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Today we’re stepping back to May 1985, when a quiet neighborhood in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shattered by an unthinkable tragedy. The Eastburn family—Katie and her daughters Kara and Erin—were brutally murdered in their home, leaving 21-month-old Jana crying alone for days. What followed was a decades-long saga of grief, suspicion, and justice that hinged on a suspect, a dog named Dixie, and DNA that wouldn’t stay silent. In this episode, we’ll unravel this haunting case—one that took three trials, a death sentence, and unanswered questions to reach its still-controversial end.
In May 1985, neighbors of the Eastburn family realized that they hadn’t seen the family in days & noticed newspapers piling up on the doorstep of the family’s home, which caused them concern for their wellbeing. At the same time, Gary Eastburn, who was away for training for the Air Force, had been unable to reach his wife for two days.
Neighbors of the Eastburn family made the decision to walk over to investigate & as they got closer, they could hear the sounds of a baby’s cries coming from within the home, but no one answered their knocks. After the local police were notified, they were met with devastation inside the home.
In 1985, the Eastburn family consisted of parents, Gary & Kathryn “Katie” & their three daughters, 5-year-old Kara, 3-year-old Erin & a not yet 2-year-old Jana. After meeting in the early 1970s at a softball game for singles, it was love at first-sight for Gary & he admits that he was madly in love with Katie. After years of dating, the couple married in 1975 & they had their first daughter three years later.
While Gary worked his way up to captain in the US Air Force, Katie stayed home, taking care of the girls. The arrangement worked perfectly for the family, their marriage was happy & they adored their girls. Gary was eventually stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1983 where he worked as the chief of air traffic control & he was aware that he & his family would stay in the area as long as he was needed.
Katie was known to be a very compassionate person who was quick to make friends. She had a strong sense of family value & naturally nurtured & cared for others. Because Gary was so frequently away, Katie was often a single parent to her three young daughters, yet she remained resilient & supportive of her husband & always made sure that her daughters felt nothing but love & security.
As the Eastburns settled into their new home in Fayetteville, they quickly made friends & the community adored them. However, after two years in North Carolina, Gary received word that he would be needed in the Royal Air Force in England so the family geared up to move yet again. Katie was a little reluctant to make such a big move since she worried about being so far from her family who lived in Kansas, but Gary eventually managed to convince his wife after he described the girls riding horses along the English countryside.
Despite the fact that Gary was based out of Fayetteville, he was actually stationed at a training facility 500 miles (805 km) away from his family in Montgomery, Alabama. It wasn’t easy being away from them, but Gary & Katie made it work & stayed in contact as much as possible since the kids tended to go stretches of a time without seeing their father.
It was routine for Gary to call home every Saturday to check in & catch up with his family. As Saturday, May 11, 1985 rolled around, Gary called home that morning like he did each week, but this time, he was unable to reach Katie.
The following day, which just so happened to be Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12, Bob Seefelt, the Eastburn’s neighbor, was growing concerned about Katie & the girls after he didn’t recall seeing them since Thursday, three days earlier, & also noticed the newspapers gathering out front. Initially, Bob just assumed that Katie must have gone out of town with the girls, but since her Toyota station wagon remained on the driveway, that was unlikely.
Bob was accustomed to seeing Katie & the girls milling about, coming & going & Katie typically brought their daily paper inside so he decided to investigate.
When Bob walked over to the home & rang the doorbell, it went unanswered, something that was alarming since he could hear Jana crying inside. Bob instructed his wife to contact the local police while he awaited their arrival.
When the sheriff’s department arrived fifteen minutes later, they initially believed that Bob was mistaken since the house was quiet & they heard no cries from a baby inside. Bob had also contacted the Eastburn’s babysitter, Julie, who also hadn’t heard from Katie. When Julie arrived, she peered through the home’s windows & called out that she could see Jana inside. Once officers walked over & confirmed this, they let themselves into the house after cutting the screen, entering through a window.
