BREAKING NEWS: ARREST MADE in Lovers Lane Murders

Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail, as well as talk of sexual assault. Please listen with discretion. Warning this episode contains graphic crime scene detail. Please listen with discretion. All witnesses, suspects, and purses of interest are considered innocent until proven guilty in a. Court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we're going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, before we get into this episode, I just wanted to let you know that I recorded this whole thing, and then it was brought to my attention that this individual who we're talking about in today's episode, Floyd William pa r rtt, I pronounced a parrot. It was pronounced parrot in the extradition hearing. Today in the court system, I've also now heard it pronounced pero. I guess it could really go either way, but I just wanted to give a little claimer. I am not purposely saying his name wrong. That is how I thought it was pronounced. That's how they pronounced it during the extradition hearing. But I just wanted to say it could be perro it could be Parrot, but that is kind of where we stand. So enjoy this update episode and I will see you guys next week for a brand new unsolved case. Hey guys, it's Kylie. I wanted to come to you today because we have breaking news in one of the cases that I have covered on this podcast. An arrest has been made in the double homicide Lover's Lane murders of twenty two year old Cheryl Henry and twenty one year old Andy Atkinson in August of nineteen ninety in Houston, Texas. This is one of Houston's most infamous cold cases, and late Wednesday, they made an arrest. The news broke this morning that an arrest has officially been made and the suspect, Floyd William Parrish, who is sixty four years old. Has been charged with capital murder. He was arrested in Lincoln, Nebraska and has been extradited back to Houston. He will be back in court on April thirtieth. So let's break this down. For those of you who aren't familiar with Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson's case, please go back and listen to the episode I did. This is one as somebody that grew up in Houston. Has always stuck out to me. It's been one that's always deeply bothered me. And the thing that really stuck out to me was the fact that there was another case that was connected to Cheryl and Andy's because they had matching DNA, but at the time that I did the episode, there was no match. They could not figure out who this DNA belonged to, but they knew that this DNA from a sexual assault that had happened just two months before the murders of Cheryl and Andy was related because they also had DNA from the assault that occurred on Cheryl Henry. So let's do a little cliffs notes version of what happened, and then we're going to get into the suspect and his oh so long and complex criminal history because, as expected, this demon predator, allegedly Floyd William Parrott, wasn't an angel and his criminal history speaks for itself. So let's talk a little bit about kind of what happened if you haven't listened to the episode, and how we got here and what brought all of this together and how we now have a suspect. So at two am on Wednesday, June twentieth of nineteen ninety, there was a thirty year old woman who left her shift as a dancer at a place called Gig's Cabaret that was located in Houston, Texas, and she went back to her boyfriend's home. Now, her boyfriend, Randy, was a pilot. He was out of town at this time, but she stopped by to get some food on her way home, went to his place, sat in the living room and ate her food, and then she went upstairs to their bedroom. And when she was up there, she found a man who was in some type of uniform. It was obviously dark. He had gloves on, and he had a black fish net stalking over his face. He specifically asked for her boyfriend by name, asked where's Randy, and said that Randy owed him money. Then he proceeded to attack her. He tied her hands behind her back with duct tape and then he held a gun to her throat. He put duct tape over her eyes and mouth, and then placed a pillowcase over her head and then went. On to sexually assault her. And he was very demeaning during the attack, and he talked about his military uniform that he was wearing and said that she was not very observant. Now, there was some. Speculation that maybe he was talking about his military uniform as actually kind of like a ruse, because they actually thought he might have been wearing a security guard uniform instead. She did describe his stance as very military like, and after the attack was over, he made her lie on the floor and told her not to move. He told her he might be in the house for five minutes, he might be in the house for an hour. He then stole two hundred and fifty dollars from her purse, likely the money that she had made that night as a dancer at Gigi's cabaret, and then he disconnected the home phone so she could not. Call for help. So obviously the person that did this. Is a total dirt