The Shocking Truth Behind Carla Walker’s Murder | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

NANCY GRACE: Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. Carla Walker and her boyfriend Rodney McCoy
are at their high school's Valentine's Day dance. They got into Rodney's car, and they
did what most teenagers do. They started making out. And just within a few seconds, Carla's door swung open,
and an individual was standing there. And when Rodney looked up, he saw a gun pointed in his face.
So this person started using the gun as a weapon and beating Rodney on the back of the head,
knocked him into unconsciousness, and pulled Carla out of the vehicle and into his own car.
NANCY GRACE: When Rodney McCoy regains consciousness, he calls for help. For three days, police searched for 17-year-old Carla Walker
until they make a gruesome discovery. One officer peers down in the culvert and sees Carla.
NANCY GRACE: Police want to know who could have done this and what would the motive be.
I don't know if killing was necessarily on his agenda, but I think he definitely was looking for a young girl
to rape. The case goes cold for nearly 50 years. Will Carla's case ever be solved?
And can a revolutionary new forensic tool called genetic genealogy help police catch the killer?
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." Fort Worth, Texas, 40 miles west of Dallas.
It's a big city today, but not in 1974. West Side of Fort Worth was safe, family-oriented,
lots of stuff to do. Our neighbors were not only neighbors, but family friends. I went to the same high school that Carla
went to, which was maybe half a mile from my house. It was a good neighborhood growing up.
Carla Walker, she was a junior in high school. She was on the pep squad team, and her boyfriend,
Rodney McCoy, he was a senior. And he was the high school quarterback. So they really were your quintessential
all-American couple. They were attending a Valentine's dance, Saturday, February 16, 1974.
My dad, as he always did, said, be safe. And out, out they went. They arrived at their school, sometime around 9:30,
participated in the dance. And then, they decided to leave with some friends to go cruising, and they did for a little while.
But this couple needed to be back because the young lady had a curfew. So they dropped them off at the school,
and this is somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. And Carla and Rodney decided to go driving around again,
and Carla was hungry, so they stopped to buy a Taco Bell. And she told Rodney that she needed to use the restroom.
And so, they made that fateful trip to the Ridgeley bowling alley. She went in. She used the restroom.
And when they came out, they got into Rodney's car. She slid across the seat, leaned up against the door,
and they did what most teenagers do. They started making out. And all of a sudden, the door flew open.
Carla's door swung open, and an individual was standing there, grabbing her, as she was, kind
of, falling out of the car. And when Rodney looked up, he saw a gun pointed in his face.
And this individual pulled the trigger, and, fortunately, the gun did not fire. So this person started using the gun as a weapon
and beating Rodney on the back of the head. And he didn't know what had happened to him in that moment,
but he knew his head was bleeding. He was bleeding all over himself and Carla. As he grabbed Carla's arm and pulled her out,
Rodney remembers the man saying, you're going with me, aren't you, sweetie? The last thing Rodney remembers
is Carla getting out and saying, I'll go with you. I'll go with you. Just stop hitting him.
And then, she turned to Rodney and said, go get dad. Then, Rodney passed out. Rodney woke up, just shortly after being hit on the head.
And when he looked up, he looked around. He couldn't see Carla anywhere. And so, Rodney starts his car and takes off for the Walker
family's home, which is about three minutes from the bowling alley. I remember that as if it happened five minutes ago.
I heard Rodney screaming. Mr. Walker, Mr. Walker, help me. Help me. They've got her.
They're going to hurt her bad. I know they are. Help me. And then, pounding on the front door.
And the family comes to the door, and they see Rodney standing there with blood dripping down his face and bloody hair,
blood all over his shirt. He's panicked. He's saying, they've got her. They've got her.
You need to do something. And at that point, Mr. Walker grabbed his own gun and headed to the parking lot of the bowling alley
to see what he could find. Mrs. Walker called the police department at 1:45 that morning.
