scriptgirl
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Fascinating case. Not really sure what to think
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In 1979, I worked for Jerry Stout, owner of The Denton County Enterprise, a weekly newspaper. Jerry told me that he and a couple of his friends got a tip that
Virginia Carpenter had been buried under Bell Street, which was under construction at the time that Virginia disappeared. He also told me that she was on the Rifle Team at TWU and that they thought her rifle was buried with her. They somehow procured City of Denton overalls and a backhoe and about midnight one night, they dug up the section of Bell Street that they thought was about the right spot. They used a metal detector to look for the rifle. They did not find anything and left the street dug up for the city to repair. He didn't think anyone ever knew who dug up the street. I don't know when this occurred. It could have been in the sixties or seventies. I have never seen a reference to the
Rifle Team in anything else that I've read.
The year before her disappearance, five Texarkana teens were murdered by a person who has never been identified. The press dubbed him the ``Phantom Killer.'' Miss Carpenter and her family were friends with three of the five victims.
According to her driver, she got out of the cab a little after 21:00 (9 PM). The sunset at Denton for June 1 is around 8:41 so it would have been getting somewhat dark (more than 20 minutes after sunset) especially if it was cloudy. I wonder how well the cabby could have seen the guys and the car at that point. It also sounds a little suspicious that he was close enough the hear what she said to them.
This is assuming that Denton was then on daylight time. If it was on Standard Time then it would have been dark as midnight by 9 o'clock.
Texas didn't do Daylight Savings Time back then.
The man who called in the tip claimed that he knew the 2 young men in the convertible but because one of them came from a wealthy and influential Denton family, LE looked the other way. I hope that's not true.
Hello, websleuths! Long time lurker, first time poster. I've always been fascinated by this case, and finally got to put my two cents in.
So I was looking up some new information or deatils on this case and stumbled across a website of Decatur Bowling Association. There I saw a photo of a lady whose name was Virginia Carpenter. This is her photo:
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The website says that she started playing bowling in the middle 1950's, became a professional bowler and later became a coach.
I must say that I do see a resemblance between this lady and the missing Virginia Carpenter. The smile, the chin, the nose... Here is a combined picture of them:
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And, of course, the name! But, in my opinion, if she had decided to run away deliberately and start a new life, then she would have changed her name. But, who knows. What do you guys think?
Here is the original link: http://decaturusbc.com/hof.php?hofyear=1990