We are going to discuss the 2016 unsolved murder of Terri ‘Missy’ Bevers in Midlothian, Texas.
As some background into Missy, she was born in Graham Texas August 9, 1970 to James C. and Norma L. Strickland.
She had an older brother Clifford, and a younger brother Clint.
Missy graduated from Jacksboro High School in 1988 and then she went on to Tarleton State University. She graduated from there with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1995.
Missy went on to work in retail after graduating. She married her husband Brandon Bevers on June 20, 1998.
After the couple married, Missy went back to school to get a teaching certificate in Special Education. She taught until she had her first child, Hannah, in March 2001. She had her second daughter, Allie, in March 2003. Sarah, her third daughter, was born in November 2007.
As her children grew, Missy’s new passion became fitness. She got into great shape and was fitter than she had ever been in her life. She decided to become a Camp Gladiator instructor to help others improve their mental, emotional and spiritual fitness.
Missy’s family have said she loved the ocean and the beach. They said she was an inspiration and loved God and her family. Everyone was invited to be friends with Missy as she never met a stranger.
Missy would hold her Camp Gladiator bootcamps at Midlothian’s Creekside Church of Christ, which was around 20 minutes away from her home.
Just as a bit of info about the area, Midlothian is around 25 miles SW of Dallas and has a population of around 37k. According to city-data.com, the 2020 crime rate in Midlothian is 68, which is 3.7 times lower than the U.S. average. It was higher than in 38.0% U.S. cities. The 2020 Midlothian crime rate fell by 14% compared to 2019. In the last 5 years Midlothian has seen decreasing violent crime and decline of property crime.
Missy was scheduled to hold a 5am bootcamp class on Monday April 18, 2016. The weather had been predicted to be stormy and the night before, Missy told her students that the class would be held inside the church due to the weather. The class was usually held in the church’s parking lot.
You can view Missy’s Facebook here.
We will now get into a timeline of the morning of April 18:
At around 2am, CCTV from businesses near the church showed a vehicle in the parking lot. Investigators described the vehicle as a 2010-2012 Nissan Altima or 2010-2012 Infiniti G37.
Police said the vehicle was seen driving slowly around the business, with its lights turning off and on. The driver parked briefly, before leaving the parking lot.
3.50am – the murder suspect is seen on CCTV at the church. The suspect wore what appeared to be SWAT police outfit and tactical gear from head to toe, including a “POLICE”-marked vest, a black helmet, and a black pair of gloves and is estimated to be a maximum of 5’8. Some reports do say the height may be anywhere from 5’2-5’8.
The person on the video also appears to have a unique walk, with their feet turned outward, “more predominantly on the right foot,” police said. Police have noted that it’s possible the person’s unique walk was caused by a temporary condition.
The suspect used a pry bar to smash glass and open a side door at the church, which did not have an alarm. Outside surveillance cameras at the church weren’t working at the time.
Missy pulled into the church parking lot at 4.16am. She was there early to set up for the bootcamp, which was starting around 45 mins later.
Missy got out of her truck and started walking into the church at 4.20am.
At the same time, the suspect can be seen rummaging around the church, carrying a hammer. The person spent several minutes in the kitchen of the church.
The first class participant arrived in the parking lot at 4.35am, but they waited in their car for the class to start.
I am assuming more people arrived for the class and once they entered the church, they came across the crime scene. By 5am, two 911 calls were made to the Midlothian Police Department.
Police arrived at the church by 5.07am.
This part of the timeline is a bit unusual. One of the class participants called Missy’s husband, Brandon to tell him what had happened. Brandon then called his sister Kristi Stout and asked her to come and be with the kids. He told Kristi that Missy had been in a car wreck.
Around that same time, police called Brandon to let him know that Missy had been killed. I think at this point, it was still assumed she had died in the wreck.
Kristi spoke to NBC about telling Missy’s daughters the news.
“My mom, myself, my stepdad and my aunt and uncle went over there and we woke them up out of the bed,” Kristi said. “We told the girls what we were told originally. It was the most awful nightmare you could ever imagine, telling three kids they don’t have a mother anymore.”
Missy’s autopsy was conducted the following day, April 19. Police said Missy was “deceased from a head wound” and that the person in the video “used an unknown instrument to cause the death of Terri Bevers at this location.”
