Vidor PD: Reward increase netted some ‘helpful’ tips
Published 8:45 am Monday, May 14, 2018
By Ken Stickney
Vidor Police Chief Rod Carroll says a recent increase in reward money for clues in the Kathy Page case have presented his department with new leads, at least a couple of which were helpful.
The Texas Department of Public Safety last month doubled reward money from $3,000 to $6,000 in the notorious 27-year-old case, from which 2017’s Oscar-winning film, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” was loosely based.
“We have received some additional tips,” Carroll, who took the chief’s job last year, said this week. “Two were very helpful but we are not ready for an indictment. We will continue to follow up,” he said.
The Page case drew national attention because her father, James Fulton, has for years paid for signage along Interstate 10 chiding Vidor police for not making in arrest in the cold case.
His billboard messages have included “Vidor police botched up the case,” “Waiting for a confession” and “This could happen to you.”
Kathy Page’s body was found in her car in a ditch just 100 yards from her home on May 14, 1991. Her estranged husband, Steve, had taken care of their two children that night while she went out, ostensibly to visit a girlfriend but actually to meet with another man. The death scene appeared to be staged.
Vidor police never solved the case but a civil court found for her parents in a case that contended her husband was responsible for her death.
The court awarded the Fultons about $150,000 as a civil award; they’ve spent perhaps $200,000 in keeping billboards posted along the interstate, they’ve said.
Carroll said last month the Kathy Page murder remains an open case for his department, although he said investigators have never compiled enough sufficient evidence to get an indictment.
“We believe people know what happened,” Carroll said then, adding there was a cover-up committed after the murder. Periodically, he says, the department receives tips.
The DPS Texas Rangers’ Unsolved Homicides website provides information on more than 75 cases in an effort to help generate public interest in unsolved or “cold cases.” Texas Crime Stoppers offers rewards — the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division provides the case, and the reward program is administered by DPS — of up to $3,000 for information that leads to the arrest of those responsible for any Rangers cold case listed on the website. For more information, visit the Texas Ranger cold case website.
To be eligible, tipsters must provide information to authorities by calling the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477). All tips are anonymous.
Individuals also can submit information through the Texas Ranger cold case website or by contacting DPS Missing Persons Hotline at 1-800-346-3243.
Page is listed atop the 12 To Cold Case Investigations.
