Popular Posts

Monday, September 17, 2018

Why did a Texas sheriff murder his wife - or did he?

A lot of people in Junction in Kimble County, Texas still don't believe that Sheriff Hal Bynum brutally murdered his wife Connie then killed himself the following morning. The investigation was closed almost as quickly as it was opened and a lot of unanswered questions were left hanging. 

According to the official report of the Texas Rangers, on Saturday, May 28, 1994 at four-fifty in the morning a call came into the Kimble County Sheriff’s Office by a distraught husband reporting that he had found his wife dead from a heart attack. What was most unusual was that the caller was Hal Bynum, the sheriff himself. The dispatcher called Chief Deputy Mike Chapman at home. 

When Chapman arrived and asked his boss what had happened he got a rambling non-responsive answer. The sheriff explained, “We were having a good night. We had a few beers, we went walking, we had been arguing about Burkholder.” Burkholder was a pilot the sheriff thought his wife was having an affair with.

He continued, “I may have passed out in the bed. When i woke up she was gone and I found her at the dog pens.” The Bynums had Rottweilers. The sheriff added that Connie was naked and he thought that was degrading so he “drug her inside, placed her on the couch,” so first responders wouldn’t see that way. He added, “I knew she was dead, but I didn’t want to accept it, Mike.” 

The justice of the peace, Peggy Ragsdale, arrived and pronounced Connie Bynum  dead. Her body was taken to the local funeral home. There were already doubts that the  cause of death of the forty-three year old woman was a heart attack. Chapman knew that the couple had been having problems, and the sheriff had told him that they were arguing the night of their death. He also believed that as Bynum’s subordinate he was too close to the situation to investigate it. But when he told Bynum that and that he thought the Texas Rangers should be called in Bynum didn’t like that idea at all. Bynum finally acceded at the persuasion of a state trooper with the Highway Patrol, Delbert Roberts. 

                                                       Texas Ranger Clete Buckalew

Texas Rangers Clete Buckalew, Fred Cummings and Jim Denman responded to the call for assistance in the investigation. They arrived at the residence of the Kimble County District Attorney Ron Sutton at about 4:00 p.m. Sutton briefed them on what was known so far. He told them that Sheriff Bynum and his wife Connie lived in a trailer house located at the airport, which they oversaw or managed. During the last week of May Sheriff Bynum had become obsessed with an individual named Joe Burkholder, who was a pilot and had an affair with Connie three years earlier. Bynum had admitted to Sutton that he and Connie had argued briefly over the Burkholder affair prior to his finding his wife dead in the backyard next to the dog pens. Sutton further advised that Bynum stated that, not able to let medical and law enforcement personnel view his wife’s dead and naked body out in the open, had dragged her into the trailer house and laid her on the couch. This was done prior to law enforcement and medical personnel being contacted. 

About 4:30, Trooper Roberts and Mike Chapman arrived at Sutton’s, and Chapman related what Bynum had told him about finding his wife naked and dead at the dog pens and dragging her body into the house. Buckalew’s report doesn’t say if anyone asked Bynum why he didn’t just cover her with a sheet. 

Around 5:10 p.m. the three Rangers met justice of the peace Peggy Ragsdale at the funeral home in Junction to view Connie’s body on which they noted numerous injuries. “The following were noted, but in themselves are not the complete list of notable injuries: 

  1. What appeared to be a recent bite mark on Connie Bynum’s left breast across the area of the nipple. 
  2. Red markings on both wrists which were consistent with some type of ligature restraint possibly.
  3. Bruising ... that extended from the ankle area all the way up to the vaginal area.
  4. what appeared to be a carpet burn in the middle of her back....

Buckalew noted that they were also aware that Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia of the Bexar County Forensic Science Center had located a stab wound in the upper wall of the vagina that proceeded into the intestine. According to Garavaglia, this stab wound covered a total of approximately five inches with as much as three inches protruding into the intestine. 

The records are not clear as to how the body was transported to the medical examiner in San Antonio, autopsied and returned to Junction all in less than a day. In any event, it was plain to see that Connie Bynum had not died of natural causes. The Rangers reported their observations of injuires and trauma to Garavaglia, who had somehow missed seeing them. She requested the body be returned to her for further inspection. 


Coming up in Part 2 - Sheriff Bynum’s Interrogation

No comments:

Post a Comment