[Felkins] Victim of 1990 rape, murder is not forgotten
Anne Warfield
From the [Conway AR] Log Cabin Democrat--
Not Forgotten
Unsolved 1990 murder remains challenge for newly formed task force
focusing on old cases
By SAMANTHA HUSEAS
Log Cabin Staff Writer
(This is the first in a series of stories on the 1990 rape and murder
of Pamela Faye Felkins. On Wednesday the FBI profile on the killer and
a "local person of interest" will be examined)
It has been almost 13 years since a 32-year-old mother, wife and
Greenbrier resident was found brutally murdered. The law enforcement
community has not forgotten about the crime and they have not given up
on solving it.
The Faulkner County Multi-Jurisdictional Homicide Task Force was
created on Feb. 2, 2001, the 11th anniversary of Pamela Faye Felkins'
abduction.
"The task force was formed to solve the Felkins case with the intent
of moving forward to other old cases when that's accomplished," said
Faulkner County Coroner Patrick Moore, chairman of the task force.
Felkins was abducted on the night of Feb. 2, 1990. She was the lone
on-duty clerk at Crossroads Video Store on Highway 65 inside the city
limits of Greenbrier. Her husband, David, arrived at the store about
8:55 p.m. to pick her up and found a warm cup of coffee and a
smoldering cigarette, but not his wife.
She was found the next morning in a rural area near McGintytown. She
had been raped and beaten to death.
More than a dozen years later there still has been no arrest in the
case and hers is the oldest unsolved murder in the county.
Moore said the case is very solvable because of a "pristine DNA
sample" collected in the case and the task force will not give up even
if members of the group change.
Some changes have already taken place. Retired Arkansas State Police
Sgt. Jerry Roberts was the original chairman of the task force but
Moore took over after Roberts' retirement in November 2001. Roberts is
still active on the task force.
The group determined to solve the murder has also grown over the
years.
"We started with seven members," Roberts said. "The primary agencies
have always been the coroner's office, the Faulkner County Sheriff's
Office and the Greenbrier Police Department. The State Police, the
crime lab and all the others, we're there to support them."
The task force is made up of and assisted by more than 30
investigators, prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel from a
dozen agencies.
Those agencies are the Arkansas State Crime Lab, the Arkansas State
Medical Examiner's Office, the State Police Criminal Investigation
Division, the State Police Highway Patrol Division, Conway Police
Department, Conway Regional Drug Task Force, Faulkner County Office of
the Coroner, Faulkner County Sheriff's Office, the FBI Arkansas Field
Office, FBI Investigations Laboratory, Greenbrier Police Department
and the 20th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
"History shows that multijurisdictional task forces are the most
successful in solving crimes like this," Roberts said. "This task
force is moving the case into the 21st century."
In addition to ensuring that the Felkins murder continues to be
scrutinized, the formation of the task force also helped bring all the
different agencies together, Moore said.
"In times past different agencies were doing different things on the
case and they didn't necessarily know what the others were doing,"
Moore said. "That wasn't anyone's fault, it's just the way things were
done but now the task force has brought everyone under one roof."
By being under one umbrella, the task force has been able to
accomplish some pretty big goals in the less than two years it has
existed.
"We've been able to clear a lot of people," Roberts said. "And we're
not going to stop, not until we get an arrest and a conviction."
Moore echoed those thoughts, adding that with advancements of
scientific technology they can now get DNA results back in weeks
instead of the months it used to take.
This is why "we've been able to clear nearly 60 local people as
suspects," Moore said. "Of all the local persons of interest that
we've investigated, all but one has been cleared."
(Staff writer Samantha Huseas can be reached by phone at 505-1253 or
e-mail at s...@thecabin.net)
http://www.thecabin.net/stories/120102/loc_1201020019.shtml
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Anne Warfield
Narrowing the list of suspects
Police renew interest in 12-year-old rape, murder
By SAMANTHA HUSEAS
Log Cabin Staff Writer
(This is the second in a series of stories on the 1990 rape and murder
of Greenbrier resident Pamela Faye Felkins.)
------
David Felkins arrived to pick up his 32-year-old wife from work at
8:55 p.m. Feb. 2, 1990. Her purse was there. Her coat was there. A
smoldering cigarette and a warm cup of coffee were there. A cash
register drawer filled with money was there.
