Texas Rangers partner with Amarillo Police to solve a 1997 cold case murder

TEXAS (KAUZ) - The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has announced that the Texas Rangers have successfully solved a 1997 cold case murder with the help of the Amarillo Police Department.

Using modern forensic testing, DPS identified Jimmy Dale McClinton, a man who died in November 2025 at the age of 81, as the man responsible for the brutal murder of a woman at an Amarillo park nearly 30 years ago.

DPS shared that on August 5, 1997, around 1:00 p.m., Gloria Ann Convington’s partially nude body was found by children playing at Hilltop Park. Investigation found that she had been stabbed multiple times, sexually assaulted, and had several defensive wounds on her body.

Convington, a cook at a local nursing home and the mother of four, was last seen around 3:00 a.m. that same day in the 1600 block of North Marrs Street, according to the investigation.

In the years after Convington’s death, DPS said that investigators went to extensive efforts to identify her killer, but all known suspects were eliminated, and the case went cold.

Later in early 2024, DNA testing advancements identified McClinton, who was also found to have a documented history of knife assaults against women, including multiple incidents strikingly similar to Convington’s case.

Over the next two years, the Amarillo Police Department and Texas Rangers worked diligently with the Texas Attorney General’s Office to prosecute McClinton for Convington’s murder, but McClinton passed away before the case could be presented to a grand jury. As a result, no arrests were made, and this case is now closed.