Fort Worth man arrested 46 years after teen’s murder lived ‘very normal life’
The house that Glen McCurley lived in for 30 years was empty on Tuesday morning. A single green chair sat in the manicured lawn, the recycling was on the curb and a tan van that practically matched the tan siding of the home sat parked in the driveway. No one answered when the doorbell rang.
Earlier Tuesday morning, a woman answered the phone associated with the house on Marks Place in southwest Fort Worth.
“I have no comment at this time,” she said in a low calm voice.
Neighbors said they later saw family gathering at the home and leaving with McCurley’s wife and some belongings.
There’s nothing about the home that stuck out as odd. But living inside for the last 30 years was a man who Fort Worth police say abducted, raped and tortured a 17-year-old girl in 1974.
Early Monday morning, 77-year-old McCurley was placed under arrest on a charge of capital murder in the death of Carla Walker.
While Walker’s family fought for answers and wrestled with the thought that a killer might never come to justice, McCurley lived his life in a relatively quiet manner.
He got married, though no record of a union exists in Tarrant County. He owned at least two homes. He had a couple of kids and he was a God-fearing, churchgoing man, according to a neighbor.
After two car theft arrests a dozen years before Walker’s death, McCurley absconded from authorities for almost five decades.
Who is Glen McCurley?
McCurley was born in Oklahoma and lived in Hollis, Oklahoma, as a teen, according to a newspaper report of his arrest in February 1961.
He was accused of stealing a 1955 Pontiac from Henson Bowling Lanes in Abilene, according to an article published in The Abilene Reporter-News at the time of his arrest. The article also said he had been accused of stealing a car from Colorado City (70 miles west of Abilene) and was arrested after a police chase.
He spent a short time in the Huntsville Unit prison before he was placed on parole in April 1961, according to state records.
McCurley has no criminal history in Tarrant, Dallas or Denton counties, but his record became a defense when police questioned him in 1974, according to the arrest warrant.
McCurley had been identified as a suspect early in the Walker investigation because he owned a .22 Ruger that matched a magazine found at the crime scene.
When he was questioned about it, McCurley said his wife had been in West Texas at the time of the murder and that his gun was stolen six weeks earlier, according to the affidavit.
He didn’t report the stolen gun, he said, because he was an ex-convict, according to the document. McCurley wasn’t questioned again until a DNA profile matching him was recently found, police said.
On Sept. 16, DNA that police collected from McCurley matched the DNA found on Walker’s bra. Detectives credited this discovery to technology that wasn’t available when DNA testing first became useful.
Asked what McCurley has been doing for the last 46 years, Fort Worth police reserve officer Jay Bennett said, “He’s been working here locally and just living a very normal life.”
McCurley was married and had two sons.
In 1988, their son, Craig, 24, was killed by a drunken driver while he was driving home from celebrating his college graduation. His obituary says he was born in Midland and his family moved to Fort Worth in 1972 — two years before Walker was killed.
“It was really sad, they’ve really been through a lot as a family,” a longtime neighbor said about the wreck on Tuesday.
The woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said she was shocked to learn McCurley was arrested on a murder charge.
“I just absolutely cannot believe it,” she said. “He was a quiet man, they were a very nice family. They were active in the church, he was always in church. It’s unbelievable, I would have never guessed.”
The night Carla Walker disappeared
Walker, who was a junior at Western Hills High School, was kidnapped when she and her high school sweetheart, Rodney McCoy, stopped in the parking lot of a Fort Worth bowling alley after a Valentine’s week dance on Feb. 17, 1974.
An attacker knocked McCoy unconscious and abducted Walker from the car. She was found two days later in a culvert near Benbrook Lake, a few miles from her home.
Both of her parents died before McCurley’s arrest.
In 2019, police released a picture of a letter that was sent to authorities 45 years ago. The letter said the writer knew who killed Walker.
“It is hard to say, but it is true,” the letter said.
This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 5:30 PM.
