50 years ago an 18-year-old Arlington woman was stabbed dozens of times and killed just months before her wedding. Decades later, there’s little evidence and few leads. NBC 5’s Allie Spillyards has the story.
Fifty years ago an 18-year-old Arlington woman was stabbed dozens of times and killed just months before her wedding. Decades later there's little evidence and few leads.
Through his podcast, "Gone Cold: Texas True Crime," Vincent Strange has told more than 200 unsolved stories, including the one about 18-year-old Cheryl Callaway who was killed in Arlington in 1974.
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WATCH HERE"The first case we did was Carla Walker, and I remember running into Cheryl's name at that point,” said Strange.
Walker was 17 when she was kidnapped and killed in Fort Worth in 1974, the same year Callaway was murdered. Though Walker’s case was resolved a few years ago, 50 years later Callaway’s case remains a mystery.
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SIGN UP Back on Jan. 30, 1974, Arlington Police said Callaway was attacked while leaving Forum 303 Mall at about 8 p.m. The mall, which was demolished in 2007, was located near Pioneer Parkway and Texas 360.
The family said she’d dropped by the mall after dinner to pick up a birthday gift for her fiancé.
News copy from the time said that while leaving witnesses heard a woman scream and saw a man grab Callaway who “stabbed her repeatedly with an ice pick” before he “dumped her body and drove away.”
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While trying to save Callaway, witnesses failed to catch the man's license plate, only noting that he was a young man with a muscular build who fled in a white Oldsmobile Cutlass.
"I think about it a lot. It's burned in my brain, burned in my soul,” said Stephen Harris.
Five decades later, Harris said he thinks about the woman who should have become his sister-in-law. She was set to marry his brother, Clint Harris, that June.
“She had this infectious smile. She was a joy to be around. She was really kindhearted,” he said.
He also still questions why anyone would hurt her, especially in such a brutal fashion.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner determined Callaway was stabbed nearly 50 times.
"Her memory at least deserves to live and the person that did this deserves justice, and I just wish the Arlington Police Department would do more than they've done,” said Harris.
Harris said while his family has grieved the loss in different ways, he’s coped by continuing to push detectives to seek new leads.
A spokesperson for the department said that after years of investigating individuals who matched the man's description and looking into similar cases around the state and country, tips ran dry. On top of that, some of the physical evidence was lost in the 80s.
Harris worries that rules out the possibility of using new DNA technology like what was used in Walker's case.
"I think it's highly unlikely to get,” he said.
Still, buried beneath the latest murder mystery that he’ll soon convert into a multi-episode podcast, Strange said all it takes is one person with one right tip to finally lay Callaway’s mystery to rest.
"I still think there's hope,” said Strange.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Arlington Police Department Homicide Unit at 817-459-5772 or Crime Stoppers of Tarrant County at 817-469-8477.
