Post by Scumhunter on Mar 11, 2016 8:03:17 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: hinklej.files.wordpress.com)
From KXAN:
LLANO COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) – For years, Llano County Sheriff Bill Blackburn has hunted for the person, or people, who killed Holly Marie Simmons.
The 45-year-old mother of four vanished under suspicious circumstances the morning of Nov. 28, 2006. It would be three years before authorities and her family got answers, when a scuba diver found Simmons’s body cemented into an old jon boat sunken in the murky depths beneath the old Inks Lake bridge.
The murder left a family in turmoil, and the killer still roams free.
Now, after the case has run cold, Blackburn offers new clues about what may have happened down that rural gravel road and inside the mobile home Holly shared with her daughters.
“Nobody deserved to die like Holly Simmons,” Blackburn said.
A disappearance, a murder
The day she disappeared, Simmons dropped off her daughter, a Llano High School junior, at a bus stop near their home in Buchanan Dam, a rural Hill Country town of 1,500 set beside Central Texas’ largest reservoir.
It would be the last time Ashley Simmons would see her mother.
When the daughter returned home that cold November evening, “Nothing was broken, and nothing was out of the ordinary … It looked like she just left,” Ashley said.
The family left often the front door unlocked, Ashley said, because they had a "brindle American English pit-bull.”
Holly’s phone, her purse, her wallet, her keys, all of it was sitting at home, Ashley said. “Mom just was gone, something had happened to her mysteriously. I knew something wasn’t right.”
Ashley, 17 years old at the time, said she left the front porch light on for her Mom that night. She said her younger sister, who was 15, had gone to a school basketball game and stayed over at a friend’s house.
The next morning, when her Mom still had not come home, Ashley called the police, and the family filed a missing persons report.
By that time, Blackburn said, someone had already taken Holly’s life.
A concrete tomb
Blackburn, wearing a cowboy hat and jeans held up by suspenders, met with KXAN at his Llano County headquarters. The ruddy-faced lawman would not divulge many details about the homicide, due to the ongoing investigation.
The sheriff said he still believes he will catch the killer. Investigators just need the right tip.
Blackburn said he and his deputies have combed the area’s back roads, peppered with scrub oak, mesquite, mobile homes and lakeside getaways.
What investigators have found, the sheriff said, leads them to believe Holly did not leave her home willingly.
“Something did occur at the house that led us to believe that is was a violent occurrence,” Blackburn said. “We don’t think that she left the house alive.”
The killer, he said, is probably local to Llano County and knew the single mother.
In fact, Holly may have known the killer so well, the person’s car was a familiar sight parked on her Buchanan Dam cul-de-sac with multiple mobile homes, he said.
For three years, the clues to Holly’s death stayed with her at the bottom of Inks Lake, just miles from her home.
On July 8, 2009, a scuba diver happened upon Simmons’ body. Days later, investigators dragged her concrete tomb from the cloudy lake. The killer weighted down the metal boat with 600 pounds of concrete. Due to decomposition, forensic experts identified Holly through dental records, according to media reports.
Blackburn said investigators know how Holly died, but he would not divulge the manner of death. He did say forensic evidence shows Holly’s death was a “personal type of death.”
It may have been a single killer, the sheriff said, but it would probably take more than one person to dispose of the body in that fashion.
“The ties that bind those people together are sometimes broken,” Blackburn said. “It may take years; it may take months…somebody’s conscience breaks down and they can’t live with it anymore.”
And while Blackburn waits for a tip from the public, Holly’s family is waiting for answers from him.
kxan.com/investigative-story/the-lady-in-the-lake/
Thoughts? The reason I'm placing this case in the unsolved on tv section was that it was profiled on the syndicated crime show "Crime Watch Daily." I will post the link below the admin notes.
Admin Note #1: If anyone has information on this case, based on crime location, we'd advise calling the Llano County Sheriff's Office number at 325-247-5050 or since this case was profiled on "Crime Watch Daily" you can likely also submit a tip at crimewatchdaily.com
Admin Note #2: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form
Link to "Crime Watch Daily" segment: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVuPW_qJ0bk
Other Relevant Links:
www.facebook.com/JusticeForHollySimmons/
hinklej.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/what-lies-beneath/
