Post by Scumhunter on May 25, 2024 7:10:45 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: nbcnews.com)
Reason for placement in National Media section: Profiled on Dateline NBC’s “Cold Case Spotlighr” digital series
Mary Jane Lara’s family has been searching for answers in her brutal murder since March 22, 2003 — the day a passerby discovered her lifeless body floating in a creek in Belton, Texas, southwest of the city of Temple.
Forty-three-year-old Mary Jane Lara, known as “Pee Wee” to her friends and family, was described as a selfless and loving mother, sister and friend.
“Her being short, they called her Pee Wee because she looked like a little peewee,” Julia Jurado, Mary Jane’s stepsister and youngest sibling, told Dateline.
“Well, to begin with, that used to be my nickname when we used to go to the bars and stuff,” Mary Jane’s brother Daniel Lara told Dateline. “And they come to find out that she was smaller than me, and they started calling her Pee Wee.”
“That name stuck with her till this day,” Daniel said.
Twenty-one years later, Mary Jane’s friends and family are left with only the memories of their dear “Pee Wee,” and the mystery of her murder remains unsolved.
When authorities arrived at the scene at Salado Creek in Belton, Texas that morning of March 22, 2003, they discovered that Mary Jane had suffered a single gunshot to the back of her head.
Daniel Lara recalled the events of that day.
He said he had plans to go fishing in Owl Creek, northwest of the city of Temple, with Mary Jane, Julia and a few of their other siblings, and his ex-wife that morning. But Mary Jane didn’t show up. They began calling her repeatedly. “We could never get a hold of her,” he said.
Julia Jurado recalled that morning, as well. “I was used to her calling me every morning and she didn’t call me at all,” Julia told Dateline.
So, after fishing, Julia stopped at Mary Jane’s house to look for her. She thought maybe her sister was just sleeping in. “The neighbor told me that there were some detectives looking for me. And they gave her a number for me to call. And I called them and they told me that they needed to speak to me and if I was at home. I said, ‘No, I’m at her house looking,’” Julia said. “It just automatically just dawned on me. I’ve been looking for her all day long, calling, no answer. So I figured there was something wrong.”
Daniel Lara told Dateline that when they arrived home, they found a note from the Bell County Sheriff’s Office saying they needed to talk to them. They then called the sheriff’s office, and it was explained to the family that authorities believed they had found Mary Jane’s body.
Daniel said they asked police how they were able to tell that it was Mary Jane. “He told us, ‘Well, she had a little tattoo on her arm,’” Daniel said. Through the tattoo, and other details specific to Mary Jane, the family was then able to confirm that it was, in fact, their beloved sister.
“We tried for at least seven hours trying to get a hold of her and left messages and left messages and come to find out that she was deceased,” Daniel said.
The Bell County Sheriff’s Office is still working to piece together the timeline of Mary Jane’s movements the night before she died.
Dateline spoke to Investigator Corey Powell, a retired Temple Police Department homicide detective who was brought into the Bell County Sheriff’s Office in June of 2021 to work on some of their unsolved homicide cases. The goal was to get a fresh set of eyes on their cold cases, including Mary Jane Lara’s.
Investigator Powell confirmed that Mary Jane was last known to be at Bloom’s motel in Belton visiting some friends the night before her murder. Powell told NBC 6, the affiliate in Central Texas, more detail about that night, “So she’s supposedly there with friends and they say that she left before midnight to go get some items from the store and never returned.” Powell added that, according to witnesses, Mary Jane left alone.
Powell confirmed that witnesses saw Mary Jane heading in the direction of the convenience store, but authorities don’t know if she ever made it to the store that night. The investigator told Dateline that they have “obtained the security video from that store,” but there’s a problem: it’s VHS tape. “So we submitted it to the state lab to have it transferred over to digital,” Powell said. They have not yet received those tapes back to determine if Mary Jane can be seen on the video at the store.
Mary Jane’s sister, Julia, told Dateline she remembered an unusual phone call she had with Mary Jane about a week before her murder. “She says, ‘If anything ever happens to me, underneath my bed, there’s a black box. And with that box, it’s enough to cover my funeral and have some left over for you all.’ I told her ‘Girl, quit talking like that. You ain’t going to die anytime soon,’” Julia said. “I guess maybe she had that gut feeling that something was going on or something was wrong.”
According to Investigator Powell and Mary Jane’s family, that box was never found.
One of the biggest clues that investigators do have is Mary Jane’s car, which was found shortly after her body was discovered.
Powell told Dateline the car was found in a place police patrolled quite frequently. “This was a place where stolen cars were dumped,” he said. “Deputies would go there, and they would catch kids drinking there. So it was a known area. They normally checked it. Boom, he finds it.”
“I think it was just a coincidence, to be honest,” Powell said. “And then they realized — because they didn’t know who the body was they had found. So now they find the car, and they’re like, ‘My gosh, this is her car.’ So it very quickly came together.”
The Bell County Sheriff’s Office collected evidence from Mary Jane’s car and it was sent out for processing. They have also sent DNA to the Department of Public Safety lab. “Now we’re just waiting for the crime lab to see if there’s anything that matches there,” Powell said. With the help of his partner Investigator Jaimie Rieves, Powell remains invested in finding closure for Mary Jane’s family. “Yes, it’s about justice,” Powell said. “But the families have — a huge portion of that is bringing closure to them.”
Powell described the work that has been done, and continues to be done, on this case as a team effort. “I’ve evaluated this case, and it’s a lot of reading. And the problem is, it’s reading on paper and it’s reading notes, and then it’s digitizing that. Having the secretary digitize it and put it into the system,” he said. “And so it was bringing the case file even up to today’s standards. My partner here, jumped in there and really [is] learning this and evaluating stuff. It’s not just me.”
“At that time, no investigator ever thought their case was going to go cold,” Powell said. “Now, unfortunately, that’s something we teach [new homicide detectives], and that’s what I’ve been taught: You write your report in case your case goes cold, that somebody could pick your case up and take off running with it.”
Over the last two decades, there have been no arrests in the case. Investigator Powell told Dateline authorities do have two persons of interest in the case, but they have not yet been publicly named. “Her car was found away from her body so someone else had to be involved,” he said.
After all this time, Mary Jane’s family just wants answers. “She was the best thing in the world. She’d give her shirt off her back for anybody,” Julia said. “You didn’t have to be related to her. She would give it to you when you needed it.”
Mary Jane’s murder has had a profound effect on the next generation, as well, as Daniel Lara’s daughter Dia Jurado told Dateline. “It just makes me a little emotional about it all, because I just wish there was answers or something that I could get for them,” Dia said. “Obviously, the family wants closure for it.”
Of course, closure is unlikely to provide anything more than answers about Mary Jane’s death. It won’t fix anything. “When they took her from me,” little sister Julia said, “they took the whole world from me.”
Anyone with information about Mary Jane Lara’s murder is asked to call the Bell County Crime Stoppers at 254-526-8477.
www.nbcnews.com/dateline/cold-case-spotlight/murdered-mary-jane-lara-bell-county-texas-officials-hoping-bring-closu-rcna143673
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