Houston's Gated Nightmare: The James and Virginia Campbell Double Murder and the Undercover Confession

Houston's Memorial neighborhood was rocked when community pillars James and Virginia Campbell were shot to death in their bed in the early hours of June 19th, 1982. This episode unpacks the shocking double murder and the highly unusual, months-long investigation that followed. Authorities used a 23-year-old private investigator who went undercover, building a fake relationship with the suspect until she secured a confession. The story explores the lengths investigators went to solve this brutal crime, the ethics of their unique, successful approach, and the tragic circumstances of the Campbell's death.

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Houston's Memorial neighborhood was known for its peaceful streets and upscale homes, not for murder, but in the early hours of June 19th, 1982, that reputation was shattered when two local pillars of the community, James and Virginia Campbell were shot to death as they slept in their bed.

Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Mandy. How are you? I am, I'm hanging in there. I'm counting down the days. I know you are as well. School's almost over down here in Florida and yeah, I am just hanging on by a thread this week.

We've got one more week to go. One more. And we're home free. How are you feeling about summer being finally here? I'm thrilled because there is something in saying like, you two go play together, or like you two [00:01:00] do something together. That takes some guilt off of me 'cause my son is being homeschooled right now.

So just having the two of them together, it's gonna be fights, but I can say go outside. Yeah, just. Ride the bike, ride your bikes around. Right. Do something. But like, I don't have to be responsible for anyone's entertainment to a degree. Yeah. So I'm romanticizing this a hundred percent, but also we don't have to just like be in a rush in the mornings to go somewhere.

So let's just take that. I'll take that. That's my favorite part. I feel like just less back and forth, less driving around, you know, I'm always, yeah. I feel like, uh, just, that's always my one. My, I guess that's my old lady complaint all the time. I'm like, I don't wanna do all this driving around, but that's literally always what I'm saying.

Yeah, I get it though. I get it. And uh, yeah, even like just, it's literally just school drop off and pick up. It's not that serious, but you know, I just, no, I get it. It just breaks up the day so much, you know, so, uh, I always look forward to having a little break from doing all that. And I know the kids are, obviously, they always love the summer, but, um, and I'm sure in two months I will be saying.[00:02:00] 

I can't wait for them to go back, but for right now, I'm, I'm super excited that we're down to, to the last days of school and yeah, I'm just looking forward to summertime, so I'm feeling great. Great. This week. Me too. And we're finishing 10th grade here and fifth grade. And what are you guys finishing? We are finishing ninth and sixth grade, so we have made it through our first.

Year school, oh my gosh. High school and our first year in middle school. And super proud, uh, to say, uh, actually super proud of my high schooler, ninth grade. He's just about to finish this, uh, year with straight A's. So he That's amazing. Nailed it. And yeah, super proud of him. Very excited for him. And he's excited for himself.

You know, that's always a big accomplishment. Um, yeah. Middle school is just tough. He, my, my other ones, he's, he does great in school. He's very smart. Yeah. Yeah. But gosh. Sixth grade is a, is a tough grade, so I'm glad that it's over. Yeah. If your kids are going into middle school, go ahead and know that. Yeah, because I had somebody luckily say that to me when my daughter started middle school.

She's like, sixth grade's the worst, [00:03:00] and then seventh grade it gets a little better. Eighth grade it's better. Ninth grade, it kind of starts again, you know, when they're going into high school. But with saying how bad sixth grade was, so I'm, I'm holding on for myself, for my son this year, but I'm. I'm glad that your son made it through.

Yes. And you made it through relatively unscathed for the most part. Yes. All right, so we'll get into the story this week. This one is really interesting. There's kind of a crazy twist towards the middle that you won't be expecting. So James and Virginia Campbell were wealthy and respected, and according to those who knew them, they were deeply devoted to their family.

James was born on June 16th, 1927 in Cross Plains, Texas, and he was the ninth out of 10 children, which always makes me pause. I know for a moment I'm like the poor mother of 10 children. The uterus on this lady. Yes. Poor thanks, honestly. Uh, and to make things even more challenging, all of these kids were raised during the Great Depression, James.

Yes. James' [00:04:00] mother was a homemaker and his father was a pharmacist who was 25 years older than his wife. By the time James was 19, he had made his way to Houston and he was on a fast track to success. After graduating from the University of Texas, he married his college sweetheart, Virginia, in 1949, friends described them as a happy loving couple who built their lives and their law practice.

Together, James would grow to become a highly successful personal injury attorney. James and Virginia had four daughters named Michelle, Betty, Cindy and Jamie, and they were raised in a lavish neighborhood in the memorial area. Their mansion included a library full of James' law books and they even had a soda fountain in the garage for the neighborhood kids.

Okay. That's how I knew they were bougie. Whenever I heard about this. A soda fountain in a garage. You, you're there, right? You're like, do they have Diet Coke? You're my new best friend. Put this in a white van and I'm gonna be kidnapped. I'm just [00:05:00] absolutely going for it. This is amazing. Yeah. So the family lived a very comfortable and cushy lifestyle.

Some might even say extravagant. I would say extravagant with a soda fountain in your garage for the neighborhood kiss. Amazing. Yes. Mm-hmm. Virginia, the wife managed the law office while James handled the courtroom. A family friend once said that Virginia was his secretary. She was his paralegal, and she was real smart.

This friend said quote, she had some really good diamonds on her big rocks. Big, big rocks. Which must, I'm sorry, what size were they? Big? Must have been big, big rocks. By the 1960s, the Campbell's had really solidified their place in Houston's elite circles. But behind the doors of their six bedroom home, one of the couple's daughters was really struggling.

Cindy had always been the one that never quite seemed to fit in. While the other three girls were very close knit, Cindy always felt like the black sheep. A childhood friend named Vicki Miller said that Cindy believed her sisters [00:06:00] hated her, and she even thought her younger sister was a spy. For who I am not quite sure.

