4. Princeton, Texas: The Town, The People, The Murder

What was life really like in the tiny town of Princeton, Texas in the 1980s? Perspectives are shared by locals such as a reporter for the Princeton newspaper, Angela's junior high art teacher, and two of her classmates.

Actress Julie Dove, also from Princeton, Texas, shares this very personal story of how Angela's murder changed the lives of Angela’s family and the small town forever.

Transcript

This program contains descriptions of violence, drug use, and sexual themes. Listener discretion is advised. 

Previously, on True Texas Crime. When I heard she was first missing, cause this was before internet, cell phones, pagers, anything. It was just landline stuff. Um, That I, you know, immediately people thought, well, she's at somebody, some friend's house, like she's just at some friend's house and she's going to show up.

I never in a million years thought that, that, that, that Lee had anything to do, that never crossed my mind. What happened to her could have happened to any of us. And it's probably why we relate to that and it hits us so hard. And you want to tell a story. 

If you were in elementary school anytime between the 1950s and 1970s, you might recall reading the Fun with Dick and Jane books. Remember Dick, Jane, and their baby sister Sally? Those kids were always just having the best day ever, and their life seemed perfect. 

As a young girl growing up in Princeton, I remember my life being pretty awesome. My mom stayed home because she didn't have to work, she helped plan all my classroom parties, she attended school field trips with me, and she ran Vacation Bible School at our church in the summer. I think my dad must have had a good job because I had the newest Barbie Dreamhouse, A super cool BMX bike that I rode all day in the summer. And I played football with the younger boys on my street because there weren't any girls my age to play Barbie. 

We had a small police department, a volunteer fire department, which is exactly as it sounds. They were non-paid firefighters. The department raised money at their annual carnival each year. There were all kinds of fun games, and one of the ladies in town donated a homemade quilt each year that was auctioned off to the highest bidder. 

We all pitched in to keep our community safe. Veterans could socialize at the VFW post 9167.   There was a nightclub called the Wagon Wheel. I don't remember it always being there, and it's gone now. But I remember my mama being so excited to hear Fats Domino play there live. The Little League Baseball Field, where some of the adults also played in church league teams, was originally a camp of cabins built in 1940 to house migrant workers during the onion and cotton seasons. 

In 1945, this site became a prisoner of war camp for captured Germans during World War II. Eventually, after the war, low income residents of Princeton lived in these one room cabins. Including, in the late 1950s and early 60s, my dad, with my aunt Georgia Ann, and my grandfather George, who I simply knew as Papa Carr. 

We had the First Baptist Church, the Faith Baptist Church, which I was always told was formed from a congregational split between the First Baptists, Assembly of God, First Christian Church, Church of Christ, Pentecostal Church, and my church, the First United Methodist. These were the churches within the city limits. If we add churches in Culleoka, Altoga, and surrounding areas, the number of churches grows. 

One church you may have heard of 10 miles south of Princeton was the Methodist Church of Lucas, where Candace Montgomery and Betty Gore worshipped together. Until June 13th, 1980, when Candace struck Betty 41 times with an axe. 

Which I think asks the question, do we ever really know what someone is capable of? 

This is True Texas Crime, The Significant Life of Angela Stevens. Episode 4, Princeton, Texas. The town, The people, The murder. 

Some of my favorite people from Princeton graciously spoke with me. about their experiences in our town.

I loved Princeton. I did. I met some amazing people there and had some great friendship. My high school years and even junior high years, they were different than most, but we were also in a totally different age, you know, in the eighties. So I think a lot of things went untalked about and unknown. 

One of the reasons we moved were the area we did. It was because I loved to fish. And, uh, so we got, uh, familiar with the Branch, Culleoka area. Which was, is on Lake Lavon, south of Princeton. 

If you would have told me that we would have McDonald's and, uh, all that when we were in school, I would have never believed it. And, um, so it's kind of a mixed emotion thing because I miss that everybody kind of knew everybody. I miss that when we would go to Food Mart, we pretty much knew everyone who was in there had a pretty good idea of who they were. 

We went to church in Princeton from the time I was about four years old. My very first teacher in my whole life. My very first sweet teacher was Margie Edmonds. She was my Sunday school teacher and she was my inspiration to become a public school teacher.