They talked to Rodney. They examined his injuries on his head. They get his statement, and then they take him to the hospital
so that he could get stitched up. We had teams coming from all over. I know that City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County
Sheriff's Department, the FBI. The Texas Rangers showed up the next day. The search was on.
NANCY GRACE: Police race against time. Can they find Carla Walker alive? Almost a year to the day, a girl by the name of Becky
Martin had gone missing from the Tarrant County College parking lot in a way that seemed to resemble
Carla's disappearance. She was going to a parking lot, and she was yanked from a car
and disappeared. And her body was not found for many months. But when it was found, it was found in a culvert.
Under the idea of what if they are related, they started checking culverts, called a cattle culvert,
and it's a well developed concrete structure. It is tall enough for a man to stand up inside of.
Two Fort Worth Police Department officers were driving down Pearl Ranch Road, just near Benbrook Lake,
and they were getting out. And they were checking all the culverts to see if they
could find Carla's body. And about 6:35 PM, on the 20th of February, they saw a body laying in the culvert.
And they knew that they had found Carla. NANCY GRACE: The discovery of Carla Walker's body
changes the investigation from a missing persons to a murder inquiry. Fort Worth Police head to the Walker family home
to tell her parents the terrible news, but a local reporter gets there first. A lady from the local newspaper,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She just, kind of, pushed her way up to the front door
and looked at my parents and said, Mr. and Mrs. Walker, what are your feelings? What do you think now that they found your daughter's body?
The police department hadn't informed my parents. I remember when she said that, she was quickly escorted off
of our property by some gentleman and encouraged not to come back. I remember both my parents turning and looking straight.
Like, my dad had really beautiful, piercing blue eyes. And I remember that's the first time I ever saw his eyes
swell up with water tears. Not too long after that event with the reporter, Fort Worth and Sheriff's Department
showed up to inform my parents of the discovery of Carla's body. And I could tell my mom, she wanted to collapse,
but she was very strong. NANCY GRACE: The Fort Worth community, shocked by the news of Carla Walker's
brutal rape and murder. Police tried to act as quickly as they can to catch the killer.
Carla Walker's boyfriend Rodney McCoy tells police he's knocked unconscious when Carla is kidnapped, but police are
not impressed with his story. He quickly becomes the number one person of interest.
But the people of Fort Worth do not believe Rodney McCoy could have committed such a brutal crime.
Obviously, there were going to be a handful of people who were critical of Rodney and judged.
But I think, for the most part, the entire community really rallied around Rodney.
NANCY GRACE: A teenage girl raped and murdered. Her boyfriend, the obvious suspect.
But as we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," things are not always as they seem.
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. 17-year-old Carla Walker disappears the night of the high school Valentine's dance.
Her body discovered three days later outside the city in a cattle culvert. Almost 50 years later, Carla Walker's
death, still fresh in the minds of her surviving family members. That night, we had to go to the coroner's
office, which was actually in a hospital in downtown Fort Worth. Mom and dad went into that room.
And about 20 seconds later, I heard-- I heard that scream, that guttural, deep moan that a mom would have when she sees her baby is dead.
When Carla Walker was found, it was instantly apparent that she had died a brutal death,
and that she had been sexually assaulted. Carla was laid, splayed out, legs open,
with her dress ripped from the bodice down and over to the side. Her bodice was ripped and the bra was
pulled up and ripped as well. There was blood all over the dress, which mostly came from Rodney.
The state of her body was-- there were multiple, horrible contusions on her face,
on her legs, all over her body. She had what was clear strangulation marks on her neck.
It was a very very brutal, brutal, brutal death. NANCY GRACE: Police began to examine the evidence.
There's a lot of evidence that was collected. I mean, they collected everything from her clothes,
her jewelry, her shoes. They collected cans, bottles. They collected dirt clods.
