Rachel Hardy Johnson is nothing if not audacious. The 35-year-old Mansfield woman currently facing corpse abuse and theft charges in Tarrant County, stemming from decomposed and desiccated bodies found in her funeral home, has now pleaded guilty to stealing food stamps. See also: Multiple Bodies Found Inside Abandoned Funeral Home…
Two years ago the Texas Legislature slipped into the state budget an item mandating a thorough review of certain civil forfeiture proceedings. Civil forfeiture — the process state and federal prosecutors use to seize property from suspected criminals, whether they’ve been convicted or not — is a source of perpetual…
In October 2013, Clint Peterson was shot to death by a Duncanville Police Department officer. Now his family has filed a lawsuit in federal court against three unnamed officers who responded to the call that ultimately lead to his death. Other defendants named in the suit are Duncanville Police Chief…
A 3-month-old is dead and a teenage relative is in jail after a Monday morning drowning at an apartment complex near Charlton Methodist Hospital. Dallas police say they received a “person in danger” 911 call just after 6 a.m. When they arrived, they were told by members of Dallas Fire…
After James Harper, an unarmed kidnapping suspect, was killed by a police officer in July 2012, police Chief David Brown committed to reforming the way his department would chase suspects on foot. Brian Rowden, the officer who shot Harper, had ended up chasing Harper alone after Harper and three other…
Edgar Diaz’s life had all the trappings of the quintessential American success story. After fleeing his native Colombia in a harrowing escape from leftist guerillas in 2001, he and his wife settled in Dallas with little money and less English. With a diligence and entrepreneurial spirit that would do Horatio…
Anonymous associate and freelance investigative journalist Barrett Brown, who’s already spent more than two years behind bars, learned today that he will be locked up for three more. Brown, who admitted to being an accessory after the fact to accessing a protected computer — he linked to data obtained from…
In late December, two cyclists with heavy bruising on their faces said they had been punched by a random, angry motorist driving behind them on Turtle Creek Boulevard. Despite the serious accusations, the Dallas police who came to the scene that night didn’t appear to try too hard to get…
Jeani Mulligan’s mother-in-law may have died, but the 43-year-old Keller woman kept her memory alive, in the form of cashed Social Security checks, for more than a decade. Between December 30, 2000, the date of her mother-in-law’s death and February 2013, Mulligan received $124,825.30 intended for her dead relative. In…
Dallas Police Sergeant Paul Figueroa, a 20-year DPD veteran, turned himself in Wednesday after Collin County charged him with family assault, a Class A misdemeanor. Figueroa was charged with the same crime in 2012. After an internal affairs investigation, he was allowed to remain on the force. Now, he has…
Speaking at a hearing to determine whether Enrique Arochi, the man charged with the aggravated kidnapping of Christina Morris, deserved less than $1 million bail, one of the detectives investigating the case told prosecutors that she believes Arochi kidnapped and murdered Morris. At the end of what was a long…
Anticipating what will be one of the hottest button issues of the 2015 session of the Texas Legislature, advocates for the right to carry assault rifles into fast food establishments and handguns wherever they damn well please gathered at the state capitol in Austin yesterday to manufacture gun parts on…
Just over a month after a fire at Thanksgiving Tower killed three men working on the downtown building’s HVAC system, Dallas Fire and Rescue gave the most definitive answer yet as to what caused the blaze. Oscar Esparza-Romo, Luis Carrillo-Solorzano and Nicacio Carrillo-Martinez, were working in underground tanks when the…
Latasha Wilson should have just gotten a Lyft. The 34-year-old Dallas woman, apparently unsatisfied with the other transportation options available, commandeered an empty ambulance at Baylor Hospital on Sunday, Dallas police say. Considering Wilson was driving a vehicle that’s pretty hard to miss, she actually did pretty well for herself…
David Kattner, the longtime Dallas police officer accused of sexually assaulting prostitutes, has been found dead in his Little Elm home. WFAA reports that he was found by his wife after a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. See also: Dallas Cop Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Prostitute Kattner was arrested December 21…
In response to the spate of earthquakes shaking their city, Irving ISD conducted an actual earthquake drill on Wednesday in attempt to prepare students for the worst…
David Harrison is still waiting to see the footage of Dallas Police Department officers killing his brother. The June shooting death of Jason Harrison, the subject of last week’s cover story by Sky Chadde, was the first fatal DPD shooting ever captured on the department’s new body camera technology, but…
At least one member of Susan Hawk’s nascent district attorney’s office couldn’t have gotten off to a more inauspicious start in his new job. Justin Moore, an SMU graduate and former Craig Watkins deputy who was kept on by Hawk, was picked up for a DWI early Sunday morning. According…
Cop watchers, or the people who follow cops around with cameras to catch them doing something wrong, were predictably outraged after one of their own got arrested by the Arlington Police Department this weekend. “A copwatcher with a black powder revolver was kidnapped and hauled away like a dog catcher…
The sanctuary of St. Paul United Methodist Church, a red-brick anachronism surrounded by the skyward steel and concrete of downtown Dallas, is small and tight — not nearly big enough to accommodate the swarm of people that poured into the city’s oldest black church on a warm Monday night in…
Unlike her estranged husband, Kim Williams will not go through a lengthy trial. Tuesday morning, she admitted her guilt in the murder of Mark Hasse, the Kaufman County assistant district attorney gunned down in the street in Kaufman by Eric Williams. Kim Williams drove the getaway car. During the penalty…
Whether it’s a police union rep or an activist who says their neighborhood is terrorized by the police, pretty much the safest opinion either side can have is that all cops should wear body cameras. Activists like the idea of cameras because they argue that the footage will bring more…
