The Cinderella of West Texas: The Disappearance of Andrea Lopez Phares (1955)

THE CINDERELLA OF WEST TEXAS: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ANDREA LOPEZ PHARES

Late in the night of May 4, 1955, near Hale Center in the West Texas panhandle, a 21 year old pregnant wife encountered, close to her home, the man who would end her life and the life of her unborn child.  The young “Latin-American” woman, newspapers agreed, was “pretty”, “had a nice shape”, was “fair complexed”, with lovely long black hair. She also wore cat-eye eyeglasses, loved driving her husband’s new Lincoln Continental, and her husband “allowed” her to carry large sums of cash around because it made her happy. The woman dubbed by newspapers as leading a "Cinderella" life apparently found her life taking a sharp turn that fateful day.

On that fateful day her husband, a 44 year old prosperous cotton grower on leased land west and north of Hale Center, said they were at home, alone, at around 7 p.m. and she received a call, spoke Spanish to the caller, and then said she was going into town. Her husband told reporters that she asked, “I suppose you don’t want to go with me?” to which he said he responded with a sleepy, “Don’t think so.” She then left about 8 p.m. driving away in the Lincoln with her eyeglasses left behind at the house.

The next few hours are a mystery. The young wife and soon-to-be mother, Andrea Lopez Phares, was never seen again.

Andrea Lopez was born about 1935 in Matamoros and had at least two brothers, Andy and Gene Lopez. Before coming to Hale Center she was said to have lived in Weslaco, Texas. When she met C.W. “Bill” Phares she was working as a cotton weigher for his operation.

C.W. “Charles William” (known as “Bill”) Phares was born in 1912 in Ada, Oklahoma to Thomas and Nettie Phares. He served in the Army in WW2 from Oklahoma and married there. He is listed on the 1940 census in Brown Township, Seminole county, Oklahoma with his wife Helen, two children (eldest born in New Mexico) and a brother-in-law. 

Newspapers indicated he had arrived in about 1945-51 in Texas living in the area of southeast Hale County.  This seems proven because records indicate a daughter born there in March of 1951.  Newspaper accounts provided sketchy and oft times conflicting details of the Phares family prior to 1955.  At that time, small pieces of information came forward indicating he had a brother named Jack, a sister named Iva Bottoms, and a relative named Bill Ellis. His arrest in January of 1956 in Pontotoc county, Oklahoma indicated his family association with that region and that his father was named Thomas.

Charles William Phares’s  image appears at least twice in newspaper accounts related to the disappearance of his young wife; hers was found only one time. In those images he appears very different. In one, taken shortly after the disappearance he is pointing to the portion of missing mat in the auto’s trunk, caption to the image revealed he was offering a $1000 reward for information about his missing wife. He is a burly man with glasses, a straw western style hat that had been pushed back off his dark hair enough to reveal a slightly receding hairline and looks a man entering his middle years. In the other photo he is seen hurrying away from the news photographers.

Andrea and C.W. Phares became involved, it is believed, before he finalized his divorce from his first wife, Helen Keller Welch Phares.    Andrea and “Bill”, newspapers reported, married in Mexico when she was 19. Then in September of 1954, he married her again in a Baptist Church in either Hale Center or in Clovis, New Mexico (accounts seem to differ). 

Hale Center, Hale County, Texas in the 1950’s was classic west Texas country just thirty some miles north of Lubbock. It was largely flat interrupted by small indentations and officially classed as a semi-arid landscape occupied by hardy souls numbering less than 2,000.  To the north and west was a section of the Muleshoe Sandhills that stretched into the next county and further west. 

The town was severely destroyed in the middle of the sixties by a tornado but valiantly rose from the ashes. Today, this “Oasis of the Plains”, has grown and changed some but retains its feel of small-town life and history. 

Cotton Fields of Hale County, TX. Public Domain Image

May 4, 1955

What is known about that night is subject to which story is believed.  There is the story that emerged post May 4, 1955 and the story that emerged post the January 30, 1956 newspaper accounts of Phares’ arrest for murder.

According to various accounts offered via newspapers, C.W. “Bill “ Phares selected to stay at home, alone,  when his wife said she was going into town around 8 p.m. 

He claimed she received a phone call, spoke briefly in Spanish, and then told him she had an errand.  Phares had claimed that two weeks before the disappearance masked gunman had held him demanding $2000. On that night he stayed home while his seven-month pregnant wife drove into town with $1400 in cash.

According to the husband, the car’s odometer showed it had been driven some 150 miles. The abandoned vehicle, with the wife’s papers and billfold still inside, was found on the east side of town the next day (opposite the side of town where the Phares farm was located). The ignition wires had been ripped out.  Also missing, a cut or ripped out section of the trunk floormat and a heavy blanket kept there. 

Despite widespread searching, the family that included her two brothers Andy and Gene Lopez and brother-in-law Jack Phares and sister-in-law- a Mrs. Iva Bottoms, no sign of the woman’s body was ever found.

In July it was noted the Phares farm had been sold and Phares had gone family back in Oklahoma seeking work in the oil fields there. He inferred the tragedy had ruined him financially and emotionally. Later newspapers indicate he arrived in Oklahoma in December and so his exact whereabouts are debatable.

The January 1956 Arrest

The carefully structured story first issued after the woman’s disappearance had begun to show signs of internal collapse by year’s end.  In November of 1955, road crews had found a .357 magnum pistol buried near the road to Abernathy (between Hale Center and Lubbuck). The gun was traced to one sold by a New Mexico gun dealer (either in Hobbs or Clovis, accounts vary). Phares claimed the gun had disappeared a month after the May 1955 disappearance.

Early the next year (January and February 1956), police are arresting Phares in Oklahoma and returning him to Texas. There he is charged with the death of his 21-year-old and seven-month pregnant wife. His brother, Jack Phares, is charged with perjury for claiming he had not been at the farm but at the cinema, when he had apparently been at the farm.

Quickly, another version of the night’s events begin to be laid out across regional newspapers. On the day and evening of May 4, 1955, Andrea and C.W. had been at home along with brother Jack, sister Iva Phares Bottoms, and other kin. Mrs. Iva Phares Bottoms substantiated that a quarrel broke out between the young couple and Andrea left early twilight in the Lincoln. Jack then claimed C.W. got in his own old model Chevy and followed her shortly after sun-down.  

C.W., it was alleged, did not return until 11 p.m. When he did return he was claiming he had not found Andrea and began enlisting the help of his family members: Mr. and Mrs. Bill Ellis, Iva Bottoms, and Jack. The group alleged they spent the next several hours searching Plainview and Olton unsuccessfully.  At 4 a.m. C.W. finally and formally reported his wife missing to local police. Shortly after dawn the Lincoln town car was found east of Hale Center with its ignition wires ripped out, her billfold inside, and the carpet and blanket items missing from the trunk.

Significantly, Texas Rangers Gene Graves, W.E. Renfrow, and Raymond Waters, along with Hale County Sheriff Tom Anderson, all seemed convinced the woman was dead and that she had probably been shot by her husband. They did keep the cause open admitting strangulation or physical violence was also a feasible cause. 

Once retrieved in Oklahoma, Phares was driven around a wide area associated with the likely events of May 4, 1955: Hale Center, Plainview, Olton, Abernathy, and the Sandhills of northwest Hale and northeast Lamb counties. Volunteers were on site in this last location, but winds curtailed effective searching for signs of a recent grave. 

In attempting to follow-up on research the author contacted various law enforcement agencies. Recent information (9/11/19) from the Texas Department of Public Service, under which the Texas Rangers operate, stated they have no records of rangers being involved in the 'murder investigation' of Andrea Phares. It was unclear if this was mere parsing of words or if there had been investigation into her disappearance, but none formally related to a charge of murder. Authorities at all levels seemed reluctant to respond to any questions concerning her case. 

Quickly acquired lawyers from nearby Lubbock moved to bring both men before Judge E.A. Bells (64^th District Court) under a writ of habeas corpus (a legal move that forces authorities to bring forward the evidence causing a person to be held). The law did that, presenting the retrieved pistol and the buried watch and rings as evidence, along with the testimony of family. Although the Judge refused to release the men, he did lower their bonds. The case moved forward to a grand jury.  

Although C.W. “Bill” Phares received most of the newspaper space, the Lopez family suffered during this same time. Various fortunetellers, psychics, dousers, and con artists preyed on the family in the traumatic months after Andrea disappeared. They reported how such attempted to bilk the family out of funds to locate their missing relative, her grave, or to receive messages from the grave.  A year after her disappearance her brothers Andy and Gene were prominent among those searching with tractors and backhoes the now abandoned Phares Cotton Farm and locations in the region where a body might have been buried.

While the primary suspects in her disappearance were allowed to be released on bail. The Lopez family, by contrast, could only continue to wait and wonder concerning the fate of their loved one. The time period was one where people of other ethnic groups were often battling ongoing racial prejudices and biases. It is unclear if the reality of a social period where the victim and her family could be viewed as merely lowly Hispanic farm workers might have precipitated and fueled violence or, in turn, if that same prejudice might have hindered justice for the victim.

As processes churned slowly on, however, people were still searching. Late in February 1956, a posse from Hockley, joined one from Lamb County, and with the Petersburg Riding Club they worked with a group of Latin Americans with shovels who were seeking out likely spots a body might have been buried.

When the Judge lowered the Phares brother’s bonds there may have been several things influencing that decision.  The decision, however, left some issues. For example, the troublesome discovery that Bill Phares had buried his wife’s wristwatch, engagement, and wedding rings in a culvert near a bridge not far from the cotton farm. Phares’ explanation was that he had found them in the jacket he had worn that early May, and was afraid police would think he had something to do with his wife’s disappearance. So, instead, he wrapped them up and buried them. They were located by Texas Ranger W.E. Renfro of Lubbock. Renfrew would later comment that this case was one he always wished they had been able to settle before he retired.

An additional snag was the discarded gun. A few months after the disappearance a road crew turned up a .357 magnum pistol in a ditch 3 miles north of Abernathy, Texas (a short 16 miles south from Hale Center and on the way to where Phares said he was born in Lorenzo, Texas, circa 1911). The pistol was traced back to Phares as one sold to him by a Clovis, New Mexico dealer on 24 February1955.

A cluster of strange actions that were eye-brow raising if nothing else. 

Grand Jury Fails to Indict Husband

Despite these rather significant issues, a grand jury convened failed to indict and the men went free. Coupled with the still unresolved issues of the argument claim, the jewelry and gun discoveries were now the, apparently unaddressed, claims that Jack Phares had lied about being at the home that night and that he had heard his brother confess to having murdered his wife and buried her in the sand hills nearby. All together the decision of the grand jury is thought provoking.  Phares was reported to have moved, by 1959, to Arizona but other facts suggest he went north instead of west. A recent search of death notices found Phares had died in Oklahoma. His grave memorial indicates he was C.W. “Bill” Phares (Charles William Phares) born 1912, in Ada, Pontotoc, Ok and that he died and was buried in the same county in 1988.

Every few decades in newspapers, the haunting story of the young mother-to-be was revisited, recapped, and yet always concluded the same chilling way. No one, anywhere, had ever seen the young wife after that fateful day in May of 1955.  There was one suspicious rumor that showed up from the Oklahoma panhandle but it was questionable on many levels and was not picked up or repeated with any belief. 

Soon, it will be 65 years since that event, and the mention of Andrea Lopez Phares, appears to have been removed from the missing networks checked online. Originally found prior to 2014 she was not listed as the time of the writing of this more recent essay. She is not listed under cases solved or closed. Requests to agencies have gone unanswered. 

In 1969, newspapers recapped the story of this Latin-American Cinderella tale that took a dark turn and quoted a member of the law who admitted the case had slipped to the back burner and no one had looked at it for a while. Sometimes, a case can grow too cold and the hoary frost of neglect builds.

As early as late May 1955, local police and law enforcement were pretty convinced the young woman was dead. Newspapers did not recount any other suspects beyond the husband and police never admitted such. So many unanswered questions remain.

1.      What are the details of the alleged kidnapping attempt of C.W. “Bill” Phares, two weeks before the disappearance?

2.      Why did he have the habit of carrying large amounts of cash around with him and why did he ‘allow’ his wife to do so at the time of her disappearance? Especially in light of the attempted ransom demand claimed by Phares.

3.      Why does her pregnancy play such a small role in discussions of her disappearance?  Few newspapers included the fact she was pregnant or that she was seven months along.  Early conjecture in newspaper columns and comments appeared to be that she must have run off with another man but at seven months pregnant that story seems awkward. Such missing persons cases in the 1940’s-1960’s often enlarged the salacious possibilities even at the cost of accuracy.

4.       When she left that last night she did not take her glasses. What was her prescription for (reading farsightedness, nearsightedness, did she need them to drive? Especially at 8 p.m.?)  The only photograph found of her in a newspaper (another oddity) shows her nicely dressed and wearing eyeglasses. Why did she not take them that last night?

5.       What about the missing rings and watch? Why did her husband think it made sense to bury them? He had no need to hide them or to try explain how they came to be in his coat.

6.       Why did his brother Jack Phares claim that C.W. “Bill” Phares had confessed to him of the killing and subsequent burial? What happened to the flip-flop claims about where he was the night of the disappearance?

7.       Why was the car’s wiring ruined? Why was the trunk mat ripped leaving a gap and the blanket taken? How did the car thief/murderer get away from the scene of the abandoned car? A logical rationale would be that someone wanted the car to remain exactly where it was found. A much-loved car simply abandoned might have been too tempting to a passerby. Did someone want to make sure he would get the car back? The ripped out section of mat might have been blood stained due to injury to either the wife or the fetus. The blanket would make a handy carryall for an injured or dead body. A dead body might have bled or released bodily fluids necessitating the removal of the incriminating rug. One wonders, if and when, her remains are located will they be associated with a ripped-out section of car mat and a heavy blanket?

8.       If the husband’s claim that the night added some 150 miles is true that might mean that someone could have driven anywhere in a 70-75 mile radius of the Hale Center farm house to dispose of her body. It is interesting to note that a .357 magnum pistol tracked to Phares had been dumped near Abernathy, Texas.  How many miles might have been added in the process of dumping a body, burying a handgun, and jewelry before driving to the other side of Hale Center – as far away from the cotton farm – as possible?

      

      Finally, one of the most troublesome questions in this mystery. Why were the wires of the Lincoln ripped out in the first place? Why was not this car stolen and simply driven away? Did someone want to make certain the car did not leave the area?

If 

 The Theories

Three possible scenarios might account for disappearance and have been expressed by researchers over the years:

The flighty young Latin-American woman grew bored with the hard life on the cotton farm and left with a lover or family members.   As a young girl born into poverty who married the boss winning the right to drive a fancy car and live in a neat stucco and wood farm house carrying lots of cash in her wallet, this explanation seems thin.

Someone kidnapped her. Her husband claimed he had been taken by masked gunman demanding money just two weeks earlier. This also seems farfetched for two reasons. If this had been the case, why was no ransom demanded and why did Phares allow his pregnant wife to carry large sums of cash and drive unaccompanied?

Looking over the stories as they appear in newspapers across several states some things appear to stand out and point toward a single conclusion.

Is it possible that trouble broke out at the farm house that late afternoon or nearby on the evening of May 4, 1955? Did this result in violence occurring (perhaps involving the .357 magnum?), and the young woman being driven away (perhaps in the trunk?) by someone in the Lincoln Continental while an accomplice followed?  

As police seemed certain at the time, was she driven to a place where her body could be easily disposed of (in the sand hills as claimed by Jack Phares?). Who took off her watch and rings? Were a blood soaked car mat and a blanket buried with her?  On the drive back, was the gun buried, the car abandoned with wires ripped out to insure no loss of the beloved auto, and did someone pocket the $1400 alleged to be on  her person, and did someone then bury her jewelry and watch. 

Andrea's Disappearance Turns 65 in 2020

As this case prepares to turn 65, the woman in question would be about 81 in 2020 and the child, if it was alive, might be turning retirement age.  A cold case for some, a haunting loss for others, and a reminder that for those lost we should never stop looking. As of September 2019, The Doe Network reports they never received a listing for this missing person. The Charley Project does not show her listed and neither do various Texas missing person sites.  If someone did her and her unborn child harm, the books should never close until justice can write ‘finished’ at the end of the story.

After all, in the end, there is no statue of limitations on the truth.

--Marilyn A. Hudson (based on research originally conducted in 2014-2015, printed in the work 'Into Oblivion' (now out of print) and augmented by additional research in 2019. All data from public documents, records, and statements related to the investigation).