‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ suspect charged in 1974 Fort Worth killing says in interview
The suspect in a 1974 Fort Worth strangling-killing who was arrested last week said in a radio station interview that he did not kidnap the teenage victim more than four decades ago, but rather interrupted an assault and saved her from her boyfriend.
Glen McCurley, who was charged on Thursday with capital murder after police said that DNA connected him to the cold-case homicide, said he drank heavily before he encountered Carla Walker.
“I was driving around, parking, drinking,” McCurley told KRLD at a downtown Fort Worth jail.
McCurley said he stopped in a bowling alley parking lot and found Walker, who had attended a Valentine’s dance with her boyfriend on Feb. 17, 1974.
“He was hitting on her, and I was drinking beer in the parking lot,” McCurley told KRLD, apparently alleging that he witnessed an assault. “And I saw him. He was screaming. And I went over there and opened the door, and knocked him off of her.”
McCurley said he “pulled” Walker, 17, to his car.
“We talked for a while, and she calmed down,” McCurley told the radio station. “And she said she was thankful for me getting him away from her.”
McCurley, 77, discussed his intention and what happened in the moments before Walker was killed, but it is not clear in the station’s report on the interview whether the suspect explicitly described a crime.
“She just gave me a hug. I gave her a kiss. I mistook her for something else,” McCurley said. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
Walker was beaten, tortured, raped and strangled, law enforcement authorities have said. Her body was found in a ditch near Lake Benbrook three days after the dance. Her boyfriend was pistol whipped and lost consciousness when he attempted to stop the kidnapping, the authorities have said.
Walker’s boyfriend, Rodney McCoy, said in an interview earlier this year with Oxygen’s “The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes” that he and Walker were kissing in his car when the kidnapper opened a door and hit him.
“Carla was screaming, ‘Quit hitting him,’ so my assumption, he hit me several times,” McCoy said in “The DNA of Murder” interview. “Blood was just flowing down in my eyes and my face and everything, and it was like I was paralyzed.”
McCoy told police the attacker also pointed a gun at his face and pulled the trigger repeatedly, but the gun did not fire, according to “The DNA of Murder.” McCoy said Walker screamed, “Go get my dad.” When he regained consciousness, McCoy went to the Walker family’s home, and someone called police, he said.
McCurley has been held since his arrest in jail on bond set at $100,000.
When speaking to detectives, McCurley indicated “that he was as good as dead if he told them what he did. He referenced self-harm if he were to be incarcerated on this offense,” a Tarrant County assistant criminal district attorney wrote Friday in a motion seeking a higher bond amount.
Police arrested McCurley after a DNA test offered a clear link. A male DNA profile was found on Walker’s bra, according to an affidavit supporting McCurley’s arrest.
In March, police uploaded the DNA to a database, CODIS, and no matches were returned. They also sent the DNA to a genealogical database known as GEDmatch. Detectives reported that they narrowed the suspects to a family of three brothers with the last name McCurley.
In July, according to the affidavit, police collected trash from a bin on the street outside Glen McCurley’s house, and DNA from the trash matched the DNA from Walker’s bra. Glen McCurley consented to providing a DNA sample. The DNA from McCurley’s mouth also matched the DNA from the bra.
Police said McCurley confessed during an interview.
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