At that time, police did not release her specific cause of death due to the investigation being ongoing.
Missy’s truck was also seized by police. Her purse, ipad and other personal belongings were inside the vehicle. Her gun was also still inside the truck.
Midlothian police said their investigation was being assisted by the Texas Rangers, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Investigators had originally referred to the suspect as ‘he’ and they changed their stance on that at this time.
“We are backing off our statement that the suspect on video was a man. I know we said ‘he’ over and over again yesterday, and that was a mistake,” Midlothian Assistant Chief of Police Kevin Johnson said. “There’s a lot of speculation based on the gait and appearance that this person may be a woman. It’s a legitimate question right now. We no longer will say the suspect is a man.”
Police looked into the alibis of those close to Missy. This was a bit confusing as I assumed Brandon had gone to the scene when he was called about Missy. But I think what happened is that Missy left the kids home when she went to her class (the oldest was 15). Brandon was actually in Mississippi on a fishing trip on the day she was killed. He gave police plane tickets and a car rental receipt to prove his whereabouts. He said it took him eight hours to drive home after he learned of Missy’s death.
Brandon’s father Randy would later be scrutinized after he took a blood-stained shirt to a dry cleaner, following Missy’s murder. Randy told the employee at Dry Clean Super Center that it was animal blood. Police described the shirt as a women’s white long-sleeved shirt, “which is stained with blood.”
After Randy dropped the shirt off, the employee called police to let them know about the shirt.
Randy told CBS that the blood came from the family pet dog Kilo. The dog had been killed in a fight with another dog at a relative’s house, where Randy and his wife had been staying since Missy’s murder.
“Carrying the dog from the house to the veterinarian clinic, it was bloody. So, therefore, blood on the shirt,” said Randy.
“I wanted to make sure we put this fire out. This is such a non-issue. We wanted to address it fast,” Brandon said.
“The fact that the person at the dry cleaner had the wherewithal to call the police …. we need that of vigilance,” said Brandon.
Police did analyze the shirt and it was confirmed the blood was from a dog.
Randy gave an alibi of being in California with Marsha at the time Missy was murdered.
Missy’s funeral was held on April 23.
On April 24, Brandon’s mother posted this letter on Facebook.
Letter to the murderer of Missy Bevers: Do you even realize what you have done to her daughters, husband, our whole family? Was it really worth it? Why did you think this was so necessary? You know who you are! Your husband/wife and family members know who you are. They know your “special” walk! Right now, they are as guilty as you are, by not coming forward! I honestly pray you do not have children. My granddaughters at least have the knowledge that their mom was a kindhearted, loving, caring person. You have now ruined your children’s life, along with your family’s life by doing this senseless act. We can at least visit Missy’ s gravesite, even though we have the comfort of knowing she is already in heaven. Your family will get to visit you in prison, forever reminded of your crazy, selfish act. What a legacy you have doled out to your family. I will be praying for all of them. I truly feel worse for your family, than mine! Please come forward!! Give yourself peace, give our family some peace. Give some honor back to your family! God will forgive you. We will forgive you, because we know and you know, that is what Jesus has commanded us to do.
In early May, an article from NBC suggested that Missy and Brandon had been having marital issues and were also facing financial trouble at the time she died. This same article says that Missy had received a ‘creepy and strange’ message from an unknown man on Linkedin before her death. Police issued warrants for 9 people who had ‘target phone numbers’.
According to one of the warrants, messages recovered from the phones owned by Brandon and Missy Bevers “indicate and confirm statement and tips provided to officers of an ongoing financial and marital struggle as well as intimate/personal relationship(s) external to the marriage with identified ‘Target Numbers.'” Police did not say whether any of that information was a factor in her killing.
The extracted data provided police with a list of potential persons of interest, the “Target Numbers,” based on the communications (texts, messages, photos, videos and recovered deleted messages) between them and the victim. The “Target Numbers” referred to in the search warrant include 11 phone numbers for nine people.
In another warrant, detectives said a friend of the victim’s told them that less than three days before her murder Bevers showed her a private message on her LinkedIn account from a person neither of them knew that they both agreed was “creepy and strange.” During her interview with police, the friend could not recall the name of the person who sent Bevers the message.
