David Elliot Penton was a soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, when his 2-month-old son died in 1984. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the baby's death and then fled while his case was on appeal. In 1988 he was arrested in Ohio for the killing of Nydra Ross, a 9-year-old girl, and an Ohio jury later convicted him. Detectives in the Dallas area had questioned him for years about three young girls abducted from their suburbs between January 1985 and February 1986. In 2003 a Collin County grand jury indicted him for capital murder in their deaths, and in 2005 he pleaded guilty to killing all three, avoiding a possible death sentence. He has remained in an Ohio prison, and investigators in Texas and several other states have looked at him in the disappearances of other children. He denies any role in them.
Penton served in the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Hood, in Central Texas. KWTX, the Waco television station, reported in 2020 that he was charged in the 1984 death of his 2-month-old son while he was serving there. KLTV in Tyler reported in 2007 that he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the boy's death and that he received an honorable discharge from the Army at Fort Hood late in 1985, the same year as the plea.
He did not stay in custody. According to KLTV he fled during an appeal of the manslaughter case, and KWTX reported that he left while free on bond. He was at large for about three years, KWTX said, before his arrest in Ohio. KWTX reported that three young girls in the Dallas area were abducted and killed while he was on the run.
Christi Lynn Meeks lived in Mesquite, a suburb east of Dallas. In November 1985 D Magazine reported that she had vanished in Mesquite "last January 19." Her aunt organized a national publicity campaign to find her, one the magazine described as among the most widely publicized searches for a missing child in the country's history. About three months after she disappeared, police found her body.
The search did not end with her. Her aunt went on to run the Christi Meeks Foundation for Missing Children, which was incorporated to help law enforcement find missing children, to counsel parents and to teach the public how to protect children from kidnappers. By late 1985 the foundation said it had found 12 missing children on its own and helped other agencies find 11 more, and President Reagan had written to praise its grass roots work. The foundation also became the subject of a family dispute: Christi's father went to court to stop it from using his daughter's name, and two Mesquite detectives who had served on its original board resigned because they felt it was a conflict of interest while they were investigating her killing.
In 2003 a Collin County grand jury indicted Penton for capital murder in her death, according to KLTV, which gave her age as 5.
Christie Proctor was 9, according to a report by WFAA republished by KHOU in Houston. She was walking home from a friend's house when she disappeared, and she was last seen near the North Dallas apartment complex where she lived. Her mother found the crushed pieces of a purple plastic Valentine's heart in the street, a present from Christie's aunt. She later said the moment was pure terror and that she sensed her daughter had been taken from that spot.
Her mother did not give up. She followed leads across the country and held on to the hope that Christie was alive. She helped put up more than a million posters across North Texas and started an organization to help the families of missing and exploited children. In April 1988 police found Christie's remains in Plano.
For years afterward her mother struggled with depression and withdrew from family and friends, and February, the month her daughter disappeared, was always the hardest. "I would just completely shut down," she said. Eleven years after Christie's death, she told WFAA, a church conference brought a turning point, and the depression did not return. She married a minister and became one herself. "I have been able to move on with my life," she said, and she has devoted herself to carrying a message of hope to others.
KLTV, describing the 2003 indictment, gave her name as Diane Proctor and her age as 10 and placed her abduction in 1987.
Roxann Hope Reyes lived in Garland, northeast of Dallas. KLTV gave her age as 3 and said the 2003 indictment covered her abduction and killing in 1987, in the same case as Christie Proctor's. Little else is known about her life or her family.
Nydra Ross was 9 years old. KLTV described her as a Columbus, Ohio, girl and as the niece of a friend of Penton's. She was killed in 1988, and Penton was arrested in Ohio that year. KWTX reported that he was tried and convicted of killing her about three years after he fled the Texas manslaughter case. He was sentenced to life in prison in Ohio, and in 2007 KLTV reported that he was serving that sentence in Toledo. Accounts differ on the year of the Ohio verdict.
Investigators in the Dallas area questioned Penton about the abductions and killings of the three Texas girls, KWTX reported. All three had been taken between January 1985 and February 1986, while he was a fugitive. The cases stayed open for years. Gary Sweet, a Garland police detective, investigated Penton for seven years, according to KLTV.
