Murder Mystery Of Texas Killing

2021-08-11 14:22:48 Written by Jones Jay

Background

 

The city of Dickinson, Texas is in the southeast part of the state, roughly 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Island. The city belongs to Galveston County, but also falls under the Houston–The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan statistical region. Dickinson is a very small city, with a population of roughly 20,000 people - but quickly growing - since the year 2000 population has increased by 20%. The city spans a total of 9.7 square miles and is mostly surrounded by empty fields and bodies of water, like the Dickinson Bayou. Homicides in Dickinson are rare - in the past ten years there has been one reported murder, and there have only been nine total murders since 2004. In 2006, there were three homicides - which tragically included Terressa Lynn Vanegas.

 

Terressa was born on August 9th, 1990, and was just 16 years old she was beaten, raped, killed and her body disposed of in an empty field 200 yards from the high school she attended. Terressa had a big family - her two parents, two sisters, one brother, grandparents, and her dog ‘Tinkerbelle’. In an interview with ABC 13, Terressa’s sisters told that they loved doing each other’s hair and nails, all the ‘girly things’ they loved to do. Many reports state that Terressa loved her long wavy hair. Her brother has said that she enjoyed being with her friends, and was a good student. Terressa reportedly was very close with her grandmother, Betty Metcalf. In an interview with Galveston’s Daily News, Betty told that Terressa spent a lot of time at her home during the summer and on weekends, she had been visiting her grandmother since she was a child, up until the time of her death. Betty said that Terressa always wanted to be around her, and was insecure around other people. Her grandmother’s house was described as Terressa’s ‘sanctuary’.

 

Disappearance and murder:

Halloween of 2006 was the last night that Terressa was seen alive. According to reports, that day started normally, a typical Tuesday where she went to school at Dickinson High School, where her body would later be found. Terressa was reported to visit many friend’s houses after school. It is later at night, where Terressa’s activity gets tricky. I’d like to point out that a lot of the following information could only be found in an article for ‘The Criminal Report Daily’ written by David Lohr. Some of the information is also stated by other sources, but this article includes some very detailed info about Terressa’s whereabouts that night I was not able to find anywhere else. The website for that blog has since been taken down, but an archived version can be found in the sources below.

 

According to the article by David Lohr, that night Terressa was planning to meet up with a guy three years older than her, or 19 years old, at this person’s house. Terressa reportedly met him through a website, dopehouserecords.com about three months prior. However this is a little strange - dopehouserecords.com is the website for a record label near downtown Houston, about an hour away from Dickinson. Per web.archive.org, in 2006 the domain still belonged to the record label so it is not clear how they met through that site. There’s not a lot of data available about this person - Was it someone her friends knew about? Was he still in high school? Had they met in person before? The man is reportedly from Abilene, TX, which is nearly 6 hours away from Dickinson. Terressa reportedly called the record guy around 10 PM that night, as she was told him she was having trouble finding a ride to his house. There is no information on how long that call was, but she told him that she was going to try and find a map at a convenience store. It is also not clear if this call was made from her home, somewhere else. Cell phones were not uncommon in 2006, but no reports are stating whether Terressa had one or not. If she had this person’s phone number, perhaps he wasn’t some internet stranger. Police have not released any information about this person, but if they know Terressa talked to him and what she said it is likely they have interviewed him and probably cleared him of any involvement.

 

Terressa did not appear to make it to the record guy’s house that night, possibly due to lack of a ride, or perhaps she changed her mind. Many sources state that she was seen at a Halloween house party, around 11:00 PM on California Avenue. David Lohr also reports that another witness saw her at a different party, in Bramble Lane perhaps as late as 12:30 PM. It should be mentioned that these two streets are only about 1 mile from each other, and they are right across from each other, with Dickinson High School, where her body was found is smack in the middle. Both streets are about 1 mile from the Green Caye residential society, where many reports state that she was last seen. Lohr reports that one of Terressa’s friends saw her talking to an ‘older man’ at the party. It is not clear whether this was someone they knew, or how much older this person was. Is it possible it was the same guy she intended to meet before? Lohr reports that some witnesses saw Terressa at a ‘Texaco’, a gas station and convenience store nearby. Today, there is still a Texaco about half a mile away from California Avenue, likely the same one. There is no time associated with when she was seen there, and this has been unconfirmed. According to Lohr, police effort to verify this information, but the tape from security cameras had been overwritten by the time they got there.

 

Terressa never returned home. She was last seen wearing a white button-down dress shirt, and blue pants, from the brand ‘Dickie’. The next day, her parents reported her as missing. In an interview with ABC 13, her grandmother Betty Metcalf told that she thought Terressa was still with friends, and she had been known to vanish for a couple of days to hang out with friends. However, this would turn out to not be the case. On Friday, November 3rd, 2006 a man riding a motorcycle (repeatedly described as ‘dirt bike’ by many sources) found Terressa’s face down body in an empty field, roughly 200 or so yards from her high school. According to the Galveston Daily News, the man called the police to report the body at 12:21 PM. It is not quite clear exactly what the field was, and there are some differing reports, but it was reported to be a new practice field for the soccer team. Many sources state that Terressa’s body was face down in a “shallow drainage ditch”, and some state in a puddle of water.

