Kathy Sue Engle’s family had almost given up.
For more than two decades, they’d waited for police to locate the men who kidnapped Engle from Shepherd Mall and killed her. They’d seen good suspects come and go. They’d seen other cases solved.
But for them? No justice.
On Tuesday, the hope they’d fostered for so long — that her killers would be identified, that someone would pay for taking her away from them — finally had reason to blossom.
At an emotional news conference, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater announced that a DNA match had identified a suspect. Kyle Richard Eckardt, 44, was charged with first-degree murder in Engle’s death.
A case that had long been as cold as the grave is now red hot.
Abducted, abandoned
About dusk April 23, 1986, Engle — a 41-year-old married mother of two — parked her Dodge Colt outside the mall. Before she could go inside, two men approached. One struck her on the back of the neck before both pushed her into the back seat and drove off, a witness said.
Twenty-eight hours later, the car was found at a Shell truck stop about 390 miles away in Tucumcari, N.M. Police found Engle’s ripped clothes in the blood-smeared car, along with cigarette butts and a soda bottle.
On April 30, oil-field workers discovered her bound, nude body in a rural Beckham County field. The remains were badly decomposed, obscuring the cause of death, but the manner was ruled a homicide.
About a year later, detectives identified two suspects. An Oklahoma City man and his half-brother were implicated in the 1987 death of a New Mexico woman who’d been abducted from a shopping mall under similar circumstances. The men remained the top suspects in Engle’s death until 1999, when they were exonerated through DNA evidence.
The case languished for nine years. No good leads. No suspects.
Then detectives caught a break.
Tulsa case helped
On Jan. 22, 2007, Eckardt accompanied Terry Welch, 40, to her Tulsa apartment.
The next day, Welch’s young son asked neighbors if he could use their bathroom because his mother wouldn’t get out of the bathtub, Oklahoma City cold case Inspector Kyle Eastridge said. The neighbors found Welch dead in the bath.
Witnesses told police they’d seen Eckardt beating Welch, the Tulsa World reported. He admitted to being at her apartment until about 11 p.m. Jan. 22, but he denied hitting her. Nevertheless, the body bore signs of sexual abuse and "obvious blunt force trauma,” and some of Welch’s teeth had been knocked out, Eastridge said.
Eckardt was arrested on a murder complaint but was charged with rape by instrumentation and aggravated assault and battery. A pathologist could not determine what killed Welch — the beating, the high level of alcohol in her blood, asphyxiation or even drowning. Under the circumstances, her death could not be ruled a homicide.
Eckardt entered into a plea agreement with the state. The rape charge vanished, replaced by a second aggravated assault count. Eckardt pleaded no contest and received two five-year sentences.
When he entered the prison system, Eckardt had to submit a DNA sample. On July 26, 2008, his DNA profile was matched to DNA taken from the cigarette butts and bottle in Engle’s car, Eastridge said.
Later, court records show, Eckardt’s fingerprints were compared with unidentified prints from the Dodge Colt. They matched.
‘Completely shocked’
Engle’s family was told about Eckardt last summer. Detectives notified her husband, Dawson A. Engle, who still lives in the same Yukon home he shared with her 23 years ago. He called their son and daughter.
"I was just completely shocked,” said Dawson R. Engle, who was 13 when his mother died. "My mindset at that time was that we weren’t ever going to know who did it.”
A special judge in Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, Dawson R. Engle gathered information about Eckardt from the Internet and shared it with his father and sister, Kristine Ervin, who was 8 when the abduction occurred. Weeks later, he talked to police, who were in no rush to seek charges since Eckardt already was incarcerated at Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown.
"At that point, they had been to interview him (Eckardt),” he said. "They talked about where he had lived and that he kind of lived up and down the I-40 corridor, that he hitchhiked and got rides from truckers a lot. But as soon as they got to anything specific about Mom’s case, he asked for a lawyer.”
Eckardt was born in Pasadena, Texas, Eastridge said. He grew up around Tulsa and Cleveland, OK, but hitchhiked between Las Vegas and Chattanooga, Tenn., for years.
Until Welch died, he had only a minor arrest record, Eastridge said.
Offering support
At Tuesday’s news conference, the victim’s husband struggled to retain his composure as he read a prepared statement.
Beside him, his son fought back tears.
Kristine Ervin tried to comfort both.
After so much time — after so much pain — it would seem the family has every right to be bitter. They’re not. For 23 years, they have leaned upon each other and upon friends, relatives, teachers and neighbors. Tuesday, they offered thanks and talked of gratitude.
If Eckardt is convicted, Dawson A. Engle said, the family may find peace of mind in knowing that he "will not have the opportunity to kill another woman.”
