A grand jury has opted not to pursue charges in a cold case murder from 1991 in Arlington, Texas. The jury issued a “no bill” on Friday regarding the case against 63-year-old Janie Perkins, who was implicated in the death of Cynthia Gonzalez.
Cynthia Gonzalez, aged 25 at the time of her death, was reported missing by her ex-husband on September 17, 1991, after she left her home in Arlington to meet a client. She worked as an adult entertainer, as stated by the Arlington Police Department. Her vehicle was found abandoned a few hours later, leading authorities to consider the possibility of her kidnapping.
Five days later, Gonzalez’s body, which had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, was discovered on private property in a remote area of Johnson County. For more than three decades, the case remained unsolved despite several leads.
The investigation saw a resurgence when, in November 2025, Perkins was arrested following a review of the case by Arlington police detectives and criminology students from the University of Texas at Arlington. The students’ inquiries into Perkins prompted detectives to revisit the original case files.
In a statement following the grand jury’s decision, D. Miles Brissette, the attorney representing Perkins, expressed gratitude to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office and the grand jurors for their thorough and evidence-based review. Brissette emphasized that the grand jury’s ruling reflected an impartial evaluation of the evidence, which ultimately did not support the allegations made against Perkins.
“Their evaluation was grounded in the facts—not in the narrative advanced publicly by the Arlington Police Department and UTA,” Brissette said. “We appreciate their commitment to fairness and to the integrity of the judicial process.”
