TX TX - Cheryl Henry, 22, & Andy Atkinson, 21, Houston, 21 Aug 1990

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Bumping and reviewing:
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Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson

Murdered on Wednesday, August 22, 1990, in the 1300 block of Enclave Round

Known as the “Lover's Lane Case,” Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson were last seen at Bayou Mama’s Nightclub around 10:45 p.m. The next day, neither one reported to work, so a missing person’s report was filed. A Sysco Food Security Guard spotted Atkinson’s abandoned vehicle in the 1300 block of Enclave Round, part of an undeveloped business park. Officers found Henry’s nude body on the property, while Atkinson’s body was later found not far from the body of Henry. They both were brutally murdered.
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Years later, in August 2001, a DNA profile from a sexual assault matched the DNA evidence from the Lover’s Lane Case. The victim of the 2001 sexual assault provided detectives with a sketch of the possible suspect. Anyone with information about this murder is urged to contact the HPD Cold Case Squad at 713-308-3618 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).
Houston Police Department cold cases


In an age where internet sleuthing can yield results in murder cases, Chron.comcompiled a list of some of Houston's infamous cold cases.

Dating back to the 1980s, these murder cases include the "Lovers Lane Case" where a young couple was found brutally murdered, a veteran killed in an apparent robbery, and a young mother gunned down in front of her 6-year-old daughter. All of these cases have at least one thing in common: No one knows who the killer is.

Created in 2004, the Houston Police Department Homicide Division's Cold Case Squad combs through hundreds of unsolved murders and other types of cases to try and reinvigorate the investigation. Cases are considered cold when the initial investigation hits a dead-end, often times constrained by technology at the time.
Can you help solve some of Houston's most infamous cold cases?
 
Greetings to all. I apologize in advance because this is going to be long.

I’m a completely new member, having created an account specifically to add my two cents after reading through all 45 pages (and 15 freaking years) of this discussion in the past few days. I am in no way a criminal justice professional, although I do work in the mental health field, but I would like to point something out that I haven’t seen mentioned here.

First, I agree almost completely with JoJoDancer’s post from Aug 23 of 2020 so I won’t hash out my whole theory here. I think her (?) read on the blood on the headrest/golf clubs all coming from the killer is spot on; I think that the perp probably had Cheryl tie up Andy (a la GSK, Zodiac, a zillion more cases); I agree he had both a gun and a knife, and probably threatened harm against Cheryl to keep Andy in check. I bet the perp used some sort of false story to make them think they wouldn’t be harmed, like that he only wanted their car or money. I don’t think the killer knew either the known rape victim or Cheryl and Andy, particularly as both of the latter had only recently been back in the Houston area. I think they ran across his path at some point that night.

What I would like to posit comes from what we know about the rape victim and also the disordered nature of the murder scene. I would say that Cheryl is this perp’s first murder, and that he may not have had the intention of killing anyone that night. I wish that the information put out about the first rape case included so much more information, especially things that would allow us to classify the perp according to some of the ‘stranger rapist typologies’ developed by various criminologists/psychologists, and also info on how the attack ended. But everything from the sexual assault case points to his intentions to let the victim go. He obscures his face. He puts duct tape over her eyes. He draws her attention to his uniform, probably as a ruse. He seems to really enjoy causing her fear and distrust, and I think that the references to her boyfriend owing the rapist money is just a lie to make her distrust her bf, just like telling her she should be more careful and keep her doors locked is putting blame on back on her, the victim. This is another behavior we see a lot in ‘anger rapists’. He’s trying to get into not just her body but also her mind. GSK, for example, exhibited so many of these same behaviors, and he also liked involving couples, since that heightened both his sense of omnipotence but also it is a great way to undermine his victim’s sense of safety for ever after. Women kind of take it for granted that having a man around makes them safer. A rapist that operates this way loves that he can undermine this sense of safety. I think you could make the case that this guy had staked out the house, and that he might have expected the bf to be home- it was the bf’s house, after all, and not the victim’s.

The most important piece of info we get from the rape victim’s case is that she lived. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine that the perp would have escalated so quickly from a sadistic rape of one woman to an absolutely brutal double murder within just two months. I think all signs point to this man having raped many women before the victim we’re aware of, and I bet HPD had other rape kits with his DNA that they threw out because of statute of limitations/funding issues. I think this might be one reason that they are sitting on their hands now- they might have a number of rapes that match this type of criminal profile from the late 80’s and possibly after this homicide that they only put together well after the fact. The way that rape was treated across the country up until, I don’t know, 20 years from now, has been/still is appalling. They should have gotten this guy before Cheryl and Andy lost their lives, and I bet they had what they needed sitting in their evidence room.

