A suspect has been charged with a 36-year-old double slaying in Houston known as the “Lovers’ Lane Murders.”
Floyd William Parrott, a now-64-year-old convict with a lengthy record, is charged with slitting the throats of young lovebirds Cheryl Henry, 22, and Andy Atkinson, 21, in 1990, breaking open a cold case that has haunted the area for decades, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Parrott — who would have been 28 at the time — was busted in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Wednesday and is awaiting extradition back to Texas on capital murder charges.
He was busted after a tip to a cold-case cop, who then managed to get a hit on DNA from the slayings to one Parrott once submitted when accused of a sex assault that he insisted was consensual, according to court records obtained by KHOU.
Henry and Atkinson had driven to a then-remote road known as “Lovers’ Lane” in West Houston after a night out in a club on Aug. 22, 1990, according to KHOU.
Their bodies were found the next day when a security guard checked on their car, suspicious as to why it had not moved, the docs said.
Cheryl had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been sliced open, according to investigators. Atkinson was found nearby tied to a tree, and his neck had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated, officials said.
It became “one of Houston’s most haunting and infamous cold cases,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said in announcing Parrot’s arrest.
“Our prosecutors, working with the HPD and FBI, have pursued this investigation with relentless and dogged determination,” he said.
“They have worked hundreds of leads, facing dead ends and plenty of frustration. But, they never gave up on Cheryl and Andy.”