Once inside, they passed Jana to Bob through the window for safekeeping while they continued their investigation into the house. As the officers made their way into the living room, they saw a pair of jeans as well as a blouse with two buttons ripped off & torn underwear in the living room. They also couldn’t ignore the distinct odor of death that hung heavily in the air. As they stood in the hallway, the officer saw a dead body at the end of the hall & immediately radioed the homicide unit.
Meanwhile, Bob & his wife noted that Jana looked ill as she cried out & it was clear that she had not eaten nor had her diaper been changed in some time, likely in days. Bob took the baby to his house & when he gave her milk, she hungrily drank it down. Because she was so dehydrated & hadn’t eaten in some time, she drank the milk so quickly that it caused her to vomit.
As Jana was being cared for, police were met with a gruesome & tragic scene inside the Eastburn home. As they entered the primary bedroom, they first came across the body of 3-year-old Erin laying on one side of the bed. Part of her face was covered with pillows & she had a slash wound to her neck as well as multiple lacerations to her chest.
32-year-old Katie was lying on the floor next to her bed, pillows also partially covering her face. Like Erin, there was also a deep slash to her neck & she had fifteen lacerations to her chest. She was naked from the waist down, her pants & underwear had been cut from her body suggesting a sexual assault.
5-year-old Kara was found under her Star Wars blanket in her bedroom with her throat slit & multiple lacerations to her chest & side.
Autopsies proved that the cause of death for each of the victims had been stab wounds & a large slash to each of their necks. There were defensive wounds found to the victim’s hands & forearms & markings on Katie’s wrists were consistent with them having been bound.
When Gary was told by his colleague that a detective was on the phone for him, his heart dropped since he had a terrible feeling that something wasn’t right after Katie failed to answer the phone the day before & hadn’t contacted him. He recalls saying, How many of ‘em are dead? At the time, he was only told that there was a death in the family & he needed to come home immediately. He boarded the first flight back to North Carolina & headed straight to the police station where he was given the unimaginable, life-changing news.
When detectives spoke with Julie, the family’s babysitter, she told them that she was sure that Katie had a stalker since she’d been receiving prank phone calls for months before the murders. During these calls, the man on the other end of the line spoke about doing sexual things to Katie.
After authorities searched the Eastburn home, they noted that all of the window & door latches were unlocked. Evidence proved that the majority of the attack & struggle had occurred in the living room. When luminol was utilized, the walls & floors lit up which told investigators that the killer had attempted to clean up the blood.
Considering the degree of violence involved in Katie, Erin & Kara’s murders, there would have been a lot of blood left behind. Though the killer clearly tried to erase evidence, they had not done a very good job. Investigators located many fingerprints, a single caucasian pubic hair, as well as blood-soaked towels that had been used to clean the scene of the crime. Tracks were located both in & outside the home & DNA evidence was found inside Katie’s body after vaginal swabs revealed the presence of sperm that had been deposited within hours of her death.
After the triple homicide, the killer left 21-month-old Jana unharmed, down the hall in her crib, to slowly starve to death where she lay for nearly three days before she was carried to safety.
Gary was asked to do a walk through of his home to determine if the killer had taken anything. He noticed that an envelope was missing with somewhere around $300 inside as well as Katie’s ATM card & a piece of paper with her PIN number on it. He explained that their family dog, Dixie, had been rehomed after Katie put an ad in the local paper since she didn’t feel the stressful move to England would be good for the dog. Since he’d been away, Gary wasn’t sure who had adopted the dog.
21-month-old Jana was eventually taken to a child psychologist, Helen Brantley, in order to begin working through the trauma she’d survived. She was able to express to the doctor that her house was scary & that she needed to hide & be quiet so the man wouldn’t get her. With this information, the psychologist believed that Erin and/or Kara had likely come into her room to warn her to hide & be quiet before they were ultimately slashed & stabbed to death. It’s unclear if Jana had witnessed what happened, but there’s no doubt that she heard terrifying things happening to her mother & sisters. When Jana was shown a photo of her mom in order to trigger her memory, the traumatized little girl kissed the photo.
