| Murder of Carla Walker | |||||||
| Location: | Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. | ||||||
| Type: | Murder, kidnapping, rape | ||||||
| Victim: | Carla Walker | ||||||
| Perpetrator: | Samuel McCurley | ||||||
| Verdict: | Pleaded Guilty | ||||||
| Charges: | Capital murder
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The murder of Carla Jan Walker is an former cold homicide case occurred on Fort Worth, Texas. On February 17, 1974, 17-year-old Carla Walker was abducted from a bowling alley parking lot in Fort Worth, Texas.[1] Her body was found three days later in a drainage ditch 30 minutes south of Fort Worth. Walker was beaten, tortured, raped, and strangled to death.
The murder remained a cold case for 46 years until September 2020, when DNA evidence recovered from Walker's clothing was sent to Othram Inc., who specialize in degraded DNA samples; the Oxygen network paid for the testing. The DNA matched with Samuel McCurley, who was arrested for the murder of Carla Walker. He was changed and sentenced to life in prison. He died on 15 July 2023.
Carla Jan Walker was born on January 31, 1957, to Leighton and Doris Walker.[2] Carla was a 17-year-old Western Hills High School student and cheerleader.[3]
On the evening of February 17, 1974, Walker was sitting with her boyfriend, Rodney McCoy, in his car in the parking lot of Brunswick Ridglea Bowl after attending a dance at Western Hills High School. The car door suddenly swung open and the two were assaulted by an unknown assailant, who dropped the magazine from his gun during the attack.[4] McCoy was pistol-whipped and rendered unconscious.[5] His last memory of the incident is Walker being grabbed and taken by the unknown male, whom he described as a white man, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, as she screamed for help. Walker was nowhere to be seen after McCoy regained consciousness. McCoy immediately went to Walker's house to inform her parents following the incident.[6] [7]
The police were called and searched the area where she had been abducted. Her purse and the magazine were the only items recovered in the parking lot. On February 20, 1974, her body was found in a culvert in Lake Benbrook. The autopsy revealed that Walker had been alive for 2 days following her abduction, and she had been beaten, tortured, raped, and strangled to death. Toxicology reports also showed she had been injected with morphine.[8] The police had several suspects in mind during the initial investigation and were able to obtain samples of bodily fluids from the crime scene; Walker's dress and other clothing were also preserved. However, adequate technology to use such samples to identify the killer did not exist in the 1970s.[9] A mysterious letter by a person claiming to know the killer was among the few pieces of evidence received and released by the police department.[10]
The murder remained a cold case for 46 years until September 2020, when DNA evidence recovered from Walker's clothing was sent to Othram Inc., who specialize in degraded DNA samples; the Oxygen network paid for the testing. Leads from Othram and a follow-up investigation by Detectives Wagner and Bennett led to the identification of 77-year old Glen Samuel McCurley as a suspect in the crime; McCurley had been interviewed by police shortly after the murder, as he had purchased a .22 Ruger pistol that used the same magazine as the one dropped in the parking lot of Brunswick Ridglea Bowl, but claimed the gun had been stolen from his truck. He agreed to take a polygraph test, and after he passed it, he was eliminated as a suspect. In 2020, police obtained DNA samples from the trash receptacle outside his home. After confirming that the sample matched the suspect's DNA, investigators interviewed McCurley, who agreed to provide a cheek swab. The matching of the samples were enough to arrest and charge him with the crime.[11]
McCurley went on trial in August 2021. The evidence presented in court included the .22 Ruger pistol McCurley had claimed was stolen in 1974, which had been found concealed inside his home. On the third day of the trial, McCurley changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.[12] [13] [14] Until 2022, he didn't admit to killing Walker, telling reporter Skip Hollandsworth that he pled guilty because, “I’d had enough hounding." Investigators believe McCurley may have been involved in the rapes and murders of several other young women in the Fort Worth area in the 1970s and 1980s, although he has not been charged with any additional crimes. McCurley was imprisoned in Gib Lewis Unit and would have been eligible for parole on March 21, 2029,[15] but died on 15 July 2023.[16]