TX - Terri 'Missy' Bevers, 45, killed in church/suspect in SWAT gear, Midlothian, 18 Apr 2016 #47

[Cryptic]

There are many burglars whose number one goal is hard cash.

A lot of burglars are trying to survive to the next day and are often unemployed and/or supporting an addiction. They need money.

A burglar desperate for cash would probably make a desperate effort to find it. For example, truly ransack the church administrative offices and the office of the pastor etc. for donation cash.

Once a cash oriented burglar determined that there was probably no cash on site, there would be little reason to stay in the building.

Yet, this individual not only passes on numerous pawnable items, but also evidently makes no real effort to find cash. Instead, they remain in the building committing minor acts of vandalism while wandering around apparently aimlessly.

As one poster observed: "If burglary was the goal, the perpetrator is the world's most incompetent burglar." This would be true for either a cash motivated burglar or pawnable item oriented burglar.

 

[SteveS]

... but also evidently makes no real effort to find cash.

Really? How do you know that?

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

I don't think psychotics yearn for an audience. They tend to be loners.
Gumshoe..didn't you tell me a few posts back that the victim was shot?

Yes, she was shot. And just my opinion here but it’s hard for me to see the value of doing an in-depth psychological profile of SP when we have so little to base it on. Without enough data to rely on, we might as well throw darts at a list of mental disorders and just go with wherever it hits.

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

A burglar desperate for cash would probably make a desperate effort to find it. For example, truly ransack the church administrative offices and the office of the pastor etc. for donation cash.

Once a cash oriented burglar determined that there was probably no cash on site, there would be little reason to stay in the building.

Yet, this individual not only passes on numerous pawnable items, but also evidently makes no real effort to find cash. Instead, they remain in the building committing minor acts of vandalism while wandering around apparently aimlessly.

As one poster observed: "If burglary was the goal, the perpetrator is the world's most incompetent burglar." This would be true for either a cash motivated burglar or pawnable item oriented burglar.

I disagree. SP entered the building pretty far from where the offices were and we can assume by the actions on video that SP is unfamiliar with the church. It takes time to go room to room. And it’s my guess that the whole reason SP stops prying into the locked door is because they look in the direction of the arrowed sign painted on the wall that says, “Church Offices”. That’s when they go down that hallway beginning with the Dutch door and the offices are two doors down from that.

As for ransacking, there was one room (17) in the office area that was the most disturbed. It has filing cabinets. The other offices are pretty Spartan and they weren’t locked. So why ransack just to ransack the place? You open drawers of desks. If there is a deposit bag, it’s going to be apparent. If there isn’t, you go to the next desk. And by the way... how do you know that ransacking did not happen? We know nothin was MISSING. But nothing has been said about ransacking or no ransacking.

This SP was only in the interior of the church for 28 mins. For all we know, they had just completed their circuit of the church when Missy got there.

Totally disagree (respectfully) with the remaining comments as well. How is a burglar “incompetent” when they took a chance that maybe cash from Sunday services might still be on hand and when it wasn’t, they made their escape. 5 years later they still aren’t close to being caught despite committing a murder in the process. So again, in what way are they incompetent?

"Makes no real effort to find cash".
"Wanders around apparently aimlessly."
If you were cash motivated and in a building for the first time, how would YOU do it differently from SP? Im not sure how going counterclockwise to each room in turn is "aimless", and I am also not sure how it does not indicate "real effort" to you. And finally, "numerous pawnable items"? Not in my book. Nothing there is easily pawnable, and it incurs great risk. Even if it were, not every burglar wants to mess with pawning things. The fact that SP bypasses some kitchen appliances and whatnot is not evidence against burglary; it's just evidence against a certain kind of burglary. But if you aren't wanting to see it as a burglary, then you won't, short of SP dragging a sack around and stuffing it like the Grinch. Which, by the way, SP COULD have done... if SP were truly wanting to “stage” a burglary.

