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True tale of female private eye
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Nina Neal realized she was in deep
trouble when the
satanist grabbed her, threw back his head and let go a shrill wail.
She broke free, but he caught her, jerking her back so severely
she felt her
entire body had been ``whiplashed.''
With his fists, he broke her nose, blackened her eyes and
dislodged several
teeth.
``I have never been afraid of anything or anyone,'' she recalls
now. ``I was
terrified. He almost broke my neck.''
But, she sighs, it goes with the territory. No one forced her
to become a
private investigator. She just wanted to find the person who
murdered her
father.
At 51, Nina Neal is a 5-foot-3, 115-pound, blue-eyed blonde, a
divorced
grandmother with no desire to alter her marital status a fourth
time.
Her first husband was a ``career criminal'' and the second was
permanently
disabled in an industrial accident. The third, she said, enjoyed
hunting,
fishing and wife-beating.
Nina Neal runs her own private detective agency, Pyramid
Investigations, and
a newly acquired bail bond company.
She often is the low-profile, behind-the-scenes investigator in
a
high-profile case, including some recent ones. You'll not find her
in an office
but out zipping around town in a pickup truck, a mobile phone stuck
in her ear.
Female private eyes are not uncommon, but ones like Nina are.
``You can't help but like her, at least until she gets mad at
you,'' says
veteran homicide detective Danny LaRue. ``Then she's a tiger.
Nina's credible,
although sometimes I get the impression she just arrived on the
last flight
from Mars.''
Says Jackie Farmer, an investigative colleague:
``Professionally, Nina's the
best there is. Not many people know that she is also a
humanitarian. She just
likes to help people who need help.''
Born and raised on the wild side, bright lights and darkened
bars were a way
of life that spilled over into adulthood.
``My daddy was a hell-raiser, and I grew up on the Jacksboro
Highway. That's
what it boils down to,'' she says. ``I was daddy's favorite and I
got to go
places with him because I wouldn't tell on him.''
In the '40s and '50s, flashy underworld figures and just plain
old hoods had
a way of dying or disappearing on the Jacksboro Highway.
In its heyday, the highway was a neon strip of nightclubs,
liquor stores,
gambling joints, saloons and dance halls. Slot machines were
exceeded in
popularity only by hotels and motels that rented rooms by the hour.
For Nina, the mid-'50s was a pivotal period, but for all the
wrong reasons.
That was when she met Odis Hammond, a dashing ``career
criminal'' who would
change her life forever. And that also was when someone killed her
father.
``They were having a shutdown strike at the Lone Star Steel Mill
in East
Texas,'' she says, ``and my father and the others from Fort Worth
were staying
in a motel there. He was thrown into a vat of coke acid.''
His remains were not discovered until weeks later.
``After that,'' Nina says, ``I set out to find out who killed
him.''
Just 16 at the time, she dropped out of high school and headed
to
Daingerfield, arriving not long after the Texas Rangers. The
Rangers didn't
solve the case, but they did conclude that the killing was not
strike-related.
Her own investigation would one day point to an infamous Texas
gambling
figure, but she could never prove her suspicions. Her other suspect
wa a guard
at the steel mill.
``I still don't know for sure,'' she says.
If nothing else, her inquiry introduced her to the intricacies
of law
enforcement - ``how it worked and didn't work.'' While attending
night classes
and getting a diploma, she became a courthouse regular, adept at
rooting out
information in obscure or bewildering legal documents.
She met and mingled with judges, lawyers, prosecutors, cops,
pimps,
prostitutes, gamblers, bartenders, dedicated criminals and an
occasional
killer.
With her courthouse expertise, Nina had little trouble landing
a job with a
law firm headed by several of the city's best-known attorneys,
including Doug
Crouch, who was eyeing the district attorney's office.
One night at a dance hall, Nina met Odis Hammond. He was, she
said, 27 years
old, and the ``handsomest man I ever saw.''
Hammond also was a police character, a pimp by preference and
a killer more
or less by accident.
``Odis was the biggest pimp ever to hit Fort Worth,'' Nina
recalls with a
wry smile. ``He had 30 prostitutes working for him, including
Jackie Bottoms, a
beautiful $200-a-night call girl.''
It was during a debate over Ms. Bottoms' earnings, if not her
affections,
that Hammond shot and killed his lifelong buddy, Wylie D. Bartley.
``Odis didn't mean to kill him,'' Nina said. ``He grieved over
that shooting
for years.''
Despite his grieving, Odis found time for an affair with Nina,
who was then
17, still a bit naive and soon quite pregnant.
Odis was not opposed to marriage, but Doug Crouch was.
He felt his chances of being elected DA would be damaged if word
got out
that one of his investigators had wed a known pimp, particularly
one under
indictment for murder.
