In disappearances, deaths, answers elude
Bandera County community, police at odds on whether cases related
The last time Kristy Tompkins saw her daughter Jordan, the 25-year-old signed “I love you” to her deaf mother before ending their video call.
The next day — April 22 — Jordan was gone.
Since then, three other people have gone missing near the Lakehills area in Bandera County, and unlike Jordan, those three have been found dead, leaving a community searching for answers.
The lifeless bodies of Brittany Mcmahon, Sean Duffy and Norma Espinoza were found weeks after they were reported missing. Only Duffy’s death is being investigated as a homicide, police said. Mcmahon’s death was deemed a suicide. Officials have not determined Espinoza’s cause of death.
Some locals say it can’t be a coincidence that in a county of 25,000, three people who were in the same social circle were killed within the span of a few months, while a fourth remains missing. Dennis Fitzgerald, a retired private investigator who is working with several of the families, said the four people in question were drug users and were known to attend the same parties.
“All of the victims involved
are engaged in meth and narcotics usage, and it seems odd that they all know each other and suddenly have fallen victim to foul play,” Fitzgerald said. “It is a lot of people to come up missing in such a small community.”
Bandera County spokesman Matt King confirmed that all four people were involved with drugs.
But despite their connections, law enforcement officials believe the cases are not related. Investigators have not found evidence linking them, nor any suspects common to all of them, King said.
“They all went missing at different times under different circumstances, and not all of the cases had any criminal activity involved,” he said. “It is very weird, and we looked to see if they are all linked, but there is just no evidence to suggest that.”
Fitzgerald expressed dissatisfaction with local law enforcement’s handling of the cases. He believes the deaths are the work of a person or a group acting in concert.
Fitzgerald said several people have reached out to him with information on the deaths but that the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office has shown no interest in it. Fitzgerald believes the sheriff’s office is writing off these cases because the victims were involved with drugs.
“It seems like they aren’t concerned about who they perceive as the lesser people of this community,” Fitzgerald said. “If the victims were people from a gated community, they would be doing something about it. Sadly, I think if we don’t find out who is doing this, we will see it happen again.”
“These four are entitled to justice just as much as anyone else,” he said.
Jordan Tompkins
One of the things that Kristy Tompkins misses most about her daughter is watching her sing. Among the last things Jordan posted on her Facebook page is a video of herself singing “Tequila Does” by Miranda Lambert in a Bandera karaoke bar.
Jordan loves animals and enjoys spending time with her friends and her mother. Friends say her laughter can fill a room.
Shortly before she went missing, she was at a friend’s house near Bandera. Her friends who were there drove to San Antonio, but Jordan stayed behind. When they returned, she and her bag of belongings were gone, said King, the county spokesman.
News reports say Jordan was last seen walking along Park Road 37 from the Medina Lake Country Club, where she liked to hang out.
Jordan was last seen wearing a wig, blue-and-white leggings, a white short-sleeved shirt and glittery pink sneakers.
Police found drug residue and paraphernalia inside the residence where Jordan was staying in the 400 block of Frontier Town Loop, according to police reports.
Although Jordan has run off before, her loved ones said it’s unusual for her to be gone this long without letting her mother know that she’s safe.
“We are afraid of the worst possibility, but we are hopeful,” said Deb Franz, Kristy Tompkins’ interpreter.
Tompkins said she frequently gets messages from people claiming that they know what happened to Jordan. Some say she was trafficked by a drug cartel; others purport to know where her body can be found.
“We haven’t gotten anything from the investigation. There is a lot of speculation, and people have said things about what happened, but there is no proof,” Franz said. “We always have to call the sheriff ’s office to get any updates, so we try not to be frustrated or upset about it.”
Brittany Mcmahon
The Mcmahon family believes that the circumstances surrounding the discovery of Brittany’s remains cast doubt on officials’ ruling that she committed suicide.
Two months to the day after Jordan went missing, Brittany’s family reported that she was unaccounted for. Her mother, Susan Mcmahon, told police that she started worrying after her 22-year-old daughter had not called for several days.
Mcmahon last spoke to her daughter June 19, when Brittany asked her mother to meet her near the woods in the Old Loop subdivision in Bandera County to pick up some of the young woman’s clothes.
When Mcmahon arrived, Brittany was nowhere to be found.
Mcmahon’s concern grew after Brittany missed a court hearing for a minor violation June 20, prompting her to file a missing person report June 22.
Brittany may have last been seen alive June 18 on Texas 173, between Bandera and Kerrville, in the Old Loop 173 neighborhood, King said.
Nearly three weeks later, on July 7, a man discovered her remains near his home on a wooded lot in the 200 block of Cactus Drive in the Old Loop subdivision. The man’s dog had emerged from the woods with a human skull, a police report said.
He followed the dog’s trail through trees near Rodeo Path and found “what appeared to be a human spinal cord, rope wrapped around a tree approximately 7 feet high and white sunglasses on the ground,” according to a police report.
Fitzgerald noted that Brittany was found 100 yards from where she was last seen — an area that presumably had been searched by authorities.
King, however, said it would not be surprising if searchers failed to find her remains, given that the area is “sparsely populated and heavily wooded.” Thick patches of cedar trees limit visibility.
“You can’t see 15 feet in front of you when you’re standing in the area,” he said.
Police concluded that Brittany hung herself from a tree in the woods and that the rope broke after she died, allowing her body to fall to the ground.
The body, which was in “a state of advanced decay,” appeared to have been ravaged by scavengers such that only the rib cage, vertebrae, hips and part of both legs remained intact, a report said. Officials did not see any hands or feet on the “badly decomposed” remains.