So, the murders. The killer separated Cheryl and Andy, and really made sure that Andy couldn’t see what was happening to Cheryl. I think this may have been to minimize Andy’s chance of being able to identify the perp later. It's pretty risky to leave an adult male alone for a good amount of time and out of the perp's sight. Andy was obviously only a small part of the perp's fantasy. Once he had Cheryl alone, I’m sure he enjoyed frightening her with his gun just as he had with the other known victim, but it doesn’t sound like he beat her, stabbed her, or otherwise injured her, except for the sexual assault and the eventual murder. I think he may have had a mask on at this assault as well, but maybe it slipped and Cheryl saw his face. Maybe she even recognized him from earlier at the nightclub. Maybe something happened that changed the plan from sexual assault to murder. This would explain two things: how difficult it was for him to kill Cheryl, necessitating three separate cuts, denoting hesitation, and also the covering of her body with boards. If he didn’t want to have to kill her, or was embarrassed by his hesitation in cutting her throat (if murder was the intent after all and he was ashamed that he had done such a sloppy job), he might very well want to cover her body. I am willing to guess he collected the boards from the area around Cheryl before advancing on Andy. The twenty dollars does suggest it comes as a response to some sort of interaction between them, but I also think it could have been in her bra (I’m a money-in-bra kind of girl when I go into a nightclub to dance).

Let’s imagine that this perp has had to kill Cheryl without it being his original intention. This may even have ruined whatever fantasy he was acting out (usually stranger rapists have some sort of rigid fantasy they are acting out, so we can take information from the known sexual assault and assume much of it was the same in this instance). He would have gotten angrier and angrier as he realized that the situation was so out of his control (that's the #1 thing most stranger rapists want- control), that covering her with boards wouldn’t stop her from being found, and he realized that he still had to deal with Andy. That anger is seen in the way he killed Andy- the two killings were very, very different- one hesitating and showing embarrassment and regret, one demonstrating tremendous rage. By the time the perp has gotten back to the car, he’s coming to terms with the fact that he’s killed two people and that they will be found. Maybe he wants to expedite the finding by pointing the golf gear toward Cheryl so that he can follow the case in the media and see the police response. It seems like returning to the car is akin to GSK (and many, many others) hanging out in people’s houses after he assaulted the women. This perp was very familiar with the area, he knew that no one would be coming around, so he felt comfortable enough at this point to pop the trunk and paw around, getting blood on the driver’s side head rest and then on the clubs when he took them from the trunk.

The extreme range of emotional responses seen in the murder crime scene are just too odd for me to think that this encounter went the way the perp wanted it to. And we know in 100 percent of the cases we’re aware of other than this one, the victim lived (an overstatement you could argue, but factually true). Perps do tend to escalate their behaviors, this guy was probably a peeper, a stalker, a burglar, and a rapist, based on his past behavior, but we have no indicators that he was already a murderer. I would argue we have lots of evidence that he wasn’t a murderer until this encounter.

The other thing I would say is that this guy having no further known crimes supports the supposition that this got out of his control, or at least that he didn’t find the murders satisfied whatever psychopathic itch he had in his brain if he did have murderous intent. Someone who left such a disorganized, bloody, frenetic crime scene isn’t going to move on to the ‘perfect murder’ directly afterward, where he can disappear the bodies of his victims and thus never leave any trace of DNA. I know so many people are on here because they like to try linking cases and discovering previously unknown serial killers, but someone will really need to convince me that this guy is an SK. I think that it would be much more fruitful to look at rape cases that are similar to the known victims around the same timeframe.

I also think that forensic genealogy could absolutely solve this crime, but I think that cops probably feel that this perp having committed no other known crimes after 1990 disqualifies him from taking up further time/money/resources, etc. I certainly don’t agree with that stance and really, really wish they would just run the freaking tests. I really hope that this does end up being solved. You have all my condolences and well wishes, MoCity. It’s beautiful you love Cheryl enough to stay on here for 15 years, allowing all of us to bend your ear with our wild theories, mine included. I wish there was so much more I could personally do besides speculating. Law Enforcement needs to get their act together. They’re really failing so many families around the country with these infinitely solvable cases.

I have one question, and that is: when did the FBI develop the profile that is mentioned in this thread? I think it was before they got the CODIS hit with the sexual assault survivor, and I think the profile is thus basically useless. Things like covering the body mean something very different when you look at it as a stand-alone crime versus the work of someone who had sexually assaulted a stranger in such a cold, sadistic and calculating way. Simply knowing it's a repeat offender changes so much.
 
MsMarbleMattel said:
Greetings to all. I apologize in advance because this is going to be long.

I’m a completely new member, having created an account specifically to add my two cents after reading through all 45 pages (and 15 freaking years) of this discussion in the past few days. I am in no way a criminal justice professional, although I do work in the mental health field, but I would like to point something out that I haven’t seen mentioned here.

