Our regular Unfair Park captain, Eric, is on vacation, so I had the pleasure of perusing the weekend’s police reports, to make sure Dirk wasn’t drunkenly wandering Victory Park all sad and sidekick-less. It was a nice reminder that dear Lord, humans are weird. Here’s what I learned: High Heels…
With last call looming, a 28-year-old mom named Diana Salinas drove to Sanchez Restaurant and Bar in Oak Cliff early Sunday morning and made a bee line for her estranged husband, police say. She left her ill-advised companion in the car: her two-year-old son. After an argument about child support,…
Penny Terk, 73, was a former actress who’d become the toast of book review clubs across Dallas. In a few weeks, she was set to host her annual Summertime Showcase, a conclave for book club leaders and speakers, where “a LIMITED number of rectangular vending tables must be reserved in…
Death has the habit of sneaking up on its victims, catching them unaware and robbing them of a chance to collect their thoughts and give some final, purposeful statement of celebration or regret. If they are afforded that chance, the words tend to be delivered to a friend or family…
On April 4, 2012, in an act of mind-boggling cruelty, a 4-month-old lab-terrier mix was doused in lighter fluid and set on fire. The puppy suffered third degree burns to 70 percent of his body and died of its injuries 10 days later. Police eventually fingered four young men they…
Alan Carter is one of a dying breed. The 53-year-old’s a newspaper carrier who plies his trade every morning well before dawn, delivering some 400 copies of The Dallas Morning News to the diminishing segment of the population that still gets its news printed on paper. It’s a lonely job…
The weather on Sunday evening was unseasonably temperate for Dallas. The heat of the day, which barely cracked 90, faded rather quickly. By 6:30 p.m., it was pleasant enough for a quartet of diners at Campisi’s downtown location to dine al fresco. At least it was pleasant until Allen McRae…
Updated at 5:46 p.m.: WFAA is reporting that Ricky Don McCommas, the assault rifle-wielding man involved in a shootout at a parking lot outside of Granbury City Hall, had been charged with the alleged rape of his niece. He’d missed a court appearance Friday morning, and instead came to Granbury…
Police aren’t exactly clear why a South Dallas 15-year-old without a license happened to be driving through Far North Dallas a half hour before midnight Thursday. Also not clear is how someone barely old enough to sack groceries part time came to be in possession of $1,000 in cash. But…
In a perfect world, Tango Blast would be a cool, refreshing fruity beverage. But we don’t live in a perfect world and the name has instead been appropriated by a rapidly growing, extremely violent Texas gang with ties to Mexican drug cartels. It’s some 10,000 members strong, according to the…
On the same day a grand jury handed down indictments accusing former Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams and his wife, Kim, of capital murder, she filed for divorce. According to a petition filed Thursday in district court, Kim Lene Williams is seeking to end her 17-year marriage,…
The iron railing surrounding Nicholson-Hardie’s plant nursery on Lovers Lane is as much rampart as it is fence. It’s called the Impasse Gauntlet, and its only slightly less intimidating than it sounds — eight feet tall and topped with fearsome tridents. Owner Josh Bracken invested in it a decade ago…
Starting an under-the-radar business selling bogus Viagra and calling it “Erection Connection,” as 48-year-old Charles Anthony Johnson of Dallas did, kind of sounds like a joke. The federal government, however, isn’t laughing. Johnson was charged last August with a dozen counts of conspiring to traffic in counterfeit goods and peddle…
The stretch of Harry Hines Boulevard between Walnut Hill and LBJ would seem to be a smoker’s paradise, packing at least three full-service smoke shops into a mile-and-a-half stretch of road. Each offers a wide array of tobacco and tobacco-smoking accessories, from cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes to grinders, water pipes…
The McClelland Gun Shop has been arming East Dallas since the 1970s from its nondescript shop by the railroad tracks on Centerville Road. And it offers just about what you’d expect from a Texas gun shop: a mix of hunting equipment, handguns, and Second Amendment rhetoric. It was where, during…
It’s not entirely clear exactly what Quintessa Scott hoped to achieve yesterday evening by randomly thrusting herself at/grinding on customers trying to enter K S Beauty Supply at 9191 Forest Lane. If her goal was to scare away business, it was a success. Police say her unsolicited advances sent multiple…
Early this morning, Fox 4 posted a report on a Tarrant County couple, Melissa Woodard and Christopher Apala, charged with beating their three puppies to death, then stuffing them in a barrel and setting them on fire. The initial information came from police, with Woodard’s sister, who said she called…
It was still dark when a passerby came upon the body of 15-year-old Nahum Martinez in Wylie on the morning of March 31, 2012. The Wylie East High School student had been shot in the forehead at close range, his body inexpertly hidden across from twin monuments marking the entrance…
At 7:15 Sunday evening, 20-year-old Angel Nava was being led to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center infirmary by his two arresting officers, R. Chavez and M. Spence. The 20-year-old, right eye nearly swollen shut, had just been picked up on a warrant for harassing two Murphy cops. He began to…
The probate court of the Old Criminal Court Building was a little disjointed on Friday. The judge, lawyers and witnesses were all dressed in 60s garb — skinny ties, strings of pearls, a pillbox hat or two — while back in the gallery the standing room-only audience was snapping pictures…
The Mesh Mask Bandit’s run was bound to come to an end. It’s possible, one supposes, to stick up a bank or two, then flee to some sparsely inhabited island, out of reach of the FBI. But when you rob 19 North Texas banks over the course of a few…
Seven months ago, Clayton Eathman decided he wanted an alligator. Or a crocodile. It didn’t really matter so long as it had a green, scaly hide, razor-sharp teeth and looked badass on a leash. So, he did what any backwoods herpetologist would do: He turned to YouTube’s comment section. i…