She was my first grade teacher. She was just one of a kind. 

We were so small, when you were labeled as something, that label stopped, and you were never going to get out of that label. I'm, I'm glad it has progressed. Progressed in not only, uh, growth, but, uh, how can we put this, um, The racial climate. 

Johnny and Carolyn Penland moved to Princeton in the early 1970s. Johnny worked for the Ford Motor Company in Dallas. Carolyn was a stay at home mom turned local journalist. They had three children and their oldest daughter, Dana, was three years older than me and my mentor in high school band. I'm proud to say each time I visit Princeton, I meet Dana and her husband for a delicious Tex-Mex meal.

Well, we moved, um. Just south of Princeton in 1972. And, uh, ah, see, Dana was about five at the time. 

Do you remember, like, any kind of ballpark of the population of the city? I know when I graduated in '88, which is many years later, I remember the population being like 2300 or something like that. 

Yeah, it hadn't grown very much. It was, it was around 2,000 or something like that when we moved out there. And, uh, the school was still small. 

Was it just one building for all the grades? 

Uh, it was the two, it was the oldest one that was west of the gym and then the newer ones that were on the east side. 

And when did you start working?

Someone at school, I think it was hitting me up about doing a column, a little column for the, the Princeton newspaper. And, um, I, I thought, well, you know, okay. Well, they paid me, I think it was two cents a word, or no, two cents a paragraph. I forget. Anyway, it was, it was really high pay. I, I, I, it was, you know, in other words, you didn't get much for it, but you know.

I got involved, began getting involved with the city more. I would, uh, then I went to the police reporting, and I would, I would go up into the Princeton Police Department, and I would report the police, um, actions.

Was, was, was Angela Stevens going missing, was that like one of the first serious things that you remember?

You know, um, the, and I'm sure that that was something, something. I don't remember that much coverage on her going missing. Now that may be my memory because I am pushing 80.  

But her body being found – 

Uh, that, uh, that's what, that's the thing that that hit the news was the, as I, as I remember it, uh, was a farmer was plowing his field and actually hit her remains, or came upon her remains. Uh, and that was the first thing that really, I think, caught everybody's attention. Well, who would, who would be dead out in that field, you know? 

Did the paper, like, say, you need to cover this? Or did someone call you and say, do you know this is going on? To the best of what you remember. 

I just remember, uh, Being a part of the coverage on it, and not really, they didn't tell me really what to do, I just did whatever. I think probably, uh, my boss, uh, she or her brother-in-law, um, probably were the first to really get on that story, because it was a major, uh, It was a major thing. And, uh, you know, for the area. 

Sure. 

I don't remember anything before that. 

Did you go out to the field and take pictures or talk to anybody? 

No. Um, what got me the most was, I think, because I knew personally, And, uh, the family and one of the, the boys that was involved, I knew Rodney, uh, and I knew his family. I mean, his family, uh, I had known them. They lived down on the lake. Uh, and, uh, uh, we were involved with 4-H. Uh, she was a, his mother was a 4-H leader. Uh, they may, their, uh, Rodney's older sister babysat for me. with my kids. And the sweetest people you'd ever, and I knew, I knew his dad. Uh, I didn't know him as well, but he was, there, they seemed to be a very loving, caring, uh, um, like they would discipline their kids type family, you know. And, uh, and Rodney, I think was even involved in our 4-H. But, uh. 

So you had a personal connection then? 

Yes, yes. And, and I could not believe, because I knew the boy, I knew the family. And I thought, how could he be involved? 

I honestly remember people saying, wow, those boys ruined their lives. 

You know, see, I, I, I don't even recall the name. And that's sad. Before we learned who she was. I don't, I don't even know where she was from. I don't know where she lived even. And yet she was somewhere right there. 

Yeah, she was right there near you guys. 

Yeah, but I don't recall her name. Uh, so she was not one that, that I knew like some of the other kids I knew because I had covered them at school events or, or first one thing and the other. And I, of course I couldn't know all of them, you know, personally, but I like say I did know Rodney and I. I just could not see how the boy could even be in, closely involved with something that awful. It's, it's just beyond my imagination of why now, was there drugs involved? Is that what I understand somehow or not?

