In Houston, TX, from 1986 to 1995, Anthony Allen Shore was responsible for the rape and murder of one woman and three children. He raped an additional girl but fled the scene afterwards and didn’t murder her. There is a very high likelihood that his crimes may have gone unsolved for years if he hadn’t been turned in by his family for molesting his two daughters. He is known as the “Tourniquet Killer” because it was the method he used to murder 3 of his victims.
Anthony Allen Shore
Anthony Allen Shore was born in South Dakota, in June of 1962 to Robert (Rob) and Deanna Shore. He was the oldest of three siblings and grew up with his two sisters, Laurel and Gina. When Anthony was born, Rob was stationed at an Air Force base in South Dakota, and his mother had been honorably discharged from the Air Force when she was pregnant with him. Rob would also be discharged a few years later, and the family relocated to California. This was the first move for the family, and before Anthony started high school, they would move 8 more times.
Rob worked as he put it “in computers before there were computers.” He said that when he would get a better job offer, they would move. Given how new computers were at the time and how many businesses were beginning to incorporate them into their daily operations, Rob said there was no shortage of job offers. Deanna said that growing up, Anthony was extremely well behaved but hyper competitive. He always had to be the best at whatever he did. From a very early age, Anthony gravitated to music, and everyone marveled at his ability to play pretty much any instrument he touched, from the piano to trombone to the guitar. When he was only 5, he received notoriety from a local paper for playing a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach at a recital.
Where he excelled at music, his parents said that he was absolutely terrible when it came to sports. That didn’t help him make friends when he was younger and they moved from place to place. Sports at that age were a great way for young people to bond and make friends, especially when they moved to a new area. Anthony’s sisters didn’t have any issues when they would move around, they were able to make new friends with relative ease. Anthony just had trouble connecting with people. Deanna said that when he was younger, he would cry easily, and he was extremely arrogant, even for a child. He like to use big words, and Deanna gave an example of Anthony being in class and asking to go to the restroom by raising his hand and saying, “I need to defecate.”
Anthony was capable of getting straight As all throughout school, but it wasn’t the grades he was looking for. He wanted the praise and attention that came with making good grades. After he was in prison and he was interviewed by psychologists, they noted that he couldn’t really remember any of his teachers growing up who were nice to him, but he could remember every name of teachers who he felt disliked him, saying, “he liked to get praise.”
Deanna said that because of Anthony’s attitude and the way he spoke to people, he would often get beat up in school. “It was humiliating. And some of these were bad beatings. He didn’t handle it real well.”
In many cases of murderers or serial killers, there are signs in their childhood that point to what they could become. Many times, you hear from people who knew them, “looking back, x or y was a warning sign, but we didn’t know it until he / she was older and did this awful shit.” That was the case with Anthony in his childhood. When Anthony was 5, the family moved to Kansas. Once there, he got in frequent fights with a neighborhood boy, Scott Beavis. He also killed a neighbor’s kitten when one of his sisters told him he couldn’t play with it.
Gina told a story about their childhood as well; she said that they would ride their bikes around their neighborhood, and Anthony would have Gina go knock on the doors of her friends’ houses or houses where he knew girls lived, and ask if they could come out and play. When the girls would come out, Anthony would harass and “fondle” them. Gina said that she stopped doing it when she knocked on one door and her teacher opened it.
From the late 60s to the early 80s, the family continued to move from place to place, from California to Florida, and they eventually settled in Texas. During that time, Rob and Deanna began to fight, and the fights became more frequent and intense. Anthony claimed that both his parents began to have extramarital affairs when he was around 10-11 years old and eventually divorced. Both Rob and Deanna said that the other was responsible. Deanna claimed that Rob attacked her one night, and Rob said that during an argument, Deanna threw a beer mug at him, hitting him in the back of the head. After their divorce, Rob let Deanna have sole custody of their children because, “she could do a better job as a single mother than I could do as a single father.” (What a guy!) Deanna moved back to California with the children, leaving Rob in TX. Anthony also claimed that when he was 13-14 years old, his mother molested him, which was never able to be verified or substantiated.
