Who Murdered Cheryl And Andy On Lovers Lane One Summer Night In Texas?
On August 22, 1990, what started as a blissful summer night in Texas ended in tragedy for 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson.
The pair were in love, and that evening, Cheryl and her sister decided to meet up with Andy at Bayou Mama’s nightclub, located on Westheimer at South Gessner. It was about 10:45 p.m. when they were last seen alive.
After hanging out at the club, they got in Andy’s white car and drove to a remote region known as Lovers Lane off Enclave Parkway in west Houston. Cheryl and Andy never returned home that evening, though, or showed up for work the following day. This prompted Chery’s family to report her missing to Houston police.
A security guard at Sysco Food ultimately discovered Andy’s car, which was abandoned in the 1300 block of Enclave Round. Cheryl’s purse and shoes were still inside, but she and Andy had been heinously killed.
Cheryl’s mother, Barbara Craig, was there when search dogs located her daughter’s body. The 22-year-old was unclothed, and her throat had been slashed. Her remains were hidden under wooden boards, with a $20 bill close by. The murderer had also used a golf club and golf balls to point toward her dead body.
The police had to restrain Barbara to keep her from seeing the horrific way her daughter had been killed. In 2017, she told the press, “I know if they had let me go to Cheryl, I would have breathed into her, and she’d be alive.”
Andy was found nearly decapitated and tied to a tree. The police believed that Cheryl had been killed first, and Andy was forced to listen.
“This means he was tied to a tree and listened to her scream, listened to her being murdered, knowing that they were going to do the same thing, and he couldn’t do anything about it. That’s hard to accept,” his father, Garland Atkinson, said.
According to Billy Belk, a retired Houston Police Department detective, he worked on Cheryl and Andy’s case for 20 years in hopes of finding their murderer.
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He theorized that the couple was targeted, perhaps by two or three different suspects. During his search for answers, he compared the DNA of at least 25 potential suspects to DNA samples obtained from the crime scene.
FBI profilers also came up with their own theories, including that the suspect might’ve known Cheryl and Andy and was around the same age. Additionally, the profilers suggested he was a low achiever despite having above-average intelligence and could’ve been interviewed by police at one point.
It took 17 years after Cheryl and Andy were killed for a real break in the case to develop, and it was linked to an assault that occurred two months before they were murdered.
In 1990, a dancer who worked at Gigi’s nightclub visited her boyfriend’s home, located in northwest Houston, when a man arrived. He claimed her boyfriend owed him money, forced himself inside, and attacked her.
The man duct-taped her hands behind her back and used the same tape to cover her mouth and eyes. He also put a bag over her head, assaulted her, and taunted her with a gun.
The dancer later described her attacker as being around six feet tall, weighing 180 pounds, and in his late twenties to mid-thirties. He had black hair, wore black fishnets over his head and gloves on his hands, and had dark clothing on, which was potentially a uniform.
The attack ended when the man disconnected her phone, took $250 out of her purse, and left.
DNA testing is advanced now, but at the time of the dancer’s attack, it was both new and costly. That’s why the attacker’s DNA samples weren’t run until 17 years later, and once they finally were, investigators realized they matched the DNA evidence found in Cheryl and Andy’s case.
This pushed the police to track down the dancer again and interview her. They learned that she’d previously been employed by Andy’s father, Garland Atkinson. Authorities didn’t know if this was a freak coincidence or if the killer might’ve also worked for Garland at one point.
She ultimately helped authorities create a sketch of the killer. Nonetheless, his identity remains unknown, as his DNA was not in the national database for comparison.
As of 2017, investigators were hopeful that perhaps new familial DNA platforms like 23andMe or Ancestry would pinpoint the killer’s possible relatives and lead them to him.
“That individual profile can be used as probable cause to go and get a DNA sample from the actual targeted person,” detailed Darcus Shorten, an HPD detective.
Still, such a lead hasn’t come up in Cheryl and Andy’s case, which has remained unsolved for over 34 years. For Cheryl’s brother, Shane Craig, the what-ifs continue to consume him.
“They bound them. They tortured them. They assaulted them. And then, they murdered them. It just destroyed our family,” he stated.
“I walk through every minute I was with her that day and what I could have done differently. If I hadn’t left her… if she had gone home.”
As of August 2023, Barbara revealed that she continues wearing her daughter’s watch and ring as she pictures Cheryl in heaven.
“In my mind, I can see Cheryl holding other people because they were traumatized, too, and she lets them know that they’re fine now,” she shared.
Anyone with information about Cheryl and Andy’s case is urged to contact the Houston Police Department Cold Case Squad at (713) 308-3618.
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