Man charged in 'Lovers Lane' cold case killings: 'We got him'

Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson had been dating a few weeks when they went to a popular "lovers lane" in Houston for some alone time.

But a predator had other plans for them. Potentially posing as a police officer to initially gain their trust or catch them off guard, he attacked Henry and Atkinson and marched them into the woods. He tied Atkinson up and slashed his throat. He raped Henry, slashed her throat and left the young couple dead.

Now more than 35 years later, investigators have arrested a man in connection with the "Lovers Lane Murders" that shocked Houston and became a notorious cold case in the Gulf Coast city's police department.

"We got him," District Attorney Sean Teare said during a news conference on March 27. "A monumental chapter has been closed."

Floyd William Parrott, 64, is charged with two counts of capital murder in the killing of 21-year-old Andy Atkinson and 22-year-old Cheryl Henry. He appeared in a Nebraska courtroom on March 26, a day after an FBI SWAT team in that state arrested him. Houston prosecutors are seeking to have him extradited to Texas.

USA TODAY is working to identify an attorney who represents Parrott to speak on his behalf.

Here's what to know about the "Lovers Lane Murders" and what led police to arrest Parrott after all these years.

What happened to Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson?

On Aug. 22, 1990, 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson were on a date at a nightclub called Bayou Mama's.

Investigators believe the young couple then drove to an isolated cul-de-sac that was known as a "Lovers Lane." Then a killer made his move.

"It's a bad Hollywood movie," Houston homicide investigator Michael Miller told the Houston Chronicle in 2008. "Somebody came up on them, tied them up and marched them out to the woods. These two knew they were going to die."

The next day, a security guard doing routine patrol found Atkinson's empty car in the cul-de-sac with Henry's purse on the passenger floorboard and the keys still in the ignition. The young couple's families were frantic.

Police soon found Henry's naked body hidden under wooden boards in the woods nearby. Her hands were bound behind her back, she had been raped and her throat was slashed. The next day, police found Atkinson's body about 150 yards away. He had been tied to a tree and his throat slashed.

Jean Averitte, Atkinson's grandmother, told the Chronicle the week of the killing that her grandson's violent death was the worst thing she had ever experienced.

"I just want justice," she told the newspaper. "I don't want the same thing to happen to some of these other young people."

Averitte and many of the other couple's family members have died waiting for an arrest in the case.

"Today is the day we waited for with a heavy heart," Henry's sister, Shane Henry, said at the news conference Friday. "Our sister was taken from our family in a way that no one should ever experience. ... Hearing that the person responsible has finally been caught doesn't bring her back, and it doesn't erase the pain our family has lived with all these years, but it does bring a sense of relief."

What led to Floyd William Parrott's arrest?

Floyd William Parrott's arrest in Lincoln, Nebraska, on March 25 is the result of a police tip, DNA evidence and a detective who looked at the case with a fresh set of eyes, authorities announced.

The detective, Sgt. Mike Burrow, came across the tip last year during a review of the then-35-year-old case file, according to a criminal complaint obtained by USA TODAY.

At the news conference March 27, multiple reporters pressed Teare to share when the tip originally came in but he declined to do so, saying it could hinder the prosecution.

As Sgt. Burrow looked into the tip about Parrott, he reviewed other cases filed over the years against the 64-year-old, including a sexual assault charge in 1996. Burrow found that the male DNA from that case had only recently been sent to the national sexual assault database known as CODIS, and that it was a "case-to-case match" with semen collected from Cheryl Henry's body in 1990, the complaint says.

In the 1996 case, Parrott "admitted to the sexual contact" though he maintained it was consensual, the complaint says. A grand jury declined to indict Parrott in that crime, though his DNA was retained.

Burrow found that at the time of the murders, Parrott lived within a mile of the crime scene. He also found that Parrott had twice been arrested in 1988: once for impersonating a police officer and again on a weapons possession charge for carrying a blue steel revolver, the complaint says.

During an interview with detectives on Wednesday, police say Parrott denied knowing Henry. They didn't provide any other details from the interview.

During the decades that the case went cold, prosecutors, Houston police officers and the FBI "have pursued this investigation with relentless and dogged determination," Teare said.

"They have worked hundreds of leads, facing dead ends and plenty of frustration," he said. "But, they never gave up on Cheryl and Andy. Thank you to all investigators who have touched this case. Your perseverance has delivered something two families long deserved: progress and hope."

Floyd Parrott has history of posing as a cop

Among Floyd William Parrott's past charges are several cases in which he was accused of posing as police. In one case, he pulled someone over and "let him go" for a bribe, according to court records.

On Sept. 19, 1995, Parrott was driving a white car with flashing emergency lights and pulled over a pickup truck driver in the Houston area. Parrott approached the truck in a uniform with a gun and a gun belt, according to court records obtained by USA TODAY.

Parrott told the driver that he had pulled him over because he had expired plates and that he wouldn't write him a ticket if the driver gave him $100. The driver complied, court records say.

Officers investigating the bogus traffic stop found that Parrott had been arrested seven months earlier on outstanding traffic warrants and that when officers searched his car and home, they found a constable uniform, police-type radios, and a U.S. Marshal ID and county constable badge in the name of Carlton Buddy Watson. Watson was a police chief in the region at the time.

"He has been identified as someone that falsely held himself out in the late '80s, all through the 1990s, all through the 2000s, in different cars in different ways, as law enforcement ... both before and after these murders," Teare said. "We believe he many more victims were victimized ... based on the fact that we believe he was holding himself out to be law enforcement."

Authorities ask anyone who believes they may have seen or interacted with Parrott over the years to call them at 713-274-5640 and mention the "Lovers Lane Murders."

What do we know about Floyd William Parrott?

Parrott was a longtime Houston-area resident before he moved to Nebraska less than two years ago, Teare said.

He said that Parrott has been married "a number of times" and is the father of multiple children. He also worked as a manager or a bouncer at topless bars and nightclubs, and worked at various auto parts stores in the 1980s.

Authorities had been surveilling Parrott "for a period of time" in Lincoln, Nebraska, before the FBI SWAT team arrested him.

Big break in case in 2008 petered out

In 2008, Houston police touted a major break in the mystery of Henry's and Atkinson's murders, saying semen collected from Henry's body had matched DNA from another unsolved sexual assault in 1990, that of a 30-year-old exotic dancer who was attacked in her home.

But the cops hadn't made an arrest in the dancer's assault so they couldn't match the two cases to a suspect at the time. Still, they expressed optimism about the development.

"This is the most promising lead we've had," Billy Belk, a homicide detective who retired before the case could be solved, told the Houston Chronicle in 2008.

Investigator Michael Miller told the Chronicle that regardless of who it was that had raped the dancer and killed the couple, "we know there are other victims."

"I still think he's out there, and he is who he is − a rapist and a killer," Miller said. "He still could be doing this today."

It's unclear why it took 20 years for the DNA from the 1990 crimes to match the sexual assault case Parrott was charged with in 1996.

What happens now?

Floyd William Parrott will have more court hearings in Nebraska before he can be extradited to Houston, where he will face a trial on the murder charges. Parrott is fighting the extradition but Houston authorities are seeking a governor's warrant to expedite the process to get him back to Texas no later than roughly mid-May, Teare said.

"We're really trying to push this one through quicker," he said.

Parrott is currently being held in the Lancaster County Jail without bond.

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers cold case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.