Pod Insights Park Predators The Witnesses About this episode When two women vanish from the same Texas city in the summer of 2006, little attention is focused on their cases. But when a federal probe puts the city’s police department and one officer in particular under the microscope, everyone’s attention shifts. When human remains start showing up in nearby Angelina National Forest, even more questions arise.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to share with you today is a true labyrinth of a crime story, in that it includes two homicide victims and several sexual assault survivors, many of whom have a truly disturbing nexus. There's going to be a little bit of jumping around in the timeline in this episode, but hang in there because I promise, it's not too hard to follow once you dive in and really start to piece the big picture together. It takes place in Angelina National Forest in east Texas, a roughly 153,000-acre space that's known for its rolling landscape and abundance of native pine trees. The nearby Sam Rayburn Reservoir, which was built in the early 1960s, is one of
0:45 Speaker 00 many places you can picnic, fish, hike, and boat. With the proper license, hunters who visit the forest have captured everything from deer to duck to wild turkeys to squirrels. Over many decades, archaeologists have discovered evidence that humans have been coming and going from the forest for some 8,000 years, leaving traces of their activity behind. In the summer of 2006, that tradition continued, but in a most alarming way. Someone entered Angelina's boundary and left two particularly disturbing things behind: bodies. The discoveries would later be linked to two missing women, who authorities would learn had a lot more in common than what met the eye. This is Park Predators.
2:12 Speaker 00 On Sunday, July 2, 2006, a woman named Margaret Anderson was talking on the phone with her 25-year-old granddaughter, Shontae Coleman. The two were discussing the fact that the next day, July 3, was Shontae's deceased mother's birthday, and she expressed to her grandmother that she wanted to go visit her mom's grave to leave some flowers, and asked if Margaret would join her. You see, Shontae was a mother of two toddler-aged boys, and she'd been living a bit of a complicated life as of late. According to an article by April Barb for the Jacksonville Progress, Shontae had struggled with drug use, and actually, one of the last times that Margaret physically saw her, which was just a few months earlier in late May 2006, was at Shontae's mother's funeral, and
2:55 Speaker 00 some of her family members didn't even recognize her. Her life in her mid-20s was a far cry from who she'd been in high school. According to her obituary, she was the daughter of a reverend and had been in clubs like Delta Debutante, top teens of America, and sang in a youth choir. She graduated high school and was active in a local Baptist church, too, but somewhere along the way, her friends and family said she just got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Still, the young mother had at least kept a line of communication open with relatives like Margaret. After chatting on the phone for a bit, the pair seemingly ended their conversation like normal, which is why about a month later, on Friday, August 4, Shontae's 26th birthday, Margaret fully expected to hear from her granddaughter again.
3:40 Speaker 00 But strangely, she didn't call. Shontae also didn't come by Margaret's house to pick up a birthday gift, which, to her, felt really out of character. But I imagine because of the fact that Shontae was an adult and had a life of her own, Margaret probably thought it was reasonable to just let the weekend pass and hope to hear from her. But when Monday, August 7, rolled around, and she still hadn't heard from her granddaughter, that's when Margaret decided that something just wasn't right, and she reported Shontae missing to the Jacksonville Police Department in East Texas. Unfortunately, though, it appears from the source material that law enforcement had a hard time pinpointing Shante's movements and location because of the transient lifestyle that she was living at the time.
4:24 Speaker 00 According to that piece I mentioned a minute ago by the Jacksonville Progress, the police weren't sure if she was still in Jacksonville or had moved north to Longview, Texas, or just over the border into Louisiana. When she disappeared, she was described as a black female with a scar on her right arm, who was around 140 pounds, 5 feet 7 inches tall, and missing her two front teeth. A fairly unique detail. She would also sometimes go by the nickname Tata. Police asked the public to contact them if anyone saw or heard from her. But the case seemingly went nowhere fast, and it doesn't appear there was a great sense of urgency to move heaven and earth to find her. Which is kind of wild to me, because she wasn't the only woman
5:07 Speaker 00 who'd mysteriously vanished from the Jacksonville area during the last three months of summer 2006.