Okay. I was gonna say like a spy to tell your parents, tell your parents everything's going on. Or like a Russian spy. Right. No clue. No context. Cindy was very critical of herself despite being a very gifted artist. When she was 17, she ran away to Colorado where she ended up meeting Michael, Charles Ray.

The two of them hitchhiked on the East coast and during that time, Cindy got pregnant. She and Michael got married in 1973 and a few years later they moved back to Houston and Cindy eventually gave birth to her second son. However, Cindy's main motivation for moving back to Houston in the first place was because she didn't wanna be married anymore and she knew that she would have more help raising her kids if she was living near her parents.

In 1976, Cindy asked her dad to help with her divorce. James handled everything and secured full custody of the children for [00:07:00] her. But according to a family friend, she just didn't really need child support because, quote, she had a rich daddy. Cindy lived rent free in an apartment that her parents owned.

She attended college briefly, which is where she met David Duval West. This was a loud and confident former Marine with a cocky attitude and kind of an unexplainable charm. Cindy quickly moved in with him and told her friends that for the first time she finally felt loved. By this time, her parents, James and Virginia were considering retirement, but Cindy wasn't working or going to school, and they were supporting her financially.

By 1979, they had even been awarded custody of Cindy's two sons. But after practicing law for 40 years, they were ready to slow down and enjoy their remaining years, and instead. They were murdered in their own bed. Just before 10:00 PM on June 18th, 1982, Cindy [00:08:00] showed up at her parents' house on Memorial Drive to borrow money.

Virginia went upstairs to go grab the money hours later at around 4:40 AM on June 19th, the family's housekeeper, Maria was jolted awake by a strange noise, but when she looked towards the Campbell's bedroom window, she didn't see anything unusual. So she went back to bed. Five minutes later, the two little boys who were seven and eight years old at the time were banging on her door saying something was wrong.

The kids told Maria that their grandparents quote had red on them, which makes me so sad. That's like such a small kid way of describing what's going on. Heartbreaking. So Maria called 9 1 1, and then she tried calling Cindy, but Cindy didn't answer. So Maria called James's brother jw, who headed over immediately in the primary bedroom.

Police found 55-year-old James and 55-year-old Virginia in bed. Both of them had been shot three times, twice in the head and once in the chest. [00:09:00] This was actually the first time anyone could remember a murder happening in this memorial neighborhood, and it didn't take long for the police to realize that this wasn't just a random home invasion.

Whoever had killed James in Virginia had come there with the purpose of doing exactly that. The first interviews happened hours after the murders, beginning with the housekeeper, Maria Gonzalez. She had discovered the scene after being woken up by James and Virginia's grandsons. When officers spoke with the boys, the older one immediately said, I have the right to remain silent, which would seem chilling.

But then again, these kids were raised in a home where legal rights were deeply understood. Neither the boys was willing to open up to the officers, so the police had to call in relatives to get more of the story. Eventually though, the boys did share what they remembered, which was that they were sleeping in their sleeping bags at the foot of James and Virginia's bed, which was something they did every Friday night, and that's when they heard shots ring out.[00:10:00] 

The kids said they were terrified and they didn't see who fired the weapon. After hiding for a few minutes, they ran off to Maria's quarters to get help with no witnesses and no leads. Investigators returned to the scene to comb through every detail for answers outside. They noticed that a window on the main floor in the living room had been left open and unlocked.

The front door was a jar and just inside they found a single plastic glove. As the investigators moved through the house, they found 45 caliber shell casings in the bedroom. There was a tangled pile of sleeping bags and blankets and pillows that were found at the foot of the bed. And this was a pile so thick that it would have most likely hidden the kids from the killer's view.

But in order to reach the Campbells, the shooter would've had to walk right past or even step over that pile. No. Yeah. Very scary to think about those little babies being in the room. Right. Nothing else in the home was out of place though. There were no drawers, rifled through, no [00:11:00] items missing, and just no sign of any chaos.

Even Virginia's diamond jewelry was all still on her body. Prosecutor Lynn McClellan said, quote, two people executed in their bed and nothing taken. That's not a burglary. That's not a robbery. That's a hit. And Detective Ken agreed he felt that whoever killed a couple had some sort of grudge against them.

And they wondered if James's legal career could have anything to do with it. But it didn't really make a lot of sense. And one attorney friend said that James didn't even have any criminal clients. He was known for his work in personal injury law, not criminal defense. So it was, you know, it didn't seem like he wasn't the kind of.

Lawyer who would have somebody out to get him. Um, his clients really loved him. He was a great lawyer, and he just didn't do that type of law. Like he didn't practice that type of law, right? So the police believed whoever shot the couple did know exactly where to go and how to exit without disturbing anything in the house.

And that made them believe that this was not the [00:12:00] work of a stranger. As the home was dusted for fingerprints, authorities noticed a crucial detail. There was a large boot print in the flower bed beneath the living room window. This was unmistakably a man's boot, so investigators believed they were dealing with at least one male intru.

Even though they had already interviewed Maria, the investigators circled back to her and this time she did have a little bit more for them to look into. She told the police that James and Virginia had a daughter named Cindy, who had been divorced from this man named Michael Ray for about six years.

But Virginia said she had always feared that Michael might try to show up and take the kids one day. So because of that, Virginia was adamant that the doors and windows always be kept locked. Furthermore, Maria described a strange occurrence that happened just nine days before the murders. She had been cleaning around the house and adjusting the window blinds in the back when she caught Cindy trying to climb through one of the windows, which of course is [00:13:00] very strange because why are you climbing through the windows at your parents' house?

