Teen survived taunts but couldn't escape slayer
By Barry Shlachter
June 1987
BECKVILLE, Texas -- For 12 years. they cruelly teased the short, stocky girl with thick eyeglasses, calling her "retardo" and "midget."
Once when she walked into class, a boy coaxed peals of laughter from fellow students by imitating the deep voice of a familiar TV commercials: "Hefty. Hefty. HEFTY!"
No one is taunting Theresa Ann Downing now. The 18-year-old's battered, half-clothed body was discovered the day after she graduated from Beckville High.
Downing came from a poor background and was raised by an ailing, widowed mother. She was a social outcast who strove to be accepted in this small East Texas town of 945. A friend, Angela Lovil, said Downing would laugh along with the barbs, then break down later in private and cry.
"A bunch of seniors got together and bought her an over-sized corsage of mums as a joke, but she wore it proudly," Lovil said.
The young woman received no invitations to any of the graduation parties thrown by her classmates. But she pleaded with her sister Marcell to drive her to one open to all of Beckville's 33 seniors at the home of David Daniels, father of one of Theresa's classmates.
Held May 19, it proved to be her last outing.
There was music, a pool, two kegs of beer, a bottle of whiskey and videotapes -- including one called Faces of Death that depicted or realistically portrayed executions and acts of cannibalism.
"When a guy gets blowed away he gets blowed away," Constable J.D. "Snoot" McGuire said of the grisly documentary. "When a guy is fried in the electric chair, he's fried."
Downing drank some beer, apparently for the first time in her life, and disappeared outside after leaving behind her eyeglasses, without which she could not see, party goers and investigators said.
Her body was found the next day near a cemetery fence.
Downing had been beaten and smothered a few hundred feet from the Danielses' house, the Panola County Sheriff's Department said. If she screamed, no one heard her above the stereo's din.
Even more surprising, none of the 17 chaperones became suspicious when classmate David E. Metcalf returned to the party about 1:30 a.m. with his arms, hands, shirt and face spattered with blood.
Accepted at face value was his story that he had been picking plums in the middle of the night when a black farmer, out plowing a field with a mule, chased him into a briar patch.
One adult took him to a sink and washed off the blood. The party continued until nearly 3 a.m. although a reserve deputy, David Jeter, had ordered the party be closed down at 12:30 a.m. when he saw minors drinking alcohol.
The parents, realizing few celebrating grads would attend an alcohol-free weenie roast, had decided to allow beer and keep the party well-chaperoned, said several residents, who were aware of the whiskey. In this way, they reasoned, the kids would be safer than off drinking on their own.
Metcalf, 19, a chunky but athletic youth -- who, like Downing, was reared by a widowed mother -- turned himself in to the sheriff's department after the body was spotted on the afternoon of May 30 and made a statement about the killing, Chief Deputy Jack Ellett said.
Metcalf told interrogators in nearby Carthage that he had beaten Downing and then put his hand over her face to muffle her cries, McGuire said. Charged with murder, he was released on a $75,000 bond.
Forensic tests, with results due today or tomorrow, will determine whether Downing was sexually assaulted.
The sheriff's department is tracing the purchase of the beer and whiskey, and charged may be filed against the host family for allowing alcohol to be served, McGuire said.
Grief now hangs heavy over Beckville.
Violent crime is the sort of thing people read about happening in a Houston or a Dallas, said the Rev. Richard Eifert, a Methodist minister. The last timer residents felt such collective anguish was four years ago, when a Beckville youth died two weeks after graduating while on a job in Kansas.
"There's great sorrow, shock, disbelief," said Edgar Blitch, 51, the high school principal.
Many of the residents knew both youths, he said.
"She was always a sweet, jolly kind of person," Beckville native Frank Allums, 35, said of Downing. "And I've known David Metcalf since he was an itty bitty baby in diapers. I've never known him to get mad."
Beckville, says a sign on the road from Longview 27 miles to the north, is a town of "good school,s good churches, good people."
It is the kind of close-knit community where front doors seldom are locked, where schoolgirls ride their ponies through the center of town. Black Angus and white egrets laze in fields dotted with tall pine. A grocery store bears the name of the high school mascot, the bearcat.
