he would drive out to that cow culvert and go inside it and even stay there overnight waiting for Carla’s killer to show up.

Yeardley:  Oh, boy.

Paul:  And I was like, “That’s exactly what I would do.” And because of the case, he had ambitions to get into law enforcement, but then he ended up having some vision issues. Today, he really struggles to be able to see. He needs a dog to help him, but he is just as committed. When I was talking to him, seeing what he could do to find Carla’s killer. So, I end up going out to the cow culvert, and this was for the show. And so, Loni and I are now inside this culvert. And, you know, it’s very overgrown, a lot of wasp nests. It was eerie. If you’ve ever seen the movie Aliens and where the aliens have their, like, exoskeleton style living quarters, inside this cow culvert was almost like that with these insect nests and stuff all over the place and it was very surreal and eerie.

Dave:  The location of this culvert, is it readily apparent as you’re driving out that there’s a culvert?

Paul:  That was a point I wanted to make. When I drove from the freeway on this road that in essence leads out to the lake, there were so many locations along this road where Carla could have been put into a drainage pipe or hidden. This cow culvert was several miles away from the freeway. The offender absolutely knew that cow culvert existed, has local familiarity.

 So, at a certain point, this case, for whatever reason, I think my bonding with Jim and then the empathy and sympathy that I developed for Carla, it really hit me, and I was left alone. At one point in the cow culvert, everybody were done filming, and what I was able to do based off of the crime scene photos, the cement in the culvert had been formed using plywood forms when it was made. And so the grain of the plywood was impressed into the inner walls of this cow culvert.

 So, looking at the crime scene photos and using that grain pattern from the plywood, I was able to place exactly where Carla was laying, and I could know exactly where her head was based on that grain pattern. And so, for me, when I go out to these old cases, these old crime scenes, there’s just a different aura. I wouldn’t call it a spiritual type of thing, but there’s definitely, almost a weird sensation that I get that, “Okay, the victim is still here.” And I reached down, I touched the ground where Carla’s head was at, and I just told her, “I want to do everything I can.” Nobody saw that. You know, that was just something between her and I.

Dave:  I haven’t been to nearly as many scenes as you, Paul, but when you talk about that, I used to be in crime scenes, especially when there’s nobody around and you start thinking, and especially if the body is still there or it’s gone, and you look back and you’re like, “What was it like in the minutes before and after?” I always tried to put myself there. And you’re right, there’s a heaviness in those places that is– I’m getting chills thinking about it, because you’re like, “Really evil shit happened in here three hours ago.” It’s weird to think about things in that regard, and then for you, it’s decades later.

Paul:  One example, I went out to the second Zodiac scene, Blue Rock Springs, and looking around, there’s these massive trees that are right there. I was like, “Those trees were here at the time Zodiac shot this couple.” I was like, “If only these trees can talk, they know who Zodiac is.”

[laughter]

Yeardley:  That’s right.

Dave:  I’m proud to say I think along the same lines as Paul Holes.

[laughter]

Paul:  So, I spent about a week out in Fort Worth, and at the end of my time out there, forensic testing is still ongoing, but I sit down with Jim and Carla’s sister again to give them an update as to what I had found and where things were at. And this is where, you know, as I’m sitting talking to Jim on camera, I’m choking up. I’m just breaking down. And I was just like, “I got to get through this.” And once I finished giving them the update, I go out. I had a rental Jeep. I always wanted a Jeep.

[laughter]

 And so, I go out to the Jeep, and I’m sitting in the front seat, I’ve just got tears streaming down my face. And this is when I was like, “What is going on? I’ve never had this happen.” And it’s almost like the Carla Walker case, all the decades of the other cases that I had stuffed inside the Carla Walker case was sort of the tipping point.

Dave:  Well, I’m curious, Paul, do you think any of that has to do with some recognition of your own family? I mean, you’ve got a daughter. Like, where does that hit you? You’re a father too.