Like, why don't you just use the door so immediately, like, what are you doing? When Maria confronted Cindy, she looked excited and nervous. After Cindy left that day, Maria made a mental note to start double checking all the windows, which she did daily. On the night of the murders, Maria had done exactly that.

She personally saw to it that every window downstairs was locked before she went to bed, but she said that just before the shots were fired, she distinctly remembered hearing the sound of a window being pushed open, and it sounded like it was that same window that she had seen Cindy trying to sneak through over a week earlier.

To add to the growing suspicion, Maria mentioned that she'd been finding empty beer cans and cigarette butts in the garden recently, and it seemed like someone may have been stalking the house. Investigators decided that it was time to speak to the Campbell daughters, hoping that they may have more insight into Michael Ray or any potentially disgruntled clients at their dad's, or just [00:14:00] anyone who might have had a motive to kill their parents.

By the next morning, three of the daughters showed up to the station. The only one missing was Cindy, which immediately struck the investigators as being odd since she was actually the only sister who still lived in Houston and would've been able to get there quickly. Eventually, Cindy and her boyfriend David, walked in and police separated them to interview them separately.

Cindy confirmed that her ex-husband, Michael Ray, did have a violent pass that included a robbery conviction in Kansas, but she said she hadn't spoken to him recently and didn't know where he was. Cindy and her current boyfriend David, gave matching stories. They had gone to a party that night. They returned to their apartment, and then they left around 3:00 AM to attend another party, which.

Sounds exhausting. Cindy also admitted that she'd gone to her parents' house around 10:00 PM the night of the murders to borrow money, and that her mom had gone upstairs to get it for her. And that's when [00:15:00] investigators came up with a theory that when her mom went upstairs, Cindy may have unlocked the downstairs window to allow someone access to the inside.

Later. Cindy insisted that she was with David all night. Investigators needed to verify everyone's alibis, and since Cindy and David were the only ones who lived locally, their story would be under scrutiny first. Meanwhile, on June 22nd, 1982, James and Virginia were laid to rest. Their funeral was attended by family, friends, and even some of the investigators working the case.

It was noticed that all four of the Campbell daughters were late to the funeral, and it was later learned that just before the service began, Cindy's three sisters had walked in on her rummaging through their mother's belongings. And when they asked her what she was doing, she responded that she was looking for Virginia's diamonds.

Alarm bells went off, not just for the sisters, but also for the investigators. Cindy's sister Michelle was brought in for [00:16:00] questioning and she explained that Cindy had been very eager to get her hands on her inheritance, and she had already been aggressively filing legal paperwork to claim her share of what she believed was a $2 million estate.

But the truth ended up being disappointing for her. Most of their parents'. Wealth was actually tied up in property and not cash. We still have so much more to get into after a quick break to hear word from this week's sponsors. And now back to the episode. Before the break, we were talking about the early stages of the investigation into the murders of James and Virginia Campbell.

We learned that their daughter, Cindy, had a strained relationship with her parents and was financially dependent on them. Just days before the murders, their housekeeper caught Cindy trying to sneak in through a window, and on the night of the killings, that same window had been opened. Suspicion around.

Cindy began to grow, especially after her strange behavior at her parents' funeral where she was caught digging through her mother's belongings looking for diamonds. [00:17:00] The investigators were starting to believe that this murder wasn't random at all. It was actually planned and possibly carried out by someone very close to home.

Cindy's sister, Michelle told the police that Cindy's behavior was no surprise to her and that she had always had a strained relationship with their parents. Michelle said that Cindy was always wanting something despite the fact that their parents had already given her so much, including a free apartment, money, childcare, and tuition for college classes that she didn't even finish.

But James apparently started to draw the line and he was demanding that Cindy grow up and get a job and support herself. Now the authorities believe that the motive for the murders was money, and that Cindy was really at the center of it all. They just needed the evidence to prove it. Unfortunately, when the lab results did come in, it was just another dead end.

There were no fingerprints found on the window cell, and nothing found that directly linked Cindy to the crime scene. Then an unexpected twist [00:18:00] came when Cindy's youngest sister Jamie, came forward with a story that stunned the investigators. Nearly two years earlier, Cindy had made a really disturbing comment after having a heated argument with their parents, and she said We'd be better off without daddy.

And she went on to say that if their dad was dead, they could all have whatever they wanted. And that really wasn't even all. Cindy then went on to describe exactly how she would stage the murder. She said that she would wear gloves, maybe a ski mask and heavy boots. She would also leave cigarette butts near a window to make it look like a man had done it.

So, of course this is extremely shocking information considering that the actual evidence at the scene lined up very closely with Right, with this story. But still there were questions like, why did Jamie wait so long to come forward with this, and was it truly a confession that Cindy had made or was this just another byproduct of, you know, the tense sibling rivalry that these girls had?

Well, this is a, I [00:19:00] mean, that's a very detailed, even if you were just saying you were going to do something like out of being upset, I guess that's a lot of details to go into. Like that makes me, you know, I'm not calling the sister a liar, but it just seems like, wow, that is all of those details at once.

That's that. A lot. Yeah, no, I agree. It would just be an interesting, I, you would have to, of course, dig into it, but you just, it is definitely interesting. 'cause I could see it going either way that e, you know? Right. It's either a real thing that Cindy said, or her sister's just like, oh yeah, she said this stuff.

Who knows. Yeah. She's not getting the diamonds right. Exactly. So they called Cindy back in, but this time she refused to speak to them and instead she hired an attorney. Of course it is well within her right to hire a lawyer, but that decision did raise some eyebrows because the police wondered why she would need one.

You know, they're just there trying to sort out what happened to her parents and she immediately hires a lawyer. It does raise some red flags. So investigators [00:20:00] continued trying to track down Michael Ray and finally they were successful. So Michael is Cindy's ex-husband, who is also the father of her two sons.