5:14 Speaker 00 In late May, just a few months before Shante was reported missing, another local woman named Terri Reyes disappeared. Terri was a 37-year-old mother of three who, on May 26th, failed to attend her son's high school graduation in the nearby town of Athens, Texas, which is about 45 minutes northwest of Jacksonville. Not long after missing that important milestone, people in Terri's life reported her missing to the Athens Police Department, which is a different law enforcement agency than the City of Jacksonville PD. But similar to Shante's situation, that department found it difficult to work Terri's missing persons case. Because at the time of her disappearance, she was said to be using drugs and was living apart from her kids
5:57 Speaker 00 in a situation that some people might consider transient. Her mother, a woman named Brenda Graham, told the Jacksonville Progress that just because Terri might not have been leading what the article describes as a "virtuous life", that didn't mean her case should be viewed as any less important. She told the newspaper that it was frustrating because she would often hear phrases about Terry from police like, quote, "Well, considering her lifestyle," end quote. But Brenda knew her daughter was a good mom, and I think the implication there is that in her opinion, Terry would have never just severed communication with her three kids or her because it wasn't like Terry had hit what some folks might consider total rock bottom.
6:40 Speaker 00 Apparently, she'd only recently experienced a recurrence of substitute disorder, and despite being in the midst of that struggle, she'd made efforts to stay in touch with her family. According to most of the news coverage I read, the last time anyone saw Terry was on May 21, 2006, five days before the graduation ceremony she was expected to attend. The description that went out to the public about her was that she was white, weighed 130 to 135 pounds, had brown hair and brown eyes, and stood 5 feet 11 inches tall. She also had a birthmark on her stomach and a scar on her right leg. As weeks and then months passed, though, there seemed to be no updates in her case.
7:22 Speaker 00 Her mom told the Jacksonville Progress, quote, "I got no help from the Athens police," end quote. Based on everything I've read, it appears that both Terry and Shante's cases either stalled quickly or they were not necessarily prioritized to begin with by their respective law enforcement agencies. And perhaps one of the reasons for that is there was an equally alarming situation unfolding in the Jacksonville area between 2005 and 2006. A situation that had the entire Jacksonville City Police Department and one officer in particular in the crosshairs of the FBI.
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9:10 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
9:15 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
9:19 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.
9:21 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
9:24 Speaker 02 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
9:30 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
9:45 Speaker 00 According to Casey Knopp's reporting for the Tyler Morning Telegraph, around September 2005, the city of Jacksonville's police chief, a man named Mark Johnson, began to hear chatter in his department that one of his officers, Larry Pugh, might be doing some questionable things while on duty. So Chief Johnson decided to tell the Cherokee County District Attorney's Office about the matter. And at some point shortly thereafter, those two offices decided that it would be in everyone's best interest to let the FBI launch an investigation into Larry's suspected bad behavior, which reportedly involved allegations of sexual misconduct. On October 21, 2005, while the feds did their thing, Larry was suspended from Jacksonville
10:29 Speaker 00 PD with pay. A few days later, federal agents interviewed him about his alleged misconduct. I don't have the full transcript of that interview, or know if that was the only time the FBI talked to him, but according to additional reporting by Casey Knopp, something Larry said during that chat with the feds was that he'd, quote, "never had sex with anyone while on duty," end quote.
10:54 Speaker 00 A few months later, by February 7, 2006, the FBI completed its probe. And the next day, February 8, they ended up arresting and charging 33-year-old Larry with five counts of deprivation of rights under the color of law. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Well, in general, it means that the feds found evidence that between January 1, 2005, and October 21, 2005, Larry had used the power given to him by a governmental agency to commit a crime. And in this case, it was the alleged sexual assault of at least five women while on duty as a police officer. Those offenses, by the way, were only considered Class A misdemeanors because the government did not allege that there was evidence of bodily harm.