Yes, the facts of the case indicate that. 

Yeah. Well, see, that's something that, that we, we didn't have a clue about. Didn't even suspect.

With any of those kids.

With any of those kids was you, you just didn't think about it in the, in that day and time. 

Well, when I was in school, there wasn't much of a drug culture.

No. There wasn't, um, to my knowledge at the time, and maybe I was just naive, uh, I knew there were a few kids that that smoked pot, but anything, any heavier than that, I really. I had no clue about and… 

These drugs were heavier than pot.

Yeah I think and I but I think it's my understanding that that came in pretty hard fast and heavy like a year or two after I was out of school.

All I remember is drinking, which I participated in, and some people smoking pot and I remember not ever smoking pot and I, still to this day because of like my reaction to alcohol, I was scared. And I, and when I've read these court cases, the drugs that these people were taking and people like Rodney and them going to parties, I was like, where are these parties? I was not invited to that. 

Yeah, me neither.

It was like a totally different culture of people. 

Yeah, and that's, I almost think it just wasn't going on so much with our group. If it was, I mean, we just didn't know about it. 

You know, it's just a little handful that I think that got involved and started in it somehow because that, uh, we never, uh, never had a clue that anything like that, and all the, I mean, I was so, I got so deeply involved with the various law enforcement and first responder enforcement people in the whole area through my work that, um, uh, you know, and we went on calls all the time. Well, the calls you went out, you had more other type calls than fire calls, with the Fire Department.

Yeah. Yeah. 

They were more medical or wrecks, mostly, uh, or drownings, and there is a, uh, really a story on that one at some point in time, if possible, for you. But anyway, um, uh, there's, uh, um. 

Do you remember the, Angela being the first murder that you remember about in Princeton? 

I, I don't know. I, I don't recall the timing. There was, uh, a, a young girl's body found. that had been murdered in a pond just right across Tickey Creek Bridge. 

And I've kind of asked around after this came up. I've kind of asked around and no one else really seems to recall anything else. But I did want to say something to your point when you were talking about what the, kind of what the vibe was at the time when all this was going on. And again, I hadn't really thought about it until we talked and it was Oh, that poor girl. But those boys, they have ruined their lives. They have just hurt their families and they have just ruined their lives. And they have, but it was like one little, Oh, poor girl. And then it was all about these, these boys had just made a mistake and whatever.

And, and I, it was almost as if she was discounted because of the stories that were being told about who she was and how she was, and there wasn't a lot of compassion and empathy or whatever. It doesn't seem like to me for that. I don't remember hearing anything about her family..

That's the way with me.

Or how they were being…

That  just may be, that may be the difference right there, Dana, uh, is that the boys were probably more well-known.

Perhaps. 

Than, the girl. 

Janice Bohannon, who I first knew as Janice Treadway. grew up outside of Princeton in Altoga, but her family went to church with me at the First United Methodist Church of Princeton. Janice went on to become the middle school art teacher. I didn't take art from Janice at school, but I did take private lessons from her at her house. 

A picture I painted in Janice's class hung above my mama's kitchen table until her death last year. During my brief stint as the high school and middle school drama teacher, Janice and I were colleagues.

You're gonna have to just please bear with me, Julie, because my memory of things that happened way back then is sketchy.

Let's talk, uh, you know, some specifics that you, you might remember. So when you started teaching, you were just teaching junior high?

I think I had one class of 6th graders, and a couple of classes of 7th graders, three classes of 7th graders, and three classes of 8th graders, most likely. 

Angela was about 13, I think, when she was in my class. So, they had all already gone on to high school when all that horror happened. She was just as cute as she could be, so vivacious. She would come in just gigglin' and I just thought she was the cutest kid ever. I remember after she was murdered, I remember going to her graveside service. 

I think it was a graveside service. I don't remember a service inside, but I remember going out to the gravesite. I wished a million times that I had reached out more to her family. Because I just want them to know that she has not been forgotten by me. I think of her very often. 