Paul:  Any of the kids cases I’ve been involved with, those are always the hardest, in part because of that association with your own family. I talk about this case in my book, actually, both the Carla Walker case and its impact on me, as well as this other case, which was hostage situation, where the father took his two young girls’ hostage and then shot them both in the head and killed himself.

 And, first, seeing a baby bottle with brain and blood matter spattered on it is not right. But also seeing one of these girls had the same shoes that one of my young kids had at that time. All of a sudden, there’s that immediate, “Oh, good God.” You have that connection.

 And we’ve talked about this, that type of experience. You can have five different types of law enforcement personnel kind of going to the same crime scene, but each of those individuals has their own life experiences and their own psychological makeup and are impacted differently. I’m sure nobody else was impacted like me at this hostage shooting, because who else had kids of that age with that shoe? And that’s just one of the little things about that particular case.

 And with Carla Walker, yes. I’ve actually got two daughters and I got two sons, you know, and there is that overlap, but it’s also just the sheer innocence of the victim. And at this point, when I’m talking to Jim, I still, I’m like, “I think Rodney’s involved, but I’m not sure. And let’s hope we get something from a forensic standpoint.”

[Break 1]

Yeardley:  Paul, besides Rodney, did any other names come up over the years as potential suspects in Carla’s murder?

Paul:  So, the Fort Worth PD investigators over the decades did follow up on other leads. There were some other suspects, including some individuals that had been incarcerated that were making either allusions or admissions about being involved in Carla Walker’s homicide.

 Ted Bundy’s name even was in the case file. I think it was Salt Lake City PD out there was pushing out Ted Bundy as being, “Hey, consider him for your cases.” And in these types of cases, that is always happening. You get these individuals that want the notoriety of having been involved in a higher profile case, or you have the serial killer that happened to be passing through town around the same time that you have a homicide, and you have to pay attention to it. But it’s just common in these types of cases to have that kind of data there.

 So I end up leaving Fort Worth, and the episode is finished and airs for DNA of Murder about the Carla Walker case. And this episode aired before the forensic testing had been completed, which was one of the frustrating aspects of dealing with sort of a production schedule versus doing an investigation. [laughs]

Yeardley:  Yeah, totally.

Paul:  That was a learning thing for myself as well as the showrunner and the producers, as well as the network executives, because they set a very aggressive schedule for these episodes of DNA of Murder to go out. And most of the time, we weren’t done with the testing that I had recommended. And so now at the end of each episode, they did cards. “Paul has made a recommendation to do this, this and this, and it’s still ongoing.” And so, a lot of the viewers of– This was on the Oxygen network, they were wanting a conclusion.

Yeardley:  It’s such a dry hump, especially since the testing is in progress, like people. But television doesn’t adjust its schedules. That’s not a thing that we do.

Paul:  Yes. So, the episode on the Carla Walker case where DNA of Murder aired before the forensic testing was done. And then, of course, now I’m moving and doing other cases, both for the show as well as consulting on other cases. But during this time, the analyst at SERI, Serological Research Institute, her name is Mallory, was keeping me up to date as to her findings, and I was reaching out to Mallory. And I can’t speak more highly of a DNA analyst.

 This is the DNA analyst that you want working your case, not only from the DNA side, but the reality is finding the DNA. And that can be the most challenging part of this type of exam. And with my suspicions of Rodney still kind of present. Part of what I was asking Mallory to do is I wanted to see if Rodney’s blood was on the backside of Carla’s dress, as if he had carried her after he had started bleeding. I couldn’t account for when Rodney actually would have started bleeding inside the vehicle, simulating some sort of injuries to himself. And so, the front of Carla couldn’t necessarily use that under the scenario in order to try to figure out if Rodney had been involved in her homicide. But if the back of Carla’s dress had Rodney’s blood on it, per the scenario, the statements he’s given, that does not add up, and that would tend to indicate that now he’s interacting with her, possibly out at the cow culvert.

