The Murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In October 1987, a visiting nurse walked into a Tyler, Texas duplex and discovered a scene of unimaginable violence. Fifty-seven-year-old Mary Hooper, confined to a wheelchair after a long battle with illness, had been bludgeoned to death. Just steps away, her longtime partner, sixty-two-year-old Emmett Lynch, was found beaten in the bathroom. Nothing in the home appeared disturbed. Valuables remained untouched. The only thing missing was Emmett’s car—a gray 1977 Ford LTD he cherished and would never have willingly sold.

When the car turned up more than 1,000 miles away in Prescott, Arizona, so did two suspects: Terry and Kathryn McMahan, former neighbors of the victims. What followed was one of the most expensive capital murder trials in Smith County history—filled with contradictions, unanswered questions, and ultimately, an acquittal.

Decades later, the murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch remain unsolved. This episode explores the crime scene, the investigation that stretched across state lines, and the courtroom drama that left a grieving community with no justice.

If you have any information about the murders of Mary Hooper and Emmett Lynch, please contact the Tyler Police Department at 903-531-1000 or Tyler / Smith County Crime-Stoppers at 903-597-2833. Sources:

The Tyler Morning Telegraph, The Tyler Courier-Times, cityoftyler.org, KETK.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	Tyler, Texas, 1987, a stone's throw from the East Texas Fairgrounds on the city's west side. Inside an unassuming home, life was ordinary. Mary Hooper, 57 years old and bound to a wheelchair
0:26.3	after illness and amputation, and her longtime partner, 62-year-old Emmett Lynch, passed their
0:34.0	evenings together the way they always had. A nurse stopped by often just to make sure Mary was all right.
0:42.3	But on the morning of October 7th, that nurse didn't walk into a routine check-in.
0:48.0	She walked into a crime scene.
0:50.7	Mary was slumped in her chair.
0:52.9	Emmett lay beaten to death just feet away.
0:56.9	There was no forced entry, no signs of a struggle.
1:00.5	Valuable inside were untouched, and yet the couple had been savagely bludgeoned in their own home.
1:08.3	The only thing missing was Emmett's car, and with it the first clue in a mystery that would
1:13.7	stretch from East Texas, all the way to the Arizona desert, then into a courtroom, where authorities
1:21.1	were still left with more questions than answers.
1:56.6	Okay. than answers. In the fall of 1987, Tyler, Texas was already wrestling with a rising homicide rate.
2:13.2	By early October, police had recorded six killings for the year. Within the first week of the new fiscal year, there would be three more, including a double homicide that rattled a quiet neighborhood just off the East Texas Fairgrounds.
2:19.5	At the center of it was a small duplex on the 300 block of South Lyons Avenue.
2:26.3	One side belonged to Mary Hooper, a 57-year-old living with serious health problems.
2:32.9	Despite her struggles, Mary was known for her strong opinions and her close circle of friends,
2:36.3	especially her best friend, Dorothy Denmore,
2:43.3	who visited several times a week and spoke with her daily. Mary's unit was modest but welcoming,
2:53.6	and her door stayed open to familiar faces. Mary wasn't often alone. Sixty-year-old Emmett Lynch was a constant presence there.
2:56.4	Emmett had a house in the country.
	...

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