By Robert A.
Waters
It's been six
months since an intruder broke into the Creekside Church of Christ in
Midlothian, Texas and murdered 45-year-old Terri “Missy” Bevers.
No arrests have been made, and no clear motive has been established.
At 4:18 A.M. on
April 18, 2016, Bevers arrived at the church to prepare for the boot
camp-style workout class she had scheduled for five o'clock that
morning. Little did the pretty blonde-haired wife and mother know
that she wasn't the only person inside the church. Camera footage
captured a frightening sequence just before Bevers was found dead.
For nearly a
half-hour, an individual dressed in a fake police SWAT Team uniform
wandered through the church, smashing windows with a hammer-like
object. Video seemed to indicate the intruder may also have carried
a screwdriver or ice-pick. Midlothian police announced that the
unknown vandal stood between five-feet-two and five-feet-seven inches
tall and seemed to have a burly build. Surveillance video showed
that the trespasser walked with an unusual “duck-like” gait.
Asked
whether the intruder was male or female, Midlothian Assistant
Police Chief Kevin Johnson said, “Man, I'd love to be able to
answer that question.” In this age of Internet, social media, cell
phones, and instantaneous news, many have speculated that the killer
may have been a woman. Once police confirmed that Bevers had sent
“flirtatious and familiar” messages on her cell phone to someone
other than her husband, the blogs and crime websites exploded.
Online bloggers focused almost exclusively on this alleged affair as
a possible motive for the killing. But Chief Johnson recently told
reporters that “the love-triangle thing is really not panning out
so far.”
Johnson also indicated that all family
members have been eliminated as suspects. Her husband, Brandon
Bevers, was in Mississippi during the time the murder took place, but
that didn't stop the armchair detectives from blaming him. One
respondent to a news article on the case wrote: “Obviously she was
killed by her father-in-law, with planning from her husband. This is
clear as day; a domestic, family murder, in cold blood. 'Husband off
on a fishing trip,' the oldest cover-up story in the book!”
The reason this correspondent included
Missy's father-in-law, Randy Bevers, in on the murder plot seemed to
be because he had taken a blood-stained shirt to the dry-cleaners.
Randy informed reporters and police that his chihuahua dog had been
killed in a fight with another dog, and that he got blood on his
shirt taking his dog to the veternarian. Police later confirmed the
story, but not before the online detectives had tried and convicted
him of Missy's murder.
Other armchair crime devotees blamed
social media. Bevers had posted her agenda on Facebook, with the
admonition that even if it rained, the fitness session would be held
inside the church, rather than outside, as scheduled.
“Echoing other comments,” wrote another respondent, “Facebook
is the best gift that thieves and others that are up to no-good have
ever been given.” There is a lot of truth to that statement, but
there is no proof that Missy's killer even knew about her Facebook
page.
Investigators now seem to be
concentrating their investigation on a stranger. They released video
of the intruder in hopes that someone would recognize the attire he
wore, as well as his (or her) walk. So far, no one has come forward
to identify the intruder.
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