On Christmas Eve of 1996, Norman and Brenda Norwood became worried about their 22-year-old niece, Wendie Prescott, a teaching assistant, when she failed to show-up for a planned shopping trip with her sister. Around 11:00 p.m., Norman went to Wendie's apartment, only to discover her naked body lying face down in a partially filled bathtub. Her neck, hands and feet were tied in duct tape, which trailed from her neck down behind her back to her hands and feet. The medical examiner believed that she had been bound in this fashion prior to death. The autopsy revealed that Wendie had been manually strangled, with the possibility that her immersion in the tub also played a role in her death. A sexual assault examination was conducted and sperm samples collected and preserved for DNA testing. Though investigators found a high-quality dust print at the apartment, initial comparisons yielded no matches. In 1999, DNA evidence from the murder was matched to evidence from a sexual assault at the University of Texas at Arlington and from a rape in Grand Prairie. In the summer of 2000, the print from Wendie's apartment was resubmitted to the FBI computer system, which, through the use of new technology, was able to narrow the list of possible matches. One of the matches scored over 2500 points, almost 1000 points more than the next highest score. A FBI analyst concluded the print found in Wendie's apartment matched the known print of Dale Devon Scheanette who had been arrested for a De Soto burglary in March, 1999. It was Scheanette's first arrest, so it was the first time he was fingerprinted and entered into the FBI database. After obtaining a search warrant, officers obtained saliva samples from Scheanette. DNA testing matched the DNA extracted from these samples to the DNA extracted from Wendie Prescott's corpse with a statistical certainty of one in 763 million.  At the punishment phase of Scheanette's trial, the State connected Scheanette to yet another capital murder, that of 26-year-old teacher, Christine Vu. Three months before Wendie's murder, Christine's body was found bound with duct tape, naked and in a half-filled bathtub in the same apartment complex that Wendie lived in, The Peartree Apartments. Scheanette lived in the same complex but moved out before Wendie's murder, had no criminal record and no connection to either victim, so he was not considered a suspect. The State also tied Scheanette to five brutal sexual assaults. The State also introduced evidence that, while incarcerated awaiting trial, jail guards found concealed in Scheanette's cell a contraband triangular piece of plexiglass that could have been used as a weapon. Finally, the State introduced evidence of a burglary conviction from 1999. During the punishment phase, various family members and a chaplain testified on Scheanette's behalf. In January 2003, a Texas jury deliberated for an hour and a half before they convicted Scheanette of capital murder and sentenced him to death for the murder of Wendie Prescott while in the course of committing or attempting to commit sexual assault on her.  Prosecutors began the punishment phase with testimony from women whom Scheanette is accused of raping. Authorities say DNA evidence links him to their assaults. One woman described how the sound of breathing in her Grand Prairie apartment in October 1999 awakened her. She testified that a man raped her at gunpoint. "I was pregnant," the woman testified. "I prayed for God not to forsake me." As her attacker was leaving, she asked him why he raped her. "He said, 'I don't know. I'm mad at the world,' " she testified. Another woman described a brutal rape at her Lancaster apartment in December 1998. The woman testified that she fought back, which enraged her attacker enough that he kicked down her bedroom door. Her 2-year-old son pleaded with the man, "Let my mom go!" as he slapped the man's legs, she testified. Scheanette also raped a police officer at her Lancaster apartment. The officer told jurors that she was in uniform at a gas station in 1995 or 1996 when Scheanette befriended her and said he lived in a nearby Lancaster apartment complex. She testified that the two spoke several times by phone over the next six months but never dated, because she "had a bad vibe." Scheanette often referred to himself as a "jack of all trades" during their conversations, she testified. In October 1998, as her attacker used her handcuffs to restrain her after he assaulted her, she asked him how he got into her apartment. "He said he was a 'jack of all trades,' " the woman testified. "When I heard that, I thought, 'Was that him?' " She later told authorities about the connection. Members of Christine's family said they were pleased with the guilty verdict. "The person responsible has been convicted," her brother, Hiep Vu, said. "We feel he is responsible for Christine's murder as well. We've waited six years for this." Thang Khuu waited six years to face the man accused of raping and killing his fiancée — Christine Vu, a third-grade teacher at Morton Elementary School in Arlington. "I want the guy to look me in the eye and to see what he did to me," said Khuu, who still carries a photo of Christine in his wallet. "I have waited to see someone go through a trial for this. The crime is unforgivable." Thang Khuu found Christine's body in their apartment, and was questioned as a possible suspect. He volunteered to provide hair and saliva samples for DNA testing and was cleared. At Morton Elementary School in Arlington, where Vu taught for several years, fellow teacher JoAnna Robbins still wonders why her friend was killed. Scheanette's arrest did not erase the pain but brought a sense of closure, Robbins said. This case was profiled on an episode of A&E's Cold Case Files.