Anthony said that around 16 – 17 years old, he started drinking with friends and smoking pot. At one point, he bragged that he and some friends attacked a homeless man behind a local grocery store and beat him to death. It was also around this time that he began to stalk and harass girls from his class. Again, Anthony would use Gina as a lure in his activities. She said that she could remember them driving around in his car, cruising between bus stops and if they saw an attractive girl, he would ask if she wanted a ride. With Gina being in the car, the girls would be more at ease and many times got in with them. That’s when Anthony would “remind” Gina that she had somewhere to be and drop her off. After they dropped her off, Gina said she knows that he molested the girls they had picked up, but to him, it was no big deal because “all the guys were doing it.”
At 17 years old, he dropped out of high school. His mom remarried that same year, but he hated his step dad. So much so that he went through the process to be legally emancipated from his mother and worked 2 jobs to support himself.
Back to Texas
When Anthony turned 21, he dropped out of community college in California, and moved back to Texas. Once there, he got a job with Southwestern Bell and worked as a technician. The job would have him out and about on calls, and he got to drive an awesome van. After he moved back to TX, he claimed to have met the “love of his life,” Gina Worley. They were married quickly, and within 2 years had two daughters, Amber and Tiffany. Even after moving to TX though, Gina (sister not wife) said that Anthony was still on the prowl. He would still cruise around the local high schools and try to get girls to get in his van, even though he was much older …. and married. Anthony was able to hide right in plain sight though. He had formed and was able to maintain a “nice guy” persona that everyone bought and believed was real.
15 year old Laurie Lee Tremblay lived in the Whittfield Apartment Complex. Laurie had been waking up earlier than normal since school had started to get ready for her day. She would exit her family’s apartment and leave the complex through the main gate of the parking lot. She took a right and walked east along Whittington Boulevard. About a quarter mile later, she made a left and walked down South Dairy Ashford Rd. A quarter of a mile down that road she came to the corner of Dairy Ashford and Westella Dr. That’s where she would wait for the Houston Metro Bus that would be her first bus ride of 2 on her way to school for the day. She didn’t know that Anthony Allen Shore levied nearby though.
Shore worked for Southwestern Bell at the time, as either a marketing or service rep. (He worked both positions at the company and wasn’t able to recall which one he was doing around this time in 1986). This was before he had his service van, and he drove a white / beige Cadillac Cimarron (basically just a generic sedan.) Many days when he went to work, he saw Laurie waiting at her bus stop. Some days he would see her walking toward the bus stop. He would stop and talk to her, offering her cigarettes. Eventually, Shore offered her a ride which she accepted. According to Shore’s confession, these rides became a regular thing, and developed into an inappropriate “relationship.” Then, Laurie stopped accepting rides from him and started avoiding him when he was around.
On Sept 26, 1986, it was misting / light rain as Laurie walked to the bus stop. She saw Shore and asked for a ride, which he gave. According to Shore, they drove around, and then he began to pressure Laurie into having sex. When she refused, he sprang on her and began to choke her. He used a cotton cord as a ligature and wrapped it around Laurie’s neck. He strangled her, pulling the cord so hard that it cut his fingers. He then drove to a nearby Mexican restaurant and left her body behind it.
Laurie’s body was found fairly quickly. Police were perplexed because Laurie hadn’t been robbed or sexually assaulted. She only had enough money on her for a one way bus ride. Everyone that rode the bus with her said that they had never heard anything about her catching a ride with anyone. And while they did receive a few tips, none of them mentioned Anthony Allen Shore. With no solid leads, Laurie’s case went cold and unsolved for years.
After Laurie’s murder, Anthony’s sister, Gina, began to visit the family periodically after she earned her bachelor’s degree. After a few visits, she was convinced that Anthony was molesting his oldest daughter, Amber, who was around 5 years old at the time. When she was there, Anthony insisted on bathing Amber himself, and always kissed her on the lips and generally ignored many father / daughter boundaries. When Gina went back home she shared her concerns with her mom, who didn’t believe her. She told Gina to call CPS if she was that concerned. Gina did, but CPS never returned any calls.
