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Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven
guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
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In the early morning hours of July fourth, two thousand and two, four year old Danaria Finley was sleeping in her bedroom at home at ten sixteen fourth Street in Orange, Texas. Orange is the easternmost city in Texas and its right across the border from Louisiana on the Sabine River. It feels like a small town. The population is only about nineteen thousand. Denaria lived with her mother, twenty six year old Jamie Arnold, and her two sisters for the July
fourth holiday. Three of their young cousins were staying over with them. Denaria's father, thirty year old Johnny Edwards, lived in Sparks, Louisiana, which was about a two and a half hour drive away down the Iten Freeway. He had been planning to see his daughter on July fourth. They were planning to shoot all fireworks. Jamie came home from work that night and put the kids to bed at around one thirty am. She told police that she checked on the children at around three or four AM. When
she checked on the children, everything seemed fine. At some point, Jamie went to sleep and then she woke up the next morning at around ten am. Denariu's sisters and cousins were playing at home. Denaria was gone. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod this is Helen Gone Murder Line. Jamie later told law enforcement that when she saw Denaria was gone, she walked around the neighborhood to look for her. Then she called friends and relatives to check that Denaria wasn't with any of them, and she wasn't,
so Jamie called the police to report Denaria missing. That afternoon, Orange Texas law enforcement came to the home to start their search. They wondered how a little girl who was just weeks away from her fifth birthday could go missing in the middle of the night with no one noticing.
Denaria had been sharing a bedroom with five other children, and while the case is still officially active, so we have not seen the case file, police have given several interviews to the media over the years, and from their descriptions, it doesn't sound like any of the children saw anyone they didn't recognize come into the room. Denaria just disappeared. So was Danaria kidnapped? And if so, how could someone
get into her room? There was a comment on an online forum about this case, and it talked about the fact that officers had looked for a potential point of entry for the kidnapper and saw that there was a broken window in Danaria's room. This person went on to say they had heard that the window's broken part was papered over with cardboard, so it looked like.
It was taped up and had not been moved.
Apparently, law enforcement did not believe that that window was the way that someone accessed the room. We're not sure if this is true. The comment claimed to have been from a news source, but we can't find the original newspaper article. But either way, at least from what's been made public, it doesn't seem as though any of the
her children noticed anyone in that bedroom. There was never a description given of a suspect, but maybe the kidnapper never entered Deenaria's room and instead she woke up in the night and wandered around the house. There was also no sign of forced entry into the home, but the door was unlocked.
Jamie told police she left.
The door unlocked often because her mother, who lived nearby, would sometimes stop by the house without calling first. That way, her mom could just walk in. Another possibility was that Denaria might have woken up before anyone else in the home and went outside and that is where she was taken. According to her missing poster, the last time Danaria was seen, she had her hair and braids and was last seen wearing a white shirt with a flower on it and
purple shorts. Jamie also said that her daughter was last seen barefoot. Denaria was four feet tall and weighed ninety pounds. Police launched a search for Denaria and the story was all over local news. The entire community became involved in this search. The Red Cross showed up and set up a command post in a local church parking lot. The search eventually spanned the three miles around Danaria's family home. They had canine units, helicopters, and around two hundred volunteers.
Denaria's father, Johnny Edwards, also joined in the search. Police of course talked to him and pretty much immediately ruled him out. He seemed to be very cooperative, and when he heard a reward fund was being started, he offered to add the value of his car to that reward fund. Local newspaper, The Beaumont Enterprise interviewed Johnny Edwards. He told the reporter that Denaria going missing and the weight to get her back was agony, just pure agony. He also
addressed the kidnapper directly. He said, quote, if someone is out there and they have her and they're scared to bring her back because of the amount of law enforcement involved, they could bring her to a Walmart or McDonald's. We don't care. We just want her back. The entire town came together to search for the missing child, and the circumstances struck terror into the hearts of the parents in town.
According to media reports, some people helping with the search were able to hold on to hope because another young woman had gone missing shortly before in the same general area, and that missing young woman was found alive after sixteen days. The head of Texas Equisearch, who helped in the search
for Deenaria, told KPLCTV. He acknowledged that the chances of getting Denaria back alive dropped significantly after forty eight hours, but he said that there were some exceptions, like the young woman who was being held and found alive, so the family continued to hope. Danaria love to wear pink ribbons in her hair, so someone made pink ribbons with Denaria's initials on them. Volunteers wore them during the search. Johnny Edward's mother, Wanda, was also there. During the search.
