Murder and Homicide

Kaufman County Murders: Eric Williams, a Segway-Riding Justice of the Peace, is the Top Suspect

After Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were gunned down in their home last month, just two months after McLelland's deputy, assistant DA Mark Hasse, was murdered in broad daylight, law enforcement officials pledged to search far and wide to bring the killer, or killers, t ... More >>

Expert: Aryan Brotherhood of Texas are "Dumb Ol' White Boys" Who Wouldn't Kill a D.A.

When I spoke to Terry Pelz late yesterday afternoon, he sounded hoarse and exhausted. "I'm just about talked out," he said. Pelz is a former prison warden at the Darrington Unit who now runs a criminal justice consulting firm in Missouri City, about 20 miles southwest of Houston. He's been in high ... More >>

Police Want to Know How These Men Came to be Using Slain 79-Year-Old's Credit Card

It's hard to fathom why someone would murder a 79-year-old woman in the home she's lived in for 50 years, and do so in such a brutal manner that police have declined to so much as hint at her injuries. But police might be a step closer to finding out who. On Tuesday evening, police released surveil ... More >>

I Believe She Was Gagged With A Spoon

Shania Gray's Accused Rapist Says the Demons Made Him Kill Her (Right Before She Testified)

Franklin Davis, the Irving man accused of murdering 16-year-old Shania Gray Thursday on the banks of the Trinity River, gave a series of jailhouse interviews to local media outlets to share his part of the story. Demons, he said. It was the demons. "I didn't plan on hurting her," he told WFAA's Dav ... More >>

Strip Club Owner Pleads Guilty to Trying to Put Hit on Arlington Mayor

In January, under pressure from the city of Arlington and the state, Ryan Walker Grant agreed to close down Flashdancer Cabaret, one of the city's last remaining strip clubs. Grant agreed, but he wasn't happy about it. Almost immediately, he set about doing what any gent as classy as himself would d ... More >>

22-Year-Old Dallas Woman Murdered in Chicago Hotel Room

Media outlets in Chicago are reporting this morning that Brianna Gardner, a 22-year-old from Dallas, was fatally shot in the head in an upscale Chicago hotel. Gardner's body was discovered in her seventh-floor room by the Whitehall Hotel housekeeping staff. One guest told the Chicago Tribune they h ... More >>

Mexicans Pay in Blood for America's War on Drugs

Last Month, A Man Was Shot in Front His 3-Year-Old Daughter. Police Need Help Finding the Killer.

Just before 2 p.m. on June 9, Kerrick Butler was shot and killed by two men inside his Northeast Dallas apartment while his 3-year-old daughter watched. An informant pinned the murder on Marquis White, the 21-year-old believed to have committed two rapes near an Audelia Road bus stop. That lead did ... More >>

Kerry Max Cook, Still Not "Innocent," Learns That the Murder Weapon Was Taken Home as a "Souvenir"

In a new twist for a case full of them, lawyers of Kerry Max Cook, the Dallas man sentenced to death for a gruesome rape and murder before being exonerated two decades later, are accusing a prosecutor in his case of taking home the murder weapon as a dark, twisted souvenir. This accusation, part o ... More >>

Dallas County Judge Who Ruled Death Penalty Unconstitutional Is Forced To Recuse Herself

Teresa Hawthorne, the Dallas County judge who ruled that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional, must recuse herself from a capital murder case, a judge ruled today. Hawthorne was presiding over the capital murder trial of Roderick Harris, who's accused of killing brothers Alfredo ... More >>

Life Mimics Bloody Art

Don Hardge Fired His AK-47 Into a Crowd Of Teens, But He Swears He's No Killer

The family of a dead teenage girl might disagree, even if the justice system didn't.

Through the End of July, Crime in Dallas Is Down in 2011. For the Most Part.

​Had the council not canceled all of its committee meetings through mid-September, at which point Mayor Mike Rawlings will reshuffle the deck chairs, yesterday would have been the first Public Safety Committee since June 20. I asked Dallas Police Department spokesman Senior Corporal Gerardo Monrea ... More >>

Dallas PD Asks For Help in Finding "Suspect Vehicle Sought in Vicious Murder"

DPD sent this still of the truck in question, taken from surveillance video​No doubt you're well aware that at 5 a.m. on December 29, 23-year-old Luis Marquez was found murdered on Levee Street in the Design District, his throat slit. A few days later, Dallas police said Marquez had been robbed, l ... More >>

Murder Was The Case

Kiss Me, Kill Me

A Report from Juarez, the Bleeding Front Line of the War on Drugs

Local Production Kills

Bowling for Morning Items

Some random notes with which to start your final day of winter vacay. Last night I briefly toyed with the idea of attending the final Cotton Bowl to be held at the actual Cotton Bowl, but an anticipated record crowd of 88,175 -- what you get when you combine a sell-out with expanded seating -- makes ... More >>

Killer Facts, Courtesy City Hall

A "House of Death" Lawsuit is No Mas

Of Note

Sloppy record keeping causing headaches in criminal appeals

DPD Confirms That Sorta's Carter Albrecht Was Shot and Killed Today

Staged Murders

Witness for the Prosecution

Did lack of manpower leave a felon on bail free to kill? Maybe. Sort of.

When Jim Schutze Has No Problem With Convicted Murderers

Missed the Target | Those Crazy Baylor Grads | Frat Boys, Yeah Iced | Iced

Judge Doesn't Give DMN El Paso

Oh, Dear, Bill Dear

Light Sleeper?

Death for a Killer

Plus: Off the List, Maybe

Psycho Mom

Lisa Diaz had to save her "precious babies" from an evil world. She drowned them.

Family Plot

Rick and Suzanna Wamsley were strict with their children. Police say their son paid them back with murder.

Out of the Ashes

Investigators find a suspect in a vicious arson fire that killed five dallas kids 15 years ago

12-year-old Killer

The story of Edwin Debrow Jr., one of the youngest Texans ever convicted of murder, in his own words

Bad Apples

Is a teacher's effort to free two convicted killers a rush to bad judgment?

Tuned Out

A veteran prosecutor--and famed barbershop quartet member--bows out of office

Party Girl

Confronting advanced breast cancer without a dime to her name, Texas legend Priscilla Davis insists the good times aren't over yet

Parting shots

A triple murderer freed from prison runs into his old nemeses on the way back to the pen

Reasonable doubt?

Dallas lawyer Catherine Shelton on her troubled pastand the Rowlett murder she says she didn't commit

Innocence lost

Prosecutors lied and cheated to put Kerry Max Cook on death row for 16 years. He's out of prison now, but still not quite free.

On the lam

A convicted killer flees arrest on insurance fraud charges

The Wrong Man

The case against Nickiolas Jolly fell apart within a month of his arrest for capital murder. But keeping an innocent man in jail 14 months is no big deal in this town.

Death Merchant

In 1979, Walter Waldhauser Jr. arranged the murder of a Houston family. Today, he has a new name and a new business in Dallas,but he still profits when people die.

The Lie Detector

From the mayor of Atlanta, who was unjustly accused of graft, to a California man wrongly sentenced to life in a Texas prison, polygraph examiner Eric Holden found the truth that helped set them free

Letters

From Lee Harvey Oswald to Ashley Estell, Dallas pathologist Linda Norton serves as Doctor to the Dead

Second-hand thrills

Two great actresses get stuck holding the Xerox in Copycat

Death Row Granny

Bettie Beets killed two husbands. Now she's likely to become the first woman the state of Texas has ever executed