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Brother of victim angered by plea
deal for suspected serial killer
January 8, 2009
FORT WORTH — A suspected serial killer serving a life
sentence for killing a Fort Worth nurse in 1986 pleaded guilty Wednesday
to the kidnapping and killings of two other Tarrant County women in
exchange for avoiding the death penalty.
Curtis Don Brown, who police have called a "person of
interest" in several unsolved killings of Tarrant County women in the
mid-1980s, testified Wednesday and admitted to killing Terece Gregory,
29, and Sharyn Kills Back, 18, in separate kidnappings in 1985.
In exchange for his plea, Brown will be sentenced to
two life terms that will run consecutively.
The plea agreement incensed at least one relative of
the one of the victims, who called the deal "a crime in itself."
The agreement came less than a week before jury
selection was to begin in the Terece Gregory case, in which prosecutors
intended to seek the death penalty.
Jim Gregory, Terece Gregory’s brother, did not attend
the hearing but had harsh words for the district attorney’s office
regarding the plea deal, stating he could not have been more emphatic
that the death penalty be pursued in his sister’s case. Gregory, who
lives in Arizona, accused prosecutors of doing "absolutely nothing" in
regard to the case, other than to reschedule it.
"The scum is already serving a life sentence for the murder of Jewel
Woods," Gregory said in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram on Wednesday. "Another
life sentence is the equivalent of his receiving no punishment for this
crime. It is disgusting, and, as far as I’m concerned, a crime in itself."
Meanwhile, Suzanna Kills Back, Sharyn Kills Back’s
older sister, said her family is pleased with the plea agreement and
grateful that they will not need to attend Brown’s trial. Kills Back
said she did not care whether prosecutors sought the death penalty, "as
long as he paid for what he’d done."
"I was kind of getting scared the closer we were
getting to the trial," Suzanna Kills Back said. "I told my sister I
didn’t know if I could handle it."
Prosecutor Christy Jack, who prosecuted the case
along with Alan Levy, defended the plea agreement.
"I can understand Mr. Gregory’s anger. There are some
wounds that will never heal even after 20 years, and certainly losing a
beloved sister is one of those wounds," Jack said.
"But he’s eligible for parole right now in the Jewel
Woods case and so, with the addition of these two capital life sentences,
there’s no doubt he’ll stay in prison the rest of his life. He’ll die in
prison, and it’s no longer left up to the Board of Pardons and Parole."
Tim Moore, who, along with attorney Bill Ray,
defended Brown, said he believed that the plea was a "very wise decision"
on Brown’s part.
"I thought there was a strong possibility if a jury
convicted him that . . . he would get the death penalty," Moore said.
The cases
Brown had served 19 years of a life sentence for
killing Jewel Woods, a 51-year-old nurse, outside her east Fort Worth
apartment when police learned in February 2005 that a DNA database had
linked his profile to semen found in the body of Terece Gregory, a
waitress.
Her body was found floating in the Trinity River on
May 30, 1985, a gunshot wound to her face. She was last seen alive a day
earlier while driving away from a downtown Fort Worth bar.
Gregory’s death had been one in a string of homicides
of women in Tarrant County in the 1980s that sparked fears that a serial
killer was on the loose.
The link prompted Fort Worth police to re-examine 25
unsolved homicides that occurred while Brown lived in Tarrant County,
and determined that more than a dozen required a closer look.
Arlington detectives also re-examined their cold
cases for possible links to Brown. In September 2005, they received
confirmation that Brown’s DNA matched semen recovered from the body and
clothing of Kills Back, an Arlington resident and member of the Oglala
Sioux tribe. She was found strangled with a rope around her neck in a
south Arlington storm drain on March 23, 1985. She had disappeared a
week earlier while walking to a friend’s house.
Dressed in a green Tarrant County Jail jumpsuit and
wearing glasses, Brown offered little insight Wednesday into the murders
of the two women when he twice took the stand. He answered "yes sir" as
Levy asked him whether he was responsible for shooting Gregory in the
face and strangling Kills Back.
When asked where he had met Terece Gregory, Brown
paused several seconds before replying, "I don’t remember the name, but
the area was Woodhaven." Brown was not asked for, nor did he offer, any
additional details about how he encountered Kills Back in Arlington.
Other homicides
Though police had called Brown a "person of interest"
in the other unsolved slayings, prosecutors say Brown had not been
scientifically linked to them.
Homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton declined to discuss the
status of evidence in those homicides but said Brown has not been
eliminated as a suspect.
"The proximity and time and details surrounding the
death of Ms. Gregory and Ms. Kills Back indicate a possible connection
to the other cases," Thornton said. "We certainly will not rule out such
a relationship and will continue to pursue those investigations for the
benefit of the victims and their families."