Pamela Faye Felkins was not there. She was on her way to a rural area
of Faulkner County where she would be raped. She would then be taken
to a muddy road, beaten to death and thrown into a ravine filled with
trash.
A group of local investigators and other law enforcement officials
have pledged not to give up on solving the crime. The group, the
Faulkner County Multi-Jurisdictional Homicide Task Force was created
Feb. 2, 2001, the 11th anniversary of Felkins' abduction. They have
studied an FBI profile of the killer, or killers, and have been
eliminating suspects using newly developed technology, but they
haven't eliminated everyone they have investigated.
The scene
After finding his wife was not in the video store, David Felkins
searched the immediate area and then called the Greenbrier Police
Department. David Felkins had called Pamela about 10 minutes prior to
arriving at the store, but no one answered. That was not odd, David
Felkins would tell police, because his wife often went next door to
the Wagon Wheel Restaurant to get something to drink or to chat with
customers.
The last witnesses to see Felkins alive left the store at 8:40 p.m.
When police studied the scene at Crossroads Video Store on Highway 65,
they quickly surmised Felkins had been abducted by someone she did not
know. According to police records, a partially completed rental ticket
was found on the counter along with two movies, "Mississippi Burning"
and "Rambo III."
"(The) police investigation indicated that the victim would usually
fill in the personal-information section of the receipt first when she
knew the customer by name, leaving for last the specific titles of the
videos that were being rented," according to an FBI profile on the
case.
The name and address of the renter and his or her signature were the
only boxes not filled out on the ticket found at the scene. Police
believe that whoever took Felkins from the store spent time making
sure things would go as planned and used the cover of browsing for
videos as a way to scope out the situation.
The only thing that seemed out of place in the store was one of
Felkins' blue hair combs, found on the floor between the counter and
the front door, "which seems to suggest that the initial confrontation
between the victim and assailant occurred in this area," according to
the profile. "The absence of any other signs of struggle indicates
that the assailant took immediate control of the victim."
A team of officers and volunteers gathered at the video store and each
was assigned a specific area in which to search.
It was raining at the time of the abduction and it continued to rain
for several hours. The search was eventually called off about 2 a.m.
and resumed about 6 a.m. It was about 1:20 p.m. Feb. 3 when two
cousins of Pam Felkins found her battered body several yards down a
wooded, steep, trash-filled ravine off Clinton Mountain Road.
Her eyeglasses and earrings and two pools of blood were found along
the edge of the road, and police say that is where the mother of four
was killed.
She was wearing a red-and-blue blouse, jeans, white shoes and socks
and a red hair comb the same size and shape as the blue one found on
the video store floor. She was wearing a navy-blue bra but no panties.
Felkins had been raped, but evidence suggests the rape did not occur
at the same place she was killed. The cause of death was trauma to the
head and the medical examiner's report said Felkins had been struck on
the head several times with a blunt object.
The profile
In November 1990, local officers received a profile of the suspect or
suspects prepared by the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of
Violent Crime.
It suggests that whoever abducted Felkins had watched her for a period
of time before determining the time was right for the crime. It also
indicated at least two people were involved and that they had planned
to carry out the crime several times before but had to abort their
plans for unknown reasons.
Felkins fits the victim profile for a man obsessed with controlling
women. She was slight, weighing 81 pounds and standing 5 feet tall.
She was described as quiet, passive and conscientious.
"While the offender may not have been known by name to the victim, it
is likely that she was preselected to the degree that she was targeted
not for who she was, but for what she represented -- a vulnerable
female who was easy prey and controllable," the profile indicates.
Police believe the killer used his vehicle to transport Felkins from
the scene of the abduction. The killer, according to the profile,
would use a vehicle he felt comfortable with. The same would be true
for the location of the rape and murder.
"The killer intended to spend time with the victim and, therefore, had
already selected a location, which either precluded observation or was
one with which he was familiar and felt secure," according to the
profile.
The reason for the crime was sexual and the murder was a way of
bringing the rape to a close. The profile suggests that Felkins'
panties were missing because the offender kept them as a "souvenir" of
the crime, which enabled him to relive the crime through fantasies.
It is also believed that it took at least two people to throw Felkins
into the ravine and the profile says the site would have been known by
the offenders prior to the crime. While the body was not visible from
the road, there were no attempts to hide it. That reinforces the
belief that the suspects were familiar with the location as a place to
dump unwanted items.