They collected numerous items from the crime scene. In addition to that, in the parking lot,
unbeknownst to our killer, when he was beating Rodney about the head with his gun, this gun's
unique make and model of a gun, it's a Ruger 22 mark 1 model. And what's unusual about this gun
is the magazine release is on the bottom of the grid. So while he was beating Rodney in the head,
apparently, that released the magazine, which fell out onto the ground. So when Mr. Walker got to the bowling alley,
and the police got there, her purse and the magazine from this gun were both sitting on the ground
in the parking lot. The two things we have is a vague description from Rodney and a magazine from a 22.
That's all we have in this whole case. And so, they were trying everything they could.
They were looking at everyone that knew Carla. They were looking at all the known
sex offenders in the area. They were looking at anybody who had any kind of weirdness.
They were looking into anyone who owned a 22 Ruger. They were looking into everything.
And so, one of the thoughts at the time was, maybe, the murderer would go to the funeral.
And so, the police actually set up a situation, where everybody who came to the funeral had to walk by the body
because they wanted to film their reaction. And so, they sat there and watched and took
pictures of every single person, as they filed past the body. NANCY GRACE: Police began to build
a list of possible suspects, starting with boyfriend Rodney McCoy. You always have to look at the closest person to your victim.
So they did look at Rodney very close. I think he passed two or three polygraphs.
They put him under hypnosis to get his story. NANCY GRACE: While police strongly suspect Rodney McCoy,
Carla's family is convinced he's innocent. I knew that Rodney was being talked to a whole lot
by law enforcement, and Rodney was always, kind of, quiet. Matter of fact, until they found Carla's body from the time
Rodney came back from the hospital here in Fort Worth after the assault, until I think after Carla's funeral,
Rodney stayed at our house. He stayed upstairs. He slept in Carla's bed. That's how much we loved him and how much he loved us.
It starts to become pretty clear to original detectives that Rodney did not do this.
With being interviewed by the police and a cloud of suspicion hanging over him from his peers, I can't
imagine how hard it was on him. And in fact, upon graduation, he left the area pretty much for good.
NANCY GRACE: Police clear Rodney McCoy is a suspect and began looking for any new leads.
You know, they came in every form and fashion. The police department received letters, stating it was
this person that killed Carla. You know, I think that's true with any cold case, that you're
going to get these, kind of, letters. We got many, actually, through the years of people saying they knew things,
or that they were the killer. I mean, we heard all kinds of things like that. I think that's true with any cold case.
What I am particularly proud to say in this case is that Fort Worth PD looked into every single lead
they were given. NANCY GRACE: When police looked into local owners of a Ruger 22 pistol, they find a possible crack in one gun owner's story.
Every single Ruger that was accounted for was normal people. They had their guns, still.
They were accounted for. They had their clips. But there was one that was not accounted for,
and this individual told police that it had been stolen, approximately, six weeks before Carla's abduction.
But he had bought a magazine since for this gun, and police found that a little bit strange.
But he told them, well, I'm going to purchase another Ruger to replace the one that got stolen.
That was his excuse, and the police said, OK. Well, he took a polygraph test, and he passed.
And he was on his way. NANCY GRACE: A gun owner with a suspicious story is eventually cleared after passing a lie detector test.
One lead after the next dries up, and the murder investigation of teen girl Carla Walker
goes cold. It will take years and amazing forensic science to reopen the case. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. Carla Walker and her boyfriend Rodney McCoy are at a high school Valentine's dance.
In the parking lot, Carla Walker's abducted by a man who beats the boyfriend Rodney unconscious with a gun.
Three days later, teen girl Carla found dead-- the victim of a brutal sex attack.
The case goes cold for nearly 50 years. Fast forward to 2020, Detective Jeff Bennett and his team
reopen the case, hoping to find the teen's killer, once and for all. Started from the very beginning going
through the original police reports, the original crime scene photos, and then, looking at all
the people that had been interviewed from the very beginning. So trying to determine if people were excluded,
why were they excluded? And was that a good enough reason for them to still be excluded today?
