Name: A.W. Steed
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: August 31, 1986
Location Last Seen: Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County, Texas
Date of Birth: August 8, 1933
Age: 53 years old
Race: White
Gender: Male
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 140 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Hazel
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown
Dentals: Not Available. Upper and lower dentures.
Fingerprints: Not Available
DNA: Not Available
Clothing: A western shirt, blue jeans, a silver dollar belt buckle with the initials "A.W." andRed Wingbrand work boots.
Jewelry: AJules Jorgensenbrand wrist watch.
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
Steed was last seen on August 31, 1986, in Sulphur Springs, TX. That mild Labor Day weekend, the Steed family was planning a camp-out at A.W.'s parents' property in Alba on Lake Fork. A.W. spent his day setting up a camper trailer, fishing, and enjoying time with his family. On Saturday night, Magdalene Steed, A.W.'s first wife, took a call from Carolyn McPherson, A.W.'s second wife. Carolyn told Magdalene that instead of joining the kids and grandkids at the lake, she and A.W. were staying behind in Sulphur Springs, TX and would be down the next morning. Magdalene said she assumed A.W. and Carolyn were headed to the VFW as it was their usual hangout.
Carolyn had called Magdalene the next morning and told her that A.W. had just walked off. Carolyn and A.W. came in from the VFW at about 1:00 a.m. and A.W. wanted to go gambling but she wanted to get in bed so A.W. supposedly walked off. Magdalene says she did as Carolyn instructed her and notified the children and grandchildren that A.W. would not be joining them. A.W. was allegedly last seen by Carolyn at his home at 341 Woodcrest Drive in Sulphur Springs, TX in the early morning hours that Sunday.
A.W.'s signature allegedly appears in the VFW's sign-in sheet, but family members say they've never seen it themselves. After arriving home from the VFW, Carolyn allegedly later told Steed's son Gary that she and A.W. had a fight about the dog making a mess on the bed. Magdalene's notes from the time reflect that Carolyn allegedly told her A.W. "wanted to go to a dice game, and she refused to take him." By the next morning around 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m., Magdalene remembers, she received the call from Carolyn telling her A.W. had walked off. At first, she said, she didn't think anything in particular, especially given A.W.'s proclivity for late-partying.
On Tuesday, when Gary arrived to open the tractor supply store, a family business where A.W. and Carolyn worked as well, he said Carolyn was acting strangely. "She come in asking if we'd seen him, wanting to hug us, and I just feld standoffish," Gary said. "I didn't want to think it, but I wanted to find out what did happen." At that point, Gary says, he made a trip from the tractor supply store in Emory to his father's home in Sulphur Springs - and what he saw alarmed him. "All the furniture was up on the couches and the carpet was damp from shampoo and wet," Gary said. "There were hampers and wet sheets, and all that didn't quite make sense." As Gary made his way to the carport, where one of his father's cars would be, Gary said he saw "oil, brand new oil poured out from one door to another with a floor-sweep put on." As a professional mechanic, Gary said he would never waste oil in such a way, and he said he doubts his father would either. "I asked her (Carolyn) about that and she said the kids were playing and threw it out," he said. "But it was just perfectly poured out all the way around the car."
Magdalene had stated A.W. told her shortly before his disappearanced that he was "more in debt than he had ever been before," and as a man whose main focus was hard work at his tractor supply store in Emory, he liked to relax by shooting dice. Shortly before his disappearance, A.W. allegedly told Magdalene he had discovered a large outstanding gambling debt Carolyn had racked up, she said. Magdalene contends this is corroborated by a $9,500.00 check cashed by First National Bank in Emory bearing A.W.'s signature, of which he allegedly had no knowledge, Magdalene said. "This made his account overdrawn," Magdalene wrote in a typed statement shortly after his disappearance." They (the bank) called him, and he knew nothing about the check. Didn't know the person the check was made out to or the third party that cashed the check." Magdalene said in her typed statement that A.W. signed a sworn statement that it was not his signature on the $9,500.00 check.
A.W. allegedly communicated his frustrations about money to Magdalene in the days before his disappearance. "He told me she (Carolyn Steed) wasn't paying bills, so he needed my help to take her off the checking and off the credit cards," Magdalene said. "He depended on me in that way because we were still friends." In addition, Magdalene said, A.W. told her not long before his disappearance that he had caught Carolyn in the arms of another man.
A.W. had not used his social security number, driver's license or credit cards, which were on him at the time. In 1994, eight years after his disappearance, courts declared A.W. deceased, according to original documentation.
Agency Name: Texas Department of Public Safety
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: (512) 424-5074; (800) 346-3243
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: M8910003
Agency Name: Sulphur Springs Police Department
Agency Contact Person: Criminal Investigations
Agency Phone Number: 903-885-7602
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: N/A
NamUs Case Number: Unknown
NCIC Case Number: Unknown
Texas Department of Public Safety
Texas Public Corruption
Added: 06/11/2008; Last Updated: 02/27/20224 - By: hb
Questions or comments? Please contact appropriate member of the Area Team
** Listed information is from the time of disappearance.
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