TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Note: The video above is from September 2020, following the arrest.
A man who was arrested last year in the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Carla Walker will face the possibility of life in prison instead of the death penalty, officials announced Thursday.
Glen Samuel McCurley, 78, was arrested on a capital murder charge in September 2020. The case had been unsolved for 46 years - until detectives obtained a full DNA match to what was found on Carla's clothes from the crime scene.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office filed paperwork Thursday seeking a sentence of life in prison, not the death penalty.
The family of Carla Walker supported the decision, according to Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson.
"After much analysis, and with the support of the family of Carla Walker, we have determined that justice would best be served in this case by waiving the death penalty and seeking a sentence which ensures this Defendant will spend the rest of his days in prison," Wilson said in a statement.
Walker was kidnapped on February 17, 1974, after she had been at a parking lot with her boyfriend following a high school dance. A man opened the passenger door and pulled Walker out and pistol-whipped the boyfriend, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Her body was found in a culvert two days later near Benbrook Lake.
McCurley was one of the many suspects or people of interest in the case files. Police identified him because of gun purchase records, which matched the same type of magazine was also found on the ground near Carla's purse at the scene. McCurley also lived about one mile from the parking lot.
The detectives were able to use a DNA profile from a DNA genealogy company. Detectives also obtained DNA from McCurley’s trash in July 2020 and it matched the male DNA profile that was found on Carla's clothes, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
In September 2020, he denied he killed anyone and gave a voluntary DNA sample, which also matched.
Kim D’Avignon, an assistant criminal district attorney and chief of the Adult Sexual Assault team, is prosecuting this case.