In the end, Nina and Odis were quietly married in nearby
Weatherford, and
she left the next day for California.
Crouch won the election, although Nina returned to Fort Worth
prematurely
when Odis got himself seriously wounded in another shooting, again
involving a
woman.
Soon she and Odis were living together, but not for long. One
night Odis
forsook his pregnant spouse for an evening with gambling cronies.
Nina was not pleased. She chased Odis across town and got off
a shot or two
as he jumped from his car outside the old Sands Club on the
Jacksboro Highway.
After she was arrested, the cops turned her over to a suburban
mayor, who
telephoned the new district attorney for instructions.
``Just take her home,'' sighed Doug Crouch.
When the inevitable divorce was final, in 1959, Odis and a pal
celebrated by
killing a hood in Houston, which almost got them both the electric
chair.
Odis hired legal legend Percy Foreman, who pleaded him out for
30 years, 15
of which he served in the Texas Department of Corrections.
With Odis off in jail, Nina remarried, choosing ironworker Gary
Carter.
On Jan. 31, 1962, Nina's life all but unraveled, beginning with
the funeral
of Carter's father.
That same day a coin machine dealer named Dan Starns, 53, shot
and killed
Nina's mother, Ruby, as she sat in her car behind the clinic where
she worked.
Starns shot Mrs. Pearce four times with a .38-caliber pistol.
As he turned
to walk away, he whirled and fired again. He then crawled into his
pickup truck
and blew his head off.
``Starns visualized himself in love with Mother,'' Nina says.
``But she
spurned him and married Jack Pearce. He was vice president of a
bank.''
Nina spent the '60s with Gary Carter, whom she said gave her
``direction and
stability'' and a second son. She sharpened her investigative
skills in a
variety of projects, some for lawyers, some for free and some for
John Herrick,
a well-known and respected personal injury attorney.
It was Herrick who eventually encouraged her to get her license
and become a
full-time investigator, which she did in 1985.
In the meantime, Nina went through one more husband and two more
divorces
and acquired four grandchildren via her two sons, both ironworkers.
She also
worked off-and-on as a welder, bartender, bookkeeper, hand driller
and
saleswoman.
The latter involved peddling memberships in the newly opened VIP
club at
Billy Bob's Texas, the ``world's largest honky tonk.''
With a local millionaire builder-investor, she acquired her own
club,
leasing a North Side joint called the Bloody Bucket in the heart
of the
Stockyards entertainment complex.
Nina's Little Texas, as she rechristened the club, was doomed
from the
start.
After forming Pyramid Investigations, she got involved in the
probe of a
truck and trailer insurance scam - and met the satanist.
``This guy called and said he wanted to talk to me about a
case,'' Nina
says. ``He didn't say what case. But he turned out to be nice
looking and
seemed well-to-do.''
She said the man took her to an old house on the west side,
which she
quickly realized was no ordinary residence. He left her alone in
a room that
contained a bed but was not a bedroom. There were chains and a
goblet and books
with script she couldn't read. She would learn later that items
scattered about
the room were used by devil worshipers in their so-called Black
Mass.
When the man returned, his demeanor had changed from cordial to
threatening.
He grabbed her, tossed his head back and began to howl like an
animal. She
struggled free and tried to escape. He overtook her and began
beating her
savagely.
He told her to get off the truck insurance case and said he was
hired to
make certain that she did. After throwing her on her face in the
driveway, he
picked her up, shoved her into his Porsche, drove her back to her
car and
ordered her out.
Nina stumled into a residence and called police, who intercepted
the man and
ticketed him for assault. He paid a $200 fine.
Did she drop that case?
``Of course not,'' she snapped. ``We eventually got our client
acquitted.''
One of Nina's more interesting cases involved tracking down
murder suspect
Phillip Gray, alias Phillip Gray McBride, and helping expose his
car burglary
and forged check operation.
That case made front-page headlines in 1989 when Gray, a
convicted killer,
was arrested and charged with theft, forgery and pulling a gun on
a police
officer. Nina's role was never fully revealed, perhaps because much
of her
investigative activities were irregular, if not illegal.
While most of her work involves insurance fraud, Nina was
instrumental in
getting police, the FBI and the media to look into the
disappearance of Denise
Dansby, 24, a General Dynamics computer programmer who vanished
while
vacationing in Florida in 1989.
Once convinced that Ms. Dansby probably had been abducted and
killed,
authorities launched a full-scale investigation. Her remains were
found in a
field outside Deltona, Fla.
Among her current cases is one involving a man jailed for
delivery of a
simulated controlled substance.
``It was a setup,'' Nina insisted. ``My client is innocent.''
And who is this client?
``Odis Hammond.''
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