Yeardley:  That is so Sherlock Holmesy, Paul Holes of you, I have to say. [Paul laughs] Like, that’s just– I just think that’s brilliant.

Paul:  Well, Rodney’s blood was not found on the back of Carla’s dress. So, it was a– I thought a decent thought, but it didn’t work out.

Yeardley:  No, the point is, it’s a great theory because it would prove another element of the crime if, in fact, his blood was found on her dress, but the fact that it’s not also proves something, so I think that’s pretty cool.

Paul:  Part of the– sort of the mindset either trying to corroborate or refute the details within statements. And that can be done investigatively, circumstantially, or forensically. And so, all of that is at play, as I’m trying to figure out, “Is Rodney Carla’s killer or not?” Then, after a few months, Mallory struck gold. She ended up finding two semen stains. One was on Carla’s bra strap up by the shoulder, and another was off of her blue dress. The semen on the bra strap was single source, meaning it was not mixed. It was all male DNA present. Mallory was able to get a full DNA profile, and that went up into CODIS. It did not hit in CODIS.

Yeardley:  Shit.

Paul:  I’m asking Mallory, “How much DNA do you have?” And she goes, “I have 10 nanograms sperm DNA, single source.”

Yeardley:  Is that a lot, 10 ng?

Paul:  That’s a decent amount of DNA. Now I was excited because, okay, now we can do what we did in the Golden State Killer case and do genealogy. But to do that, you have to generate a different type of DNA profile. Law enforcement databases use those STRs, short tandem repeats. Genealogy uses your SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms. So, with 10 ng, I was like, “That’s a decent sample.” So, reaching out to Fort Worth PD investigators Jeff and Leah, I was like, “Let’s get that sample to the lab I used to help solve the Golden State Killer case.” And they were completely on board with that. So that sample goes to that lab and now it’s sit and wait. Then that lab issues a report. They consumed the entire sample and did not get a profile-

Yeardley:  What?

Paul:  –and I was devastated.

Yeardley:  Ah.

Paul:  I was like, “I made the recommendation that possibly just killed our ability to solve the Carla Walker case.” And this is right at the beginning of when the pandemic is starting. And, I’m sitting here. I’m literally where I’m sitting right now, just ruminating about this case. And pandemic has started. And I remember Mallory had found a relatively poor sample, but it contained semen on Carla’s dress. So, I reached out to Mallory, and she said, “Yes, I have that sample. It’s mixed. It’s got the semen, but it also has Carla’s DNA in it, and it only in total had 4 ng of this mixed DNA sample.”

 So, because of Covid nobody was going into the lab at the time. I had to wait for Mallory to go into the lab so she could look at what that sample consisted of. But ever since Golden State Killer was solved using genealogy, I had this guy, Dave Mittleman, kind of calling me up, and he’s going, “I know the technology that you all use, and I can do it better, in essence.” And he was just constantly calling, saying, “I can do this, I can do that.” And he started a company called Othram.

 So, I hit Dave Mittleman up, and I said, “Okay, this is what’s going on. I had 10 ng that this other lab had completely consumed. I’ve got this other sample that’s mixed, less DNA. You keep touting your technology. Do you think you can do anything with that?” He says, “Well, have that analyst Mallory send the information about that sample.” So, Dave Mittleman looked at it. He said, “Yes, I think we can be successful with the technology we’re using.”

[Break 2]

Paul:  So again, Fort Worth PD, those investigators were notified about this as a possibility, and they decided, yes, they’re going to roll the dice and see if Othram would be able to generate a SNP profile from this mixed sample off of Carla’s dress. So that goes to Othram, and now I’m out of the loop. So, Othram is working directly with law enforcement. I have no idea what is going on. [Yeardley laughs] Then I get a call– It’s funny because I get a call from Jeff, the investigator with Fort Worth PD. He says, I can’t tell you exactly where we’re at, but things are looking good.