Moore would not comment on the other unsolved cases.
"My gut feeling is, they’ve had 3 1/2 years to
investigate those other homicides and if they haven’t linked him to them
yet, I doubt they will," Moore said.
Gregg Woods, Jewel Woods’ son, is among those who
believe that Brown may have had more victims.
"For the past three years my heart has gone out to
both the Gregory family and the Kills Back family," Woods said Wednesday.
"Today it is being extended to the surviving family members of his other
unknown victims. Those families will always be held in my prayers."
Woods said he was disappointed in 1986 when
prosecutors in his mother’s case struck a deal with Brown, allowing him
to plead guilty to murder and burglary of a habitation in exchange for
two life sentences to run concurrently. Brown snuck into Jewel Woods’
apartment, ambushed the woman and then dragged her to a weed-filled lot
where she was raped and beaten to death with a rock.
Still, Gregg Woods said he believes that the plea
agreement reached Wednesday is positive because Brown will never be
released from prison.
"This result is a big improvement over what was
accomplished in 1986 with two concurrent life terms and eligibility for
parole after seven years," Woods said.
Levy said prosecutors had offered the plea agreement
to Brown, which he had initially rejected, with the top priority of
keeping him off the streets.
"Here’s what you have to ask yourself: 'What’s in the
public’s interest?’ " Levy said. "Is it better to make sure this guy
never, ever gets out and you have a sure thing, or is it better to the
roll the dice? Because if you miss, you’re done."
Suspected serial killer indicted in third slaying
March 25, 2008
A 49-year-old convicted killer who is already serving
a life sentence for one murder and awaiting trial in a second slaying
has now been indicted in a third.
Curtis Don Brown -- who has been called a "person of
interest" in more than a dozen unsolved homicides from the 1980s -- was
indicted this week in connection with the strangulation of Sharyn Kills
Back, 18, who disappeared March 15, 1985.
A plumber discovered Kills Back's body on March 23,
1985, in a south Arlington storm drain near the 1400 block of Bandera
Drive. Her face and the front of her body were caked in mud. A rope was
around her neck.
Kills Back, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, moved
off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota at age 16 and was
living and working in Arlington when she was killed, relatives have said.
Her slaying went unsolved for more than 20 years,
until September 2005, when police learned that Brown had been linked
through a DNA database to Kills Back's rape and strangulation.
Kills Back's case had been reopened several months
earlier, after Fort Worth Detective Manny Reyes and homicide Sgt. J.D.
Thornton told Arlington investigators that they suspected Brown might be
responsible for several slayings in the Metroplex in the mid-1980s.
At the time, Brown had served 19 years of a life
sentence for the murder of Jewel Woods, a 51-year-old nurse, in 1986
outside her east Fort Worth apartment. He had also recently been linked
by a DNA database to the slaying of Terece Gregory, 29, whose body was
found floating in the Trinity River on May 30, 1985. The day before,
Gregory had disappeared after driving away from the Caravan of Dreams, a
downtown Fort Worth nightclub. She had been raped and shot.
In July 2005, Brown was indicted on a capital murder
charge in Gregory's death. He was brought back to Fort Worth from prison
and remains in the Tarrant County Jail, awaiting trial in the Gregory
case. With his recent indictment in the Kills Back case, he can now be
prosecuted in that slaying as well.
The courthouse was closed Friday, so prosecutors were
not available for comment. Neither was Brown's attorney, Tim Moore.
But Alan Levy, chief of the criminal division of the
Tarrant County district attorney's office, has said that he plans to
seek the death penalty against Brown.
Levy was quoted in the Star-Telegram in 2005 as
saying that Brown's criminal past and the randomness with which he
selected his victims "certainly puts him in a category of murderers
likely to have multiple homicide victims."
Caught Cold
By Jesse Hyde - DallasObserver.com
October 12, 2006
Shortly after police announced that Brown was a
suspect in 18 unsolved slayings, most of them taking place between 1984
and 1986, a relative named Betty Phenix contacted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
to speak in his behalf. According to Phenix, Brown had a troubled
childhood, marked by tragedy and crime. His mother was burned in a house
fire in 1972 that killed two of her children. One was 3 years old, and
the other was just 5 1/2 months. Brown, who was 13 at the time, escaped
unharmed.
When he was in his mid-20s he came to Texas to live
with his mother, who had moved to Fort Worth from their native
California. By then, he had already served time for armed robbery.
In 1984 he married, and a year later he had a
daughter. He worked sporadically as a laborer and as a machinist.