Suspects and leads
According to published reports, police had a handful of suspects early
on in the investigation. The witnesses who last saw Felkins as they
left the video store, Corey Richards, who now lives in Oregon, and
Tisha Stane, whom police have lost contact with but want to speak to,
described a man who was entering the store as they were leaving.
They said the man was very wet, as if he had spent a lot of time
outside before entering the store, and had either tattoos or grease on
his arm. Police released a sketch based on the description and have
referred to him as the "missing link" in the case.
There were no vehicles in the parking lot of the video store at the
time of the abduction, according to witnesses, and it was believed the
wet man may have walked from across Highway 65 where there was a
parking lot full of cars.
It is believed the man in the drawing is not from the Greenbrier area,
because Felkins apparently did not know him, and "because if he was
just some local guy who happened to be there at the wrong time, he
would have come forward by now," said Faulkner County Coroner Patrick
Moore, chairman of the homicide task force.
Moore added that police really hope to find Tisha Stane, who was 17 at
the time and whose last name may have changed, to show her some
pictures. They are also trying to get Richards here or send
investigators to Oregon for the same reason.
Since the formation of the task force, "We've been able to clear
nearly 60 local people as suspects," Moore said. "Of all the local
persons of interest that we've investigated, all but one has been
cleared."
That person is John Mosley, 49, who first really came to the attention
of police after he was arrested in August 1990 in Mayflower. According
to investigator Chuck Williams, he arrested Mosley for taking items
from an abandoned mobile home on Heath Lane, which is off Ridge Road.
He was convicted of taking the items then pawning them in Mayflower.
The arrest was a violent one with Mosley fighting with officers and
running from them, Williams said.
Police have indicated that the trailer he took items from has been
investigated as a possible location of the rape. Police searched the
mobile home as recently as a few months ago. They were able to collect
items, according to Moore, because no one has lived in the mobile home
since 1990. He would not elaborate on what evidence was taken.
The mobile home has an abandoned van in the front yard and the paint
from each is faded nearly to the point of being unrecognizable. Trees
several inches in diameter have grown up through a broken step and
have made the old home difficult to enter. The interior walls, floor
and ceiling are falling in and a strange assortment of condiment
bottles, books and torn-up furniture sits inside.
Mosley grew up a short distance from the mobile home and had lived
near the dump site where Felkins was found. He fits much of the FBI
profile, has been convicted of being a habitual rapist and of sexually
abusing children. He had access to a pickup like one that witnesses
saw driving slowly down a road next to the video store, and there is
evidence the Mosley family had left trash at the dump site off Clinton
Mountain Road, according to police.
But there is a glitch in the idea that Mosley raped and killed Felkins
-- the DNA evidence found on Felkins does not match Mosley. That is
why former task force chairman and retired Arkansas State Police Sgt.
Jerry Roberts called the man in the composite sketch the "missing
link." Finding that man could clear Mosley completely and turn police
in a new direction, or he could offer a reason why the DNA does not
match Mosley, or he could be the second man the FBI profile points to.
Regardless, Moore said, anyone who has information about the crime and
does not come forward with it could be found just as guilty as whoever
dealt the fatal blow to Felkins' head.
"We will solve this case. We won't stop until we have an arrest.
Coming forward with information could keep someone from getting the
death penalty," Moore said. "We don't know who did it and we do not
have tunnel vision. We are very open to new information, but the fact
remains that of the names we've been given. this one (Mosley) is the
only that's not been cleared."
The recent clearing of so many suspects is one reason police have
decided to come forward with their information and to request help
from the public. Among those who have been totally cleared are David
Felkins and the cousins who found the body.
Another reason for releasing the information now is because Little
Rock television station KTHV approached the task force about doing a
cold case file story and the task force agreed it might be a way to
generate a new lead. The story is expected to air Thursday night,
Moore said.
Greenbrier Police Chief Gene Cotton has been able to secure $8,750
from the city of Greenbrier, local banks and an anonymous private
donor as reward money for information that leads to an arrest.
Anyone with any information concerning the murder is urged to contact
the Faulkner County Sheriff's Office at 450-4914 or the Greenbrier
Police Department at 679-3105.
(Staff writer Samantha Huseas can be reached by phone at 505-1253 or
e-mail at s...@thecabin.net)
http://thecabin.net/stories/120402/loc_1204020006.shtml