Gina visited again, and said that a lot of the things that she thought were signs of abuse before had stopped, but she did notice that there was no food in the house, but didn’t want to interfere saying: “It felt very strange to me. But every woman has the right to run her own house. I wouldn’t interfere.”
April 16th, 1992, Anthony Shore was out driving in his van when he spotted 21 year old Maria Del Carmen Estrada. Maira was walking to a bus stop for work in the early morning as she did every day. Even though she was 21, Maria looked young for her age, so Shore tried to lure her into his van. He passed by one and talked briefly to her, then came back again and talked Maria into getting into the van. They drove away, and Shore began to force himself on Maria. She fought back, but he overpowered her and used a nylon cord with a stick as a tourniquet to strangle Maria to death. He then dumped her body behind a Dairy Queen, and Maria was found 4 hours later. She was naked from the waist down and had been sexually assaulted. What Shore didn’t know though was that when she fought back, she got his skin cells and DNA under her fingernails. Investigators took her nail clippings and sent them to the crime lab. They swabbed them for DNA and ran it against their system, but there were no hits and Maria’s murder went unsolved as well.
After that, Anthony went back to his regular life like nothing happened. His personal life fell apart within a year though. He and Gina divorced and Gina gave him sole custody because she wanted to move in with her boyfriend. Tiffany said that through the divorce, they argued about who would have to take the kids, and while that was going on, they lived with their mother. She said that going to see her dad was a fun time because he was easy going, and when they were told they would have to move in with him, they were excited.
In 1993, Anthony was working as a repairman for the phone company. While working in a neighborhood, he spotted 14 year old Selma Janske and became infatuated with her. He started to note her schedule and learned when she would come and go and when she would be alone. He tracked her for quite a while. Then, in October of 1993, he knew she would be alone and broke into the family’s home. He had a disguise to hide his identity and attacked Selma as soon as she walked in. He bound her with duct tape and raped her as she screamed and cried. He didn’t try to kill Selma though, after everything, he fled and Selma wasn’t able to make any type of identification because of the disguise he used. Investigators didn’t connect Selma’s rape to Laurie and Maria’s cases because she wasn’t murdered.
Home Life
By this time, Tiffany and Amber had been living with their father for a while. Amber has pretty much stayed out of the spotlight and very rarely if ever talks to media, but Tiffany has spoken about their time with their father. She said that the conditions were terrible in the home. Anthony made them share bath water and restricted the amount of toilet paper they could use. He said it was to save money. They didn’t have a washing machine, so they hand washed all their clothes in the bathtub. Tiffany said that there was hardly ever food, and bugs infested the house. They would routinely find cockroaches in the cereal or ants in the peanut butter.
At school, other kids commented on their appearance and said that they smelled and wore dirty clothes. They were essentially raising each other. When Anthony would leave, he would lock the girls in the house and even nailed the windows shut in their rooms. He told them it was to keep them safe from everyone outside. He ruled with an iron fist and would hit and spank frequently. He would pick them up by their hair and carry them around the house. He told them that if they cried, he would smother them with a pillow.
One thing he would do though is allow the girls to have friends over on the weekend. He encouraged them to play “rock band” where they would dress up provocatively and dance around. He would watch the girls as they danced, and eventually Shore would set his sights on his daughters. Tiffany said that she woke several times to her father in her room watching her touching himself. Then, when she was 10, they played a card game, which was a drinking game. He gave Tiffany alcohol and got her very drunk, to the point where she passed out. She woke up completely nude, as Anthony was molesting her.
