June Moulder Ward

All witnesses purchase of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Warning. This episode contains graphic crime scene detail and may be sensitive for some listeners. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to jump into right now in true crime. First off, we are going to talk Elec Murdach. He was sentenced to forty years for his financial crimes, which we knew was coming. There is little to no chance that he will ever get out of prison with the double murder charges and the life in prison sentence and this now forty years on top of that, he's likely going to spend the rest of his life behind bars, which honestly, he did a lot of bad things to a lot of people, and that is where he should be at the end of the day. So on Monday, jury selection started in the Chad day Ball trial. And it's a process, so they are bringing in groups of sixteen like one at a time, two at a time and going through and questioning every single potential duror about their knowledge of the case, their views on the death penalty. Because it is such a highly publicized case, they're doing their best to try to get people that don't have a lot of knowledge about what has gone on. They haven't watched the news, and they don't really know a lot about all the different coverage that has gone on in regard to Lori Vaalo and Chad day Bill and the whole thing. So it is a process. So they're bringing in these groups of sixteen at a time, and the goal is to get to fifty people, to have like fifty finalized people, and then from there they will dwindle those down to the final jury. So they're expecting jury selection to last two weeks. I hope that they get to fifty by Friday. Again, they're eliminating anybody that, of course has prior knowledge of the case or opinions formed already about the circumstances of the case. Anybody also that has prior commitments wouldn't be able to be out of work for that period of time. They're saying eight to ten weeks for this trial, which is a quite long trial. That's over two months, two and a half months. That's a long time, and of course just anyone that wouldn't be a good fit. So as of Thursday, they're at thirty seven Jers. Again, the lucky number is fifty. I'm recording this a little after five on Thursday. They are still in court right now, so that number could grow in the next hour, and it'll probably be grown once this episode is out. But we are close to fifty. We need thirteen more Lucky number thirteen. It's going to happen eventually. All right. We are moving on to a Riley Strain update. He is the guy who went missing in Nashville after having a night out with friends and unfortunately they found his body. So this is a family friend that is posting on behalf of the family. So I'm going to read this post and then we're just going to talk about it. What we know today about the missing of Riley's Strain. Sorry, I've been away for a minute, but we needed to spend some time with our boy and needed to catch up on business. What I know today is the celebration of life was incredible for Riley and his family will be forever grateful for all of the love and support. Greenlawn is the largest funeral home in Springfield and they went to capacity in two separate rooms, had over thirty six hundred on the live feed and approximately three hundred outside that never made it into the funeral home. We cannot think everyone enough for their support in this journey. Words cannot describe the amount of love and grace that came to the family at the service from seeing everyone's support, So thank you. With that said, we still have questions that need to be answered. We were told there is approximately less than five minutes of non video time between the last video the family was shown between the two bridges that still has not been released to the detention center video that has been in the videos we have seen publicly. There are way too many people in those videos driving, walking, riding scooters, etc. For someone not to have seen something. The question is how do we find them or get a way for them to know that we just want to talk to them. Another thing is Riley war A built daily I would like to know, since the police have said that it's not uncommon for pants, boots, etc. To come off in these type of situations, if any other people that have been recently recovered in the river in Nashville or in the last several years, if this has been true for them. Also, I do not mean any disrespect for those that have unfortunately been found, and I pray for their family's loss. So let's be very respectful in finding answers please. Another interesting thing is the News Nation and a few other reporters recent have reached out directly to MMP last week to follow up in the investigation of Riley and was told that there was no longer an investigation and they were just waiting on toxicology reports. The family talked to the detective's Tuesday and asked about that and was told that they are still invested. It's no longer a missing person's investigation, but a death investigation. The pants that were seen in the recent TikTok video the info that was given that day to the MNP, but at this time we do not know if it was followed up on. Things I hope might happen in the near future is if Apple or Android would introduce Riley's Law into their format so that if an official police report was submitted to them on a missing person's case, all phone watched, et cetera, info could be given directly to official or immediate family members so that the search and info can appear can happen way sooner than later. Last but not least as far as the water in the body, Riley's family was given that info secondhanded. We have not confer it says we have not confirmation directly from either autopsy. We have not confirmed directly from either autopsy. The family did reach out directly to the Nashville coroner Monday for an updated report on what was actually found to date, hoping to get more info, and was told that the report could not be given out until the toxicology was