And I remember after she'd been gone for a time. She'd already passed away. And we moved from the, uh, from the little room. I remember unpacking. She had given me her little art box to pass on, you know, for somebody else that didn't have one on down the line. And I remember finding her little art box with her name on it and I went writing. And it was like it had happened all over again for me right there.

Oh my goodness. 

So, I have never forgotten Angela. I thought she was as cute as she could be. 

Yeah. 

And I also taught Lee. I also taught Lee. 

Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you. 

Yes ma'am. I didn't teach the other two boys. I taught Lee. And I remember him being just a goofy kid when he was in junior high, 12, 13. 

Yeah.

Just this goofy kid. The class clown. Always something silly going on. Kept everybody laughing all the time. And I think that's one reason that people were so shocked. at what he had done. 

I think so too. 

People were just so shocked at what he had done. I was. I don't understand the other two who were in, who were the witnesses to this not coming forward and telling their parents when it happened. I don't understand they're covering it up like they did. 

My whole family was horrified about it. I, well, and we didn't feel any kind of pity for those kids at all that did it to her. I don't remember Angela acting out like that in class. I mean, I had little girls in my class from time to time, that went, that, you know, they were, Prissy, and trying to get lots of attention, and I don't remember her being like that.

I just remember her being just a cute little girl in my class, and I don't remember her being wild or any of those things. 

Yeah, isn't it interesting how, uh, people just get a label from one thing and then that's it.

It sure is. And boy, and Princeton was the world's worst. I'm trying to remember if I taught Jackie. But I do want them to know that I am so sorry that I didn't reach out to them. 'cause I've thought of Angela so often. So often. 

So when you were teaching junior high kids, I knew that people smoked pot, but I mean a lot of people were doing like drug drugs. Were you aware of that as a teacher? 

I remember the talk. This is talk. But I remember a long talk about how Princeton was considered like a, back then like the drug capital of Collin County.

Did you ever hear the term when you were teaching, "boys will be boys" about behavior that happened?

Yes. 

Kids from certain families, "boys will be boys." But it sure didn't apply to mine. I must sound like the most negative person on the face. 

Well, it's not about negative. I just remember if popular kids did something wrong, that it was like, oh, well, "boys will be boys." And then if other kids, you know, had their hair long, it was like, oh, they do drugs.

Well, you're, you're exactly right. And here's the thing that I heard constantly. "Oh, they come from a good family." That was a constant. "They come from a good family." 

Do you think it was used as, like, an excuse? 

Most definitely it was, yeah.

I feel like one of the things about Angela and her family is, you know, they weren't part of that core group of people that everybody in Princeton knew because they moved in to Princeton later. 

Well, Julie, the honest truth is it was really hard to move into Princeton later. Even I, having taught there for, for nearly 30 years, I always, deep down in the middle of me, felt like I was kind of on the outside looking in. And I felt like my boys were on the outside looking in. 

Mauricio Cantu and his family lived down the street from me on Willow Lane. Mauricio was also one of my boyfriends in high school. His older brother, Marcus, was one year older than my older sister, Rhonda, and they were friends. 

When we moved into town, I think we were the first ethnic people, ethnic family in city limits, maybe. Uh, it was that, um, closed out, I guess.

So tell me how long that you knew Angela because she was one grade older than you or one grade younger than you? 

Uh, she was one grade older. And so, I, I believe I remember Angela from about maybe, definitely in middle school. Um, maybe not before then, but definitely in middle school. I just remember her being friendly. Uh, infectious smile, sparkly eyes. Trendy, um, I believe a cheerleader, maybe at that time in middle school. 

Did you interact with her in this like secret party culture that I apparently knew nothing about? I was a nerd. 

Uh, uh, yes, I was, uh, I was, um, I don't know if you want to call it fortunate, but I was able to straddle those lines as well. Um, and I think my brother being older had paved that way. Uh, so, I was very much part of the, uh, um, party subculture, uh, from a young age. And, uh, and so we were, uh, we were, uh, In the same, uh, in the same, at the same parties, uh, around the same people. And, uh, I just remember we would get these parties together.

