DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
ago.”
After a decade in office as
Parker County’s Sheriff, Larry still
finds his career to be rewarding
and fascinating. And, he still loves
catching bad guys.
Besides, there is still so much
more he wants to accomplish in
the area of fighting crime in Parker
County.
When someone points out to
Fowler how much he’s accomplished
and how many tough cases he and
his team have solved over his first
decade in office, Fowler quickly
points out modestly that he could
have accomplished none of it without
his amazing staff, “and don’t forget
that without the support of County
Judge Mark Riley and Commissioners
Court, couldn’t accomplish much
at all. My job has been made
easier due to our relationship with
Commissioners Court. They have an
excellent understanding of what it
takes to keep this county safe. Their
first priority is public safety and they
work very well with the sheriff to
achieve it.”
These days, Fowler’s biggest
concern is the tremendous growth in
the county, which is a good thing but
brings with it some law enforcement
concerns.
“The growth that we’re
experiencing is our biggest worry,”
Fowler said. “As a matter of fact
we’re looking at a jail expansion.
We’re not overcrowded yet, but
we’re looking down the road, and
contemplating building a low-risk
facility here adjacent to the jail,
which would increase our population
by about 48 beds for low risk
inmates.”
Not all of the people coming
to Parker County are good people
wanting to do good things. It’s up
to Fowler to make sure that the
elements coming into the county
don’t negatively impact the safety of
Parker County citizens.
Just days before this interview, a
PC dad saw a strange van drive away
from his house and then noticed his
14-year-old daughter was missing.
Initially, everyone thought she’d
been kidnapped by a stranger. Soon,
Fowler’s team found that the girl had
met a 37-year-old man on Facebook
and he had reportedly lured her into
his van.
Deputies stormed the man’s
home, retrieved the girl, arrested
the man and returned the girl to her
family. It took the sheriff’s team less
than four hours to solve the mystery.
How did they do that?
Fowler smiled his famous
all-knowing smile and said, “Well,
we’re investigators. That’s what we
do. We’re good at it too.”
Don’t know anyone who would
dispute that.
Continued from page 104
garage. They later found that he
was preparing to paint the pickup.
The truck was just as the frightened
teenaged girl had described it. They
took Kneeland in for questioning
concerning the abduction of Cash.
When Blaisdell and the other
detectives interviewed him, they
decided Kneeland could be the killer
in a number of other homicides of
young women in the area. Both the
Fort Worth Police Department and
the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office
were working to solve several baffling
homicides of young women. Since
Kneeland had already displayed a
proclivity for kidnapping young girls,
he seemed a likely candidate for
some of them.
One of those was Becky Martin,
21, who went to attend a class at
the South Campus of Tarrant County
Junior College on Feb. 7, 1973, and
vanished. Her body was found in
an isolated culvert in far West Fort
Worth in late March of the same year.
A team of Fort Worth detectives
that included Blaisdell questioned
Kneeland on May 8. They asked him
about the Cash kidnapping. Kneeland
not only admitted to abducting the
16-year-old but made statements
about committing three murders as
well.
Kneeland confessed to the murder
of Nancy Mitchell, 27. She was a young
wife and mother from Kermit, Texas,
who vanished from her home on Sept.
15, 1970. And he confessed to the July
1,1972 double homicide of Mary Jane
Handy, 17, and Robert Ghoulson,
15, Oklahoma teens who hitchhiked
together to Gainesville. They’d caught
a ride with Kneeland, who drove
them to North Fort Worth before
sexually assaulting Handy. Kneeland
admitted to stabbing her and slitting
her throat because she wouldn’t
stop screaming and fighting him. He
then slit Gholson’s throat. Kneeland
was convicted of murdering Handy
and Ghoulson. He was sentenced to
two life terms. Months later a Kermit
jury convicted Kneeland of Nancy
Mitchell’s murder; then they dished
out 550 years in prison to Kneeland,
after prosecutors in the case had
asked them to sentence him to 276
years.
“There were several cases that
were unsolved,” Blaisdell said.
The Carla Walker case haunts
him, despite the numerous cases
that he solved throughout his law
enforcement career.
“The successful cases that you
who later admitted in a statement to
police that he took her from her car
and tied her hands behind her back,
put her in his pickup truck, and then
put tape around her face. But when
Kneeland tried to drive away with
her, his pickup got stuck in the mud.
He apparently panicked when other
vehicles drove up close to his vehicle.
“Kneeland was afraid
somebody was going to see him
and try to help him and then see
this young girl,” Blaisdell said.
“So Kneeland lets her go and she
runs, and gets in her car. She goes
home and calls the police.” It was
Kneeland’s truck that gave him away.
“It was a unique truck, a 1957
pickup,” Blaisdell said, adding that
he had a toolbox in the back. “We
advertised in the paper and got a call
from a policemen from Euless. He
said, ‘I know a guy who used to have
a pickup like that.’ We went to where
he lived. It was raining and wet. Dub
Branson went with me.”
All weekend, Kneeland came
and went in his car. Blaisdell and
Branson watched him most of the
long, rainy weekend before spotting
the pickup truck in the Kneeland
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