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‘Preacher Man’ Suspected in Carla Walker Case



The Carla Walker case is among those featured on Oxygen’s The DNA of Murder, airing Saturdays at 7 p.m. EST.



According to Detective Leah Wagner of the Fort Worth Police Department, suspects include Tommy Ray Kneeland, who abducted 16-year-old Danita Cash on April 23, 1974. The teenager had driven to the old Arlington-Bedford Bridge in a heavily-wooded area on the Trinity River to pick up her brother, but when she arrived and honked the horn, the boy was nowhere to be found. A short time later, a man asked if she needed help and when she explained she was waiting for her brother, he left. As she sat there, exasperated, awaiting the arrival of her bratty younger sibling, the man returned, this time with a sawed-off shotgun. He forced the girl to go with him, bound her wrists and taped her mouth. As they drove, she struggled and attempted to scream and when he reached over to loosen the tape, he lost control of his vehicle, which ran off the road and got stuck in the mud. Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, he untied Danita and instructed her to “Take off!” menacingly adding “I’ll kill you if you tell the police.”



The girl sprinted to her car, drove home and her mother called the police, but by the time they got to the area, Kneeland and his truck were long gone. Unfortunately for her abductor, the teenager was able to describe him and his 1957 pickup and it didn’t take long for the authorities to track down the vehicle. Initially, however, they doubted the owner of the truck, a carpet layer, who also worked as a youth minister, was their man. Nevertheless, when they showed Danita a photo spread that included Kneeland’s picture, she immediately identified the “preacher man.”



Kneeland was born April 12, 1949, in Kermit, Texas, and at age 21, lived across the street from Gene Mitchell and his attractive young wife, Nancy (above). On the night of the full moon* (September 15, 1970), Gene Mitchell got home from work and found his twin 3-year-old daughters in bed and his wife’s underwear – which appeared to have been slashed with a knife – on the floor. He immediately called the police. There were no leads in the case until June 4, 1971, when a woman’s decomposed body was discovered in an oilfield. Dental records proved the remains were those of Nancy Mitchell and the land where the corpse was found was leased by the father of Tommy Ray Kneeland.

No one thought it odd that Kneeland suddenly picked up and moved his family to Euless, Texas, a city almost 400 miles away in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, shortly after Nancy Mitchell’s body was found. Of course, he wasted no time becoming an active member of Hurst Christian Church, where the Reverend Robert Owens was impressed by the enthusiastic youth minister, describing him as “outgoing and charismatic.” He was particularly popular with the teenage crowd and was soon driving the church bus that picked up teens in the area who wished to attend church and had no way to get to and from services.



On Friday, June 30, 1972, Oklahoma City teens Jane Handy, 17, and Robert Gholson, 15, borrowed Jane’s father’s 1961 white Ford Fairlane, claiming they were going to a party, although they actually intended to drive to a concert in Dallas, Texas. The car broke down near Ardmore, Oklahoma, so the pair began hitchhiking and the first driver who stopped for them dropped them off in Gainesville, Texas. There, they met Tommy Ray Kneeland, who offered to drive them to Hurst, where he said they could easily hitchhike the remaining distance to Dallas. He then proceeded to drive the teens to a secluded area east of Fort Worth, bound their hands with wire coat hangers, knocked Gholson to the ground and sexually-assaulted Handy. During the attack, the girl was able to free her hands and fight for her life, prompting Kneeland to pull a knife and stab her six times in the chest and six more times in the back before slashing her throat, after which he furiously stabbed her in the face until she was rendered unrecognizable. He then turned his attention to the boy, who had managed to escape while the fiend was busy raping and stabbing his friend. Kneeland was able to catch up with the fleeing teenager and, as he had done with the girl, stabbed Gholson six times in the chest, another half-dozen times in the back and slashed his throat, but left his fact intact.



The following morning, bikers found Robert’s body and called the police, who, while searching the area, came upon Jane Handy’s mutilated corpse. Tarrant County Medical Examiner Felix Gwozdz, who performed autopsies on the pair, described the wounds as deep and violent – an intense attack. Like the case of Nancy Mitchell, the case of the murdered teenagers went cold.





