The Murder of Schoolteacher Jana Carol Simpson
Gone Cold - Texas True Crime
Vincent Strange
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Her purse and jewelry were untouched. There was no sign of sexual assault. And yet the young teacher, remembered for her warmth, hugs, and devotion to her students, had been brutally murdered on what should have been among the happiest days of her career.
This episode retraces Jana’s life, her path into teaching, and the events of that August afternoon. We follow the investigation that led police to a troubled 12-year-old former Glen Park student, the controversial interrogation that produced — and then lost — a confession, and the trial that ended in acquittal after only forty minutes of jury deliberation.
Along the way, we examine the community’s fear, the changes in school security that followed, the painful aftermath for Jana’s family, and the unresolved questions that linger thirty-six years later.
The murder of Jana Carol Simpson remains officially unsolved.
If you have information about this case, please contact the Fort Worth Police Cold Case Unit at (817) 392-4307.
Sources: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Longview News-Journal, The Marshall News Messenger, The Austin American-Statesman, The Orlando Sentinel, edweek.com
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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. |
| 0:09.2 | August 1989. The air in southeast Fort Worth was heavy, thick with late summer heat that made the pavement radiate and the portable classrooms swelter. |
| 0:21.9 | Teachers at Glen Park Elementary were back on campus, |
| 0:25.5 | getting rooms ready for their students, |
| 0:27.6 | who were arriving back to school the following week. |
| 0:31.4 | Inside the temporary portable buildings behind the main structure, |
| 0:35.6 | boxes of textbooks waited unpolished floors, hopeful little |
| 0:40.0 | stacks for a new school year. But on the steps of one of those portables, just afternoon, a teacher was |
| 0:48.0 | found lying face down. Colleagues thought she had fainted from the heat. Then they turned her over and saw the blood. |
| 0:57.8 | From that moment, a realization began to echo through Fort Worth. Someone had stabbed 24-year-old |
| 1:05.6 | Jana Carroll Simpson. She was pronounced dead at John Peter Smith Hospital at around 2 p.m. It was her first day at work at |
| 1:15.7 | Glen Park, and it was supposed to be the beginning of a life she had intentionally arranged to be |
| 1:22.1 | closer to home and family. Instead, it became a crime scene in broad daylight at an elementary school in a city |
| 1:31.3 | that suddenly had to reckon with just how unsecure, normal could be. |
| 2:10.7 | Music Jana Karel Simpson Jana Carol Simpson was born on February 16, 1965, in San Antonio, Texas. |
| 2:14.7 | She was the middle child of Mike and Sue Simpson. |
| 2:21.2 | She had an older sister, Cindy, and a younger brother, Chris. Her father's work in the oil business meant the family never stayed in one place for too long. Mike Simpson had |
| 2:27.9 | worked his way up from the oil fields into management, eventually serving as president of Cherko, a company that manufactures gas compressor |
| 2:37.0 | rigs. That job meant transfers, San Antonio, Houston, small towns in Oklahoma. The family grew used to |
| 2:46.5 | packing up and starting over, but it wasn't always easy for the kids. |
| 2:57.7 | Jana was naturally shy and uprooting every couple of years only made her quieter. |
| 3:01.9 | Still, her gentle manner drew people in. |
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