Yeardley:  Why couldn’t he keep you informed where they were at? Because you had been a part of it for so long.

Paul:  I think because this investigation was really starting to succeed. And because of the high-profile aspect of the case and the fact that I am– I was there because of the media side. So, I think there are several layers. But he, in essence, gave me a courtesy call just saying things are moving. And then I get a call, and it was, I don’t know, four weeks after that, maybe more. And it’s Jim Walker, Carla’s brother. And he basically is saying, “Exciting news.” Turns out Othram was successful in getting SNP profile, hardly using any of that sample. So proper forensic philosophy, you don’t just consume the entire sample-

Yeardley:  Right.

[laughter]

Paul:  Right, without knowing you’re going to be successful. At least talk before you start sucking all the DNA out of the tube. Not only were they successful in getting that a SNP profile, they were able to get decent results from the genealogy search of the genealogy databases. Othram’s genealogy team did the genealogy and landed on a name, Glen McCurley. His name was in the Carla Walker case file.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Paul:  Turns out he was on a list of registered owners of .22 caliber Ruger’s, the magazine that was dropped on the bowling alley parking lot.

Yeardley:  And is that the only reason McCurley makes it into this old police file? Because he owned this particular kind of gun?

Paul:  Right. So, when the investigators generate a list of registered owners of this make and model of Ruger, McCurley was on that list. So, they actually did interview him back in the day. They contacted him. My understanding is he told them that that Ruger had been stolen. And that’s the typical type of response. So, it’s out of his control and he’s not responsible for however it was used. However, after the genealogy was done, and now Fort Worth PD goes and knocks on his door, and in essence, they arrest him and they search the trailer where he’s at or had access to, they find the Ruger. He had it the entire time. Now, how stupid could you be, right?

Yeardley:  [laughs] I mean, I’m always surprised by details like that that you would actually keep the murder weapon.

Paul:  I don’t understand it. And when he was re-interviewed after arrest or I guess concurrently to the arrest, I’m not exactly sure when the interview occurred, McCurley admitted that yeah, he actually did lie about having the Ruger stolen. He was a felon. He had stolen some vehicles prior to moving to the Fort Worth area, and he knew that he could not possess a gun. So, when he’s contacted out of the blue for the Carla Walker case, his excuse is, “Well, I’m a felon, so I didn’t want to want them to know that I actually did have that gun.” So, we all know the truth is that he knew he used that gun in the abduction of Carla.

Yeardley:  Yeah. So, what’s interesting, though, because we’ve talked about the cow culvert not being close to the main highway. You really sort of have to know where that tunnel is, that McCurley doesn’t appear to be a rancher or anything. He’s just a local. He just lives in the area.

Paul:  Yeah, that’s my understanding. I don’t know a lot about McCurley’s background, but I’m pretty confident to say that he was not a rancher. That would have been brought up to me in talking with Bennett, the investigator with Fort Worth PD. However, he was local. He had been in Fort Worth for a period of time. I don’t know exactly how long. And when I was talking with family and friends of Carla and other locals, including law enforcement, it turns out that that road in which the cow culvert was under, well, that road goes out to the lake, and this is the teen party scene.

 And in fact, I saw evidence of that in the crime scene photos showing the area surrounding the kind of the openings to the cow culvert on both sides of the road where you see the beer cans and the other types of debris. And I guess further down, closer to the lake was really where the real party scene was. But of course, teenagers, they’re going to find any isolated location where their parents don’t know where they’re at, and now they can pop a beer can and enjoy themselves.

Yeardley:  Right, right. So, yeah, it makes sense, then, that if McCurley lived in the area, he might well know about all of those things.

Paul:  For sure, the lake is somewhat of a go-to place if you live in the area. McCurley would have been driving out there. He’s probably seeing, you’ve got the drainage ditches and everything else, but he’s also seeing cow culverts along these roads. And so, of course, he’s abducted Carla. He kills Carla. Where is he going to put her body? He’s now aware of the cow culvert.