So Michael tells them that he's in Colorado when these murders occurred and investigators were able to confirm his alibi and mark him off the suspect list. And at that point, the only name that remained on the list was Cindy Campbell Ray, and the case against her was building. However, nearly two years passed and they were unable to drum up any hard evidence that would allow any charges to stick in the spring of 1984.

Prosecutors tried anyway and charged Cindy with the murders of her parents, but their case quickly unraveled and the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. By late that year, the Campbell's estate, which was estimated at around $2 million, was finally about to be settled. At that point though, Cindy had already collected about $58,000 and received a fourplex apartment building.

And her three sisters really were just fed up and they had had [00:21:00] enough, like she's already made claims on the, you know, right estate, uh, no one else has. Um, and they're, you know, they're trying to tell the authorities that this is very suspicious. The authorities weren't really doing a whole lot, so the sisters decided to take matters into their own hands and they hired a private investigator named Clyde Wilson to look into things.

So Clyde was a really well-known guy in the private investigating world. He ran a larger scale operation. It's not just him and a one guy sitting in a white van outside your house or whatever of this one curriculars. Right. Exactly. This was, uh, a bigger thing than that. He had 16 staff members and his whole practice just had a very good reputation for getting results.

After months of work, his team landed on the same theory as the police, and that was that Cindy was behind the murders, but just like law enforcement had struggled to find that crucial missing, you know, piece of evidence. So did Clyde's team, and that's when one of Clyde's investigators had this really bold idea to send [00:22:00] someone undercover, to get close to Cindy's ex-boyfriend, David West.

And that is where Kim Paris enters the picture. And your, uh, comments earlier about how things take a big twist. Yes. Enter, twist. So Kim was 23 years old and she had been newly hired at Clyde's agency. She didn't exactly have the resume of a seasoned operative. Kim was a former high school cheerleader, a go-go dancer, and a Navy flight controller who was honorably discharged in 1983.

From there, she actually moved to Houston with her sister, who was a runaway and a friend. The goal was to find a job as a civilian flight controller, but when that fell through, she ended up working at Clyde's agency. She had only been there for two months before Clyde took on the Campbell's case.

Despite her lack of experience, Kim's striking looks, made her perfect for the job. She had dark hair, blue eyes, and a confident [00:23:00] charm. Clyde had his doubts about the whole idea, but he agreed to let Kim try and she was thrilled about this opportunity, but her mom wasn't quite sure she was right for this job.

When Kim told her mom about this undercover assignment, her mom sarcastically said quote. Yeah, sure. And I'm Cleopatra, and your father is Superman. Quote. To get started, Kim met with Denise Mosley, who was one of the agency's top investigators and their resident expert on David West. Denise described David, who was now 28 years old.

She said he was a delivery driver for a blueprint company who saw himself as a survivalist. He lifted weights daily, collected guns, and read Soldier of Fortune magazine. David was also single as his relationship with Cindy had since ended. He lived in Houston's Montrose district, which People Magazine described as a part of town where gentrified homes butted up against strip joints and bars and where artists and [00:24:00] weirdos breathe the same air.

And that was a quote from People Magazine No Less, which I was from People Magazine. Surprised by, I like artists and weirdos. That's an interesting way to say it. Yeah, that sounds like Austin never been there, but that sounds like what I hear about Austin. So Kim created her undercover identity. She would present herself as a punk rocker, think pink, spiky hair leotards, fishnet, socking, and Spike heels.

Her alias was to be Theresa Neal, which was the same name that Agatha Christie used when she mysteriously disappeared in 1926. Interesting choice. Totally. And Kim's whole get up. This sounds like season two of Rock of Love on VH one with Brett Michaels. It sounds like any of their contestants. I have.

That's what I, the perfect visual now right, comes right in your head. Yeah. And so the plan was simple. Kim would knock on David's door and ask for someone named Charlie. Of course, this Charlie doesn't exist. It feels like nowadays how we get text [00:25:00] messages. How often do you get a text message that says like, Hey, is this whoever, or what are you doing later?

And you're like, I don't know you. This is a scam. Please stop doing this. But back in the eighties things were different. So when David or his roommate says, you know, Charlie doesn't live here, then Kim would ask to use the phone. So that was like her whole idea to get in the door. Also, something that would only happen in in 1980 something, because now like if someone knocked on my door and I and said, and I said, you have the wrong house.

Like you're absolutely not coming inside my house. No, I would be saying it from the Ring doorbell, right? Like, I'm in another room, I'm not, I didn't even open the door for you. Um, so there's no way this would work. But once inside the idea was she'd start chatting with them and if things go well, they'd end up going on a date.

And from there, the goal was to get close and to get him talking. I can't imagine setting up a fake date and the confidence you have to have to be like, well, I'll just go there and he'll ask me out. And this'll. Be it that that's not Melissa in the eighties, [00:26:00] in the 2020s, that would never be a thing people would believe could happen if.

Okay. Sorry. It was, it was a whole plan and like every single part of it had to go exactly the way it went in their head. So, yeah. That is wild. Yes, it's, it is definitely, but the confidence to think it could happen tells me like, things work out for you lady. Right. So, so Kim Kim's coworkers though, told her not to tell any more lies than she had to tell David.

So just six days before Christmas in 1984, Kim Paris put her plan into motion. On December 19th, she knocked on the door of David's apartment and was greeted, not by David, but by his roommate who answered the door and probably was. Very surprised to see punk rock or Kim standing there. She played her part.

She acted confused and kind of embarrassed, and she just said, my sister sent me here to pick something [00:27:00] up. I, I know she gave me the right address. Do you mind if I come inside and use the phone? And it worked. The roommate let her write inside. So David actually was not home, and I don't know if. They really had a plan for this, or if she just winged it, right?

