Huntsville

"The Carpet Was Still Wet in the Courtroom When He Sat Down For His First Lovely Meal On Death Row."

Tarrant County jailers are breathing a collective sigh of relief: Ladies and gentlemen, Steven Lawayne Nelson has left the building. Convicted and sentenced to death for suffocating a 28-year-old Arlington preacher and suspected in the killing of a fellow inmate, Nelson's new home is the Polunsky Un ... More >>

Dallas BBQ Not Good Enough for The Daily Meal's "Ultimate BBQ Road Trip"

Last week, my boyfriend Tim at the Daily Meal (we've actually never met) sent me an email (went to spam box first) about an Ultimate BBQ Road Trip. His greeting started with "Exciting news ... " about their "explicitly mouthwatering lineup of Barbecue restaurants across the southern United States... ... More >>

Keystone Pipeline Protesters Tie Themselves to Construction Equipment, Halt Work

Three protesters tied themselves to logging equipment clearing trees for the southern portion of the Keystone pipeline early Wednesday morning. A representative of the group, which calls itself the Tar Sands Blockade, says work on the East Texas site is currently halted. "A caravan of between seven ... More >>

Discovering (Albeit Late) the Greatness of Buc-ee's

Do you ever walk into a place and think, "If all hell breaks loose, I hope I can make it to this place. I could live here for weeks!"? Buc-ee's, people. It's a giant gas station/store/bakery/everything place on Interstate 45 north of Huntsville. Put them on your hell's-broken-loose radar. It appea ... More >>

Our 34 picks for 35 Denton

From Texas or Russia, Medicare Scamsters Are All the Same -- Greedy

Here we are, with the biggest Medicare fraud in history going -- so we are told -- and The New York Times devotes its front page today to a story about Medicare fraud carried out by organized Russian gangs in ... oh, guess where! ... New York City! What can we do down here in Dallas to get respect? ... More >>

Exoneree: Guantanamo Bay Is "Peanuts Compared to What's Going On In" Texas

Via.Anthony Graves, exonerated from death row in 2010​As "the death chaplain" at Huntsville prison, Reverend Carroll Pickett has counseled 95 prisoners, one at a time, on the day the state has scheduled to end their life. Death by lethal injection, the chaplain found, is not a quiet exit. It's ... More >>

At SMU, Commemorating the 9/11 Anniversary With Prayers, Speeches and a Double Fist Pump

Photos by Anna Merlan​"Thought-provoking events" -- that's how SMU said it wanted to honor the 10th anniversary of September 11, with a series of "thought-provoking events." There would be lectures, speeches, prayer services and, tonight, a half-time tribute at Gerald J. Ford during SMU-UTEP -- ev ... More >>

In About an Hour, Mark Stroman Will More Than Likely Be Put to Death

​Rais Bhuiyan's attempts to spare the life of Mark Stroman, the white supremacist who shot him in the face and killed two other men he believed to be Muslim in the days following September 11, 2001, have failed: A federal judge down in Austin denied the Dallas man's petition for clemency that woul ... More >>

Two Days Before He's to Die, Stroman Talks to CBS News About Victim's Fight to Save Him

Courtesy CBS NewsMark Stroman, who is scheduled to die Wednesday, talks to Don Teague about his jailhouse conversion.​As you're no doubt well aware by now, Mark Stroman is scheduled to die down in Huntsville on Wednesday for killing Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani father of four who was gunned down on Se ... More >>

Rais Bhuiyan Will Continue Fight to Save Attacker's Life After Supreme Court Passes

Rais Bhuiyan. Photo by Alex Scott ​On Monday Mark Stroman, the white supremacist who shot three men he believed were of Middle Eastern descent, killing two, lost another appeal to prevent his execution, which is scheduled for July 20 in Huntsville. The Supreme Court declined, without comment, to r ... More >>

The Texas DMV Would Love to Know Your Thoughts on These Proposed Plates

​It's been about a year now since the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles introduced the do-it-yourself personalized-plates-maker known as MyPlates, which still provides endless hours of entertainment as you attempt to see which dirty words you can slip through. (Side note: After typing that senten ... More >>