Yeardley:  I hate this guy. So, back to where we left off. Genealogy has identified McCurley, and now you guys need to confirm that finding.

Paul:  Yeah. And so, Fort Worth PD investigators go interview McCurley. They get a direct DNA sample. And using the tried-and-true law enforcement STRs, it matched the semen off of Carla’s dress.

Yeardley:  Incredible.

Paul:  So, McCurley, who’s elderly at this point, I forget exactly how old. And he also had some serious health conditions. But he is arrested, taken into custody, and then, of course, you have the legal process, which takes some time. But the trial starts, and midway through trial, he pleads guilty.

Yeardley:  Wow. Had McCurley been living as a free man this entire time had no record?

Paul:  I’m not entirely clear about what his criminal history was. He had been living in the Fort Worth area the entire time since the Carla Walker case. Imagine the Walker family, they possibly saw Carla’s killer over and over again about town. McCurley has died subsequently, and it’s possible that he has other victims. There was a prior case and I don’t remember the girl’s name, but it was identical to the Carla Walker situation in terms of this young woman is abducted from her car out of the Fort Worth jurisdiction, and then her body was found. Skeletal remains were found in a cow culvert or similar thing down south, like Carla. And so, Jeff Ben and I talked. This seems like this is another McCurley case.

 I mean, skeletal remains, no clothing. But unfortunately, due to the nature of her body, there isn’t any physical evidence to help link him. And he died before investigators could really apply some leverage on him to get him to admit to that particular case. I think he’s the prime suspect. He’s not necessarily the only suspect in that case, but it’s like, “Come on, it’s almost identical.” So, chances are he’s a bona-fide serial killer back in the 1970s. And this is just like with DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer. It’s what pisses me off is these guys take people’s lives, and then they continue to live their normal life, a life they don’t deserve.

Yeardley:  Yeah, I actually read a little bit about McCurley before we recorded this episode. And he was married and had a couple of kids. He just went on about his life.

Paul:  Yeah, and how often do we see that with some of these predators where they have this facade of a normal life, and yet they’re the boogeyman. They’re going out and doing their thing and their family has no idea that they’re doing this.

Yeardley:  Yeah, it’s just unbelievable. Paul, did McCurley ever say why he took Carla?

Paul:  McCurley did make admissions of having been in the parking lot and seeing Rodney and Carla in the front seat of the vehicle. He said it looked like there was a fight, and so he went to go rescue Carla. That was his excuse.

Yeardley:  Not to mention he was completely unsuccessful in rescue. I mean, fuck you, ugh.

Dave:  This has been in the back of this guy’s head for decades. How do you explain away what the hell happened that night when I’ve got you dead to rights with semen on a murder victim’s dress?

Paul:  No.And this case underscores a couple of things from a forensic testing standpoint. Going back and revisiting all the evidence and thoroughly screening it, even though it had been screened before shows labs miss evidence. So, revisit the evidence. And then secondly, Othram proved themselves to me in terms of the technology and the forensic philosophy. And I’m working as an investigator now with Othram. I’ve seen what they’re doing, and I want to be part of that team.

Yeardley:  Did you get a chance to talk to Jim after McCurley was actually identified?

Paul:  Yeah. Jim Walker and I have stayed in touch. And, of course, he is so thankful for Fort Worth PD and the efforts that Jeff Bennett and Leah Wagner did. He’s thankful for the show and my involvement in the case. And as I mentioned, he had ambitions of getting involved with law enforcement at some point in his career and couldn’t due to his vision issues. But now he has been part of the primary pushers for what’s called the Carla Walker Act. And this is a bill that’s at the federal level that will make available $40 million to law enforcement across the nation in order to pursue genealogy testing on their unsolved cases. So, fingers crossed that that ultimately gets passed and some other families will get answer as a result of what Jim and the Mittleman’s are doing from Othram’s perspective on that Carla Walker act, that’s incredible.