First, I agree almost completely with JoJoDancer’s post from Aug 23 of 2020 so I won’t hash out my whole theory here. I think her (?) read on the blood on the headrest/golf clubs all coming from the killer is spot on; I think that the perp probably had Cheryl tie up Andy (a la GSK, Zodiac, a zillion more cases); I agree he had both a gun and a knife, and probably threatened harm against Cheryl to keep Andy in check. I bet the perp used some sort of false story to make them think they wouldn’t be harmed, like that he only wanted their car or money. I don’t think the killer knew either the known rape victim or Cheryl and Andy, particularly as both of the latter had only recently been back in the Houston area. I think they ran across his path at some point that night.

What I would like to posit comes from what we know about the rape victim and also the disordered nature of the murder scene. I would say that Cheryl is this perp’s first murder, and that he may not have had the intention of killing anyone that night. I wish that the information put out about the first rape case included so much more information, especially things that would allow us to classify the perp according to some of the ‘stranger rapist typologies’ developed by various criminologists/psychologists, and also info on how the attack ended. But everything from the sexual assault case points to his intentions to let the victim go. He obscures his face. He puts duct tape over her eyes. He draws her attention to his uniform, probably as a ruse. He seems to really enjoy causing her fear and distrust, and I think that the references to her boyfriend owing the rapist money is just a lie to make her distrust her bf, just like telling her she should be more careful and keep her doors locked is putting blame on back on her, the victim. This is another behavior we see a lot in ‘anger rapists’. He’s trying to get into not just her body but also her mind. GSK, for example, exhibited so many of these same behaviors, and he also liked involving couples, since that heightened both his sense of omnipotence but also it is a great way to undermine his victim’s sense of safety for ever after. Women kind of take it for granted that having a man around makes them safer. A rapist that operates this way loves that he can undermine this sense of safety. I think you could make the case that this guy had staked out the house, and that he might have expected the bf to be home- it was the bf’s house, after all, and not the victim’s.

The most important piece of info we get from the rape victim’s case is that she lived. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine that the perp would have escalated so quickly from a sadistic rape of one woman to an absolutely brutal double murder within just two months. I think all signs point to this man having raped many women before the victim we’re aware of, and I bet HPD had other rape kits with his DNA that they threw out because of statute of limitations/funding issues. I think this might be one reason that they are sitting on their hands now- they might have a number of rapes that match this type of criminal profile from the late 80’s and possibly after this homicide that they only put together well after the fact. The way that rape was treated across the country up until, I don’t know, 20 years from now, has been/still is appalling. They should have gotten this guy before Cheryl and Andy lost their lives, and I bet they had what they needed sitting in their evidence room.

So, the murders. The killer separated Cheryl and Andy, and really made sure that Andy couldn’t see what was happening to Cheryl. I think this may have been to minimize Andy’s chance of being able to identify the perp later. It's pretty risky to leave an adult male alone for a good amount of time and out of the perp's sight. Andy was obviously only a small part of the perp's fantasy. Once he had Cheryl alone, I’m sure he enjoyed frightening her with his gun just as he had with the other known victim, but it doesn’t sound like he beat her, stabbed her, or otherwise injured her, except for the sexual assault and the eventual murder. I think he may have had a mask on at this assault as well, but maybe it slipped and Cheryl saw his face. Maybe she even recognized him from earlier at the nightclub. Maybe something happened that changed the plan from sexual assault to murder. This would explain two things: how difficult it was for him to kill Cheryl, necessitating three separate cuts, denoting hesitation, and also the covering of her body with boards. If he didn’t want to have to kill her, or was embarrassed by his hesitation in cutting her throat (if murder was the intent after all and he was ashamed that he had done such a sloppy job), he might very well want to cover her body. I am willing to guess he collected the boards from the area around Cheryl before advancing on Andy. The twenty dollars does suggest it comes as a response to some sort of interaction between them, but I also think it could have been in her bra (I’m a money-in-bra kind of girl when I go into a nightclub to dance).

Let’s imagine that this perp has had to kill Cheryl without it being his original intention. This may even have ruined whatever fantasy he was acting out (usually stranger rapists have some sort of rigid fantasy they are acting out, so we can take information from the known sexual assault and assume much of it was the same in this instance). He would have gotten angrier and angrier as he realized that the situation was so out of his control (that's the #1 thing most stranger rapists want- control), that covering her with boards wouldn’t stop her from being found, and he realized that he still had to deal with Andy. That anger is seen in the way he killed Andy- the two killings were very, very different- one hesitating and showing embarrassment and regret, one demonstrating tremendous rage. By the time the perp has gotten back to the car, he’s coming to terms with the fact that he’s killed two people and that they will be found. Maybe he wants to expedite the finding by pointing the golf gear toward Cheryl so that he can follow the case in the media and see the police response. It seems like returning to the car is akin to GSK (and many, many others) hanging out in people’s houses after he assaulted the women. This perp was very familiar with the area, he knew that no one would be coming around, so he felt comfortable enough at this point to pop the trunk and paw around, getting blood on the driver’s side head rest and then on the clubs when he took them from the trunk.