back. We were also waiting to know if water had been found, which at this point we do not officially know from the Nashville coroner if it was river tap or another form of liquid in that area. The family has reached out to the second autopsy for an update on this, but also at this time we have not been notified back. One would think that might be a shareable info since it is not toxicology. Just my own opinion though. Thank you to everyone that helps search for Riley, and thank you to everyone still trying to help us get answers. The family will be forever grateful for all of this, and please be safe and respectful moving forward, finding answers and God bless. Okay, that is a lot, and there's like a lot of things that I was kind of confused on when I was reading them, but essentially what he's saying. And I saw him do an interview on one of the stations and he talked about how Riley always wore a belt. Now, this is a close family friend. It is the person that has been going out and doing all of the news outlets and speaking on social media on behalf of the family. So he said that Riley always wore a belt. So you think of a is like six foot five, really tall guy in pants and Justin's boots and a belt. So in order for the pants to come off, the boots have to come off, and cowboy boots, if you've ever taken them off, are really difficult to remove. I'm not saying it's out of the question that it could have happened with the current of the water and all that he was in, but it's just interesting. And when you think about it bogged down boots being bogged down with water, I feel like that's even more so of a hard task to just imagine happening. So the boots coming off, the pants then coming off, So in order for the pants to come off, the belt would have to come off, and it would all have to happen in such a specific order that it's just so interesting for me to try to like navigate and figure out how that would happen in the water. I understand that it can happen, and I'm not questioning that it can happen, but I think the family friend bringing up like, have other people that have been found over the last however many years in that same area and that same body of water, in different bodies of water in the area, have they had similar things happen where their pants and their shoes and all of that come off. Question Mark, It's a reasonable question, for sure, and I do feel like we need to talk about it. So the other thing is they have yet to find any of these items. They haven't found Riley's boots, his pants, or his belt. They were all missing when his body was found. They haven't been found anywhere in the vicinity of where his body was found. So that's a really interesting tidbit of information as well. So regardless, we are going to stay on top of this. The family is not giving up yet, and sometimes you have to pressure law enforcement sometimes to look a little further and dig a little deeper. And that is exactly what they're doing, and they're going to do that until they get the answers that they so desperately need and deserve. So I will keep you guys updated on that. I rambled entirely too long, as per usual, So we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. Alrighty, guys, Today we are going to be jumping into a new unsolved homicide case. Today we are going to be talking about the unsolved murder of a woman named June Moulder. Ward, as always, we're going to talk a little bit about June and what she was doing prior to her death. So, June Merlen Mulder was born July twenty eighth of nineteen fifty one in Cleeborne, Texas, to her parents, William Moulder and Mary Catherine Hall Molder. She was only twenty five years old when her body was discovered February nineteenth of nineteen seventy seven. So I can't really find a ton about June, but I do believe that she was married. Her married last name was Ward. She did have two children. They were young at the time of her death, and she was also a nurse. She had gone to her vocational nursing school at Johnson County Memorial Hospital, and she also had previously worked as a nurse at the Edna Gladney Home that was located in Fort Worth. However, she was unemployed at the time of her death, and I do believe she was no longer with her husband, the father of her children at the time of her death. She was noted to be a very popular girl. She had a good reputation while she was in school. Other people said that she was an absolute doll and a very sweet girl. And also people said that they don't really recall anyone ever having any issues with her. She just wasn't the type that would have issues with people enough that they would want to target her and take her life. So June was found on February nineteenth of nineteen seventy seven near the Federal Records Center on the southeast side of Fort Worth. So she was found by a passing motorist. Of course, they called law enforcement out. The medical examiner ruled that she died of Stretts, there was a piece of a brass trap that was found around her neck. She had trauma on her head and body, and there had been trauma that was inflicted by a sharp instrument. They suggested it could have either been an axe or a hatchet, And the fingers on her right hand were broken, which indicated that she had definitely fought whoever her attacker was and ended up breaking her fingers in the process. Now, interestingly enough, that morning on February nineteenth, there had been some aerial photos that were taken of the Fuller and South Freeway areas, and there was no clues in those aerial photos that led them any closer to figuring out what had happened to June. So there had been some previous homicides in Fort Worth in the month of February in the previous ten years, over the previous ten years, and authorities said that they weren't entirely sure if those other cases were connected, but it very well could have been. And I've actually covered one of the previous cases that they alluded to might have been connected to this one, and that is the murder of Carla Walker. Carla Walker was murdered