The Cindy Problem (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

[0] In February of 1985, a couple, a man and a woman, were sitting inside of a car chatting about their relationship when the woman finally just turned to the man and said, okay, you have to tell me, it's now or never.

[1] The man looked at her and could see she was serious, and so after a long pause, the man sighed and then leaned across the center console and whispered something into her ear.

[2] Little did he know she was not the only person who could hear him.

[3] But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the dark and mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

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[5] Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.

[6] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[7] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[8] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, a mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[9] What's the answer?

[10] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[11] Hysterical.

[12] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[13] Binge all episodes of Hesterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[14] Maria Gonzalez would be very relieved when her employers got back from their vacation in Europe.

[15] The 58 -year -old live -in -maid and all -around family companion looked up at the big house in the heart of Houston, Texas, where she had been employed for the last five years ever since September of 1977.

[16] Maria's friendly brown eyes softened at the sight of the two little boys watching her from a downstairs window as she walked back into the mansion on Memorial Drive, carrying the morning newspaper.

[17] The paper was in English, so Maria, whose first language was Spanish, hardly gave it a glance before places.

[18] it neatly on top of the growing pile of newspapers in the home office of her employer, Houston lawyer James Campbell.

[19] Mr. Campbell and his wife, Virginia, had been gone almost two weeks now, and Maria had, as always, loved the time she had spent with the couple's two grandsons, eight -year -old Michael, and six -year -old Matthew.

[20] Maria and the boys had both arrived at 8901 Memorial Drive at nearly the same time.

[21] That was when Cindy, one of the Campbell's four daughters, had come back home to her parents following a divorce.

[22] Maria let out a sigh.

[23] Her feelings towards Cindy were a lot less warm than her feelings for the rest of the Campbell family.

[24] It had all happened 10 years ago, before Maria had joined the family, but everyone knew the story.

[25] In 1972, Cindy had run off to Colorado at the age of 17, and once she was there, she met and married a man named Michael Charles Ray.

[26] But right after her two boys were born, Cindy wanted out of the marriage, and her father had arranged the divorce, making sure that Cindy got full and exclusive custody of her kids.

[27] But then all Cindy had done was bring the boys back to the family home on Memorial Drive and hand them over to her parents to raise.

[28] And by the time Maria had arrived to help with the house and the boys, Michael and Matthew were both calling their grandparents, mom and dad.

[29] and Cindy was living at her parents' expense in an apartment building that was part of the Campbell's various real estate holdings in and around Houston.

[30] And when Cindy did visit, it seemed to Maria that the second to youngest Campbell daughter was much more interested in getting money from her mom and dad than she was in spending any time with her own two kids.

[31] As Maria her hearded Michael and Matthew into the kitchen to make them a nice hot breakfast, the three of them chatted away in Spanish.

[32] Thanks to Maria, the boys were fluent in both Spanish and English, and now that they were getting a little older, they were also doing their best to help Maria brush up on her English skills.

[33] As Maria watched them settle down at the scuffed kitchen table to eat their scrambled eggs, dotted with bright jalapeno and sweet red peppers, she had to admit that it was probably better that Cindy was not actively involved in her children's lives.

[34] From her apartment over the garage, where she'd had a bird's eye view of the Campbell household for five years now, it had seemed to Maria that Cindy mostly seemed to create problems for other people.

[35] During the few years that Cindy was going to the same college as her younger sister, Jamie, Maria had seen Cindy get into the car with Jamie in the morning to drive to school, and as soon as Jamie had started up the car and headed down the driveway to the street, Maria had seen Cindy toss burning cigarette butts into Jamie's long hair.

[36] And not only had Cindy never gotten her own driver's license as far as Maria knew, She'd never really had a job either, not even after she had dropped out of college and had a lot of time on her hands.

[37] There had been that time, maybe a year or a year and a half ago, when Cindy had lived with a boyfriend who had helped her eat better and even go for walks and do some exercising, and Cindy had not only lost close to 60 pounds, but she'd also told her family that she'd gotten a job at a Houston nightclub doing stand -up comedy.

[38] But, like most of Cindy's so -called fresh starts, that had not amounted to much.

[39] Because now, Cindy was back to living in squalor in her own apartment again.

[40] Maria had heard what the apartment looked like, unwashed dishes, open cans of partly eaten food, dirty sheets on an unmade bed, and it looked to Maria like Cindy had given up on exercise, along with keeping herself clean and going to work.

[41] And lately, with her parents still not due back in town for another few days, Cindy had started to drop by the mansion again, getting lifts with people Maria did not know or recognize, and who just tended to sit in their car and smoke or drop an empty soda or beer can out of the car window while they waited for Cindy to come back outside.

[42] One of the reasons that Campbell's had decided to go on this vacation in the first place was to get away from Cindy.

