On the evening of January 19, 2005, 19 year old Megan Holden was working the night shift at Walmart in Tyler, Texas. She recently bought a shiny new red pickup and it’s parked in the parking lot far from the front door. At 11:30 pm, she gets off work. But at 1:30 am, her sister Kris calls their mom Sheri because Megan never came home. She also isn’t answering the phone.
Sister Kris and Mom Sheri begin calling hospitals, friends, and trying to find Megan. At 3 am, Sheri finally calls the police. Police immediately go to her last known whereabouts, Walmart in Tyler, TX. They speak to the staff who say she left at 11:41 pm. No one saw her leave, but that’s the time she clocked out. Police trace her route home. It’s a very foggy night and they look for signs of her car stalled on the side of the road or in an accident. There are no accidents and no vehicles on the side of the road.
Police return to Walmart and look through the CCTV. Walmart has an incredible surveillance system. Megan signs out and leaves. She walks to her pickup in the far end of the parking lot. Seven minutes later, she comes back wearing different clothes. She does some grocery shopping at 11:56 pm is checking out at the checkstand. She walks to her pickup. A man in dark clothing rushes up behind her, shoves her into the pickup, and drives away. Outside where her pickup was parked there is a red stain on the pavement. It is later determined to NOT be blood.
Police repeatedly view the CCTV footage trying to glean anything they can about Megan’s abductor. He is 5’10” to 6′ tall. Big. Before he abducted Megan he had been hovering around the front of the store. When Megan came back into Walmart, she passed him. There was no sign of recognition at all. It’s a stranger abduction, the hardest to solve.
Police track down the GPS on Megan’s cell phone to a location 10 miles from Walmart. There is no sign of Megan or her truck.
The Walmart CCTV footage shows her abductor following a different woman to her vehicle 13 minutes before he abducted Megan, at 11:46 pm. That woman got in her car quickly and drove off before he could reach her.
Meanwhile, there’s a new ping on Megan’s phone. It’s in Mexico 800 miles away.
In Bowie, Arizona, a black male robs a gas station at gunpoint and gets shot. He’s driving Megan’s red pickup. When he shows up at ER to get his gunshot treated, police are waiting and arrest him. He’s a soldier named Johnny Lee Williams. He lives in Smith County where her phone first pinged.
Police get a search warrant for Williams’ trailer in Smith County. Megan is not there. But she’s left quite a lot behind. Her walmart card is there, used condoms, and her hair is in the bed. She was most likely raped.
Meanwhile 400 miles west of Tyler, Texas, a road worker finds Megan’s body shot several times by the side of the road, dumped like trash.
Williams confesses. He needed a car, liked the red pickup, abducted her, raped her in his trailer, shot her, and dumped her by the side of the road.
Johnny Lee Williams is sentenced to 5 consecutive life sentences.
Bibliography
See No Evil S3E2 All Eyes on Megan, air date: Feb 21, 2017.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.