You Look Like You Could Use Some Baseball: The Story of an Original Texas Ranger

​Before we go any further, click here. You'll find a picture taken on May 29, 1972, in Arlington, during a Texas Rangers-Oakland Athletics game at what had only months before been Turnpike Stadium. The photo features then-Rangers skipper Ted Williams arguing with home-plate ump Jim Odom over a str ... More >>

Little By Little, City Archivist John Slate and UNT Are Putting All of Dallas's History Online

Dallas Municipal Archives/UNT Libraries​I envy John Slate most days -- after all, as the city archivist it's his job to dig deep into Dallas's history, where I am but mere enthusiast and dilettante. It was Slate who last week found something once thought lost to the dustbin of history: that animat ... More >>

It's A Conspiracy!

Georgia on His Mind: New York Times Profiles Carter's Tyrone Ellis, a National Hero Overseas

Tyrone Ellis​Tyrone Ellis's pro basketball career in the U.S. didn't amount to much: 10 pre-season minutes played for the Minnesota Timberwolves in October 2006, during which he didn't score a single point. Also on his resume: a single-season stint, in 2001-'02, in the NBA's D-League, during which ... More >>

American Baseball, the European Way

​Even if European soccer owner Tom Hicks convinced Major League Baseball to inject the same screwy tables that govern soccer into America's pasttime your Texas Rangers wouldn't be a playoff team. But, alas, they wouldn't be relegated, either. If baseball were run according to European soccer ... More >>

How Do Dallas's Lobbyists Earn Their Dough?

Zazzle​On October 28, the Dallas City Council will vote to renew its contract with the lobbyists who do the city's bidding in Austin and D.C. Right about now, the city spends $502,000 with the likes of CapitalEdge (which also lobbies on behalf of Arlington; Denton, Reno, Nevada; and Huntsville, Al ... More >>

Dallas Is Back on the Horse?

Hours Before Texas Gets Back in the Execution Business, a Small Protest

Happy Birthday, Lethal Injection!

Former Warden Reconsiders Executions

Jim Willett oversaw 89 executions. Now, amidst dozens of DNA exonerations, he wonders whether it was right.

Zac Attack | Out in the Cold | Give It Up, Manny | Born Blue

Nip and Duck

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Plus: The Glasgow School, History Lesson

This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

Best Fancy Restaurant

Aurora

More Bushwhacking

Plus: Attack and Counterattack; Who Ya Callin’ Geek?

Cell-bloc Voting

A new effort tries to unlock former felons' votes

Small Fish

Now let's look for the real villains in fake drugs

Sisters in Crime

Female authors find a lucrative trade in Texas lawlessness

Life Without Father

Inmates on Texas' Death Row leave behind immeasurable pain and countless victims--including their own families

Odds and Ends

The more things change, the more we try to keep up

Letters

High Hopes, Ugly Americans

Dead Wrong

How consummate con artist Henry Lee Lucas resurrected the dead and went looking for a sucker. He almost found one.

Mean Green

What do you get when you cross the Zapatistas with Dr. Dolittle? The Animal Liberation Front

Grave City

Bobby Soxx, local punk-rock legend, died last week. Finally.

Death Angel

For 15 years, the Rev. Carroll Pickett granted the last wishes of men about to die in Texas' execution chamber. For the first time, he tells his story.

Letters

No, you take him; Scenic Huntsville; Hell's grannies; Not us; Fair market; Blame it on Bossa Nova

Software and hard time

Texas prisons take a byte out of crime with a computer rehab program

Killing machine

It is 6:07 p.m. John Albert Burks salutes the Oakland Raiders and says goodbye to his friends. Minutes later, he is a dead man. This year's 21st execution.

Unlucky strike

Less than two years after Billie Bob Harrell Jr. took the $31 million lottery jackpot, he took his own life

Closing death's door

Will proposed media rules stifle coverage of convicts facing execution?

Cruel and Unusual

Mentally ill Texans used to go to hospitals. Now, increasing numbers of them go to prison instead.

Draper's prison blues

Out Here

Robbing 'em blind

For burglar Carnell Johnson, willing fences, indifferent neighbors, and friendly dogs ame for an easy living

Blind-sided, again

Al Lipscomb assures us that he has no idea what's going on

Buzz

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