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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On October 18th, 2016, a popular fitness instructor, wife and mother, was killed as she was getting ready to teach an early morning fitness class.
In the early stages of the investigation, the police got their hands on a surveillance video that showed someone wearing police tactical gear walking around the church where the fitness class was held. The mystery person was seen holding a hammer, the murder weapon. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 10, The Murder of Missy Beavers.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Missy Beavers was born on August 9, 1970, in Graham, Texas, and was the middle child in the family. She was born Terry Leanne Strickland, but went by the nickname Missy. Her parents, James Clinton Strickland and Norma Strickland, were also both from the Lone Star State. Missy was described as religious and a woman who truly cared for everyone she crossed paths with.
After high school, she went to college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1995, and she went on to work several different retail jobs. Missy met her husband, Brandon Beavers, and the couple married on June 20, 1998, when she was 28. After getting married, she returned to school for her teaching assistant credential and landed a job working in special education.
This was the perfect job for her because she loved working with children. She taught in special education for several years, and the students she taught were more like her own children and not just her students. Missy and Brandon welcomed their first daughter together. This is when Missy decided to step away from her teaching assistant job so she could be a full-time mom for her new baby girl.
Missy and Brandon would welcome a total of three girls, Allie, Hannah, and Sarah. Missy Beavers lived an active and healthy lifestyle. Dozens of photos of her online depict a very happy and healthy woman who participated in endurance events like the Spartan races and long-distance running events. She was passionate about living a healthy life and even turned her passion into a career.
When she started teaching group fitness classes, that's when her passion truly became a career for her. She became a beloved fitness instructor, and one of the classes she taught was a 5 a.m. boot camp class at a local church in Midlothian, Texas.
The boot camp style class was affiliated with Camp Gladiator, a fitness class designed for instructors who want to run their own classes in churches, community rooms, parking lots, and even outdoor spaces. By all accounts, Missy loved her 5 a.m. boot camp class. She didn't mind waking up at dawn because she was doing something she loved.
and her enthusiasm for the class showed because everyone who took her class loved it, and they kept coming back. On the evening of April 17, 2016, Missy made several Facebook posts about her 5 a.m. Camp Gladiator boot camp class. She posted that the following day was week one of the camp, and it was an endurance weight day.
Her Facebook post read, quote, if you've been using the same weight for the last two camps, it's time to go up. Hashtag let's make gains, end quote. She also attached a picture to the Facebook post that said, if it's raining, we're still training. And that's because the weather forecast the night before showed that the morning would have heavy rain.
She made a second post to Facebook that said she was off to bed because she had to get up early for day one of gladiator camp. This would be the last time Missy Beavers posted on social media. The following morning on April 18, 2016, at 3.50 a.m., CCTV surveillance footage captured an individual breaking in to the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas.
The mystery person was dressed head to toe in replica SWAT riot gear. The outfit included an all black helmet that completely covered their face. They were also wearing a bulky black jacket with yellow words that read police across the back. The outfit was completed with black boots. The person looked exactly like a police officer, except they weren't.
This unknown individual was seen on camera slowly pacing the empty and dark hallways of the church. As he or she walked the hallways, the camera caught a glimpse of a hammer in their left hand. As the individual paced the hallways holding the hammer, they were seen looking into windows, opening random doors in the church, and even breaking a window at one point.
The individual didn't appear to spend any amount of time at a particular door or location in the church. Their demeanor was simply that they were strolling the hallways of the dark church, dressed head-to-toe in SWAT tactical gear. The unknown intruder was caught on several cameras from different angles of the church for about 30 minutes.
During several points of the video, he or she was seen just leisurely and ever so calmly swinging the hammer in their hand back and forth. Before Missy arrived at the church that morning, the intruder headed in a direction off camera and out of view. This is when Missy was confronted by the unknown person in police gear.