Johnny Ray Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the March 27, 1995 capital murder of Leah Joette Smith during an aggravated sexual assault. The State presented evidence, including Johnson’s confession, that Johnson offered to give Joette Smith, who was addicted to crack cocaine, some crack cocaine in exchange for sex. After Joette smoked the crack, she refused to have sex with Johnson. He became angry and grabbed her, ripped her clothing off, and threw her to the ground. When she fought back with a wooden board, Johnson repeatedly struck her head against the cement curb. After he hit her head against the cement three or four times, she stopped fighting. He then sexually assaulted her. During the assault, Joette told Johnson that he had better enjoy it because she was going to file rape charges against him. Johnson confessed that he got very angry when she hit him with the board and that it was “like something in my head was just saying “‘KILL, KILL, KILL.’” After sexually assaulting Joette, Johnson stomped on her face five or six times. He walked away, but realized that he had left his wallet at the scene, so he returned. In his confession, he stated that when he saw Joette’s body face up and naked, he sexually assaulted her again and then picked up his wallet and her boots and left her there on the ground to die. Joette Smith sustained numerous severe injuries to her mouth, face, head, and neck: her teeth were knocked out, her tongue was displaced, both sides of her jaw bone were fractured, and she sustained scalp lacerations and a subdural hematoma. The medical examiner testified that Joette died as a result of swallowing her own blood that had accumulated in the back part of her throat when her jaw bones were fractured. He testified that the subdural hematoma also contributed to her death, but that she could have survived it had she received prompt medical attention. The medical examiner testified that Joette Smith did not die instantly, because it takes a while for the blood to accumulate in the back of the throat. The jury convicted Johnson for Joette Smith’s brutal murder. Then at the punishment phase, the jury heard the State’s evidence of Johnson’s extensive criminal history, beginning in 1975, including numerous other brutal sexual assaults and murders. Johnson’s niece Elizabeth testified that when she was eight or nine years old, Johnson asked her to walk to a store in Houston with him. As they were walking down a trail leading to the back of the store, Johnson knocked Elizabeth down, covered her mouth, pulled her pants to the side, and raped her. He threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone. In 1983, Johnson was convicted of sexual assault in Travis County and was sentenced to five years in prison. He confessed to raping numerous women in Houston and Austin after his release from prison. When he drove a cab, he stated that he would pick up prostitutes and take them out to the country, rape them, and leave them there, naked. Theresa Lewis testified that Johnson picked her up in his cab in 1986. She got into the backseat, but Johnson insisted that she sit in the front seat. When he asked her to have sex with him in exchange for $20, she refused and told him she was not a whore. This made him so angry that he pulled over, grabbed her by the neck and began choking her. When she fought back, he struck her in the face with his fist, and then raped her. He was convicted for that crime in 1987, and sentenced to five years in prison. Johnson then met Dora Ann Moseley, a prostitute, who became his wife. They moved to Austin in 1991 and had children together. Johnson once beat her so badly that he claims he would have killed her if the police had not been called. She filed a police report a couple of weeks later, after he beat her again. Johnson spent six months in jail for that beating. Johnson confessed that in the summer of 1994, he met a girl on 11th Street in Austin. They smoked crack and drank, and when she refused to have sex with him, he beat her. He said that she pulled out a razor and cut him on the left side of his neck and that he then bashed her head in and stomped on her. He then claimed that he took her head and gave himself oral sex before having “regular” sex with her. He left her dead body behind a drug store on 11th Street. Johnson