A break in Houston’s nearly 36-year-old “Lovers Lane” cold case is bringing two families closer to long-awaited answers after DNA evidence led to an arrest in Nebraska, authorities said.
Prosecutors say 64-year-old Floyd William Parrott was arrested by an FBI SWAT team Wednesday night in Nebraska and is now charged with capital murder in the 1990 killings of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson.
“These unsolved murders have weighed so incredibly heavy on these families and our communities for more than three decades,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said. “That stops today.”
A case that haunted families for decades
Henry and Atkinson were in their early 20s and had been dating only a few weeks when Houston police found them tied up with their throats slashed in West Houston during the summer of 1990, family members said.
The brutal crime scene, later known as the Lovers Lane murders, left investigators searching for answers for decades.
Andy Atkinson’s stepsister, Francesca Del Rosso, said she was overwhelmed when she learned an arrest had finally been made.
“I fell to the floor and just started crying. I couldn’t believe it. The day finally came,” Del Rosso said. “Andy was a living soul in our house ... (our father) would hound these detectives every single day, and they’ll tell you that same thing. And he just never gave up.”
Atkinson had only moved to Houston from North Carolina in the weeks leading up to his killing.
Cheryl Henry’s sister, Shane Henry, said she never expected the case would be solved.
“I just never thought we would find him,” she said. “Not out of their hard work, it has nothing to do with that, it’s just how do you go 36 years and never do it again and never get caught. So I figured he was dead. So I’m very happy to know he’s alive and will be held accountable for his actions."
How investigators say the case broke open
Retired Houston Police homicide detective John Belk, who worked the case for years and retired in 2009, said investigators pursued numerous leads over the years.
“I myself … looked at over 36 potential suspects,” Belk said.
Belk said the presence of DNA evidence was always a key piece that led him to believe the case would be solved, even in 1990 when the science was still developing.
“We had DNA and back in 1990 that was an exciting new technology,” he said.
According to court records, the breakthrough came after Houston police received a tip naming Parrott. It’s not clear how long investigators had that tip, and neither Teare, the police department, nor the mayor’s office would provide an answer.
Investigators submitted DNA from a 1996 sexual assault case involving Parrott to a national database known as CODIS. Compared to DNA recovered from the 1990 murder scene, records show investigators had a match.
In the 1996 case, Parrott was charged with sexual assault and investigators collected DNA, but a grand jury no-billed him and the case did not move forward, Teare said.
A newly assigned detective, who has only had the case for a matter of months, later went back to that DNA sample, submitted it to a national database, and it matched the DNA associated with the 1990 killings, authorities said.
Prosecutors: More victims may be out there
Teare said investigators are now looking beyond the double murder and are asking the public for information.
“We believe that there are victims of numerous different types of crimes that are still living with it right now,” Teare said.
Prosecutors also said Parrott had a history in the 1980s and 1990s of impersonating law enforcement, and that months before the August 1990 killings, investigators say he drove a vehicle outfitted with law-enforcement-style equipment including police lights.
Records also indicate that when the murders happened near what is now Houston’s Energy Corridor, the area was undeveloped and considered remote. Investigators later learned from a past arrest report that Parrott worked about a mile away, according to case records.
Authorities said Parrott had been living in Montgomery County until a couple of years ago.
Extradition fight underway
Parrott is now fighting extradition to Texas. During a court hearing this week, he said he didn’t want to willingly go back to Texas and the matter is now set for a hearing in late April, according to Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office says it is working to obtain a governor’s warrant to speed up Parrott’s return to Texas, and Teare said he expects Parrott could be in a Harris County courtroom within about a month and a half.
Teare also said he will be part of the team prosecuting the case.
Teare said the physical evidence still points to the possibility others could have been involved, and investigators are not closing the door on anything.
“This justice has been delayed,” Teare said. “We can’t give Cheryl and Andy back to you. We’ll never know the people that they could have become.”
What investigators want from the public
Houston police and prosecutors are urging anyone with information related to the Lovers Lane killings, or Parrott’s other possible activities, to contact the Houston Police Department Homicide Division or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS, or the DA’s office Cold Case Division at 713-274-5640.
For the victims’ families, the arrest is a major step, one that brings relief and a fresh wave of questions after decades without answers.