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

I don’t know if this matches up with the driver of the Nissan Altima though. His driving is superb and controlled to the point of perfection ... well, to me anyway .... is that how someone off their rocker on mind altering substances drives? Is this how an addled lunatic gets around in their car? I don’t think so. I’d really like to hear from a criminal behavioural analyst/profiler as to what they make of that driving and parking, that’d be interesting hey. I have a feeling he did the same driving full circle a couple of times around the church and the camera at SWFA picked it up on the cctv. MOO of course.

Check out this podcast. I was a guest on The Interview Room. Chris McDonough is the host. He is a retired detective with 25 years and 500 homicide cases under his belt. A lot of insight.

 

[TheGardener]

Yes, she was shot. And just my opinion here but it’s hard for me to see the value of doing an in-depth psychological profile of SP when we have so little to base it on. Without enough data to rely on, we might as well throw darts at a list of mental disorders and just go with wherever it hits.

What I wrote wasn't an in depth psychological profile. It was a list of the symptoms and behaviors of a psychotic. An in depth psychological profile cannot be done without a face-to-face examination of a subject by forensic psychiatrists. Absence of the criminal responsible for a crime doesn't stop the FBI from examining crime scenes and coming up with a best guess.
As far a psychotics being able to operate vehicles in or out of a manic state, Dahmer, Bundy and Kemper were as psychotic as a barrel of badgers. Not only did they drive, they used their vehicles before, during and after their crimes.

 

[TheGardener]

How is a burglar “incompetent” when they took a chance that maybe cash from Sunday services might still be on hand and when it wasn’t, they made their escape. 5 years later they still aren’t close to being caught despite committing a murder in the process. So again, in what way are they incompetent?

A burglar is incompetent when he guesses wrong, steals nothing and kills an innocent woman.
A successful burglar guesses right, loads up on loot and leaves without killing anyone.

"5 years later they still aren’t close to being caught despite committing a murder in the process."
An incompetent burglar/murderer who has slipped the police for a while. That doesn't make him eligible for a master's in burglary. That just means he's been lucky. Personally, I don't want to see this failure get credit for anything, including his 5 year vacation from responsibility, capture and incarceration.
How do you know they "aren't close to being caught"?

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

A burglar is incompetent when he guesses wrong, steals nothing and kills an innocent woman.
A successful burglar guesses right, loads up on loot and leaves without killing anyone.

"5 years later they still aren’t close to being caught despite committing a murder in the process."
An incompetent burglar/murderer who has slipped the police for a while. That doesn't make him eligible for a master's in burglary. That just means he's been lucky.
How do you know he's not "close to being caught"?

See, my idea of incompetence is if the burglar got stuck trying to crawl through a window and Missy called the cops on him. Or he is making a racket in the kitchen cooking pizza rolls and the campers catch him red handed; when he goes to flee, he slips and knocks himself unconscious after hitting his head on the floor. That is incompetence. Looking for money and not finding it is not incompetence, any more than buying a lottery ticket and losing is incompetence (SP’s odds were better). Killing someone while committing another crime is a lot of things, but it isn’t incompetent.

And no one said SP was “master’s level” in burglary. You are the one who set the bar at “incompetence.”

Serious question. Why is it hard for you to believe SP broke into the building looking for cash, but easy for you to believe that SP is a psychotic cosplaying Ghost Rider on a motorcycle?

 

[TheGardener]

Serious question. Why is it hard for you to believe SP broke into the building looking for cash, but easy for you to believe that SP is a psychotic cosplaying Ghost Rider on a motorcycle?

Serious question. Why is it hard for you to believe SP broke into the building looking for cash, but easy for you to believe that SP is a psychotic cosplaying Ghost Rider on a motorcycle?

This is a forum, an exchange of ideas. I can respectfully and in good faith contribute what I wish and believe what I wish to believe. I've afforded you that same respect without ridicule.

