Editor’s note: Casey Miller served as a member of the jury that last week found Brenda Delgado guilty of capital murder in the contract killing of Dallas dentist Kendra Hatcher. Delgado will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. Miller offered the Observer this essay about his experiences…
Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall sounded a lot like a woman on the ropes Monday as she did her best to address Dallas recent spike in homicides and other violent crime in front of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee at City Hall. She told council members that the…
Early last week, the Plain View Project, a database put together by a group of Philadelphia lawyers, went live, publishing Facebook posts that the group believed “could undermine public trust and confidence in police” from more than 3,500 police officers. Among the posts are dozens from Dallas police officers that, to…
State District Judge Tammy Kemp pushed attorneys from both sides of the Botham Jean case about the release of the 911 call made by former Dallas cop Amber Guyger shortly after she shot and killed Jean on Sept. 6. Kemp, who’s issued a gag order in the case, said that…
A woman whose body was found Saturday evening at White Rock Lake is the second black transgender woman to be killed in Dallas in less than a month, police said. Officers found Chynal Lindsey, 26, at 5:32 p.m. Saturday at 4100 W. Lawther Drive, Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said…
Last weekend’s murder of Muhlaysia Booker was the third killing or assault of a Dallas transgender woman since October, Dallas police said Tuesday afternoon. Police found Booker shot to death early Saturday morning in Far East Dallas. “These cases, although not directly related at this time, do have similarities the…
It’s almost summer in Dallas, which means a couple of things: unbearable heat is just around the corner and Cowboys star running back Ezekiel Elliott has gotten himself involved in a situation he had no business getting himself involved in. This time Elliott didn’t commit an unforced error at the…
Muhlaysia Booker, the Dallas transgender woman brutally attacked on video last month in South Dallas, was shot and killed Saturday, Dallas police confirmed Sunday afternoon. Police found Booker, 23, laying face down on Valley Glen Drive near Ferguson Road just before 7 a.m. Saturday. Booker wasn’t carrying ID, leading to…
After more than a year of investigation, the charges against suspected North Texas serial killer Billy Chemirmir are starting to come in. Already this week, a Dallas County grand jury has indicted Chemirmir for six murders, according to court documents. Multiple media outlets report than Chemirmir will soon be indictment…
Dallas Police Department officers searched Catholic Diocese of Dallas properties across the city Wednesday as part of a continuing investigation into alleged abuse by Dallas priests. According to DPD Maj. Max Geron, police searched Diocese headquarters in Oak Lawn, St. Cecilia Catholic Church in North Oak Cliff and a storage…
The last time Chris Mullins saw his girlfriend alive, she was leaving for work early on a Monday morning in late November 2018. Maria Ezquerro had recently returned home from visiting her parents in Mexico and spent the night with Mullins in Denton. Partially asleep, he walked her to the…
Nearly five months after his arrest, John Wetteland made his first court appearance on child sex abuse charges Monday. Though he didn’t enter a plea at the Denton County Courthouse, his attorney made it clear to reporters how he and his client plan to fight the accusations against the former…
Former Richardson Mayor Laura Jordan and her husband Mark Jordan will get a new trial, a federal judge announced Thursday, because of improper communication between a federal court officer and a juror during the couple’s original trial, which concluded in March. The juror, No. 11, sent a note to U.S…
A Tarrant County grand jury has indicted an Arlington Police Department officer in the shooting death of a 24-year-old man who tried to drive away from a traffic stop in September 2018. Arlington police Officer Julie Herlihy pulled O’Shea Terry over because he had expired temporary tags on his SUV…
On Wednesday, a Dallas County jury answered the only questioned that remained about a gruesome 2015 murder on White Rock Creek jogging trail. Thomas Johnson, a former football star at Texas A&M and Dallas’ Skyline High School, will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering Dave Stevens…
At least in terms of the public process, if not the legal one, the release of the audio recording of the 911 call in the Botham Jean killing finally takes us down to the fine point of what has been the public question from the beginning: If a white cop…
Immediately after shooting Botham Jean, former Dallas Police Department officer Amber Guyger told a city 911 dispatcher that she’d made a horrible mistake. “I’m an off-duty officer. I thought I was in my apartment and I shot a guy thinking he was, thinking it was my apartment,” Guyger said. “I…
One of DFW’s longest running true-crime soap operas took another turn Friday as Tarrant County authorities arrested Tonya Couch, the mother of “affluenza” drunk driver Ethan Couch, for yet another alleged bail violation. Couch is accused of failing a urinalysis, violating the portion of her bail agreement that requires that…
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot would like would-be thieves to know that they can’t steal anything they like without fear of prosecution. Last week, Creuzot’s office announced a series of sweeping reforms, including declining to prosecute most low-level marijuana offenses, cases in which someone is found with trace amounts…
The Dallas Police Department Family Violence Unit is investigated a complaint made against community activist Dominique Alexander, DPD confirmed Wednesday afternoon. Alexander’s accuser called Dallas activist and pastor Jeff Hood after the alleged assault. The pair then went to the hospital, before filing a report at the Northwest Dallas Police…
Campus police are investigating a reported sexual assault at a fraternity house at the University of Texas at Arlington. A female student told Arlington police that she was sexually assaulted by an acquaintance early Sunday, said Joe Carpenter, a university spokesman. Because the assault occurred on campus, Arlington police turned…
In 1998 when John Creuzot, now the new Dallas County district attorney, was a Dallas County felony district court judge, he established an experimental program called the Dallas Initiative for Expedited Recovery and Treatment or DIVERT. It sent first-time drug offenders into intensively monitored recovery programs rather than to jail…
