daughter’s murder,” Tammy replied hopefully.
Sweet was at a loss. He didn’t know of anything new. But there were six other detectives, plus their supervisors, in the bureau; it was possible, he told her, that he hadn’t heard about a break in the case. “Let me talk to the other detectives,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you.”
When the others returned from lunch, Sweet asked if anybody had new information on the Roxann Reyes case but drew a blank. He called Tammy Lopez back and apologized that there was nothing to report.
After they hung up, Sweet kept hearing the sad, desperate tone of the woman’s voice. More than ten years had passed since some unknown killer had murdered her little girl, but her grief was still palpable, and the lack of resolution hung over her like a poisonous fog. He would never forget the sound of her voice as she asked questions for which he had no answers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
June 27, 2000
T wo years later, habit and fate would intersect a second time. Sweet was again sitting alone in the office during the lunch hour when the telephone at one of the other detectives’ desks jingled. Unanswered, it fell silent; then a telephone on another unmanned desk rang.
He was no longer a rookie with the crimes against persons bureau, but a seasoned vet who’d investigated hundreds of violent crimes and dozens of murders and had never lost a case he’d filed with the District Attorney’s Office in Dallas. But no matter how many cases he closed, his desk was always cluttered with files he was currently working on, leaving only enough room for a few photographs of his family.
As the unanswered telephone call jumped back and forth across the room from desk to desk, Sweet found it mildly amusing to check off the names of the detectives who preceded him alphabetically. Whoever was calling obviously hadn’t specifically asked for him, and yet as he waited for the call to make its way inexorably to the telephone on which he rested his right hand, it was as if he was being sought out for some task he’d already been chosen to complete.
“Criminal Investigations, this is Detective Sweet.”
“There’s a Detective Teft from Fort Worth PD on the line,” the receptionist replied.
“Thank you, transfer the call to me.” He had no idea who Detective Teft was or wanted; he assumed the Fort Worth detective might want help locating a suspect or a witness in Garland.
When the call was patched through, a woman introduced herself as Det. Diane Teft. She said she’d been in contact with an Ohio prison inmate named Jeffrey Sunnycalb regarding the case of Julie Fuller, a 14-year-old girl from the Fort Worth area who on June 23, 1983, had been abducted and murdered. Sunnycalb had written her a letter saying that a former cellmate, David Elliot Penton, had indicated that Julie was one of his victims.
Teft said she followed up with a telephone call to Sunnycalb in prison, during which he told her that he and Penton had lived together for three years while incarcerated at Warren Correctional Facility near Lebanon, Ohio. Both men were housed in a segregated section of the prison for sex offenders to keep them safe from other prisoners.
Apparently, Penton liked to spend his time boasting about abducting, raping, and murdering little girls all over the country. One of them was Julie Fuller, but Penton supposedly had also named three other Texas victims: Christi Meeks from Mesquite, Christie Proctor from Plano, and Roxann Reyes from Garland.
Sweet’s detective radar flipped on at the mention of an inmate from Ohio named David Penton and recalled that day he first looked through the Roxann Reyes file boxes in the murder closet and saw Penton’s name on the list of possible suspects. He’d continued to think of Roxann often throughout the two years since her mother called, the heartbroken woman’s voice haunting him. He also recognized the names Christi Meeks and Christie Proctor.
The Fort Worth
Sweet was at a loss. He didn’t know of anything new. But there were six other detectives, plus their supervisors, in the bureau; it was possible, he told her, that he hadn’t heard about a break in the case. “Let me talk to the other detectives,” he said, “and I’ll get back to you.”
When the others returned from lunch, Sweet asked if anybody had new information on the Roxann Reyes case but drew a blank. He called Tammy Lopez back and apologized that there was nothing to report.
After they hung up, Sweet kept hearing the sad, desperate tone of the woman’s voice. More than ten years had passed since some unknown killer had murdered her little girl, but her grief was still palpable, and the lack of resolution hung over her like a poisonous fog. He would never forget the sound of her voice as she asked questions for which he had no answers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
June 27, 2000
T wo years later, habit and fate would intersect a second time. Sweet was again sitting alone in the office during the lunch hour when the telephone at one of the other detectives’ desks jingled. Unanswered, it fell silent; then a telephone on another unmanned desk rang.
He was no longer a rookie with the crimes against persons bureau, but a seasoned vet who’d investigated hundreds of violent crimes and dozens of murders and had never lost a case he’d filed with the District Attorney’s Office in Dallas. But no matter how many cases he closed, his desk was always cluttered with files he was currently working on, leaving only enough room for a few photographs of his family.
As the unanswered telephone call jumped back and forth across the room from desk to desk, Sweet found it mildly amusing to check off the names of the detectives who preceded him alphabetically. Whoever was calling obviously hadn’t specifically asked for him, and yet as he waited for the call to make its way inexorably to the telephone on which he rested his right hand, it was as if he was being sought out for some task he’d already been chosen to complete.
“Criminal Investigations, this is Detective Sweet.”
“There’s a Detective Teft from Fort Worth PD on the line,” the receptionist replied.
“Thank you, transfer the call to me.” He had no idea who Detective Teft was or wanted; he assumed the Fort Worth detective might want help locating a suspect or a witness in Garland.
When the call was patched through, a woman introduced herself as Det. Diane Teft. She said she’d been in contact with an Ohio prison inmate named Jeffrey Sunnycalb regarding the case of Julie Fuller, a 14-year-old girl from the Fort Worth area who on June 23, 1983, had been abducted and murdered. Sunnycalb had written her a letter saying that a former cellmate, David Elliot Penton, had indicated that Julie was one of his victims.
Teft said she followed up with a telephone call to Sunnycalb in prison, during which he told her that he and Penton had lived together for three years while incarcerated at Warren Correctional Facility near Lebanon, Ohio. Both men were housed in a segregated section of the prison for sex offenders to keep them safe from other prisoners.
Apparently, Penton liked to spend his time boasting about abducting, raping, and murdering little girls all over the country. One of them was Julie Fuller, but Penton supposedly had also named three other Texas victims: Christi Meeks from Mesquite, Christie Proctor from Plano, and Roxann Reyes from Garland.
Sweet’s detective radar flipped on at the mention of an inmate from Ohio named David Penton and recalled that day he first looked through the Roxann Reyes file boxes in the murder closet and saw Penton’s name on the list of possible suspects. He’d continued to think of Roxann often throughout the two years since her mother called, the heartbroken woman’s voice haunting him. He also recognized the names Christi Meeks and Christie Proctor.
The Fort Worth
Similar Books