[43] In the last six months, Mr. Campbell especially had gotten fed up with Cindy's tantrums and requests for money, and he had told her that it was way beyond the time that she had found a job and started supporting herself.

[44] Mrs. Campbell still found it hard to say no to Cindy, but Maria knew that even Cindy's mother had finally run out of patience, and ever since her parents had turned off the money faucet, it seemed to Maria that Cindy was always in a very bad mood.

[45] Yes, Maria thought, as she and the boys all squeezed themselves onto the worn couch in the living room to watch a little TV, Maria would be very glad when Mr. and Mrs. Campbell arrived back home.

[46] It had made Maria uneasy here and Cindy clomping through the house.

[47] Maria was a very strong and capable woman, but she had decided that she would rather not be alone at the house when Cindy stopped by for those visits.

[48] But a few nights later, on June 9, 1982, when Maria opened the big front door of the brick and flagstone house to welcome the Campbell's back home from their vacation, the housekeeper could see immediately that just stepping over the threshold back into their own home seemed to deepen the lines of worry around Virginia Campbell's intensely blue eyes.

[49] Fifty years old and five foot four inches tall, Virginia's trim frame had gotten shorter over the years because of a slight curvature of her spine, and the three decades she'd spent as a paralegal hunched over a keyboard.

[50] Now the top of her head barely reached her husband's shoulders.

[51] But even though she was tired from all the traveling, Virginia gave Maria a warm smile.

[52] Over the years, the two women had become friends, as well as employer and housekeeper, and they had shared a bond in their love for Michael and Matthew.

[53] Maria appreciated Virginia's sense of humor, and she liked that her employer did not show off her wealth with expensive and fussy furniture.

[54] Despite its size, the inside of the Campbell's house was comfortable and plain.

[55] Mr. Campbell sometimes accepted TVs and other appliances in place of payment from his clients, and inside the living room there were two TVs, one stacked on top of the other.

[56] There wasn't very much that was fancy about Virginia either.

[57] She was a hard worker.

[58] She enjoyed wearing inexpensive costume jewelry, and if Maria could find one fault with her employer, it was that Virginia was maybe overly generous with everybody and maybe a little too timid when it came to speaking her mind.

[59] The same could never be said of Mr. Campbell.

[60] Six foot four inches tall, 201 pounds with a strong build and dark hair and features, James Campbell, who was 55 years old, had made a name for himself as a highly skilled and successful Houston lawyer with a solo practice and a sly and unpredictable sense of humor.

[61] He was well known not just for winning cases, but for his courtroom theatrics.

[62] With his trademark Panama hat with its wide brim and his slightly rumpled suits, he was delighted when lawyers for insurance companies underestimated his ability to collect money on behalf of his clients for physical or mental or emotional injuries.

[63] He was also a devoted husband and family man. He and Virginia had met when they were both in college in Los Angeles, California, and they had been together ever since.

[64] James regularly fired difficult clients and refused huge cases that would take up too much of his time.

[65] The Campbells seldom drank or entertained, although they did have a circle of close friends that they liked to spend time with.

[66] James' only exercise was playing golf, and most of the time that he was out on the green, he was chewing one of his favorite brands of cigars.

[67] Now, even though the couple worked together in James' law office, both James and Virginia were thinking about retirement.

[68] In the last year, Virginia had had a health scare.

[69] She discovered a lump in her breast, and even though it turned out not to be cancer, it had reminded her and James that there was more to life than just the practice of the law.

[70] And even though the couple had done well for themselves financially, if they were going to retire, then they wanted to cut back on unnecessary expenditures, like...

[71] continuing to support their 27 -year -old daughter, Cindy.

[72] So, while their vacation was a welcome break for James and Virginia, it hadn't really done anything to solve the family's Cindy problem or changed the resentment Cindy was feeling about her parents' decision to finally push her out of the nest.

[73] One look at Virginia's tired face, and Maria decided not to even mention Cindy's recent visit to the house while her parents were away.

[74] But Cindy herself had no intention of protecting her mother from worry.

[75] Instead, she seemed eager to make sure that her mother was as miserable as possible.

[76] Two days after the Campbells had returned from their vacation, and while James was at his law office, Cindy had arrived at the mansion on Memorial Drive and yelled and screamed at her mother demanding more money.

[77] By that afternoon, Cindy not only had more money, she was dragging her mother around Houston to buy Cindy expensive silk blouses and designer jeans.

[78] The next day, June 12th, Michael and Matthew were waiting for Maria when she came into the main house first thing in the morning.

[79] The boys cried when they told Maria about the big fight late the night before between Virginia, who they called mom, and their biological mother, who they just called Cindy, that had occurred when Virginia gave Cindy a ride back to her apartment with all her shopping bags full of new clothes.