bag, right, But this victim survived, she was not killed. So fast forward to August twenty second of nineteen ninety. Cheryl and Andy were dating. They were young, they were in love. Andy had recently moved back from North Carolina to Houston. His father, Garland Atkinson, owned some dance and cabaret clubs around Houston, and these two young individuals literally. Had their whole lives ahead of them. So on that particular night, Cheryl and Andy had gone out with Cheryl's sister, Shane and her date, and they went to a place called by Umma. And after their night out, the couples parted ways around eleven thirty, and that is when this story takes a horrific, horrific turn. Cheryl and Andy found themselves in a place that back in the day. Was known as Lovers Lane. It was very underdeveloped. It was the early nineteen nineties in Houston, and this is an area that young couples would often go to have some alone time. The next morning, August twenty third of nineteen ninety, Andy's grandmother was concerned because Andy hadn't come home and that was pretty unusual for him. And initially, Garland, who is Andy's father, wasn't super concerned because Andy was an adult and he didn't really think much of Andy not coming home. He just kind of thought that maybe him and Cheryl lost track of time and they were at Cheryl's house. He didn't think obvious worst case scenario. But Cheryl's family grew concerned when they hadn't heard from her, so they therefore got in touch with Andy's parents and family, and when everybody realized nobody had heard from either one of them, they grew very, very concerned and they then reported them both missing to the police. So we're now into the early morning hours of August twenty third of nineteen ninety. A Cisco security guard discovered Andy's white car that was abandoned in a secluded cold ascents on this company's underdeveloped property. The area, like I said, was known as Lover's Lane to locals, and it was also known as Enclave Round, So this car still had keys in the ignission. There was fresh blood on the interior of the car, along with some discarded clothing in a nearby field. The car definitely looked like it was left very abruptly, that the people who were inside of that car left kind of suddenly, and that this. Was not their plan all along. Also inside of the car was a purse that was located on the passenger side of the car, and that purse contained an ID which was that of RYL. Henry. When they ran the plates for the car, it. Was identified as belonging to Andy Atkinson. So the Atkinson and Henry families were alerted to the fact that this had been found. The car had been found abandoned. At this point in. Time, they did not know where Cheryl and Andy were, so by this point in time the day has gone and it is now into the evening hours. They ended up bringing out kadaver dogs trying to search for Cheryl and Andy. Around eleven twenty pm, police discovered the body of Cheryl Henry. Her body was found partially covered by some fence slats that were taken from a nearby fence. She was found face down without her clothes on. Her hands were bound behind her back by rope. Her clothing was found nearby and appeared to have been cut off of her. Her throat had been slashed violently, and she was stabbed more than twenty times. It was determined that Cheryl also had been sexually assaulted, and there was a twenty dollars bill found next to her body. Just horrific and horrible. I cannot even fathom what these two poor individuals went through. Investigators continued to search for Andy, and at this point Andy's family remained very hopeful that he was out there and he was okay. Once daylight came the. Next morning, they continued the search and around nine am on August twenty fourth, they found the remains of Andy Atkinson not far from where Cheryl's remains were found. He was fully clothed. He was kind of sitting propped up against a tree. Tied to that tree. He had rope around his neck and his wrists were both bound with rope behind his back. Andy's throat had been slit very badly. He was almost decapitated, which is horrible. Investigators did initially. Speculate that they thought that it was possible that there was more than one person involved in this because both victims were separated. They were around one hundred yards apart from each other. Investigators thought that it would be pretty difficult for one perpetrator to have control over to victims one hundred yards apart. I'm not really sure what is going to come out with the arrest of this individual who's been arrested, if we are looking at just one person or we're looking at multiple But I think we're probably looking at this one person, and he is a sadistic, crazed person, and he did this very methodically and he planned it out. The FBI ended up coming up with a criminal profile of who they thought could have killed Cheryl and Andy and they thought that this person was pretty close in age to them and likely knew them. He was above average intelligence, but overall a low achiever. And they thought that since Cheryl's