Verna Dennis was a vivid person who loved yellow roses, was passionate about her faith and helping others, and knew how to have fun, her daughter said. The same suspect has been charged with murder twice in Dennis’ 1997 killing, but both times the case has been dismissed before trial.
Family photo
Courtesy: Rebecka Eggers
A Fort Worth cold case killing from 1997 is still under investigation after being dismissed for the second time before trial.
Verna Dennis was found dead inside her Ridglea Hills home on Aug. 10, 1997. Someone had struck the 56-year-old widow over the head more than 20 times with a steel pry bar and cut her throat with a butcher knife, according to an autopsy report. Dennis’ 1993 Acura and tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry were missing from the house.
Michael Puryear, who’d been a college roommate of Dennis’ son, was arrested and indicted on a murder charge in 2006. Then in June 2009 — two weeks before the trial was set to begin — the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case. Prosecutors at the time said the evidence against Puryear wasn’t strong enough to proceed.
Fort Worth police arrested Puryear in connection with Dennis’ death for the second time on July 31, 2023. The department announced the arrest in a news release and said detectives had reopened the case and built on the work of previous investigators.
“Recent advancements in DNA technology allowed for testing that was not previously available,” the release stated.
A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Puryear on the capital murder charge in October 2024, and court documents show trial preparations were underway. On Aug. 29, 2025, the case was dismissed on the grounds of “prosecutorial discretion.”
“In discussions with the detectives handling the case, it was determined that additional investigation was necessary,” the District Attorney’s Office told the Star-Telegram in an emailed statement. “The case was dismissed to allow that work to be completed.”
The Fort Worth Police Department didn’t provide additional details on the dismissal and said in an email that police respect the district attorney’s decision. Puryear’s defense attorney, Steve Gordon, declined to publicly comment on the case.
The crime
Verna Dennis loved helping people, her daughter, Rebecka Eggers, told the Star-Telegram in 2023. The red-headed west Fort Worth resident was also passionate about her faith. She hosted Bible studies, taught Sunday school and counseled inmates at the state prison in Huntsville.
According to family and friends, Dennis made another ministry trip to Huntsville on Aug. 9, 1997, the day police believe she was killed. Investigators think the attacker followed her into the house when she returned home late that afternoon or was already inside, Puryear’s 2023 arrest warrant affidavit states.
Dennis’ body wasn’t discovered until the following day when friends arrived for a Sunday evening Bible study. Her stolen car was found abandoned about a month later in a K-Mart parking lot in San Antonio.
In October 2005, one of Puryear’s friends named him as the killer, investigators said. According to the informant’s written statement, the two men were watching football together when Puryear started to talk about killing Dennis, the arrest warrant affidavit states. Puryear also purportedly described stealing Dennis’ car and leaving it in a Walmart or K-Mart parking lot in San Antonio.
Puryear was arrested in April 2006, but the case was ultimately dismissed. Prosecutors at that time said Puryear’s alibi — that he was at a party in Austin at the time of the killing — appeared credible and the DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene was weak. They said they also determined the informant’s story was likely false, according to the Star-Telegram’s archives.
Another homicide detective reopened the case in December 2020, believing “the case files may contain information known and unknown to the court at the time of Puryear’s release,” the most recent arrest affidavit states.
The following year, two investigators met with the informant who said Puryear had confessed Dennis’ killing to him. According to the affidavit, the details he shared were consistent with the statement he’d made to police back in 2005.
Another DNA test run in 2023 also determined that it was “likely” the evidence came from Puryear, according to the affidavit.
“This likelihood ratio provides moderate support for the inclusion of Michael Puryear to this mixture,” the affidavit states.
Even though this second case against Puryear was ultimately dismissed, it can be refiled if police and prosecutors believe there’s enough evidence to charge him after further investigation. It’s not clear if or when that would occur.
In a 2023 interview, Eggers said she’d spent “26 years of torment” waiting for answers. One of the things that hurts the most is never getting an opportunity to see the woman her mother would become, she said.
“She was just a multi-dimensional person like anybody, who had strong points and flaws and beauty and difficulty, and someone saw her in a vulnerable moment in her life when she was coming out into the world to become her true self, and they snuffed that out,” Eggers said.
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Harriet Ramos covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.