The victims had been attacked so brutally that at first police thought they had been shot. The bludgeoned bodies of Martha Parmer, 43, and her sister, Linda Harrison, 45, were discovered in the modest one-bedroom home they shared in Pasadena, Texas on the morning of April 5, 1995.

An autopsy found that Parmer suffered at least 11 blows from a blunt object that crushed her head, bruising her brain. Harrison also had a crushed head with lacerations to her brain as a result of at least six blows from a blunt object.

Police reports showed that Harrison had called police to her home two days before the murders for a possible criminal trespassing involving her sister's ex-husband. Joe Durrett was a 40-year-old auto parts salesman. He and Martha had divorced the month before after 16 years of marriage, and the terms were less than amicable. But after questioning Durrett for 4 hours, police released him without charging him with any crime.

Still, the couple's estrangement meant that Joe Durrett remained the prime suspect. When they learned that Durrett had told his mother in the days after the murders that he'd seen the bodies through one of the house's windows, something that was impossible because the window was covered with a blanket, investigators had what they thought they needed. Joe Durrett was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder.