Oct 23, 2026 · 39 min · 18 segments
After three teenagers were brutally murdered near Lake Waco in 1982, investigators relied on jailhouse snitches, questionable forensic evidence, and coerced confessions to make their case. In today's…
Vanessa RichardsonHostThe murders were brutal and seemed personal, and yet detectives had no idea who could have committed them.
None of the teenagers had any clear enemies.
Within two months, the Waco PD quietly marked the case as inactive.
They probably would have stayed that way if Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons hadn't gotten involved.
In September 1982, the 39-year-old begged the chief of police to give him the case.
He swore he could solve it in a week.
The chief liked the sound of that, so he gave Simons the go-ahead.
Simon's first suspect was 23-year-old Munir Deeb.
He owned a convenience store across the street from the Methodist home where two of the victims, Jill and Kenneth, had once lived.
Deeb also employed one of their friends, a girl named Gail Kelly.
She and Jill bore a striking resemblance.
And Deeb had even taken out an accident insurance policy on Gail for $20,000, listing himself as her common-law husband, which was odd since they weren't even dating.
Based on all that, Simons came up with a theory.
Deeb had hired some local tough guys to kill Gail.
But the hitmen had seen Jill, mistaken her for their target, and killed the wrong girl.
In that scenario, Raylynn and Kenneth were just collateral damage.
Still, no matter how long Simons grilled Deeb, the man insisted he was innocent.
He even sat for a three-hour polygraph test, which showed he wasn't lying.
But Simons ignored the results and chose to trust his gut instead.
He knew Deeb was involved.
He just had to prove it.
Simons suspected that one of the hitmen was 24-year-old David Spence.
Spence hung around Deeb's store a lot and had a criminal record.
He'd just been arrested for sexual abuse.
The murders were brutal and seemed personal, and yet detectives had no idea who could have committed them.
None of the teenagers had any clear enemies.
Within two months, the Waco PD quietly marked the case as inactive.
They probably would have stayed that way if Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons hadn't gotten involved.
In September 1982, the 39-year-old begged the chief of police to give him the case.
He swore he could solve it in a week.
The chief liked the sound of that, so he gave Simons the go-ahead.
Simon's first suspect was 23-year-old Munir Deeb.
He owned a convenience store across the street from the Methodist home where two of the victims, Jill and Kenneth, had once lived.
Deeb also employed one of their friends, a girl named Gail Kelly.
She and Jill bore a striking resemblance.
And Deeb had even taken out an accident insurance policy on Gail for $20,000, listing himself as her common-law husband, which was odd since they weren't even dating.
Based on all that, Simons came up with a theory.
Deeb had hired some local tough guys to kill Gail.
But the hitmen had seen Jill, mistaken her for their target, and killed the wrong girl.
In that scenario, Raylynn and Kenneth were just collateral damage.
Still, no matter how long Simons grilled Deeb, the man insisted he was innocent.
He even sat for a three-hour polygraph test, which showed he wasn't lying.
But Simons ignored the results and chose to trust his gut instead.
He knew Deeb was involved.
He just had to prove it.
Simons suspected that one of the hitmen was 24-year-old David Spence.
Spence hung around Deeb's store a lot and had a criminal record.
He'd just been arrested for sexual abuse.
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