Detectives also identified another person who confirmed to police that he had engaged in a series of communications with Missy Bevers on LinkedIn starting around January 2016 and that the messages were “flirtatious and familiar.” Police said a forensic data extraction was performed on both his phone and Bevers’ phone and that the communications appeared “intimate in nature” and that they had been deleted after the conversation was ended.
In May 2016, a month after the murders, police gave this update.
“At this point, none of the family friends or co-workers are considered suspects,” Assistant Police Chief Kevin Johnson said. “All but one of those leads have been exhausted. The last remaining lead involves a car that pulled into the SWFA sporting goods parking lot at approximately 2 a.m.”
Brandon spoke to People around this time and gave an update on the investigation.
“I’m privy to some things that nobody is aware of, and I’m impressed with them,” he said. “I really can’t talk about anything in terms of the investigation because it’s ongoing. But I have quite a bit of faith in what they’re doing.”
“We’ve had such an outpouring of support coming from every direction,” he said. “We’ve been bombarded with blessings.”
One setback he did mention involves the family’s health insurance. Because Missy was the primary person listed on the policy and is deceased, he says he was recently told his insurance is longer valid.
“No one told me. I was going to use that for counseling services for the girls,” he says.
Brandon’s mother Marsha also spoke to People about finding about the flirtatious messages that Missy was sending. She said they “knocked us down a little bit.”
Marsha says she wasn’t aware the couple was having financial or marital problems.
“I mean, as bad as it is on the girls, especially the older ones, for Brandon to lose his wife to murder and then find out about the flirtatious remarks to other people has got to be devastating to him,” she says. “I mean, enough’s enough here.”
In May 2016, it was also revealed that Missy died from puncture wounds to the head and chest. Midlothian Police said the wounds “are consistent with tools the suspect was carrying throughout the building.” I am assuming this means the hammer?
In 2019, police investigated a tip that had been phoned in multiple times. It involved former tactical police officer Bobby Wayne Henry. Bobby was known to attend mass at the church where Missy was murdered.
He was also said to own riot gear, similar to what the suspect wore and he walked with a limp.
Bobby has said that the riot gear no longer fit him and the main issue with him as a suspect is that he is 6’1. His alibi was eventually corroborated and he was ruled out as a person of interest.
In 2021, five years after the murder, police gave this statement to WFAA. “It’s difficult to believe that five years later we have not made an arrest,” Midlothian Chief Carl Smith said. “I will tell you that we have not rule out or confirmed one path or the other.”
By 2021, the reward in Missy’s case had grown to $150k. Brandon said at this time “I’ve been holding on for hope. Trying to stay busy. You have the family, Missy’s family and there is still a significant amount of sadness that still prevails in our hearts and minds.”
In 2022, Dr. Michael Nirenberg, a forensic podiatrist based in Indiana, was asked by investigators to compare the gait of the person with people in videos investigators recorded.
“For the most part, I was telling them that the person was different and then there was one person who I felt walked similar to the person at the crime scene,” said Dr Nirenberg.
Police have said that tips still come in almost daily for Missy’s case.
Brandon spoke to the Dallas Observer in 2023.
“I’ve always walked a fairly straight line in my whole life. You know, I was a Boy Scout,” Brandon said. “I’ve never really strayed outside of what was expected of me socially — or as a son, or as a father or husband — so, to be considered a suspect in your wife’s murder, through the interrogation and questioning process, it really, really put me in a dark place.”
Brandon also told the Observer that they weren’t really having financial problems but that there had been an affair that came to light in 2014 and that the couple had been working through it.
“My first priority is these kids,” he said. “My second priority is this investigation.” He cares deeply about how Missy is portrayed. She’s not here to defend herself.
SOURCE LIST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Missy_Bevers
https://allthatsinteresting.com/missy-bevers
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-video-timeline-released-in-terri-bevers-death-at-texas-church/
https://www.jacksboronewspapers.com/obituaries/obituary-terri-missy-bevers
https://www.newser.com/story/223866/murder-suspect-in-swat-gear-might-be-a-she.html
https://cw33.com/news/new-leads-in-missy-bevers-murder-investigation/
https://people.com/crime/husband-of-fitness-instructor-says-he-has-faith-the-killer-will-be-caught/
CLIPS USED IN THE PODCAST
Has anyone considered a dejected, vengeful ex-student from the bootcamp?