Man accused in 1986 Lexington County child killing to go on trial next month
The man accused of abducting and murdering a 4-year-old girl from her Lexington County bedroom will go on trial early in February.
Thomas McDowell, now 63, has been held in the Lexington County jail for almost two years, ever since he was arrested at his North Carolina home for the 1986 killing of Jessica Gutierrez. Now he will face trial in the little girl’s death beginning the week of Feb. 5.
Jessica’s disappearance was long considered one of the Midlands’ most notorious cold cases. She vanished from her home in the Edmund community overnight on June 6, 1986. The only clue to what happened to her came from Jessica’s then-6-year-old sister, Becky, who said she saw “the man with the magic hat and the beard” take Jessica from their shared bedroom the night before. Jessica has never been found.
At various points over the following 35 years, it appeared as if charges would be brought in Jessica’s case, but an arrest never came until 2022, when investigators linked a fingerprint collected at the scene to McDowell.
McDowell lived in the area at the time. Shortly after Jessica’s disappearance, he stole a car, drove to North Carolina and raped a woman, for which he spent a decade in a North Carolina prison between 1987 and 1997.
In 2008, he testified as part of his brother’s death penalty appeal in California, describing the physical, sexual and psychological abuse the two brothers were subjected to growing up in York County. McDowell’s older brother Eddie is on death row for a 1984 conviction of felony murder, burglary, attempted rape and attempted murder.
Thomas McDowell will be tried on charges of murder, kidnapping, first-degree burglary and failure to register as a sex offender. He is represented by public defender Robert Madsen, court records show.
This story was originally published January 3, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
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