SAN ANTONIO — Authorities in a South Texas community where multiple people were reported missing in recent months say state-level law enforcement is now assisting with some of those investigations.
According to Matt King, chief deputy with the Bandera County Sheriff's Office, the Texas Rangers are looking into the disappearances of at least three local people: Jordan Tompkins, a young woman last seen in April in Lakehills; Brittany McMahon, who last contacted her family in mid-June; and Sean Duffy, a middle-aged man who also disappeared over the summer.
McMahon and Duffy have both since been found dead, and while the latter's case is being investigated as a murder, there's disagreement over how McMahon may have died. Local deputies ruled her death a suicide, but her family has hired outside investigators to draw their own conclusions.
As recently as early September, meanwhile, volunteer search groups were still scouring the Lakehills community for any sign of Tompkins, who was 25 at the time she went missing nearly six months ago. Her disappearance, along with others, has made some neighbors of the typically quiet Bandera County community anxious.
"It's been rather unusual this year that there's been several people come up missing within a 50-mile radius around here," a private investigator, Dennis Fitzgerald, told KENS 5 at the time.
Tompkins was last seen leaving the Medina Lake Country Club Bar & Grill on April 22, in south Lakehills. She was wearing a wig, along with bright pink tennis shoes.
Authorities have also said there's no evidence linking the missing persons cases as of yet. The body of another middle-aged Bandera County resident, 63-year-old Norma Espinosa, was found Sept. 6, more than three weeks after she vanished. Texas Rangers, however, are not investigating her case.
Texas DPS hasn't provided its own statement about Rangers' participation.