The extreme range of emotional responses seen in the murder crime scene are just too odd for me to think that this encounter went the way the perp wanted it to. And we know in 100 percent of the cases we’re aware of other than this one, the victim lived (an overstatement you could argue, but factually true). Perps do tend to escalate their behaviors, this guy was probably a peeper, a stalker, a burglar, and a rapist, based on his past behavior, but we have no indicators that he was already a murderer. I would argue we have lots of evidence that he wasn’t a murderer until this encounter.

The other thing I would say is that this guy having no further known crimes supports the supposition that this got out of his control, or at least that he didn’t find the murders satisfied whatever psychopathic itch he had in his brain if he did have murderous intent. Someone who left such a disorganized, bloody, frenetic crime scene isn’t going to move on to the ‘perfect murder’ directly afterward, where he can disappear the bodies of his victims and thus never leave any trace of DNA. I know so many people are on here because they like to try linking cases and discovering previously unknown serial killers, but someone will really need to convince me that this guy is an SK. I think that it would be much more fruitful to look at rape cases that are similar to the known victims around the same timeframe.

I also think that forensic genealogy could absolutely solve this crime, but I think that cops probably feel that this perp having committed no other known crimes after 1990 disqualifies him from taking up further time/money/resources, etc. I certainly don’t agree with that stance and really, really wish they would just run the freaking tests. I really hope that this does end up being solved. You have all my condolences and well wishes, MoCity. It’s beautiful you love Cheryl enough to stay on here for 15 years, allowing all of us to bend your ear with our wild theories, mine included. I wish there was so much more I could personally do besides speculating. Law Enforcement needs to get their act together. They’re really failing so many families around the country with these infinitely solvable cases.

I have one question, and that is: when did the FBI develop the profile that is mentioned in this thread? I think it was before they got the CODIS hit with the sexual assault survivor, and I think the profile is thus basically useless. Things like covering the body mean something very different when you look at it as a stand-alone crime versus the work of someone who had sexually assaulted a stranger in such a cold, sadistic and calculating way. Simply knowing it's a repeat offender changes so much.
Click to expand...
Welcome to Ws MissMarbleMattel, thanks for the great, well thought -out first post!
 
MsMarbleMattel said:
Greetings to all. I apologize in advance because this is going to be long.

I’m a completely new member, having created an account specifically to add my two cents after reading through all 45 pages (and 15 freaking years) of this discussion in the past few days. I am in no way a criminal justice professional, although I do work in the mental health field, but I would like to point something out that I haven’t seen mentioned here.

First, I agree almost completely with JoJoDancer’s post from Aug 23 of 2020 so I won’t hash out my whole theory here. I think her (?) read on the blood on the headrest/golf clubs all coming from the killer is spot on; I think that the perp probably had Cheryl tie up Andy (a la GSK, Zodiac, a zillion more cases); I agree he had both a gun and a knife, and probably threatened harm against Cheryl to keep Andy in check. I bet the perp used some sort of false story to make them think they wouldn’t be harmed, like that he only wanted their car or money. I don’t think the killer knew either the known rape victim or Cheryl and Andy, particularly as both of the latter had only recently been back in the Houston area. I think they ran across his path at some point that night.

What I would like to posit comes from what we know about the rape victim and also the disordered nature of the murder scene. I would say that Cheryl is this perp’s first murder, and that he may not have had the intention of killing anyone that night. I wish that the information put out about the first rape case included so much more information, especially things that would allow us to classify the perp according to some of the ‘stranger rapist typologies’ developed by various criminologists/psychologists, and also info on how the attack ended. But everything from the sexual assault case points to his intentions to let the victim go. He obscures his face. He puts duct tape over her eyes. He draws her attention to his uniform, probably as a ruse. He seems to really enjoy causing her fear and distrust, and I think that the references to her boyfriend owing the rapist money is just a lie to make her distrust her bf, just like telling her she should be more careful and keep her doors locked is putting blame on back on her, the victim. This is another behavior we see a lot in ‘anger rapists’. He’s trying to get into not just her body but also her mind. GSK, for example, exhibited so many of these same behaviors, and he also liked involving couples, since that heightened both his sense of omnipotence but also it is a great way to undermine his victim’s sense of safety for ever after. Women kind of take it for granted that having a man around makes them safer. A rapist that operates this way loves that he can undermine this sense of safety. I think you could make the case that this guy had staked out the house, and that he might have expected the bf to be home- it was the bf’s house, after all, and not the victim’s.

The most important piece of info we get from the rape victim’s case is that she lived. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine that the perp would have escalated so quickly from a sadistic rape of one woman to an absolutely brutal double murder within just two months. I think all signs point to this man having raped many women before the victim we’re aware of, and I bet HPD had other rape kits with his DNA that they threw out because of statute of limitations/funding issues. I think this might be one reason that they are sitting on their hands now- they might have a number of rapes that match this type of criminal profile from the late 80’s and possibly after this homicide that they only put together well after the fact. The way that rape was treated across the country up until, I don’t know, 20 years from now, has been/still is appalling. They should have gotten this guy before Cheryl and Andy lost their lives, and I bet they had what they needed sitting in their evidence room.

