Debra Sue Taylor, a 25-year-old white female from Fort Worth, Texas, was murdered on March 24, 1985. That evening, she had an argument with her husband and later went to a neighborhood bar to meet her cousin. After her cousin left early, Debra, enjoying the atmosphere, chose to stay. She was last seen alive at the bar, where she encountered Faryion Wardrip, a then-unidentified serial killer. Wardrip approached Debra and asked her to dance.
She accepted, and the two spent time together before he offered to drive her home. Outside the bar, Wardrip made unwanted sexual advances, which Debra rejected. Enraged by the rejection, he murdered her and left her body at a construction site in east Fort Worth.
Debra’s husband reported her missing the following Monday, insisting she would never abandon her children. Despite passing three polygraph tests, he was initially treated as the prime suspect. The investigation stalled until March 29, when construction workers discovered Debra’s body. With no other leads, the case went cold and passed through multiple detectives over the years.
A breakthrough came in 1999 when Faryion Wardrip, a white male serial killer born in 1959, confessed to Debra’s murder along with four others. His victims were all white females between the ages of 20 and 25, and he targeted women who were petite and under 5'5". Wardrip had previously been convicted in 1986 for the murder of 21-year-old Tina Kimbrew and served 11 years of a 35-year sentence before being paroled in 1997. After his release, he lived in Olney, Texas, and was active in his local church.
Investigators reopened the cold cases and used DNA evidence to link Wardrip to the murders of Terry Sims Toni Gibbs and Ellen Blau. Surveillance and forensic analysis confirmed his involvement. Wardrip later confessed to all five murders, including that of Debra Taylor, the 25-year-old white female from Fort Worth. He was sentenced to death in 1999 and remains on death row. His appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in 2022.
