TX TX - Beverly Bruneau, 35, Tarrant County, 13 Feb 1981

Beverly Bruneau was murdered 13 Feb 1981, in Tarrant County, TX; there is nearly no information on this case online. She was a flight attendant for Braniff Airlines at the time of her death. The homicide has never been solved.

Are there any sleuths out there with more information on Beverly Bruneau?

Thank you,

Thom

Apparently the Grapevine, Texas PD is handling the case and have a suspect, but not enough evidence to prosecute. I wonder if he worked for Braniff as well?

He was also employed by Braniff, as a baggage handler, and was working when Beverly Bruneau died; he passed a polygraph test.

The original item posted April 8, 2005 mentioned "Beverly Bruneau (Casey)".

It appears Bruneau was Beverly's maiden name; how does the name Casey apply here?

Found her obituary, curious that it alone on that page does not name any relatives at all.

"Casey" is apparently a nickname.

http://thebranifffamily.org/events.asp#104

Scroll down and look for her name.

This thread needed a link or two.

This lengthy article is from eight months after the murder, so not an update as much as an addition. It seems there had been more than one suspect. It also contains information on the Lipstick murder mentioned.

Police turned their attention to other people Beverly knew and to some she didn’t know. One of those people was a man named Donald Wayne Hemphill, who had been suspected in the “Lipstick Murder” case of Debera Martinson. Dallas police informed Grapevine investigators that Hemphill’s wife had lived in Grapevine, and that Hemphill had twice been ticketed for moving violations in the vicinity. Like Beverly Bruneau, Debera Martinson had been strangled.

But Grapevine investigators proceeded on the assumption that Beverly knew her killer, and let him into her apartment that morning since there were no signs of forced entry. They also speculated that whoever killed the woman received a few cuts and bruises in the struggle. But time was running out … soon those telltale signs would heal.

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https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1981/september/getting-away-with-murder/

Hemphill was convicted on numerous occasions of sex crimes, but never murder. There is a non-MSM source that details his various convictions that can be found online.

It seems that being a flight attendant in the seventies and eighties was a dangerous career. Wanda Jean Waddle was raped and strangled in 1978 (also working for Braniff). A suspect was tried and convicted for her murder in 2011. In an appeal by his lawyers, there is mention of three somehow similar offenses:

The three other offenses were the murders of Cheryl Sue Bellinger, Beverly Bruneau, and Jeeta Lynn Graeber. Even though each of these offenses shared some similar facts, they also differed from each other and from the facts of the offense for which Reed has now been twice convicted in state court. The similarity of at least one of these other murders was also known to Reed's attorneys prior to his retrial in 1983. In fact, the Bellinger murder appears to have formed the basis for Reed's out-of-time motion for new trial, which was granted and resulted in the retrial and present conviction and death sentence of Petitioner.

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Jeeta Lynn Graeber was raped and strangled in her apartment in 1984. Her murderer was convicted and is serving time. I haven't been able to find anything about Cheryl Sue Bellinger.

I'm not sure what the point to all of this is, other than to bump Beverly's unsolved murder, and to point out that there were a number of other flight attendants killed around the same time, though most of those have been solved.

https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/the-flight-attendants-–-braniff-international.642643/

Beverly Antoinette Bruneau
BIRTH 25 Jun 1945
Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA
DEATH 13 Feb 1981 (aged 35)
Grapevine, Tarrant County, Texas, USA
BURIAL
Hillside Cemetery
Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA
PLOT Section One
LINKS:
Beverly Antoinette Bruneau (1945-1981) - Find a...