“I am pissed off!” That was the subject line of an e-mail from soldier Phil Haberman (“G.I. Jerk,” September 1) to the P.O.W. Network, which posted his name on its “Wall of Shame,” devoted to exposing phonies and braggarts who make false claims about their war experiences. The Web site…

There is a reason why Paul Pepe became a doctor, and not in some relatively tame specialty such as dermatology. Or radiology. But the high-stress field of emergency medicine–where he is an innovator, a pioneer, one of the nation’s foremost experts. At 55, he is chairman of emergency medical services…

Blue Balled Vice officers under investigation after alleged pimp turns the tables On a late Friday night in May, Dallas vice officers arrived at the windowless corner of a one-story building and knocked on the wood doors of the Acapulco Spa. Tucked away in a run-down strip mall a mile…

When Quinn Eaker dropped out of a Colleyville high school in the second month of his senior year, his mother was so happy she threw him a huge party. A hundred guests descended on their home to celebrate Quinn’s return to the freedom in which he’d been raised: days on…

I learned about unschooling from Linda and Dan Jacobs, my sister and her husband. I knew they home schooled their twins, Ryan and Austin, 11. When they moved back to Houston from California last year, I noticed the kids read a lot but had no curriculum. They stayed up late…

Like all the other guests invited to Mayor Laura Miller’s black-tie fundraiser, Ralph Isenberg and his girlfriend left their car in a parking lot and boarded a DART bus. Though both were underdressed for the occasion, Miller had invited them at the last minute, and Isenberg wanted her to get…

She spotted her blind date right away: the clean-cut guy in the black T-shirt that said Special Forces. Kristen Rhoad had first come into contact with Phil Haberman on Match.com in December 2003. One screen name he favored was 19thSFguy–an allusion to his role in Army Special Forces. A self-described…

Emily Dowdy walks into the small cinder-block room and, using her left arm to lift her right, shakes hands. At 5 feet 8 inches and 120 pounds, Dowdy appears skinny and slightly hunched, her blue eyes a bit wary. Her hair is no longer blond but brown, chopped off and…

You couldn’t miss him: a teenager dressed always in black, with Elvis sideburns and a hard-charging way of bounding up the stairs, as if life were moving too slowly for him. In the same class as my oldest son at the Science and Engineering Magnet at Townview, occasionally at our…

Dr. Susan Diamond is delicate as a wren, with large dark eyes and hair swept back in a no-nonsense shoulder-length bob. She’s an expert on treating HIV/AIDS, with a thriving practice near Presbyterian Hospital, and her patients describe her as warm and compassionate, a rare doctor who makes house calls…

A man shrieks at the top of his lungs: “Please 911 PLEASE I need an ambulance!” Clutching a cell phone and pacing through his house, the man roars with primal anger and pain. “Please help me–hurry–I’m right down the street from the fire station…My wife, I don’t know what the…

The pretty lady hobbled onto the plane. Her thin frame was wrapped in a worn black coat; she had one foot in a medical boot. She stuffed the coat in an overhead bin, revealing purple pants and a fuchsia sweater too thin for winter and climbed over Michelle into the…

The moment Meghan Bodson walked into her dorm room at Southern Methodist University, she felt as if she’d entered her fantasy: red brick, ivy, the high ceiling and tall window overlooking Perkins Chapel, a campus so picturesque it looked like a movie set of the perfect university. SMU, in fact,…

After the nine-hour flight from London, a weary Terry Anderson walked off the plane at 2 p.m., phoned his office and was surprised to learn Marylynn would be picking him up. Marylynn, a religion teacher at Ursuline Academy and his wife for almost 28 years, never did that. It was…

Over the weekend, the news flashed all over the world. The Guardian in London, the Star Phoenix in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CNN and The Washington Post all ran stories saying that charges against Joanne Webb, infamous dildo saleswoman of Burleson, have been dropped by the Johnson County Attorney Bill Moore. In…

The last time Patty Clarke talked to Suzanna Wamsley, the Christmas season was just beginning. Her neighbor was on her way to purchase some pretty towels for an elderly lady moving into an assisted living facility. Typical Suzanna. If a neighbor had a death in the family, sweet, upbeat Suzanna…

In the realm of human sorrows, there is no more searing grief than that of parents burying a beloved child, and to lower a son into his grave just as he’s flown from the nest is perhaps even more agonizing. When a child is murdered, a different kind of anguish…

The smell of grilled lamb and exotic spices permeates Ghion, a restaurant run by Dessalegn Befekadu, a native Ethiopian. Desi, 48, is the evening chef; wife Amaki cooks lunch. That way they can trade off driving duties for their 13-year-old daughter. Craving the flavors of home, Ethiopian and other African…

Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who fled to France with their child and founded a secret royal dynasty after he died on the cross. Since 33 A.D., church fathers have tried to cover this up because they must rid the world of the sacred feminine or, in other words,…

When they got the tip, Chris and Joanne Webb looked at each other in panic. The couple had learned that police in Burleson–a town of 25,000 in Johnson County, 14 miles south of downtown Fort Worth–had issued a warrant for Joanne’s arrest. But while a lawyer negotiated Joanne’s surrender, the…

A fugitive from the law for more than a year, former SMU student Douglas Havard is alive and thriving in Hong Kong. No, Spain. Well, try Central Europe. Rio de Janeiro? No, Doug Havard, now 21, is wheeling and dealing in Austin. All of those locations have been reported as…