[80] Maria calmed the boys down as best as she could, but it was clear to Maria that Virginia Campbell was just too timid to stick up for herself.

[81] Maria wished that the other Campbell daughters lived closer so they could come by and visit and make Mr. and Mrs. Campbell and the boys smile again.

[82] On June 17th, the Campbell's youngest daughter, Jamie, who had left Houston to attend a college out in Knoxville, Tennessee, called to check in on her mom.

[83] Now that it was spring, Jamie was hoping to plan a long vacation back at home in Houston.

[84] But when Jamie mentioned this plan to have a plan to have, her mother on the phone, Virginia just changed the subject.

[85] And more and more, Jamie had the feeling that her parents just wanted her to stay right where she was in Knoxville rather than come back to the family home.

[86] The next day, Friday, June 18th, was hot and humid.

[87] But the spring flowers were in bloom, and the Campbell's, including Maria, were all looking forward to an evening out at Houston's Memorial City Mall.

[88] And while Virginia did look delighted as she and Maria and Matthews strolled from shop to shop, with Virginia buying small gifts for each of them.

[89] When the three of them sat down in the mall cafeteria for a bite to eat, Virginia seemed so anxious and worried that she had no appetite for food.

[90] Instead, Virginia just lit one cigarette after another, stubbing each one out after only a few puffs, before ordering a Coke and then coffee.

[91] By the time they got home, around 9 p .m. that evening, James and his older grandson, Michael, had already returned from their evening out, and now James had stretched out his long legs in the living room and was watching TV.

[92] Watching as Virginia joined her husband, Maria smiled before walking upstairs to check on the two boys and get them settled for bed.

[93] Friday nights were a special treat for Michael and Matthew.

[94] That was the one night of the week when they were allowed to drag their sleeping bags and bedding into their grandparents' master bedroom for a sleepover.

[95] That involved arranging themselves at the foot of their grandparents' bed and watching a movie on a cassette tape before falling asleep.

[96] Maria glanced at her watch.

[97] It was almost 9 .30 p .m. She helped the boys get comfortable in their sleeping bags at the foot of the bed, and as she kissed them good night, she told them that their grandfather would be up any minute to start the movie.

[98] A few minutes later, after stopping by the living room to say goodnight to James and Virginia, Maria made her way out the back door to her own apartment over the garage.

[99] As she climbed the wooden stairs and looked up at the big Texas sky, Maria shook her head, wishing there was more she could do to help Mrs. Campbell.

[100] At about 3 .40 a .m. on June 19th, less than six hours after Maria had left the main house to return to her apartment, Maria was startled awake by the sound of small footsteps running up her outside stairs, and then the sound of small hands banging on her door.

[101] A moment later, Maria heard the frantic and terrified wails of Michael and Matthew as they begged her to let them inside.

[102] After stumbling out of her bedroom and opening the door, it took Maria another moment to understand what Michael and Matthew were telling her.

[103] As she leaned down to gather the boys into her arms, the oldest pulled on her nightgown and looked up at her tears running down his face.

[104] And now he was practically screaming as he told Maria in Spanish that mom and dad, a .k .a. James and Virginia were dead.

[105] They just killed them.

[106] They just killed them.

[107] The little boy kept repeating.

[108] And then Maria, please call the hospital, call an ambulance.

[109] At first, Maria believed the boys, both of them, had just had a terrible nightmare.

[110] But even as she offered to make them some sugar water and sit down at the table with them, Maria saw that the boys had wet their pants.

[111] This was no bad dream, they told her.

[112] This had happened.

[113] The boys had been asleep.

[114] And then the light came on, and then there were loud noises, and then it was quiet again.

[115] And when Michael had finally crawled out of his sleeping bag, climbed to his feet and looked onto the bed, he had seen that his grandparents, mom and dad, were covered in red, and they were no longer moving.

[116] Maria still could not believe it, and she didn't know enough English to tell this fantastical story to the police.

[117] So instead of calling 911, Maria told Michael to call his uncle J .W. Campbell, James Campbell's older brother, who was also a lawyer.

[118] 20 minutes later, J .W. and his wife, Brousine, arrived at 8901 Memorial Drive.

[119] While J .W. waited in Maria's apartment with the two boys, Brucine and Maria made their way over to the back entrance of the main house and stepped inside through the unlocked kitchen door.

[120] A minute later, and the two women were standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, and Michael and Matthew had been right.

[121] James and Virginia Campbell were dead.

[122] Hey, all you fans of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious.

[123] It's me, Mr. Ballin, and today I have some big news.

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[126] It's the first ever official Mr. Ballin publication.

[127] It's a graphic novel, and it's called Mr. Ballin Presents, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, the Graphic Stories.

