Residents reported a bad odor on June 25, 1985, coming from an abandoned car in a
Dallas alleyway, which led to the gruesome discovery of Mowrey's naked, decomposing body.
A belt was tied around her neck, and her body was wrapped and bound in a bedsheet.
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After Catherine's body was found in the trunk of an abandoned car, police initially told the Mowrey family that she died of a suicide.
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Law enforcement publicly called Catherine's death "an overdose," which was reported by local newspapers at the time.
A short article in The Dallas News with the headline, "Woman in car trunk died of overdose, police say," quoted Dallas Homicide Sgt. H.M. Rice as the source.
"We speculate that she died on somebody, and they just got scared and put her in the trunk," Rice was quoted as saying. "It's not going to be (classified as) a murder because we don't know who put her in there."
That was it, in terms of the investigation. Police considered the case closed, even though Catherine's toxicology report was clean. There were no drugs or alcohol in her system.
Texas cold case tore apart family that keeps fighting for answers nearly 40 years later
May this family one day get answers. Keystone cops didn't put in much effort to find out what happened back then.