She told a reporter she had not lost hope.
She believed that her granddaughter was somewhere alive out there, but the searchers found no trace of Dunaria. Then, on Monday morning, at eleven am, four days after Denaria had gone missing, law enforcement called off the search, and Denaria's friends and family feared the worst. Earlier that day, shortly after eight am, on July eighth, two thousand and two, a pipeline worker was on Pleasure Island in Port Arthur and found the remains of a little girl. Words spread
that a body had been found. For several agonizing hours, Denari's family did not know whether it was her or not. DNA testing later revealed a match it was Denaria. On July eighth, two thousand and two, after Danaria Finley had been missing for four days, a pipeline inspector at a work site found her body about twenty seven miles from her home in Orange. The worker told local media he was walking down a narrow path when he saw a
badly decomposed body wrapped in a floral sheet. The worker said that the body was dumped in such a way that quote dredging crews would finish covering her with clay deposits end quote. The police department issued a news release in which they stated that quote, Her mostly nude and partially decomposed body was found approximately twenty seven miles away near a dredge pipeline ditch off State Highway eighty two in Port Arthur, an area known as Pleasure Island end quote.
At the autopsy, the medical examiners were unable to identify an exact cause of death because of the decomposition. The body had been outside for four days in Texas summer heat, in an area where there was also wildlife like alligators. Newspaper reports stated that Denaria's remains had been ravaged by wildlife, though they didn't give specifics. They did mention the fact that an alligator was euthanized, though it's not clear if the alligator had anything to do with the remains or
just happened to be nearby. But forensic testing did reveal that Danaria had been strangled and that she had been sexually assaulted. The police in Orange, Texas, and the community were left with a lot of questions. Why would the killer take Danaria there to that spot? Is it possible that the killer or killers knew the area and knew that crews were going to cover that ground? Could the location of the body dump provide any clues as to
the possible identity of Naria's killer? And one of the biggest and to my mind, most obvious questions of the case. Was Denaria taken by a random stranger who saw an opportunity or was it someone who knew her and planned this.
Many of the media.
Reports quote police sources who say that they believe the kidnapper was someone known to Dnaria. In an Associated Press article, Major Steve Jones of the Orange Police Department says that Denaria's case quote did not appear to be a stranger abduction end quote. I wanted to take a step back to talk about some statistics around kidnapping, because child abduction is shockingly common in the United States. In fact, according to the Child Crime Prevention and Safety Center, a child
goes missing or is abducted about every forty seconds. According to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, approximately eight hundred and forty thousand people are reported missing each year, and the FBIS tomates that between eighty five and ninety percent
of these are children. About half of all of these abductions involved family kidnapping, parental kidnapping, or parents involved in custody disputes, and in family kidnappings, a much higher percentage of those are committed by females, and most of these children are found within.
A few hours.
Obviously, though, any time that a child goes missing under suspicious circumstances, everyone in the household has to be evaluated thoroughly by law enforcement. As I said, the police did look into Danaria's father, Johnny Edwards. Again, her parents were not together, but it seems as though just reading through all this information that they did have an amicable relationship. Johnny was cooperative and had an alibi. He was in
his hometown of Stark's, Louisiana when Danaria was taken. When it comes to kidnapping statistics, there's another category called non family abductions. This category includes kidnappings committed by a quaint and strangers. Acquaintance abductions make up twenty seven percent of all child abductions. The kidnappers are often juveniles end quote. This type of abduction has the highest number of female and teenage victims and is often associated with other crimes
such as sexual and physical assault end quote. Then they are the straight stranger abductions, where the kidnapper is completely unknown to the victim. These are the ones that get the most media attention, but actually they're the rarest kind. According to Reuter's from an article in twenty nineteen, there had only been about three hundred to three hundred and fifty stranger abductions per year between twenty ten and twenty seventeen. That equals much less than one percent of abductions. But
stranger abductions are also some of the most dangerous. Experts say that stranger kidnappings very often result in the victim's death within a short period of time. Three other interesting things that I didn't know about stranger kidnappings. They are much more likely to occur in the outdoors. Two when strangers kidnap, they use firearms more often than in other kidnappings. And three these type of kidnappings often result in robbing male victims and sexual assault in female victims. We don't
know for sure that Danaria was taken from inside her house. Yes, the door was unlocked and Danaria's mom and the other kids were asleep, But maybe she could have wandered outside on her own and a stranger kidnapped her from her yard. People do get kidnapped from random strangers, and it only takes a second. On November thirtieth, twenty twenty two, seven year old Athena Strand disappeared from her family driveway near Fort Worth, Texas, in a town called Paradise, in broad daylight.
