Two Life Sentence For A Man Who Kidnapped And Killed Jessica Gutierrez In 1986

In the summer of 1986, Jessica Suzanne Gutiérrez, 4 years old, lived in a mobile home in Lexington, South Carolina with her mother and her two older sisters.

On the night of June 5, Jessica and her sisters with whom she shared a room went to sleep.

It is believed that at some point between 11:30 pm and 9:00 am in the morning an intruder removed the screen and the curtains from the living room window, entered the house and kidnapped Jessica.

When Debra, the mother, went to wake up the girls the next morning, she saw that her little daughter had disappeared. Rebecca, the 6-year-old sister, told her mother that “the man with the magic hat and beard” had taken her.

The woman searched the house, called the girl’s friends and several members of her family to see if they had seen the little girl. As no one knew anything about her, she reported her disappearance to the police.

As is logical in these cases the agents the first thing they did was investigate the girl’s environment.

Thanks to that they learned that days before Debra had broken up with her boyfriend due to his problems with alcohol. The woman feared that to take revenge on her would have taken the girl but after being interrogated he was released for lack of evidence.

On the other hand, Jessica’s biological father was also ruled out since this man lived in California and several witnesses claimed that he was there on the night of the kidnapping.

But there was another suspect who caught the attention of the police. It was Thomas Eric McDowell, 27 years old. This family friend had already served his sentence in North Carolina for abuse.

The following year, McDowell was sentenced to spend ten years in prison on a charge of abuse and it was there that he made a surprising confession.

It seems that his cellmate was told that he had kidnapped a girl in Lexington County and that after taking her life he had buried her body in a landfill. He added that when he took it, he wore a tall cowboy hat, which coincided with the description given by the girl’s sister.

His cellmate told the authorities what Mcdowell had told him, so the detectives interrogated him to see if his claims were true. Mcdowell replied that he would only confess if he was granted procedural immunity for the crime, but they rejected his request and the man refused to talk to them more.

Although the case was reviewed again in 2008 and 2015, there was no progress... And in 2021 the FBI and the South Carolina prosecutor’s office decided to reopen the case.

Several agents reviewed the original reports of the case again and interviewed more than 125 potential witnesses. After this on January 6, 2022, 61-year-old Thomas Mcdowell was arrested at his home in Wake Forest for the kidnapping and murder of Jessica Gutierrez.

In a preliminary hearing held on January 7, the judge ruled that McDowell would continue to be detained without bail until his extradition to South Carolina, where he will finally be tried.

The only thing the investigators revealed was that this man’s fingerprints matched those found in the window through which the person who took the little girl entered.

Unfortunately, Jessica’s body has not yet been found.

The trial:

The trial of 63-year-old Thomas Eric McDowell was held in February 2024.

The man at no time wanted to testify and the defense alleged that there was not enough evidence against him.

Even so, the accused was convicted of first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder and sentenced to two simultaneous life sentences.

As the girl’s body was never found, Jessica’s mother declared the following before the judge:

“Yes, I have one more hope out there. I hope he confesses where her body is, only he and God know it. I already have a place prepared for her, where she can get together with the rest of her family, I’m ready to take my baby home.”

Rebecca, who is now 44 years old, said that she still remembers waking up and watching the man get Jessica out of her bed and take her away. According to her, her sister never woke up during her kidnapping. When she saw him she was so scared that she didn’t want to tell anyone... She only did it when her mother discovered that the girl was no longer in her bed.

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Sources:

https://cbs12.com/amp/news/nation-world/south-carolina-man-thomas-eric-mcdowell-sentenced-to-life-for-1986-abduction-murder-of-4-year-old-girl-jessica-gutierrez-cold-case-kidnapping-burglary-lexington-county