[128] It's an anthology of both classic and brand new, terrifying stories that we've never covered on any of my other platforms, because we created them specifically for this first book.

[129] Each of these stories in the book are feature -length, Mr. Ballin's stories that really needed to be told visually.

[130] And the artwork in this book is, I mean, I'm looking at it, and it's just absolutely stunning.

[131] So the book is not actually coming out until my birthday this year, October 1st, but you can pre -order it right now at book .bollin Studios .com.

[132] Again, that's book .bollin studios .com.

[133] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[134] She had been under the influence that she left.

[135] them there.

[136] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[137] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[138] What happens next?

[139] Depends on who you ask.

[140] Was it a crime of passion?

[141] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[142] This was clearly an intentional act.

[143] In his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[144] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[145] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[146] Everyone had an opinion.

[147] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[148] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[149] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the Cincinnati.

[150] sensational case in Karen.

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[153] By 4 .13 a .m., just half an hour after Maria had come suddenly awake, Houston police and medical personnel had arrived on the scene.

[154] Two men in uniform told the small group of three adults and two children, who were now huddled in the driveway, to step way back from the house.

[155] and Maria and Brucine felt a bolt of fear as they understood what the officers were really saying to them, that the killer might still be in the house.

[156] Detectives Michael St. John and his senior partner, Carl Kent, got the call at 4 .35 a .m., a big murder out on Memorial Drive in an especially affluent area of Houston, known as the Golden Buckle on the Sunbelt.

[157] 20 minutes later, the two homicide detectives had arrived at the Campbell home and were met in the back of the house by an officer who told them that police had searched the house and it was empty except for the two victims.

[158] Stepping into the downstairs rooms, Detective Kent was surprised at how plain the inside of the house was, but when he stepped into the master bedroom, any thoughts about home decor just vanished, as his mind went blank with shock.

[159] As a veteran homicide detective, Carl Kent had seen his share of gruesome murders, but this was his first cold -blooded execution.

[160] And the fact that the bodies in front of him were inside one of the safest and richest neighborhoods in Texas made him feel like he was looking at an overdone and grotesque movie set rather than real life.

[161] Everywhere he looked, there was blood.

[162] It was spattered on the ceiling.

[163] It was dripping down the walls and pictures.

[164] It was sprayed onto the curtains, and it was soaking into the sheets and mattress where James lay on his back and Virginia lay on her side.

[165] Two tan sleeping bags lay in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed.

[166] Detective Kent wondered if the killer had even realized that the Campbell's grandsons and potential witnesses were lying right at the shooter's feet when the shots were fired.

[167] Detective Kent left his junior partner and the crime scene texts to do their work.

[168] He had already noticed some spent shell casings in the bedroom and a plastic surgical glove in the living room that the killer may have dropped on their way out of the house.

[169] But right now, Detective Kent wanted to talk to his, his first person of interest, James Campbell's brother, J .W. The man Maria had told Michael to call even before calling police.

[170] The detective wanted to know why J .W., an able -bodied man, had sent Maria and Brousine into the house to check out a possible murder scene instead of going into the house himself.

[171] And why, after getting Michael's frantic call, J .W. hadn't immediately alerted the police before heading over to the Campbell's residence.

[172] And when Detective Kent eventually spoke, to the Campbell's grandsons about what they had seen, the oldest said what his uncle J .W. had told him to say.

[173] I have a right to remain silent.

[174] The detective couldn't help but wonder if J .W. had anything he was trying to hide.

[175] By late Saturday, three of the Campbell daughters had arrived in Houston and were gathered at Memorial Drive.

[176] As the women, the oldest Michelle and the youngest Jamie, followed by the second oldest Betty, started going through their parents' house to see if anything was missing, they quickly discovered that the police were wrong when they assumed there had been no sign of robbery.

[177] While no one had taken the gold watch and diamond ring that Virginia had been wearing, and there was no sign that the house had been ransacked, the daughters and Maria quickly discovered that the fat roll of $100 bills that Virginia had taken with her the previous day on her trip to the mall was missing.

[178] The fourth Campbell daughter, Cindy, did not show up at 8901 Memorial Drive until the following afternoon, Sunday, June 20th, a day and a half after she'd been told that her parents were dead.

[179] And when Cindy did arrive, she and the man driving her, David West, who was yet another, one of her on -again -off again -off -again boyfriends, both looked totally hung over.

[180] Investigators had already tracked down Cindy and interviewed both her and David.

[181] While police were still checking out their alibis, they both seemed pretty soft.

[182] David had driven Cindy to her parents' house at about 10 p .m. on the night of June 18th to get some money from her mom, and David had waited in the car.

[183] After that, Cindy and David spent the night going out to eat, then attending two different parties where they were seen by multiple witnesses before ending the night at David's house well past the time when the Campbells were murdered.