Missy Beavers arrived at the same Creekside Church of Christ early that morning to begin setting up the room for her 5 a.m. boot camp class, completely unaware of the person already inside the church, presumably waiting for her. At 5.06 a.m., 911 dispatchers received a frantic call from the Creekside Church of Christ.
The caller told 911 that they had arrived at the church just minutes earlier for an early morning boot camp class and discovered her instructor dead. The 911 dispatcher tried calming the caller down and told her that police and paramedics were on their way. The caller told 911 that Missy was unresponsive and had large puncture wounds to her head and chest.
When responding officers and paramedics arrived at the church, they were too late. Missy Beavers wasn't just dead. The fitness instructor, wife, and mother had been murdered. Based on the broken glass they observed on their way into the church, the first responding officers initially thought they were responding to a robbery gone wrong.
Once they arrived in the room where Missy was murdered, they immediately could tell that Missy was not only brutally attacked, but she also showed signs that the fitness instructor struggled against her attacker. An autopsy of Missy revealed that she died from multiple puncture wounds to her head and chest.
The medical examiner said the wounds on Missy's head and chest were consistent with the tool the suspect was carrying throughout the building. This confirmed that the hammer seen in that individual's left hand who broke into the church that morning was likely the murder weapon. The news of Missy's death quickly spread throughout the Texas community and soon after made national headline news.
The community and the entire nation were shocked and devastated by her death. How could anyone kill someone who was loved so deeply and made a career out of helping others? Now, three young girls were left without a mother and a husband grieved the loss of a wife. The public just couldn't believe that someone as beautiful as Missy Beavers could be murdered in such a brutal and terrible way.
Shortly after Missy's murder, authorities released several minutes of the surveillance footage from the church. A lot of this footage is available online. The church's surveillance system caught almost every movement this individual made while in the hallways of the church that morning, except for when they went behind a closed door. You'll get dozens of the links to the video if you just google the Missy Beavers surveillance tape.
Several things stood out from the videos, and these are things that stood out to the police too. The first thing is that when the person was wearing police riot gear, it appears that the outfit is a size or two too big for the person. This suggests the person was trying to disguise their appearance or their body type. The second thing that stood out was this person's walk or gait.
Most people who watch the video think this person had a very unusual way of walking. It's almost like they walk with a limp or have a leg injury. It's distinct enough that if you watch how they walk in the video and see them again, you'll instantly recognize it. It's unclear why the person wore police tactical gear. Maybe it was to throw off investigators about who they really are.
Maybe they wanted to pretend to be a police officer. So when Missy saw them, she thought it was the police. And if so, she might have trusted the person enough to let them get close enough to her to attack her. Although the costume covers most of the person's body, it does reveal important details about them. Experts determined the person is between 5'2 and 5'7".
Initially, authorities believed that this person was a male, but it's equally as likely that they could be female. One of the first things that homicide investigators do after a murder is start looking into the victim's personal life. People are far more likely to be murdered by someone they know and are close to compared to being killed by a random stranger. So after Missy Beaver's death, police started digging deep into the dark corners of her personal life.
They wanted to see if they could find anyone in her life who would want her dead. The police soon discovered that Missy and her husband Brandon might have had marital problems. There were rumors that Missy might have been having romantic affairs outside her marriage to Brandon. There were also reports that the couple had severe financial problems at the time of her murder. As soon as the police discovered this, they turned their focus to Brandon.
The police sat down and interviewed him about his wife's murder. But when they spoke with him, they discovered that he had an airtight alibi at the time of the murder. He was over 600 miles away on a fishing trip the very morning his wife was killed. He couldn't be in two places at once.
But Brandon's alibi didn't mean he was completely uninvolved in Missy's murder. It just means he wasn't the one dressed up in the church that morning. Something unexpected happened four days after Missy's murder. The media reported Missy's father-in-law, Brandon's father, dropped off a blood-stained shirt at a local dry-cleaning business.