We have new technology, new developments. There were a number of people who were excluded purely based on the fact
that they passed a polygraph. When I was going back through the files, put this individual back on the suspect list
and ended up with having 83 people on our suspect list. The first thing investigators want to do
is obtain a crucial DNA sample from Carla's clothing. If they can get that sample, they'll
be able to enter it into the National DNA database called CODIS. We looked at what was there, Carla's dress, her panties,
her bra, Rodney's shirt. There were just a number of items that we still had that have been preserved all these years.
We did some more testing, and we realized we actually had a semen stain on the back of the dress that
did have a male profile that was not Rodney. That was really the biggest tipping point.
So we send the bra to SERI, Serological Research Institute in California, and we sent a couple of items off to SERI
to have tested, including the dress. And SERI was able to develop a full DNA profile off of the bra, which was then uploaded into CODIS.
And we did not get a hit. NANCY GRACE: Cold case team's frustrated and worried this 50-year-old murder may never be solved.
First off, it was a surprise. Everyone thought, well, if we can just find something that can go into CODIS, we will solve this.
And also, it was just heartbreaking. NANCY GRACE: Since there are no matches from the CODIS National
Database, detectives decide to use another and newer forensic technique, the same one that
cracked the infamous Golden State Killer case. It's called genetic genealogy. And they were unable to develop
a profile sufficient enough for them to work the genetic genealogy. So it was at that point that we were pretty devastated, felt
like we had hit a brick wall. Jeff Bennett was pretty frustrated, and he reached out to Paul Halls, who
had done a television show for them and said, look, you know, we have a little bit of DNA left.
Is there anywhere we can send this? And he told me about David Mittleman and Arthur Othram.
And he said, they had been in contact with him, that they told him that they were bringing new technology
into forensics, whole genome sequencing, and that they were able to work with very small amounts of DNA,
as long as it was not degraded, and it was good quality. Othram is the first and only lab
in the world that is purpose built to use advanced genomics for forensics. So all we do is identify perpetrators
or victims from evidence found at a crime scene. I've been doing DNA for 20 plus years.
I met David, who is a CEO of the company, but also my husband, at Baylor College of Medicine, 20 plus years ago.
Question is, what's been done in this case? What didn't work? Why didn't it work?
Is there an opportunity for our technology to help. We have really great technology, but not every case
is a perfect fit for this technology. You cannot examine DNA without consuming it,
without destroying it. It's a destructive process. You try to use as little as possible,
but it's a destructive process. So you don't want to touch any more than we have to,
unless we know we can bring value. Genome sequencing is a reaction that's done in the lab that allows you to look
at the makeup of your DNA or the DNA that was found in the evidence. Jeff Bennett and Leo Wagner actually came out in person.
They drove down, spent several hours to the lab toward the facility. They were understandably a little
bit cautious because they had just been through this experience and had a negative outcome.
It was a high quality lab. They had all of their chain of custody protocols in place,
and we were very comfortable with Othram. So we had that DNA shipped off to him.
They sent us this final remaining quantity of DNA, and it's the last of the DNA.
There's really nothing else there. So a little bit of pressure because we didn't want to,
of course, let the agency down, the family down, and then also let Paul Halls down after we had
told him to give us a chance. When we received it, it was an extract already. And we were able to take that extract do our analysis on it,
be able to figure out what was in the extract, make it look as single source and fresh as you possibly could
so that you can get one of the best sequencing profiles. They take our DNA sample, and they
try to figure out who in the world through ancestry DNA is the most like you. And so, they take the whole genome, and they look at it.
And they look for similarities. Because that goes to show relationships. And they try to get as close as they can
to a relationship that involves. The way I like to think about it is, when we do
normal genetic genealogy, we are the tree, and we're looking for the branches. But when we're doing this, we have the branches,
and we're looking for the tree. And so, you put it in GEDmatch, and you try to figure out how close a sample do I have
just out there in GEDmatch. And then from there, how does that relate to public records,
or birth and death records, or marriage records to try and get to a certain family--
not a certain name, but a certain family of people that we should look at for a suspect.
