Mary Searight: 1996 Texas cold case murder solved; victim has ties to Austin
Mary Searight cold case murder solved
A 1996 Texas cold case murder of an elderly woman has been solved. The victim, Mary Searight, has ties to Austin.
TEXAS - The Texas Department of Public Safety says they've cracked the 1996 cold case murder of an elderly woman in North Texas.
The victim has a connection to Austin, and you may have seen her name before.
What happened to Mary Searight?

Mary Searight
The backstory:
On August 18, 1996, Mary Moore Searight, 86, was found in her Paris, Texas, home by a caretaker.
She had been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled. She was air-lifted to a Dallas hospital, where she died three days later.
After nearly three decades, DPS says they believe David Paul Cady Jr., 54, is responsible. He was indicted by a Lamar County grand jury last month.
Searight owned and rented out several properties in Paris, including some on the same street she lived on.
Cady, who was 25 at the time, was one of her tenants.
DPS says he was interviewed by police at the time. He tried to hide a cut on his hand and kept changing his explanation. Investigators got DNA from his hand, but nothing came of it.

David Paul Cady Jr., 54
Timeline:
In 2021, Searight's case was tested through the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. The program is funded by the Department of Justice. They help agencies across the U.S. with unsolved sexual assaults and sexually related homicides.
Two years later, in 2023, Cady's DNA was also submitted to the program, and Searight's DNA was found on the swabs from his hand.
In February 2024, he was arrested, though he was already in the Hopkins County Jail for another crime. He is still behind bars.
Mary Searight's ties to Austin
The backstory:
Searight's contributions are still seen in Austin.
Documents from the Austin History Center show she came to Austin with her family when her father, W.R. Moore, was appointed acting Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
The following year, she married Austinite Dan Searight, the president of the Walter Tips Hardware Company.
The family bought a ranch, and after her husband's death in the 1950s, she continued to manage it, later turning down multimillion dollar offers because she wanted to see it become a park and not a development.
In 1988, she made a deal with the city where they bought 88 acres, and she donated 206 acres of the land.
It is still known as Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Angela Shen