Killings of Elderly Women Jolt a Laid-Back Town in Texas

Black fingerprint powder dusts nearly every surface in Margie Gafford’s tiny wood-frame bungalow. In the bedroom, a splotch of blood stains the carpet where the body of the 86-year-old widow was found crumpled in the closet beneath her neatly hanging clothes.

Gafford was the second of three elderly women savagely beaten to death in their homes here in the space of four days last week, sending this normally sleepy refinery town into a near-panic. The bodies of at least two of the victims were found in their closets.

A fourth woman managed to fight off her attacker.

Police on Friday apprehended a suspect, 40-year-old Gary Sinegal, but the arrest only partially settled nerves.

“This has just about done me in,” said Eloise Townsend, 79, who lives two doors down from Gafford’s house. “It’s horrible. I can’t believe what has happened.”

Port Arthur, 90 miles east of Houston, is probably best known as the hometown of Janis Joplin. It’s a laid-back, industrial city of about 58,000 where doors are usually unlocked during the day, said resident Joyce Campbell. “That will change now,” Campbell said, standing behind her front door screen. “It will never be the same. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel completely safe here again.”

Campbell’s sister, Louise Tamplin, 81, was among those killed. Police tape was draped across Tamplin’s yard, where someone had left a rose wrapped in a sympathy note.

The first victim, 82-year-old Dorothy Barrett, was found Monday in her one-story stone house.

On Thursday, 60-year-old Brenda Choate was attacked in her home by a man she said kicked her in the chest and tried to strangle her. Choate fought him off using karate moves she learned years earlier, and called for help.

Later that day, Gafford’s body was found after a repairman -- concerned when she didn’t answer her door -- called police.

And on Thursday evening, police discovered the body of Tamplin. Her brother-in-law had called police when he entered her unlocked home and found a trail of blood in her living room.

Sinegal, who was released from prison in November after serving 21 years of a 60-year sentence for aggravated robbery, is being held on charges stemming from the Choate attack.

Choate identified Sinegal as her assailant but “he denies having anything to do with the murders,” Port Arthur Police Maj. Mark Blanton said. Gafford’s relatives said police told them Sinegal’s fingerprints matched the ones found at the woman’s house. “It looks like whoever did this picked the most vulnerable people,” Blanton said.

Pedaling a turquoise bicycle with an infant seat strapped to the back, Sinegal stuck out in the quiet neighborhood where Gafford and Tamplin lived, neighbors said.

“I saw him on that old-timey bike, just going around and around the block. Now I think he was casing the place, picking out a victim,” said Judy Badeaux, who lives near Tamplin’s house.

Police dogs picked up a scent at Tamplin’s house and followed it to Sinegal’s residence, where he was arrested. Police have not established a motive, and relatives of the victims said nothing was stolen from the homes.

“It was just mean, a mean, vicious mean thing to do for no reason at all,” said Badeaux, 63. But the killings won’t change how she feels about this leafy, usually tranquil, neighborhood, she said.

“You go anywhere and things like this happen,” Badeaux said. “You can’t escape it.”

Campbell, Tamplin’s sister, said they had discussed the killing of Barrett. “She was cautious but she wasn’t overly concerned,” Campbell recalled.

She clutched a scrap of paper scrawled with the address and time of her sister’s funeral. “Everything happened so fast. It doesn’t seem real yet,” she said.

Half a mile away, Gafford lived in the same house for decades, refusing to leave after her husband died in 2000. She frugally made do with a monthly pension check and mowed the lawn herself, insisting on remaining independent when her 60-year-old nephew, Robert Dunaway, repeatedly asked her to move closer to him.

On Thursday afternoon, a repairman removed Gafford’s failing air-conditioner from a window and took it back to his shop. It was an easy fix and he returned an hour later to reinstall it. When Gafford didn’t answer his knock, the repairman, aware of the attacks on women in the area, called police.

The following day, Dunaway wandered through his aunt’s home, his clothes streaked with black from accidentally brushing against the fingerprint powder. Like the rest of the town, he tried to come to terms with days of violence that passed in a blur, like a videotape on fast forward.

Here is her living room, he said, every piece of furniture and dried flower arrangement in place. “There was no struggle,” Dunaway said. “He just stomped on her chest until she died.” The wig Gafford wore in public remains where she left it -- on top of the stereo cabinet that her late husband built by hand. In her checkbook is a partially written check for the air-conditioning man.

Dunaway, his wife and daughter gathered in the cramped front room and reviewed what was left to do: Hire a cleaning service. Pack up Gafford’s belongings. Go to the mortuary. The family fell silent. The air-conditioner, wedged back in the window, was whirring noisily away.