It was around this time that Tiffany and Amber were called into the principal’s office at school and were asked about their homelife and if they were molested, etc… Tiffany says that she doesn’t know what Amber said, but she lied because she was afraid of what her father would do if he found out she told them what was really happening. She assumed that her sister did the same thing. But, CPS had an investigation open and decided to make home visits. Tiffany and Amber had told their father though, and he knew which days they would be coming. On those days, he made the girls clean the house so it was spotless and he would put food in the oven so the smell would go throughout the house. He also coached the girls on what to say and how to answer the questions when they talked to the CPS worker. It was all just a show to make it appear everything was great. Again, the girls went along with it because they were terrified of what he would do.
At this point, Tiffany was convinced that the only way to get out of the situation was to die. She tried to commit suicide by taking asprin, and when that didn’t work, she locked herself in the bathroom with a knife. She planned on slitting her wrist. Amber told Anthony, and he said that if she tried that and didn’t succeed, they would be split up and be put into a terrible foster home situation. CPS was called several times about the Shore house, and every time, Anthony gave the ole best dad ever routine and they left.
In August 1994, 9 year old Dianna Rebollar was walking down the road to get some flour and sugar. Her mom had asked her to run down and get it for her. She made it to the small local grocery store. Employees said they remembered seeing Dianna leave the store safely. She never made it home. As she was walking, Shore approached in his van and coaxed her in. He then beat, sexually assaulted, and strangled 9 year old Dianna. She was found the next day on a loading dock behind an industrial building with a tourniquet around her neck. Dianna’s case was linked to Maria’s because of the M.O. and the use of the tourniquet.
In July of 1995, 16 year old Dana Sanchez called her boyfriend one evening to tell him that she was going to be hitchhiking to his house. The person she accepted a ride from was Anthony Shore. He tried to force himself on her and when she rejected him, he attacked, raping and strangling her. Her body wasn’t immediately found. 7 days after her disappearance, a local TV station got a phone call from an anonymous caller who told them where they could find her and that there was a serial killer operating in the area. It was Shore. After Dana’s body was found, a task force was formed to try to find the Tourniquet Killer. With very little progress being made though, the taskforce was disbanded, and Shore was free to do whatever he wanted.
In 1997, Anthony Shore married Amy Lynch, who he had been dating for 3 years, since she was 18. He made arrangements with Deanna, his mom, to send the girls to her for the summer so they could get married. They flew from Houston to Sacramento. Deanna was shocked to see the girls. They were wearing big, baggy dirty clothes 3 layers deep. Their hair was greasy and dirty and they smelled bad. They had no toiletries or clothes to change into. She knew something was wrong. Tiffany explained the multiple layers later by saying they wanted to wear as much as they could to hide their developing bodies from their father and appear as unappealing as possible.
The Downfall of the Tourniquet Killer
Deanna brought up her concerns with her daughter, Gina, and they decided to see if splitting the girls up would help them get through to them. Tiffany went to stay with Gina for a while. Her aunt told her that when school started, they were going to have Amber come stay there while Tiffany went back to her fathers. Tiffany broke down immediately, mortified at the thought of going back to her dads without her sister, she told Gina everything.
When she called Deanna back to tell her what Tiffany said, Amber confirmed everything. Later when Anthony was on trial, prosecutors were meeting with Amber. They were going over all the questions they were going to be asking and just wanted to make sure that she was comfortable with talking about everything that happened when she was younger. As they were doing that, they worked through each question and the prosecutor remembered that Amber was being so brave about the whole thing. She answered every question, as painful as they had to have been for her, about being raped and humiliated and scorned and degraded by her own father.
When they talked about Tiffany, Amber lit up. She talked about how smart and beautiful Tiffany was and that she was much more of a people person. When the prosecutor asked Amber why she finally told someone what their father was doing, she said, “because it didn’t matter what he was doing to me. I’m nothing. But I couldn’t let him do that to my sister. She’s different, and she’s special. And I had to protect her.”
Deanna called Anthony and he denied everything. The girls were terrified that nothing would come of this and when they had to go back home, their father would hurt them. Deanna took them to the police and they reported the abuse. Shore was arrested for child molestation. HE PLEADED NO CONTEST TO 2 COUNTS OF INDECENCY WITH A CHILD AND RECEIVED 8 YEARS PROBATION AND WAS PUT ON THE SEXUAL OFFENDERS LIST, NO JAIL TIME. WTFFFFFFF???!?!?