Because what do you do if your target isn't even there? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, Kim though didn't wanna waste the opportunity. She's already inside. She kind of has a foot in the door, so she just strikes up a conversation. Literally. Yeah, literally. So she strikes up a conversation with the roommate and. The roommate really seemed to like her, which I would feel like things are spiraling outta control at this point.

I would be like, okay, this is not, you know what, actually it's next door. I'm outta here. Right? Like we're way off the rails now. So eventually though, the roommate who likes her invites her out. To go hang out with him and some of his friends for drinks later that night. And this included his roommate David West.

So Kim's like, yeah, sure Guy who likes me. I really wanna go out and meet your roommate. So [00:28:00] she goes, they had to, the roommates got along, they hung out. Like, these are all things that I'm like, wow, the only in the story could this happen, right? Truly. So at the bar, Kim quickly figures out which one is David.

And she sits down right in, uh, right next to him in the seat. She was really careful to keep it casual and just asked him normal first time meeting you questions. But secretly she's, you know, watching and making mental notes of everything that he says and does as they talk. David told Kim that he wanted to open a bar just like the one that they were sitting in, and Kim just casually says, oh, that's cool, but you know, that costs money.

How can you afford that? And David really didn't skip a beat. He told her that his ex-girlfriend Cindy, was about to come into some money and that she would be a silent partner in this new business. Okay? Mm-hmm. Does she know that? So Kim thought, you know, this is a sure sign. Cindy has something to do with her parents' murders and that all of this is about to tie together somehow.

So Kim and [00:29:00] David. Continue to see each other about three to four times per week and talked on the phone almost every day, but Kim has to be very careful. She says that from the very beginning, she made it clear that she wanted this relationship to stay platonic. And that makes sense if you're just a private investigator investigating Yeah.

Uh, this situation for this family who has hired you. So Kim later emphasized that her relationship with David was never sexual, despite lots of speculation that it was, and you'll kind of see why there was a lot of speculation as we keep going. But she says that she just wanted to build a friendship and gain David's confidence and that she was always in control.

She always made the calls and she always set the dates. She says that she wore tennis shoes. She drove her own car when she saw him, and she never carried a weapon. But she said that there was usually another agent tailing them to ensure her safety. According to Kim, David was very easy to talk to and they had a lot of real common interests, not just ones that she made up for her persona.

So they [00:30:00] actually did have plenty to talk about and to connect on. David loved to argue about religion, politics, and philosophy, which. Immediately would not be the type of person I would connect with on a deep and spiritual level. Um, but they spent most of their time in conversation talking about all of these types of things.

And some of those conversations did raise red flags. David would often mention Cindy, and he mentioned at one point that Cindy's parents had died in a car accident. And so when Kim hears this, she thought it was strange, you know, because why would he lie about how Cindy's parents died if. He didn't have anything to do with their deaths.

Right? Or didn't know something he wasn't supposed to know. So Kim then casually mentioned that, you know, all of this is really cool and great about you, David, but I, Kim am only interested in dating macho men. And so eventually this tactic worked. You know, her talking up that she likes bad boys and all that kind of stuff.

And David then started opening up [00:31:00] and hinting, you know, he might have something really bad in his past. There's something terrible there, but he didn't really elaborate on what was going on. I thought Macho Man was like, first of all a song, but I also thought it was like, just like somebody that's in the gym, like very typical, you know, dude stuff or whatever.

I think they not like different terms for it now, but yeah, that's. But I feel not like I have a criminal past. No, I don't think criminal past is macho, but I think, I don't know, like a bad boy, but like a bad boy. Yeah. I would want a bad boy, smart boy who doesn't get caught with whatever criminal enterprises he is running.

But I wouldn't want that. But I'm just saying like it's, it's a weird thing that he goes straight to a place of like, oh, I've done some bad things. Right. And could possibly hinting at something like terrible. Maybe she's just thinking like Yeah, exactly. When, who knows? I don't know. I want you to be able to fix my car if it breaks down.

Exactly. That's what I would want. Right. I want a [00:32:00] handyman hammer a nail into the wall for me and not screw it up. That's it. So by late January of 1985, David though had fallen very hard. He gave Kim a studded black leather bracelet and told her that he wanted to marry her. For Kim though, this was the sign that he trusted her completely.

She said she knew, she quote unquote, had him at that point. But the problem was that now it's been nearly three months of. Stating of sorts, and David was starting to expect that things would become physical soon, but Kim wasn't willing to let it go there. So Kim went to her boss, Clyde and bluntly stated that she wasn't gonna sleep with this guy.

Clyde arranged a meeting with his friend, Houston Police Sergeant JC Moser, who suggested that Kim wear a wire. And Kim agreed to this without hesitation. On February 20th, 1985, Kim slipped a small transmitter into her purse and went to dinner with David. Detectives parked nearby in [00:33:00] an unmarked van and listened to the conversation in real time.

After dinner, they drove back to David's place and sat in the driveway talking. Kim knew that the moment had come. She had to bring this whole thing to some sort of a conclusion. Kim looked at David and told him that if he didn't tell her what he was hiding, she was leaving. So David paused for a moment and then he looked at Kim and he told her.

Everything he said, quote, look at me. I killed both of Cindy's parents there. Now, do you know I trust you. And Kim was stunned because even though all of Kim's ideas have come to fruition, I believe this would be the one that you'd be like, wow, I didn't know we'd actually get here. Right. So she never thought for a moment that David was the one that actually did this.

She thought, you know, like everyone was that Cindy is the one that did this. She said though, that she didn't want to know more, but David kept talking. So David described the night of the murders saying that he and Cindy drove to her [00:34:00] parents' house and once they were inside, he made her come upstairs with him to the bedroom where he shot James in Virginia to death.