This spring, Beckville -- whose economy rests on cattle ranching and strip mining -- became the sort of town that raised scholarship money for every one of its 33 high graduates.
Downing told her mother she wanted to use hers to study computer programming at the county junior college; Metcalf had intended to take a welding course there.
Now, its residents have gotten together once again, this time to raise money to defray Downing's funeral and burial costs.
While Downing was not popular with classmates, she was appreciated by neighbors and members of the Grand Bluff Baptist Church.
"She'd do anything for anybody," recalled LaWanda Heard, who lives ext door to the Downings. "She watched my kids for me. At the church, she was the one who always worked hard in the money-raising car washes, the bake sales."
Lovil, her childhood friend, said Downing would stand in line at the school cafeteria to a get a tray of food for a crippled student.
"Then she would wait in line all over again for her own lunch," Lovil said. "The others wouldn't let her cut in, you know."
When she graduated, Downing's remedial English teacher Katherine Searcy gave her a present of $10.
"She took the money and bought $8 worth of flowers for Mrs. Searcy," said her mother, Mirle Downing, 61. "That's the kind of person she was.
"Another graduation present was note paper. She took a piece, wrote, 'I love you Mom,' then scooted it across the table to me. It's on my refrigerator door right now," said the woman, her voice cracking in mid-sentence, tears streaking her face.
"I am a Christian. If I knew booze was going to be at the party, I would not have let her go."
Mirle Downing was Theresa's grandmother until the girl's father died and hr mother ran off when she was 6 months old. Theresa was later adopted by the widowed grandmother, disabled since 1979 with a heart condition.
During her childhood, Theresa Downing lost her peripheral vision and was declared legally blind. But her sight was partially restored.
Daubing her eyes, Mirle Downing pointed to a sweet gum tree and changed the subject for a moment's relief from her sorrows.
"We used to take the sap when we were children, mix it with the juice of stretch berries and chew it like bubble gum."
The woman recounted the joy of the graduation, the night of searching for her daughter, the discovery and the unraveling of the slaying. Her Baptist minister had helped comb the town, then comforted the grieving family, she said.
"The other kids just didn't want to associate with her," Mirle Downing said. "I'm a poor person. Theresa had to wear hand-me-downs. And you know how cruel people are. David Metcalf also was in special education, but he played football, so they built him up, accepted him.
"At my church, I had a special prayer said for him and his family."
One resident said Downing's death had left the town shaken and scared.
"Children are afraid to sleep alone," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "One woman said she got chills down her back when she drove past Landley Cemetery" near where Downing was killed.
Lovil said, "I sleep with a knife in my bed. We're scared to death."
Many in Beckville used words similar to those of the Methodist clergyman, Eifert, who said two lives were destroyed in the tragedy. Few said they thought a youth like Metcalf was capable of so despicable a crime.
"You'll never make me believe David did this," said Janis Travis, manager of Bearcat Groceries. "He's not that kind of kid."
Blitch, the principal, said: "I respected David Metcalf. He always seemed considerate, hard working. When a student was injured in an accident in the gym, David was extremely concerned. He was outstanding ag student two years in a row."
Bristling over reports that described both Downing and Metcalf as special education students, Blitch said: "They were not drooling, blithering idiots. David had trouble reading. He made up for the handicap in many ways. Theresa was in remedial English."
Metcalf, who never had been in trouble with the law before and had lettered in three sports during high school, was unavailable for comment. Neighbors said he was staying with relatives in Lufkin. His mother, Dean Metcalf, a security guard at a local company, who volunteered as scorekeeper at high school baseball games, did not answer her telephone.
Not all in Beckville are charitable toward David Metcalf.
"What blows my mind is the attitude of the people of this town," said Katie Lovil, mother of Angela and a tool keeper at the same firm where David's mother works. "They want mercy for David. One teacher said, 'He just had too much to drink.' "
And while many now mourn Downing, long an object of ridicule, one resident has been quoted widely in the small down as asking why the sheriff's department was "trying so hard over a nobody."