64-year-old Randy Beavers brought a white XXL women's long-sleeved shirt to the Dry Clean Supercenter in Midlothian. He reportedly told the Dry Clean employee that the shirt needed to be cleaned because it had animal blood on it. According to Randy Beavers, the blood on the shirt was from a dog fight in Missy Beavers' sister-in-law's kitchen.
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The dry clean employee who knew about Missy's murder because it had been all over the local news thought that it was strange that Randy Beavers was asking them to clean a blood-soaked shirt just days after she was killed. The employee also noticed something else that was very suspicious. The employee thought that it looked like someone had already tried to clean the blood off the shirt before coming in to the dry cleaners.
The employee contacted the police and told them what had happened, and the police immediately obtained a search warrant for the father-in-law's bloody shirt, and according to the search warrant, the police believed that the shirt may contain valuable DNA evidence that could help them with the investigation into Missy's death.
Once police announced to the public that they were executing a search warrant, public speculation of Missy's father-in-law Randy's involvement in her murder swirled like crazy. The public instantly began speculating that Missy's father-in-law Randy might have been involved in the murder. The bloody shirt was sent to the crime lab for DNA testing. After a few days, the test results came back. The results showed the test was positive for blood,
But it was not human blood. It came back positive for animal blood. Randy Beaver's story about the family dog getting into a fight with another dog might have been true. It wasn't Missy's blood. Following this discovery, many people still wondered if Missy's husband Brandon or her father-in-law were involved. But the speculation didn't lead to any arrests.
The police reminded the public that none of Missy's family members were considered suspects at the time. If Missy's family and husband were not considered suspects at the time during the investigation, people considered other theories. One theory was that someone Missy was romantically involved with might be her killer.
The police executed search warrants on Missy and Brandon's cell phones to try and get additional information about their last known communications. A forensic search of the cell phone confirmed earlier suspicions that the couple was facing marital and financial problems. The police also identified target numbers from Missy's cell phone.
These target numbers were phone numbers to men that police believed Missy may have been romantically involved with right before her murder. Police pinpointed 11 target numbers based on text messages, photos, videos, and other deleted forensic evidence on Missy's phone.
Although police have identified these 11 individuals, they didn't find any one particular person who could be considered a suspect in her murder. So once again, the public and the police found themselves at square one. The police discovered a nearby business with surveillance footage around the church.
After hours and hours of watching the footage, a 2010 to 2012 Nissan Altima drove very slowly around the nearby closed businesses. The footage showed the driver turning their headlights on and off several times as they circled around the parking lot. At one point, the driver in the vehicle parked under a parking lot light for a short period of time.
The police immediately began looking for the driver, but to this day, neither the driver nor the vehicle has been positively identified by law enforcement. The video of the car is also available online if you'd like to view it for yourself. While the police continued to search for the driver of the Nissan Altima, they also took another look at Missy's cell phone and computer for any information about her death. And when they did, they found something.
One of Missy's friends told the police that less than three days before she was murdered, Missy had shown her a private message that she received on LinkedIn. The message was sent from someone neither Missy nor her friend knew. Missy's friend told police that she and Missy found this message odd and creepy because they had no idea who this person was or why he was trying to private message her.
During this interview with the police, however, Missy's friend couldn't remember the person's name. She could only remember the message. The police also identified another person who communicated with Missy on LinkedIn starting in January 2016. The messages were described as, quote, flirtatious and familiar.
Once police conducted a forensic data extraction on this individual's and Missy's phones, police could tell that the conversations between the two were definitely intimate and would highly suggest a flirty type relationship. The forensic extraction also revealed that Missy and this individual deleted the messages after their conversation ended.
But as of now and where this case stands, this flirty conversation on LinkedIn has not led to a single arrest. Police issued a search warrant on a tower dump of cell phone data from around when Missy was killed at the church. This allowed the police to find out who was in the area of the church at the time of the murder based on cell phone pings.