He said it was quote, just a simple execution. She wanted him dead. I did it. And then David looked at Kim and said, you now have my life in your hands. And Kim calmly told him to go upstairs, get some sleep, and that she'd call him in the morning. Kim drove off into the night, but she said she didn't get very far before she pulled over, ran into a nearby yard and threw up.

The detectives were already waiting for her when she got home, and they were just as shocked as she was up until that point. Everyone believed that Cindy had pulled the trigger. Now they knew the truth and if they wanted to hold Cindy accountable, they needed more. Another wire. One more conversation. Of course, at this point, Kim doesn't wanna do it.

She said she couldn't really explain it, but at this point she doesn't want to hurt David. She said he seemed [00:35:00] so fragile. So the detectives were like not on our watch, and they gave her a manila envelope that had roughly a dozen photos of a gruesome crime scene that were inside. And when Kim saw these photos, that really changed everything for her.

She said she was ready to go back in. So the very next day, a grand jury handed down an indictment for the double murder, but their job wasn't finished yet. Same day. The plan was for Kim to have dinner with David again, and the goal was to keep him talking. And after the meal she would stop at a convenience store to buy cigarettes, and while she was inside, the police would come and arrest David at dinner.

David opened up even more. It was kind of like he'd been waiting for someone to confess this to. He told Kim that Cindy had begged him to kill her parents. She allegedly claimed that she had been neglected and that her dad physically and sexually abused her throughout her childhood. That that abuse had recently started again.

David said he felt like he had to save her. [00:36:00] He said that Cindy offered him money to kill her parents, but he turned it down. He explained that Cindy had unlocked a downstairs window ahead of time so they could sneak in quietly. She wore oversized boots, a raincoat and a hat intentionally to look like a man before entering the house.

She stomped deliberately in the flower bed outside to leave boot prints as a decoy. Once inside, they went upstairs. Cindy opened the bedroom door and turned the light on as David stepped inside and they were careful not to step on the kids that were sleeping in the pile of blankets on the floor. Oh my gosh.

It makes me so mad that they saw the kids there and still decided to go through with this. Like this is an absolutely insane. Well, and Cindy probably knew this was like a regular Friday night occurrence for the kids. When kids have things like this, you know, they just tell you all these things, right? So I feel like she knew that this was definitely possible to run into.

Right? For sure. So Cindy backed out of the room and David raised the gun and opened [00:37:00] fire shooting each of the victims three times. David said that Cindy started to come unhinged after the murder, and he worried that she might tell someone what had happened. He said that he actually considered killing Cindy too, but then he decided against it.

Then in a chilling twist, David lifted his pant leg and he revealed that he had a gun strapp to his leg. At that moment, he said to Kim, I'll never be taken alive. Kim stayed calm and minutes later after they left, she pulled into a convenience store as planned and went inside to buy cigarettes. When Kim walked back out, David was surrounded by police.

She stood next to the investigators as they made the arrest. Kim said she vividly remembered the moment that David realized she was part of this long running investigation against him. Uh, she said it, she could see it just come over his face and she knew that she had to look him in the eye and own, own it, you know?

'cause of course her first instinct was to look down and not look at [00:38:00] him. Right. But she felt like she really had to be like, no. Yeah. For the last three months I've been like. Spying on you, basically. Which, gosh, that's why I could not be a private investigator, because that would be really tough. One of many reasons I couldn't do it.

Yeah, and as we said, Kim had spent months infiltrating David's life and his mind and his trust, and that all took a toll on her as well. She later told the Washington Post that the whole thing was very emotional for her, which I imagine that it was. She said, you can't be involved with someone for two and a half months under the circumstances that I was, without there being real ties.

Sergeant Mosier later praised Kim and said that she did an excellent job. We have so much more to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. And now back to the episode. So before the break, we were following the investigation as suspicion around Cindy Campbell. Ray continued to grow and despite her behavior raising red flags and even [00:39:00] that chilling statement from her sister Jamie, that seemed to outline the exact way the murders played out, there really still wasn't enough evidence to charge her.

But that all changed when a young investigator named Kim Paris went undercover to get close to Cindy's ex-boyfriend David West. After months of carefully gaining his trust, Kim got David to confess to everything, how he carried out the murders, how Cindy helped plan them, and how she disguised herself that night to make it all look like a man's work.

With David under arrest and Cindy now on the radar more than ever, the case was about to take a major turn on February 22nd, 1985, just one day after David confessed Cindy was arrested on a probable cause warrant. By this time, she hardly resembled the Cindy. They once knew at this point she's gained a significant amount of weight and appeared completely disheveled as if she really stopped caring about herself entirely.

When Cindy was escorted into the police station, [00:40:00] detectives actually intentionally walked her past the room where David was being questioned so that she'd see him and know he was talking. Very smart. I love that. Unfortunately, though, that didn't prompt Cindy to cooperate. Once she was inside the interrogation room, she remained silent.

The next day she was formally charged with two counts of capital murder. What Cindy didn't know was that David actually wasn't talking either, at least not to the police. He was facing the same charges, which carried the possibility of the death penalty. After David was arrested, his attorney told people magazine that Kim's character was suspect and that her background would be thoroughly investigated.

He said there was more than just kissy face going on between her and David. David's roommate also had a hard time believing that he killed the Campbells and said that while David did have a quick temper, he didn't think he was capable of cold-blooded murder. [00:41:00] Cindy's arrest sent shockwaves through her own family as well.

Her three sisters, along with their uncle who was raising Cindy's two sons, filed a civil lawsuit against her in an attempt to recover the four unit apartment building and the $58,000 cash she'd already received from the estate. Their attorney pointed out that the law prohibits Cindy from profiting off of her wrongdoing, but the lawsuit was later dropped in fear that it might interfere with the criminal case.