 

[SteveS]

This is a forum, an exchange of ideas. I can respectfully and in good faith contribute what I wish and believe what I wish to believe.

You're so right. Thank you for your contributions here.

The opinions of each of us on the various aspects of the case create various scenarios that we like (because they fit our biases). Then we tend to think of those as "most likely" and even argue for them. But our own preferred "most likely's" and arguments-to-match don't really mean much, and don't eliminate other options --- only actual FACTS can do that - so we might as well hear more ideas. It's nice to have some new ones floating around.

If there's a conflict with actual known facts, then okay, time to rein that path back in to fit facts. But conflict with someone's pet theory, or their personal way of using the facts? Pffft, keep at it.

And the reality is, the perp may fit into having had a "most likely" action in one instance, and a least likely in another. When all is said and done, who knows but what yours will turn out to be way more of what happened. Or mine. Or who knows.

Please continue!

PS - By the way, I'm not big on trying to work backwards by thinking we can somehow "profile" a perp. From what I have read, LE has ended up way off base by that methodology at times, way too many of them, and found it's mostly just opinion and not reliable. Just like here, profiling tends to make the "answer" match personal biases. And people are strange creatures who do things for odd, irrational reasons. All of which means you can't log crime results into as neat boxes as we wish and spit out a "exactly who woulda done it this way." Ya never really know.

 

[Itsapuzzle]

Check out this podcast. I was a guest on The Interview Room. Chris McDonough is the host. He is a retired detective with 25 years and 500 homicide cases under his belt. A lot of insight.

This is fabulously interesting and very well done, good on ya - I'll watch it again, there's a lot to take in, .... h'mm, I'm still not sure about that back sticker though .... haha .... I'm gonna have a bit more of a look - not sure about the front window sticker too, sometimes it looks like there's nothin there too. Cheers

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

This is a forum, an exchange of ideas. I can respectfully and in good faith contribute what I wish and believe what I wish to believe. I've afforded you that same respect without ridicule.

I’m well aware that it’s an exchange of ideas. Part of exchanging ideas is to challenge ideas that you think may not fit or if you don’t understand the rationale. I guarantee you that is what an investigative team does as they sit around a conference table discussing the case. And that brings us back to the unanswered question I asked - why is the cash-motivated burglar theory so much less believable to you than your own theory? It is a serious question, asked respectfully. This case might end up being about something completely out of left field that none of us here have even thought of. But, if we are looking at probabilities and likelihood’s, aren’t there scenarios that are more likely than others?

Granted, The cop outfit already has us in unusual territory. But does that make other elements of the crime MORE likely to be unusual, or LESS likely to be unusual?

As an example, the Pike County murders in Ohio where numerous members of a family were murdered one night at a few different locations one after the other. That was unusual, and then we found out that these people were big time into growing marijuana so it seemed possible that this was something related to their illicit activity.

It turned out that it was a custody dispute within the family, and that is all it was. Something common, not unusual as a motive for violence.

So the idea I’m batting around here is, after we identify an unusual aspect of the Bevers murder - the cop outfit - and let’s also throw in the fact that it is in a church although more and more churches are being burglarized - does that make it more likely that other elements of this case are going to turn out to be pretty mundane rather than unusual? Because the more unusual elements we stack together in one case, the less realistic it seems.

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

This is fabulously interesting and very well done, good on ya - I'll watch it again, there's a lot to take in, .... h'mm, I'm still not sure about that back sticker though .... haha .... I'm gonna have a bit more of a look - not sure about the front window sticker too, sometimes it looks like there's nothin there too. Cheers

@Itsapuzzle you may want to check out his Part 1 video as well. I wasn’t on that one, and he got some things wrong such as where Missy entered the building. But I think it was in Part 1 that he gave more of his thoughts about the behavior of the Altima at SWFA and I thought it was pretty insightful for someone with his background to discuss.

