Mother still searching for answers 15 years after her daughter turned up dead

By Lileana Pearson

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    FREEPORT, Texas (KTRK) — Krystle Benzer was a daughter and a mother who was loved.

“She was happy. She had a loud voice. She had a laughter that would make you laugh,” Krystle’s mother, Christina Dye, said.

But her life was cut short at just 24 years old. A former investigator on the case tells ABC13, in April 2010, she was found dead, washed up on a Freeport beach, tied to a cinder block. It was a day that changed Dye’s life forever.

“It tore my world apart,” Dye said.

Dye said despite Krystle losing custody of her children to her mother and continuing to hang with the wrong crowd, she always stayed in touch with Dye and the kids, so when Dye couldn’t get a text or call for a few days, she filed a missing person’s report in their hometown of Alvin. A few hours later, Freeport police were knocking on her door.

“I lost it then. I don’t really remember much, but they did drive us to the police station to look at some pictures and we did identify her through the pictures,” Dye said.

That former investigator said the case was reexamined a few years later, but no one was ever arrested and there are still more questions than answers about who did this and why.

Fifteen years after the murder, Dye hopes time has weighed on the mind of the person who has information that could solve this. And if time wasn’t enough, a new $5,000 Brazoria County Crime Stoppers reward has also been offered up in recent weeks. And if no answer comes in her lifetime, she hopes Krystle’s children will keep the hunt for answers alive. Krystle’s kids were 4 years old and 18 months old when she died. They are now 16 and 19.

“I told them after I’m gone, continue to investigate, continue to keep on your mom’s story until the day we find out who did what,” Dye said.

For Dye, it’s been an agonizing wait. She said she used to get regular updates from a former Freeport police chief, but has heard nothing for the last three years. ABC13 reached out to Freeport police and did not hear back.

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