11:39 Speaker 00 I know, that surprised me too, but that's just the way the law is written. Anyway, the Jacksonville Progress reported that typically, when the FBI conducts a color-of-law investigation, they're looking into whether someone with a position of authority did something like make a false arrest, fabricate evidence, fail to keep someone from harm, sexually assault someone, or use excessive force. According to the FBI's website, in a color-of-law case where sexual assault is alleged, agents usually discover that the accused used their position of authority to coerce another individual into sexual compliance. Basically, the victim is told that some official action will be taken against them if they don't agree to their assailant's demands.
12:22 Speaker 00 In Larry's case, one woman had stated that he pulled over to help her after she'd had some car trouble. He offered her a ride in his cruiser, but when she got in, he didn't take her home. Instead, he drove her to an abandoned trailer and sexually assaulted her. Another survivor claimed he'd come into a house she'd been in and told her she was under arrest. When Larry placed her in his patrol car, they didn't go to jail. Instead, he drove her to a cemetery and sexually assaulted her.
12:51 Speaker 00 Now, as soon as Larry's arrest paperwork went through and these allegations were public knowledge, the city of Jacksonville terminated him as an employee and stopped giving him pay. At his arraignment hearing the same day as his arrest, Larry entered a plea of not guilty and was later released on an unsecured $5,000 bond. He was given a court-appointed defense attorney, and according to April Barb's reporting for the Jacksonville Progress, if convicted, he faced up to one year in jail for each of the five deprivation of rights counts, as well as no more than $100,000 fine for each count. The federal judge presiding over his case scheduled his trial date for July 10, 2006. Larry, who was a husband and father of four kids no older than four, wasn't alone in his
13:36 Speaker 00 alleged bad behavior. He reportedly was one of several officers on the city's police force at the time who were alleged to have acted inappropriately while donning a uniform. According to an article by April Barb for the Jacksonville Progress, the department had undergone a review in August of 2005, where an outside expert determined that more and better leadership needed to be in place. For example, there had been alleged instances where certain officers who could have been fired under other circumstances were instead allowed to resign. Evidence was also found that at least one officer had been involved with someone connected to what the article calls "the drug community," and there were instances where that officer
14:18 Speaker 00 had asked another officer to cut his acquaintance a break when it came to criminal charges. Due to these problems, the police chief, Mark Johnson, was suspended with pay pending a review of the department. The city manager and the mayor both voiced concerns about his leadership, and even though they didn't outright bring up Larry's arrest, I have to imagine it was on their minds, considering how much press the story was attracting. Anyway, on April 4, 2006, almost two months after his arrest, Larry's case took another interesting turn when a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against him that differed slightly from the first one. After a hearing on this matter, grand jurors decided to only indict him for deprivation
15:02 Speaker 00 of rights under the color of law for three of the women, not the original five.
15:08 Speaker 00 This amended indictment also had an additional charge for making a false statement to the FBI. Turns out, the feds had determined that when Larry previously told them he'd never had sex with anyone while on duty, that was a lie. If he was found guilty of that additional count, he faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But even after this new indictment came down, Larry was still allowed to stay out on bond pending his trial.
15:39 Speaker 00 It's clear from everything that was published about him up until that point that the allegations against him for sexual assault weren't his only misdeeds. He'd also been accused of other misconduct, like assault, use of excessive force, and unlawful arrest. For example, in early April 2006, right before that second indictment was issued, a man from Cherokee County, Texas, who also happened to be named Larry, sued Larry Pugh for unlawful arrest and excessive use of force, stemming from an incident that had taken place back in early October 2005. According to court documents filed in that lawsuit, the plaintiff, who I'll refer to as Larry L., claimed that while Larry Pugh was employed as a Jacksonville police officer,
16:23 Speaker 00 he'd essentially chased him down in his car and attacked him. Court filings explain that around 10 o'clock on the night of October 2, 2005, Larry L. said he was on his way to visit a friend in Jacksonville, when Larry Pugh pulled up behind him at a high rate of speed. From what I gathered reading the court records, it doesn't seem like this situation was at all a legit traffic stop with lights and sirens. It appears it was more of a random road rage incident. But, long story short, eventually the two Larrys got into it, and that's when Larry L. said that Larry Pugh got out of his car, started screaming at him, sprayed him in the face with mace, and struck him repeatedly with a baton.
