Houston police believe they have cracked one of the Texas city's "most haunting and infamous" cold cases.
On Aug. 23, 1990, Cheryl Henry, 22, and her boyfriend Andy Atkinson, 21, were found dead in a then-remote area known in Houston as "Lovers' Lane." The case, known in Houston as the "Lovers' Lane Murders," remained unsolved for nearly 36 years.
On Wednesday, police arrested Floyd William Parrott, now 64, in connection with the couple's deaths. He is facing capital murder charges.
According to police, the couple was last seen the day before their deaths after a night out at Bayou Mama's nightclub in Houston.
A security guard conducting a routine patrol in the area of Enclave Parkway saw a white Honda Civic parked that did not move over a period of time. He approached the vehicle and found an unresponsive woman nearby, police said.
A Houston police officer who responded to the scene searched a wooded area near the dead-end street and found an unclothed woman with severe injuries to her neck. Investigators said the woman was sexually assaulted and her throat was cut.
The victim was later identified as Henry using the identification found in her purse, CBS affiliate KHOU reported. A blue dress that Henry's family told police she wore the night before was found nearby.
Police also located an unresponsive man, later identified as Atkinson, nearby, tied to a tree with severe injuries to his neck. According to an affidavit, Atkinson's hands were tied behind his back with a rope. Another rope was wrapped around Atkinson, the tree and running across his neck, KHOU reported.
For decades, this Houston case had no answers. Now, an arrest has been made — nearly 36 years later. https://t.co/WtjRHEbbaX
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) March 27, 2026Despite an ongoing investigation that included collecting DNA samples of potential suspects and hundreds of leads, the double murder remained unresolved for decades, police said.
That changed when Houston police received a tip in late 2025 that named Parrott as a possible suspect in the killings. While following up on the tip, a detective reviewed a 1996 report of a separate sexual-assault case in which Parrot was the suspect. The DNA collected in that case was recently uploaded to CODIS, the national Combined DNA Index System.
The system flagged that male DNA from the 1996 case matched samples collected during a sexual assault exam done on Henry during her autopsy, KHOU reported, citing an affidavit. Earlier this month, Parrott was identified as a suspect the deaths of Henry and Atkinson.
On Wednesday, Parrott was arrested in Lincoln, Nebraska.
"One of Houston's most haunting and infamous cold cases has weighed on the Henry and Atkinson families, as well as our community for more than three decades," Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said in a statement. "Our prosecutors, working with the HPD and FBI, have pursued this investigation with relentless and dogged determination. They have worked hundreds of leads, facing dead ends and plenty of frustration. But, they never gave up on Cheryl and Andy."
Parrott is awaiting extradition to the Harris County jail.
Floyd William Parrott
City of Houston
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