Terri “Missy” Bevers was mur*dered on April 18, 2016, while preparing to teach a fitness class at a local church by an unknown assailant. Six years later, her case remains unresolved.
Missy was a 45-year-old, Texas-native mother of three. She was extremely dedicated to fitness and taught her own classes. She was an active community member with no known enemies.
Missy arrived at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian shortly after 4 a.m. to prepare for her early morning fitness class. She was preparing the classroom for a notoriously intense gladiator boot camp session.
At 5 a.m., Missy was discovered by her students, who immediately called emergency services. She had a head wound and multiple chest puncture wounds. When she was discovered, she was unresponsive. Missy died shortly after the arrival of the paramedics, and an immediate investigation into her mur*der was launched.
Unsettling video footage from the church showed a man carrying a hammer as he opened and closed various rooms throughout the structure. At one point, they broke open a door with the hammer. The individual was wearing a helmet, gloves, and shin guards. They also wore a vest with the word ‘police’ on it.
The footage of the person in riot gear was analyzed, but the assailant’s gender could not be determined conclusively. The assailant stood between 5’2″ and 5’8″, had outwardly pointing feet, and walked with a limp.
Glass from shattered windows littered the floor of the building, allowing police to trace the movements of the individual wearing riot gear. They also discovered marks on the back door of the church, indicating how the perpetrator entered the building, which initially led police to believe the incident was a botched robbery.
However, a search of the property revealed that neither the church nor Missy, who was still wearing her wedding band, had been broken into.
The police were concerned because there hadn’t been a mu*rder in the area for years, and they weren’t accustomed to conducting a m*urder investigation. The video footage was released to the public in an effort to locate the individual depicted in the video, and the police instructed viewers to take note of the individual’s distinct gait. The police department was inundated with tips from the public within hours of its release, and the FBI and US marshal’s office stepped in to help field calls.
The police subpoenaed Missy’s phone and discovered messages detailing intimate and flirtatious LinkedIn conversations. There were also strange and unsettling messages from a man whom Missy had shown to a friend a few days prior to her death. Police believed she was in contact with her mu*rderer, and the names of the LinkedIn contacts were never made public.
Missy posted frequently on social media about her upcoming boot camps, and the night before she was mur*dered, she stated that the class would proceed regardless of the weather. Unfortunately, her advertising made it easy to track her movements.
After his alibi was confirmed, investigators questioned Brandon Bevers to determine who would harm his wife. He told investigators he was unable to think of anyone who would wish Missy harm. The fact that Missy left her licensed firearm in her car in the church parking lot led her to believe that no one intended to harm her.
Brandon told the police that his marriage to Missy was wonderful and that they were both extremely content. However, investigators discovered that the marriage was in shambles and riddled with financial problems and infidelity.
Randy, Brandon’s father, took a woman’s blood-stained shirt to a local dry cleaner on April 22 and asked for it to be cleaned. He explained to the employee that the blood was from breaking up a dog fight, but Missy’s mu*rder had been widely reported, so the employee called the police. A warrant was issued for the shirt, and analysis revealed that someone had previously attempted to remove the blood from the shirt.
The police also observed that Randy shared a physique with the individual seen in the church’s surveillance footage, and that he walked with a limp. Randy was, however, in California at the time Missy was mur*dered, and his alibi eliminated him as a suspect. Brandon’s sister, Kristi, corroborated her father’s story that the dog fight happened, and the report eventually came back as positive for canine blood, but the damage was done by then. The community chastised Randy, and despite all the public statements, in their eyes he was guilty.
A few weeks later, police discovered surveillance footage from a nearby sporting goods store and identified a Nissan Altima circling a nearby parking lot a few hours before the mur*der. This video was also made available to the public, but the car’s owner never came forward, and nobody knew who owned the vehicle.
There was a second vehicle that the police did not request the public’s assistance in locating. A dark SUV was observed leaving the church parking lot at 4:30 am on the same day.
In the fall of 2019, several months later, the police realized that a tip had been called in multiple times during the investigation. The new lead was regarding former Lancaster police office Bobby Wayne Henry. He was also a tactical officer who admitted to police that his riot gear no longer fit him but he still owned it.
Henry was a licensed security guard who attended Creekside Church of Christ and worked Missy’s funeral. In 1996, Henry was suspended from the police force due to a serious sexual assault. He owned a car similar to the second vehicle for which police were searching, and he also walked with a limp.
The police consulted a forensic podiatrist to compare Henry’s gait to that of the assailant in the video footage. However, the results were inconclusive.
The primary problem with Henry being a suspect in Missy’s mu*rder was that he was 6 feet and one inch tall. Significantly too large to be the individual in the security footage. The second search warrant issued by the police, however, led to the discovery of multiple devices containing child pornography.
In June 2017, Henry was arrested for the pornography charges and took part in an interview from jail with Dallas’ WFAA News. He denied knowing Missy or even her name, and his alibi for the night Missy was mu*rdered was eventually confirmed.
After 70 days in jail, he was released without charge. To date, he has not been charged for possessing child pornography. In addition, he was ruled out as a suspect in Missy’s mu*rder.
Despite assistance from the FBI and ostensibly credible suspects, the investigation reached a dead end. The fact that Missy’s mur*derer was still free to roam the streets of Midlothian caused widespread unease. Some Internet sleuths went too far in their search for information to help identify Missy’s killer.
Hannah, Missy’s daughter, recently spoke with Inside Edition about the struggles she and her family have endured since her mother’s passing.
“I’ve had people on Facebook message me and say … ‘Your dad did this, your dad killed your mom’. My dad loved my mom and I know that 100 percent.”
The assailant of Missy was between 5’2″ and 5’8″ tall, had predominantly outward-pointing feet, and limped. This individual could be male or female. Police continue to search for the Nissan Altima’s owner.
Oak Farms Dairy continues to offer a reward of $10,000 for information leading to the capture of Missy’s mur*derer. Anyone with information can text MIDL and a tip to 847411 or call Ellis County Crime Stoppers at 972–937–7227 to provide police with information.
