Houston police have an especially gruesome double murder on their hands this evening. The victims, a young couple who went out on a date and never came home.  35 years and 8 months passed between the night Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson disappeared. In the morning,  their killer’s name was said out loud in a Houston police station.

During that  time, their families held press conferences, visited graves, and kept calling detectives long after most people would have stopped. A rape kit collected in 1990 stayed in  evidence. Another kit collected in 1996 went untested for 30 years. Tips came and went. Suspects were cleared.

 Then in 2026, one tip and an old DNA profile changed everything. This is how a cold case that refused  to stay closed finally ended. Cheryl Lynn Henry was born on October 24th,    1967 in Florida. Her mother, Barbara Ann Phillip, later known as Barbara Craig, raised her  and her three siblings in a close family.

When Cheryl was young, the family moved to the Mission Bend neighborhood  of West Houston. Childhood friends remembered her as very outgoing and well-liked by everyone. As a teenager, she rode the school bus, sitting with friends at the back, playing 80s music from a boom box, and singing loudly.

 She always had a smile on her face.  She went to local public schools in Harris County, spent time away at college, and came home for summer breaks. In the summer of 1990,    she worked at an eye doctor’s clinic and loved the job with a seriousness that made her family proud. She had just been hired full-time.

 Her younger sister, Shane, was especially close to her. They had put a deposit down on an apartment together and were excitedly picking out furniture with their mother’s help. Life felt full of chances and excitement. They were just starting. Everything seemed  possible. Andy Atkinson, born Garland Andrew  Atkinson in 1968, grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

 He was named after his father,    Garland Wade Atkinson, and had a very close, supportive relationship with him. After his parents divorced, he split time between homes, but stayed part of a close, extended family. Relatives gathered on the big front porch of the family home. Cars drove up and down the road, and people waved or stopped to visit.

Andy was very handsome, with bright green eyes and a memorable smile. He had a magnetic personality that  drew people in right away. He had a bit of a mischievous side that girls liked, but he was also a kind person with real intelligence. He loved swinging on a rope over a river, any outdoor activity, and being in the water.

He was a country boy, a dirt road kid.  After high school, he took a few classes at Campbell University nearby and worked odd jobs while figuring out his life. He dreamed of starting a modeling career in fashion  and commercials. After breaking up with a young woman named Vanessa, who had moved to Florida, he decided he needed  a change.

Against his mother, Ann Fowler’s wishes, he moved to Houston. He found work at Gold’s Gym and quickly  made friends. In early summer 1990, he met Cheryl through mutual friends at the gym. They connected right away. Shane later said  Cheryl thought Andy was amazing inside and out. He had a great smile, but his mind was wonderful, too.

By late August, they had been officially dating for only a few weeks, but both families could see they were deeply in love. Andy treated Cheryl with great respect. Cheryl was bubbly  and full of laughter. Andy was focused, smart, and fiercely protective. They balanced each  other perfectly. On the evening of August 22nd, 1990, Cheryl, Shane, and Andy met  at Bayou Mama’s on Westheimer Road at South Gessner in West Houston.

The plan had originally included Cheryl’s friend Gretchen Schupp and her boyfriend Craig, but the other couple decided to stay home at the last minute. Shane came along as the third wheel. They arrived around 8:00 or 9:00 when the club opened. By 11:30,    Shane was tired and went home, expecting Cheryl and Andy to go to Gretchen’s apartment later.

That same night, across the country in North Carolina, Andy’s mother Ann sat on  the back porch of a friend’s beach house. She breathed in the salty air and felt a strange feeling. She thought about Andy and decided she had to get him away from Houston. She planned to call him the next morning and try to convince him to come to Wilmington.

She never got that chance. Five weeks earlier, on July 9th, 1990, a 28-year-old man living and working about 1  mile from the Enclave Parkway dead end had been arrested twice for pretending to be a public official. He claimed to be a deputy constable for Harris County Precincts  4 and 5. He posted bond and was released.

On August 30th, 1 week after the murders, he went to court and pleaded guilty to those charges. At the time, no one linked the timing or the way he  pretended to be an officer to what happened on Enclave Parkway. The area was known locally as a lover’s lane. Young couples parked there for privacy. It was mostly empty except for a few  businesses.

