It was October 27th, 1985, and a father and son walking across a piece of land off State Highway 51 just south of Springtown, Texas spotted a smattering of human bones in the dirt. Forensic examination determined that the partial skeleton belonged to a white male between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one years old, of indeterminate height and weight, with a pale complexion, short brown hair, and brown or hazel eyes.
The victim was clad in Guess jeans with leather trim on the pocket, a gray shirt with tan corduroy trim, a dark gray jacket, and a white fleece jacket over that. The only other item found with the remains was a coin bearing a 1984 date, indicating that the boy had likely been murdered sometime in that year, or in early 1985. It was believed that the victim had been shot in the head.
For more than three decades, the identity of the individual known only as Parker County John Doe or John Parker Doe was unknown, but in November of 2019, authorities announced a breakthrough: the victim was identified through genealogical DNA as twenty-two-year-old Billy Fiegener, who was originally from Brooklyn, New York. The victim’s parents, who lived in Florida, provided further DNA that confirmed his identity, though they were only able to present law enforcement with one photo of Billy, from his childhood; tragically, all of the other photos of their son were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy.
According to Billy’s parents, the young man had been getting into a great deal of trouble at home, and in the hopes of straightening him out, they sent him out to California to work on the ranch of a family friend. However, once there, Billy fell in with an individual named Forrest Ethington, who was originally from Dallas, Texas.
Ethington was a career criminal, and had assembled a crew that would go around the country and rob coin shops. Billy participated in a few of these heists, and even pulled off a few robberies on his own, but he ended up getting caught during one of his solo crimes, and it’s believed that Forrest Ethington was afraid that Billy would roll over on him and get him taken into custody as well.
A witness later told authorities that Forrest Ethington had confessed to him that he planned to kill Billy to keep him from talking, and it’s believed that Ethington did exactly that, taking Billy out to a remote area in Texas and shooting him in the head.
Although police had enough evidence to issue a warrant for Ethington’s arrest in the murder of Billy Fiegener, they discovered that the suspect had died in prison of a heart attack only a month previously.
Although justice was not exactly served, law enforcement officials are confident that Ethington was indeed the killer, and consider the case solved.
Crime Immemorial 