In 1986, he pleaded guilty to raping and killing
Jewel Woods, a 51-year-old nurse, in her Fort Worth home. Police say he
beat her to death with a rock. He was found about a half-hour later, out
of breath and sweating, carrying two purses wrapped in a towel. One
carried Woods' identification. Her body, nude from the waist down, was
found the next morning near her apartment in a patch of tall weeds.
Police believe that wasn't the first woman Brown
killed. His first victim may have been Catherine Davis, an aspiring
model who went missing on September 30, 1984. By December of that year,
eight women were missing. Throughout the city, but especially in the
neighborhoods near Texas Christian University, there was a growing fear
that a serial killer was among them.
The murder that drew the most attention was that of
Cindy Heller, a TCU graduate and former beauty contestant, who vanished
on October 22, 1984. That night she stopped to help a stranded motorist
and ended up sharing drinks with her. At about 11:30 p.m., they parted
ways. Heller was never seen alive again.
On January 5, just days after police had found
another body, a group of children playing near a creek on the TCU campus
noticed something odd floating in the water. Tangled in the branches of
a fallen tree, it appeared to be a headless corpse.
The children ran to tell their parents, who sent an
older boy to check it out. When he confirmed their story, the parents
called the police.
The press immediately speculated that it might be
Heller's body, because she had lived a half-mile away from the creek.
Identifying the body was difficult because it had been decomposing for
months. Most of the upper body, including the head, the right arm and
the chest had separated from the rest of the torso.
Firefighters pumped the creek and drained the three-acre
Worth Hills Lake the creek fed into. Eventually, they found enough to
identify the body as Heller's. Two hours later, another body was found,
that of a 20-year-old waitress named Lisa Griffin.
Most cops already thought there was a serial killer
on the loose. Reyes was a patrol officer at the time, and he was
instructed to stop and help any stranded female motorist. Some women
that he came upon were so scared they wouldn't even open their windows
to talk to him until he could prove he was a cop.
Shortly after Griffin's body was discovered, Fort
Worth police held a closed-door meeting and decided to form a task force
to look into the serial killings. But they never caught the killer.
Until now, Reyes believes.
While Brown has not been linked through DNA evidence
to the murder of Davis, Heller or Griffin (or any other woman who
disappeared through that four-month period between 1984 and 1985), Reyes
and others think he could be responsible for those slayings and more. So
far, DNA evidence has linked him to the murders of Terese Gregory, a 29-year-old
waitress killed in 1985, and Sharyn Kills Black, an 18-year-old also
killed that year.
"I can't pinpoint the exact number he may be
responsible for," says J.D. Thornton, who heads the Fort Worth homicide
division and is leading the investigation into whom Brown may have
killed. "We have eliminated him as a suspect in some of the murders--we
can't say which ones--but we're confident there's more. They're similar
enough in the victim's background, the m.o. and everything else. The
only ones I'm going to eliminate him on are the ones that occurred while
he was in prison."
Until Fort Worth police finish their investigation of
Brown, which has been going on for more than a year, no trial date will
be set. Brown's attorney, Tim Brown (no relation), says there has been
no talk of a plea bargain.
"He maintains his innocence. They've made him out to
be the serial killer of the '80s, and they only have DNA evidence
linking him to two murders. It's completely inaccurate."
There is, of course, the possibility that Brown and
Segundo are innocent of the murders Reyes has linked them to, or the
ones he suspects them of committing. After all, DNA evidence has been
successfully challenged across the country, often because the methods
used to test it were faulty.
But Reyes feels confident that both are guilty. "I'd
say it's about a one in a trillion chance we're wrong."
Convict charged in Arlington woman's 1985 death
Prosecutor says Curtis Don Brown is likely a serial
killer
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
September 28, 2005
The letter arrived at the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in South Dakota on March 14, 1985.
Sharyn Kills Back, 18, a member of the Oglala Sioux
tribe, wrote that she was coming home in two weeks to visit.
The next day, Sharyn disappeared.
A week later, members of her family received a phone
call from Arlington police, who informed them that Sharyn was dead,
found strangled with a rope in a south Arlington storm drain.
"She did come home in two weeks, but in a different
way," said Suzanna Kills Back, Sharyn's older sister.
For 20 years, the family prayed for an answer.
On Tuesday, another phone call from Arlington police
finally brought one. Curtis Don Brown, a convicted murderer recently
charged in another Fort Worth woman's 1985 slaying and a person of
interest in more than a dozen others, had been linked through a DNA
database to Sharyn's rape and strangulation.
Arlington police obtained a capital murder arrest
warrant Tuesday against Brown, who remains in the Tarrant County Jail.