On the same day that authorities had been called to the Eastburn home on Mother’s Day, they spoke with a man named Patrick Cone, who worked as a janitor & started his mornings very early. He told investigators that when he left his girlfriend’s home at 3:30 am on Friday, May 10, two days before the family’s bodies were discovered, he saw a tall, blond-haired, white man with a wide nose & a mustache leaving the Eastburn’s home near Fort Bragg. The man wore a Members Only jacket, jeans & a knit cap & carried a trash bag. As he walked past Patrick, he’d actually spoken to him & said leaving a little early this morning, before he climbed into a white Chevette & drove away.
Patrick sat down with a sketch artist on Tuesday, May 14 & a composite sketch was created which was eventually released to the public. Soon after, people began coming forward with information about the case.
One woman told investigators that she’d seen a tall man with a mustache & blond hair withdrawing money from an ATM. Investigators discovered that Katie’s ATM card that had been stolen was used on Friday, May 10 at 10:54 pm & on Saturday, May 11 at 8:56 am. Both times the maximum amount of $150 was withdrawn.
Three minutes after Katie’s card was utilized that Saturday morning at 8:56 am, the witness utilized the ATM & recalled seeing a man that fit Tim’s description wearing camouflage pants, getting into a small, light colored car.
In the meantime, Julie, the Eastburn’s babysitter, gave authorities more information about the newspaper ad that Katie had placed in regards to rehoming the family dog, Dixie, in preparation for their move to England. Since they were relocating to a different country, Katie felt it would be best to find their older dog, a Red Setter, a new local home rather than putting her through the stress of a long-distance move. She placed the ad in the classified section of the Beeline Grab Bragg, a newspaper that served the local military community in the area around Pope Air Force Base & Fort Bragg.
While Julie was babysitting, she received a phone call from a woman named Angela, who was interested in adopting Dixie only a couple of days before Katie & her two daughters were murdered. Investigators wondered if this could somehow be connected to what happened to the family.
During her conversation with Angela, Julie jotted down the woman’s information so Katie could call her back when she got home. However, when investigators began looking for the note, they were unable to find it while they were aware that Dixie had been sent to live at her new home.
On Wednesday, May 15, three days after the Eastburn family’s bodies were found, a woman named Angela Hennis & her husband Tim were having lunch together & watching the news. They saw a special broadcast announcing that investigators were looking for a man who drove a white Chevette & had picked up an English setter from 367 Summer Hill Road during the previous week. Tim indicated that he was shocked when he realized that the home they’d just adopted their new dog from, was the very home they were seeing on TV. Not only that, but he drove a white Chevette.
Angela & Tim decided to drive to the Law Enforcement Center in downtown Fayetteville with their infant daughter in tow. Not only did they confirm that they were the family who had adopted Dixie, but that Tim Hennis drove a white Chevette. Not only that, but he strongly resembled the sketch of the man Patrick Cone had seen leaving the Eastburn home at 3:30 am on Friday morning.
When Tim spoke with detectives at the station, he explained that he’d met the Eastburn family on Tuesday, May 7th, five days before their bodies were found. After he talked it over with his wife, they decided to adopt Dixie.
Shortly before 9 pm, Tim parked his white Chevette in front of the Eastburn’s brick ranch house with black shutters at 367 Summer Hill Road. As Katie answered the door, Tim, who stood at 6’6”, would have towered over her & as they began to make pleasantries, Katie explained that she’d just put her daughters to bed. He indicated that he decided he liked Dixie so he led her to his car with the leash he’d brought with & he drove away.
Police believe that the family had been murdered sometime between Thursday night to the early morning hours of Friday, May 10 as neighbors had seen Katie on Thursday evening & the newspapers began piling up on Friday.
