The Note That Knew Too Much - Episode 35

The Promise He Had No Right to Make: The Triple Murder of Kenneth Franks, Jill Montgomery, and Raylene Rice

Three teenagers were found stabbed to death in a remote Waco park, and the lead detective wasn't even assigned to the case. Before the crime scene was secured — before the autopsies, before the suspects, before any evidence was processed — one man knelt over a seventeen-year-old girl's body and made a promise. That promise would either deliver justice or destroy four lives. The forensic science and the witness testimony still pull in opposite directions.

In this episode, we explore a $20,000 insurance policy taken out on the wrong girl just weeks before the murders, bite mark evidence matched to a convicted man who never directly confessed, and a gold bracelet found buried under leaves two years after the crime — suspiciously clean for something that had been sitting in a Texas field. Was this a targeted killing gone wrong by mistaken identity, or did one detective's personal oath lead investigators to the wrong men entirely?

Case Details

Victim: Kenneth Franks, 18, Waco resident; Jill Montgomery, 17, student from Waxahachie; Raylene Rice, 17, student from Waxahachie.

Date: Night of July 13–14, 1982.

Location: Spiegelville Park / Caney Creek Park, Lake Waco area, Waco, Texas, USA.

Case Status: David Spence and Munir Deeb were convicted and sentenced to death. Spence was executed in 1997. Deeb's conviction was later overturned. Gilbert and Tony Melendez accepted plea deals and received life sentences. The question of actual guilt remains actively disputed by attorneys, journalists, and forensic experts.

Episode Key Points

- Jill Montgomery was carrying a pocket knife for "protection" in the days before the murder — and told a friend exactly that, without ever explaining what she was afraid of.

- The lead investigator, Sergeant Truman Simons, was not assigned to the case and had no official jurisdiction when he knelt over Jill's body and made his promise.

- A $20,000 accidental death insurance policy was taken out on Gail Kelly — a girl who closely resembled Jill — weeks before the murders, with the store owner listed as beneficiary.

- The gold bracelet recovered at the crime scene two years later showed no weathering or soil damage despite being described as buried under leaves in an outdoor Texas park for twenty-four months.

Kenneth Franks, Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice, Lake Waco murders 1982, Waco Texas triple homicide, true crime, homicide, murder, investigation, forensic science, criminal minds, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.