Yeardley:  That’s incredible. What was Glen McCurley’s sentence? He pled guilty halfway through his trial. What did he end up getting?

Dan:  He was eligible for parole in March of 29.

Yeardley:  What?

Dave:  Yeah, that has to be due to his age or the plea deal. Like, “Hey, I’ll take 20 years right now, and maybe I get out with some time left on my life.”

Dan:  Well, also, wouldn’t the sentence follow the sentencing guidelines from when the crime occurred?

Dave:  Yes, it would.

Paul:  Yeah. And back in the 1970s, for the sexual assault and homicides, I mean, how many of these guys end up getting released again and raping and killing? You know, they’d get sentenced seven years for homicide, and they’re out in three and a half or four years. It was just insane back then.

Yeardley:  That’s crazy. So just to be clear, McCurley is being sentenced based on the guidelines from 1974, not the guidelines of 2021.

Paul:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  I’m guessing that as glad as the Walker family probably was to finally know who took Carla from them, that’s got to stay.

[Break 3]

Dan:  Paul, for most of your career, you either worked in the lab or you were out of crime scenes. And you weren’t largely involved at the backend of some of these investigations where you’re sitting across from a suspect and actually talking to him. I guess my question is, Paul, at what point in your career did you start sitting across the table from these guys? And what was that feeling like? Because I know what it was like for me, and I can assume what it was like for Dave to sit across from your target and that dance that we talk about.

Paul:  For my cold case work, my interviews were primarily with victims, loved ones, with witnesses, with ex-girlfriends of suspects. There was one suspect in Golden State Killer that I sat in his dining room for hours talking to him. But I never felt that I had the experience of doing an interview. So, if I ever got somebody, I had what I call my henchmen, [laughter] but I was sick, you know, that would be John Conaty, who was here, and Ray. So, for me, I’m an information gatherer. That is my skill set. Whether I’m talking to Rodney or with some of these other cases for the show, talking to some suspects. I’m just good at conversing and getting information. But I feel that if it got to where you had to go from information gathering to actual interrogation, I’d turn it over to the pros and let somebody like a John Conaty take that on.

Dan:  The information gathering, we call it the interview. So, it goes from an interview to an interrogation. Interrogation is more of an accusatory part of that interview. But the information gathering is so valuable because you lock people into a story, a statement, and then you confront them on maybe some inconsistencies with the evidence that you’re seeing. It’s super important, and it shouldn’t be undervalued.

Paul:  Well. And I think part of an advantage that I have is I can interpret the evidence at a crime scene. And so, I can start taking actions into account that if I’ve got somebody who is giving me statements and it’s not adding up with the evidence, then that’s where I can, on the fly, start drilling into locking that person in. But as we saw in the Carla Walker case, with Rodney’s blood staining inside his vehicle, my initial assessment was taking the theory that Rodney was involved, and then when Rodney offers up spontaneously an action that could account for that blood evidence, then now it’s, okay, I have to switch gears a little bit in terms of how I had originally theorized on how that blood staining had occurred.

 As I’ve gone through cases, the various investigative paths, it’s like you’re on a seesaw. And as you get more information and more evidence, one side of the seesaw starts to tip towards that particular theory, that particular suspect. But at any point, something else can come in that causes the seesaw to go entirely different direction. And in the Carla Walker case, that’s really what happened to me. This is now– After I interviewed Rodney and assessed the case, and I’m done being out in Fort Worth, I’m still thinking, “Well, there could be forensic evidence that might help illuminate Rodney’s role in Carla’s death.” And all of a sudden, boom. Mallory finds semen evidence that’s not Rodney. Turns out that’s the real killer. And Rodney, even though the details in his statements over time have differed, he’s absolutely innocent. And that’s part of the power of this technology that people aren’t necessarily thinking about is Rodney lived under suspicion for 50 years, basically, and now he is free and clear. He is known to be an innocent man. So, Rodney, instead of being a suspect, is actually a victim. He was a teenage boy that got pistol whipped and his girlfriend got ripped away from him, essentially.