17:05 Speaker 00 By the time the dust settled, Larry L. had been issued three traffic tickets and led away in handcuffs for resisting arrest. He got out of the detention center the next day, and a few months later, in December 2005, all of the traffic citations and charges against him were dropped because the court couldn't corroborate Larry Pugh's version of the incident. Larry L. claimed in his lawsuit that he suffered multiple injuries and even temporary blindness as a result of the assault. His civil suit against Larry Pugh, though, was later settled out of court.
17:37 Speaker 00 But if that wasn't concerning enough, there was yet another documented incident of Larry crossing the line while employed as a law enforcement officer. A couple sued Larry and the police department citing excessive use of force after they alleged he'd attacked them while on duty at a high school homecoming event in Jacksonville. According to an article by Casey Knott for the Tyler Morning Telegraph, a man who'd attended that event said that city police officers had unlawfully detained his wife under suspicion of disorderly conduct. And when he asked officers what was happening, he was immediately attacked. Larry Pugh maced him and beat him to the point where he lost two teeth and cracked a third tooth. That man and his wife were eventually cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, and their civil
18:22 Speaker 00 suit against Larry and the police department was eventually settled out of court. After all of this stuff came to light, the Jacksonville Progress reported that at least three more officers from the city's police department were being federally investigated related to an incident that occurred in 2004. I don't know, though, if that's the same incident that that couple who sued Larry over the high school homecoming situation filed complaints about or not. But regardless, when the FBI launched this probe into the other officers, none of the three were still working at JPD. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any information about what the results of those investigations were into those other cops. But to keep moving, like I said earlier, Larry's trial for civil rights violations
19:05 Speaker 00 and lying to the FBI was supposed to get underway on July 10, 2006. But that date ended up getting delayed to November because he got an additional defense attorney and his legal team said they needed more time to prepare. So that meant for the time being, Larry was allowed to remain out on bond, but he did not behave.
19:27 Speaker 00 According to court documents and reporting by the Tyler Morning Telegraph, in early August, Larry was arrested by Jacksonville Police Department for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and obstruction of justice. He was also charged federally with violating the conditions of his release. The charges and arrest stem from him attacking, wait for it, one of the female witnesses who was scheduled to testify against him at his upcoming trial. Court records and news coverage detail that in the early morning hours of August 9, 2006, Larry followed this witness who was walking by herself in Jacksonville and offered her a ride in his van. When she got close enough and recognized him, she tried to get away, but he jumped
20:12 Speaker 00 out of the vehicle, grabbed her from behind, placed a belt around her neck, and dragged her back in the direction of his van. On the way, though, as the victim was, I imagine, struggling for her life, the belt that was wrapped around her neck broke, and she was able to get away and run to a friend's house nearby and call the Jacksonville Police Department. Larry then sped off in his van. As a result of his actions, the FBI put what's known as a federal detainer on Larry, which prevented him from being released from jail again, even if he was granted bond. If he was convicted of the aggravated assault charge, he faced two to 20 years behind bars. And if he was found guilty of the obstruction charge, he had the potential to go to prison
20:55 Speaker 00 for two to 10 more years. So the good news being, he would get significantly more time than he could ever get if he was eventually convicted of the Class A misdemeanors at his sexual assault trial. On top of the criminal charges piling up, the victim Larry attacked with the belt also sued him, his former boss, Mark Johnson, and the city of Jacksonville in civil court. The attorney who represented her was a guy named Curtis Stuckey, who coincidentally had also represented Larry L. and that other couple who'd sued Larry for excessive force. Unfortunately, Curtis passed away in 2021, so I wasn't able to interview him for this episode. But I wish I could have, because everything I've read about him paints him as an amazing civil rights attorney.