The quantity was actually pretty decent. It's low quantity, low quality for a typical process.
But for Othram, it is on the higher end of things we had seen. So we were very fortunate.
It was like five weeks later, the profile comes off the machine. My lab director is looking at it.
We take a look, and we're looking at some of the information that we got from it.
And it was July 4. It was when this happened on a Saturday. We were like, I think we have an answer already.
And so, we wanted to pass the initial information back to Jeff Bennett. They made this discovery.
They worked all night. And they realized, oh, my gosh, we have a family that has men in their family
that would be about the right age, that live in Fort Worth, which is just-- it's literally what we've been
waiting almost 50 years for. And so, they wait as long as they can to call Detective Bennett.
When I see his name on my phone, I know, at that point that he has an answer for me.
And I felt like it was going to be good news, or else, he wouldn't be calling on a holiday.
And we start walking through the tree. And what we do is, we like to talk about the families.
And then, we get to the possible parents. And then, if the parents have had a number of children.
So we're beginning to narrow in there, but we got, I think, to the family and to the surname.
And he cut us off. And he said, wait a second. I know the surname. And he told me McCurley.
And I recognized that name immediately. In fact, I told David, I said, I think that individual's like number 22 on my suspect list.
Let me grab my binder. Othram thinks they're going to give him this name, and Detective Bennett will be like, great.
Let me get to work on that. I'll call you back. But instead, he goes, wait a minute.
Hold on. Because it was a name that Detective Bennett knew from the file, which, first off, goes
to show you how well Detective Bennett knew the file. Because that file had hundreds, if not
thousands of suspects in it, and people who had been interviewed. And Detective Bennett remembered,
there had been a man with that last name interviewed in 1974. I told him, is it Glenn Samuel McCurley?
And David says, well, we're down to Glenn Samuel McCurley, but the problem is, he died in 1972 and your offense is 1974.
And I asked him, I said, did he have a junior? Did they have a son that was Glenn Samuel McCurley Jr?
And they said, bingo, we have a Glenn Samuel McCurley Jr. And he had two brothers, and Glenn was the only one living
in Fort Worth at the time. The other two brothers, one was living in the Northwest,
and one was in the military overseas. There was a gentleman with the surname that had actually
come up earlier in the investigation, back when Carla's body was found. He had owned, at some point, a weapon
that resembled the remains of a weapon that was left at the scene. Because he had this a serendipitous moment in which
he already had information on someone that was under consideration, he took that lead and ran with it.
When Detective Bennett first opened this case in 2019, one of the first things he did was go through and just make
a list of people that he thought, from the file alone, maybe weren't completely cleared.
And number 22 on his list was Glenn Samuel McCurley. NANCY GRACE: 50 years after Carla Walker's sex assault
and murder, investigators finally have a prime suspect and a name to go with it--
Glen Samuel McCurley. But now, they've got to find him. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
Fort Worth, Texas, 1974. Teen girl Carla Walker and her boyfriend, Rodney McCoy,
brutally attacked after a Valentine's Day school dance. Rodney, beaten unconscious with a gun.
Carla, kidnapped. Three days later, her body found. She has been brutally raped and murdered.
The case goes cold nearly 50 years. But thanks to Othram Labs and its incredible work
with forensic, genetic genealogy, cops finally have a name-- Glenn Samuel McCurley.
So the first thing we do is, we identify where McCurley lives, then we have an officer go over to that neighborhood
and knock on the McCurley store, basically do a welfare check. They're an elderly couple at this point.
He was 31 at the time that Carla was attacked. He's now 77 years old. We first need to get a covert or surreptitious sample
to make sure that the person you're targeting does actually match the DNA that is on the bra.