Um, we would get bootleg alcohol, or somebody older would buy it for us. And we would go out to the cornfields, um, north of the ballpark. Or we would go out to Tickey Creek or, uh, Shamrock. Um, you know, just different, you know, places. Little areas that we knew we wouldn't get disturbed and, and we would be drinking and, uh, smoking pot, um, and then, and then we were introduced to, um, white cross pills.

What are those? Like, I, I don't even know what those are. 

That would have been an early, let's call it an early milder form of methamphetamine. And, um, a lot of the older kids were getting them. So I was getting them from my brother or stealing them from my brother or getting them through other older brothers and sisters.

It was literally, like, a lot of Lucky Charms at that time, because I remember pink hearts, uh, these little mini white crosses, um, uh, little yellow pills that were also, um, uh, some sort of, uh, amphetamine. Uh, so, I mean, it was, uh, there was a lot going on. In that little subculture in, in, in Princeton. 

I, I honestly had no idea that people were doing anything besides smoking pot or drinking. And then when you hear about like, Oh, Lee and Rodney and John were, I was like, Oh, it's just those guys. Where were people getting these drugs? Like, I know you said you got them from your brother, but I mean, were a lot of people your age doing these type drugs? 

I feel like, uh, there were, there were quite a few. Um, And at that time, the methamphetamine was delivered in one of three ways. It was going to be in the white cross slash mini thin type of pill. Uh, it would have been in the form of a crank powder. That you would snort or then it would have been, um, injectable. The latter two were really getting people spun out really, really badly.

You know, it's actually funny because Rodney Kaiser was kind of charged by my brother, um, in a little group of people to watch over me at parties. So that I would not be either injured or, um, drink too much, or both, or fight, or whatever. Um, and it's kind of ironic that one night, um, he took me, Rodney, took me from a party, and, um, got me home, walked me in home, put me in bed, and let himself out. Um, you know, but, um, It was because my brother had charged him with that action. 

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask, is if Rodney and John and Lee were all at any parties that you went to all at the same time? 

I just remember, I think Lee would have been there for sure, um, at that time. Because at that time they were, you know, that's when everything was supposed to be good. There were athletes and all that. Um, but I did not have direct interaction with Leigh. It's really funny, um, you know, how I had interaction with Rodney. Um, I just don't remember Lee. And I think that, uh, Lee was trying to keep it as much on the low as he could. 

Yeah, I think so too. And I don't remember John at all. Do you remember partying or hanging out with John? 

Not at all. 

I think my connection was Lee because he was a year younger than me, and I remember going to the skating rink to see him lip sync. I don't know if you hung out at the skating rink. 

No. That's where we would start. That would be our, our pre, um, we would all get dropped off there and then within about 30 minutes to an hour, um, most of us were leaving and then going to these other parties.

Now, it's interesting that you're 11 years sober on the anniversary of when Angela was murdered. 

That is kind of, that is really, uh, really strange. 

Also, during this entire interview, going through my mind is like, you were doing drugs when you were my boyfriend, and I didn't even know this. 

Right, and, and, uh, and…

I'm just so blown away by this.

Think about this, I was on, I was in the group Friends Against Drugs, but I was still, you know, on the other side too, and I was very much in this double life. 

You were in like the school group Friends Against Drugs, and then you were doing drugs? 

Yeah. 

Wow. Tell me when you saw the Facebook post when we were asking if people wanted to reach out and talk. Like, you wanted to call and say, and be a part of it, so just tell me what your thought process was in that. 

I think, I think it was, honestly, there was an instant connection when I saw that. Because, again, this was such a profound moment, a summer, uh, in our lives, in our small town. Um, we lost one of our own, and we lost one of our own at the hands of one of our other own. And so, there's this, uh, polarization that happens. Um, in in in the town. And when I saw this post, uh, I've been I've been haunted by this, uh, really ever since. 

And I'd always felt that somebody or, you know, uh, should do a documentary about it because it's so important. Uh, and and just the fact that Um, this innocent life was taken. No matter what, what crowd she ran with, no matter what he did, we were all doing it and it could have been any one of us and because, uh, of the brutality in which it happened and because of the, the chaos that ensued, it was just, it just struck me and when I saw it, I knew that I had to connect and, uh, I had to at least speak about Angela because she was was more than than somebody who deserved that.

