Two claim break in 1981 murders
TEXARKANA — On a rainy Wednesday, a ray of hope broke through in the form of potential justice.
Investigators took what could be one of the final steps toward resolving the 42-yearold mystery of who killed teenage siblings Karen and Gordon Alexander.
Calvin Seward, a retired Texarkana Police Department captain, and state forensic criminologist Dr. Todd Steffy met Wednesday with Miller County Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell. They presented to her a probable cause affidavit naming the suspect who they say DNA evidence points to as having committed the Alexanders’ brutal murders.
Their goal was to get Mitchell’s opinion on whether their evidence would warrant the suspect’s arrest and prosecution.
The men declined to identify the suspect pending the meeting’s outcome and said any such announcement likely would come from Texarkana, which has never closed the case.
“We’re at the point to where there’s nothing else to do around the case. There’s no one else to pursue besides our suspect,” Seward said at the Miller County Courthouse.
Steffy, too, said the number of potential perpetrators had been narrowed to one.
“I would say the only viable suspect is this one, and it’s supported by a lot of things,” said Steffy, who traveled from Little Rock to attend the meeting.
Seward expressed confidence that Mitchell would agree.
“I don’t see how she could not do it. But we’re wanting to make sure that we do everything we can do to do everything right,” he said.
In the early morning hours of April 8, 1981, someone stabbed to death Gordon, 13, and Karen, 14, in their home in the Carmichael Hill neighborhood of Texarkana.
Their father, Weldon Alexander, reported the bloody crime scene when he returned home from his overnight shift at Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. Their mother, Vera Alexander, was hospitalized for depression at the time.
Until now, investigations never developed a suspect viable enough to warrant an arrest or indictment.
Infamous murderer Henry Lee Lucas claimed in 1984 to have killed the Alexander children, but like most of Lucas’ hundreds of confessions, that one proved to be false. Further investigation showed he could not have been in Texarkana on the day of the murders.
In 1981, Seward was a young Texarkana patrol officer who lived in the same neighborhood as the Alexanders. He never forgot the crime, and after his retirement as a captain, with the department’s support, he began to reexamine the case.
Seward brought in Steffy to help take a fresh look at a large amount of evidence, reports and notes compiled by police at the time of the murders. Both hoped advances in DNA technology would break the case.
A Facebook group dedicated to finding justice for the Alexander children has been active in bringing renewed attention to the crime.
The first, current season of the Texarkana Gazette’s podcast “True Crime Texarkana” tells the story of the Alexander children’s murders and their aftermath.