The Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.

Listener discretion is advised.

More than a year and a half before fourth grade teacher Mickey Brian was shot to death in her home in the small town of Clifton, Texas.

Another victim of violence, a teenage girl, was discovered in Bosky County.

Mickey's husband was charged for her murder eight days later,

after authorities created a character out of him,

a gay man who wished to free himself from the bonds of traditional marriage so that

he might indulge in the then socially and lawfully forbidden lifestyle.

In their investigation notes on Mickey's murder case, in fact, law enforcement was exploring

the possibility she was a lesbian, a theory that, given the time and place her murder occurred, suggested at least

some of the blame was on the victim herself.

When 13-year-old Helen Kilgore was killed in April of 1984, the era's other Hangman's noose of

moral panic was wrapped around the neck of her case, placing the blame not only on the still unidentified killer,

but also, in a way, the victim.

satanic panic.

Helen Marie Kilgore was born on July 17th, 1970 to parents James and Gloria Kilgore.

In the mid-1980s Helen lived with her parents and three sisters, Robin, Kelly, and Tara in a new middle-class home in suburban Corpus

Christie, Texas, a city on the Gulf Coast about 144 miles south of San Antonio. In 1984 she was attending

Tom Brown Junior High School. As she began navigating her teenage years, Helen was seeking independence and autonomy.

For whatever reason, she began running away a habit.

Her sister Kelly later explained, that usually only lasted a couple days at a time.

On March 5, 1984, Helen's parents reported her as a runaway. She was found in San Antonio within days

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