In the woods nearby, police found a silver ring, a gold chain, shorts with a cross on the back pocket and $2 in the pocket, two shoes, a torn black sports bra, white sunglasses and a camouflage-style hat with hair inside that was consistent with Brittany’s.
What appeared to be pink underwear was attached to the remains, the police report said.
The white cotton clothesline found knotted around the body’s neck matched the broken rope hanging from the 7-foothigh cedar tree branch.
In a police report dated July 6, investigators said Brittany most likely stood on a lower branch on the tree to tie the rope on a higher branch before placing the noose over her neck and stepping off.
News of the discovery quickly spread, and within hours, Brittany’s family arrived on the scene. Her father, Randall Mcmahon, brought a baseball bat and a knife and was disarmed by a relative. Mcmahon accused Brittany’s ex-boyfriend of being involved, a police report said.
Brittany’s body was taken to Texas State University’s anthropology department in San Marcos for an autopsy, and it took nearly a week for officials to positively identify Brittany from dental records. The autopsy report stated that there was no skeletal evidence indicating the cause or manner of death.
The investigation led to a finding that her death did not result from criminal activity, the police report said.
The suicide ruling by the sheriff’s office doesn’t sit well with Brittany’s family, who say it would have been physically impossible for Brittany to hang herself from the tree. They say she had a broken arm at the time, the result of a fight with her ex-boyfriend, Muhir Abdulrazik, a few days earlier.
King, however, said deputies who responded to the fight between Brittany and Abdul-razik observed no such injury. Body camera footage from that incident showed Brittany wearing the same shorts found at the crime scene; a rope matching the one found on the tree could be seen protruding from a suitcase. The footage showed Brittany lifting the suitcase with the supposedly broken arm, according to police.
A witness told police that Susan Mcmahon — while searching for Brittany in the Old Loop Subdivision on June 19 — stopped him and said that Brittany had told her that she wasn’t OK and that she intended to “take some pills,” the police report said. Susan Mcmahon denied saying that when questioned by police.
“Her family is discouraged that the case is closed and are concerned with the findings presented because they find it problematic that she committed suicide,” Fitzgerald said. “They think it should be investigated as foul play.”
Brittany’s friends said that despite her struggle with addiction, she planned on leaving Bandera County to start a new life in Corpus Christi. At the time of her death, she was getting her truck ready and a camper installed so she could live on the beach “to get away from her problems” in Bandera, the police report said.
Several people said they suspect Abdul-razik of being involved in her disappearance, according to a police report. One woman said Abdul-razik texted her June 18 asking for an alibi but did not say what for, the report said.
Abdul-razik denied seeing Brittany after their fight.
Sean Duffy
The case of Duffy, a 56-yearold business owner, is the only one that police are investigating as a homicide.
Duffy was reported missing July 4, and his body was found just after 5 p.m. Aug. 18, wrapped in a blanket, burned and dumped in the 4200 block of FM 1283, between Lakehills and Pipe Creek.
Tall grass concealed the body from passing motorists until two men stumbled across the remains. They were looking for a cellphone and wallet that they had lost after an accident in the area the week before.
Police found a bag of miscellaneous items under the body, along with unidentified “household goods,” a police report said. At Duffy’s home on Cypress Bluff, they found drug paraphernalia, items listed as “identity documents” scattered outside the front door and burn pits.
The medical examiner has not officially determined how Duffy died. King said investigators found evidence that he may have been shot in his home and that someone had tried to clean up the blood.
So far, police have no solid leads, although they believe Duffy had relationships with people in San Antonio who may have been involved in his death.
Norma Espinoza
On Sept. 6, a homeowner saw buzzards flying above a field. When he went to investigate, he discovered a woman’s decomposed body in the tall grass.
The body was later identified as that of Espinoza, 63, who had been reported missing Aug. 12. She lived a few hundred yards from where she was found.
King said the body was so badly decomposed that there were no fingerprints or identifying marks and that she was too unrecognizable for family members to identify her. The medical examiner did find a metal rod in a leg; it matched one that had been implanted in Espinoza’s leg after a shooting.
“It has been a laborious act to get her identified, but we do believe it’s Norma,” King said, adding that the medical examiner found no evidence of criminal activity related to the death.
Her manner of death has been listed as undetermined.
Espinoza’s daughter, Bianca Luna, told the Express-news that her mother was disabled and dependent on a cane. She rarely left her house, and when she did, she always brought her cellphone and purse, her daughter said.
“She can walk, but she would start hurting, so she just stays at home,” Luna said, adding that Espinoza mostly liked to drink beer and watch TV.
Luna dismissed the idea that her mother “just went walking” before her death.
Police found Espinoza’s pink cellphone in a back bedroom, according to the police report.
The terrain around Espinoza’s apartment would be difficult for a person with disabilities to navigate. The asphalt road has no sidewalk, and the landscape dips sharply just outside Espinoza’s home. Her remains were found downhill from there.
Espinoza had one thing in common with the other missing and dead Bandera residents: drug use.
She struggled with addiction after losing her son several years ago and had been in and out of jail. Luna described her mother’s life as “chaotic and painful.”
Nevertheless, Espinoza was kind and loving, her daughter said.
“Everyone loved her,” Luna said. “She was that kind of person who was sweet to everyone and would be the first one to help someone out.”
Luna said investigators haven’t been forthcoming with information. But she’s determined to fight, if necessary, to find out what happened to her mother.
“I’m not going to stay quiet about this,” Luna said. “My mom was my whole world, and I am going to try my best to help her.”
Until about a month before Espinoza disappeared, she and her daughter lived together in the trailer where Espinoza was last seen. Luna said the two had always been close.
Her voice cracking, she talked about how the two of them liked to watch movies together. Comedies were Espinoza’s favorites.
“She was an extremely strong woman,” Luna said. “I wish I got to tell her that.”