It was normal to see cars there on weeknights. One detail about that reputation would later matter. Sheryl was supposed to carpool  to the eye clinic on the morning of August 23rd. She never showed up. Shane called friends.    No one had seen her or Andy. By lunchtime, Shane filed a missing person report with Houston police.

She still thought it  was just a precaution. Sheryl was too responsible to disappear. She had just started a job she loved.    Friends thought the couple might have taken a risk and gone on an adventure, maybe to the beach. Around lunchtime, a security guard at a nearby office saw a white Honda Civic  parked near the dead end.

He checked again 3 hours later. The car had not moved. He called the police. Officers ran the license plate  and saw it match the missing person report filed that morning. They found Sheryl’s purse, her shoes, and blood on the inside door handle. The driver seat was reclined.    The sun visor on the passenger side had been pulled loose as if someone had grabbed it hard to stay inside the car.

Sheryl’s family reached the scene before the tracking dogs arrived.    Barbara, Shane, and Robert Henry stood in the heat while officers searched the woods.  When the dogs found something, they went crazy. Officers had to physically restrain Barbara when she tried to run toward the spot.

 They told the family they were pretty sure they had found Sheryl. She was underneath a pile of wooden boards, roughly 100 to 200 yards from the car. The next morning, August 25th, searchers located Andy. He had been tied to  a tree. His throat had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. For a few terrible hours, detectives  had considered the possibility that Andy had killed Sheryl.

The discovery of his body ended that  theory forever. Investigators believed one person had attacked the couple at the quiet spot. Andy had been tied up and forced to  watch Cheryl’s assault. Deep cuts to the neck had killed both. Cheryl’s body had been stripped, tied up, and hidden under boards.

Near her,  searchers found golf clubs and golf balls taken from the trunk of Andy’s Honda. The clubs were  arranged to point toward where her body lay. A $20 bill was left  nearby. The killer had used items from the victim’s own car to  mark the spot of the second body.

 The wounds were personal. They were beyond  anything animal-like. They were something only a human could do. One detail in the first report that no one could explain then was the  exact arrangement of the golf clubs and the placement of the $20 bill. Cheryl’s family fought from the start  to keep her memory from being only about the violence of her death.

They told anyone who would listen that she was kind, loving,    and full of life. She brought love and light into every room she entered. Andy’s family described a sweet, good-hearted young man with a mischievous side whom the girls loved, and a curious  mind that made him stand out. His cousin Tim Godwin remembered him as the popular kid who made everything look easy.

 The one who could swing on a rope over a river and swim like a fish. Both families refused  to let crime scene photos be the only story told about their children. A widespread rumor said Cheryl had worked as a dancer at a Houston strip club. Her brother Chris clearly corrected that. She worked at an eye doctor’s clinic that summer while home from school.

She loved that job. The family protected her identity strongly so she would be remembered as a person, not  just a true crime statistic. Detective Billy Bell led the Houston Police Department homicide investigation from the start. In the first weeks and months,    his team followed dozens of leads.

Suspects were found, interviewed, and cleared by alibis, physical  evidence, or later by DNA. One early idea was that more than one person must have been involved  because controlling two victims seemed hard for one attacker. That idea was checked carefully  and did not hold up. Tips kept coming over the years.

 In 2001, a letter arrived at the department  offering to solve the case for $100,000. The handwriting was unique. The capital letter  A was open at the top. Detectives kept the letter for years before telling the families. It led nowhere. In 2007,  17 years after the murders, a big forensic breakthrough  happened.

DNA taken from Cheryl’s rape kit was entered into the national CODIS database. It matched perfectly to an unsolved sexual assault that happened on Terracotta Drive in Northwest Houston in June 1990,  just 2 months before the double murder. The June rape victim said her attacker wore stockings over his face.

Detectives made a composite  sketch and shared it widely through local media. For a short time, hope grew. The DNA showed the same unknown man had done both  the June rape and the August double murder. But the profile had no name attached. The sketch gave no solid leads.