So, the murders. The killer separated Cheryl and Andy, and really made sure that Andy couldn’t see what was happening to Cheryl. I think this may have been to minimize Andy’s chance of being able to identify the perp later. It's pretty risky to leave an adult male alone for a good amount of time and out of the perp's sight. Andy was obviously only a small part of the perp's fantasy. Once he had Cheryl alone, I’m sure he enjoyed frightening her with his gun just as he had with the other known victim, but it doesn’t sound like he beat her, stabbed her, or otherwise injured her, except for the sexual assault and the eventual murder. I think he may have had a mask on at this assault as well, but maybe it slipped and Cheryl saw his face. Maybe she even recognized him from earlier at the nightclub. Maybe something happened that changed the plan from sexual assault to murder. This would explain two things: how difficult it was for him to kill Cheryl, necessitating three separate cuts, denoting hesitation, and also the covering of her body with boards. If he didn’t want to have to kill her, or was embarrassed by his hesitation in cutting her throat (if murder was the intent after all and he was ashamed that he had done such a sloppy job), he might very well want to cover her body. I am willing to guess he collected the boards from the area around Cheryl before advancing on Andy. The twenty dollars does suggest it comes as a response to some sort of interaction between them, but I also think it could have been in her bra (I’m a money-in-bra kind of girl when I go into a nightclub to dance).

Let’s imagine that this perp has had to kill Cheryl without it being his original intention. This may even have ruined whatever fantasy he was acting out (usually stranger rapists have some sort of rigid fantasy they are acting out, so we can take information from the known sexual assault and assume much of it was the same in this instance). He would have gotten angrier and angrier as he realized that the situation was so out of his control (that's the #1 thing most stranger rapists want- control), that covering her with boards wouldn’t stop her from being found, and he realized that he still had to deal with Andy. That anger is seen in the way he killed Andy- the two killings were very, very different- one hesitating and showing embarrassment and regret, one demonstrating tremendous rage. By the time the perp has gotten back to the car, he’s coming to terms with the fact that he’s killed two people and that they will be found. Maybe he wants to expedite the finding by pointing the golf gear toward Cheryl so that he can follow the case in the media and see the police response. It seems like returning to the car is akin to GSK (and many, many others) hanging out in people’s houses after he assaulted the women. This perp was very familiar with the area, he knew that no one would be coming around, so he felt comfortable enough at this point to pop the trunk and paw around, getting blood on the driver’s side head rest and then on the clubs when he took them from the trunk.

The extreme range of emotional responses seen in the murder crime scene are just too odd for me to think that this encounter went the way the perp wanted it to. And we know in 100 percent of the cases we’re aware of other than this one, the victim lived (an overstatement you could argue, but factually true). Perps do tend to escalate their behaviors, this guy was probably a peeper, a stalker, a burglar, and a rapist, based on his past behavior, but we have no indicators that he was already a murderer. I would argue we have lots of evidence that he wasn’t a murderer until this encounter.

The other thing I would say is that this guy having no further known crimes supports the supposition that this got out of his control, or at least that he didn’t find the murders satisfied whatever psychopathic itch he had in his brain if he did have murderous intent. Someone who left such a disorganized, bloody, frenetic crime scene isn’t going to move on to the ‘perfect murder’ directly afterward, where he can disappear the bodies of his victims and thus never leave any trace of DNA. I know so many people are on here because they like to try linking cases and discovering previously unknown serial killers, but someone will really need to convince me that this guy is an SK. I think that it would be much more fruitful to look at rape cases that are similar to the known victims around the same timeframe.

I also think that forensic genealogy could absolutely solve this crime, but I think that cops probably feel that this perp having committed no other known crimes after 1990 disqualifies him from taking up further time/money/resources, etc. I certainly don’t agree with that stance and really, really wish they would just run the freaking tests. I really hope that this does end up being solved. You have all my condolences and well wishes, MoCity. It’s beautiful you love Cheryl enough to stay on here for 15 years, allowing all of us to bend your ear with our wild theories, mine included. I wish there was so much more I could personally do besides speculating. Law Enforcement needs to get their act together. They’re really failing so many families around the country with these infinitely solvable cases.

I have one question, and that is: when did the FBI develop the profile that is mentioned in this thread? I think it was before they got the CODIS hit with the sexual assault survivor, and I think the profile is thus basically useless. Things like covering the body mean something very different when you look at it as a stand-alone crime versus the work of someone who had sexually assaulted a stranger in such a cold, sadistic and calculating way. Simply knowing it's a repeat offender changes so much.
Click to expand...
Welcome and thank you for the well thought out post. It all makes sense to me.
I have a few things that I'd like to ask to see what you think.