[184] And even though Detective Kent and other investigators would hear plenty of stories about the fights Cindy had with her parents over money, police could find nothing in her background or Davids to suggest that they could be tied to the murder.

[185] As for the other sisters and James's brother, J .W. Campbell, it would turn out that all of them, too, had solid alibis.

[186] And that was the problem.

[187] From the very start of the investigation, detectives were hampered by the lack of any useful physical evidence they had collected from the crime scene.

[188] They with silver -tipped bullets, a kind of ammunition favored by professional shooters, but there was no murder weapon.

[189] They had discovered the point of entry into the Campbell's house, a downstairs den window that had been left unlocked, and in front of the window, a sofa that Maria told them had been pushed out of its usual place under the window.

[190] Outside the window, they found footprints that looked like they belonged to a pair of men's boots, along with a few cigarette butts, and inside the house they had found that single blue surgical glove that the killer must have dropped on their way out of the house.

[191] Today, crime tax would have been able to run DNA tests on the cigarette butts and inside of the surgical glove, but back in 1982, the only forensic tool police had were fingerprint tests, and the killer, who appeared to have worn gloves during the attack, had not left any prints at the scene.

[192] But even without any solid leads, Police continued the slow process of investigating every other clue they could find.

[193] They interviewed James Campbell's clients and anyone else whose name came up as someone James had crossed in a court case.

[194] They also tracked down Cindy's ex -husband and the father of her children, Michael and Matthew.

[195] But it turned out that in addition to having an alibi himself, the boy's biological father had no interest in getting custody of the boys.

[196] The same was true of Cindy.

[197] On June 23rd, the day after her parents' funeral, Cindy had arrived at the house to take Michael and Matthew home with her.

[198] Over the objections of both Maria and the children and her sisters, Cindy had marched out with Michael and Matthew.

[199] But less than a week later, she had given up completely on parenthood.

[200] Police got a call from the DePelchen Children's Center and Adoption Agency, saying that Cindy Campbell had just turned her two young boys over to the center.

[201] After police went to the orphanage and retrieved the children, the Campbell's decided that the safest place now for Matthew and Michael was to stay in the care of their uncle, J .W., a lawyer, and his wife, Bruceine.

[202] Over the next four months, the Houston police racked up so much overtime investigating the Campbell murder that they could only put in for half of it and still expect to get paid.

[203] They followed up on tips that the mafia might be involved, they followed tips from a prison inmate bragging about slitting the throats of some rich couple in Houston, and because Cindy's three sisters had zeroed in on Cindy as their prime suspect, the police did spot surveillance checks on Cindy and on David, even though the couple seemed to have broken up and gone their own separate ways.

[204] But even as the investigation slowly sputtered to a halt, the family drama among the Campbell sisters was just swinging into high gear.

[205] Cindy wanted her parents' house sold and the estate settled right away so she could get her share of her parents' money.

[206] But it turned out that most of the Campbell's wealth was tied up in real estate, not cash or stocks or bonds, and Cindy's sisters wanted to hold off on selling the house or other real estate holdings until the market improved and they could get a better price.

[207] And while investigators were eager for any new evidence, the frequent calls they were now getting from Betty and Jamie insisting that their sister, Cindy, had to be guilty of something, had started to sound more and more unreliable, like detectives were just hearing the same old lines from a long -running and distorted family argument.

[208] By the end of October 1982, almost five months after James and Virginia were shot in their own bedroom, investigators quietly shelved the Campbell murder case.

[209] There were a lot of other homicides in the huge city of Houston, that were just as important and a lot easier to solve.

[210] It wouldn't be until February 1985, more than two years after the murder of James and Virginia Campbell, that investigators would finally get the tip they were hoping for.

[211] And when that call came in, the story police heard was so unbelievable that not only would it make detectives yank that cold case right off the shelf, it would also put the Campbell homicide case onto the front pages of national newspapers from Washington, D .C. to Los Angeles, California.

[212] Based on that big tip and follow -up work by police, here is a reconstruction of what really happened in the early morning hours of June 19, 1982, at the Big Brick House on 8901 Memorial Drive in one of Houston's most affluent neighborhoods.

[213] At 2 .30 a .m. on Saturday, June 18th, the Campbell's Killer cleaned the 45 -caliber pistol one more time before sliding the magazine of silver -tipped bullets inside.

[214] By 3 a .m., the killer had inspected the rest of the gear, smeared mud on the license plate of the car they'd be driving so no one could read all the numbers, and slipped on a tight -fitting pair of plastic surgical gloves.

[215] Then the killer slid behind the car steering wheel and eased out onto the main road that led west to Memorial Drive and the Campbell House.