 Family members looked at the drawing many times. It did not bring any recognition.  The case went cold again. Eric Hanson, the Houston Chronicle crime reporter who covered the case from the start, later said  everyone had expected the crime to be solved quickly. With two victims and clear violence, someone should have talked, but the tips stopped.

No co-worker, friend, or family member of the attacker ever came forward. That silence wore people down over the decades. Shane Craig never stopped calling the Houston Police Department. Even after the original detectives retired or died, she kept reaching  out to the cold case team. She asked what was new.

She was told they were doing all they could. She kept calling anyway. Barbara Craig wore Cheryl’s ring and watched every day for the rest of her life. She could not let go of the physical connection  to her daughter. She believed that if the police had let her reach Cheryl’s body that first day,    she might have revived her.

Garland Atkinson, Andy’s father, spent the next 34 years fighting for his only son. He worked with groups like Citizens  Against Homicide to raise money, spread awareness, and keep pressure on investigators. On the 10th anniversary in 2000, the families gathered again  for a news conference at Houston Crime Stoppers headquarters, asking anyone with information to come forward.

In 2007,  when the DNA match came, Garland got the call in North Carolina. For a moment, he thought they finally had the man. The hope did not last. Tim Godwin and his wife Angela got more involved in later years. In 2020, they joined calls with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office because investigators  felt they were close.

Those hopes also faded. Ann Fowler, Andy’s mother,  never got a single phone call from Houston police in all those years. She lived with the knowledge that her gut had told her to bring Andy home  the very night he was killed. Before the breakthrough came in 2026,    there were decades when the only people still pushing the case forward were those who had lost the most.

Shane Craig kept reaching for the phone year after year. Barbara Craig kept putting her daughter’s ring and watch on her wrist every morning.    Garland Atkinson kept going to meetings and speaking up for his son. In that long silence, the case file never really closed because the families of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson would not let the story end without answers.

The years passed in specific  increments that the families could mark on calendars and in their bones. In 2000, on the 10th anniversary,    the families stood together in front of cameras once more and asked the public not to forget. In 2007,  the DNA match to the June rape raised hopes that were quietly dashed when no name emerged  and the composite sketch led nowhere.

In 2010, the case entered its  third decade. Detectives retired, new ones inherited the boxes of evidence and statements. Shane still picked up the phone and asked what,  if anything, was new. She was told they were doing the best they could. She kept calling. In 2024, Garland Atkinson passed away.

He had fought for answers about his only child  until the end. Late in 2025 or early in 2026,  Barbara Craig passed away. She had worn her daughter’s ring and watch every single day for 35 years. She missed the identification  of the killer by only a few months. Even now, the case file remains in storage in Houston.

Detectives in Texas, Louisiana, and Nebraska  continue to compare Floyd William Parrott’s DNA profile to evidence from unsolved sexual  assaults and homicides from the late 1980s through the 2000s. The questions that began on Enclave Parkway    did not end with one case. The pain in the heart never quite goes away.

In 2026, a  precise tip named 64-year-old Floyd William Parrott. Detectives reviewed his background with new attention. He had been 28 years old in August of 1990  and had lived and worked roughly 1 mile from the Enclave Parkway cul-de-sac. He knew the area and its reputation  as a place where young couples parked for privacy.

Court records showed a long pattern of impersonating law enforcement officers. In May of 1988, he had been arrested in Harris County for posing as a sergeant with the US Department of Defense. He was driving a vehicle equipped with active emergency lights and sirens. He received probation, violated the terms,  and served 9 months in jail.

Court orders explicitly barred him from possessing firearms or wearing military uniforms. In July of 1990, 5 weeks before the murders,  he was arrested again on two counts of impersonating a public servant claiming  to be a deputy constable for Harris County Precincts 4 and 5.    He posted bond and was released.

On August 30th, 1 week after Cheryl and Andy were killed, he walked into a courtroom  and pleaded guilty to the July charges. He was sentenced to 2 years. In 1996, after his release from that sentence,    he staged a fake traffic stop for expired plates, attempted to extort $100 from the driver, and was found in  possession of counterfeit driver’s licenses featuring his photo under different names, light bars,    police radios, and official badges for local law enforcement agencies and the

US Marshals. He was also arrested that year  for the sexual assault of an exotic dancer. A grand jury declined to indict him after he claimed the encounter was  consensual. Police had processed a rape kit and collected his DNA sample. Due to severe backlog and administrative oversight, that kit sat  untested in a Houston Police Department evidence room for 30 years.