21:41 Speaker 00 But back to Larry for a bit. In mid-September 2006, a federal grand jury issued a third superseding indictment against him in the sexual assault case. This document slightly modified the charges the government intended to try him for. The indictment stated that between January and October 2005, he had sexually assaulted three women who were only identified by their initials. One of them was the woman he tried to abduct with the belt. The superseding indictment still included that charge for lying to the FBI, but it also featured a new charge for attempting to tamper with a witness. On September 28, 2006, just a few weeks after that third indictment was issued, Larry and
22:25 Speaker 00 his defense team decided to take a plea deal for two counts of deprivation of rights under the color of law and one count of retaliating against a witness. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop one of the civil rights counts against him and that making a false statement to the FBI charge. He was eventually sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine. His family wasn't happy with that outcome, though. His mother told KLTV, "How can anyone take the word of people on drugs, people on alcohol, and people living on the street? They take the word of street people over the word of a 10-year veteran police officer." Larry's sister Linda told the same news outlet that the only reason Larry pleaded guilty
23:09 Speaker 00 to the crimes was so that he could get out of prison in time to have a life with his kids, not because he was remorseful or actually believed he was responsible for the crimes. The closure of the federal case against him, though, wasn't the end of Larry's legal troubles. Cherokee County still had a criminal case against him for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, for attacking that one female witness with the belt. But you're probably wondering at this point in the episode, what does all of this with Larry have to do with Terry and Shante's cases? Well, according to KLTV, Terry was one of the original women scheduled to testify against Larry at his federal trial, and Shante was believed to run in the same circles as many of his known victims.
23:53 Speaker 00 I know, I probably just gave some of you whiplash, so let me back up for just a second so nobody is lost.
24:01 Speaker 00 When the original indictment against Larry first came down in February 2006, one of the victims he was accused of sexually assaulting was listed under the initials TR. But when the second superseding indictment was filed a few months later, the portion of the indictment that had referred to the victim with the initials TR was gone. It had been completely removed from the government's case against Larry. And that's because TR was Terry Reyes. Yes, our missing Terry Reyes, who disappeared in late May 2006, which just so happened to be the exact window of time that Larry Pugh was out on bond awaiting trial.
24:43 Speaker 00 As a reminder, he was issued a bond right after his arrest in February 2006, but his trial wasn't scheduled to start until July, which meant he was out and about for several months just living his life, and who knows? Maybe it's just a coincidence that Terry vanished during that exact same timeframe. But then again, maybe it's not. Especially considering the fact that we know for sure Larry had retaliated against another one of his victims when he tried to abduct her seemingly right before she could take the stand against him. Now, turning your attention to Shante's case for a second. Her grandmother said she'd last spoken with her on July 2, 2006, which was also during the window of time that Larry was out on bond.
25:27 Speaker 00 So the natural question for both women's loved ones and maybe even law enforcement was, what were the odds that they would both vanish within months of one another, so close to one another, while Larry was waiting to go to trial? Could he have been involved in what happened to them? Margaret Anderson, Shante's grandmother, told Jacksonville Progress reporter April Barb that she strongly suspected that was the case. She said, quote, "Word was put out in Jacksonville that if anybody testified on Larry Pugh, they'd be dead. Those girls on the streets, she was involved with them. One girl he tried to apprehend by putting a belt around her neck. I don't know if she knows that girl." End quote.
26:10 Speaker 00 Margaret went on to clarify that in her opinion, it was very likely Shante could have known Larry or possibly come across him before she vanished. The Assistant Chief of Police for Jacksonville PD at that time, a man named John Page, publicly dispelled that suggestion, though. He said in that same article that Shante wasn't involved in Larry's federal case, which I assume meant she wasn't on the list of witnesses who were set to testify against him or had even been interviewed about him. Still, Margaret had her suspicions. In her interview with the newspaper, she expressed that she believed Shante was dead. By January 2007, she'd been missing for more than six months, and Margaret told the Jacksonville Progress that, in all that time,
26:54 Speaker 00 she hadn't heard a word from law enforcement. No one in Shante's family, including her two young sons, had heard from her either, including during the days and weeks around the holidays of 2006, which I'm sure felt like a bad sign to Shante's loved ones. Around the same time, Terri Reyes's family was also grappling with a lot of unanswered questions about her disappearance and wondered if perhaps Larry Pugh could potentially be involved in her case. Brenda Graham, Terri's mom, told reporter April Barb that they hoped someone would help them find some answers. Like I mentioned earlier, when Terri vanished, she was scheduled to testify as a witness against Larry at his impending trial.
