Jill Bounds

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Dallas Police Department (TX)

Offense Location:

Dallas, Texas

Summary:

Jill Bounds, 41, was found murdered at her home in Lakewood on Sept. 21, 1988. The psychologist was found in her home on Lakeshore Drive, severely beaten. The case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

On September 20, 1988, forty-one-year-old psychologist Jill Bounds spent her day at a hair salon. After shopping, she went home and ate lunch. She then went to a market where she met several friends. After that, she walked through a local park and then went home at 4:15pm; this was the last time she was known to be alive. Bob Hargrove arrived about 9:00 and left at 11:15 p.m. When he left, Hargrove says, Jill came to the front porch in her nightgown to wave good night. "I'm getting ready to go to bed," Jill told Hargrove. "I'm going to read the cards." That was the last time anyone admits to seeing Jill Bounds alive. Her bedroom was ransacked, but nothing seemed to be missing, according to the Dallas Police Department. She was last seen alive on Sept. 20, 1988. One of her clients showed up to the home in September for a session, but no one answered the door when she knocked. The client drove back to her office Downtown, and feeling that something was wrong, she called the police. She had to drive back to Bounds' house, or else the police couldn't break in. Dallas police found Jill lying on her blood-soaked bed. She was severely beaten and her skull was crushed. The killer had pulled the sheet up to her forehead after the murder, as if he did not dare to see the result of his brutal act. According to investigators, the blood splatter was almost everywhere in the room, and traces of blood were also found in the bathroom on the carpet and on various washcloaks. According to a doctor, the murder weapon may have been a tire iron, and Jill had been hit seven times on the head.

Additional Details:

Jane and Philip Bounds moved to Rockwall in 1949 when their firstborn daughter Jill was two years old. Another daughter, Joy, came along three years later. The Bounds family almost instantly became a powerful force in the community by purchasing one of its oldest and most influential businesses: The Rockwell Texas Success, then the town's only newspaper. D Magazine wrote a story about this case, which appeared in the publication's March 1990 issue. According to D, Bounds had a small office in her home, where she met with clients. She read Tarot cards, studied Buddhism and Native American religions. She had been involved in a spiritual movement called "Conscious Movement of the Mind, Body, and Soul" headed by Terri Hoffman. Her family and friends could not understand why she was murdered, until they discovered that she had been involved in a spiritual movement, and they now believe that her involvement in the group may have led to her murder. That afternoon, Jill made a visit to a woman from her past, a woman she called "the witch": Terri Hoffman, a so-called psychic and leader of a group called Conscious Development of Body, Mind and Soul Inc. As she had several times that spring, she paid Hoffman $60 for a reading. Hoffman told Jill the relationship was a test for her. Three men -- a mortgage underwriter, a firefighter, and an attorney -- would emerge as suspects in the murder of Jill Bounds. In late 1987, Jill met a man who appeared, at first glance, to be a candidate for the role of soulmate: forty-three-year-old Adam Schubert. They met at Francis Simun's macrobiotic restaurant. Dark, with an athletic build, Schubert was macrobiotic and interested in New Age philosophy. A mortgage underwriter with a BMW and use of a company Lear jet. Schubert had moved to Dallas in March 1987. As far as police could determine, that list was small: her next-door neighbor, Bernadette Hudson; Jill's maid, Essie Harper; and Schubert, Hargrove, and Jones. Dallas homicide detective Chuck Hudson, who investigated the case before turning it over to the DA, is skeptical about the prospects for charging anyone with murder. "If we are ever able to do anything as far as Terri Hoffman, it'll surprise me," says Hudson. Terri Lee Hoffman was an American religious cult leader known for the unexplained deaths of some of her followers. The case was featured as a part of the November 10, 1995 episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which focused primarily on missing follower Charles Southern Jr.. Terri died in 2015; she was never charged in Jill's case or any of the other cases.

Case Last Updated:

Sep 30, 2026