body was covered, that this person who killed her might have had a close relationship with her at some point, because it was almost like they were trying to protect her and conceal her in a way. That is what the FBI profiler said, not my thoughts and opinions on the case. In March of two thousand and one, there was a letter that was sent to the Houston Police Department that was handwritten in block letters. The note sender told investigators, quote, if you want to know who killed C. Henry and A. Atkinson, it will cost one hundred thousand dollars. The note then went on to tell investigators to reply at the classified section of the March twelfth, two thousand and one Houston Chronicle and said that a lawyer was hired to make sure you play straight. The cops went ahead and followed the instructions, placed their ad in the classifieds of the Houston Chronicle, and they kept this very close to the vest. They did not disclose it. They never said anything about it and this information was not released to the public for many many years, but unfortunately nothing ever came of this tip that I guess really wasn't a tip after all. Then, in two thousand and two, the. Houston Police Department's crime lab was under this major investigation due to a series of some different circuit stances. There was an investigation in regard to the DNA lab and it basically exposed all of the issues that this DNA lab was having. So this investigation basically exposed that some of the DNA evidence was contaminated from not being stored properly. The crime lab techs were also using much more of the DNA than they needed to identify suspects because with DNA, once you use it, you can't. Get it back. So this was a huge problem and it was kind of basically destroying evidence that could be possible to be used in future cases. So the Houston Police Department crime lab ended up being called the worst crime lab in the country and it was shut down due to this investigation. All of the. DNA that they had had to be relocated and retested. The lab was later reopened in two thousand and six and they tried to start anew hired a whole bunch of new people to oversee the lab, and by twenty fourteen the lab had made a comeback and rebuilt their reputation and they began to flourish. In two thousand and four, in the midst of the overhaul of the crime lab. They decided that they were going to go ahead and. Retest all of the DNA evidence in Cheryl and Andy's murders. And they went ahead and sent the DNA to an independent lab and they were able to determine that the individual who sexually assaulted Cheryl Henry was in fact a Caucasian mail And then in two thousand and seven, another break came when a match had been made between the DNA found on Cheryl Henry's body and another case that happened two months prior to Cheryl and Andy's murder. They were able to take the DNA from the June nineteen ninety sexual assault of the woman in her boyfriend's home and connect it to the DNA that found at the scene of Cheryl and Andy's murder. Whoever perpetrated these crimes was the same person. They were able to track this woman down. The woman who. Survived this sexual assault and she remembered a lot about her attacker, and she was able to come up with a composite sketch of this person. He was white, in his mid thirties, around six foot tall, and around one hundred and eighty pounds. So when I covered this case, I thought to myself, there has to be something here. This person can't be far. They have to be close to figuring out who this person is. It's just a matter of time. And when I opened up Facebook today and that was the first thing I saw, I immediately completely utterly lost my mind. So, like I said, they have arrested Floyd William Parrott, aged sixty four. They arrested him in Lincoln, Nebraska and he is being extradited back and he will be in court again. On April thirtieth. Now, I do want to preface everything I am about to say. This individual has not been convicted of any crime, and he is considered innocent until proven guilty in a. Court of law. But we are going to talk about who he is, what he's been up to, and some of his charges, because as expected, he does have quite an extensive criminal past. So investigators received a. Tip from somebody that a man named Floyd William Parrott was possibly a suspect for the murders of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson. So this tipster provided their name and contact information and a detective leader followed up with this person and talked with this person about. The details of this tip. While following up on that tip, a detective reviewed a nineteen ninety six Houston Police Department report from a separate sexual assault case in which this guy, Floyd Parrot, was identified as a suspect. Now, Floyd Parrot claimed that the encounter with this person was consensual, but DNA was collected from that nineteen ninety six case and it was recently uploaded to COTIS, which is the National Combined DNA Index system, which is used to compare DNA profiles from different crime scenes and