What was your thirst first thought when you heard that Rodney was one of the killers?

I was in shock and I was also angry and I just, I just couldn't believe that these are people that my brother was entrusting to take care of me. And I think that I think it showed me that he wasn't a good judge of character, maybe, in the people that he was giving, uh, giving that trust. But I just again, I just couldn't believe it because I knew of a Rodney Kaiser that was completely different. However, I know now how methamphetamines, and specifically the, uh, the type that were going around back then, uh, how dangerous those are and how they corrupt the synapse connections in the brain.

So you feel like that he was definitely just. he couldn't even have clear judgment because he was in just in an impaired state whenever they were doing these methamphetamines that that you had also taken. 

Yes. And, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna tell you, you know, down, down my own journey, um, later on in life, I, I did, uh, smoke ice occasionally. Um, thank goodness I never injected anything, but I did that and I can tell you. Just from the few times I experienced it. The mania, um, of not being able to stop the Ferris wheel from spinning, um, and then, and, and how it, and how it affects your judgment, and how it affects, um, how you perceive everything happening around you, um, and I was just doing it very recreationally. These guys were doing it a lot. 

And so, you know, I'm not gonna sit there and say that, you know, they're innocent and it's just because of the drugs. Um, but, you know, from that, from that side of it. Um, I mean, they were spun out. 

Going back to school that year, I feel like that, so you would have come back your sophomore year, because this happened in the summer, was there any talk about it when school started? That you remember? 

I believe all the talk was going towards Lee and his absence and what was going on on that side. You never really heard anybody talking about Angela being gone, um, while there was, while there was a void, and the people who knew her and were closest to her, I'm sure, were affected deeply. Um, I just, I just do not remember, um, a lot of people just talking about the loss of life as much as talking about the loss of, uh, these other, other guys. 

So what do you wish something you could have said to Angela like if you knew you were gonna like, run into her for the last time at a party? 

You know, I just, um, I think, I think, uh, looking back now and looking through sober eyes now, um, I think I would just, to anyone, right, but specifically to Angela, just, just tell her that she's enough and that she has a smile and a sparkle in her eye that could change the world and that she is enough. 

That's really nice. What would you like to say to her family, if anything, who, who's watching this? I mean, honestly, this still, like, really haunts them. I feel like her younger sister, Jackie, you know, it's just kind of haunted her because she had a daughter that has, is now one year older than Angela was when she died. And we first spoke over a year ago, and so her daughter was the exact same age. She just remembers as a little girl that, You know, she had to grow up fast, but also she just remembers that she felt like her parents, uh, didn't get any kind of support or attention from anyone in the city.

You know, I feel like if you or I had something bad happen to someone in our family growing up, I feel like everyone would have shown up with casseroles and stuff like that. And I don't think that they got any things like that. 

Well, put it this way, if it would have been, if it would have been Lisa Hayden, right, then it would have mattered. Or somebody like that. And the town, the town had stereotypes that they put her in. And the town, they did not let her out of that, and they kind of used it as an excuse to kind of wash things away. When this happened, you know, just standing by. Well, she wasn't doing the right thing. But none of us were doing the right thing. 

And I did kind of like not let you answer when you were kind of just talking, but is there anything that you would want to say to her family that you would want them to hear if they were going to this? 

I just really want to express my my deepest consoled, condolences and just how sorry I am that, that our community let him down. Because I like to think that Princeton was, would have been a tight community for everybody. And, you know, I didn't follow everything closely. Um, one, because I was young. And, and I think this, this, you try to put things out of your head and just move on, but I don't understand why school counselors wouldn't have reached out to the family or, um, or other organizations wouldn't have reached out, churches, because Lord knows we haven't had enough churches in town. 

Um, and this is a loss of life, and I just, I'm just really, really sorry that I didn't have the wherewithal to get pulled, but also that the, uh, that the adults of that town let them down. 

I mean, I was older than you, and I mean, I was 18, and I didn't have the wherewithal either. 