After we determined that they lived in this house within the next couple of days, we
had officers go out there in the middle of the night and collect the trash off the curb
so that we can locate items to test for DNA. There were a lot of food containers, cups, cans.
We had a number of items that we sent off for testing. And in this case, SERI called and said,
yes, you've got a match. And so now, the detectives are able to get a search warrant.
We elected to interview him in his living room, and Mrs. Mccurley was present during the interview.
More times you can get a suspect talking, the better. And when they don't know that they're
a suspect, even better, right? And so, they want to come in and start doing a consensual interview, and the McCurleys
were absolutely welcoming. Come on in. Have a seat. Let's chat. At some point, Mr. Mccurley starts
not being quite as forthcoming, but his wife continues to be. So I asked Mr. Mccurley what he was doing the week
that Carla was abducted. And he said, well, my wife doesn't drive. And so, I was probably driving her to work and back and forth.
And we were always together. And Mrs. Mccurley very clearly remembered that she was out
of town that week, that her father was having surgery, and reminded Glen that she wasn't in town.
She was in West Texas, visiting her family All of that is on the tape, which is just gold, because there goes an alibi, right?
It's out there, that he is alone that weekend. Detective Wagner asked him if it would be OK if we got a swab
from him to obtain his DNA. And he told us that they did that back in 1974, when they
talked to me the first time. And Mrs. Mccurley made it clear to him that, no, they didn't because they
didn't have DNA in 1974, honey. And I guess he felt somewhat obligated to give us his buccal swab after that.
That comes back in about six days. And that buccal swab is a match to the straw and the bra.
So we got an arrest warrant written and signed that day by a judge, and Mr. Mccurley was
arrested on September 21, 2020. At that point, I had to be honest with you, I-- I was just thanking God because we now knew who he was.
50 years, hundreds of police officers, and thousands of man hours have passed, Fort Worth Police
are finally ready to make an arrest in the 1974 rape and murder of teen girl Carla Walker.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." Fort Worth, Texas, 2020. Police staked out in front of now 77-year-old Glenn
Samuel McCurley's home. And they are ready to nab him in the 1974 rape and murder
of teen girl Carla Walker. So we have a fugitive unit, and they went to the McCurley's residence.
And they placed Glen under arrest for capital murder and brought him back to our office,
where we interrogated him. They needed to get some information from him. And when they first bring him into the interview,
McCurley is very much denying knowing anything, even though a week before, he had spoken with them
and admitted he knew who Carla Walker was. He remembers lots of details. All of a sudden, when they're in this interview room,
and he's under arrest for her murder, he's claiming he doesn't even know who she is.
Which is a lie. We know he knew her. Besides the fact he'd been interviewed multiple times now
at this point, his own children went to the same high school as Carla. And there was a big memorial for Carla,
that you had to walk across to even go into the school. Even if he was not involved in this case,
he would have known who Carla Walker was. It was an exciting moment, but it was still a sad moment.
You know, we felt very strongly that his family, that they were victims, too, in this.
Under intense questioning, Glen Samuel McCurley confirms most of the facts about Carla Walker's last night
alive, but, still, there's one piece of the puzzle missing where's the gun he used,
that Ruger 22 pistol. He had told us about his gun. That's why they initially went out and talked
with Glen McCurley was to ask him about his gun, which he said had been stolen about six weeks prior
to them talking to him, which was prior to Carla being abducted. At the very end of the interview,
just we continued to press him on the gun. And he dropped his head at one moment.
And he said, I've got it. So he described an area off of his laundry room, up in a ceiling in a soffit behind some paneling.
He described the exact location. NANCY GRACE: At a pretrial hearing, something truly remarkable happens
in the courtroom, something that may restore faith in mankind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jim Walker starting
to cross across the courtroom. And I remember turning to my investigator, like you need to go get him.
Like, this is about to be bad because that is my experience in the courtrooms. And I look over, and I see him lean
in and speak to McCurley's son. What I saw was a man who was a victim in a different way.
