Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.

In the 1980s, Texas was expanding fast. Cities, especially cities like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, pushed outward, replacing farmland with subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, and rows of

identical roofs. New highways cut through land that had been rural only months before, and those roads

were lined with shopping strips and convenience stores not long after.

Model homes appeared on roads and suburbs that hadn't existed a year earlier.

The houses were packed in close, and someone had to sell them.

Real estate agents became the frontline workers of that growth.

Many worked out of trailers, temporary offices, or converted houses, carrying keys to dozens of vacant homes and opening doors for people they had never met.

They worked alone. They kept appointments with strangers and empty houses. During this time, many women were entering the field they'd ultimately dominate,

but that wasn't the only pattern emerging.

Across Texas, the cases appeared in scattered places,

Brazos County, Galveston County, and Harris County, in urban offices, suburban

model homes, and rural properties miles from the nearest neighbor. There was no task force,

no industry warning, no official recognition of a pattern. Each murder was treated as its own tragedy, its own mystery, and its own crime.

Music At the tail end of 1981, Virginia Ginger Freeman was 40 years old and working as a realtor in the Bryan College Station area of Brazos County. She had been in the business long enough to know the routines. Phone calls from strangers, last-minute appointments, and showings in rural areas

were all part of the job. On December 1st of that year, Ginger received a call at her office from a man

who said he was interested in buying property. It seemed like an easy sale. He told her he wanted to see countryland outside of

town. The call sounded serious enough that Ginger agreed to meet with him to tour a property.

She left her office that day to conduct the showing. She never came back.

When Ginger didn't return home, concern quickly turned into alarm.

She hadn't called anyone to say she was running behind.

She'd simply vanished during a semi-routine work appointment.

...