confessed that he then raped a woman named Amy on top of a hill across from the Austin police station. He then raped a girl named Eva. When Eva tried to steal his crack cocaine, he grabbed her by the hair, smashed her head into a rock, and then raped her. He said that Eva ran away, yelling and screaming. Shortly before Christmas in 1994, Johnson confessed that he lured a girl into a graveyard in exchange for crack cocaine, and that he raped her three or four times and “slapped her around.” He returned to Houston at the end of December 1994. In February 1995, Johnson sexually assaulted Debra Jenkins, his brother’s common-law wife’s sister-in-law. She testified that he grabbed her by the throat, threw her onto a bed, and began choking her. He cut the crotch of her pajamas with a pair of scissors, and raped her twice. On March 27, 1995, a citizen found the badly decomposed body of a female in her thirties, face-down in a water-filled gully near some railroad tracks. The victim had sustained numerous lacerations on her face, as well as severe injuries to her mouth, and there was evidence of manual strangulation. Johnson confessed that he raped and killed this woman, whose identity had not been determined as of the time of Johnson’s trial. He said he met her at a crack house and offered her some crack cocaine in exchange for sex. She tried to leave after he refused to give her more crack until she had sex with him, so he grabbed her by the throat and hair and threw her to the ground. She grabbed a rock and hit him on the head and he became angry and banged her head on the railroad track. After she passed out, he sexually assaulted her, then dragged her to the gully and left her there. The jury also heard his confession that, three days later, he killed another woman. He said that he took her to a warehouse to smoke some crack cocaine. He became angry when she smoked his crack but refused to have sex with him, so he grabbed her by the neck and threw her down on the ground and sexually assaulted her while he choked her. He sexually assaulted her again later, and they smoked some more crack. When she jumped up, he caught her by the hair. When she kept fighting, he banged her head on the pavement until she became unconscious. The evidence of his brutal rapes and murders seemed endless. On April 28, 1995, the partially clothed body of a female was found underneath a highway overpass in Houston. She had sustained massive head injuries, including a fractured skull and cheekbone, and a large chunk of concrete with blood all over it was found near her head. The autopsy revealed that she died from a crushed head due to blunt trauma and asphyxia due to strangulation. The marking on her throat was consistent with someone placing his foot on her throat and stepping down. Johnson confessed that he killed this woman, who had not been identified as of the time of his trial. They smoked crack cocaine together and he became angry when she refused to have sex with him. She hit him with a wine bottle and he grabbed her and swung her down to the ground. He grabbed her neck and banged her head on a rock. After she quit fighting, he sexually assaulted her, then hit her head with a rock and left. Finally, Angela Morris testified that on May 5, 1995, Johnson grabbed her by the neck as she was walking down the street. He took her down a driveway, struck her, threatened to kill her, and raped her while holding a knife in his hand. He then tied her up with rags and left. The defense had ordered a mental health evaluation of Johnson, but decided not to use the testimony of the expert because it would have been "severely detrimental" to their case. The jury returned a recommendation of a death sentence after deliberating for only one hour and fifteen minutes.  Previously, Johnson had been sent to prison in May of 1978 after being convicted of burglary of a vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.  He was released on mandatory supervision in August of 1979 and finished his supervision in January 1981. In December of 1983, he was sent to prison again for a five year sentence on a sexual assault charge, and was released a year and a half later. In May of 1987, Johnson was again sentenced to 5 years on another sexual assault charge and released again on mandatory supervision only 10 months later.