An unexplained death nearly 40 years ago hangs like a shadow over Catrina Marshall, who has dealt with the resulting family trauma her entire life. Marshall, 32, was named after her aunt, Catherine “Catrina” Mowrey, who was found dead in the trunk of a car in Dallas in 1985.
Mowrey was just 24 years old at the time of her death.
Marshall told The Dallas Express that her mom Deborah was the family member closest to Mowrey.
“I was her one way that she was able to honor her sister by naming me as her legacy,” Marshall said.
According to Marshall, Mowrey’s unexplained death has been like a family odyssey through tragedy and grief.
“It pretty much defined and shaped my entire life,” Marshall said. “Of course it directly affected my mom more than anyone else. And it always did till the day she died.”
The investigation into Mowrey’s death has long since become a cold case, but Marshall is making it her mission to solve the mystery.
When Mowrey’s body was first discovered, the Dallas Police Department gave conflicting reports, first telling the media that the death resulted from an overdose, then telling Mowrey’s family it was a suicide, before finally labeling her death as “undetermined.”
As the police investigation dragged on for years, the family tried to continue their lives, but tragedy struck the family a second time. In 1993, Deborah and Catherine’s other sister, Jo Ann, was murdered in a Dallas hotel room, her throat slashed with a broken beer bottle.
Police believe the two deaths are unrelated.
The unexplained death of Catherine Mowrey, in particular, haunts Marshall — primarily because of how the DPD handled the case.
“I’m honestly really surprised they even prematurely misinformed or announced it to begin with,” Marshall said, referring to the DPD’s announcement that a drug overdose caused Mowrey’s death.
“It kind of slandered her name a lot. Everyone in my entire family lived their entire lives believing that it was a cocaine overdose until the day they died,” Marshall said.
Everyone except for Mowrey’s sister Deborah that is.
“My mom knew — she always knew — that that is not what happened. She … never wavered from the story that she believed, or, I guess, she knew. And she ended up being right the entire time.”
Marshall said she obtained documents in 2021, including an autopsy report and a toxicology report, that prove that Mowrey did not die of an overdose. The reports also included an even more disturbing revelation.
“She had a belt wrapped around her neck when they found her body,” she said. “That was never disclosed either — ever — to anyone.”
Marshall said this new information shocked her.
“I think that’s a really big detail and a really big indication of, maybe not an overdose, or suicide, for that matter,” she said. “No young woman is going to strip down naked, wrap themselves like a burrito or mummy in a bedsheet, wrap a belt around their neck, and then just sit there and wait to die. It’s just so absurd sounding, even just saying it out loud. It’s just ridiculous.”
Marshall says that the death of her aunt was a tragedy that ruined the lives of her family, especially her mother, who died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 57.
Marshall obtained her mother’s psychiatric records after her death, which documented how her sisters’ deaths affected Deborah until the end.
“They were pretty brutal. There were reports dating 10 years ago, and even after that, instances where she would look in the bathroom mirror, and her sisters would be looking back at her and her reflection. It’s horrible to think about, really.”
“My mom’s mental health eventually deteriorated a lot, especially over the last decade or so. But it started back then, of course,” Marshall said, explaining that her mom had contacted the DPD on multiple occasions about Mowrey’s death.
However, she was given little information.
Marshall said her grandparents, whom she lived with at one point, would shush her when she brought up her aunt’s death. It was not a topic for discussion in the household.
During her lifetime, Marshall’s grandmother “lost two of her three daughters in bad, horrible ways. It was probably devastating to her,” Marshall said. “I just don’t think there’s an excuse for the way anyone acted or how it was handled.”
“And then my mom and I, we’d go visit the cemetery all the time, just even for lunch. It was just like a normal place that we [would go], just like almost hanging out. Of course, at that point, I was so young, I didn’t realize exactly what was going on,” Marshall said.
According to Marshall, her mother always believed that a person named Peewee might have been involved in the death of Mowrey.
“He had had a crush on her or was kind of in love with her but it wasn’t really reciprocated,” she said. “So she always believed that he was responsible for [Mowrey’s] death.”
Marshall said the Dallas District Attorney’s Office confirmed this person was a suspect in the case.
“I think I am probably 80/20 on who’s responsible. I think the Dallas police know who is responsible as well. They just can’t prove it yet,” she said.
Marshall said that two search warrants were executed in the last six months, and police found pieces of evidence, which she hopes were preserved.
“I had to push and push and push and push for it to happen,” Marshall said.
She said investigating her aunt’s death has been like a full-time job. She has reached out to people on Twitter and Facebook, often getting no response.
Kristin Lowman, PIO for the DPD, said that she is not sure what was initially reported about the death of Mowrey.
“What we can confirm is that a cause of death has not been determined,” Lowman said. “It is being investigated as an undetermined death. No suspects have been named and there have been no arrests in the case.”
Just last month, the DPD shared information on its blog about the Mowrey cold case in an effort to generate any tips or leads that could bring them closer to solving the case.
In the posting, the DPD repeatedly misspelled Mowrey’s name as “Mowery,” apparently just one of the errors that may have been made in the department’s handling of the case.
Marshall currently lives in Kansas, the home state of the Mowrey clan and the final resting place of her beloved family members who have died over the years.
Still, Marshall intends to keep pushing for answers concerning her aunt’s death in Dallas all those years ago. She hopes to one day bring closure to the trauma that has haunted her family for more than three decades.
Marshall said she was unsure whether she would file a lawsuit against the DPD.
“I’m not really sure how else they can really take accountability and learn from the mistake. It ruins people’s lives. It’s still ruining people’s lives,” she said. “It really goes to show just how long … victims of homicides and their families really suffer — long after the victims are killed.”