in nineteen seventy four in Fort Worth in February. Again we have a February connection, and her case was unsolved for many, many, many, many many years until they were able to test some DNA and connect it to a guy named Glenn mccury who died in prison recently. So we have Carla Walker who was killed in February. We have June Ward who was killed in February. We also have a woman named Becky Martin who was a college student. She was kidnapped from her college on February seventh, and this was one year and ten days before Carla Walker was killed, and her skeletal remains were found weeks later in a culvert in West Fort Worth. So we have a murder in nineteen seventy three in February, a murder in nineteen seventy four in February, and a murder in nineteen seventy seven in February, all very similar, all found kind of in the same manner. I don't know what the likelihood that Glenn McCurley is responsible for the other two deaths of these other two girls, including June, are, but I think it's an interesting fact worth examining because their murders were very similar, and they were found in very similar ways. And then there's also the fact that they were all in the Fort Worth area and they're all around kind of similar age, and it's just a very interesting little tidbit of information. So here's kind of the story about what they believe was going on leading up to June being murdered. So June was apparently having some car trouble and at the time, she was kind of near a parking lot. It had a Kmart department store, and it also had a nightclub in this strip center, so her car was there. It was kind of blocking a thoroughfare, and when investigators arrived on the scene, they found jumper cables, they found a pair of women's shoes, and it pretty much led investigators to believe that she had left her car and locked the doors and began to walk to try to find help. So other members of her family said that she had previously experienced some car troubles like leading up to this, so that is why she had the jumper cables on her was for that reason. There's also been some back and forth as to whether or not she went inside of the mister mcgoo's bar or not was she in there? Did she go in there looking for help? Did somebody tend to her and to help her? These are all questions that we do not know the answers to. It was a long time ago before security cameras existed and were utilized, so we don't have any video evidence of anything that went on with June that day other than what different family members and people could kind of piece together just based on kind of how the scene looked. So the case was pretty dormant for a while. They had one person of interest who was somebody that June had previously dated, but he was quickly cleared and the case became cold. And it became cold very very quickly. So it wasn't until years down the line when a Florida crime scene investigator named John Underwood started to kind of dig into the case himself and try to like light a new fire underneath it. Now. John Underwood went to Cleeborn High School, remembers the case very well, and he was seeing that other people that lived in Cleburn and went to Cleyborne High School had also expressed interest in figuring out what happened to June. So once he sees this new interest, invested in this case. He started to make some phone calls of his own, and he also made one to the Times Review to request a copy of the story that was printed in regards to June's homicide. And of course he works and lives in Florida, so he was investigating it merely, like on an official type of basis, and he didn't want to interfere, of course, with any kind of investigation. But at that point, the case was pretty much closed. They weren't really doing much with it. But with this new interest and John kind of getting the ball rolling, they decided to reopen the case, which is huge for a cold case. Huge too huge. So John said that he was not living in Cleeborn at the time, and he remembered getting a newspaper clipping with the information about, you know, June's murder, and he said it was really tragic, but unfortunately people had kind of forgotten about it, and that's really really sad. And it was at that point, you know, once he started kind of getting the ball rolling and they reopened the case, it kind of breathed new life into the case. And it's really interesting. I did come across some of the Facebook interactions between people John included in regards to June's case and kind of some of the things that people were saying, and it just makes you realize the power and importance of social media. Like I know, social media has its not so great parts, but there is some really cool and interesting things that can happen across social media, like the reinvigoration of a long a Go nineteen seventy seven cold case like this one. So John is quoted as to have said, the real truth is, no homicide case has ever closed until a suspect is arrested, charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced. Leads or no leads, no matter what you or I or other so called legal experts may think is best, they remain open forever or until they are solved. They may go inactive while other cases with a higher solvability ratio is pursued. But murder never just goes away. Even the family may God forbid, give up or even lose interests. Family does not get to decide to just let it go. Too painful, but never doubt that justice will be served. But the wheel of justice keeps turning. We just have to pray that it grinds the guilty party and I am obsessed with that entire thing. It is so true. We hear all the time that these cold cases get pushed to the back of the pile. Nobody really talks about it. The families, of course, are gonna keep trying to get people to pay attention to their loved ones case. But it is a battle, and it is a battle every single day to keep some of these cases in the public eye. And we need more people like this who are going to be willing to bring those cases to the forefront. You never forget when a family member is taken