missing persons and people who have been convicted of offenses. According to the affidavit that was released, a detective reviewed the multiple DNA and CODIS reports and learn that COTIS had flagged a case to case hit the male DNA profile from the nineteen ninety six sexual assault case where he was accused and admitted that he did in fact have sexual contact with this person, although he said it was consensual matched DNA swabs collected during Cheryl Henry's sexual assault exam. At her autopsy, they also found another hit in codis for a case to case match that matched the same male profile to the June nineteen ninety sexual assault case that I spoke of earlier. So let's talk about Floyd Parrot's criminal history. So, according to a khou eleven news article, they uncovered some criminal history of Parrots in Harris County. In May of nineteen eighty eight, he was arrested and placed on probation for impersonating a peace officer, and on the arrest he listed his work address which was about one mile from the enclave, which is where Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson were found. In December of nineteen eighty eight, he was arrested and convicted for carrying a weapon which was a blue steel revolver, which records indicate was later returned to him. Now, this blue steel revolver gun matches the description of the gun that was given in the June nineteen ninety sexual assault where the woman was assaulted in her boyfriend's home. That is the same gun that was used in that one and that was a gun that never should have been given back to him because he was arrested and charged and convicted for carrying that weapon. In May of nineteen ninety, he was again arrested and later convicted for impersonating a peace officer. And a detective had noted that. Records show that he was out on bond for that case at the time of both the June nineteen ninety sexual assault and then the double murders in August of nineteen ninety According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, he was sentenced twenty years in prison for impersonating a public servant in September of nineteen ninety five. He served three years before he was released on parole in nineteen ninety nine. We also have the nineteen ninety six sexual assault that he also committed as well. Investigators did check to see if he was in custody when the three different crimes occurred. Now, according to the affidavit, his criminal history shows that he was not in police custody during the June twentieth, nineteen ninety sexual assault, the homicide of Cheryl and Andy in nineteen ninety August, or the August seventh, nineteen ninety six sexual assault, but he was all caught up in the court system. Around that time, there was charges. This man never should have been out. How many lives could we have prevented from being ruined by this individual if only he had been kept behind bars. Shane, who is Cheryl's sister, said that this individual is a total stranger to them and the news of his arrest has been very overwhelming. She is quoted as saying it was very unexpected. It was a lot, and we're still processing it the whole family. I still feel like it's unreal. It's hard to see that it's real after thirty five years of nothing. Unfortunately, Cheryl's mother and Andy's father both passed away in twenty twenty four, and Shane said that quote it's heartbreaking that they don't get to have this day, but we know they're with them and rejoicing in their own ways. She also said, we're hanging in there. It's very hard to comprehend that we got him. The Henry family released the following statement. Today is a bittersweet day for our family. Cheryl and Andy were truly incredible people, kind, loving and with so much life ahead of them. After nearly thirty six years we never imagine this day would come, and we are overwhelmed with emotion. The press conference regarding this breaking news has yet to happen. When it does, if there's anything more to it, I will be sure to bring it to you here, but I wanted to drop this episode. With the latest information that we have now, I. Will say although Floyd was living in Nebraska, he also had an address in New Caney, Texas, and he has ties. All around the Houston area. He would have been twenty eight around the time of Cheryl and Andy's deaths, and I'm really curious to see what this individual looked like in his twenties, to see if it looks like the composite sketch that the sexual assault victim was able to come up with. But what really struck me as eerie is the fact that in. Her sexual assault encounter, she talks about his military life stance and how he was wearing some type of uniform. And this guy was arrested multiple times for impersonating law enforcement and for impersonating peace officers. Also, on Ben verified what I used to run my reports, it says that his occupation was a pilot. He also has a burglary of habitation offence on October twenty ninth of nineteen ninety six. He has, like I said, multiple impersonating police officers impersonating a peace officer counts throughout the years, and