July 04--FORT WORTH -- Days after the man who had done work around her house disappeared, Lisa Juran began smelling a strong odor in her back yard.
George Thurston, her live-in boyfriend, dismissed it. It's probably a dead animal, he said.
He finally went outside with a bottle of bleach, assuring Juran that he would get rid of it.
Later, he asked Juran to help him load something into her pickup.
It was wrapped in blankets and a tarp, she later told police. And it smelled "like something dead," according to court documents.
She didn't look inside, she said. But she told police that she did notice one more thing: "I thought I saw a shoe."
The description was in an arrest warrant affidavit released Tuesday.
Officials allege that Juran knew that Walter "James" Anders, 51, had been slain and was trying to cover for her boyfriend when she helped him dispose of the body.
Anders' body was found May 30, concealed in a sleeping bag and discarded near railroad tracks in a semiwooded area west of Eighth Avenue and north of Windsor Place.
Anders, who had a history of living on the streets and frequenting homeless shelters, had been shot several times, including through both feet, near one knee and in the chest.
On Friday, Juran was formally charged with tampering with evidence.
Though police previously said Juran was accused of a Class A misdemeanor, prosecutors instead opted to charge her with a second-degree felony under a different provision of the tampering law.
Juran remained free on bail Tuesday. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Thurston has been charged with murder and faces up to life in prison. He remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday with bail set at $250,000.
Attorneys for the couple did not respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Linked by a phone call
When detectives visited Juran's Arlington Heights home in the 3900 block of Birchman Avenue on June 12, she gave varying accounts about what she knew, the affidavit says.
Investigators had visited Juran after linking her number to the last call placed to Anders' cellphone.
Juran acknowledged knowing Anders, telling investigators that he had done odd jobs for her, had cut trees with her boyfriend and had lived in her garage during the winter.
She told detectives that she had last seen him May 25, when she left home to attend a rodeo, and had learned of his death from a police flier.
But a search of Juran's garage found evidence of a crime, including spent shell casings and a large bloodstain on the brick floor, the affidavit says. Detectives also found a high-speed fan on inside the garage and numerous air fresheners apparently being used to mask the scent of a decomposing body.
When detectives expressed their concerns to Juran, she said her boyfriend had told her not to "snitch him out," the affidavit says.
She then gave investigators this account:
When she returned home the evening of May 25, Juran saw only Thurston at the house. She didn't realize that Anders was not there until the next day. When she questioned Thurston, he said he didn't know where Anders was.
About two days later, while they slept together on the couch, Juran heard Thurston remark that "it was self-defense." She told police that she believed that Thurston was talking in his sleep.
Juran later began to smell the strong odor in her back yard.
Thurston asked for her help in loading the item into the bed of her truck.
"She observed that George had a large item wrapped in blankets and a tarp placed near her backyard gate," the affidavit states. "Lisa described the item as smelling like something dead."
Thurston had placed the item on scrap plywood. After loading it, Thurston told Lisa that "he could take care of it from here."
Juran said she asked Thurston to also take a lounge chair, which he placed atop the wrapped item. The chair, which investigators believe was used as a makeshift gurney in dumping the corpse, was later found near Anders' body.
Juran told detectives that Thurston eventually told her that Anders had jumped on him during a fight and that he threw him off, against a wall.
When Anders pulled a knife, Thurston "unloaded" on him, she told detectives.
"Lisa said that she was not sure what he meant when George said he unloaded on Walter," the affidavit states. "Lisa said that she only learned later that Walter had been shot."
In the weeks before his death, Anders told relatives that he was staying in a garage apartment behind the Arlington Heights home of a man with whom he was doing tree-cutting work. He had complained to his family that the man, whom police later identified as Thurston, had not been paying him the money that he felt he was owed.
Juran, who breeds and raises bucking bulls and goes to competitions with them, had met Anders and reconnected with Thurston through her volunteer work at the First Street Methodist Mission in Fort Worth, police have said.
She is the great-granddaughter of former Fort Worth Mayor H.C. Meacham and the great-niece of the late Minnie Meacham Carter, widow of Star-Telegram founder Amon G. Carter Sr.
Deanna Boyd, 817-390-7655
Twitter: @deannaboyd
Copyright 2012 - Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