His dad had victimized his own family, and I had-- God just put on my heart to show compassion, love.
And then, I see them embracing. And then, I just stood there, like what is happening?
That show of grace that I can't even begin to understand myself. And I get emotional even thinking about it.
Because the reality is, you don't see this in court, moments of beautiful humanity,
but on this day, I did. NANCY GRACE: Glen Samuel McCurley finally admits his guilt after 47 years.
On day three of trial, he changes his plea from not guilty to guilty. And he's sentenced to life behind bars.
Police are hopeful that both families can now move forward and come to peace knowing the truth, especially
Rodney McCoy. Rodney is truly-- he's a victim. Rodney is a survivor. Rodney is good.
He's kind. He would have given his life for Carla without hesitation. If I could say the one biggest regret I have about this case
is that I never got to know the Walkers, and I know, through their children, the legacy of love,
and of dedication, and of devotion. But I would like to have been able to tell them
that we solve the case. This case will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I've developed a lifelong friend in Jim Walker.
NANCY GRACE: The "Bloodline Detectives" also reflect on how critical genetic genealogy
is to solving this case. I think genetic genealogy is the future of police investigations in real time,
eventually, as a matter of fact. David Mittleman and Othram, they're doing incredible things
with DNA, and we look forward to working with Othram among many, many more cases going forward.
Carla's case has been resolved, but there's so much more work to do. And I think that's the reason God brought me into alignment
and relationship with Detective Wagner and Detective Bennett and David and Kristen Mittleman.
Resolution in Carla's case is good, but we've got a lot of work to do, and we're going to work to help a lot
of other Carla Walker families. Finally, Carla Walker's case is solved, thanks to the incredible science of genetic genealogy.
You know, the more people whose DNA becomes available, the more crimes, like Carla's case, can be solved.
But Carla Walker's case is about more than science. It is about the sheer will of hundreds
of people who work to bring a resolution to the victims' families. It's also a lesson about forgiveness,
when the family of a victim actually comforts the family of a killer. I'm Nancy Grace.
Thank you for joining us on this incredible episode of "Bloodline Detectives."

Fort Worth, Texas, 1974, 17-year-old Carla Walker is celebrating Valentine’s Day with her boyfriend when she is kidnapped and brutally raped and murdered. All investigative leads run dry, but nearly 46 years later, genetic science brings the agonizing search to an end. Now in its third season, Bloodline Detectives is the leading true crime series that explores how police departments harness genetic genealogy to solve crimes that were once considered "unsolvable," bringing long-awaited answers to victims' families.

=============== Like, comment and subscribe if you’re ready for more true crime. Your favorite shows like World’s Most Evil Killers, Meet Marry Murder, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, Murdered At First Sight and Bloodline Detectives are all available to stream 24/7 for free via the FilmRise Streaming Network. You can access The FilmRise Streaming Network through most free App Platforms and Smart TV portals such as Amazon Fire TV, The Roku Channel, Android, iOS and many more.

Brief Summary

Carla Walker's 1974 murder case is solved using genetic genealogy, identifying Glenn Samuel McCurley as the killer nearly 50 years later.

Key points

The Abduction. Carla Walker is abducted from a Valentine's dance, leaving her boyfriend unconscious.
Gruesome Discovery. Three days later, police discover Carla's body in a culvert, shifting the investigation.
Community Shock. The Fort Worth community is devastated by the news of Carla's brutal murder.
Suspicions Arise. Rodney McCoy becomes the prime suspect, but the community rallies around him.
Cold Case Reopened. Decades later, detectives use new forensic techniques to reopen Carla's case.
Prime Suspect Identified. After nearly 50 years, investigators finally pinpoint Glenn Samuel McCurley as a suspect.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'll go with you. Just stop hitting him.

Carla's last words to her abductor.

4:40WatchMar 29, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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