You stated that you think that Cheryl and Andy may have been told they wouldn't be harmed, and that Cheryl may have tied Andy up. Do you think she may have tied him up while they were still in the car?
The reason I ask this, is because I think that the passengers sun visor being ripped off tells me that Cheryl was being pulled out of the car, and was fighting at that point. I don't think she tied him up after she was taken from the car, and I think she knew something bad was about to happen at that point, but I may be wrong.

Do you think there was more than one person involved, or do you think he acted alone?

I'm still on the fence with the golf club. What you state makes perfect sense, however, I'm not so sure that someone that just murdered two people would hang around and take a chance of being caught. Especially if as you say, this was his first murder.(which I agree could very well have been) My guess is he would have been in a panic and would have hi-tailed it out of there. I don't think he'd be thinking up clues to give to LE, so Cheryl would have been found, but again, I'm on the fence. I don't see why he would have taken the time to cover and conceal her body, then make a map pointing towards her.
One thought I have is that Andy was struck with the golf club while he was still in the car, and that's why that and the headrest had blood on it. That's why Cheryl was fighting before she got out of the car.

I look forward to more of your thoughts, and once again, welcome.
 
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MsMarbleMattel said:
Greetings to all. I apologize in advance because this is going to be long.

I’m a completely new member, having created an account specifically to add my two cents after reading through all 45 pages (and 15 freaking years) of this discussion in the past few days. I am in no way a criminal justice professional, although I do work in the mental health field, but I would like to point something out that I haven’t seen mentioned here.

First, I agree almost completely with JoJoDancer’s post from Aug 23 of 2020 so I won’t hash out my whole theory here. I think her (?) read on the blood on the headrest/golf clubs all coming from the killer is spot on; I think that the perp probably had Cheryl tie up Andy (a la GSK, Zodiac, a zillion more cases); I agree he had both a gun and a knife, and probably threatened harm against Cheryl to keep Andy in check. I bet the perp used some sort of false story to make them think they wouldn’t be harmed, like that he only wanted their car or money. I don’t think the killer knew either the known rape victim or Cheryl and Andy, particularly as both of the latter had only recently been back in the Houston area. I think they ran across his path at some point that night.

What I would like to posit comes from what we know about the rape victim and also the disordered nature of the murder scene. I would say that Cheryl is this perp’s first murder, and that he may not have had the intention of killing anyone that night. I wish that the information put out about the first rape case included so much more information, especially things that would allow us to classify the perp according to some of the ‘stranger rapist typologies’ developed by various criminologists/psychologists, and also info on how the attack ended. But everything from the sexual assault case points to his intentions to let the victim go. He obscures his face. He puts duct tape over her eyes. He draws her attention to his uniform, probably as a ruse. He seems to really enjoy causing her fear and distrust, and I think that the references to her boyfriend owing the rapist money is just a lie to make her distrust her bf, just like telling her she should be more careful and keep her doors locked is putting blame on back on her, the victim. This is another behavior we see a lot in ‘anger rapists’. He’s trying to get into not just her body but also her mind. GSK, for example, exhibited so many of these same behaviors, and he also liked involving couples, since that heightened both his sense of omnipotence but also it is a great way to undermine his victim’s sense of safety for ever after. Women kind of take it for granted that having a man around makes them safer. A rapist that operates this way loves that he can undermine this sense of safety. I think you could make the case that this guy had staked out the house, and that he might have expected the bf to be home- it was the bf’s house, after all, and not the victim’s.

The most important piece of info we get from the rape victim’s case is that she lived. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine that the perp would have escalated so quickly from a sadistic rape of one woman to an absolutely brutal double murder within just two months. I think all signs point to this man having raped many women before the victim we’re aware of, and I bet HPD had other rape kits with his DNA that they threw out because of statute of limitations/funding issues. I think this might be one reason that they are sitting on their hands now- they might have a number of rapes that match this type of criminal profile from the late 80’s and possibly after this homicide that they only put together well after the fact. The way that rape was treated across the country up until, I don’t know, 20 years from now, has been/still is appalling. They should have gotten this guy before Cheryl and Andy lost their lives, and I bet they had what they needed sitting in their evidence room.

