Cold Case: 75-Year-Old Man Charged With Murder In 1983 Slaying

CONROE, TX — A 75-year-old man from Kansas City is being charged with capital murder in the 1983 slaying of Laura Marie Purchase, according to a news release.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office arrested Thomas Elvin Darnell in his Kansas City, Kansas, home on May 11 and was extradited May 20 to the Montgomery County Jail, where he is being held without bond.

Purchase's body was found burning in a wooded area near League Line Road and I-45 on March 17, 1983, and an autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, along with traces of an unknown man's DNA.

Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the crime in 1983 and was convicted in 1986, but he and co-defendant Otis Elwood Toole were eliminated by DNA testing in 2008.

An investigative lead from a geneaology report in late 2019 showed Darnell as a potential suspect, and Montgomery County cold case detectives collected a known DNA sample of Darnell on March 17, 2021, in Kansas City, Kansas. On April 30, Darnell's DNA sample was positively matched to the unknown man's DNA found on Purchase in 1983.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Kansas City Kansas Police
Department’s Violent Crimes Task Force/SWAT Team, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office with the investigation.