Crime Immemorial

Forty-five-year old Terri Bevers, much better known by her nickname of Missy, lived in Red Oak, Texas with her husband and three daughters. She worked as a fitness instructor, giving early-morning, boot-camp-style classes at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, only about a twenty-minute drive from her home.

On the evening of April 17th, 2016, Missy contacted her boot camp students and told them that because of heavy thunderstorms that were forecast overnight, the next day’s classes would have to be held inside the church, rather than in the parking lot as usual.

At four-eighteen on the morning of April 18th, Missy appeared on the church’s surveillance cameras, entering the building with her exercise equipment in preparation for her class, which began at five o’clock. Unbeknownst to Missy, however, someone was already inside the church waiting for her.

When the first student arrived for the class at five a.m., he discovered Missy’s dead body lying inside the building. The cause of death was a series of puncture wounds in the victim’s head and chest, possibly accomplished with a hammer or one of the other tools found near the remains, though authorities did not confirm the murder weapon outright.

During the initial stages of the investigation, police surveyed the security footage from inside the church; the cameras outside the church were not functioning on the day in question. The footage clearly showed a person of unknown sex, clad in tactical gear and what appeared to be a SWAT uniform, wandering the halls of the church at around four in the morning, approximately twenty minutes prior to Missy’s arrival.

This sinister individual tried to open several doors in the church’s hallways, and occasionally broke glass inside the building. Investigators were uncertain as to whether the suspect was male or female, as they moved with a very strange gait that some officers perceived to be “feminine,” though other detectives believed the odd, slow walk was simply a product of the substantial weight of the gear the person was wearing. Additionally, the individual seemed to be having a difficult time moving their legs, and sometimes braced themselves against the wall.

Although police at first believed that the suspect had broken into the church with the intention of robbing it, and was then surprised by Missy’s arrival, which resulted in a murderous confrontation, as the inquiry continued, it started to become clear that the individual had specifically targeted Missy, and allegedly even planned for the murder to appear as a robbery gone wrong. Investigators noted that nothing in the church appeared to be missing, and Missy’s purse and iPad were likewise untouched. Evidence later surfaced, in fact, that the suspect may have been stalking Missy for some time, and perhaps even recorded the killing on their phone for later perusal.

In the course of pursuing this angle, authorities discovered that for several months prior to her murder, Missy had been receiving possibly “strange” and “creepy” messages from a man over LinkedIn. This individual was eventually identified, though he claimed the messages were harmless flirtations and nothing more. This person of interest has never been publicly named.

Both Missy’s husband Brandon and her father-in-law Randy were also briefly considered, but Brandon was provably fishing in Mississippi when the murder occurred, and Randy was in California. Randy, in fact, only came under suspicion after a witness reported that he had brought a bloody shirt into a dry cleaner four days after the murder. It turned out, however, that Randy had broken up a fight between two dogs; forensic analysis confirmed that the blood on the shirt was indeed dog blood and not human.

The month after the crime, police in Midlothian released a photograph taken from surveillance footage captured by the cameras of the nearby SWFA Outdoors store, then later released the entire video. The footage shows what appears to be a 2010-2012 Nissan Altima with an oval-shaped bumper sticker driving in a very bizarre manner in the parking lot of Creekside Church. The vehicle entered the parking lot at around two a.m., and then circled around the lot, randomly flashing the headlights. The car then parked in a secluded area of the lot for several minutes before pulling out onto Route 287 and driving away. Police are uncertain if this footage is related to the murder, but still wish to identify the driver as a possible witness, if not a suspect.

There is currently a reward for $150,000 for information leading to the conviction of Missy Bevers’s killer.