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Peter Elkind

Peter Elkind's Profile Photo

Writer-at-large Peter Elkind is an award-winning investigative journalist and a reporter at ProPublica. In addition to Texas Monthly, he has written for the Washington Post, New York Times Magazine, Fortune, and the New Yorker, and he is a former editor of the Dallas Observer. His books include The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, which he cowrote and which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated documentary; Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, which also inspired a documentary; and The Death Shift: The True Story of Nurse Genene Jones and the Texas Baby Murders, the subject of which he has written about for Texas Monthly. His awards include a 2012 Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing, a 2015 New York Press Club Award for political reporting, a 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Award for investigative reporting, and various Henry R. Luce Awards from Time Inc. A graduate of Princeton University, Elkind lives in Fort Worth.

31 Articles

May 25, 2017

Prosecutors Race to Keep Angel-of-Death Behind Bars

Texas is scheduled to release Genene Jones, a former nurse and suspected serial killer of children, early next year. Today, prosecutors in San Antonio moved to prevent her release, bringing a new murder charge against Jones in connection with the death of a child 35 years ago.

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Terri Hoffman taught that the line between life and death was meaningless. For some, the idea was fatal.
True Crime|
May 1, 1990

The Curse of the Black Lords

Terri Lee Hoffman was a New Age Aunt Bee whose gospel attracted many followers. But some of those believers ended up on a dark, twisted path that led to violent death—and the enrichment of their guru.

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Education|
September 30, 1989

That Brainpower Guy

Incarnate Word was an obscure Catholic school before Lou Agnese launched his multimillion-dollar ad campaign. Now the college is booming, and Agnese is a local star.

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Business|
August 1, 1987

Cities in Bondage

When eighty-year-old Decker Jackson gives financial advice to Texas public officials, nothing in life is certain but debt and taxes.

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Reporter|
January 1, 1987

Texas Monthly Reporter

The citizens of Muleshoe lose their only hospital, thanks to a California chain; the citizens of Houston learn the value of caution, thanks to a local developer; the citizens of the world get a chance to improve their potency, thanks to the Aggies.

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Business|
October 1, 1986

Going for Broke

In boom times, John Connally and Ben Barnes used their political magic to build a sprawling real estate empire. Now they’re in a desperate struggle to keep themselves afloat.

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News & Politics|
May 1, 1986

The Quest That Fizzled

Everyone agreed it was time for greatness at UT. But after a nationwide search for a new president, the only man the regents could agree on was a campus insider who professed no great vision at all.

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Reporter|
July 31, 1984

Texas Monthly Reporter

Is Texas shrinking? Are the Kimbell’s spirits sinking? Are Midland and Odessa really linking? Where are Houston’s sports fans drinking?

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Reporter|
September 30, 1983

Texas Monthly Reporter

Texas becomes a disaster zone; a magazine empire enters the twilight zone; the district attorney’s office in San Antonio is a war zone; problems crop up in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport flight zone.

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True Crime|
July 31, 1983

The Death Shift

The three-to-eleven evening shift, Bexar County Hospital, San Antonio: nurse Genene Jones was on duty in the pediatric intensive care unit, and for months babies kept having mysterious—sometimes fatal—emergencies. Why?

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