I found five different possession of weapon charges for him also over the years in the nineties. So safe to say he has a checkered past. His DNA has now officially been matched, and now we get to see everything play out and hopefully get some justice for Cheryl and Andy. Now he has denied knowing Cheryl. Today they had his extradition hearing and he has officially requested legal representation, and that is kind of where things stand now. We are going to listen to a little clip from the extradition hearing today. I am going to play that for you now. Twenty six. Six mister Parrott appears here on a class O complaint. Mister Condon, thank you judge, mister Parrett. You are charged in the matter of it doctor twenty six x twenty six three two two six. I believe with pe from justice. It is a ludding part that on about March twenty six, so twenty twenty six, Lankesh, Nebraska, either then in there being or a fuerative from justice, and that said employe w having committed the crime capital murder multiple murder. In the County or Parish of Harris, State of Texas, and then then. Flee from justice on about Marge twenty six to twenty twenty six, Sir, under this few dutive from justice complaint, you can be held here in the state of Nebraska. You cannot more than ninety. Days for the state of rasativitated governor forms from. The State of Texas. Do you understand the nature of this charge? Do you understand what their allegings are? Yes? Okay, Sean, all right. It's my understanding that you're currently wanted in the State of Texas, County or Parish of Harris for the alleged defense of capital murder. Multiple counts. It's also my understanding that the authorities in the State of Texas are claiming that you thereafter left the state of Texas and fled justice, and they're now demanding Nebraska authorities surrender you through the State of Texas to deal with these charges. Do you understand the claims and demands being made by the State of Texas. Yes, sure, Aaron, Nebraska you have the right to the issuance and service of a governor's warrant of extradition. You also have the right to test the legality of your arrest and attention by applying to the court for a rid of habeas corpus. And you also have the right to have an attorney assist you in any such proceedings. And if you are without the funds to hire an attorney, I would appoint an attorney to represent you. Do you understand you have those rights? Yes, sEH. Knowing that you have those rights, do you wish to waive extradition and return to Texas to deal with this matter? Or do you want to talk to an attorney. I wish to talk to attorney. I do not wish to voluntarily return to Texas. All right? Are you able to hire an attorney? Are you presently employed? I'll find you qualified per Court appointed council. I will appoint the attorneys in the Public Defender's Office to represent you in this matter. We're going to continue the case. For a doc and called hearing to a thirtieth twenty six at ten am in Court number twenty two. I did review the warrant. Out of the state of Texas, and I did not see a bond recommendation on the face of the warrant. What is the state's bond request? I just wanted to the graphical staffic which allows individual's charge with outside murder. To be held without bond. The state is requesting that, I'm sure be held without bond in this matter. Okay, and that's pursue to the constitution. Yes, okay, all right, at this point in time, that's what I'm going to do, mister Parrett. I'm going to hold you without bonds allowed under the Nebraska Constitution. You can visit with your attorney. About bond and if they want to file a motion for a bond review, they can, But at this point in time, I'm going to have been held without bond and then we'll see you on April thirtieth, twenty twenty six. Okay, yes, for ten am, thank you, thank you. Yes, And that is that. So he waived his right to extradition. He wants a lawyer, he cannot afford one because he is not employed. He is likely probably retired at this point in time. So it is going to be very interesting to see all of this play out. I am so elated that they have finally made an arrest. This is a huge one. This has been I would say, probably one of Houston's most notorious cold cases. And I always say. Time is running out for these horrible predators who think that they have gotten away with it, because technology is catching up and these cold cases aren't going to stay coldmore. And I'm so glad that we have breaking news in this one and that hopefully justice for Cheryl and Andy will be happening soon. So thank you guys for joining today on this breaking news episode. I had to get this one out as soon as possible because I just can't believe that we are here today, almost thirty six years later, with news that there has been an arrest in the murders of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson. I hope you guys have a great weekend coming up, and if there's any. More breaking with this, I will be sure to bring it to you here. You guys, have a good one and stay safe. Bye.