So, the murders. The killer separated Cheryl and Andy, and really made sure that Andy couldn’t see what was happening to Cheryl. I think this may have been to minimize Andy’s chance of being able to identify the perp later. It's pretty risky to leave an adult male alone for a good amount of time and out of the perp's sight. Andy was obviously only a small part of the perp's fantasy. Once he had Cheryl alone, I’m sure he enjoyed frightening her with his gun just as he had with the other known victim, but it doesn’t sound like he beat her, stabbed her, or otherwise injured her, except for the sexual assault and the eventual murder. I think he may have had a mask on at this assault as well, but maybe it slipped and Cheryl saw his face. Maybe she even recognized him from earlier at the nightclub. Maybe something happened that changed the plan from sexual assault to murder. This would explain two things: how difficult it was for him to kill Cheryl, necessitating three separate cuts, denoting hesitation, and also the covering of her body with boards. If he didn’t want to have to kill her, or was embarrassed by his hesitation in cutting her throat (if murder was the intent after all and he was ashamed that he had done such a sloppy job), he might very well want to cover her body. I am willing to guess he collected the boards from the area around Cheryl before advancing on Andy. The twenty dollars does suggest it comes as a response to some sort of interaction between them, but I also think it could have been in her bra (I’m a money-in-bra kind of girl when I go into a nightclub to dance).

Let’s imagine that this perp has had to kill Cheryl without it being his original intention. This may even have ruined whatever fantasy he was acting out (usually stranger rapists have some sort of rigid fantasy they are acting out, so we can take information from the known sexual assault and assume much of it was the same in this instance). He would have gotten angrier and angrier as he realized that the situation was so out of his control (that's the #1 thing most stranger rapists want- control), that covering her with boards wouldn’t stop her from being found, and he realized that he still had to deal with Andy. That anger is seen in the way he killed Andy- the two killings were very, very different- one hesitating and showing embarrassment and regret, one demonstrating tremendous rage. By the time the perp has gotten back to the car, he’s coming to terms with the fact that he’s killed two people and that they will be found. Maybe he wants to expedite the finding by pointing the golf gear toward Cheryl so that he can follow the case in the media and see the police response. It seems like returning to the car is akin to GSK (and many, many others) hanging out in people’s houses after he assaulted the women. This perp was very familiar with the area, he knew that no one would be coming around, so he felt comfortable enough at this point to pop the trunk and paw around, getting blood on the driver’s side head rest and then on the clubs when he took them from the trunk.

The extreme range of emotional responses seen in the murder crime scene are just too odd for me to think that this encounter went the way the perp wanted it to. And we know in 100 percent of the cases we’re aware of other than this one, the victim lived (an overstatement you could argue, but factually true). Perps do tend to escalate their behaviors, this guy was probably a peeper, a stalker, a burglar, and a rapist, based on his past behavior, but we have no indicators that he was already a murderer. I would argue we have lots of evidence that he wasn’t a murderer until this encounter.

The other thing I would say is that this guy having no further known crimes supports the supposition that this got out of his control, or at least that he didn’t find the murders satisfied whatever psychopathic itch he had in his brain if he did have murderous intent. Someone who left such a disorganized, bloody, frenetic crime scene isn’t going to move on to the ‘perfect murder’ directly afterward, where he can disappear the bodies of his victims and thus never leave any trace of DNA. I know so many people are on here because they like to try linking cases and discovering previously unknown serial killers, but someone will really need to convince me that this guy is an SK. I think that it would be much more fruitful to look at rape cases that are similar to the known victims around the same timeframe.

I also think that forensic genealogy could absolutely solve this crime, but I think that cops probably feel that this perp having committed no other known crimes after 1990 disqualifies him from taking up further time/money/resources, etc. I certainly don’t agree with that stance and really, really wish they would just run the freaking tests. I really hope that this does end up being solved. You have all my condolences and well wishes, MoCity. It’s beautiful you love Cheryl enough to stay on here for 15 years, allowing all of us to bend your ear with our wild theories, mine included. I wish there was so much more I could personally do besides speculating. Law Enforcement needs to get their act together. They’re really failing so many families around the country with these infinitely solvable cases.

I have one question, and that is: when did the FBI develop the profile that is mentioned in this thread? I think it was before they got the CODIS hit with the sexual assault survivor, and I think the profile is thus basically useless. Things like covering the body mean something very different when you look at it as a stand-alone crime versus the work of someone who had sexually assaulted a stranger in such a cold, sadistic and calculating way. Simply knowing it's a repeat offender changes so much.
Click to expand...
Brilliantly said. This honestly makes SO much sense.
 
I wonder if they have DNA. In 1990, DNA wasn't even an investigative tool so maybe if a rape kit was done it wasn't done to today's standards or wasn't stored properly.
 
JnRyan said:
I wonder if they have DNA. In 1990, DNA wasn't even an investigative tool so maybe if a rape kit was done it wasn't done to today's standards or wasn't stored properly.
Click to expand...

Yes, they have DNA, that is how they made the connection to the Houston rape case. This seems like a very good case for Genetic Genealogy. There has been no explanation why this was not pursued.
 
kemo said:
Yes, they have DNA, that is how they made the connection to the Houston rape case. This seems like a very good case for Genetic Genealogy. There has been no explanation why this was not pursued.
Click to expand...
Then could it be the quality of DNA? Genetic Genealogy has probably just come about since that tie in to the other case and it may require a higher quality or be processed through an updated process. In any event, I don't understand some LE agencies responses sometimes. In the Colonial Parkway Murders, Cathleen Thomas had hair in her hand from her struggle with the killer. But her brother has tried to determine or get some genetic genealogy done by the FBI on the DNA from those hairs for years and they really won't even address the subject with him.
 