Police caught the killer three days later. He was a FedEx driver named Tanner Horner who had been delivering Christmas presents. He claimed that he accidentally hit Athena with his deliver truck and then pulled her into the vehicle and kidnapped her and later strangled her because he was afraid that she would tell her parents about the accident. Athena's body was found three days after she disappeared in the Trinity River, about.
Nine miles from her home.
Police stated they believed that Athena was taken just two hundred yards from her front door and was killed within an hour from the time she was put into her kidnappers' vehicle. This is very sadly the pattern with these types of cases. Very often the child who is abducted by a stranger is killed within hours of their abduction. Tanner Lynn Horner
was charged with capital murder and aggravated kidnapping. He is currently awaiting trial, which as of now is set for twenty twenty six, and is pleaded not guilty.
If convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Athena's mother, Maitland Gandy, has advocated for a new bill named after Athena that attempts to change Texas law so that amber alerts do not have any delay from the time that the child disappears to the time in which the alert can be issued locally. This might help in cases like Denarius. Having a tool that could instantly notify the local community could be a massive help in these types of cases, but Denari's case did not get much
media attention. There were a few local reports about Danaria's murder, but there were no national headlines. Some people have stated over the years that they believed that because she was black, her case did not receive as much attention as cases of missing children who are white. Denaria's funeral took place at the Mountain Zion Baptist Church. The pastor told local press the funeral was so crowded they had to bring in a closed circuit TV. She was buried near her
home in the Magnolia Memorial Garden in Orange. Years later, the minister of that church, C. W. Crawford, was interviewed by reporter. He said that Denaria's death had left the lasting impression on the community. He said everybody in that community still thought about her.
Every Fourth of July, he said, quote.
People who didn't really know Danaria were crying and shedding tears. She was one four year old kid that brought this whole community together. Detectives canvassed the area. They questioned a lot of people, including a sex offender who lived nearby. They reportedly searched his home and his truck, but they found no obvious suspects.
It was also reported that law enforcement did.
Do standard checks and made their way through questioning all the known sex offenders in the area, but again came up with nothing. In the early stages of the investigation, a lot of people focused on what was going on inside the home and on Danaria's mother, Jamie Arnold, because there was a lot that was not known, or if it was known, it was made public, like who was watching Denari and the other children that night while her mom worked, what other family lived in the area, who
the neighbors were. On August twenty third, two thousand and two, The Orange Leader reported that the FBI showed up at Denaria's family home and took some items from the house, including a Teddy Bear. Police questioned Jamie, and it was reported at the time there was an open CPS investigation against her before Denaria disappeared.
We looked through court records.
And found online references to those cases cases in which Jamie was being investigated for neglectful supervision. A local newspaper spoke to someone from CPS who confirmed that there was an active investigation into Jamie at the time of Denaria's death, and that another case was opened after her death. However, one case was dismissed in December of two thousand and four, and it appears the rest were also dismissed.
At some point. It was reported that Jamie had admitted.
To CPS she had used some drugs at some point in the past, but she claimed that at the time when Danaria disappeared, she was not using drugs, and obviously neither drug use nor CPS allegations, even if they are found to be valid, which these were not, do not indicate that this mother had any role in her daughter's disappearance. In late July two thousand and three, Jamie spoke to a local news station KPLC about the rumors that she said were going around the community, rumors.
That she said had hurt her. She said that she.
Had been hearing criticisms of her parenting since Denaria's murder. A year after denarius murder, Jamie said that her two other daughters, who were seven and nine years old at
that time, had been taken into foster care. She told a reporter that because of what she called the terrible things people had told officials after denarius murder, she was terrified that she might lose custody of her other two children, and in that interview, she said people were suspicions of her because of that three hours between Denaria going missing and her reporting it to the police. She reiterated the delay was because she was looking around the neighborhood for Denaria,
thinking Denaria might be with a friend or relative. Jamie said that she believes people would be suspicious of her unless and until either the murder was solved or police officially cleared her as a suspect, which she said had
not happened. Detectives collected evidence, including DNA from Danaria's clothes, and reportedly they took DNA and hair samples from potential people of interest, but since this is still an open investigation, they've made references over the years to DNA, but they haven't specified exactly what they were testing or what the results were. In February of two thousand and four, there appeared to be a break in the case when Orange Police Chief Sam Cattrell stated at a press conference, quote,
we believe we know who did it. In February of two thousand and four, the Orange Police Chief Sam Catroll, indicated that the police department had figured out who killed Denaria Fenley. At the time, local media reported that quote. Police sources stated that evidence and herefogical charts from the police department indicate a possible suspect lived or had been staying within a few miles from denarius Fourth Street home at the time of the crime.