[216] As the killer neared the Campbell Street, they turned off their headlights and pulled their car onto the shoulder of the road on the opposite side of the hulking brick and stone house with the red tile roof.

[217] The time was 3 .20 a .m. The 45 was tucked into the killer's shoulder holster, and a white hockey mask that goleys wore to protect their entire face fits snugly over the black ski mask underneath.

[218] Crossing the road to the front gate that blocked the entrance to the Campbell's property, the killer, careful not to make any noise, unwound a heavy metal.

[219] chain that was wrapped but not locked around the latch.

[220] Stepping to the rear wall of the house, the killer found the window that looked in on the den.

[221] After easing the screen out, they began to work the window until it slid up just far enough that the killer could slip inside the house.

[222] A moment later, after pushing aside a sofa that had been under the window, the killer had crossed the den and then the living room headed for the curved stairway to the second floor.

[223] Before placing their boots soundlessly on the first tread, the killer gently released the safety on the 45 -caliber pistol in the shoulder holster.

[224] At the landing, the killer paused to listen.

[225] The big house was quiet.

[226] Turning to the upstairs hallway that was faintly lit by a nightlight plugged into an electrical outlet in the woodwork, the killer went up the last few steps to the second floor.

[227] Ignoring the closed doors on either side of the hallway ahead, the killer stopped at the first door on the right.

[228] They reached out a gloved hand and slowly turned the knob, pushing the door to the master bedroom open, just an inch at a time.

[229] Stepping into the room, the killer saw that the queen -sized bed was positioned, so the headboard was to the killer's right.

[230] The killer could just make out the figures of James and Virginia Campbell asleep on top of the covers.

[231] The killer slipped their hand upwards along the inside wall to the light switch.

[232] Taking a slow and steady breath, they flipped on the light and then took two steps forward towards.

[233] the end of the bed.

[234] James rolled over onto his right side and started to bring his left arm up towards his face.

[235] The first bullet hit him in the neck.

[236] The killer immediately shifted their sights and aimed at Virginia.

[237] As the killer pulled the trigger again, Virginia moved slightly, and the first bullet grazed her upper arm.

[238] Quickly, the killer moved their weapon back to the man, and the third round struck James Campbell in his left eye.

[239] The fourth shot hit Virginia in her head.

[240] Stepping Turning closer to the bed, the killer fired two more rounds, one into each of the victim's chests.

[241] Breathing hard, the killer took in the spray of blood across the headboard wall and ceiling.

[242] Then the killer looked down one more time to make sure that the Campbells were dead.

[243] All of 12 seconds had passed since the killer had switched on the light.

[244] Turning, the killer ran out of the room, down the curved stairway, through the living room, and out onto the front yard.

[245] The killer had never even noticed that upstairs in the master bedroom, inside of the heap of bedding at the foot of the bed, lay two small boys.

[246] 20 or 30 feet from the house, the killer suddenly stopped.

[247] Looking around and then swearing softly to themselves, the killer turned and went back to the house.

[248] The killer saw her at once, crouched on the living room floor in the dark, patting her hands over the rug, looking for the blue surgical glove she had dropped.

[249] Even without her black ski mask on, with her hair tucked inside of the man's hat and dressed in a man's coat and boots, it would have been hard for anyone to recognize the figure as Cindy Campbell.

[250] Sweating under the hockey mask and his hooded field jacket, David West grabbed Cindy's arm and pulled her to her feet.

[251] Come on, he told her, let's go.

[252] A few seconds later, they were both back inside of the car to Buffalo Bayou, a marshy body of water in Houston, where they would get rid of everything that could connect them to the murders they had just committed.

[253] The plot to kill James and Virginia Campbell started to take form two years earlier, back in the fall of 1980.

[254] That's when a 22 -year -old ex -marine named David DuBall West first met Cindy Campbell.

[255] The meeting happened totally by chance at the Student Center at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, where Cindy and her younger sister, Jamie, were both students.

[256] David was not a student, but he sometimes came to the Croaker Student Center to eat lunch.

[257] The two sisters were sitting there together one fall afternoon when David walked in and, recognizing Jamie as a girl he had once dated, walked over to their table to say hello.

[258] When Jamie introduced David to her older sister, Cindy, at first, David was repelled by Cindy's physical appearance.

[259] David only liked women who were slim and attractive in a very conventional way.

[260] At five foot four inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, Cindy with her stringy brown hair and round face, could hardly have been further from David's ideal.

[261] Except that David found himself noticing how long Cindy's eyelashes were and how her hazel eyes had an exotic tilt to them.

[262] And the second time he bumped into Cindy a few weeks later, he stopped again to talk.

[263] And this time, he told her that she could actually be very attractive if she just lost a little weight and tried a little harder with her appearance.

[264] A few days later, David got a call from Cindy.

[265] She asked David out on a date, and David said yes.