27:36 Speaker 00 Some reports even state that Terri had been to Larry's house on at least one occasion prior to his arrest, which both feel like legit reasons to at least look at him as a potential suspect. But the newest Jacksonville Police Chief in January 2007, a man named Reese Daniel, told the media that as far as his department or the Athens Police Department was concerned, neither agency had found evidence definitively connecting Larry to Terri or Shante's missing person cases. He told the Jacksonville Progress, quote, "I know there is intense speculation about their whereabouts due to their affiliation with Larry Pugh, but we have absolutely nothing at this time to indicate he had anything to do with their disappearance.
28:18 Speaker 00 However, that connection certainly adds a note of urgency to the need for us to locate both women," end quote. He asked that people refrain from spreading rumors about either woman's case because it could make other folks with potentially important information wary of coming forward. So for the time being, Shontay remained listed as a missing person. And Terri, well, there's something I haven't told you yet. Something that the police in early 2007 didn't even know. And that's that Terri Reyes had been found.
28:54 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
28:59 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
29:03 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orlandz, career public defender.
29:05 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
29:08 Speaker 02 And on our brand new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
29:15 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
29:29 Speaker 00 On September 2nd, 2006, some hunters walking in a section of Angelina National Forest located near the city of Broadus, Texas, which is about an hour and a half southeast of Jacksonville and two hours southeast of Athens, discovered what looked like a human skull. The group alerted the San Augustine County Sheriff's Office about what they'd found, and within a short amount of time, local law enforcement arrived on scene. With help from a Texas Ranger, local investigators recovered more skeletal remains, which included a torso. The remains were in such a deteriorated state, though, that there was no way for the sheriff's office to determine who the victim was, their age, ethnicity, or gender. There was also no clothing or personal belongings in the area that could give them an idea
30:13 Speaker 00 of who the deceased individual was. Right away investigators suspected that foul play might be involved, so they sent off the skull and other bones to the Texas Department of Public Safety to be analyzed. Staff with that agency used a clay reconstruction on the skull to create a likeness of the person it belonged to. That assessment of the remains indicated that the victim was most likely a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death, and was anywhere from 5'5" to 6 feet tall. An examination of her remains also revealed that she died at least 6 months to possibly 2 years before she was found. Those parameters, though, were obviously ballpark figures because DPS staff didn't know for sure.
30:55 Speaker 00 All they had to go off of was measuring the level of decay with her remains, and we're talking about being in the woods in east Texas during at least the summer months, so, yeah, they were probably in rough shape. Fast forward to June 2007, though, and thanks to additional investigative work, the previously unknown Jane Doe from the National Forest was officially identified as missing mother of three, Terri Reyes. Lindsay Wilcox reported for KLTV7 that at that point it had been widely reported that had Terri not vanished in May 2006, she would have testified against Larry Pugh and been a strong witness for the federal government. Curtis Stuckey, that civil rights attorney I mentioned earlier who'd represented several
31:38 Speaker 00 clients who sued Larry in civil court, told KLTV that he would have definitely called Terri as a witness in the civil cases if she hadn't gone missing before he got the opportunity to. Once her missing persons case was officially closed and relabeled as a suspected homicide, law enforcement faced a new challenge. They had their victim ID'd and possibly knew how she was killed, though that detail has never been released to the public that I could find, but they still didn't have physical evidence connecting her death to the who. In other words, a suspect.
