13 Unsolved: Murder on Red Bluff Road

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

13 UNSOLVED: For almost 45 years, Angela Kelley's family has wondered who killed her. The 17-year-old Hastings High School was found bound and strangled along Red Bluff Road in Pasadena back in 1979. Could new DNA technology finally give detectives the break they've been waiting for?

PASADENA, Texas (KTRK) -- On the afternoon of March 27, 1979, Angela Kelley said goodbye to her best friend at Montrose apartment, saying she'd be right back. Angela wanted a Coke from a convenience store, then was headed to a pawn shop less than a mile away to sell some jewelry. She needed money for a bus ticket, Angela had said. The 17-year-old Alief ISD student planned to visit her boyfriend in Arkansas the following week.

But Angela never made it to the store. Or the pawn shop.

At 2:30 a.m. the next day, Angela's body was found slumped against the curb of Red Bluff Road in Pasadena, nearly 20 miles from that apartment. A driver had spotted the teen on his way home from work and called police.

Angela's hands were tied behind her back with thick gray electric wire. A rope was found cinched around her neck. The legs of her blue jeans were dirt-stained, her gauzy white shirt pushed up around her waist.

Angela had been strangled, the medical examiner would later say.

"You're young, and you don't think anything's going to happen to you at five o'clock on a sunny day," said Sandra Beasley, Angela's best friend, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. "This is where it gets hard because I didn't insist on driving her. And, you know, it's one of those regrets you live with the rest of your life."

March marks 45 years since Angela Kelley was murdered-45 years since Sandra and Sandra's boyfriend were first interviewed about the last afternoon they spent with Angela. For nearly half a century, police followed more than a dozen leads, questioned witnesses, and tested and retested the evidence.

Angela's case is still cold. But now, police are opening the case file - and that evidence - only for ABC 13. We're tracking down the people and persons of interest connected to the investigation-people who needed to be tracked down.

Now, there's new hope.

"I want it solved so bad," Sandra said. "I have for so long. I feel like...I feel like we're that one hair away from solving it."

Unsolved: Murder on Red Bluff Road - now streaming on the ABC13 app.

Watch episodes of Unsolved, including Murder on Red Bluff Road, on your favorite streaming devices, like Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and GoogleTV. Just search "ABC13 Houston."