In 2003 a Collin County grand jury indicted Penton on capital murder charges in two cases, one covering Roxann Reyes and Christie Proctor and the other covering Christi Meeks, KLTV reported. He was extradited from Ohio to Texas. In 2005 he pleaded guilty to killing the three girls before any case reached a jury, and by doing so he avoided a possible death sentence. KWTX reported that he received concurrent life sentences. WFAA reported in its account of Christie Proctor's family that he was serving a life sentence in an Ohio prison.
Penton's guilty pleas did not end the questions. In March 2007 the Upshur County sheriff's office in East Texas said it was looking at whether he could be linked to the April 1986 abduction of Ara "Niecie" Johnson, 5, who was taken in Big Sandy, about 95 miles east of Dallas. Detective Freddie Fitzgerald said Penton had reportedly mentioned the girl to fellow inmates. "We have to talk to him," Fitzgerald told reporters, adding that investigators had to be careful but that the information gave hope in a case where hope had nearly run out. Detective Sweet said Penton was also a suspect in the disappearances of two other Texas girls in the mid-1980s. He has not been charged in any of those cases.
In January 2020 KWTX reported that Bell County Crime Stoppers had released an age-progressed image of Angelica Gandara, who was 11 when she disappeared on July 14, 1985, while walking two blocks from her family's home in Temple to her grandmother's house. Investigators had looked at several possible suspects, the station said, Penton among them. KWTX added that he was a suspect in the disappearances of girls in Texas and about half a dozen other states. He has not been charged in her case, and she has not been found.
In an interview from jail with the Tyler Morning Telegraph in 2007, as reported by KLTV, Penton said the authorities were using him as a scapegoat to close old cases he had nothing to do with. He denied traveling the country killing children, though he acknowledged that he had been called names for it. He said there was no evidence against him in any of the cases and that fellow inmates had falsely blamed him in order to win shorter sentences for themselves. He also said he could not afford a proper defense. "People are going to believe what they want to believe about me and there's nothing I can do," he said. "I can't clear my name."
In March 2007 Penton was serving his life sentence in Toledo, Ohio. In January 2020, when he was 61, KWTX reported that he remained at the Toledo Correctional Institution, serving the sentence for the Ohio killing.
Accounts differ on several basic facts. KLTV gave Christie Proctor's first name as Diane, her age as 10 and the year of her abduction as 1987, while WFAA gave her age as 9; KWTX placed all three Texas abductions between January 1985 and February 1986. KLTV gave Roxann Reyes's age as 3. The year of the Ohio verdict is also reported inconsistently. KWTX described the Texas life sentences as concurrent; whether they run together or one after another has not otherwise been reported.
The other cases remain suspicions. Detectives' statements that Penton was a suspect in further disappearances, in Texas and in other states, rest on investigators' accounts and on what other inmates said he told them. He has denied them, and no charge has been brought in any of them.
1984: Penton, an Army soldier at Fort Hood, is charged in the death of his 2-month-old son.
1985: He pleads guilty to manslaughter in the boy's death; late in the year he is honorably discharged from the Army at Fort Hood. He flees during an appeal of the case.
January 19, 1985 (as reported by D Magazine in November 1985): Christi Lynn Meeks disappears in Mesquite; her body is found about three months later.
April 1988: Christie Proctor's remains are found in Plano.
1988: Nydra Ross, 9, is killed; Penton is arrested in Ohio.
After 1988: An Ohio jury convicts him of killing Nydra Ross; he is sentenced to life.
2003: A Collin County grand jury indicts him for capital murder in the deaths of Christi Meeks, Christie Proctor and Roxann Reyes; he is extradited to Texas.
2005: He pleads guilty to killing the three girls and receives life sentences, avoiding a possible death sentence.
March 2007: Upshur County investigators say they are examining whether he can be linked to the 1986 abduction of Ara "Niecie" Johnson; he denies it in an interview with the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
January 2020: KWTX reports that investigators have looked at him among other suspects in the 1985 disappearance of Angelica Gandara in Temple, and that he remains at the Toledo Correctional Institution.