But then things stalled again less than a month after her arrest. Cindy was released from jail after a grand jury refused to indict her on capital murder charges. Prosecutors really weren't surprised by this. Texas law required more than just a confession from a co-defendant to charge someone as an accomplice.

They needed evidence to corroborate it, which was something they didn't have. Months passed, but Cindy was eventually indicted in December of 1985. Nearly three years after the murders, [00:42:00] the charges were non-capital murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of capital murder. The indictment was only for the death of Cindy's father that the grand jury declined to indict her for the murder of her mother.

At that time, prosecutors explained that they did not pursue the death penalty because they didn't feel that it was realistic since Cindy did not pull the trigger herself. The state agreed there was enough to take Cindy to trial, but whether that would be enough to secure a conviction remained to be seen.

Meanwhile, David's trial was approaching and the big question on everyone's mind was whether or not those recordings of his confession to Kim Paris would be allowed in court for prosecutors. Those recordings were literally everything, and without that evidence, their case was on shaky ground. That confession was their only direct line to the truth.

Just before the trial was about to begin, the judge ruled that the tapes would be admissible and David knew he was in serious trouble when he found out that the jury would get to hear [00:43:00] them. So at that point, he folded and he took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty and pleaded guilty to the non-capital murder of Virginia Campbell, and he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

As with any deal that you ever take, there was a catch with this one. David had to agree to testify against Cindy at her trial, and after that trial was over, he would have to plead guilty to the murder of James Campbell as well and receive the same sentence that he received for Virginia. If David refused to cooperate or went back on his word, prosecutors had the right to reinstate capital murder charges against him, which would then put the death penalty back on the table.

David signed the plea agreement and wrote, I committed the above murder. Along with and with the aid of Cynthia Campbell Ray on April 4th, 1986, Cindy was indicted on non-capital murder charges this time for the death of her mother. On June 13th, jury selection began for Cindy's trial, but [00:44:00] this was only the trial for the murder of her father, and that was because since the jury initially declined to indict her for her mother's death, the court ruled that trying her at that time, like right away for her mother's death would violate her right to a speedy trial.

That part was really confusing to me because I'm not really sure, uh, why they didn't just try them together, but they were only gonna be trying her in her first trial for the death of her father. So they were relying almost entirely on David West, and they told the jury that Cindy had persuaded him to kill her parents and even offered money to do it.

David took the stand as the state star witness and testified for six days where he described his relationship with Cindy, described how they planned the murders, and the night that everything unfolded. Testimony from multiple witnesses revealed that Cindy had told them different stories about being sexually abused, and the stories really didn't match.

In some cases, the abuser was her father and others, it was her mom. In some cases, she blamed the housekeeper, but there was no [00:45:00] evidence that her parents had ever abused her. Prosecutors explained that Cindy's parents were cutting her off financially. They had spent years supporting her, helping her raise her kids, paying for her housing, her schooling, and every day-to-day need that she had, and they were just done.

They told Cindy to grow up and get a job. Prosecutors believed she wanted them dead, not because they had abused her in any way, but because they were stopping the flow of money. The defense presented their case, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to sway all 12 jurors and after three days of deliberation, the jury was deadlocked 10 to two and the judge declared a mistrial.

The jury foreman didn't reveal which way the vote had gone, only that the divide was not going to change the prosecution wasn't really surprised. They had pretty much expected things to go that way, and were already preparing to try Cindy again. On March 23rd, 1987, Cindy went to trial again this time [00:46:00] for the murder of both of her parents.

Prosecutors argued that she was driven by greed and that she had manipulated David West into believing that she had been abused. She also offered him money and helped plan and carry out the murders. They said she didn't pull the trigger, but she was there and she was just as responsible. They reminded the jurors that Cindy had admitted to being at her parents' house around 10:00 PM on the night of the murders, and that she was with David the entire night.

And also they called Cindy a willing participant. They also pointed to her behavior afterwards, she showed no remorse and was the only daughter to receive a financial settlement from the estate. The most powerful testimony came from Cindy's friend Gwen, who Cindy allegedly confessed to. Cindy said quote, I stood behind him with my children on the floor.

I didn't look when he shot my father. I didn't look when he shot my mother. Cindy admitted that she dressed like a man that night so her children [00:47:00] wouldn't recognize her and that the entire plan had been her idea. The defense insisted that David was lying and that he acted alone and Cindy had no involvement.

The jury also got to hear David's testimony and parts of his taped confession to Kim Paris. Finally, on April 14th, after just two hours of deliberating, the jury found Cindy guilty of murdering both of her parents with a deadly weapon. The jury had the option to acquit if they believed that Cindy acted under duress.

But they didn't. Cindy's attorney told the Associated press, she didn't say anything. She was devastated. All I did was hold her for a while. The next day, the jury deliberated for three hours before recommending life in prison for each murder. On June 5th, 1987, David, who was now 31, pleaded guilty to the murder of James Campbell.

He was sentenced to life in prison, which would run concurrently with his [00:48:00] earlier sentence for killing Virginia. With both killers behind bars, attention turned to the woman who made it all happen, and that was Kim Paris. When news broke about how David had been caught, Kim became a media sensation. TV producers, agents and studios flooded her with offers and she appeared on Donahue.

Good Morning America and CBS Morning News. Instant fame also came with instant judgment as reporters started digging into Kim's past. It came out that Kim had worked as a topless dancer, struggled with drug addiction, and had been arrested for DUI though that was later dismissed. And all of this happened between her discharge from the Navy and the time that she joined Clyde Wilson's private investigating agency.

But despite the backlash, those closest to the case stood by her. A detective told the media that if it wasn't for Kim, the case would still be unsolved. Eventually, Kim's relationship with Clyde fell apart [00:49:00] and Kim dealt with mistreatment by her first agent who had sold the rights to her story multiple times without her consent.

