Arlington PD Makes Arrest in 1991 Cold Case in Partnership with UTA
Published on November 17, 2025
By Arlington Police Department
The Arlington Police Department has made an arrest in connection to the 1991 murder of Cynthia Gonzalez.
Homicide detectives recently obtained a warrant for the arrest of 63-year-old Janie Perkins on one count of Capital Murder. On November 6, 2025, members of the U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force located Ms. Perkins in Azle, TX and took her into custody without incident.
On September 17, 1991, 25-year-old Cynthia Gonzalez was reported missing by her ex-husband. Ms. Gonzalez worked as an adult entertainer and was last seen the previous evening as she left her Arlington home to go meet with a client. A few hours after she was reported missing, her vehicle was found abandoned in a neighborhood in the 900 block of Cedar Springs Terrace. Officers began looking into the possibility she had been kidnapped.
On September 22, 1991, the body of an unknown female was found dumped on private property in a rural area of Johnson County off County Road 313. She had been shot multiple times and was decomposing. Through fingerprint comparison, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office positively identified her as Ms. Gonzalez.
Detectives pursued numerous leads through the years, but never made an arrest in the case.
In 2024, the case was assigned to a current Homicide detective for review. It’s important to note that APD does not have a full-time Cold Case Unit. Unsolved murders are assigned to Homicide detectives to work on between active cases. Following an initial review of the case, the detective did not believe there was any new evidence or leads to pursue, but agreed to keep the case open so that he could more thoroughly examine the case files as time permitted.
At the start of the Fall 2025 semester, UTA’s Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice launched a new advanced course in partnership with APD, giving select students the opportunity to review real APD cold cases in an effort to develop new leads and provide detectives with feedback on potential paths forward. The department provided the students with access to all reports and materials from the case files, with the exception of physical evidence. Ms. Gonzalez’s case was one of three cold cases given to the students.
Throughout the semester, the students communicated directly with Homicide detectives about their cases. The group working on Ms. Gonzalez’s case started asking several questions about a woman named Janie Perkins, prompting detectives to conduct further research on her.
Ms. Perkins was a friend of Ms. Gonzalez, who would frequently hang out with her. Detectives in the 1990’s began looking at her because they learned she and Ms. Gonzalez shared a romantic partner. Several weeks before the murder, this individual told Ms. Perkins he was calling things off with her to be with Ms. Gonzalez.
Ms. Perkins could not provide the original detectives with an alibi for where she was the night Ms. Gonzalez went missing. She also failed two voluntary polygraph tests when asked if she knew who killed Ms. Gonzalez or if she killed her. Additionally, she made statements to investigators indicating she was glad Ms. Gonzalez was dead and that she’d even thought about killing her or having someone else kill her. Polygraph tests are not admissible in court and Ms. Perkins maintained she was not involved in the murder. She was never charged.
In reviewing the case files more thoroughly, current Homicide detectives learned that witnesses came forward who claimed Ms. Perkins had admitted to them she was involved in the murder and provided them with specific details about the killing. Detectives compared those witness statements to the evidence in the case and found they aligned. They believe this demonstrated Ms. Perkins either participated in or facilitated Ms. Gonzalez’s kidnapping and murder.
After consulting with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, detectives moved forward with filing criminal charges against her.
“When we launched our cold case partnership with UTA, we always hoped we’d get an outcome like this one day,” said Chief of Police Al Jones. “I don’t think any of us expected that lightning would strike the first time. I want to sincerely thank the students for their work and dedication to this case. I also want to thank UTA faculty for embracing this program. We hope this is just the first of more to come.”