There’s no telling how many souls the Cedar Creek Lake area’s dark waters have swallowed up since it’s construction 50 years ago, but at least one death continues to haunt the family and friends of a pretty blond Corsicana woman whom three fishermen found floating in the Trinity River near Seven Points in September 1993.

Family members last reported seeing Shelley Lou Watkins, 35, alive Sept. 6, 1993, at a Labor Day family gathering in the Ruth Springs addition near Key Ranch Estate on Cedar Creek Lake. Eight days later the fishermen spotted her body wrapped in black plastic trash bags floating in the river south of FM 85.

Family members reported Watkins missing to authorities sometime after they last saw her and shortly before the grim discovery of her body, which required dental records for identification because of long exposure to water.

Watkins’ obituary in the Corsicana Daily Sun, which gave her date of death as Sept. 14, showed she was born in Toledo, Ohio, on Dec. 17, 1957, and that she left behind two daughters and a husband, her mother and father, and a sister and a brother. She lived at Beaton Estates in Corsicana with her husband and two daughters.

The notice revealed her to be a socialite doing charitable work for the American Cancer Society and an active member of the Women’s Club House Association. Her memorial service took place at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Corsicana. Oakwood Cemetery in Navarro County would become her final resting spot.

Despite the cement blocks someone chained to Watkins’ clothed body at the neck and feet in an attempt to make sure her fate remained a secret forever, the water released her. It created a dark mystery that continues to intrigue law enforcement officers who want to see her killer or killers face justice.

Former Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt told the Athens Daily Review one of his greatest regrets in his long law enforcement career had been the failure to identify and punish whomever killed Watkins. He first worked the case as an investigator with the Texas Rangers.

Nutt told reporters he disagreed with the decision by Henderson County District Attorney E. Ray Andrews in 1993 to indict Watkins’ prominent husband, Jerry Mack Watkins, for the murder because he needed more time to establish evidence.

Andrews pushed ahead with the indictment over Nutt’s objections, and in July 1994 the case would take a drastic turn that deepened the mystery.

Henderson County officials dismissed charges against Watkins’ husband after the district attorney admitted he attempted to extort $1 million from the suspect in exchange for making the murder charges disappear, according to a report in the Athens newspaper. Andrews, with the help of a middle man, reduced the extortion demand to $500,000, then $300,000 before acknowledging his corruption and resigning from office, according to the report.

Law enforcement officers never identified any other suspects, and now 23 years later the case is still open. Investigators still receive tips they check out, and they welcome any information that might be brought forward to solve the mystery of Watkins’ brutal murder.

Watkins’ information is still available on Henderson County Crimestoppers’ Facebook page. Every year near Labor Day law enforcement officers issue a plea to the public for information that could lead to solving the young mother’s murder.

Nutt told reporters be believes someone knows what happened to Watkins. “Come forward. Let justice be served and the truth come out — completely,” Nutt said.

Major Bryan Tower of the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department is now in charge of the active investigation. He can be reached at 903-677-6331.