27-year-old Tim Hennis was a husband & new father to his daughter, Kristina, as well as an Army sergeant. As he continued to speak with investigators, he admitted that he called Katie later that Tuesday to touch base with how Dixie was settling into her new home.
Tim was immediately on edge & asked officers if he needed a lawyer, but police assured him that it was only a routine interview. When questioned about Thursday, the night of the murder, he indicated that he’d driven his wife & daughter to his in-law’s house & returned back home after stopping for gas. Since he would have been home alone, this left him with no alibi.
Detectives noted the arrogant, impatient way in which Tim Hennis answered their questions over the course of seven hours. He allowed investigators to obtain his fingerprints, saliva, hair & blood samples & maintained that after he’d left the Eastburn home with Dixie on Tuesday night, he hadn’t seen Katie again. He did say that Katie called him on Thursday night, the night that investigators believe she & her two daughters were murdered, to see how Dixie was getting along with his other dog.
Police learned that Tim was a highly intelligent man who’d scored 128 on an Army general-aptitude test which placed him in the 97th percentile. They believed he was hiding something & they didn’t think he was likely to slip up.
While Tim remained at the station speaking with officers, a photo lineup with five pictures was arranged in a manila envelope for Patrick Cone to look through. He quickly pointed out the image of Tim & said that he was sure it was the man he’d seen early Friday morning.
After speaking with investigators, Tim was allowed to leave the station & go home as there was no arrest warrant, but they were sure they had their main suspect. They began speaking with people who were familiar with Tim, including his neighbors who informed police that they’d recently seen him burning items in a barrel outside his home. They noticed him tending to the fire over the course of five hours, something they felt was strange since they’d never seen him do this before.
A local dry cleaner also came forward & told investigators that Tim had come in on the day of the murders to have his Members Only jacket cleaned.
When investigators spoke with Tim’s landlord, he indicated that Tim was late with his $345 rent check that month, but just after the murders, he’d come by to pay the man. Police immediately thought back to the missing envelope from the Eastburn home that contained $300.
With this information, Tim Hennis was arrested & charged with rape & three counts of first-degree murder. He was quickly offered a plea deal for two counts of second-degree murder with a likely penalty of two consecutive life sentences. He refused, indicating that he wasn’t going to plead guilty to something he hadn’t done. With this, he told police to test the samples they’d taken from him to prove that he wasn’t responsible.
When police initially spoke with Tim, he indicated that he’d dropped his wife & daughter off at his in-laws, stopped for gas & driven straight home on Thursday, May 9. However, police learned that on that evening, with his wife & daughter safely out of town, he made an unannounced visit to see a former girlfriend named Nancy Maeser. He knew she would be home alone since her husband was deployed in Germany. During their visit, Nancy tapped Tim’s wedding ring & asked how his marriage was going & he lied & said that Angela had left him. Regardless, Nancy was not going to allow things to go any further so Tim left.
With this, investigators were now aware that Tim had lied about his whereabouts that night.
Investigators theorize that after he was rejected by Nancy, Tim went to see another woman who he knew would be home alone, Katie Eastburn. Perhaps he stopped by to proposition her & became enraged when she rejected him. They were aware that he was known to have a short fuse as he’d only recently stormed out of a local Bennigan’s where he was working to supplement his income after getting into an argument with a coworker.
Since the murders happened in 1985, DNA technology was still in its infancy & the blood came back inconclusive because there was so much of it. The fingerprints & hair were also inconclusive.
Despite the fact that none of the evidence found inside the Eastburn home was a definitive match to Tim Hennis, the prosecution wanted to move forward with the trial.
The trial began in the summer of 1986, about one year after the murders. The lead prosecutor described what happened in the Eastburn home that night as utter madness & one of the most tragic things that ever happened in this country. Dozens of photos from the crime scene were shown to the members of the jury. Patrick Cone took the stand & identified Tim Hennis as the man he saw outside the family’s home on the morning of May 10.