[266] When Cindy hung up the phone, she turned to her sister, Jamie, who was sitting in the same room with her at 8901 Memorial Drive, and Cindy said this about David, quote, he's really gross, he looks like a pig, but you know what, he'd be easy to train, end quote.

[267] And it would turn out that Cindy was right.

[268] David was very easy to train.

[269] By the spring of 1981, Cindy had dropped out of college and had been living with David.

[270] for six months.

[271] He'd put her on a diet and prescribed a regular regimen of exercise, and Cindy had lost 50 pounds.

[272] She still wasn't interested in getting a job, but David was so proud of how successfully he was managing Cindy's weight and appearance that he didn't mind supporting her.

[273] And now, everywhere they went, men admired Cindy, and Cindy had decided to take a gig as a stand -up comic at the bar where David worked as a bartender.

[274] But even as David congratulated himself on having created his own perfect woman, Cindy was busy drawing David into a tangled web of lies.

[275] According to Cindy, she had been relentlessly and continually abused ever since she was a child, by her parents, by her sisters, by her first husband, and by every boyfriend she had ever had.

[276] She had been hit, pinched, tripped, beaten, cut, neglected and humiliated in every way imaginable.

[277] But, according to Cindy, the worst thing that had ever happened to her was getting sexually molested by her father.

[278] For weeks and then months, Cindy talked nonstop to David about the abuse she had suffered until finally David agreed with Cindy that both her parents were such horrible human beings that they deserved to die.

[279] And when they did die, Cindy, who had been supported by James and Virginia her whole life, would no longer have to ask for money.

[280] Instead, her parents' money would simply become her money in the form of her inheritance.

[281] What David had no way of knowing was that Cindy told any person she became close to about being horribly abused, but depending on her audience, the type of abuse and the names of the abusers would change.

[282] As for her charge that her father had committed incest, she was just as likely to tell people that she herself was illegitimate and that James wasn't her father at all.

[283] Sometimes it was Michael James was supposed to have fathered, other times it was Matthew, and other times the father of both sons was her no -good ex -husband Michael Ray.

[284] The point of Cindy's stories, none of which police were ever able to substantiate, seemed to be so she could manipulate people and play on their sympathy to get money, and persuade them to take care of her and feed her, and invite her into their homes.

[285] Even after Cindy left David and moved on to other boyfriends, she always popped into David's life either to rekindle their sexual relationship or ask for some kind of help, and each time she made sure she reminded him about what she claimed her father had done to her.

[286] And by early spring, 1982, when James and Virginia decided it was time for their daughter Cindy to go get a job, Cindy returned to David, and when she did, it was to tell him that suddenly her father had started making inappropriate advances towards her and Cindy wanted David to kill both James and Virginia Campbell.

[287] So while James and Virginia began planning their trip to Europe with a return date of June 9th, David and Cindy began to plan exactly how they were going to kill them.

[288] And by the evening of June 19th, David and Cindy were ready to put their plan into action.

[289] Weeks earlier, David had picked up a combat commander, 45 -caliber, pistol from one of his friends, and he'd been going to a local shooting range to brush up on the marksmanship skills he had learned in the Marines.

[290] He'd also bought jackets, coats, ski masks, and boots for himself and Cindy, so even if anyone saw them, no one would recognize them.

[291] While her parents were in Europe, Cindy started dropping by the house on Memorial Drive.

[292] Not only did she help herself to towels and food, she also began trying the downstairs windows to see which one opened with the least amount of noise and effort.

[293] On the evening of June 18th, one hour after Cindy's parents and Cindy's sons and Maria had all returned from their evening out on the town, David drove Cindy to her parents' house at 10 p .m. so Cindy could get some cash from her mother.

[294] But the real purpose of that visit was to unlock the window in the den, so when Cindy and David came back at 3 .30 in the morning to kill Cindy's parents, they would have a way to get inside the house.

[295] After that short visit to 8901 Memorial Drive, Cindy and David carefully set up an alibi, making sure they were seen at several parties that were too big for anyone to remember exactly when they left, only that they were there.

[296] And then, at 3 .20 a .m., dressed to kill, David pulled the car they were driving up onto the shoulder of the road directly across from the Campbell's mansion.

[297] And when David slid into the Campbell's house through the den window that Cindy had left unlocked, Cindy was right behind him.

[298] And it was Cindy who led David up the stairs to her parents' bedroom.

[299] And it was Cindy who flipped on the lights just before racing back downstairs where she dropped that blue glove to wait for David.

[300] And for months after the murders, it looked like David and Cindy may have committed the perfect crime.

[301] They only had one moment of panic when they realized that Cindy's boys were actually in the Campbell's bedroom when the murders were committed and might be able to ID them.