 

[TheGardener]

Found something interesting. A short list of criminals, ranging from burglars to serial killers, who were failed cops, aspired to be cops or posed as policemen during the commission of their crimes. SP's chosen persona isn't unique.

Edmund Kemper
Ted Bundy
Angelo Anthony Buono Jr.
Kenneth Bianchi
Gerard Schaefer
Henry Terry
Mark Monterroso
David Stewart
Chance LaCasse
Jim Bailey
Robert Montoya
Brian Keith Cooper Jr.
David Stephen Middleton
John Christie - Gr. Britain
Gennady Mikhasevich - Russia
John Wayne Gacy
Mikhail Popkov - Russia
Joseph DeAngelo
Dennis Rader

 

[Ann99]

I’m well aware that it’s an exchange of ideas. Part of exchanging ideas is to challenge ideas that you think may not fit or if you don’t understand the rationale. I guarantee you that is what an investigative team does as they sit around a conference table discussing the case. And that brings us back to the unanswered question I asked - why is the cash-motivated burglar theory so much less believable to you than your own theory? It is a serious question, asked respectfully. This case might end up being about something completely out of left field that none of us here have even thought of. But, if we are looking at probabilities and likelihood’s, aren’t there scenarios that are more likely than others?

Granted, The cop outfit already has us in unusual territory. But does that make other elements of the crime MORE likely to be unusual, or LESS likely to be unusual?

As an example, the Pike County murders in Ohio where numerous members of a family were murdered one night at a few different locations one after the other. That was unusual, and then we found out that these people were big time into growing marijuana so it seemed possible that this was something related to their illicit activity.

It turned out that it was a custody dispute within the family, and that is all it was. Something common, not unusual as a motive for violence.

So the idea I’m batting around here is, after we identify an unusual aspect of the Bevers murder - the cop outfit - and let’s also throw in the fact that it is in a church although more and more churches are being burglarized - does that make it more likely that other elements of this case are going to turn out to be pretty mundane rather than unusual? Because the more unusual elements we stack together in one case, the less realistic it seems.

The YouTube video/interview/ discussion were great!
I wish I had seen it earlier.
Putting a visual to it makes all the difference. I continue to search for the photo that I saw in my first search for Missy Bevers that was a close up of the SP, the upperface, eyes. Maybe it was bogus. Do you know if there is such a photo?
It was very washed out in brightness and reflection.

Next, Thank you for the shout out for Pike County Rhoden Murders, with 4 Wagner's arrested.
Please pop over there if you can add your experience to the wide speculation regarding the W family. Motive is now known as child custody, but there could be long standing animosity between the two families. Really a Hatfield and Mc Coy situation.MO.
I wish Chris M could talk about it from his perspective, So, if you have the ability to tell him - his knowledge would be appreciated.
JW ( father of the child) has pled guilty to shooting 5 of 8 with agreement that his truthful testimony will remove DP for himself his family members.
The other 3 W's have yet to accept the plea deal that removes DP. Plea deal details are an interpretation of an unseen but verbalized court statement. My opinion.
Plea deal OR go to trial.
You and Chris might appreciate the complexity.

Thanks again for all you do.

Final. Is there a link to Part 1 Video?

All respect to you and those on this thread.
I don't mean to derail this thread with Pike County so I won't mention it again.

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

Found something interesting. A short list of criminals, ranging from burglars to serial killers, who were failed cops, aspired to be cops or posed as policemen during the commission of their crimes. SP's chosen persona isn't unique.

Edmund Kemper
Ted Bundy
Angelo Anthony Buono Jr.
Kenneth Bianchi
Gerard Schaefer
Henry Terry
Mark Monterroso
David Stewart
Chance LaCasse
Jim Bailey
Robert Montoya
Brian Keith Cooper Jr.
David Stephen Middleton
John Christie - Gr. Britain
Gennady Mikhasevich - Russia
John Wayne Gacy
Mikhail Popkov - Russia
Joseph DeAngelo
Dennis Rader

I would also add Jeff Pelo, a Bloomington IL police sergeant who was a serial rapist. And in this Missy Bevers case there was Bobby Wayne Henry, the only real POI known to the public in the past five years. He was a cop who was accused of sexual assaults of several family members while in uniform, ended up having to resign as a police officer due to a plea deal, and has a similar walk to SP.