After ten hours of deliberation the jury found Tim Hennis guilty on all counts, three for first-degree murder & one for rape. Before he was taken from the courtroom, Hennis removed his wedding ring & told his lawyer, Give this to Angela. Tell her I love her. Three days later, he was sentenced to death.
Hennis was moved to a prison in Raleigh & in the meantime, his lawyers prepared an appeal. Eight weeks later, he received a letter that had been postmarked on July 8, 1986, the day of his sentencing that read:
Dear Mr. Hennis,
I did the crime, I murdered the Eastburns. Sorry you’re doin’ the time. I’ll be safely out of North Carolina when you read this.
Thanks,
Mr. X
Authorities never learned the identity of Mr. X & the sheriff also received a letter from this person.
After grappling with the sudden & violent loss of his wife & two daughters, Gary was understandably struggling to move on. He cancelled his plans of moving to England, but finally, in 1988, he accepted & moved abroad with Jana.
Months after his move, Gary was contacted & summoned back to North Carolina after Hennis’s appeal reached the Supreme Court, arguing that because of the graphic crime scene photos shown, the prosecution had inflamed jurors against him. Hennis was awarded a retrial after the judges voted 5-2.
As Hennis’s lawyers worked to prepare for a second trial over the next three years, they placed their focus on discrediting the witness account of Patrick Cone, whom they referred to as a thief & a liar. Between the two trials, Cone had been convicted of crimes, including attempting to use a stolen ATM card, public intoxication & obstructing an officer & driving a car with an expired registration. His charges had been dismissed, but Hennis’s attorneys wanted to suggest that the man’s testimony during the previous trial was inaccurate.
During his testimony, Cone said that the weather on the night of the murders was fair & the stars were out when he left his girlfriend’s house. However, a meteorologist called in by the defense showed records that proved it had been cloudy that night. A local helicopter pilot also reported that he was forced to abort a medevac mission that morning since it was so dark & overcast.
Detective Jack Watts felt that despite Cone’s issues, he never doubted his account of what he’d seen on the night of the murders. Regardless of the trouble he’d been in, he came forward to report what he believed was valuable information in the Eastburn family’s murders.
Before the retrial, the original prosecutor left the district attorney’s office for private practice so new lawyers were appointed which Gary Eastburn felt were listless in comparison.
While on the stand, Gary confirmed that two months before his three family members were murdered, Katie had received threatening phone calls in the middle of her night. The man knew her name & told her he was coming over. The courtroom also heard the unsettling letters from Mr. X.
The defense also honed in on the fact that weeks after the murders, the woman who had come forward to report seeing a man that fit Hennis’ description using the ATM, told an investigator that she didn’t remember anything. However, on the eve of the first trial she allegedly assured prosecutors that she had seen a tall blond man get into a white compact car, something that Hennis’s lawyers felt was highly suspect.
Two new witnesses testified during the second trial. One woman indicated that while she was out delivering papers at 1:45 am, she’d seen a long-haired man driving a light-colored van in front of the Eastburn home. A teenage boy who routinely walked along Summer Hill Road late at night was walking at 3 am on May 10, 1985 & when the boy appeared in court, onlookers were stunned since he was a spitting image of Hennis.
The defense also presented footprints that were located outside the Eastburn home that were three sizes smaller than Hennis’s shoes as well as a spot of blood found on a bathroom towel that didn’t match Hennis’s blood. The lone pubic hair located near a couch in the living room did not match any of the family members nor Hennis.
In regards to the fire that Hennis tended to after the murder, none of the charred remains were traced to the Eastburn home. His Members Only jacket lacked any bloodstains & an analyst from the International Fabric Care Institute testified that Verisol, the chemical used in dry cleaning, was unable to remove all traces of blood.
