Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

In August 2006, twenty-three-year-old Brandi Wells left her mother's home in Tyler, Texas, for what should have been an ordinary night out. Excited about returning to college and rebuilding her life after a difficult few years, Brandi drove to Longview's popular Graham Central Station nightclub for Ladies Night. She was seen socializing, dancing, and asking acquaintances for a few dollars for gas before leaving the club shortly after midnight.

When Brandi failed to return home, her family initially hoped there was a simple explanation. But as hours turned into days, concern gave way to fear. Unknown to them, Brandi's black Pontiac Grand Prix had already been discovered abandoned along Interstate 20, its driver's door standing open and several troubling details left behind. Personal belongings remained inside, but Brandi had vanished without a trace.

Nearly twenty years later, the disappearance of Brandi Wells remains one of East Texas's most haunting unsolved mysteries. In this first installment, we explore who Brandi was before she became a missing person's case, retrace the final confirmed hours of her life, and examine how an ordinary night out ended with questions that still have no answers.

Part one of two.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Brandi Ellen Wells, please contact the Longview Police at (903) 237-1110.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at https://patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

Find us at https://www.gonecold.com For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com

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#WhereIsBrandiWells #JusticeForBrandiWells #LongviewTX #TylerTX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #MissingPerson #Missing #Disappeared #Disappearance #Vanished #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast

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On the morning of March 27, 1991, three-year-old Megan Elizabeth Garner was playing outside her family's apartment at the Casa Grande Apartments in Tyler, Texas. It was spring break, the weather was warm, and nothing about the day seemed unusual.

That is, until Megan vanished.

What began as a frantic search by family members quickly escalated into one of East Texas's most enduring missing child investigations. Law enforcement officers, firefighters, volunteers, tracking dogs, helicopters, and eventually the FBI searched tirelessly for answers. Despite extensive efforts, investigators found no physical evidence, no confirmed sightings, and no clear explanation for how a child disappeared in broad daylight from a crowded apartment complex.

Over the following months and years, Megan's case gained national attention through organizations such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Kevin Collins Foundation, America's Most Wanted, and The 700 Club's Child Quest. Millions of Americans saw her photograph, yet every promising lead ultimately led nowhere.

More than three and a half decades later, Megan remains missing.

In this episode, we examine the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, the massive search effort that followed, the theories investigators considered, and the heartbreaking reality faced by a family still searching for answers after all these years.

f you have any information about the disappearance of Megan Elizabeth Garner, please contact the Tyler Police Department at 903-531-1000.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at https://patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

Find us at https://www.gonecold.com

For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com

Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click https://linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast

#WhereIsMeganGarner #JusticeForMeganGarner #TylerTX #SmithCountyTX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #MissingPerson #Missing #Disappeared #Vanished #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast

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In December 1996, 32-year-old Sharon McLane was brutally murdered inside her Bedford, Texas apartment. Two years later, her friend John Earl Nolley was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. The case appeared closed.

But questions never completely disappeared.

Years after Nolley’s conviction, attorneys with the Innocence Project and Tarrant County’s Conviction Integrity Unit uncovered troubling problems with the original prosecution, including undisclosed evidence, unreliable jailhouse informant testimony, and forensic findings that cast doubt on the verdict.

Early in the case, Paul Dennis Reid, a violent serial killer later convicted of seven murders in Tennessee and suspected in several others, emerged as an alternate suspect. But police discounted him despite many witnesses placing him at Sharon’s apartment complex around the time of the murder, among other things.

In the final chapter of Sharon McLane’s story, we examine Reid’s murder convictions, the evidence that pointed away from Nolley, and the extraordinary review that ultimately led to Nolley’s release after nearly two decades behind bars.

While John Earl Nolley eventually regained his freedom, Sharon McLane’s murder remains unsolved, leaving behind one lingering question that has never been definitively answered:

Who killed Sharon McLane?

Part three of three.

If you have any information about the murder of Sharon Lucretia McLane, please call the Bedford police at (817) 952-2127.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at https://patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

Find us at https://www.gonecold.com

For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com

Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click https://linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast

#JusticeForSharonMcLane #BedfordTX #TarrantCountyTX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #MissingPerson #Missing #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast

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In December of 1996, 32-year-old Sharon McLane was found brutally murdered inside her Bedford, Texas apartment, stabbed and slashed more than fifty times in a crime that shocked the Mid-Cities area between Dallas and Fort Worth. Police quickly focused on Sharon’s acquaintance, John Earl Nolley, and within months he was arrested, charged, and eventually convicted of her murder. But while investigators in Texas built their case against Nolley, another terrifying series of murders was unfolding hundreds of miles away in Tennessee.

As Nashville-area detectives investigated what became known as the “Fast Food Murders,” authorities began connecting multiple brutal restaurant killings tied to a violent drifter and former fast-food employee named Paul Dennis Reid Jr. The murders stretched from Captain D’s in Donelson to a McDonald’s in Hermitage and eventually to the abduction and murder of two Baskin-Robbins employees in Clarksville. The crimes shared disturbing similarities: restaurant workers targeted during opening or closing shifts, robbery mixed with extreme violence, and victims executed by firearm or repeatedly stabbed. 

As Reid’s history and alleged crimes came to light, Sharon McLane’s defense attorneys began noticing troubling overlaps between the Tennessee murders and Sharon’s killing in Bedford. Witnesses reportedly placed Reid at Sharon’s apartment complex around the time investigators believed she was murdered. Others claimed Reid had previously been seen at Sharon’s workplace. Hair recovered from Sharon’s clothing reportedly did not belong to either Sharon or John Nolley, and witnesses later described Reid appearing with cuts on his hands shortly after the murder.

The rise and fall of Paul Dennis Reid was at the expense of several lives, the horrifying Tennessee fast-food murders. And his arrest cast a shadow over the prosecution of John Earl Nolley. As investigators in Tennessee connected Reid to one of the region’s most infamous murder sprees, questions continued to linger in Texas about whether Sharon McLane’s killer had truly been identified, or whether another violent predator had passed through the Metroplex before the violence escalated elsewhere.

Part two of three.

If you have any information about the murder of Sharon Lucretia McLane, please call the Bedford police at (817) 952-2127.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at https://patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

Find us at https://www.gonecold.com

For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com

Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click https://linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast

#JusticeForSharonMcLane #BedfordTX #TarrantCountyTX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #MissingPerson #Missing #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gone-cold-texas-true-crime--3203003/support.

In December 1996, 32-year-old Sharon McLane was murdered inside her home in Bedford, a brutal crime that immediately shook family, friends, and investigators.

As detectives began piecing together Sharon’s final hours, questions quickly emerged. Who would want to hurt her? Was this a crime of opportunity, or did someone Sharon knew walk through that door?

Sharon’s her life, her relationships, and the circumstances leading up to the night she was killed were vague. As investigators work to establish a timeline, early evidence and witness statements begin to paint a troubling picture, one that suggests Sharon’s killer may not have been a stranger at all.

This is the beginning of a case that would raise serious questions, uncover conflicting accounts, and leave those closest to Sharon searching for the truth.

Part one of three.

You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at https://patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast

Find us at https://www.gonecold.com

For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com

Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click https://linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast

#JusticeForSharonMcLane #BedfordTX #TarrantCountyTX #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #ColdCase #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #MissingPerson #Missing #Murder #UnsolvedMurder #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gone-cold-texas-true-crime--3203003/support.