"It's just a big relief," Suzanna Kills Back said. "I
want to go someplace and just holler out loud."
Alan Levy, chief of the criminal division of the
Tarrant County district attorney's office, said he plans to seek the
death penalty against Brown.
He said that Brown's criminal past and the randomness
with which he selected his victims "certainly puts him in a category of
murderers likely to have multiple homicide victims."
"It has all the earmarks of a serial killer," Levy
said. Asked whether he considers Brown a serial killer, Levy replied, "I
do now."
Tim Moore, Brown's attorney, said Tuesday he would
not discuss the latest accusation against his client until seeing the
evidence.
Fort Worth police "went to great lengths when these
murders were happening to assure the public that this wasn't a serial
killer," Moore said. "Now they want everyone to think it's the same
person, so I don't know where they're coming from."
Sharyn's case was reopened after Fort Worth cold case
Detective Manny Reyes and homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton met with Arlington
investigators in March, sharing their suspicions that Brown may be
responsible for several slayings in the area in the mid-1980s.
Brown had already served 19 years of a life sentence
for murdering Jewel Woods, a 51-year-old nurse, outside her east Fort
Worth apartment in 1986, when Fort Worth police learned in February that
a DNA database had linked his profile to semen found on the body of
Terece Gregory.
Gregory, 29, was found floating in the Trinity River
on May 30, 1985, one day after she had disappeared after driving away
from a downtown Fort Worth bar. She was raped and shot.
Brown was charged with capital murder in connection
with her death in May.
Fort Worth police immediately began re-examining 25
unsolved homicides that occurred while Brown lived in Tarrant County,
determining that more than a dozen required a closer look.
At their suggestion, Arlington homicide detectives
Jim Ford and John Bell did the same, reopening Sharyn's case and 6
others.
On Friday, Arlington police received confirmation
from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office that Brown's DNA
matched sperm taken from Sharyn's body and clothing, Sgt. Mark Simpson
said. The link did not surprise Fort Worth police.
"Similar results from other Fort Worth cases or out-of-state
cases would not be surprising either," Thornton said. "His MO [method of
operation], the fact that he targets strangers and the amount of
traveling he was doing during that period makes it highly likely that he
has not been caught for every crime of this type that he has committed.
"There are other victims out there," Thornton said.
Sharyn disappears
Sharyn Kills Back, the youngest girl among 9 siblings,
longed for a life outside the Pine Ridge reservation where she had spent
her life. At age 16, she set out for the Clearfield Job Corps Center in
Utah, undergoing 2 years of vocational training in a program for
minorities.
"I was happy for her because she was happy," said
Blanche Kills Back, another sister. "Life on a reservation is hard. She
wanted to go and explore the world."
When she had completed her training, Sharyn was given
an option of 3 places to work in: Stockton, Calif., Atlanta or Arlington.
"I told her to take Stockton, California," Blanche
Kills Back recalls. "She chose Texas. I don't know why."
Sharyn's mother was apprehensive. Audrey Ione Bad
Hair constantly warned her daughter not to walk by herself. Sharyn
assured her mother that she was safe and had friends who gave her rides
so she would not have to walk.
But that wasn't always the case.
On the evening of March 15, 1985, it was already dark
when Sharyn asked her roommate, Barbara Bouknight -- a friend she had
met in the Clearfield Job Corps Center in Utah -- to walk with her to a
friend's house.
About a block from the apartment near East Park Row
Drive and Texas 360, Bouknight changed her mind. She turned to head back
to the apartment, but within a minute or two changed her mind again. "When
I turned back around, I didn't see her," Bouknight recalled Tuesday in a
telephone interview from New Mexico. "She was already gone."
When Sharyn didn't return home that night, a worried
Bouknight called police. Bouknight said she was told she had to wait a
span of hours before a missing-persons report could be filed.
"I couldn't wait," Bouknight said. "I didn't know
what to do. I kept going out looking for her. I couldn't sleep."
2 days later, on March 17, Bouknight filed a missing-persons
report with police.
A week later, with still no word, Bouknight spotted a
story on the news about an unidentified woman whose body was found in
Arlington. Fearful that the body was Sharyn's, Bouknight called
Arlington police again.
"That's when the detective came out and talked to me,
then showed me some pictures," Bouknight said. "I said, 'Yes, that's her.'"
When discovered by a plumber on March 23 near the
1400 block of Bandera Drive, Sharyn's face and the front of her body
were caked in mud. A 2-foot length of rope was knotted around her neck.
She was fully dressed.
The Fort Worth police crime lab examined trace
evidence in the case but could find no clue to the woman's attacker. "Using
1985 technology, they were not able to detect any sperm," Ford said.
