The Skeleton Key Chronicles

17 hours ago

Just before 4 a.m. on April 18, 2016, Missy Bevers is on her way to Creekside Church in Midlothian, Texas, where she’s scheduled to lead an early morning fitness class.

That morning someone else is already inside the building awaiting her arrival. Security cameras showed an individual moving through the halls in dark, tactical-style clothing with “POLICE” across the front. They go door to door, opening rooms, and checking locks like they have a reason to be there, but they don’t.

A short time later, Missy arrives at the church to teach her fitness bootcamp but what happened next was not captured on video. Within minutes, participants begin showing up for the class and find Missy unresponsive, she was later pronounced dead. Around that same timeframe, a silver early-2010s Nissan Altima is seen leaving a nearby parking lot. The vehicle has never been tied to a specific person, but it remains a potential aspect of the investigation.

Investigators hone in on the footage of the person inside the building, and a few details begin stand out as they watch the video. The gear looks mismatched, not consistent with standard issue. Using the doorframes for scale, investigators estimate the person to be around five-foot-two. The walk is just as noticeable, with the feet angled outward, almost like the boots don’t fit properly.

They also look into people in Missy’s life. Her husband, Brandon Bevers, was apparently out of state on a fishing trip at that time. Her father-in-law, Randy Bevers, also drew attention after some viewers compared his walk to the person in the video, but he also had an alibi confirming his whereabouts that morning.

Today marks ten years since Missy Bevers lost her life inside that church. Investigators say they’re still actively working the case, following up on leads alongside state and federal partners, and say no one has been ruled out as a suspect.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

21 hours ago

A family pulled from the Columbia River last March has now been identified, bringing long-awaited answers to a case that began way back in 1958.

On December 7th of that year, Ken and Barbara Martin left their Portland home with their three daughters to pick up Christmas decorations, something that should have been a simple afternoon errand. But when the family didn’t come home that night, concern quickly turned into a large-scale search that drew national attention.

The break in the case didn’t come until 2024, when diver Archer Mayo, who had been searching for the Martin family car for seven years, finally located it near Cascade Locks. When he finally located the Ford station wagon, it was sitting about 50 feet underwater, upside down and buried in silt after decades in the river. At the time, it matched the Martin family vehicle almost perfectly, but it wasn’t clear whether anyone was still inside. Now we know the answer to that.

Investigators say the remains of Kenneth Martin, Barbara Martin, and their oldest daughter, Barbara “Barbie” Martin, who was 14, were recovered from the river within the wreckage of the car and later confirmed through DNA analysis.

These were the three family members who had never been located after the disappearance, while Susan and Virginia were found months later downstream.
After more than sixty years of questions and theories, The Hood River County Sheriff’s Office says the case is now officially closed.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

In the early morning hours of July 25, 1980, Terri Marie Howell was trying to get home after a night out at the Hasty Tasty in Owensboro. She and a friend had been talking with a man that night who seemed to know the same people she knew from her hometown, so it felt safe enough to accept a ride with him. They hopped in his light blue 1960′s Ford and headed out, but it wasn't long before he began going in the wrong direction. Terri's friend later made the decision to jump out of the vehicle and walked back toward town, where she was able to find a phone and call for someone to come pick her up. That was the last time anyone saw Terri alive.

Later that same day, a fire was reported at an abandoned house on Lanham Road in Knottsville, about 15 miles from where Terri was last seen. What initially looked like a structure fire quickly turned into something else once investigators took a closer look. Terri was found inside, and at the time, she could not be identified, so she was processed as an unidentified Jane Doe.

And here’s where the story gets really strange. Within roughly a day, the decision was made to bury the individual found inside the home, who we now know was Terri Marie Howell from dental records. At the same time, Terri’s family was reporting her missing through the city, but unbeknownst to them, her case was already being handled by the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office. This aspect of the case has always raised questions, because it has never been clearly explained.

Over the years, the case remained open, but it changed hands, and at some point the original detective passed it along to the sheriff’s office. As time passed, it became a cold case.

Then in 2021, investigators received a call from someone working in a healthcare setting who said a patient had shared information shortly before their passing that appeared to match details from Terri’s case. According to Daviess County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Detective O’Herron, the caller was a healthcare worker in the area who said a patient had shared that information with them shortly before their passing. That information was passed along at the time, but it was never formally documented and is no longer in the case file. When investigators later went back looking for it, there was no record of the tip at all.

With that confession now missing, Detective O’Herron is asking for the person who made that call to come forward again. It could be the key piece of evidence to finally solve the case.

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