KCBD INVESTIGATES: New clues and a chilling interview shed light on Carabajal homicide

LUBBOCK COUNTY, TX (KCBD) - KCBD is investigating the unsolved homicides of several Lubbock women:

Phyllis Robinson, Amanda Gswend, Cynthia Palacio, Linda Trevino Carbajal, Selena Kuykendall and Monica Adams.

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In October, Lubbock police made an arrest in the Adams case. They now believe Billy Jack Limbaugh Jr. is responsible for not only Adams' homicide, but also an aggravated kidnapping and robbery and an aggravated sexual assault.

Limbaugh Jr. is now in the Lubbock County Jail charged with Adams' murder, along with other felony charges. Police said this is an ongoing investigation, but they have not connected him to any of the other unsolved homicides at this time.

KCBD is working with investigators to help generate tips that could lead to an arrest in the five other unsolved homicides.

KCBD has obtained new information regarding two of the cases.

Investigators confirm that the person who killed 21-year-old Linda Trevino Carbajal was most likely driving a pick-up or a vehicle with heavy duty tires.

They believe this could be the same truck that dumped 21-year-old Cynthia Palacio's body just one year earlier. Investigators have confirmed that Carbajal and Palacio were roommates, both born in June of 1982. They were both dumped on county roads by a 21-year-old male who investigators believe is most likely of Hispanic or Native American descent.

KCBD is combining ten years of small clues like these to help investigators find the person responsible. We have pulled a chilling interview with Carbajal, recorded just one year before she was murdered.

On November 13, 2002, KCBD interviewed Carbajal in the Lubbock County Jail.

"It's very dangerous. I ask myself sometimes why...I'm surprised I'm alive to this day," Carbajal said.

"I've been through a lot," she said. "I've had my friends killed in front of me. I've seen a lot."

Carbajal had just been arrested for prostitution.

"People say I'm out there...prostitution. It's not really prostitution, you know. Like people say, you know, like on the streets, conversation rules the nation, right?" Carbajal said.

"I was smoking dope, selling dope. You know, just - you know - trying to keep myself going," she said.

Carbajal defended the only lifestyle she had ever really known.

"It started back when I was 11 years old. My mother was taken to prison so I kind of went wild there. You know, lots of kids get out of school and they go play with their friends. I would just get out of school and go straight home and do what I was learned...taught to do. So I started using drugs and from drugs and I went to the streets,"Carbajal said.

A lifestyle that landed her in jail 39 times.

"Last time, I was incarcerated for seven months. I was out for three days and I was right back in," Carbajal said.

In this 2002 interview, Carbajal told KCBD that this time would be the last.

"I really want to better myself, not only for me, but for my daughter and my grandmother because life is too short," she said.

One year after this interview, Carbajal was found dead, partially nude, on a county road just outside of New Deal.

"Just like trash without any care or consideration or thought whatsoever. It was a dumping ground," said Assistant Chief Deputy Doug Sutton with the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office.

Sutton has worked this case for ten years.

"There was no gun shots, there were no knife wounds, it would be some type of physical cause, someone using their hands," Sutton said.

He said they are close to catching Carbajal's killer. And he believes it is likely the same person who killed her roommate, 21-year-old Cynthia Palacio.

Palacio was strangled and dumped on a county road just one year earlier. Sutton said someone out there knows something that can bring this killer to justice.

"Someone out there might have a family member. Maybe someone that changes their personality, suddenly becomes very religious. We do plead to the public, there's someone out there knows about this. Let's help these girls, let's give their families some resolution," Sutton said.

If you have any information, you are asked to call Crime Line at (806) 741-1000. Crime Line is an anonymous tip line open to callers 24/7.

Kera Eady and L. Scott Mann contributed to this report.

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