Born in Violence: The Case of Neota Green

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Born into a tumultuous marriage between Emory and Elva Moad in the midst of the Great Depression, Neota Green’s childhood was marked by physical and emotional abuse. The shocking violence that Elva endured at the hands of her husband set the stage for the unraveling of the Moad family—and for the tragedy that would unfold years later.

The episode dives deep into the harrowing details of Neota’s death on March 24, 1963, a night that began with a social outing and ended in a devastating house fire. As investigators uncovered grisly evidence, including blunt-force trauma to Neota’s head and a suspicious blaze that may have been set to cover up a murder, all signs pointed to Neota's companion that night—Ronnie Blankenship, a married man with deep connections to Fort Worth’s elite circles.

Despite the mounting evidence, Blankenship was acquitted, leaving questions about Neota’s death unanswered. Was it a crime of passion, a tragic accident, or something darker, buried in mafia connections and buried secrets?

If you have any information about the death of Neota Moad Green, please contact the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office at 817-884-1213.

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Sources: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Morning News, and The Tyler Morning Telegraph.

#JusticeForNeotaGreen #Benbrook #FortWorth #TX #Texas #TrueCrime #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #ColdCase #Unsolved #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
0:08.6	Before the murder of Neota Green, before the headlines, the flames, the courtroom drama, and the long silence that settled in afterward, we need to go back.
0:20.0	Niotta came into this world in 1935, the daughter of Emery and Elva Mode.
0:25.7	A young couple married during the Great Depression in a time and place that did not recognize
0:30.8	a wife's right to safety, to dignity, or even to ownership of her own pain.
0:37.3	Neoda wasn't born into a home.
0:39.6	She was born into a battlefield disguised as a household.
0:43.5	She was born in violence.
0:45.8	And decades later, she would die in it too.
0:48.8	Music You're listening to Gone Cold, Texas True Crime.
1:05.6	I'm Vincent, and this is born into violence, the case of Neoda Green.
1:26.0	In 1931, Elva Shearer, a young woman from the unincorporated community of Chisholmville, Arkansas, married Emery Earl Mode in Greary, Oklahoma.
1:32.1	She was 18. He was 20, and the son of Reverend Charles Samuel Mode,
1:38.3	a local minister. From the outside, their union might have looked ordinary for its time,
1:47.0	but inside the walls of their home, it was something else entirely. Elva would later testify, under oath to a packed courtroom, that the abuse started almost immediately. Within five days of their wedding,
1:53.7	she said, Emery became angry with her in bed, began hitting her, choking her, and refusing to let her leave. I cried and cried,
2:04.1	she would tell a jury more than a decade later. When she became pregnant with her first child,
2:10.6	Ilova, Emery slapped her, choked her, and knocked her to the floor. The first time she proudly took her baby daughter to meet
2:19.1	Emery's parents, she came home to a beating. Emory told her she had made a fool of herself over
2:25.7	the baby, that it wasn't something to be proud of because it was a girl. He wanted a boy.
2:33.6	By the time Nyota was born in 1935, Elva had already endured
2:38.8	multiple beatings and even a miscarriage due to the abuse. The family had moved to Cisco, Texas
	...

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