Lecia McGee Part One: Cold & Deadly Night

In the late 1970s, Fort Worth was a city in transition. Although it had always been sleepy compared to other major Texas cities, downtown had begun to lose much of its former glory, parts of the Stockyards were in decline, and violent crime remained an increasingly serious problem across the entire region. Against that backdrop, the murder of a seventeen-year-old high school student became one of the city’s most disturbing unsolved crimes in 1978.

Lecia McGee was remembered as outgoing, kind, and well-liked, but also tough. She played sports, enjoyed spending time with friends, and took particular pride in...