On April 10, 1989, Hennis took the stand in his own defense. He admitted that he found Katie to be an attractive woman. When he was asked why he initially told investigators that he’d come back home for the night after he dropped his wife & daughter off at his in-laws rather than the truth that he’d stopped at Nancy Maeser’s house, he claimed he’d simply forgotten.
Both sides rested one week later & two days later, the jury returned with a verdict. Tim Hennis was found not guilty on all counts. After spending more than 800 days on death row, Hennis was now a free man who went to be with his 4-year-old daughter in April 1989.
Gary Eastburn told a juror that he still believed that Tim Hennis had been the man to kill his wife & two daughters regardless of the verdict.
After his acquittal, Hennis decided to re-enlist in the Army & received three years of back pay, a good-conduct medal & a promotion to staff sergeant. In September 1990 he was sent to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield & came back to the US the following spring & continued to receive awards & accolades for his service.
In 1998, Hennis, Angela, Kristina as well as the couple’s 6-year-old son, Andrew, relocated from North Carolina to Fort Lewis, Washington & that same year, Gary Eastburn, coincidentally moved only fifteen miles away, completely unaware that he was so close to the person he believed was responsible for murdering his family.
After the second trial, Gary went to England where he met & married a British nurse, left the Air Force & moved back to the US a few years later. Despite the fact that he was in close proximity to Hennis, the two never crossed paths.
Hennis became his son’s troop leader & took the boys on hiking trips & snow caving adventures. He went on to retire from the Army in July 2004 after serving 23 years with the rank of master sergeant & began working at a waste-treatment facility.
On May 12, 2005, the 20th anniversary of the day that Katie, Erin & Kara’s bodies were found in their home, a group of North Carolina detectives got together to discuss the case. A homicide detective was presenting the unsolved Eastburn case on advanced criminal-intelligence techniques. In the meantime, Scott Whisnant, author of the 1993 book, Innocent Victims: The True Story of the Eastburn Family Murders was also there as his book was used to help develop the course.
Whisnant spoke with homicide detective from Cumberland County, Larry Trotter, & mentioned that one important path in the investigation had never been explored. During Katie Eastburn’s autopsy, two sperm samples were taken with a vaginal swab, but since the crime occurred during the 1980s, DNA testing was not evolved. Now in 2005, Whisnant mentioned sending the samples off for analysis.
As Trotter looked into this idea, he found that the sperm samples were being held by the Cumberland County sheriff’s office so he had them sent to the State Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab in Raleigh. They learned that the sample was sufficient enough to run a DNA test.
One year later, in 2006, seventeen years after Hennis walked free from prison, the results were back & the DNA profile belonged to no one other than Tim Hennis.
With the evolution of DNA testing, the wrongfully convicted have been exonerated while the guilty have been identified. With this news, the Cumberland County district attorney immediately called Gary Eastburn. However, because the Fifth Amendment ensures that no citizen can be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offense, the state of North Carolina could do nothing with Tim Hennis.
However, under the dual sovereignty doctrine within the Constitution, a defendant can be tried & acquitted in state court & then tried for the same crime in federal court. With this, on September 26, 2006, a military lawyer & an agent from Fort Bragg’s Criminal Investigative Division along with two police officers went to Tim Hennis’s home in Lakewood, Washington. He was given orders to report to Fort Bragg within thirty days.
The following month, Hennis reported for duty after the military made the decision to take over the case. On March 17, 2010, nearly 25 years after three members of the Eastburn family were brutally murdered, their 22-month-old baby left for dead, the court-martial, or military trial, of Tim Hennis began.
In order to convict, two-thirds of the jurors, known as members in a court-martial, would have to agree on Hennis’s guilt. In order to secure a death sentence, the jurors would have to be unanimous on both the conviction as well as the punishment.
The difference in this trial from the previous two was the DNA evidence, which according to Hennis’s attorneys, they were planning to meet it head on with reason & logic & critical analysis. By this time, Hennis’s daughter Kristina, who had only been a newborn at the time of her father’s accused murders, was pregnant with her second child.
