Cold Case Warm Up is a public initiative launched in February that aims to solicit leads for unsolved county crimes. Cold cases are featured on billboards throughout the Greater Houston area alongside contact details for anyone wishing to submit tips. The first case to be featured was the August 1995 murders of John and Pansy Stewart in Conroe.
According to a news release from Multi-County Crime Stoppers, 32-year-old Sleeper attended a barbecue off Bowler Road near FM 1488 in Field Store on the evening of March 21, 2015. Friends stated that in the early morning hours of March 22 and after an argument with her husband, Sleeper, her husband and their 3-year-old son left together in her husband's white 1996 Ford F-350 pickup truck. Sleeper's vehicle was left at the barbecue.
Her husband stated they arrived at their home on Turtle Dove Lane in Magnolia and went to sleep. Later that morning, her husband left to run errands with friends while Sleeper remained asleep. When he returned that afternoon, Sleeper, as well as her purse and cell phone, were missing.
She has never been seen or heard from again, according to the news release.
Sleeper is described as a Caucasian female, 5'7" and 120 pounds, with shoulder-length dark brown hair and hazel eyes. She also has what the news release described as a "tribal" tattoo on the top of her left foot, a frog tattoo on the inside of her right ankle with the names "Dylan" on the top and "Colton" on the bottom, and a cross tattoo on her back.
Anyone with information related to this unsolved case can contact Multi-County Crime Stoppers at 800-392-7867 or at www.montgomerycountycrimestoppers.org. The case number is #15A004609.
There is a reward of up to $21,000 for information leading to the felony arrest of any person related to Sleeper's disappearance, thanks to an anonymous donation. The increased reward is offered for the next 12 months.
Alongside efforts to raise public awareness about cold cases, the sheriff's department has a cold case unit dedicated solely to solving the county's unsolved cases. On May 20, the sheriff's department announced it had made an arrest in a 1983 cold case—the sexual assault and murder of Laura Marie Purchase.
Purchase's body was found set aflame near League Line Road. She was found to have been sexually assaulted and strangled, and traces of a male's DNA were found. Self-professed serial killer Henry Lee confessed to this crime in 1983 and was convicted in 1986, although he was eliminated by DNA in 2008.
In October 2019, investigators sent the DNA evidence from Purchase's case for genealogy testing. An investigative lead generated from that genealogy report found Thomas Darnell, a 75-year-old male from Kansas City, Kansas, a potential suspect.
A DNA search warrant for Thomas Darnell was obtained as a result of the investigation, according to the news release. On March 17—exactly 38 years from when Purchase's body was discovered—detectives went to Kansas City to collect a DNA sample from Darnell.
The DNA sample was positively matched to the unknown male’s DNA profile collected from Purchase, and Darnell was arrested.
