New DNA test says evidence ‘likely’ tied to suspect arrested in 1997 Fort Worth killing

A recent DNA test report said collected evidence “likely” originates from a Texas man who was arrested this week for the second time in the 1997 killing of a Fort Worth woman, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Michael Puryear, 46, of Houston, was arrested by Fort Worth police Monday on suspicion of capital murder in the cold case killing of Verna Dennis. The reopened investigation by Cold Case Homicide Detective Jeff Bennett built on previous work and included more advanced DNA testing and re-interviewing a witness who said Puryear confessed to him, according to the partially redacted arrest warrant affidavit obtained Wednesday by the Star-Telegram.

Police believe Puryear was at Dennis’ home the day she died with the intent to rob her, the affidavit says.

He was first arrested in connection to Dennis’ death in April 2006, almost nine years after the homicide, and spent a year in jail. He had been free on bail since June 2007. His charges were dropped in June 2009 by the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office just two weeks before the capital murder case was set to go to trial.

Although homicide detectives said that DNA linked Puryear to the crime scene, the District Attorney’s Office said in 2009 that prosecutors didn’t think the DNA evidence at that time was strong.

Dennis, the 56-year-old co-owner of a beauty salon, was found dead in her house on Aug. 10, 1997. She had been struck 23 times in the head with a steel pry bar police found in the kitchen sink of her Ridglea Hills home and her throat was cut with a butcher knife, according to an autopsy report.

Tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and her 1993 Acura were missing from her home when she was found dead.

Witnesses told police in 1997 that they had arrived at Dennis’ home at around 5 p.m. for a Sunday evening Bible study when they discovered her body. Dennis was found inside the front door of the residence and her garage door was open, where her car had gone missing, according to the affidavit.

Blood was found inside the doorway, near the alarm code box, near the front door, and an area leading into the front hallway, the affidavit says.

Police determined Dennis lived alone, but she left Saturday morning — the day before she was found dead — to visit a person she had established a relationship with during ministry trips. The location of the ministry trip was redacted in the affidavit, but family members and friends previously told the Star-Telegram that Dennis counseled inmates to try to help them turn their lives around and she visited a state prison in Huntsville that day.

According to the affidavit, police believe when Dennis returned home from her trip on Saturday at around 5 p.m., the killer either had been in the house and disarmed the alarm code, or followed her into the house after she parked.

About a month later, Dennis’ car was found abandoned in a Kmart parking lot in San Antonio near Interstate 35. The vehicle had been washed, according to evidence processed by the San Antonio Police Department.

In 2005, a friend of Puryear’s told Fort Worth police Detective Curt Brannan that Puryear admitted to and spoke to the informant about killing Dennis, according to the affidavit. Puryear further told the informant he followed Dennis into her home, beat her, and “watched the expressions on her face as she died,” the affidavit states.

Dennis was the mother of Puryear’s college roommate. Puryear was 20 at the time of the killing.

The affidavit says Puryear also told the informant he stole Dennis’ car and drove it to San Antonio.

In June of 2006, DNA testing was conducted on evidence from the crime scene, the affidavit says. A partial DNA profile was compared to three individuals, and excluded all others except Puryear as the contributor of the evidence collected at the scene.

Two more DNA tests were conducted, one in April 2007 and the other in March 2013. One of the forensics labs notified Fort Worth police in a 2014 letter that in a DNA extract, “99.9% of males can be excluded but not Puryear.”

In December 2020, Dennis’ cold case was reopened for “further investigation,” police said in the affidavit. Bennett wrote that he believes the case files, “may contain information known and unknown to the court,” when the case against Puryear was dismissed in 2009.

The affidavit says detectives re-interviewed the informant in September 2021. The witness told police that Puryear confessed on Sept. 9, 2005, to killing Dennis in her home.

According to the witness’ interview, Puryear said he waited for Dennis to return home and he beat her when she arrived and as she tried to run away from him. Puryear also said he could not get the image of Dennis bleeding “out of his mind,” according to the informant.

On March 17, 2023, another DNA report was provided to Fort Worth police. The report said it’s “more likely” that the mixture of DNA tested originated from Puryear, the victim and one other unknown and unrelated contributor than the chances that it didn’t include Puryear, according to the affidavit. The specific likelihood ratio is redacted from the warrant, but the report stated that, “This likelihood ratio provides moderate support for the inclusion of Michael Puryear to this mixture.”

Puryear was being held Wednesday in the Tarrant County Jail with bond set at $500,000. A current attorney representing Puryear is not listed in court records.