Hi, Cold Case listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of Cold Case files as well as the A&E Classic Podcasts, I Survived, American Justice, and City Confidential are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now on to the show.

The following episode contains intensely disturbing accounts of violence. Listener discretion is advised.

My uncle was a kind person and a trusting person. His wife called me and said that he has been murdered.

He was face up, shot in the neck.

Lying in a pool of blood, his glasses were broken and blood spattered.

I knew it was my job to catch whoever did it.

Somebody desperate enough to do a crime in the middle of the day like that, where they would

take over $100,000 and end up killing the man for it.

Was the killer somebody that he knew?

Because we had the DNA, we're really persistent.

I was thinking that he's going to get away.

I thought maybe he would never be caught.

There are over 100,000 cold cases in America.

Only 1% are ever solved.

This is one of those rare stories.

It's February 15, 2002, in Oak Ridge, North, Texas. The midday sun shines high above the

Houston suburb of Oak Ridge North when a customer at a local gas station stumbles on a crime

scene. Jessica Betancourt is the producer and

host of the DNA ID podcast. He had driven up to the gas station and gone inside to presumably make a

purchase and saw a guy in the booth not visible except for his feet,

which were lying on the ground.

And he realized immediately that there was a distress situation.

...