As far as your list goes, though, and saying that SP’s chosen persona is “not unique” - seems like you are lumping together a lot of different things. Someone who is a cop and commits crimes in plainclothes (like Pelo or the Golden State Killer Deangelo)) is a different animal from the police impersonator - someone who is not a cop and decides to disguise himself as one, like SP.

I would think the majority of police impersonators fall under the category of those who pull over vehicles on public roads under the false pretense of being law enforcement. We hear about those situations quite a bit.

But if we take away the “public” police impersonation I have described, what is left? Are there really many examples of someone impersonating an officer in secret - breaking into a business or a residence in full gear? I would think that is pretty rare. I am not familiar with every single name on your list, but I know the closest Dennis Rader came to being a cop was when he was a dogcatcher. He never posed as LE.

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

The YouTube video/interview/ discussion were great!
I wish I had seen it earlier.
Putting a visual to it makes all the difference. I continue to search for the photo that I saw in my first search for Missy Bevers that was a close up of the SP, the upperface, eyes. Maybe it was bogus. Do you know if there is such a photo?
It was very washed out in brightness and reflection.

Next, Thank you for the shout out for Pike County Rhoden Murders, with 4 Wagner's arrested.
Please pop over there if you can add your experience to the wide speculation regarding the W family. Motive is now known as child custody, but there could be long standing animosity between the two families. Really a Hatfield and Mc Coy situation.MO.
I wish Chris M could talk about it from his perspective, So, if you have the ability to tell him - his knowledge would be appreciated.
JW ( father of the child) has pled guilty to shooting 5 of 8 with agreement that his truthful testimony will remove DP for himself his family members.
The other 3 W's have yet to accept the plea deal that removes DP. Plea deal details are an interpretation of an unseen but verbalized court statement. My opinion.
Plea deal OR go to trial.
You and Chris might appreciate the complexity.

Thanks again for all you do.

Final. Is there a link to Part 1 Video?

All respect to you and those on this thread.
I don't mean to derail this thread with Pike County so I won't mention it again.

Thank you, Ann. Here is a link to Part 1:

When you first asked about that close-up photo, I went looking for it. For some reason I’ve had trouble finding it although I have run across it many times before. I can tell you, with all respect to whoever created it, that police don’t put any stock in that image. My own personal opinion is that there is no way the original footage could have been cleaned up enough to produce an image that is that clear. But I could be wrong. Maybe @No it's not can weigh in with a more expert opinion.

Thanks for the update on the Rhodens. It had been awhile since I bothered to check the current status.

 

[Cryptic]

Really? How do you know that?

Watch the video. Then read the media reports stating that only one small item was taken. Then, note that the police are not affirming burglary as a motive.

But.... in the end, neither I, nor anybody else, can "prove a negative".

 

[Gumshoe Stories]

I continue to search for the photo that I saw in my first search for Missy Bevers that was a close up of the SP, the upperface, eyes. Maybe it was bogus. Do you know if there is such a photo?
It was very washed out in brightness and reflection.

Finally found it:

 

[Ann99]

Finally found it:
View attachment 300867

TY! Can you comment on the source, or your opinion of the likelihood of the source having a genuine photo? Since it was so hard to find, and not well circulated, I have doubts.
Well, what does everyone think?
Is this a possible photo of SP, or is it fake?
Most posters here have been looking at video for a long time, longer than me, so how does this look as far as a possibility? I can't tell if it could represent the face close up as far as the Costuming/Gear might look.
Again, TY.