End quote.
But then there was no other public announcement. No suspect was identified no one was arrested or charged. It was reported that the case was sent to the Orange County District Attorney's office, but then nothing happened. One newspaper article quoted a police source who said that the killer was unsophisticated and made a lot of mistakes, but that he had a lot of help from the environment. I believe he was referring to the fact that the decomposition made
the forensic testing challenging. Little evidence could be recovered from her body. Months and then years went by. In twenty fourteen, according to media reports, the police in Orange resubmitted some DNA to the FBI, but they received no matches. Mark Blynton was the assistant chief of the Orange Police Department at the time. He talked to a local newspaper on the twentieth anniversary of the case in twenty twenty two. At that time, he said he still believed that the
case was solvable. Another detective from the Orange Police Department, Nick Medeena, was also quoted. He said that police were quote waiting on new technology or new investigative measures that may assist in the investigation, which in my opinion.
Is pretty vague. So what did the police have.
In evidence and is there anything that can be done to to retest evidence including Denario's clothing. Police have said they do have some evidence, including some DNA and some fiber samples. There is also the sheet, the one that Denario was found wrapped in. It was made by Spring Made and presumably did not come out of her home. The sheet is a flower pattern that is pink, yellow, and white.
It looks like a million other sheets out there.
Police followed up leads on that sheet to see if they could narrow down who might have purchased it, but unfortunately the pattern had been made by Spring Maids several years earlier. There were a lot of those sheets sold, so there was no way to track it down. The sheet was also decayed when it was found. Police released details publicly on the sheet, including a photo. We're going to be posting photos of that sheet and of Denaria's clothing on Instagram at helen gonpod. Over the years, police
have released some other information publicly. They have confirmed to Daria was sexually assaulted by male abductor. They've compared hair follicles and DNA on area sex offenders to their evidence, but they've gotten no matches. Police have hinted at having other DNA evidence, but they haven't specifically said what that evidence might be. We do know they took a look at a garbage can in the home and removed the entire can, and other than that, there have.
Not been many public details.
We have not received responses to our foyer request yet, but honestly, I'm expecting it to be denied because this is still technically an open investigation. A local news station quoted Captain Robert Enman from the Orange Police Department. He was the patrol captain on duty when Denaria's missing person's call came in. He said, quote, this investigation has never been closed end quote. He made a couple of comments
about DNA too. He said over the years, police had sent out DNA from Dannaria's crime scene to private lab as well as presumably.
The FBI labs.
He also said he hoped the DNA could someday be extracted from the bed sheet that Denaria's body was found wrapped in. He said he hoped the DNA would help them narrow down potential people of interests, and he also specifically said that the Orange Police Department would be interviewing new people in the next couple months, but that was back in twenty twenty one, and four years later, there
have been no significant updates. So what needs to happen next and is there anything we can learn from other homicide cases that have been solved in the same region, Because there are other cold cases that DNA advances have helped.
Some have been solved years or even decades later. On October fifth, nineteen eighty eight, thirty six year old Patricia and Jacobs, a married mother of three, went out for a night at the Silver Spur nightclub, but she never came home, and her husband, to whom she was seemingly happily married, reported her missing to the Harden County Sheriff's Office. The next day, Patricia's body was found in the Netchez
River under the Rainbow Bridge in Port Arthur. A month later, other items were found under a bridge, including Patricia's driver's license. Patricia's autopsy revealed that her cause of death was drowning, but before she drowned, someone had inflicted trauma to her head and face. The manner of death was ruled a homicide. Over the years, the Harden County Sheriff's Office and the Port Arthur Police Department and the Texas Rangers all joined
in the investigation, and eventually they found a suspect. His name was Daniel McGinnis and he was twenty nine years old at the time of the murder. In October of twenty eighteen, one of Patricia's family members contacted the Texas Rangers. They wanted an update, and the Texas Rangers and the Port Arthur Police Department at that time resubmitted some of Patricia's clothing from modern DNA testing, testing that they said
was not available at the time of the murder. The items were entered into cotis and they found a match. The DNA on Patricia's clothing from the crime scene was a match to the suspect, Daniel McGinnis. On August twenty seventh, twenty nineteen, Daniel McGinnis was arrested and charged with Patricia's murder. In twenty twenty two, he was convicted and given a twenty year sentence. Daniel was also given a one hundred and ninety nine year sentence on unrelated drugs and weapons charges.