Yeardley:  Yeah.

Dave:  You get victories out of those as well. Like some of the cases that I remember, most are suspects who everyone was convinced he did this, and you figure out, no, he didn’t, because you recognize this cloud of suspicion that Rodney was under for decades. I can’t imagine that kind of weight. Every time you go out in public, people looking at you, people talking behind your back, I just can’t understand it, but the value of this work is that you set one person free from it. That stuff you can’t put a price tag on.

Paul:  Yeah, and there was a gathering, and I can’t remember exactly when, but it was, I think, two years ago. I went down to Fort Worth, there was like a memorial for Carla Walker. And, they’re starting a, like a cold case team down there in the Fort Worth area for people to be able to provide funding to have other cases out of Fort Worth. And they asked me to talk in front of the group. So of course, I’m talking about Carla and Jim Walker and the Walker family. But Rodney was also there. And I made sure that I pointed at him and was like, “And Rodney, you are an innocent man. You are a victim of this crime.” And everybody cheered, essentially for Rodney. They recognize that as well.

Dave:  Kudos to you as well, Paul. I mean, you laid the foundation for all of this stuff. I know, not single handedly, but you’re right in front of me, so it’s a big deal. I mean, in 40 years, that’s going to be a big deal. You’re a part of history, Paul. It is what it is, and I’m appreciative.

Paul:  Well, thank you, Dave though, I just– some people have talked to me about kind of like that similar notoriety, and I really just see it. I’m an asterisk at the bottom of a Wikipedia.

[laughter]

Dave:  And that’s also why I respect you, Paul, because it’s not about you.

Paul:  I appreciate it.

Yeardley:  Yeah. But I go back to a conversation that you and I had a few years ago, Paul, when the four of us were in Miami, and I remember you and I were sitting at the bar and I was talking to you about this contribution that you’ve made in the advancement of DNA technology. And that the first, really most famous case that genealogy helped break, of course, was the Golden State Killer case. And I was pleased, maybe because we’d already both had a couple of cocktails, but I was pleased that you were able to take a little bit of credit and pride in being one of the real pioneers of that kind of technology. And so, you might feel like you’re going to go down in history as an asterisk, but you’ve started a movement, my friend. A movement that has already brought a lot of answers to a lot of families. And I don’t know how it gets more rewarding than that. I would say it’s perhaps the closest thing to closure, even though I don’t think anybody who loses a loved one that way, violently, horribly that way, I don’t think they ever get closure, but at least there’s an answer.

Paul:  There’s an answer. And I recognize, you know, the Golden State Killer genealogy team, we revolutionized law enforcement.

Yeardley:  Yes, you did.

Paul:  And I’m proud to have been part of that.

Yeardley:  Well, I just want to say, as much as I am always humbled by and love and respect the guests we have on, there’s something really special. There is a sort of lightning in the bottle kind of aspect to having one of the originals, Dan, Dave, or Paul, on the microphone giving us a case. And I want to thank you so much, Paul, for digging deep. I know this one is so hard. They’re all hard, but this one. Thank you.

Paul:  Yeah, thank you.

Dave:  I think you have a future in investigations, Paul.

[laughter]

Paul:  Yeah. Yeah.

Dan:  Really good work, Paul. I could sit and listen to you talk. It’s fascinating to me.

Yeardley:  Totally agree.

Paul:  Thanks, Dan.

[music]

Yeardley:  Small Town Dicks was created by detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin, and our editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps.

 Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Gary Scott is our executive producer and Logan Heftel is our production manager.

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[music]

 Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

 The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you, SpeechDocs, for this wonderful service.

 Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than.

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