(c) copyright Fort Worth Star-Telegram
June 1987
BECKVILLE, Texas -- For 12 years. they cruelly teased the short, stocky girl with thick eyeglasses, calling her "retardo" and "midget."
Once when she walked into class, a boy coaxed peals of laughter from fellow students by imitating the deep voice of a familiar TV commercials: "Hefty. Hefty. HEFTY!"
No one is taunting Theresa Ann Downing now. The 18-year-old's battered, half-clothed body was discovered the day after she graduated from Beckville High.
Downing came from a poor background and was raised by an ailing, widowed mother. She was a social outcast who strove to be accepted in this small East Texas town of 945. A friend, Angela Lovil, said Downing would laugh along with the barbs, then break down later in private and cry.
"A bunch of seniors got together and bought her an over-sized corsage of mums as a joke, but she wore it proudly," Lovil said.
The young woman received no invitations to any of the graduation parties thrown by her classmates. But she pleaded with her sister Marcell to drive her to one open to all of Beckville's 33 seniors at the home of David Daniels, father of one of Theresa's classmates.
Held May 19, it proved to be her last outing.
There was music, a pool, two kegs of beer, a bottle of whiskey and videotapes -- including one called Faces of Death that depicted or realistically portrayed executions and acts of cannibalism.
"When a guy gets blowed away he gets blowed away," Constable J.D. "Snoot" McGuire said of the grisly documentary. "When a guy is fried in the electric chair, he's fried."
Downing drank some beer, apparently for the first time in her life, and disappeared outside after leaving behind her eyeglasses, without which she could not see, party goers and investigators said.
Her body was found the next day near a cemetery fence.
Downing had been beaten and smothered a few hundred feet from the Danielses' house, the Panola County Sheriff's Department said. If she screamed, no one heard her above the stereo's din.
Even more surprising, none of the 17 chaperones became suspicious when classmate David E. Metcalf returned to the party about 1:30 a.m. with his arms, hands, shirt and face spattered with blood.
Accepted at face value was his story that he had been picking plums in the middle of the night when a black farmer, out plowing a field with a mule, chased him into a briar patch.
One adult took him to a sink and washed off the blood. The party continued until nearly 3 a.m. although a reserve deputy, David Jeter, had ordered the party be closed down at 12:30 a.m. when he saw minors drinking alcohol.
The parents, realizing few celebrating grads would attend an alcohol-free weenie roast, had decided to allow beer and keep the party well-chaperoned, said several residents, who were aware of the whiskey. In this way, they reasoned, the kids would be safer than off drinking on their own.
Metcalf, 19, a chunky but athletic youth -- who, like Downing, was reared by a widowed mother -- turned himself in to the sheriff's department after the body was spotted on the afternoon of May 30 and made a statement about the killing, Chief Deputy Jack Ellett said.
Metcalf told interrogators in nearby Carthage that he had beaten Downing and then put his hand over her face to muffle her cries, McGuire said. Charged with murder, he was released on a $75,000 bond.
Forensic tests, with results due today or tomorrow, will determine whether Downing was sexually assaulted.
The sheriff's department is tracing the purchase of the beer and whiskey, and charged may be filed against the host family for allowing alcohol to be served, McGuire said.
Grief now hangs heavy over Beckville.
Violent crime is the sort of thing people read about happening in a Houston or a Dallas, said the Rev. Richard Eifert, a Methodist minister. The last timer residents felt such collective anguish was four years ago, when a Beckville youth died two weeks after graduating while on a job in Kansas.
"There's great sorrow, shock, disbelief," said Edgar Blitch, 51, the high school principal.
Many of the residents knew both youths, he said.
"She was always a sweet, jolly kind of person," Beckville native Frank Allums, 35, said of Downing. "And I've known David Metcalf since he was an itty bitty baby in diapers. I've never known him to get mad."
Beckville, says a sign on the road from Longview 27 miles to the north, is a town of "good school,s good churches, good people."
It is the kind of close-knit community where front doors seldom are locked, where schoolgirls ride their ponies through the center of town. Black Angus and white egrets laze in fields dotted with tall pine. A grocery store bears the name of the high school mascot, the bearcat.