And when Clyde was later questioned about Kim's background, he said, quote for what I hired her to do, I couldn't care less about her lifestyle and this business, you can't hire a Baptist choir girl. That's a quote. That's a quote. By the time Cindy was convicted, Kim had disappeared from the spotlight. She had received threats and had her entire character dragged in the media.

She returned to her hometown of St. Louis and stepped away from investigative work for a while, and instead worked as a manicurist in a department store, which is quite the, uh, career change, right? Kim got married and had a son and eventually found her way back into the field working for a local investigator while she went back to school.

She also helped bring her own story to TV in 1990. Love and Lies aired. It was a dramatization of the Campbell case from Kim's point of view, but the attention didn't end there. [00:50:00] Kim sold the rights to two books about the case. One was Cold Kill by Jack Olson, and the other involved Clifford Irving, who was already infamous for literary fraud.

This guy was in a scandal after it was revealed that the Howard Hughes autobiography he wrote was actually a complete hoax. Basically, Clifford claimed that he put together an autobiography based on a hundred secret meetings, and he sold this autobiography to McGraw Hill for $650,000. Wow. And yeah, apparently it was all a hoax.

He was later sentenced to 16 months in federal prison, and he was even on the cover of Time Magazine, which seems like it would be an accomplishment or an achievement. Mm-hmm. Except when it comes with the tagline, conman of the Year. Yeah. Can't win 'em all. Yeah. So Kim had huge issues with Clifford and accused him of using her story to land a book deal.

Despite the drama, Kim's story remained in demand. ITC Entertainment optioned the Kim Paris story, which was written [00:51:00] by Kim. And then Cold Kill was purchased for a feature film by producer Elliot Kaner. In December of 1988, the Texas Court of Appeals upheld Cindy's murder convictions, but they struck down the deadly weapon enhancement.

The court acknowledged that while she had orchestrated the murders, Cindy hadn't personally used or displayed a weapon during or after the crime, and under Texas law, that detail mattered. The judges admitted that they understood why prosecutors pursued the charge because. Common sense would say that the Mastermind behind a murder should be held equally accountable, but the legal standard required that the defendant had to use or exhibit the weapon themselves in order for that charge to stand.

David West has been eligible for parole since April of 2005, but he has yet to be approved. His last eligibility was in April of 2021. And he was denied because of the brutality of the crime. Today, [00:52:00] 65-year-old David is incarcerated in the Ramsey unit, a prison farm in RAR in Texas, and he'll likely be up again for parole soon.

As for Cindy, she applied for a parole multiple times, but she was denied each time. Cindy actually passed away on May 17th, 2021 while serving her sentence. She died from complications related to several health conditions at the age of 65. She had been hospitalized for six months leading up to her death.

The house on Memorial Drive that was once the scene of such a horrific crime, no longer stands in 1990. A new home was built there. But for those who know the story, the address still carries weight. Wow. Okay. Isn't this crazy? Okay. This is how my brain works when I hear a story like this, and we have, uh, we don't really have any physical evidence, right?

We have, we have a confession, but through a private investigator slash girlfriend pretending private investigator, in some places, this would [00:53:00] not do anything. You could not get them to charge somebody. We see so many cases where there's so much less and they charge them. I, I fully believe these people did this.

For sure. I mean, all signs point to it, but people are charged for such like. For much, much, much more. They will never get a charge. Right. And you look at something like this and you're like, wow, I can't believe this isn't like a hearsay or anything like that. I, I'm actually impressed that they were able to take this to court and actually get them.

Same convicted. Yeah, same. And I do think that does also go, like, it speaks to, I feel like different states having different laws. Yeah. Right. Like every state Exactly. Has. Not that like it's intentionally like, oh, some states just let you know, more slide. But it's literally the way laws are written and worded in some cases.

Right? And it's like, if that's what it says, like then that's what it says, and sometimes it doesn't make sense to us. But then when you compare it to the way other states do things, you're like, mm-hmm. Okay. I can see why. This worked in this case and it wouldn't, it didn't work in a case in another [00:54:00] state, you know, that we've done.

Right. So, yeah, it's really fascinating and interesting. I thought the whole thing with the long, the long game, uh, private investigating was like the craziest part of the story to me. We've definitely talked about private investigating. In stories. Mm-hmm. But I feel like this was the most, um, involved like that you ever, you, you know, you only ever hear about private investigators, like you said, who sit out outside of your house and take pictures and report back to whoever's paying them or whatever.

But they're not, like, in general, they're not going undercover and directly trying to interact with the person that they're investigating. Like, that's usually not an ongoing relationship. Right. I mean, that is something I feel like you would see with like. Trained law enforcement, right? Like, not like a private investigating firm, just for safety reasons.

Like you wouldn't put a young 23-year-old girl in a situation where she's gonna have this months long fake relationship with somebody who could potentially be tied to a, a murder double murder. Like, that's crazy to me. But, um, I mean, I'm glad that she got the [00:55:00] confession and that, that, you know, yeah, everything worked out.

But yeah, what a wild story. I was not expecting some of those twists in this one. Agree and, uh, always upsetting when kids are there involved in that way. Like to, to know your kids are there not, to go in there and be like, oh, I mean she dressed to so they wouldn't see her. Right. So she knew there was a possibility and that's just makes it even more messed up.

Yeah. I mean, well it just goes to show that yes, of course she knew that she, what she was doing, you know, that right there, taking that step to conceal your identity from your children like that should have been. Yeah, I don't know. That should have been what stopped you or something else. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. So, okay. Well that was our story for this week. Thank you guys for listening. We will be back next week. Same time, same place. New story. Have a great week. [00:56:00] Bye.