The case of Tate and Terrie Rowland
Tate Rowland was born in a small town in Texas, called Childress. It was a very small town and Tate was popular among many. Tate was a bit of a wild child. He had quite a reputation around the sheriff's office.
Tate also had a girlfriend named Karen. She belonged to a wealthy family and she was well known too. Tate and Karen would constantly get into fights but then soon make up again.
One day, their fight escalated and he tried to choke her. So Karen pressed charges but it didn't go any further. But he moved to Louisiana. During springtime when he went back to town, he found out that Karen ended up getting married while he was away. He was upset, sure but he did move on quickly.
On 26th July, 1988, around 6:00 PM Tate's friend Chad went to Tate's parent's house and told them that Tate had hung himself. At first they didn't believe him because of how emotionless Chad's face was.
Chad took Tate's parents to the place where Tate had committed suicide. They found him hanging from a tree. Apparently Tate's dad had to take him down the tree.
The police got to the place and Chad was the first one they started interrogating. According to his statement, around 5:00 PM that afternoon, they met around a small field area to drink some beers. Then suddenly Tate strung a rope over a tree and announced that he was going to hang himself. Chad thought that he was kidding and he went to throw a beer can away. But when he came back Tate had already done the deed.
But the Police didn't believe the story. Because when someone is hanged, there's only one robe mark above the Adams apple. But Tate had two. So the police suspected that he was strangled first and then hung.
The police questioned Chad again after 2 days and this time he changed his story. He said that the first time Tate tried to commit suicide the rope broke so they went to his house again and brought another rope. He said he lied the first time because he didn't want to get into any trouble for not stopping him.
Regardless Tate's death was listed under suicide and they didn't even do an autopsy. Many thought he was just very upset about Karen which led him to do such a thing. However, something very interesting happened at his funeral.
Many people noticed a mysterious lady, dressed all in black and her face was covered with a black veil. But she left before anyone could talk to her. There was also this other kid who was chanting the word 'Suicide' over and over again.
Many other odd incidents started happening after that.
Few days after his death the police got a tip. So a mile away from the place where they found Tate, someone spotted a cow skull lodged in a tree. Beneath the tree there was a pile of sticks and rocks and it formed a circle. Another night, an officer saw a figure standing near Tate's grave. When he got there the figure was gone but he saw that there was tobacco spit all over his tombstone and there was also a burned cross.
By this point, the rumors started to spread. Most of the people in town believed that Tate was a member of a cult and they killed him because he disappointed them in some way. Many even accused Karen of witchcraft and she was the one who made Tate join the cult in the first place.
Now around this time many attempts of kidnapping started to take place. The local school staff mentioned that they had seen a few people waiting in their cars in the school parking lot. They didn't recognize these people. One of them even tried to snatch a kid but the kid got away.
So people were getting more and more sure that there was in fact a cult in town. At that point someone came forward with a confession.
A 15 year old boy by the name of Ray was arrested one night for drunk driving. Later he told the police that he was a member of a satanic cult in town and that he had been near the tree when Tate was hanged. But the next day he stated that he didn't remember saying anything of that kind. People even started calling his house "Devil house" because of a painting on the back of his house.
Few months later when things started going back to normal, that is when Tate's sister Terrie was found dead in Ray's 'devil house'.
Terrie was going through a rough patch in her life. One night she partied with some people who were close to Ray's brother. The next morning she was found dead by one of her friends. According to the autopsy report, Terrie had more than twice the legal blood alcohol limit and she died by choking on her own vomit.
The police couldn't find any evidence but the people in town thought otherwise. Many believed that Tate and Terrie's deaths were linked somehow. Perhaps through a cult.
Fortunately, One sheriff started a fresh investigation in the case. And he came across some very interesting evidence.
They found that Ray's brother tried to commit suicide by swallowing almost 30 tablets of Elavil. Ironically, when 3 years after Tate's death they exhumed his body from the cemetery, they found some traces of the same drug in his body through autopsy. And after doing a new autopsy on Terrie's body, they yet again, found the drug Elavil.
Many weird and suspicious activities happened after that. But apparently the police found nothing. Still to this day the case of Tate and Terrie Rowland remains a mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment