Texas True Crime: Twists and turns in murder of Houston couple killed as they slept

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Thursday, January 30, 2025
Texas True Crime: While They Were Sleeping
For years, the murders of a successful Texas attorney and his wife went unsolved - until their killer began dating an undercover private investigator.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Houston man who lost his grandparents to murder is speaking out after more than 40 years. Matthew Ray and his brother were sleeping at the foot of their grandparents' bed the night they were killed in 1982. This happened at the home of James and Virginia Campbell along Memorial Drive. It was one of Houston's most notorious murder cases, and solving the crime took years and involved a number of strange twists.

The most daring bet by investigators was relying on the work of a young, unknown private eye to break open the case.

All of a sudden he says, 'I killed both of Cynthia's parents.'
Ron Knotts, Houston PD detective

That private eye and the victims' grandson both speak out in our latest episode of Texas True Crime: While They Were Sleeping.

Watch Texas True Crime on your favorite streaming devices, like Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and GoogleTV. Just search "ABC13 Houston."

The news that flashed across TV screens over a warm June weekend in 1982 has always seemed like yesterday to Matthew Ray. James Campbell, a prominent local attorney, and his wife Virginia were brutally killed in their own home. Their two grandsons, Matthew and his brother, were asleep just at the foot of the bed.

"Well, basically, I remember we'd watch Disney cartoons on the big screen TV," recalled Matthew Ray in his first ever interview about that night. "That was the main thing, you know, like that night we'd watched Donald Duck, I remember. You know, that was the main thing. We were getting ready. We were supposed to go to Disney World the next week. I guess that would've been our first real trip with them, you know?"

Matthew saw the Campbells as his parents, because his biological mother, Cynthia Campbell Ray, was rarely around.

"I remember there were a few times we would go out, like picking her up somewhere," he recalled. "It was kind of like, 'Aunt Cindy's in trouble over here at a bar' or something like that, you know?'"

As a child, Matthew could never have imagined living through the horror of losing his parents, and where the investigation would soon turn. In fact, it wasn't long after the Campbells were killed that Houston Police detectives focused their attention on Cynthia and her on-again/off-again boyfriend, David Duval West, as murder suspects.

Eric Hanson, a Houston Chronicle reporter at the time, remembers detectives wanted to nab them, but just didn't have enough evidence.

"They had an alibi," he recalled. "And, they were clever enough that their alibis didn't quite match, exactly. There were a little bit of differences, which is what you'd expect from two people who were doing something that maybe didn't get their details quite right. I thought that was pretty clever. If they told exactly the same story, police probably would've been suspicious."

Two years would go by before Virginia Campbell's surviving sisters, frustrated by the lack of progress by police detectives, hired their own private investigator. Clyde Wilson was, in the 1980s, Houston's premier private eye. This murder case, though, was not one he could crack alone. Clyde had to turn to a young employee, Kim Paris.

"Clyde never 'asked' me to do anything," recalled Paris. "I was an anomaly in that office. It was a lot of former police officers and self-important people. And I was a kid."

We spoke with Paris alongside the case's prosecutor, legendary Houston attorney Rusty Hardin. Both recalled how Paris hatched a plan to accidentally meet up with West, who quickly fell for her. In just a few months, Paris told police detectives she felt West was ready to share something big.

Ron Knotts, who was a Houston Police homicide detective at the time, put a wire on Paris and hit the record button.

"So I wired her, I wired her car and put a tracking device on the car so that whatever they did or wherever they went, we could follow them and I could hear their conversations," recalled Ron, who retired from law enforcement years ago. He recalled it took five or six days of following Kim Paris around, but eventually, David Duval West said the crucial words they needed to break open the case.

The recordings are a bit scratchy, but the words are unmistakable:

David: "Look at me."

Kim: "What?"

David: "I killed both of her parents."

Knotts remembers his shock, even decades later. "All of a sudden he says, 'I killed both of Cynthia's parents.' And (my partner and I) could not believe it. I mean, I had wired many people for this kind of thing. And never once had I gotten a murder confession on a, on a recording before."

Getting that confession, however, would not be the end of the story. It was just a step toward finding justice for Matthew Ray and his brother. The future of one of Houston's most notorious murder cases would soon fall on the shoulders of Hardin, who was just a young prosecutor at the time.

"I've always resisted sorting out important cases as my favorite, this or that," recalled Hardin, who is still one of the most in-demand lawyers in Houston today. "But it was probably my introduction to a much larger stage than being assistant district attorney and in an office that I loved, in a profession I loved."

So what really happened, while the Campbells were sleeping? It would take another two years for the cases to play out in the Harris County courts.

Matthew Ray, all these years later, still remembers what happened.

"Just, just kind of, it's like a scar, just kind of, it's there, but you move on with (life,) you know? You got to."

To hear more of the compelling recordings, and see what happened after the two suspects were charged with the murders of James and Virginia Campbell, you can stream Texas True Crime: While They Were Sleeping now on our ABC13 app.

Watch Texas True Crime on your favorite streaming devices, like Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and GoogleTV. Just search "ABC13 Houston."

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