When detectives  finally located and processed it in 2026, the DNA profile matched the 1990 crime scene profile from Cheryl Henry’s rape kit and the June  1990 Terracotta Drive rape with exact certainty. The national database known as CODIS  allows laboratories across the country to compare DNA profiles recovered from different crime scenes and from convicted  offenders.

When two profiles match, the same individual left the biological material  at both locations. In this case, the match was flawless across multiple markers. The tip had given investigators  a name to investigate. The 30-year-old unprocessed kit had given them scientific confirmation that could not be explained away.

Each step of the narrowing carried its own weight. The proximity to the scene, the history of impersonation aligned with the long-held FBI profile    suggesting the killer had used a badge, handcuffs, and a revolver to catch the couple off guard. The exact DNA match from the old kit, Floyd William Parrott had been free for 35 years and 8 months.

On March 25th, 2026, Houston Police and the FBI  arrested Floyd William Parrott at his residence in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was 64 years old. He faced capital murder charges for the deaths of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson. While lodged at the Lancaster County Jail  awaiting extradition to Texas, he died by suicide on April 28th.

Correctional officers  found him unresponsive during a routine morning check. The capital murder  case ended with his death. Investigators have refused to close the file on Floyd William Parrott. Because of his documented history of impersonating  police officers and his nomadic movements through Texas,  Louisiana, and the Midwest, agencies in multiple states are actively comparing his DNA profile to evidence  from other unresolved sexual assaults and homicides from the late 1980s through

the 2000s. When the arrest was announced,    Shane released a public statement on behalf of the family. “Our sister was taken from our family in a way that no one should ever experience. She was more than a victim in a headline. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a person who brought much love and light into our lives.

” The news arrived too late for the two people who had fought the longest.    Garland Atkinson had passed away in 2024. Barbara Craig had passed away only months before the identification. They had carried their children’s memories every single day for 35 years. They did not live to hear the name spoken aloud.

35 years after Cheryl failed  to show up for the job she loved, her family finally had the name of the man who took her life. Andy’s family, who had buried their bright, green-eyed son, and then his father beside him in the family cemetery a minute’s walk from the porch where he grew up, received the same answer.

The ordinary details  that defined them before that August night remained untouched by time or violence. Cheryl still rides the school bus in memory,    sitting at the back with friends, blasting 80s tunes from a boombox, and singing along with that contagious laugh. Andy still  swings on the rope over the river.

 The country boy who loved the water and made everything look easy. The one with the piercing green eyes and  the smile that drew people in. Barbara still wears the ring and watch that connected her to her daughter every single day of her life. Ann Fowler still thinks  about the beach house porch and the premonition she had the night before.

And about how  she never wanted it to get dark ever again after the news came. These are the things the  killer could not touch. The man who ended his life in a Nebraska jail cell  could not erase them from the memories of the people who loved them. How many other evidence rooms across the country    still hold untested rape kits and sexual assault kits that could name  a killer if someone finally opened them and processed the DNA.

How many families are still waiting for a phone call  or a knock on the door that may never come? Because communication between investigators and loved ones    remains inconsistent even decades later. How many predators with histories of  impersonating authority figures continue to move between states because old DNA profiles  sit unexamined in storage rooms for 30 years or more? The file on Floyd William Parrott remains open  in Houston and in other jurisdictions.

The families of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson still keep watch. The ordinary  details of two bright young lives continue to outlast the silence that once surrounded their deaths. When you learn that the killer  had taken golf clubs and a $20 bill from Andy Atkinson’s own car and arrange them near Cheryl Henry’s body, did that one  deliberate detail change how you understood the person responsible? If this case stayed with you, if you believe these stories deserve to be told with care, Subscribe and hit the like

button. Every other day  we go back into the cold case files to bring back the names that time tried to forget. We go back  for them.