This never would have happened if a family member had not reached out and asked that the case be reopened and if police had not taken another look at the cold case. One of the most terrifying things about this case is that, according to a twenty twenty two media report, police suspected Daniel after they believed he was involved in assault against two other women, but apparently they couldn't get enough evidence to convict him. Besides, DNA, could the location
where Denari's body was dumped provide a clue. Mark Blanton, the assistant police chief in Port Arthur in two thousand and two, told a news station that there was not much DNA left at the actual crime scene. He also
mentioned the fact that a nearby alligator was euthanized. That had me wondering if someone chose that spot because of its proximity to wildlife or to alligators, or maybe it was someone who had knowledge of the construction work going on there and thought that her body would be covered by the ongoing work. Police have said that they believe that there was more than one person involved in the abduction.
They made comments over the years about them believing that the killer told someone else about it or possibly had a guilty conscience. Brandon Bess, a Texas Ranger investigator, was quoted as saying, quote, they did not keep this a total secret.
We believe multiple people at least.
Know about this, and that there's somebody out there who can bring us that little piece of information, and that you know, they may not think it's important, but it is. Danaria's mother and the rest of her family continued to hope for answers and for justice. The city of Orange saw some hard times over the years. The city was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ike, which hit in September of two thousand and eight.
Three people were killed in.
That storm, and then the town got hit again in August of twenty seventeen when Hurricane Harvey ravaged the community. Deanaria's home in the one thousand block of Fourth Street, where Danaria lived with her mother and sisters, was destroyed by Hurricane Rita in two thousand and five, and the entire block was torn down in twenty twenty two. Several
local newspapers did follow up stories about the case. There was already a three thousand dollars reward on the Texas Rangers Cold Case website, and the Texas Department of Public Safety increased the reward for any information on Danaria's murder to six thousand dollars, but so far there have been no significant tips. The Orange Chief of Police, Sam Cattrell, after he retired, told a local news station that the memory of Danaria's homicide and sexual assault had always stayed
with him. He said, quote, it was a four year old child, the circumstances in which he was found down on the island, and what that little girl had to have gone through. I felt terrible about it in every sense, not just then. This is the one case that was unsolved that still haunts me. That's the part that carries on, even speaking from a retired perspective. It has not been forgotten end quote.
So what are we left with here?
What clues can we take away from what law enforcement has said over the years. I keep going back to the twenty eighteen interview when officers from the Orange Police Department told twelve News Now they believed that the suspect knew Denaria and planned the kidnapping. They described the suspect as someone who lived locally and as a quote calculated
killer who carefully planned Nary's kidnapping end quote. They talked about how they were transferring a lot of the old evidence to digital They said they had a stack of old BHS tapes. They talked about how they had a lot of evidence, but they were still missing that one crucial piece that they believed could lead to an arrest.
According to METI reports, police remained focused on the same person of interest they were focused on back in two thousand and two, and presumably the same one they didn't have enough evidence to charge in two thousand and four.
But we have no idea who that is.
I look back at something that Captain Robert Mman said after he retired. He said, quote, bad guys talk. Someone out there knows something, someone out there heard someone mention something, even if it's just hey, I remember that case and so and so said something about it. Anything like that,
call us end quote. Even after the horrific experience of losing her child, Denaria's mother, Jamie continues to speak out to local media about Deenaria, about her grief and her pain, but also her hope that someday someone will give police a piece of information that could help bring Danaria's killer to justice. Jamie did an interview with a local news station in twenty twenty two in which she talked about how grateful she was for all of the help from
the community. She also said she hoped in some small way that Denaria's death could bring the community together. This is still an open case. There is a crime Stoppers reward that is still active. There is also a reward for the State of Texas. Crime Stoppers number is four oh nine eight three three tips tips. Anyone with information about the case can also contact the Orange Texas Police Department directly. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and.
Produced by Gabby Watts.
Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and to James Wheaton for legal review. Our theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
Crowley.
Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five at six seven eight seven, four four six one four five
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