AUSTIN, Texas — Modern evidence testing may have solved the 1996 murder of an elderly Texas woman.
It’s been nearly 30 years since 86-year-old Mary Moore Searight was found dead in her North Texas home.
Searight was found sexually assaulted, badly beaten and strangled, but somehow still alive. She was flown to a hospital in Dallas where she died days later.
Searight owned and rented properties in Paris, about 100 miles northeast of Dallas. At the time, 25-year-old David Paul Cady Jr. was one of her tenants and a person interviewed by the Paris Police Department the night Searight was strangled.
During interviews with police, Cady tried to hide unexplained cuts on his right hand and gave police inconsistent explanations about where the cuts came from. Despite obtaining DNA swabs of Cady’s hand, authorities never found a breakthrough.
In 2021, the Texas Rangers identified Searight’s case as eligible for the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative which is used across the country to help solve cold cases and sexual assaults. Two years later, investigators said the swabs taken from Cady’s hand were also eligible to be submitted for further analysis.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the tests revealed Searight’s DNA was on Cady’s hand.
Last year, Cady was arrested by the Texas Rangers and Paris police while already in custody at the Hopkins County Jail for another crime. He remains in custody at this time.
If Searight’s name sounds familiar, it’s because Mary Moore Searight Park in South Austin is named after her. She spent decades in Austin operating livestock and was a founding member of the Austin Chapter of the Audubon Society.
Searight reportedly turned down millions for her land because she wanted it to be a park. Before her death, she eventually moved back to her hometown of Paris.