News & Politics
May 1, 2023
Reality Check: There’s Almost Certainly No Serial Killer in Austin
What began as a baseless theory has turned into a social media frenzy, with the power to frighten the public and hamper police investigations.
Serial Killer
True Crime
December 9, 2022
What Drove Juan David Ortiz, a Respected Border Patrol Agent, to Become a Serial Killer?
Ortiz was found guilty of capital murder this week. In 2019, Texas Monthly reported on the string of murders targeting sex workers in Laredo.
True Crime
December 1, 2022
Who Was Robert Abel, the Former NASA Engineer Suspected in the Texas Killing Fields Murders?
A new Netflix docuseries revisits the string of murders near League City. Texas Monthly interviewed Abel in 1999.
True Crime
July 18, 2022
Glen McCurley Strangled Carla Walker in 1974. Was She His Only Victim?
McCurley was living a quiet life in Fort Worth when new DNA evidence linked him to the notorious crime. Police suspect it wasn’t his first murder—or his last.
True Crime
September 18, 2019
The Hunt for the Serial Killer of Laredo
Last September, law enforcement officers were confounded by a murderer targeting prostitutes along the border. As the investigation intensified, they discovered that the killer had been hiding in plain sight.
True Crime
March 21, 2018
After the Bombings, Looking Back at Austin’s First Serial Killer
The Midnight Assassin, who terrorized Austin 138 years ago, also targeted minorities first.
Arts & Entertainment
April 4, 2016
Murders in the Night
An exclusive excerpt from The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer reveals a forgotten time in Austin history, when a series of brutal, unsolved slayings terrified officials and left them wondering if a madman was on the loose.
Web Exclusive
January 21, 2013
A Q&A With Skip Hollandsworth
The executive editor on writing about prostitutes, working with detectives, and recreating scenes.
True Crime
January 21, 2013
“If the Serial Killer Gets Us, He Gets Us”
Police had all but given up looking into a pair of assaults against two prostitutes in the Houston neighborhood of Acres Homes. But when a third turned up dead, investigator Darcus Shorten embarked on a search that revealed a brutal reality.
True Crime
January 21, 2013
A Closer Look at One of Dean Corll’s Victims
Dorothy Hilligiest's son David disappeared one day in 1971. She spent her days and nights searching for him, following leads, and eagerly awaiting his return. And then she found out about Dean Corll, one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history.
True Crime
January 21, 2013
Latest News on the Corll Investigation
Researchers have discovered a mistaken identity and another possible victim.
True Crime
January 21, 2013
The Houston Mass Murders: What Really Happened
A Q&A with Skip Hollandsworth, author of “The Lost Boys.”
True Crime
April 1, 2011
The Lost Boys
It was the most shocking crime of its day, 27 boys from the same part of town kidnapped, tortured, and killed by an affable neighbor named Dean Corll. Forty years later, it remains one of the least understood—or talked about—chapters in Houston's history.
True Crime
June 1, 2003
Ciudad de la Muerte
Ten years. More than three hundred women murdered. What is going on in Juárez? And why aren't the Mexican authorities doing something about it?
True Crime
June 30, 2002
Two Barmaids, Five Alligators, and the Butcher of Elmendorf
He was a ladies’ man who owned a tavern. He kept gators in a pool behind the place, into which he liked to toss small animals. He hired women to wait tables, and some of them disappeared. What happened? With Joe Ball, it was easy to believe the worst.
True Crime
June 30, 2000
Capital Murder
In a year-long spree that began in late 1884, Texas’ first serial killer butchered seven women and one man in Austin. More than a century later questions about his identity and his motive remain unanswered.
True Crime
July 31, 1999
Evil
How serial killer Rafael Resendez-Ramirez struck fear in the hearts of the men and women of Weimar, a tiny Texas town that will never be the same.
Reporter
December 1, 1998
The End
Serial killer Kenneth McDuff’s victims are unearthed, and he gets his due (we hope).
True Crime
April 30, 1993
See No Evil
Dallas police say Charles Albright is the coldest, most depraved killer of women in the city’s history. To me, he seems like a perfect gentleman. Maybe too perfect.
True Crime
May 31, 1989
The Work of The Devil
The disappearance of a University of Texas student in Matamoros led police to the discovery of a drug-dealing cult whose rituals were not only unholy but unthinkable.
Books
April 1, 1976
The Last Kid on the Block
Elmer Wayne Henley is neither safe nor sorry.