Since he was now a registered sex offender though, he had to submit his DNA to the Codis database. Amy has since said that around that time, he confided to her that he was hesitant to submit his DNA. He did, and moved on with his life while Tiffany and Amber began to see a therapist and working on their mental well being.
In 2003, the Houston Crime lab had a scandal emerge that saw the facility close until 2006. The Houston DNA lab was shut down shortly after a state audit found that DNA technicians there had misinterpreted data, were poorly trained and kept shoddy records. In many cases, the technicians used up all available evidence, making it impossible for defense experts to refute or verify their results. After this audit, several old, cold cases were sent out to independent labs to have the DNA testing performed again. One of those cases was Maria del Carmen Estrada. The nail clippings were sent out to get DNA from.
After those results were entered into Codis, they got a hit. 6 years after being convicted of molesting his daughters, Anthony Allen Shore was a perfect match for the DNA taken from Maria’s fingernails. There was no reason for his DNA to be there, unless he was the killer.
On October 24, 2003, he was arrested. 11 hours into his interrogation, Shore confessed to killing Maria. He also confessed to Diana Rebollar and Dana Sanchez. Unprovoked, he also confessed to the 1987 murder of Laurie Tremblay and the 1994 rape of Selma Janske. They said that throughout the confession, he spoke as if he was an outsider just watching what happened.
Back in California, Tiffany got a call from Amber who said, “Hey, dad’s a serial killer.” By this time, Amber had moved back to TX. Tiffany thought she was joking, but Amber told her to find a TV, it’s all over the news. Tiffany was in shock and couldn’t believe it. She said that initially, she thought that Amber was just joking, but she wasn’t.
Before his trial had a chance to come around, Shore attempted to take a bunch of sleeping pills and kill himself in November of 2003. He was unsuccessful and his trial started in October of 2004. The prosecution wanted to take him to court on the best case they had, Maria del Carmen Estrada’s murder. That was the case that had the DNA evidence and they felt it was their best chance to get a guilty verdict. The trial went on, and Shore was found guilty. The jury wasn’t told that he was a serial killer until the sentencing phase. The prosecution brought out all the evidence from all the other murders. Selma Janske testified that Shore was the man who raped her. Shore spoke and asked the court to give him the death penalty. On November 15th, 2004, after an hour of deliberations, the jury recommended that he be put to death.
Gina, Shore’s sister, has said that she feels that “without a doubt, there are more. There had to have been other girls.” After he arrived on death row in TX, Shore tried to unsuccessfully have his conviction overturned, filing appeal after appeal, claiming everything from ineffective lawyers to previously undiagnosed brain damage from a 1981 car wreck. The courts denied all his appeals though, and on January 18 (My Birthday!) 2018, Anthony Allen Shore was executed by lethal injection. Before his execution he said, “I made my peace.” His final words as they injected him were, “Ooh-ee, I can feel that!”
Rob, Anthony’s dad said he planned to stay home when Anthony was executed. Gina and her mom said they might take a moment to remember him, but not fondly. Laurel, Anthony’s other sister said, “He should be killed. He was a good brother, but he’s not a good person.”
Tiffany said she would treat it like a normal day:
“Honestly, I have a biology lab and calculus that day. So I’m going to go to school. Maybe I’ll see a movie later if I have free time.”
Sources for this episode
Anthony Allen Shore | Murderpedia
Anthony Allen Shore | Wikipedia
Death Row Information | tdcj.texas.gov
Sister of notorious Houston serial killer: ‘He should be killed’ | Chron.com
Anthony Allen Shore | Radford.edu
Tourniquet Killer’s sister wonders if there are more victims, hopes for closure | ABC13 Houston
Houston Crime Lab Scandal Escalates | Death Penalty Information Center
DNA testing suspended as more problems emerge at Houston crime lab | Innocence Project
