I support

Local

Community

Journalism

Support the independent voice of Dallas and help keep the future of Dallas Observer free.

Steve Mcvicker

Find Stories by Steve Mcvicker

Browse by:

Category:

Year:

Latest Articles

Drug Crazed

Millions in federal tax dollars are being spent by narcotics task forces in Texas to nab low-level users and dealers. Is this any way to wage a drug war?

By Tim Carman and Steve Mcvicker
Sep 6, 2001

Just over a year ago, the small Texas Panhandle town of Tulia made national headlines when police rounded up more than 10 percent of the city's African-Americans and jailed them on drug charges. All of the arrests and charges were based on the uncorroborated word of one officer: Deputy Tom...
Parting shots

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

By Steve Mcvicker
May 4, 2000

Settling himself into the witness stand in the Dallas County courtroom, burly and bearded Johnny Bonds makes no attempt to hide his ear-to-ear grin as he catches the blank gaze of defendant Michael Lee Davis. Technically, Bonds is present only to provide a judge with his insights into a man...
Unlucky strike

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

By Steve Mcvicker
Feb 10, 2000

Many have the same dream: finding the six magical numbers that unlock the treasure known as the Texas Lottery. Then life would be good. Problems would vanish. There are even the collective fantasies of what to buy and with whom to share this new, instant wealth. Billie Bob Harrell Jr...
Lost legends

Tary Owens helped rescue the early roots of Texas music. Then those songs saved Owens from himself.

By Steve Mcvicker
Jan 20, 2000

Wavy gray hair and translucent-rimmed glasses restore the aura of an archivist to Tary Owens. His soft, raspy voice and deliberate words temporarily hush as he closes his eyes to catch the music, the vision of that first prison experience: It is again the summer of 1963. Owens turns his...
Huntsville Houdini

Federal prosecutors get tough with an escape artist

By Steve Mcvicker
Sep 30, 1999

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice had taken every precaution to guarantee that escape artist Steven Russell stayed where he belonged: behind bars. State prison authorities had placed him in administrative segregation; they denied him trusty status; they even refused all media requests to allow him to be interviewed. But...

More Articles by Steve Mcvicker »