in a way that you don't really know what happened and you don't know who is responsible for it, so it has to just eat away at you day after day after day. But the days turn in a month, the months turn into years, and before you know it, you're looking back at something that happened in nineteen seventy seven, and the person that did it may or may not even still be living. And it's just really sad and unfortunate that it comes to this in so many of these gold cases. So, of course, June was murdered in nineteen seventy seven, DNA was nothing at all like it is now. But from what I I've read, they do have DNA that they did they were able to take from the crime scene, and again, it's just kind of waiting for that special hit, for something to come through, and I feel like eventually something is going to happen and this case will be no longer an unsolved cold case. I don't know if investigators ever really looked at Glenn McCurley as being a potential suspect in June's case as well, because when Carla Walker's case broke, it was obviously DNA that tied him to being the suspect in the murder of Carla Walker, and then you know, he went to prison and then he passed away. He just passed away recently. So I really wonder if that was looked at if they tested the little bit of DNA that they do have in June's case to that of Glenn McCurley, because I will stand by it. I don't think that Carla Walker was Glenn's only victim, and I think the fact that we have three cases of women who were killed in February, it's interesting. It's something that as an investigator, I feel like that's definitely worth looking into. So I've been scouring Facebook for information different posts in regards to June. I know that her son is active in trying to help figure out what happened to his mother. Someone had commented, look at Glenn mccurly, and a woman responds, this is a person who was good friends best friends with June and this was posted a year ago. She said, I have been praying that the detectives do look at him, since she had no clothes on, only a brass trap. Not certain how much DNA they have. One of the articles said her boyfriend was cleared, doesn't say how he was clear. We have not found out who he was. They said that she was probably killed somewhere else and dumped. Did they check the boyfriend's place question mark. We don't know. I was June's best friend along with my sister back a while ago. Now the cold case open reopened her case. A detective called me and in our conversation he mentioned that my sister and I had been interviewed after her death. That was not true. No one talked to us. He also said that someone had seen she and I at the courthouse a few days before her murder. That was also a lie. The last time I saw June was two weeks before she died. I was working at seven eleven. She stopped in to say hello and we started chatting. A guy came in and that we went to school with. June was wanting to tell me something, but the guy wouldn't leave. Before he came, she said she was going with someone we went to school with. He was in the process of getting a divorce. I begged for a name, but she wouldn't give it to me. I truly think I could have gotten out of her if not for the guy that was bothering us. I got a customer and went to wait on them, and she came up and said see you later and left. She was like a sister to me. We had a double wedding in nineteen sixty eight and hers ended in divorce. I get carried away, but what I think about her, I just want justice for her, Like this is her best friend who I can't even imagine all these years not knowing what happened to your friend, and then having investigators say, well, this was told to us, and you, oh, you apparently did an interview with our investigators not back in nineteen seventy seven, which isn't true, which really frustrates me from a standpoint of figuring out what happened in June. If they had done the due diligence they were supposed to and interview the proper people, would we be any further along in this case? Because if it's documented that this lady and her sister were interviewed and that's not true, what else is not true in the documentation of the different people that they talk to regarding June's case and June's murder and what was going on in June's life leading up to this. There's just so many unanswered questions, and it really makes you understand the integrity of investigation and the importance of that investigation into actually solving a case. So again, this one was a little bit shorter. I wish I had more for you and more to give you, but that's really all there is out there on June Mulder board. I know that her family desperately wants justice for her. I know her friends desperately want justice for her, and we need to keep spreading the message about her story and getting her case out there out to the masses, so hopefully they can get that justice and June can get the justice that she so very much deserves. She was twenty five, she was divorced, she had two kids, and she is just trying to live her life. And she had a career that was giving back to others, being a nurse. She was just out there trying to help people and her life was taken away from her for absolutely no reason at all. And it happened in nineteen seventy seven, and that's a hell of a long time ago, and we need to get justice for June. I am going to be sharing some photos of June on my Instagram and Facebook pages, and again, this is the exact reason I do this podcast is to share these stories that don't really get a lot of media attention anymore, especially ones that are super cold like this, And the more we can do to propel a case forward and share a story that is our part and our role in this thing that we love to call justice. So let's do our part. Share this episode, share it with a friend, share it on social media, spread the message about June's murder in nineteen seventy seven, and let's help get justice for June and her family. Thank you guys so much for listening, and I will see you next week for a brand new episode. Bye.