This spring, Beckville -- whose economy rests on cattle ranching and strip mining -- became the sort of town that raised scholarship money for every one of its 33 high graduates.
Downing told her mother she wanted to use hers to study computer programming at the county junior college; Metcalf had intended to take a welding course there.
Now, its residents have gotten together once again, this time to raise money to defray Downing's funeral and burial costs.
While Downing was not popular with classmates, she was appreciated by neighbors and members of the Grand Bluff Baptist Church.
"She'd do anything for anybody," recalled LaWanda Heard, who lives ext door to the Downings. "She watched my kids for me. At the church, she was the one who always worked hard in the money-raising car washes, the bake sales."
Lovil, her childhood friend, said Downing would stand in line at the school cafeteria to a get a tray of food for a crippled student.
"Then she would wait in line all over again for her own lunch," Lovil said. "The others wouldn't let her cut in, you know."
When she graduated, Downing's remedial English teacher Katherine Searcy gave her a present of $10.
"She took the money and bought $8 worth of flowers for Mrs. Searcy," said her mother, Mirle Downing, 61. "That's the kind of person she was.
"Another graduation present was note paper. She took a piece, wrote, 'I love you Mom,' then scooted it across the table to me. It's on my refrigerator door right now," said the woman, her voice cracking in mid-sentence, tears streaking her face.
"I am a Christian. If I knew booze was going to be at the party, I would not have let her go."
Mirle Downing was Theresa's grandmother until the girl's father died and hr mother ran off when she was 6 months old. Theresa was later adopted by the widowed grandmother, disabled since 1979 with a heart condition.
During her childhood, Theresa Downing lost her peripheral vision and was declared legally blind. But her sight was partially restored.
Daubing her eyes, Mirle Downing pointed to a sweet gum tree and changed the subject for a moment's relief from her sorrows.
"We used to take the sap when we were children, mix it with the juice of stretch berries and chew it like bubble gum."
The woman recounted the joy of the graduation, the night of searching for her daughter, the discovery and the unraveling of the slaying. Her Baptist minister had helped comb the town, then comforted the grieving family, she said.
"The other kids just didn't want to associate with her," Mirle Downing said. "I'm a poor person. Theresa had to wear hand-me-downs. And you know how cruel people are. David Metcalf also was in special education, but he played football, so they built him up, accepted him.
"At my church, I had a special prayer said for him and his family."
One resident said Downing's death had left the town shaken and scared.
"Children are afraid to sleep alone," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "One woman said she got chills down her back when she drove past Landley Cemetery" near where Downing was killed.
Lovil said, "I sleep with a knife in my bed. We're scared to death."
Many in Beckville used words similar to those of the Methodist clergyman, Eifert, who said two lives were destroyed in the tragedy. Few said they thought a youth like Metcalf was capable of so despicable a crime.
"You'll never make me believe David did this," said Janis Travis, manager of Bearcat Groceries. "He's not that kind of kid."
Blitch, the principal, said: "I respected David Metcalf. He always seemed considerate, hard working. When a student was injured in an accident in the gym, David was extremely concerned. He was outstanding ag student two years in a row."
Bristling over reports that described both Downing and Metcalf as special education students, Blitch said: "They were not drooling, blithering idiots. David had trouble reading. He made up for the handicap in many ways. Theresa was in remedial English."
Metcalf, who never had been in trouble with the law before and had lettered in three sports during high school, was unavailable for comment. Neighbors said he was staying with relatives in Lufkin. His mother, Dean Metcalf, a security guard at a local company, who volunteered as scorekeeper at high school baseball games, did not answer her telephone.
Not all in Beckville are charitable toward David Metcalf.
"What blows my mind is the attitude of the people of this town," said Katie Lovil, mother of Angela and a tool keeper at the same firm where David's mother works. "They want mercy for David. One teacher said, 'He just had too much to drink.' "
And while many now mourn Downing, long an object of ridicule, one resident has been quoted widely in the small down as asking why the sheriff's department was "trying so hard over a nobody."
(c) copyright Fort Worth Star-Telegram