Gary Eastburn, despite the passage of so many years, found himself very emotional & the anger he felt toward Tim Hennis came rushing back with full force. He was disgusted when at one point, the man fell asleep at the table during the trial.
Jana, Gary’s surviving daughter, was now 26-years-old & despite her young age at the time her mom & two sisters were violently murdered, the loss had left a mark on her life. Because she doesn’t remember them, she doesn’t feel the same sadness that everyone else carries & instead, she feels guilt for not having those same feelings. She recalls visiting their graves & while others present wept with grief, she felt nothing.
It was obvious that the person who was responsible for killing the Eastburn family had known to clean up after themselves despite the fact that it was only 1985, a time when they wouldn’t have known about DNA evidence, the person left one thing behind, his sperm. The defense argued that maybe the sample had gotten contaminated & even suggested that perhaps Katie Eastburn & Tim Hennis had engaged in consensual sex when he came by to pick Dixie up on Tuesday night or sometime between then & the murders.
The members of the jury themselves were often deployed, forced to be away from their spouses & significant others & were not likely to be fond of the implication that military spouses are frequently adulterers. There was no evidence that Katie had been forcibly raped, but according to studies, seven out of ten rape victims suffer no physical injury during a sexual assault.
The medical examiner indicated that the abundant & intact sperm had been deposited into Katie’s body shortly before her death. He was unable to specify an exact time frame, but explained that after a day or two, sperm diminish & disintegrate. Hennis had always denied having any sort of relations with Katie at all, denying that they’d consensually been together. During his second trial, he testified that after the conversation with Katie about the dog, he never saw or heard from her again. During this third trial, he did not testify in his own defense.
On April 8, 2010, after three hours of deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict & found Tim Hennis guilty. Now they needed to decide if he would be sentenced to death & discussed the fact that more than 20 years had passed since he was exonerated, in which he lived as a productive member of society.
During the sentencing phase, Gary Eastburn took the stand & spoke about how he missed his wife & two daughters despite the passage of two decades. His current wife, Liz, was present & in a way, he felt like his words were a betrayal to her.
One week later, the panel delivered the verdict & made the decision to sentence Tim Hennis to death & he was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was also dishonorably discharged from the Army.
The last military execution took place in 1961 & he cannot be executed without presidential approval. He is under strict confinement, he is allowed outside one hour a day which he normally spends alone.
Many unanswered questions remain in this case in terms of physical evidence that can’t be explained such as unidentified DNA located under Katie’s fingernails or the shoe prints that were three sizes smaller than what Hennis wore.
In October, one of Hennis’s attorneys argued that at the same time of the court-martial the military’s jurisdiction over Hennis had expired which would have voided the outcome.
In May 2011, Gary & Liz Eastburn sold their house in Washington so they could move back to England. He’s mostly tried to put the murders behind him & can only hope that at the very least, Hennis will remain in prison without the possibility of parole.
In February 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces rejected his appeal.
The murders of the Eastburn family is a case that spanned decades, from the shocking murders in 1985 to Tim Hennis’s death sentence in 2010. Gary and Jana Eastburn have rebuilt their lives amid lingering pain while Hennis sits at Fort Leavenworth, his fate still tied to a rare military execution process. With DNA as the final word, this haunting tale leaves us pondering justice, evidence, and the shadows that linger when evil strikes a loving home.
References:
- ABC News: Survivor of triple murder grapples with guilt: ‘Why didn’t he kill me?’
- The New Yorker: Three trials for murder
- The True Crime Edition: The Eastburn family murders
- Justia U.S. Law: State v. Hennis
- Medium: Justice after 20 years: The Eastburn family case
- Fox 8: NC triple murder suspect goes from guilty to innocent & back to guilty
- Medium: The Eastburn family murders: A tragic tale of loss & justice
