HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It’s been 35 years since the quiet summer night that shattered two families forever, and left Houston with one of its most haunting cold cases.
On August 23, 1990, 22-year-old Cheryl Henry and 21-year-old Andy Atkinson went out for a date night in west Houston. The young couple, still in the early glow of their relationship, went to a club called Bayou Mamma’s with Henry’s younger sister, Shane Craig.
But by the next morning, neither had come home.
When Cheryl didn’t show up for work, something her sister says was completely unlike her, alarms began to sound.
“I didn’t know what I knew right then,” Craig recalled. “But I knew something was wrong. She had just started that job. She loved it too much to ever just not show up.”
What followed was every family’s worst nightmare.
A search led police to the couple’s car parked near a remote, wooded area on Houston’s west side. Nearby, investigators made a horrifying discovery – the bodies of Cheryl and Andy. Cheryl had been brutally raped. Andy was found tied to a tree. Their murders would soon become known across Texas as The Lovers Lane Murders.
Friends and family who rushed to the scene still remember the chaos and heartbreak.
“It was horrible,” said Dani Walker, one of Cheryl’s closest friends. “They brought the dogs out, and when those dogs started going crazy, we knew they had found somebody. It was just… awful.”
At first, investigators were confident they would find the killer. There was evidence – blood, DNA, and a crime scene that seemed to hold clues.
“Initially I thought, okay, three to six months,” said Andy’s cousin, Tim Godwin. “We’d find out who did this, there’d be a trial, and they’d be brought to justice.”
But months turned into years. One year became five. Then ten. Even after fifteen years, there were still no arrests, no suspects – only grief and unanswered questions.
Then, after seventeen years, came a glimmer of hope. A DNA sample from the crime scene matched an unknown suspect in another woman’s assault. Police released a composite sketch, raising hopes that the case might finally break open.
Still, no arrest followed.
“So many dead ends,” said Cheryl’s father, Robert Henry. “But somebody out there knows something. If they would come forward, maybe it would ease their conscience.”
Now, 35 years later, the memories of Andy and Cheryl remain vivid for the people who loved them – two young souls whose futures were stolen on that dark Houston road.
“I just wish he was here,” Andy’s mother, Ann Fowler, said softly. “That we were at the beach, having a good time. That he was married, had kids… that I had grandkids to play with. I wish we were all together.”
As the families continue to speak out – and as forensic technology advances – they hold on to hope that one day, someone will finally come forward.
Who killed Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson on Lovers Lane?
After 35 years, their loved ones are still waiting for an answer.
Watch Texas True Crime: Lovers’ Lane Murders wherever you stream ABC13.
MORE TEXAS TRUE CRIME: The Mattress Murders
TEXAS TRUE CRIME: Only on ABC13, an in-depth documentary seven years in the making. After three trials, AJ Armstrong is now serving his life sentence for the murders of his parents at a prison in Abilene, Texas. Courtney Fischer is the only Houston reporter who covered this case from the beginning and sits down with people involved in the case who have never gone on record – until now.
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