Tina Parks moved to Princeton with her family in 6th grade, which would be around 1986. The family owned a horse farm outside of town. Tina and I were in the same grade, and we played sports together. Well, Tina actually was more the athlete. I was always the one just trying to be on the team. Tina got married in the fall of 1987, during our senior year. To a boy one year older than us named Jerry. They had little Jerry in February of 1988. Shortly after having Little Jerry, Tina moved with husband Jerry to New River Air Station in North Carolina during spring break. Tina graduated that same summer from Southwest High school in Jacksonville North Carolina, but we still consider her a member of our graduating class, and she’s invited to all our reunions. 

I wanted to ask how you first kind of got to know anyone in this group of people that we're talking about. Let's start with the guys, with Rodney, Lee, and John. 

So I just knew Lee, just knew Lee through school, you know, just, he was a couple years younger than me and just knew him, you know, like you said, he was the cute guy in the pictures and everything, and then Rodney, I actually dated, um, in the early years of my, um, sophomore year, I believe it was, um, dated him for, uh, a short time. So when it all came out, you know, I was in North Carolina when everything happened. I was very surprised that was him. He was involved because I never thought of him to be that kind of person. 

Now, I heard that, that you and Angela kind of started off on the wrong foot. 

So, Angela was kind of known, uh, to my best of knowledge, you know, her mom would bring, she would fight other younger girls, um, was kind of known for that, and she started, That kind of rocked me the wrong way, you know, I was pretty just never got in trouble just did my thing and That kind of rocked me the wrong way and then she started talking about Tammy Cross and Jerry and so that kind of got personal for me and I decided that I was gonna teach her a lesson, that's kinda how it started, and we were out at the lake, summer, I think it was, before school was out, because we were still in school, but, kinda the early summer of '87, and I knew she was coming to the lake, and when she came out there, I asked to see her glasses, and she handed them to me, and then I grabbed her hands, because, um, I knew she was very quick with her hands, with some of the fights that I had heard about, and then I punched her in the face. 

Um, ended up going. They put charges on me. I ended up going to court, but not like, um, I just had to go in front of a judge. I'd never gotten in trouble, so I just kind of more got a warning, and they kind of put a restraining order on me. 

Well, somehow, after that happened, um, me and Angie, our paths crossed again, and we started talking. And talking about things, and talking about, just talking about how she wanted to change. You know, wanted to do better, and because she had dropped out of school and was doing the other school. So, sometimes I'd pick her up, and we just started hanging out. 

I did show up at her house one day, and her mom like freaked out at first. She's like, no mom, it's cool, we've, we've uh, mended that problem, you know, issue. And, I think in a way, That might have helped her with a turning point that she realized that the life she was kind of going, the path she was going, was not what she wanted. She wanted better for herself. And she was trying to change, she was trying to put, you know, any of the drugs in the drink, and she was trying to straighten her life up. And she was really doing better, and I remember that we hung out quite a bit. I kind of felt like I started being like a big sister to her. 

I did not realize that you kind of had some, uh, issues that like I was completely unaware of. 

There was, there was several of us that were in abusive relationships that people just didn't know, didn't know or just didn't know what to think about it, I guess. But I guess the, you know, Jerry, Jerry was very, he was abusive and controlling. It was so bad, and I don't know if you remember this, but, and this is why I say it was just strange back then, I don't know if it's because it was a small town, but at our junior senior prom, and you know the seniors always left the juniors something, and we're sitting there at our table, and the seniors left Tina Parks, a key to the woman's shelter because I dated Helter Skelter. 

That is how everybody knew, what, I mean, how do you sit there, and it didn't phase him, and I just learned to, like, I couldn't let it phase me because it would have pissed him off. And then the one time that everybody knew in the lunchroom when he smacked me in the face with peach cobbler. And certain people did, did tell their mom that worked out in the office.

And they called me out to the office. But what they didn't know is they called me out there and he was in English class. So he could see. That I went out there and they actually gave me a phone number to a hotline. Um, one of our schoolmates mom did because she worked in the office. And they gave me that number.

And when the bell rang and we were back in the hallway, he walked up. He goes, you can throw away whatever they gave you. Because he knew that's why they had called me out there, that somebody was trying to help me. And he made it very clear that whatever they gave me, I needed to throw it away. 