But following the attempted abduction of Danita Cash, police were keeping an eye on Kneeland and he knew it. Finally, he called the police, saying he wanted to “clear things up.” Once he was in the hot seat, he quickly admitted kidnaping Danita. Incredibly, he also admitted to killing Jane Handy and Robert Gholson and then commenced talking about Nancy Mitchell, his former neighbor. According to Kneeland, he abducted Mrs. Mitchell at gunpoint, raped her, then placed a plastic bag over her head with the intention of suffocating her to death. She didn’t die, so having heard injecting an air bubble into someone was lethal, he attempted to inject air into her arm without results. He then took out his knife, stabbed the young mother multiple times and slit her throat, leaving her body on the land his father was leasing.



Although police strongly suspected he was responsible for the abduction of Carla Walker, Kneeland steadfastly refused to confess to the crime. This led some law enforcement officers to conclude he had nothing to do with the incident because he had confessed to three other murders without hesitation. There were also those who questioned whether Kneeland, who stands only 5'6", would have been capable of physically overpowering and carrying off the struggling teenager.



People were shocked when they saw the headlines announcing the “Sunday school teacher” had been arrested and charged with attempted kidnaping and three murders. His wife insisted he was a good husband and father and never raised a hand to her or their two children. He also disapproved of women who dressed provocatively, she told the authorities. However, she recalled he did come home frequently in bloody clothes from having cut himself at work and she laundered his bloodstained shirts and pants.



Kneeland’s father was also surprised, insisting his son was always a “good boy.” Rev. Owens, shocked by Kneeland’s arrest, visited his parishioner in jail and later described him as “one frightened boy.”



In a plea bargain, Kneeland was sentenced to 10 years for kidnaping Danita Cash and received two life sentences for the murders of Jane Handy and Robert Gholson in Tarrant County.



He was subsequently transferred to his hometown of Kermit to stand trial for the abduction and murder of Nancy Mitchell. In the photo above, he clutches his Bible as he’s led into the courtroom to face the judge in the Mitchell case. Because of pretrial publicity, a change of venue to Pecos County was ordered, nonetheless, Kneeland was ultimately convicted of kidnaping, murder and abuse of a corpse for which he was sentenced to 270 years.



In a perfect world, this story would end with Kneeland’s slowly rotting away in prison, but because of overcrowding and the influence of bleeding-heart liberals, on September 16, 1987, after serving less than 13 years, Tommy Ray Kneeland was paroled.



Needless to say, the city of Kermit wanted nothing to do with the vile fiend who killed and raped a young mother, but in Hico – a city that brags it’s a place “Where Everybody Is Somebody!” – family members and friends started a petition in support of his parole and if he wasn’t welcomed with open arms, at least there wasn’t as much backlash as there was in Kermit. While some were confident the killer had been rehabilitated and cited the fact he was a Christian, he was, in fact, a Christian – or at least pretending to be such – when he was kidnaping, raping and killing. Of note, a Hico pastor who had written a letter to the parole board on Kneeland’s behalf later claimed he was unaware the prisoner he was championing had committed rape and murder, though few believed him.



Following release, Kneeland, whose wife had divorced him, married a woman with two children, resumed his church activities and started a business. All appeared to be well until July 1994 when Kneeland was stopped for an expired vehicle registration and two rifles were discovered beneath the seat of his truck. This constituted a parole violation and taking into account the fact he had kidnaped women at gunpoint in the past, the guns raised an alarm and he was returned to prison. Many in the Hico area admitted they breathed a sigh of relief when he was removed from their community.



When interviewed by The DNA of Murder’s Paul Holes, retired investigator Jim Minter, one of the original detectives on the Walker case, said Carla Walker’s murder was similar to that of Becky Martin, who was kidnaped from Tarrant County Junior College (now Tarrant County College) in Fort Worth on February 27, 1973. Her remains were discovered in a culvert near Lake Benbrook, the same general area where Walker’s body was found.



While Kneeland is a suspect in the case, there are others, including William Ted Wilhoit (see “Fort Worth Police Release Letter in 1974 Carla Walker Case” above).



Sources: Benjamin H. Smith, Oxygen, April 4, 2020; Cowtown Crime, February 5, 2018; United Press International, October 14, 1987; The Odessa American, May 10, 1974; and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.



*The Nancy Mitchell case is sometimes included in the so-called “Full Moon Murders,” a spate of murders in the Odessa area wherein women were abducted and/or killed around the time of the full moon.