times Sweet felt so overwhelmed by it all he didn’t know if he could have handled more. He had to check everything the informant told him and try to corroborate the details—difficult enough to do when a case is fresh, much tougher when more than a dozen years have passed.
And it wasn’t just the three Texas cases Sweet was working on. The more Sweet talked to the informant, the more stories he heard about murders Penton claimed to have committed in other parts of the country. There was a little girl who’d disappeared in Indiana named Shannon Sherrill, and at least two more possible abduction-murders in Texas. In one of the Texas cases, Sunnycalb didn’t have a name or exact location, just that Penton bragged about abducting a young black girl from a mobile home somewhere in East Texas. He also said that Penton claimed to have abducted Angelica Marie Gandara, an eleven-year-old girl from Temple, Texas, who disappeared on July 14, 1985.
Sweet was interested in the other cases. He believed that David Penton was as evil and dangerous a man, at least to children, as he’d ever encountered. Penton’s behavioral patterns placed him firmly in the category of a monstrous serial killer: the careful stalking and planning; abducting in one place, murdering and dumping in another to avoid apprehension; and the multiple rape-and-strangulation murders. He likely had many other victims, as Sunnycalb claimed.
At first, Sweet tried calling other law enforcement agencies when Sunnycalb told him about each new victim. But most never called him back, or if they did talk to him, they’d blow off what he had to say because it was coming from a prison informant.
In the Gandara case, Sweet contacted the Texas Ranger who’d been assigned to the investigation. Temple was only twenty-five miles from Fort Hood, where Penton was stationed at the time of Angelica’s disappearance. Sweet thought that made Penton a good suspect. However, the ranger only sent him his files on the case and wished him “good luck.”
Sweet had to make a choice. He was getting far too much information for him to track down these other cases, and he wasn’t getting any help. So he decided to concentrate on the three abductions from the Dallas area; the goal was to put Penton away permanently, and to do that he needed to focus on Reyes, Meeks, and Proctor. He continued to take notes about the others, but then he’d redirect Sunnycalb back to the three little girls he could do something about.
Trying to keep up with his regular caseload and Sunnycalb was wearing Sweet out. But he kept accepting the collect calls, including on a dog-day in August when the outside temperature in central Texas was cruising past 100 degrees before noon, the air wet as a dog’s tongue, and immense black-and-blue thunderclouds threatened on the horizon.
Sweet was at his desk, appreciating the air-conditioning, when the telephone on his desk jangled. He picked it up and heard the familiar automated voice informing him that he had a collect call from Jeffrey Sunnycalb. “Will you accept?”
“Yes,” Sweet replied. “Hello, Jeff, what’s up?”
“You need to find a girl by the name of Tiffany Ibarra,” Sunnycalb replied.
“Why?”
“Because Penton kidnapped her and then let her go. … He said the girl’s father asked him to do it to scare her. …”
“What?”
“… yeah, so she’d be scared of strangers. I asked him why he didn’t kill her, and he said, ‘She was too damn cute to kill.’”
Sweet didn’t know what to think. He’d check it out, but he didn’t believe the part about the girl’s father wanting to frighten his child by recruiting Penton. And why would a clever, cold-blooded killer like Penton let a victim, and potential witness, go because she was “too cute” to kill?
Still, he was always talking to Sunnycalb about the need to establish his credibility, and obviously the informant believed that this would help. If the story was true,
And it wasn’t just the three Texas cases Sweet was working on. The more Sweet talked to the informant, the more stories he heard about murders Penton claimed to have committed in other parts of the country. There was a little girl who’d disappeared in Indiana named Shannon Sherrill, and at least two more possible abduction-murders in Texas. In one of the Texas cases, Sunnycalb didn’t have a name or exact location, just that Penton bragged about abducting a young black girl from a mobile home somewhere in East Texas. He also said that Penton claimed to have abducted Angelica Marie Gandara, an eleven-year-old girl from Temple, Texas, who disappeared on July 14, 1985.
Sweet was interested in the other cases. He believed that David Penton was as evil and dangerous a man, at least to children, as he’d ever encountered. Penton’s behavioral patterns placed him firmly in the category of a monstrous serial killer: the careful stalking and planning; abducting in one place, murdering and dumping in another to avoid apprehension; and the multiple rape-and-strangulation murders. He likely had many other victims, as Sunnycalb claimed.
At first, Sweet tried calling other law enforcement agencies when Sunnycalb told him about each new victim. But most never called him back, or if they did talk to him, they’d blow off what he had to say because it was coming from a prison informant.
In the Gandara case, Sweet contacted the Texas Ranger who’d been assigned to the investigation. Temple was only twenty-five miles from Fort Hood, where Penton was stationed at the time of Angelica’s disappearance. Sweet thought that made Penton a good suspect. However, the ranger only sent him his files on the case and wished him “good luck.”
Sweet had to make a choice. He was getting far too much information for him to track down these other cases, and he wasn’t getting any help. So he decided to concentrate on the three abductions from the Dallas area; the goal was to put Penton away permanently, and to do that he needed to focus on Reyes, Meeks, and Proctor. He continued to take notes about the others, but then he’d redirect Sunnycalb back to the three little girls he could do something about.
Trying to keep up with his regular caseload and Sunnycalb was wearing Sweet out. But he kept accepting the collect calls, including on a dog-day in August when the outside temperature in central Texas was cruising past 100 degrees before noon, the air wet as a dog’s tongue, and immense black-and-blue thunderclouds threatened on the horizon.
Sweet was at his desk, appreciating the air-conditioning, when the telephone on his desk jangled. He picked it up and heard the familiar automated voice informing him that he had a collect call from Jeffrey Sunnycalb. “Will you accept?”
“Yes,” Sweet replied. “Hello, Jeff, what’s up?”
“You need to find a girl by the name of Tiffany Ibarra,” Sunnycalb replied.
“Why?”
“Because Penton kidnapped her and then let her go. … He said the girl’s father asked him to do it to scare her. …”
“What?”
“… yeah, so she’d be scared of strangers. I asked him why he didn’t kill her, and he said, ‘She was too damn cute to kill.’”
Sweet didn’t know what to think. He’d check it out, but he didn’t believe the part about the girl’s father wanting to frighten his child by recruiting Penton. And why would a clever, cold-blooded killer like Penton let a victim, and potential witness, go because she was “too cute” to kill?
Still, he was always talking to Sunnycalb about the need to establish his credibility, and obviously the informant believed that this would help. If the story was true,
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