I was at that junior senior prom. I definitely remember the awards, but I feel like I didn't know what it meant. Do you know what I mean? Now when you said you kind of became a mentor to Angie, did you talk about that with her or did she know that you were kind of a victim of that or do you know if Lee was physically abusive to her or mentally abusive to her?

I got the feeling that he was like he had to do what he said I mean, and I don't think she knew about mine completely But I think I saw the same traits in Lee because I felt Lee was like that one minute He'd be like, you know And the next minute I remember seeing some crazy sides of him. He controls her like, and I don't know if there was actual, um, abuse going on, but I think as teenagers, I mean, I only think back then we even knew that it was wrong, you know, cause it wasn't talked about. 

Do you remember what your thoughts were about Lee and Rodney? And John, or any or all of them, when you heard?

I got the news, and, you know, like everybody else did, that she was missing, and then the news that they found her, you know, a week or half so later. And then, like I said, when they said who was involved, I was not surprised about Lee, and I think I kind of warned her about Lee, because, you know, how that situation was, that he must not really care, I mean, he was seeing someone else, and, you know.

Rodney did kind of surprise me because I just didn't seem like that person, but hey, if you're doing some kind of drugs, if you were, you know, your judgment is not the way it's supposed to be, but what came through my head was even if you couldn't, even if You didn't feel like you could overpower him or do anything.

Why couldn't you make a anonymous phone call to let people, to just say, hey, this, this happened, no one would ever have known you called it in. Why didn't you pick up the phone? Because I remember hearing the coroner report or something. People saying that she was possibly alive for a day or two. And I don't know if that was true.

That was just something that was being said that I remember hearing, um, back in '88. That was my thing. Why couldn't you have just made a phone call? Had some kind of remorse for it. No, Lee wasn't going to, but one of them, that's what I blame them the most for, was not reaching out and trying to get her help because obviously I think they know what they did was wrong And I felt like they needed, they should have done that.

If there's anything that you could go back and say to Angela one of the last times that you saw her, what would you, would want to say? 

I, I, I just wish she, wish she had just, you know, made better choices as far as who she, hanging out with him, because I think she knew that he wasn't, you know, a good person for her, and that's why she was trying to change her life. But, some of us just have trouble. Making those changes, and, you know, I don't think she expected not to come home. I mean, that's why she left a note, and I think that might be the, one of the best things she did, because that helped figure out who did that to her. 

What would you like to say to her sisters that are still here, and her dad?

Just know that her life mattered. No matter what, even though it was so short, but her life didn't matter. And just to remember the good parts and the memories and just keep remembering her. 

On the next episode of True Texas Crime.

I did sit in. Uh, the courthouse there in McKinney on, on one session, and it was when they were showing the slides of the pictures of the remains and where they were found.

I sat in on, I think there was one day mom wasn't over there for perhaps the trial, and I sat in for just a day. And um, and. I don't remember anything about details. The only thing I remember is sitting there and looking at Lee and thinking, it just felt like he had no remorse. It just felt like there was like, it was like a blank slate. Like it was just a, And I don't care. And I just couldn't reconcile it. I couldn't make it make sense. 

I mean, I remember parts about it. I remember, um, at one point, um, they stopped talking and said, we're fixin' to show some graphic stuff. We probably want to have any family members,  y'all probably want to get out of here. And I remember Peggy Carol, um, she was with the DA's office. She's like, get, get her out of here. And I remember somebody taking me, my parents stayed for it, but I remember somebody taking me out. 

True Texas Crime, The Significant Life of Angela Stevens, is a North End Burgers production. 
Recorded, hosted, and written by me, Julie Dove.

Kari Southard Hargrave is the executive producer.

Assistant Story Editor, Brandon Burkhart.

Studio recording by Mike DeLay.

Real Voice LA. Sound design and mixing by Real Voice LA. 

Additional recording by JBM Studios.

Opening music, “The Colonel,” courtesy of Zachariah Hickman. 

Closing music, “Night in the Prairie,” courtesy of Derek and Brandon Feichter. 

Special thanks to Jackie Stevens Tower. Amy Harper Fritz, Deanna McDonald, and Jennifer Rich. 

The views expressed by this podcast host and participants are solely that of the person speaking and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer, company, institution, or other associated parties.