Because of the string of disappearances and slayings
of other young women at the time, many in southwest Fort Worth, Ford and
other detectives from area agencies met with a Fort Worth police task
force to discuss the cases.
"Sharon Kills Back was among the many cases we looked
at and compared," Ford said. "There was not any physical evidence to
match it to any other cases at that time."
Two decades later, after meeting with Fort Worth
police in March, Arlington police asked the Tarrant County Medical
Examiner's Office to look at the evidence again. Using new technology,
the office was able to extract a DNA profile from sperm found in the
sexual assault test kit and Sharyn's clothing, Ford said.
"It is amazing what modern technology can do," Ford
said.
Thornton said DNA tests on the unsolved Fort Worth
cases have only ruled out Brown's involvement in one of the deaths, an
elderly woman found slain inside her house on Jan. 25, 1985.
"We have received some results and have been unable
to exclude Brown in any of those cases. They require further testing,"
Thornton said. "On some of the other cases, we have not yet received
initial results."
Coping with the loss
While other families still wait, friends and family
of Sharyn said they're grateful to finally have an answer but still
struggle with Sharyn's loss.
"I blame myself now," Bouknight said. "Maybe she
would still be alive today if only I had gone with her that day. I don't
think this guy would have gotten both of us if I were there."
Sharyn's mother also struggled with guilt, her
daughters said. "When she passed away, my mom blamed herself," Suzanna
Kills Back said.
Less than 3 years later, Sharyn's mother died of
complications from diabetes.
"It took a toll on her," Suzanna Kills Back said. "She
just really went downhill fast. She was only 45 years old when she died."
3 summers ago, Sharyn's father, Mowis Kills Back,
died, also from complications of diabetes.
"It's just sad that Mom and Dad aren't here to hear
it," Blanche Kills Back said.
Cold Case Detectives use new technology to solve 1985
murder case
Arlington Police Department
September 27, 2005
Arlington Cold Case Detectives have solved the 20-year-old
murder of Sharyn Killsback after matching DNA evidence to a suspect
currently serving a life sentence for another unrelated murder in Fort
Worth. Ms. Killsback was 18 when her body was found in an east Arlington
creek on March 23, 1985.
Curtis Don Brown, 49, is being held in the Tarrant
County Jail in Fort Worth. Today, detectives issued an arrest warrant
charging Brown with capital murder in the death and sexual assault of Ms.
Killsback about a week before her body was found.
On March 23, 1985, a plumber found a woman's fully-clothed
body inside a storm drain in the 1400 block of Bandera Drive near a
residential neighborhood that was under construction. A rope had been
wrapped tightly around her neck. Because there was no identification
found on her body, police released her description to the news media,
including the tattooed initials "SKB" on her left hand. One of Ms.
Killsback's roommates, who had previously reported her missing on March
17, 1985, called investigators after seeing news reports of the body and
recognizing Ms. Killsback's tattoo. The roommate told police that she
had last seen Ms. Killsback walking near Texas 360 and east Park Row
Drive at about 8 p.m. March 15, 1985.
This past March, Fort Worth Cold Case detectives
contacted Arlington Cold Case detectives to share information, said
Detective Jim Ford. "They told us that Brown was serving a life sentence
for the May 29, 1986 capital murder of Jewel Woods and that they had
recently matched him through DNA evidence to another woman who was found
dead in a river on May 30, 1985," he said. "They also gave us a timeline
of when he was not in prison, and we realized Ms. Killsback's murder -
about March 15, 1985 - fell into that period. The suspect's method of
operation was also similar."
This information prompted Detective Ford to
immediately begin reviewing investigative reports and evidence complied
by the original detectives in Ms. Killsback's case. He requested that
forensic scientists in the DNA lab of the Tarrant County Medical
Examiner's office obtain a DNA profile of any body fluids from the
evidence collected at the 1985 crime scene. Fluids were found and the
DNA profile was entered into the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
A comparison revealed that DNA evidence taken from the victim's body and
clothing matched Brown's DNA.
The evidence had previously been tested using 1985
technology, Detective Ford said. "The technology we are using today was
not available at the time of this victim's death," he said. "But
fortunately, the evidence was obtained, stored properly and remained
intact so that today, we have what we need to make an arrest and to
bring justice to this victim and her family."
Since the Cold Case Unit formed in November 2004,
detectives have cleared three other murder cases by arrest. Additionally,
they cleared eight other murder cases in which there were enough facts
and information to substantiate issuing a warrant for the suspects'
arrest. In each of those eight cases, however, the suspects are deceased
so the cases are now closed. Investigators will continue to review about
60 cold cases dating back to 1968.
