HENDERSON COUNTY, Texas — Three decades is a long time to live not knowing why your loved one is no longer alive and who may be responsible for their death.
That is reality for the Herriage family in Henderson County.
On the morning of March 8, 1987, Rickey Gene Herriage was found murdered in Athens. He was 29-years-old.
“He was shot and that's how he was deceased, and then, his body was dumped out there on Monkey Bridge Road,” Henderson County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse said. “They did a lot of interviews back in '87. They worked the case. They never turned up anything."
Sheriff Hillhouse says Herriage was last seen walking in front of the Pit Grill, a local restaurant known back then to be a meetup spot for after-hour fellowship.
"I wanted to go out to where he was found, but they didn't think I should go,” Rickey’s mother Annette Herriage said. “It was really a hard time.”
Thirty-two years after her son's death, Annette and her family have turned into amateur investigators into the case, working alongside the official investigator with the Detective Jerry Corder.
Their combined efforts have pushed the case further than it has been before with a possible breaking coming from new technology looking at the DNA.
See the full story tonight on CBS19 at 10 p.m.