But nothing, he said, will end their grief.
from the oklahoman
For more than two decades, they’d waited for police to locate the men who kidnapped Engle from Shepherd Mall and killed her. They’d seen good suspects come and go. They’d seen other cases solved.
But for them? No justice.
On Tuesday, the hope they’d fostered for so long — that her killers would be identified, that someone would pay for taking her away from them — finally had reason to blossom.
At an emotional news conference, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater announced that a DNA match had identified a suspect. Kyle Richard Eckardt, 44, was charged with first-degree murder in Engle’s death.
A case that had long been as cold as the grave is now red hot.
Abducted, abandoned
About dusk April 23, 1986, Engle — a 41-year-old married mother of two — parked her Dodge Colt outside the mall. Before she could go inside, two men approached. One struck her on the back of the neck before both pushed her into the back seat and drove off, a witness said.
Twenty-eight hours later, the car was found at a Shell truck stop about 390 miles away in Tucumcari, N.M. Police found Engle’s ripped clothes in the blood-smeared car, along with cigarette butts and a soda bottle.
On April 30, oil-field workers discovered her bound, nude body in a rural Beckham County field. The remains were badly decomposed, obscuring the cause of death, but the manner was ruled a homicide.
About a year later, detectives identified two suspects. An Oklahoma City man and his half-brother were implicated in the 1987 death of a New Mexico woman who’d been abducted from a shopping mall under similar circumstances. The men remained the top suspects in Engle’s death until 1999, when they were exonerated through DNA evidence.
The case languished for nine years. No good leads. No suspects.
Then detectives caught a break.
Tulsa case helped
On Jan. 22, 2007, Eckardt accompanied Terry Welch, 40, to her Tulsa apartment.
The next day, Welch’s young son asked neighbors if he could use their bathroom because his mother wouldn’t get out of the bathtub, Oklahoma City cold case Inspector Kyle Eastridge said. The neighbors found Welch dead in the bath.
Witnesses told police they’d seen Eckardt beating Welch, the Tulsa World reported. He admitted to being at her apartment until about 11 p.m. Jan. 22, but he denied hitting her. Nevertheless, the body bore signs of sexual abuse and "obvious blunt force trauma,” and some of Welch’s teeth had been knocked out, Eastridge said.
Eckardt was arrested on a murder complaint but was charged with rape by instrumentation and aggravated assault and battery. A pathologist could not determine what killed Welch — the beating, the high level of alcohol in her blood, asphyxiation or even drowning. Under the circumstances, her death could not be ruled a homicide.
Eckardt entered into a plea agreement with the state. The rape charge vanished, replaced by a second aggravated assault count. Eckardt pleaded no contest and received two five-year sentences.
When he entered the prison system, Eckardt had to submit a DNA sample. On July 26, 2008, his DNA profile was matched to DNA taken from the cigarette butts and bottle in Engle’s car, Eastridge said.
Later, court records show, Eckardt’s fingerprints were compared with unidentified prints from the Dodge Colt. They matched.
‘Completely shocked’
Engle’s family was told about Eckardt last summer. Detectives notified her husband, Dawson A. Engle, who still lives in the same Yukon home he shared with her 23 years ago. He called their son and daughter.
"I was just completely shocked,” said Dawson R. Engle, who was 13 when his mother died. "My mindset at that time was that we weren’t ever going to know who did it.”
A special judge in Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, Dawson R. Engle gathered information about Eckardt from the Internet and shared it with his father and sister, Kristine Ervin, who was 8 when the abduction occurred. Weeks later, he talked to police, who were in no rush to seek charges since Eckardt already was incarcerated at Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown.
"At that point, they had been to interview him (Eckardt),” he said. "They talked about where he had lived and that he kind of lived up and down the I-40 corridor, that he hitchhiked and got rides from truckers a lot. But as soon as they got to anything specific about Mom’s case, he asked for a lawyer.”
Eckardt was born in Pasadena, Texas, Eastridge said. He grew up around Tulsa and Cleveland, OK, but hitchhiked between Las Vegas and Chattanooga, Tenn., for years.
Until Welch died, he had only a minor arrest record, Eastridge said.
Offering support
At Tuesday’s news conference, the victim’s husband struggled to retain his composure as he read a prepared statement.
Beside him, his son fought back tears.
Kristine Ervin tried to comfort both.
After so much time — after so much pain — it would seem the family has every right to be bitter. They’re not. For 23 years, they have leaned upon each other and upon friends, relatives, teachers and neighbors. Tuesday, they offered thanks and talked of gratitude.
If Eckardt is convicted, Dawson A. Engle said, the family may find peace of mind in knowing that he "will not have the opportunity to kill another woman.”
But nothing, he said, will end their grief.
from the oklahoman
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