 

The police did not release many details about her cause of death, but they did state that it was a homicide. Most of the information available comes from her parents, who have revealed in multiple places various pieces of information about what occurred to Terressa. According to reports, Terressa had been badly beaten - her mother, who identified the body for police through a picture (note that they did not let her see the body) noticed that her face was bruised and swollen. David Lohr reports that her dad was able to see the body before the funeral, and saw bruises on her face, and also noticed cuts on her hands. The funeral was closed-casket, which could imply that her body was too gruesome to show the public. Her parents state that Terressa was raped, and Lohr reports that her shirt had been ripped, and she was found with her pants pulled down to her knees. It has not officially been reported by police, but multiple sources state that she was likely strangled with her and that it was still tight around her neck when her body was found. One particular detail that perhaps hints to the culprit being someone that knew Terressa, was that her hair had been cut short. As mentioned before, her hair was important to Terressa, and to cut it off looks like to suggest a personal motive.

 

Investigation:

 

Days after the finding, Terressa’s friends and family searched the area near the field where she was found and found two items belonging to Terressa - her glasses, and her hair clip. They turned the items over to the police. It is unclear whether this region had been searched before. According to Lohr, a witness later came forward and stated that they saw a man of white complexion, and ‘long black hair’ leaving the area near her body shortly before she was found, but nothing else is known about this man.

 

According to data available, at the time of the murder police were not sure whether she was murdered in the field, or if she was moved there afterward. Per Galveston Daily News, primary proof indicated that she had been killed elsewhere, but nothing definitive. Police said that she had been dead for approximately two days by the time her body was found, so it is possible that she was murdered the very same night she vanished. If the body was indeed moved from another location, it would make sense that no one noticed her body for two days which was close to her high school. This would be quite disturbing, because that would likely mean that that perpetrator either committed the act (beat her, raped her, strangled her) then kept that body in that state for two days then discarded it in the field where it was soon found, or even worse they transported the body from another location, then staged it by pulling the belt around her neck and pulling her pants down. I think it’s more likely that she was attacked in the field - her glasses and hair clip were found nearby, perhaps indicating a struggle. The way her body was found is consistent with the killer perpetrating the act, then shortly leaving, unless the body was staged post-mortem as mentioned before. It is also worth noting that Terressa was reported to be around 5’3 and 210 lbs, so it would perhaps be a little difficult to move the body. Police may know how the murder went down, but I couldn’t find any information on it.

 

Very little data has been released by police, but they did state that they have found DNA on her body. They did not say what the source of the DNA was, or where it was found. If she was sexually assaulted, which her parents say she was, it is possible this was semen. Perhaps it was blood or hair from the killer. In a recent interview with ABC 13, the original investigator in the case said they are still interrogating the case, 10 years later. In the interview, aid over 45 people have been interviewed in connection to the case. Exactly ten years after her disappearance, on November 1st, 2016 the Dickinson Police Department made a Facebook post about Terressa’s unsolved homicide. The post has some interesting phrasing - “There have been important developments during that time. However, detectives are looking for extra information that would help them gather enough information to make an arrest and give Terressa’s family closure.” It is unclear whether this means that they perhaps have a suspect, and need more proof or that they still are trying to gather evidence.

 

Connections to other cases:

 

On October 29t 6, just a couple of days before Terressa vanished, a close friend of Terressa, Kimberlee Ramsey was reported missing. After Terressa’s body was found, there were concerns that perhaps there was a connection betweentweentween the two disappearances. However, Kimberlee was found safe on November 9t,6 with her boyfriend in Rusk, Texas which is nearly three hours away from Dickinson. Kimberlee was questioned about Terressa, but police determined that her disappearance was just an accident. Kimberlee had a history of being a runaway, and had appeared in the Dr. Phil TV show and spoke about being a runaway. It has also been reported that Terressa had problems with running away from home.

Terressa’s case is often linked to the “Texas Killing Fields” - 50 mile stretch of land close to Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston. The location became famous after four bodies were discovered near a 25-acre plot of land located by the Calder Oil Fields. Calder road is in League City, and roughly 6 miles away from where Terressa’s body was found. Since the 1970s, the cases of over 30 murders and disappearances of young women have been associated with this patch of land. It has been described as a serial killer's burial ground, due to the desolate land. Many people think that many serial killers are operating within the area, but not many cases have been officially connected. Off the cases listed in the TKF wiki - the only one that seems to match up with a timeline of Terressa. The body of 23-year-old Sarah Trusty was found in the Texas City Dyke on July 28, 2002. She was attacked four years before Terressa, and the Dyke is 16 or so miles from Dickinson High School. However, no info on how she died has been released. It’s my personal opinion that Terressa’s death is not certainly related to these other killings and disappearances.

 

To this day, there have been no arrests made in connection to this case, and Terressa’s family is still looking for answers.