Creepy Unsolved Mysteries from Texas

There is something about unexplained mysteries that compels attention. The number of unsolved crimes in Texas is higher than in most states, due both to the sheer size of the Lone Star State and also to the amount of empty, desolate space where crimes can be committed with no chance of being discovered. Even as cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin grow their populations into the millions, there are still areas near each urban center where it is possible to be entirely off the grid.

That is why this creepy Texas list features crimes from the past, but also from the modern day. With improvements in evidence collecting, DNA testing, and all the other modern tools used by law enforcement, you would imagine that some of these cold cases will eventually be solved. For now, though, this list takes you through some of the most bizarre, most brutal, and most shocking crimes that ever took place in the great state of Texas.

The Amber Hagerman case is one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in America. On January 13, 1996, the nine-year-old girl was abducted while riding her bike in Arlington. Four days later, a man walking his dog found her body in a storm drain, naked, with a slashed throat.

Amber had been seen being forced into a black pickup truck, but the time it took to alert authorities and then get the word out to the public was too slow to save her. The AMBER Alert system used today in America was developed as a direct result of this crime and over 700 children have been found and saved as a result.

 

A serial killer, popularly known as the Servant Girl Annihilator, worked the city of Austin between 1884 and 1885. The series of murders was referred to by contemporary sources as "the Servant Girl Murders." The December 26, 1885 issue of the New York Times reported that the "murders were committed by some cunning madman, who is insane on the subject of killing women."

There were eight known victims of the Servant Girl Annihilator, all murdered with an ax. In most cases, the murderer would enter women's homes, knock them unconscious, drag them outside, and murder them outdoors.

The Annihilator was never identified, though some think he may have been Jack the Ripper on a trip to the US.

There is a stretch of I-45 South between Houston and Galveston where the bodies of more than 30 young women and children have been found since the 1970s. The Texas Killing Fields have been described as "a perfect place for killing someone and getting away with it" by a federal agent who has been working the case unsuccessfully for years.

It is widely assumed that much of the killing here is done by a single serial killer, but there has never been enough evidence to find the killer and lock him up.

On the morning of June 25, 1981, the wife of Willard Baugh went to the Cross Roads Tavern just outside of Port Lavaca to locate her husband. She entered the bar to find her husband, along with three women, all shot execution-style in the head. The three women (the tavern owner, an occasional customer, and a waitress) were all dead at the scene. Baugh clung to life for 28 days before succumbing to his wounds. With over 100 people in the bar that night, collecting evidence was a nightmare, and the case has never come close to being solved.

Weekends between February 22, 1946 and May 3, 1946 were very dangerous in and around Texarkana, Texas. That spring a serial killer known as "the Phantom Killer" attacked eight people in a ten-week span, five of whom died. The attacks only occurred late at night and were usually three weeks apart.

The attacks caused Texarkana to shut down at sundown. The Texas Rangers, including the famous M. T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas, were drafted to help catch the Phantom Killer. Recent investigations point to Youell Swinney as the likely culprit, but he was never arrested or convicted for the murders. 

On October 31, 1979, a white female wearing only orange socks was found in a culvert alongside Interstate 35 near Georgetown. The woman had been sexually assaulted, strangled to death, and then thrown from an overpass. The woman has never been identified, and though convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the crime, his confession was recanted. (Lucas confessed to upwards of 3,000 murders, so his admission had always been in doubt.) The "Orange Socks" case is still unsolved

On June 23, 1965, police officers forced their way into the house of Fred and Edwina Rogers at the request of their nephew Marvin, who was concerned that his phone calls had gone unanswered for a couple of days. The police checked the house and eventually an officer found what he thought to be numerous pieces of a butchered hog in the refrigerator. As he was closing the refrigerator door, the officer saw two human heads in the vegetable bins. The heads were those of Fred and Edwina.

The meat was the limbs and torsos of the two victims. Fred had been killed with blows to the head by a claw hammer before having his eyes gouged out and his penis removed. Edwina was beaten and shot execution-style. The couple's son Charles Rogers disappeared right after the murders and remains the only suspect in a case that is officially unsolved.

On December 6, 1991, an Austin police officer saw a fire coming from an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop on his patrol. After the fire was put out, the bodies of four young girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were found in the charred belly of the store. The girls were naked, they had been bound and gagged with their own clothing, some had been raped, and each had been shot in the head.

Over 50 people have confessed to the killings, including Kenneth McDuff, a known serial killer who was ruled out as a suspect and later executed in 1998. Two men, Robert Springsteen Jr. and Michael Scott, were convicted of the crime, but have since been released due to lack of evidence.

The "Lover's Lane" murders took place in an undeveloped wooded area of West Houston on the night of August 23, 1990. That night, 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and her 21-year-old boyfriend Andy Atkinson parked in a deserted spot to do what lovers do. This was a known spot for young couples in the area.

The couple's car was found at the scene, with their bodies in the woods close by. Cheryl had been raped and then killed by having her throat slashed. She was found half-buried under a pile of wood. Andy was killed second, having to watch the brutal murder of his girlfriend, and was found tied to a tree, nearly decapitated. 

The case is still a big deal in the Houston area, so much so that a Facebook page dedicated to solving it exists.

On July 27, 1979, one of Alys Rankin's coworkers went to pick her up from her Orchard Apartments home in southwest Houston. The coworker, Bob Smith, arrived to find the door slightly open. Going inside, he found Rankin lying naked in her bed, her feet tied together, with a pillow over her upper body. When he moved the pillow he saw her head had been cut off. She had also been sexually assaulted.

Two weeks later, and two floors above Rankin, the body of Mary Michael Calcutta was found in her bathroom. She had been stabbed multiple times, so hard that the knife blade bent. The working theory is that these were just two of potentially many victims of an unidentified serial killer.