Court documents detailed how detectives were able to track down Floyd William Parrott and identify him as the man responsible for a grisly double murder in 1990.
HOUSTON — A Houston man with a long criminal record is now accused of killing a young couple in one of the city’s most haunting cold cases, more than 35 years after their bodies were found in a remote west Harris County field.
According to court documents, 64-year-old Floyd William Parrott killed 22-year-old Cheryl Lynn Henry and 21-year-old Garland Andrew “Andy” Atkinson in August of 1990 by cutting their necks with a knife. He’s charged with capital murder in Harris County.
Houston Police Cold Case Detective B.W. Nabors was mentioned in the court document. Nabors said the investigation dates back to Aug. 23, 1990, when a security guard was on routine patrol on Enclave Parkway, then a largely undeveloped and remote part of west Harris County. The security guard noticed a white Honda Civic sitting for hours in a small cul-de-sac known as Enclave-A and grew concerned when he saw a purse on the passenger-side floorboard.
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The security guard eventually found a driver’s license inside the purse bearing the name Cheryl Henry and contacted her family, who told him she had been reported missing earlier that day. Police were called, and a Houston police officer responded to the cul-de-sac and searched a wooded area next to the dead-end street. There, under wooden boards apparently placed to conceal it, the officer found the unclothed body of a woman with severe injuries to her neck. She was later identified as Henry using the identification found in her purse.
As officers expanded their search, the security guard said a second body was found roughly 150 to 200 yards away, propped in a sitting position against a tree. That victim was later identified as Henry’s boyfriend, Andy Atkinson. According to the affidavit, Atkinson’s hands were tied behind his back with rope that appeared substantially similar to the rope used to bind Henry, based on a review of crime-scene photographs. Another rope was wrapped around Atkinson and the tree, running across his neck, and like Henry, he had severe, sharp-force injuries to the neck.
Investigators determined the Honda Civic abandoned in the cul-de-sac belonged to Atkinson.
Inside the Civic, the driver’s seat was fully reclined, the rubber floor mat had been pushed out of place, and what appeared to be blood was visible on the side of the driver’s seat and on the inside of the driver’s door near the handle, investigators said. The driver-side visor had been removed and placed on the passenger seat, and the key remained in the ignition. Near Henry’s body in the woods, an officer noted a blue dress, white jockey-style underwear and a bra; investigators said the underwear appeared to have been cut off her.
Detectives later spoke with Henry’s sister, who filled in some of the hours leading up to the killings. She told investigators the couple had been dating for a few weeks, and on the night of Aug. 22, 1990, she and Cheryl went to a nightclub called Bayou Mama’s, where Cheryl wore a blue dress. Andy Atkinson met them there, and the three “hung out” and drank together. Around 10:45 p.m., Henry’s sister said she left the club to go home, leaving her sister and Atkinson behind. The next day, when Henry did not show up for work, the family grew worried and filed a missing persons report with HPD, hours before the car and purse were found at Enclave-A.
Autopsies for both victims were performed at the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office. According to investigators who reviewed the reports, the medical examiner ruled both deaths homicides caused by sharp-force injuries to the neck. During the autopsy on Henry, examiners collected biological samples and performed a full sexual-assault examination, preserving DNA evidence that would later become central to the cold case investigation.
Despite an intensive investigation by HPD homicide detectives in 1990, the double murder remained unsolved for decades. That changed after a tipster contacted Houston police and named Floyd William Parrott as a possible suspect in the Henry and Atkinson killings, according to the affidavit. The tipster provided their name and contact information, and a detective later spoke with them to confirm details in the tip.
While following up on that tip in late 2025, a detective reviewed a 1996 HPD report from a separate sexual-assault case in which Parrott was the suspect. In that case, while the complainant alleged sexual assault, Parrott claimed the sex was consensual. DNA collected in that 1996 case was recently uploaded to CODIS, the national Combined DNA Index System used to compare DNA profiles from crime scenes, missing persons and convicted offenders.
According to the affidavit, a detective reviewed multiple DNA and CODIS reports and learned that CODIS flagged a case-to-case hit: the male DNA profile from the 1996 sexual-assault case, where Parrott was the accused and admitted sexual contact, matched DNA obtained from swabs collected during Henry’s sexual-assault exam at her autopsy. Investigators also learned of a second CODIS case-to-case match tying that same male profile to a June 1990 sexual-assault case. In that earlier case, the suspect was unknown to the victim, but she provided detectives with a physical description of her attacker.
Parrot is due back in court on April 30. He didn’t waive his right to extradition
Parrott’s criminal history
KHOU 11 News also uncovered Parrott’s prior criminal history in Harris County. In May 1988, he was arrested and later placed on probation for impersonating a peace officer, and the arrest report listed his work address. When investigators recently ran that address through Google, they noted it was just over one mile from the Enclave-A crime scene where Henry and Atkinson were discovered — an area described as “undeveloped and considered remote” in the early 1990s.
In December 1988, Parrott was arrested and subsequently convicted for carrying a weapon, specifically a blue steel revolver, which records show was later returned to him. The complaint notes that a blue steel revolver matches the gun description given by the victim in the June 1990 sexual assault case. Then, in May 1990, Parrott was again arrested and later convicted for impersonating a peace officer. A detective noted that records show he was out on bond for that case at the time of both the June 1990 sexual assault and the August 1990 murders of Henry and Atkinson.
Based on criminal records, detectives believe Parrott would have been 28 years old at the time of the June 1990 sexual assault and the August 1990 murders. A May 1990 Houston police arrest report listed him as 6 feet tall, 185 pounds, with brown hair and a mustache — a description that the June 1990 sexual-assault complainant also gave of her assailant. Detectives further noted that Parrott’s multiple arrests in the late 1980s and early 1990s placed him in Houston and Harris County during the time period of the killings.
Investigators also checked whether Parrott was in custody when the related crimes occurred. According to the affidavit, his criminal-history records show he was not in police custody during the June 20, 1990, sexual assault, the Aug. 22–23, 1990, homicides of Henry and Atkinson, or the Aug. 7, 1996, sexual assault.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Parrott was sentenced to 20 years in prison for impersonating a public servant in September 1995. He served just over three years before he was released on parole in 1999.
After reviewing the original offense reports, DNA evidence and supporting documents, detectives determined Parrott was the man who attacked the couple on that August night in 1990.
During an interview on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, Parrott denied ever knowing Cheryl Henry.
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