[302] That's when Cindy dragged the children out of the Campbell home on June 23rd and took them to David's apartment where she and David grilled the two little boys about what they had seen or heard on the night of the murders.

[303] Satisfied that the boys could not ID them, Cindy and David simply dropped the boys off at the orphanage.

[304] Six weeks after the murders, Cindy broke up with David and started borrowing large amounts of money drawn against her expected inheritance.

[305] And at the same time, the Houston Homicide Division put the Campbell murder investigation in the cold case files.

[306] But then, two years and four months after the murders, and just before Cindy's sisters were ready to settle their parents' estate and distribute the Campbell's inheritance among the four daughters, Cindy's older sister, Betty, decided to make one final attempt to see if Cindy had been involved in their parents' murder.

[307] And in December of 1984, Betty hired a private detective firm called Clyde Wilson International Investigators to find out who killed James and Virginia.

[308] On the evening of Wednesday, December 19th, David West looked up from his drink at the Park Lane Bar in Houston and saw just as kind of woman weaving her way towards him, tall, athletic -looking and plenty of curves, Teresa Neal, as she later introduced herself, was wearing high -heeled suede boots, black satin pants and jacket, and black eyeliner around her big, vivid blue eyes.

[309] Two weeks later, and David was totally smitten with her.

[310] He was fine with the fact that Teresa wanted to keep things between them platonic, at least for now.

[311] David had always prided himself on respecting and defending women, which was really what had gotten him mixed up in Cindy's murder plot in the first place.

[312] He'd been trying to protect her from her father.

[313] But now, the crime he had committed weighed on David, and by January 4th, he had started dropping hints to Teresa that he was keeping a very big secret.

[314] And it had to do with an old girlfriend of his, a woman named Cindy Campbell.

[315] By mid -February of 1985, David and Teresa had declared their love for one another.

[316] But before Teresa could fully trust David and begin the physical relationship he wanted, he had to tell her the details of this secret he was keeping.

[317] He had to be totally honest and open with her before she could commit to him.

[318] So on the night of February 20th, after spending the evening together and listening to David talk about Cindy Campbell's crazy tales of abuse, neglect, and incest, Teresa told him it was now or never.

[319] As they sat inside her car in the driveway of his house, Teresa's black purse on the console between them, Teresa told David, that if he didn't tell her exactly what he and Cindy had done, then Teresa was going to walk out of his life forever.

[320] After a long moment of silence, David reached across the space between them, put his fingers under Teresa's chin, and turned her face so he was looking directly into her blue eyes.

[321] Then, in a quiet voice, David told Teresa, quote, I killed both her parents, end quote.

[322] Teresa, whose real name was Kim Paris, and whose real job was working as an undercover private detective for the firm that Betty had hired to find her parents' killer, let out a long, astonished breath.

[323] In all her time working this case, it had never really occurred to the young private eye that David himself might have executed James and Virginia Campbell.

[324] Meanwhile, the tape recorder whirring away silently in the purse that sat between them picked up every word of David's confession.

[325] And so did the surveillance team in the police van around the corner, where Kim's partner was listening with two police officers.

[326] Back at the Houston police station, investigators got the call and the tip they had been waiting for.

[327] Thanks to the work done by Clyde Wilson International Investigations and 23 -year -old Kim Paris, Houston Police could finally close the case on the Campbell murders.

[328] Before Kim Paris left David's driveway that night, she and David agreed to meet up together the following night for dinner.

[329] And on February 21st, after that dinner, during which David gave up even more details about the murder and Cindy's involvement, Kim told David she needed to stop on their way home at a convenience store so she could buy another pack of cigarettes.

[330] When they made that stop, Kim told David to wait in the car, saying she'd be back in just a couple of minutes.

[331] As soon as she walked away, an entire team of police officers surrounded the car.

[332] When David stumbled out of the front passenger seat, he caught sight of Kim, standing on the other side of the store's glass windows.

[333] As David was arrested and charged with capital murder, Kim met his eyes and raised the beer can she was now holding in a silent toast.

[334] Later that same Thursday, Houston Police issued an arrest warrant for Cindy Ray Campbell, and on December 11, 1985, David West pleaded guilty to the first -degree murders of James and Virginia Campbell.

[335] In exchange for that guilty plea, he did not face the death penalty, and he agreed to testify at trial against his one -time girlfriend, Cindy Campbell.

[336] David was immediately sentenced to life in prison.

[337] In June of 1987, Cindy was also convicted of first -degree murder and was also sentenced to life in prison.

[338] David is still incarcerated today at Ramsey Correctional Center in Brazoria County, Texas.

[339] As for Cindy, on September 13, 2021, while serving her life sentence at Mountain View Women's Prison in Gatesville, Texas, she died of natural causes.

[340] She was 65 years old.

[341] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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