FORT WORTH, Texas — Jim Walker’s sight may be failing him, but he can see clearly.
He sees how long-unsolved murder cases, like his sister’s once was, can be solved.
“This technology is also a very bad day for the bad guys,” Walker said. “That’s the message is to never give up.”
Walker spoke Friday during a roundtable discussion about Sen. John Cornyn’s bill named in his sister’s memory, the Carla Walker Act.
The bill would create funding so that the same technology that solved his sister’s case could be used in others.
“This can bring closure to families to know finally what the true story is,” Cornyn said during the discussion held at the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
Other families attended in hopes that their loved one’s case would be solved, too.
Carla Walker’s killer remained unknown for almost 50 years. Scientists unmasked Glen McCurley’s identity through advancements in DNA genealogical testing.
“We can now look at second cousins, third cousins, potentially even fourth cousins to be able to solve these kinds of cases,” said Dr. Michael Coble, executive director of the Center for Human Identification.
Jim Walker still lives in the family home in Benbrook. In his mind, he still sees his 17-year-old sister leaving for the school dance in 1974 with her boyfriend.
“They were wished happy night and be safe, and they left,” he said.
Hours later, her boyfriend returned bloodied and beaten, screaming, “They’ve got her. They’re gonna [sic] hurt her bad. I know they are.”
They were parked in a deserted parking lot when McCurley attacked. He pistol-whipped her boyfriend, leaving him unconscious and dragging Carla away.
“That's the first time at 12 that I ever saw pure unadulterated fear and panic,” Jim Walker said.
She’d been kidnapped, raped and strangled. Her body was later found in a culvert near Benbrook Lake.
“Carla's case was unfinished business,” Jim Walker said during an interview. “We never gave up.”
Tarrant County prosecutor Kim D'Avignon said she will never forget the day when she got the call that Carla Walker’s case had been solved.
“Everybody knew the Carla Walker case,” she said.
McCurley had lived nearby for decades.
“The first thing Jim Walker said to me is, ‘we've solved Carla's now we have to make sure other families can get this, too,’” D’Avignon said.
Jim Walker and his wife eventually plan to sell the house.
“Quite often I do I feel the presence of Carla,” he said.
McCurley pleaded guilty in 2021. He died in prison this month.
“I know Carla is at peace. As I told McCurley…, ‘The last thing she saw on this earth was your pathetic face looking at her. But the first thing she saw was glory. She saw God.' And she's in a much better place,” Walker said.