32:12 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, at least seven women had filed a civil lawsuit against Larry Pugh, his former boss, Police Chief Mark Johnson, and the city of Jacksonville. They sought punitive damages for Larry sexually assaulting them, in some cases, numerous times, in locations all across Cherokee County while he was performing his duties as a police officer. Now, based on what I read in the source material, it looks like some of the women who were plaintiffs in this civil suit were also victims who had their initials listed in the charges filed against Larry in 2006. However, several of the women named in the filings were new names. So in total, between the federal criminal case and the federal civil lawsuits, eight different women had come forward claiming that Larry sexually assaulted them when he
32:57 Speaker 00 worked for Jacksonville PD. By spring 2007, though, the city itself and former Chief Johnson had been dropped from the suit. And by August of 2008, seven of the eight plaintiffs had all agreed to settle out of court and drop their cases. According to court documents, the one lone plaintiff who sought a jury trial was that one witness who'd nearly been abducted with the belt and dragged into Larry's van. She was eventually awarded $300,000 with interest in damages. An investigator for the Cherokee County District Attorney's Office testified in court for that case that it was clear after conducting between 25 and 30 interviews with witnesses that Larry had an established MO of preying on women who were living transient lifestyles
33:41 Speaker 00 or had a substance use disorder. Many of them had pending charges or were on probation, which essentially made them vulnerable targets for a cop who was using his position of authority to sexually assault them. Interestingly, Larry got into even more legal trouble during that civil case because he testified at a hearing that he denied being guilty of the federal crimes he'd already pled guilty to, and said the only reason he'd accepted the plea bargain for assaulting that woman and another victim was because he thought it was what he should do for his family, which turns out is not something you can say when you agree to take full responsibility for a federal crime. So what did prosecutors do?
34:23 Speaker 00 They charged him with another crime: making a false declaration before a federal court. Basically, the US Attorney's Office was like, "No, Larry, you can't backpedal on your federal guilty plea. That's not how this works." And so for that offense, he was eventually sentenced to an additional 18 months in prison on top of the 12 years he was already serving. According to Kelly Young's reporting for the Jacksonville Progress, in August of 2007, he seemingly settled his legal battles in state court by taking another plea deal for the criminal case that was still pending against him in Cherokee County. That was the one for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sexually assaulting an inmate while they were in custody. His sentence for those crimes was also 12 years in state prison, but he'd served that
35:08 Speaker 00 sentence concurrently with his federal prison sentence, which meant he would eventually get out. While he was safely behind bars for the time being, though, Terry Reyes's suspected homicide case remained unsolved. But Shante's missing persons case got an update. However, not the kind anyone hoped for. According to an article by Paul Bryant for the Daily Sentinel and reporting by KLTV, in March of 2014, a forestry worker surveying some private land that a timber company operated near Angelina National Forest stumbled across a human skull. The San Augustine County Sheriff's Office, FBI, and Texas Rangers investigated the discovery
35:50 Speaker 00 and quickly sent the bones to a forensic anthropologist at Sam Houston State University. From there, the remains were eventually shipped off to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for DNA Extraction. When staff there developed a usable profile, they compared it to known profiles already in the combined DNA index system known as CODIS. On June 19, 2014, three months after the remains were discovered, the sheriff's office learned that the skull belonged to Shante Coleman. The only problem was, law enforcement couldn't determine how she died. Quick side note: I couldn't find information about whether Shante was already in CODIS from a previous offense or criminal record she might have had.
36:33 Speaker 00 But if it was a direct one-to-one match, then I think that has to mean she was in the database, or at least one of her deceased parents or possibly children's DNA had been uploaded. Anyway, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph, at the time of her disappearance, she'd been living in an ad hoc shelter for women in Jacksonville that was run by a man named Alvin Boykin. Alvin told the newspaper that the last time he saw Shante, she was walking away from his house and told him she would be leaving for a while. Because she was one of many women who came and went from his home, Alvin didn't think much of it. But you know who else was a frequent guest at his place who also mysteriously vanished in the spring of 2006? Terry Reyes.
