DPS Crime Laboratory Cracks 1996 Cold Case Murder

AUSTIN, TX – Using modern evidence testing, the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory Division has now identified the man investigators believe is responsible for the decades-old cold case murder of 86-year-old Mary Moore Searight in Paris, Texas.

On Dec. 12, 2024, nearly 30 years after her death, David Paul Cady Jr., 54, was indicted by a Lamar Co. grand jury.

 On the night of Aug. 18, 1996, Mary Moore Searight was found inside her home by her unofficial caretaker. She had been sexually assaulted, badly beaten and strangled. Still alive, Searight was air-lifted to a hospital in Dallas where she succumbed to her injuries three days later.

Searight owned and rented out several properties in the Paris community, including homes along the same street on which she lived. One of her tenants, David Paul Cady Jr., who was 25 at the time, was among the neighbors interviewed by the Paris Police Department on the evening of the crime. During interviews, Cady attempted to conceal an unexplained laceration on his right hand and had inconsistent explanations about the injury. Investigators obtained DNA swabs of Cady’s hand, but there were no major breakthroughs.

In 2021, Searight’s case was identified by the Texas Rangers as being eligible for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program which is funded by the Department of Justice/Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ/BJA). DOJ/BJA provides investigative funding for agencies across the United States to further unsolved sexual assaults and sexually related homicides with the hope of bringing justice to victims and their families.  

Two years later, in 2023, while reviewing Searight’s case information, investigators determined the swabs taken from Cady’s injured hand were also eligible to be submitted for further analysis under the SAKI Program at DPS’ crime laboratory in Garland. That testing led to the discovery of Searight’s DNA on the swabs taken from Cady’s hand.

In February 2024, the Texas Rangers and the Paris Police Department arrested Cady—who was already in the Hopkins County Jail for another crime. He remains in custody at this time.