Just before 2 a. m. on August 23, 1990, a security guard on routine patrol near Enclave Parkway in west Houston discovered a white Honda Civic parked at the end of a dead-end road. Inside were a woman’s purse and shoes.
Nearby, 21-year-old Andy Atkinson was found bound to a tree, his throat slashed so deeply his head was nearly severed. About 100 meters away, the body of 22-year-old Sherri Henry lay under wooden boards, naked, with golf balls and a club placed as markers. A $20 bill sat beside her. She had been raped and killed.
Investigators determined she died first, meaning Andy was tied to the tree and heard her attack while knowing he was next. Sherri and Andy had met only weeks earlier. On the night of August 22, they were at a club called Bayou Mama’s in west Houston with Sherri’s sister, Meredith, who left first. The couple then drove to a secluded spot locals called Lovers Lane.
They never left alive. The killer left DNA on Sherri’s body, but in 1990 there was no database to match it. Detectives pursued hundreds of leads, subjects of interest, tips to Crime Stoppers, and interviews with people who used the lane. Roughly 100 suspects were excluded by DNA testing over time.
The case went cold, one of Houston’s most baffling murders. Sherri’s mother, Barbara Craig, and Andy’s father, Garland Atkinson, spent decades pressing for answers. Garland appeared in podcasts, on TV, and in interviews, never letting the public forget his son. In 2008, the DNA from Sherri’s rape kit was entered into CODIS, the national DNA database.
It matched DNA from a separate sexual assault that occurred in June 1990 in northwest Houston. That victim survived and described her attacker as about 6 feet tall, 185 pounds, with brown hair and a mustache. Police released a composite sketch, but no one identified him. By 2020, a private lab called Astrea used advanced DNA sequencing on the preserved evidence from the 1990 crime scene.
Still, investigators did not have a name. Barbara Craig and Garland Atkinson both died in 2024, never knowing who killed their children. In late 2025, Houston Police Sergeant Investigator P. W.
Nibors, reviewing the old case file, found a statement buried in the paperwork. Someone had provided a name: Floyd William Barrot. Nibors checked criminal records and found a 1996 sexual assault complaint in which Barrot was identified as a suspect. He claimed the encounter was consensual, and no charges were filed.
But DNA from that case had recently been entered into CODIS. It matched the DNA from Sherri Henry’s 1990 rape examination. It also matched the 1990 assault case investigators had linked to the murders eight years earlier. Three cases, one DNA profile.
Barrot was born in 1962 and was 28 at the time of the murders. His arrest record matched the description given by the June 1990 assault victim. Court records show Barrot was arrested three times for impersonating a police officer: twice before the murders and once after. In May 1988, he posed as a sergeant with the Department of Defense, using a vehicle with emergency lights.
In May 1990, weeks before the June assault, he was arrested again for impersonating a Houston police officer and released on bail. In 1996, he pulled over a driver on the Southwest Freeway and demanded $100 to avoid issuing a ticket. When police searched his car and home, they found badges, a police light bar, a police radio, and documents with other people’s names. Officers also learned he had stolen a sheriff’s wallet, used his own photo, and made a fake ID with the sheriff’s name to stop strangers and extort money.
Barrot had 11 different employers and 15 addresses between 1988 and 1996. He married several times. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1996 but served just over three years before being paroled in 1999. He continued impersonating officers through the 2000s and remained in the Houston area until about two years before his arrest.
On March 25, 2026, Houston police and the FBI arrested Floyd William Barrot, 64, in Lincoln, Nebraska. In the interview afterward, he said he did not know Sherri Henry at all. The next day, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teer and police announced the capital murder charge. At the press conference, Sherri’s sister, Shane Henry, said, “We never lost hope, and we thank God the suspect is now in custody.
” She noted that her mother and Andy’s father did not live to see the day. Barrot did not waive extradition, and he was held in Lancaster County Jail with a court date set for April 30. On April 28, 2026, authorities confirmed he had died while in custody. Officials believe he hanged himself, though the official cause was still pending.
Teer said his death appeared to be suicide. Barrot had denied any involvement while alive and left no explanation. Questions about the $20 bill, the balloons tied to the tree, and whether there were other victims may never be answered. Investigators believe there may be more people who encountered Barrot, stopped by a man impersonating a police officer.
Teer said before Barrot’s death, “We think there are more people in Houston and the surrounding area that have come in contact with this individual. We need the full picture of what Floyd William Barrot did in our community. ”
The case ended without a trial, without a verdict, and without the families hearing a jury say guilty. But the DNA match was established, and the killer’s name is now known.
Sherri Henry and Andy Atkinson were not just victims of an unsolved case. They were people with names, families who loved them, and families who fought for 35 years to find the truth. Justice came late and incomplete, but it did come.