37:16 Speaker 00 Which means it's likely, maybe even probable, that the women knew one another, and I have my suspicions that they could have discussed Larry Pugh. But because they both disappeared within weeks of one another and wound up dead, dumped in similar terrain, we'll never know how much of a connection they shared or what they may have discussed. In the wake of Shante finally being found, her older stepsister Frances Hicks told KAL-TV that it was almost a relief to know that she was no longer missing. But at the same time, it was bittersweet to come to terms with the fact that she was dead. One of the last times Frances spoke with Shante, they talked about how she had plans to get her life together and come visit with her two young sons, but she never got the chance to.
38:00 Speaker 00 Frances told the news outlet that even though she wouldn't describe her relationship with Shante as "super tight," that didn't mean she loved her any less. She remarked, quote, "She was loved. She wasn't just some nobody that nobody thought of. She was loved." End quote. Her grandmother, Margaret Anderson, told K L T V that she'd given up hope a few months after Shante vanished that she was still alive, but finally having an answer to where she was all this time was, in itself, an answer to prayer. However, at the end of the day, it still hurt to know that her beloved granddaughter was really gone. She said, quote, "Of course, I don't know how she died, what she went through with this death.
38:41 Speaker 00 I don't know that, but I know now she is really gone and there is no coming back." End quote. According to her obituary, Shante's family held a memorial service for her on July 3, 2014, almost eight years to the day that Margaret last spoke with her on the phone. A few months later, the chief deputy of the San Augustine Sheriff's Office told the press that his investigators were not ruling out Larry Pugh as a potential suspect in the case. They also reiterated that Terry Reyes's suspected murder was still under investigation in their jurisdiction. And just like with Shante's case, Larry was on their radar as much as anyone else for those deaths. Unfortunately, though, both women's cases remain unsolved to this day.
39:25 Speaker 00 Larry Pugh's situation, on the other hand, has improved dramatically. According to April Barbs reporting for the Jacksonville Progress and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, he was released from federal custody in May of 2018 after completing his sentence. According to coverage by CBS 19, in April 2019, it appears he returned to East Texas and was living in Nacogdoches County, which is about an hour southeast of Jacksonville, very close to Angelina National Forest. Around that same time, there was a post circulating on social media that called Larry "a quote-unquote serial killer and serial rapist." And apparently, this post caused such a stir in the Nacogdoches community that the sheriff's
40:08 Speaker 00 office had to publicly address it in response to citizens' concerns about the convicted felon living amongst them. Though the sheriff’s office admitted that some information in the article circulating online was correct, other claims were not. The sheriff wrote in part in a social media post, “Larry Pugh has not been convicted of murder or any sexual assault case. He was convicted on other crimes and done time in federal prison.” He later continued, “He was not convicted of murder or a sex crime, so he is not a registered sex offender. He is currently on federal probation and will be for the next couple of years. Larry Pugh was the prime suspect in the death investigation of female victims that occurred in other counties.
40:53 Speaker 00 In my opinion, he is very capable of being a dangerous man, and you should know who he is. I do not know the whole background of why other charges were not brought against him, but I can tell you that he has done his time on the charges that he was convicted on.” I’m not sure how much this message from the sheriff calmed people’s unease, but regardless of all the suspicions that have flown around about Larry regarding Terry and Shante’s cases, the fact remains that their deaths still need to be investigated diligently. Someone out there has information that could be key in finally bringing them the justice they and their families deserve.
41:34 Speaker 00 If you have information that could help solve Terry Reyes’s case, please contact the Texas Department of Public Safety at 1-800-346-3243. Or submit a tip online through the Texas Rangers cold case website. You can also contact Texas Crime Stoppers at 1-800-252-8477 and be eligible for a cash reward up to $3,000. If you want to provide information in Shante’s case, call the San Augustine County Sheriff’s Office at 936-275-2424. All of these contacts will also be listed in the show notes and on the blog post for
42:16 Speaker 00 this episode. Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.
42:40 Speaker 00 So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?
42:47 Speaker 04 One day last year detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion dollar mansion in Los Angeles County.
42:54 Speaker 04 Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.
43:04 Speaker 04 The couple that lived there had 21 kids. It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory. Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
43:30 Speaker 03 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
43:35 Speaker 04 I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
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