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Submitted: 9/2/21 • Approved: 9/2/21 • Last Updated: 9/5/21 • R453602-G0-S3
Jan 9, 1964 - Apr 26, 1981
Father:
Charles Eugene Bryant
Mother:
Mary Ann Piccarilli
*Note;
ancestry.com
It's a 25-year-old murder case that was open and shut, but many argue the killer is still out there. 17-year-old Dianna Bryant of Brownfield was killed April 26, 1981. Three years later, known serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the murder. It was one of more than 600 murders Lucas confessed to before he died in a Huntsville prison in 2001.
Last month, a Brownfield newspaper reporter doing a story on the murder's 25th anniversary discovered that many questions still remain unanswered, and now law enforcement is considering re-opening the case. NewsChannel 11's Kealey McIntire tells us how that reporter played a major role at getting this case a second look.
Old Brownfield News newspapers tell the story of an open and shut case surrounding the murder Dianna Bryant. However, now, 25 years later, current Brownfield News writer Mitch Word writes a story titled: "More Questions Than Answers."
"Henry Lee Lucas was a serial killer that confessed to the crime, but a lot of people believed he didn't do it," says Word. He didn't set out to re-open the case, he came across the story on Bryant's murder while looking through newspaper archives.
"I came across this by accident and thought it would be nice to do an overview, a look back. It was an interesting story, a huge story at the time and when I started looking into it, it was like more and more unanswered questions," he recalls.
The crime took place at an apartment where Bryant was babysitting more than 25 years ago. Records indicate inconsistencies between what happened here and Lucas' statement.
Word printed his interview with former Brownfield Police Investigator David Cox who questioned those inconsistencies. "In his statement Henry Lee Lucas said he came up from behind Dianna Bryant and wrapped the electric cord around her neck and strangled her from behind," Word says. "A couple paragraphs later in the statement he said she backed away from him. If he was strangling her from behind, she couldn't have backed away."
Lucas' statement says he killed her in the kitchen, in the interview Cox points out Bryant was found in the bedroom. Word says many other details don't match up, and that's why he'd like to see the case re-opened. "It's something I'd like to see resolved. I think the family members would like to see it resolved as well," he said.
The Brownfield Police Chief tells us they're in the process of setting up meetings with the sheriff and the county prosecutor to discuss the possibility of re-opening the case.
NewsChannel 11 spoke with Dianna's father, who still lives in Brownfield. He says he's satisfied with Lucas' confession and does not want the case to re-open.
*Note;
ancestry
May 28, 2006
Lubbock TX
BROWNFIELD - A little more than 25 years ago, 17-year-old baby sitter Dianna Bryant was killed - found with a vacuum-cleaner cord wrapped around her neck.
Three years later, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the killing. It was one of 77 murders Lucas said he committed. Later, he added to that number.
By the time Lucas died in Huntsville's Ellis I Prison Unit in 2001, doubts had been raised about the number of killings he said he did. After investigators found numerous discrepancies in his claims, Lucas recanted many of his confessions.
Officials who investigated his confessions believe Lucas did kill three people - his mother, girlfriend and another woman.
Lucas had been sentenced to die by lethal injection, but then-Gov. George W. Bush stopped the execution - his only commutation.
Now, five years after Lucas' death, officials in Brownfield are considering if they should reopen Bryant's case.
"I'm going to invite the Texas Rangers, Terry County Sheriff Jerry Johnson and Terry County Attorney Ramon Gallegos so we can get an answer whether it is or isn't (going to be reopened)," said Roy Rice, Brownfield's police chief.
But Bryant's family hopes officials will leave things alone.
Her father, Charles Bryant, said, "The only thing I can say is this: They caught him. He admitted to it," adding he'd rather the case not be reopened, preferring to leave the pain of his daughter's loss as far in the back of his mind as possible.
Why did Lucas end up being a serial confessor?
Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the murder of Dianna Bryant in 1984 along with many others. A case in Brownfield he confessed to may be reopened as the police chief considers the possibility.
"He was the kind of person who had a very lonely and empty and very insecure life, and all of a sudden he had everybody's ear. He had everybody's attention," said Carolyn Huebner, then head of a San Antonio-based missing children network who extensively interviewed Lucas to solve missing-persons cases. "They said dance, and he'd dance."
According to Lucas
Lucas told investigators he rolled into Brownfield on April 25, 1981, in his blue and white 1973 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. He said he was traveling with longtime companion Ottis Toole and Toole's niece and nephew, Freida "Becky" Powell and Frank Powell.
Lucas said he pulled into H-Bar-C Barbecue, a small restaurant on the west side of the road owned by Sue Cottrell.
"Well, me and Becky, Frank and Ottis were heading west and we had driven into this small town and came on a barbecue place on the right hand side of the road and got out, went in and got coffee, and we sat down there and talked about a place to break into," Lucas told investigators in his confession.
Police found the vacuum cleaner in a utility closet in an apartment where a murder occurred in Brownfield in 1981. Serial killer Henry Lee Lucas said he took a knife he carried to cut loose the cord and used it to strangle Dianna Bryant.
The restaurant's front window looks out on a complex of brown duplexes in the distance - including the duplex where Bryant was found strangled.
In apartment 912, Bryant was baby-sitting the two children of Stephen and Shayne Peterson, a divorced couple. Shayne Peterson shared the duplex apartment with her children, while Stephen Peterson had a mobile home about two miles away.
According to Lucas' confession: "We decided we would go out messing around and try to find a place, we drove catty-corner to the barbecue place to an apartment complex, a bunch of one-story apartments."
He knocked on the door of apartment 912.
Wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with blue polka dots with blue ribbed sleeves, Bryant answered, pushing open the metal storm door to see Lucas and Becky Powell.
Lucas claimed he always used the same method to access a home.
"We asked her if we could have some food," he said. "She said, "Well, 'I will fix you something. Come on in'."
While Bryant went to the kitchen, preparing a sandwich for Lucas and a bowl of cereal for Becky Powell, Toole and Frank Powell went into the house, also asking for something to eat.
"And she got sort of nervous because they came in," Lucas said.
Lucas told Toole, " I can't leave no witnesses, the girl will have to go."
The knife, was found in a bedroom.
Lucas said he went into the utility room and cut off the vacuum cleaner cord with a knife he carried. "I took the cord back to where the girl was and put it around her neck, with Becky and Frank sitting there."
Lucas, who said he targeted the home with the intent of robbing it, said he left the house with nothing. The others left "with something," but Lucas could not recall what.
Getting caught
In May of 1982, Reuben Moore found Lucas hitchhiking with Becky Powell near Stoneburg, east of Wichita Falls.
Moore, who ran the All People's House of Prayer, told the two they could stay at the commune. Lucas and Powell moved in and Lucas worked as a roofer until late August, when he disappeared.
Later that month, he reappeared and told Moore that Powell had run away with a truck driver.
Investigators believe Lucas killed Powell on Aug. 24, 1982, according to a report by Jim Mattox, former Texas attorney general.
Powell's body was never found, but officials believe she is one of the few people Lucas did kill.
Brownfield Police Officer John Lane said a bowl of cereal, was knocked to the floor along with a flower pot, indicating a struggle in the room.
Mattox told The Avalanche-Journal he believes Lucas killed three people, but added, "We found no indication that he or that Toole fella had committed anything else. There just wasn't ever any evidence of it."
By September 1982, Montague County Sheriff Bill F. Conway suspected Lucas of involvement in Powell's disappearance. In June 1983, when Moore told Conway and Texas Ranger Phil Ryan that Lucas gave him a .22-caliber weapon to hold for safe keeping, the probation violation was enough to issue an arrest warrant against Lucas.
On June 11 in his cell in the Montague County Jail, Lucas told jailer Joe Don Weaver that he had committed 77 murders.
By November, his confessions had law enforcement officials across the country eager to get their hands on him to see what he knew about their cases.
Lucas confessed to three murders in McClennan County, crossing paths with District Attorney Vic Feazell.
The Lucas report
Mattox didn't think much of it when Feazell questioned the Lucas confessions.
"Vic Feazell came to me and said that he needed my help because the Texas Rangers and the Williamson County Sheriff had Lucas and that he was confessing to crimes that in all probability, he did not commit," Mattox told The A-J.
Mattox dispatched a prosecutor to check out some of the information Lucas offered Jim Boutwell, Williamson County sheriff.
"He said there's not a single one of these cases that would come to our level of requirement for prosecution," Mattox explained. "He said there's not a fragment of hair, there's not a fingerprint, there's no semen.
"There's nothing to link Lucas to these crimes except Lucas' confession. He's confessing, and he knows facts that only the killer would know, but there's a lot of stuff he said about these other crimes that is leading to something amiss."
Mattox took Lucas to a grand jury hearing in Waco so he and Feazell could cross-examine Lucas.
When Lucas was in jail, authorities would put him in a room with case files, Mattox said.
The treatment fueled more confessions, he said. And Lucas traveled across the country to identify crime scenes with law enforcement officials.
Doubts in Brownfield
Lucas confessed the Brownfield murder to Lubbock police Detective George White and Texas Ranger Jackie Peoples on May 17, 1984, after identifying Bryant in a Texas Department of Public Safety lineup of six photos.
Mary Ann Bryant doubted the confession and said of her daughter's murderer: "We always thought it was somebody we knew."
Lucas could not pick out the exact apartment where Dianna Bryant was killed, according to a stipulation of evidence.
White and Peoples took Lucas to the Brownfield Police Department. In an interview with Peoples and Brownfield Police Chief J.T. Churchwell, Lucas gave incorrect age estimates for the children. He also had conflicting times for the murder.
Lucas said Toole suggested he partially remove Bryant's clothing and redress her "to make this look like a rape."
A photo of the crime scene shows Bryant face down with her shirt tucked in.
On Sept. 20, 1984, Lucas appeared in the Terry County Courthouse before Judge Ray Anderson, now a 121st District judge in Brownfield.
When Anderson asked Lucas whether he had anything to say, Lucas said he did not.
No evidence
Today, there is nothing left in the way of evidence - except the confession, which includes a drawing made by Lucas for investigators.
"I have no objection to looking at it. My only concern is I don't know what evidence is available other than what's in the file," said Gallegos, the Terry County Attorney.
Six crime scene photos of evidence are in the case file. What's depicted in the photos does not exist anymore.
"I understand there's no DNA evidence," Gallegos said.
According to Stanford University's Department of Genetics, the first time DNA was used to solve a crime was in 1987.
Since the Bryant murder occurred at least six years earlier, evidence was released.
"I don't believe there's anything available at this point that could be tested," Gallegos said.
And Charles Bryant sees no reason to reopen his daughter's case, and said he would rather leave the pain of his daughter's loss as far in the back of his mind as possible.
Cottrell said many in Brownfield wanted to believe in Lucas' involvement, if only for the peace of mind.
"I think they just wanted to put it behind them and say that's solved," Cottrell said.
Section D
Photo courtesy of Wayne Shaw
Contributed on 9/2/21 by hawkinsdonna48
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