She was 16 years old, walking alone in Texas, trying to get to a family gathering. She never arrived. And for the next four decades, the man who killed Deanna Ogg lived freely — while an innocent man lost ten years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
That changed in May 2026. Investigators announced the arrest of Bobby Charles Taylor Sr., now 65, charged with capital murder in the death of Deanna Ogg. The break in the case came through advances in DNA technology — the same science that once cleared an innocent man is now pointing to the man investigators believe actually did it.
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Who Was Deanna Ogg?
Deanna Ogg was a 16-year-old student at New Caney High School in Montgomery County, Texas — a school so new it had only just been constructed. By all accounts she was an ordinary teenager with ordinary plans for an ordinary Saturday.
On September 27, 1986, Deanna wanted to attend a dance with her grandmother and uncle, who lived about 30 minutes away. Unable to get a ride, she left home on foot — heading toward a convenience store on FM 1314 near Sorters Road, about two miles away, hoping to find transportation.
She never made it. Deanna Ogg was 16 years old, she was trying to get to her family, and she was failed — first by a killer, and then for decades by a justice system that imprisoned the wrong man while the real perpetrator walked free.
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Timeline of Events
• Sept. 27, 1986 – 5:00 PM: Deanna Ogg leaves her home near Porter, Texas, on foot, looking for transportation to reach her family for an evening dance.
• 5:30–7:00 PM: Deanna is spotted at a convenience store on FM 1314. A clerk later testifies she mentioned heading to a party in Conroe with friends. She purchased cigarettes. This is the last confirmed sighting of her alive.
• ~7:00 PM: Teenagers on three-wheelers discover Deanna’s body in a secluded wooded area off Old Houston Road — about seven to eight miles from where she was last seen alive. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten, and stabbed. Cause of death: fractured skull and multiple stab wounds to the neck.
• Oct. 29, 1986: Roy Criner, a 21-year-old logger, is charged with murder after friends claim he bragged about picking up a hitchhiker and forcing her to have sex. The charge is later reduced to aggravated sexual assault.
• April 1990: Criner is convicted and sentenced to 99 years — based almost entirely on witness statements. No physical evidence links him to the crime.
• 1997: DNA testing proves Criner was not the source of biological evidence found on Deanna. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals still refuses a new trial.
• 2000: A cigarette butt at the crime scene matches the same unknown DNA profile — further clearing Criner. Governor George W. Bush grants a pardon. Criner is released after 10 years in prison.
• 2000–2025: The case remains cold and unsolved.
• May 2026: Bobby Charles Taylor Sr., 65, is arrested and charged with capital murder. Advanced DNA technology identified him as the suspect. He was four days shy of 21 when Deanna was murdered.
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Key Details and Evidence
From the very beginning, the physical evidence in the Deanna Ogg case told a story the prosecution initially refused to follow.
Investigators found a Marlboro cigarette butt near Deanna’s body, along with a clump of blonde hair clutched in her right hand. DNA collected from the scene would become both the instrument of injustice — and decades later — the instrument of its correction.
When DNA testing became available in the late 1990s, the results were unambiguous: Roy Criner was not the source of the biological material recovered from Deanna. Yet the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his conviction anyway — a ruling legal observers called one of the court’s lowest moments.
In 2026, advanced DNA technology pointed investigators directly to Bobby Charles Taylor Sr. The same science that freed an innocent man finally named the right one.
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What Raises Questions?
The wrongful conviction of Roy Criner is one of the most troubling chapters in this case — and raises serious questions about how it was allowed to stand as long as it did.
Criner was convicted without a single piece of physical evidence tying him to the crime. No hair, no DNA, no forensic link. And when results came back in 1997 and cleared him, the state’s highest criminal court still refused a new trial.
But here’s where things get strange. While Roy Criner sat in a Texas prison, Bobby Charles Taylor Sr. was living his life — racking up convictions for burglary, DWI, and assault. Yet his DNA wasn’t matched to the Ogg case until 2026.
How many other cold cases sit unsolved today — not because the evidence isn’t there, but because the technology to read it didn’t exist yet?
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What We Know So Far
• Deanna Ogg, 16, was murdered on September 27, 1986, in Montgomery County, Texas.
• She was sexually assaulted, beaten, and stabbed. Cause of death: fractured skull and stab wounds to the neck.
• Roy Criner was wrongfully convicted in 1990 and served 10 years before being pardoned in 2000.
• Bobby Charles Taylor Sr., now 65, is charged with capital murder. He was 20 at the time of the murder.
• Advanced DNA technology — with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Rangers, and FBI — led to the arrest.
• Taylor has prior convictions for burglary, DWI, and assault.
• Deanna’s mother, now 82, is expected to speak publicly. A family relative called Taylor a “monster” and said the arrest brings long-overdue peace.
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For 40 years, Deanna Ogg’s case stayed cold. An innocent man lost a decade of his life. A killer walked free. And a mother spent four decades without justice for her daughter.
Now, finally, there is an arrest. Whether it becomes a conviction will play out in a Montgomery County courtroom. But if this case proves anything, it is this: DNA doesn’t forget. And cold cases don’t always stay cold.
Is this justice for Deanna Ogg — or just the beginning of it? And how many other killers are still out there, convinced they got away with it, not knowing that the science is catching up?
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Read next: The Innocence Project: How Wrongful Convictions Are Overturned by DNA — And What Happens to the Real Killers
Related: Cold Case Breakthroughs · DNA Exonerations · Montgomery County TX · Texas True Crime