Police were hopeful that if the killer was carrying around a cell phone at the time, it just might have pinged a tower near the church location. But the results of the tower dump are a mystery. If the police found anything, they haven't announced it. At the time of this recording, there have been no arrests made in the brutal murder of Missy Beavers nearly four years ago now in April 2016.
Since her murder, Missy's mother-in-law has posted two very public and two very open letters that speak directly to Missy's killer. The second letter reads, quote,
Our life has been filled with peace that you wouldn't understand. Something only a God-fearing, saved-by-Jesus person truly understands. We have been blessed by so many wonderful people willing to share our grief by praying with us, preparing meals for her family, and just blessing us with all their actions in so many ways.
How are you? Are you feeling all the love from your family and friends? Or do they suspect you, thinking something is not right with you? How did it make you feel when so many people all over this nation said such glowing things about Missy? You probably sat back and thought, how little do they really know her?
I assume you were jumping up and down when the news about her life was not as perfect as a lot of people thought. Well, let me tell you a little secret you may not comprehend. No, she wasn't perfect and she never claimed to be. But the secret is, there is something called love. Meaning, there really is a love you have that no matter what you have done in the past or present, you still love them.
I know her husband does, her three girls, her mom, brothers, all her family and friends. Sorry, there is nothing that can ever change that. I'm sure that disappoints you, but it's the truth. Are you getting a bit nervous? Shaking in your boots that look too big? You should be. It's just a matter of time now.
End quote. The murder of Missy Beavers remains cold today.
We still don't know who the person is who broke into the church that early morning. The same person who the police believe killed Missy. It's been four years since the murder and the police have made zero arrests despite receiving over 2,000 tips in the case. There are many possible theories on the internet about who might have killed Missy. A quick Google search about the case can send you down a rabbit hole.
Some of the theories include Missy's husband Brandon was somehow involved despite being 100 miles away on a fishing trip. Other theories say her father-in-law who was involved despite the DNA blood results coming back irrelevant. Some people say it was someone that Missy was having an affair with, while others say it could have been a random act of violence perpetrated by a random stranger.
Although there are so many theories about the case, the police have said no one in Missy's family is considered a suspect at this time, and the motive behind her murder isn't known. The murder of Missy Beavers is a solvable case. I remain hopeful that someday we will know who Missy's killer is, and I truly believe that forensic science will be what cracks this case wide open.
Not much is known about the forensic evidence in Missy's case. The FBI and Texas police have been involved in the case since day one. And exactly what kind of forensic evidence they have in the case isn't clear. But it just takes one tiny piece of forensic evidence to solve this. Maybe it's a fingerprint. Maybe it's DNA. Or maybe it's something else. Missy was attacked and killed by a hammer.
This type of murder is very personal. It's possible that her killer left behind forensic evidence either on her body or on her clothing. Anytime someone is murdered from close range, the chances of forensic evidence being transferred are very high. The murder of Missy Beavers is undoubtedly a case sitting on the shelf just waiting to be solved by cutting-edge forensic science.
I will continue to follow this case, and if there are any updates, I will bring them to you in a future episode of the show. Please share the surveillance video from inside the church and the video of the Nissan. Someone, somewhere, knows who this individual is.
And the more we share and the more people who see it, well, it's just another set of eyes on the case that could ultimately lead to Missy's killer finally being arrested. I would love to hear what you think about Missy Beaver's case and share with me who you think her killer is. You can email me at Courtney at ForensicTales.com or connect with us on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram.
If you have any tips or information regarding Missy Beaver's murder, please contact the tip line at 972-775-7624. You can also provide information about the case by texting MIDL to 847411. All tips regarding Missy's murder are kept confidential.
I truly hope and wish that Missy Beaver's family will finally get the justice they so desperately deserve someday. To share your thoughts on the murder of Missy Beavers, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us.
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You can also support this show by leaving a positive review or telling friends and family about us. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
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