I don't believe that's the case. There's been talk about processing the DNA few threads back and I believe Paragon offered to test the DNA and HPD claimed they had a way to do it themselves.
 
I just came across this recently solved TX cold case and saw that @othram who is a member here was involved in making the genetic match!!

Suspect Arrested in 1974 Cold Case Murder of Carla Walker; Was ‘Random Attack': Police
September 22, 2020

“NBC 5 learned on Tuesday that DNA evidence recovered from clothing and a bra worn by Walker on the night she was killed was sent to Othram, a private lab in The Woodlands which uncovers genetic identities "through DNA, rootless hair and decades-old bones." Using a new process, detectives said the company was able to develop, for the first time, in this case, a full DNA profile of a potential suspect.”

Carla’s thread:
TX - Carla Walker, 17, raped and strangled, Fort Worth, 17 Feb 1974 *Arrest in 2020*

(*note to self to learn more about this suspect. It seems he brazenly abducted Carla when she was with her boyfriend.)

—

@othram, if you have some time, you may find Cheryl’s and Andy’s case of interest, especially since you appear to be relatively local, and we would reallllly appreciate any insight/help/expertise you can offer. We do not know why there seems to be an issue here with HPD & the genetic DNA!!! They said they were on this years ago!!!! (Eta: unless I’ve missed an update, I apologize as I am behind here.)

Qmfr/ Quick reference on the DNA:
margarita25 said:
Missing Pieces: Police using new technology to help solve 'Lovers Lane murders'

Author: Shern-Min Chow
November 17, 2017

“HOUSTON - Cold case detectives are trying a relatively new DNA approach to the notorious Lovers Lane murders. The brutal killings remain one of Houston's most infamous unsolved slayings.”

[...]

“The case now belongs to Houston Police detective Darcus Shorten. Shorten says,”

[...]

“So Detective Shorten is trying something relatively unusual, explaining, “Familial DNA is something new.””

[...]

“While investigators await those results, DNA testing has already made one important, though very late, link: Two months before the murders, an exotic dancer was raped in north Harris County. DNA testing was relatively new and expensive. It would take 17 years for HPD's beleaguered crime lab, to run the sample. It turned out to be a match to the Lovers Lane killer.”
Click to expand...

@mocity is Cheryl’s step sister and is the direct contact.

Any updates on all this, @mocity?

Also, @othram, please find below the link to the media thread, a supplement to this main thread. Again, any time and attention you can provide is very much appreciated!! We’ve discussed prior cases, but I’m not sure I ever suggested Cheryl’s and Andy’s case, or if you are familiar.

TX - Cheryl Henry & Andy Atkinson, Houston, 21 Aug 1990, MEDIA/MAPS/TIMELINES *NO DISCUSSION *
 
Last edited:
margarita25 said:
I just came across this recently solved TX cold case and saw that @othram who is a member here was involved in making the genetic match!!

Suspect Arrested in 1974 Cold Case Murder of Carla Walker; Was ‘Random Attack': Police
September 22, 2020

“NBC 5 learned on Tuesday that DNA evidence recovered from clothing and a bra worn by Walker on the night she was killed was sent to Othram, a private lab in The Woodlands which uncovers genetic identities "through DNA, rootless hair and decades-old bones." Using a new process, detectives said the company was able to develop, for the first time, in this case, a full DNA profile of a potential suspect.”

Carla’s thread:
TX - Carla Walker, 17, raped and strangled, Fort Worth, 17 Feb 1974 *Arrest in 2020*

(*note to self to learn more about this suspect. It seems he brazenly abducted Carla when she was with her boyfriend.)

—

@othram, if you have some time, you may find Cheryl’s and Andy’s case of interest, especially since you appear to be relatively local, and we would reallllly appreciate any insight/help/expertise you can offer. We do not know why there seems to be an issue here with HPD & the genetic DNA!!! They said they were on this years ago!!!! (Eta: unless I’ve missed an update, I apologize as I am behind here.)

Qmfr/ Quick reference on the DNA:


@mocity is Cheryl’s step sister and is the direct contact.

Any updates on all this, @mocity?

Also, @othram, please find below the link to the media thread, a supplement to this main thread. Again, any time and attention you can provide is very much appreciated!! We’ve discussed prior cases, but I’m not sure I ever suggested Cheryl’s and Andy’s case, or if you are familiar.

TX - Cheryl Henry & Andy Atkinson, Houston, 21 Aug 1990, MEDIA/MAPS/TIMELINES *NO DISCUSSION *
Click to expand...

never have heard of othram..... so impressive.
 
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