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Wrongful Convictions

Waco Murders Collage
True Crime|
July 13, 2016

The Murders at the Lake

In 1982 three teenagers were killed near the shores of Lake Waco in a seemingly inexplicable crime. More than three decades later, the tragic and disturbing case still casts a long, dark shadow.

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Chat|
July 23, 2015

True Grits

Innocence Project of Texas executive director Scott Henson says his organization is about more than DNA evidence.

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Criminal Justice|
November 27, 2013

Wrongfully Convicted Grandma Freed

After Fran Keller spent 21 years in prison based on allegations by children who said they were sexually abused in a satanic ritual at her and her husband's day care, she was finally released.

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Norwood Trial|
March 20, 2013

Critical Evidence

DNA testing of a blue bandana exonerated Michael Morton. Could the small square of cloth also be the linchpin that seals Mark Alan Norwood's fate?

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Behind the Lines|
January 21, 2013

Fed Up!

Sure, Texas’s criminal justice system is tough. But as Fort Worth inmate Richard LaFuente could tell you, the federal criminal system is even tougher.

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Web Exclusive|
January 21, 2013

Another Tale of Wrongful Conviction?

Richard LaFuente, who was convicted of murder in 1986, has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence for more than twenty years. Now he has some unlikely support in one person—the victim's own sister.

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Editor's Letter|
January 21, 2013

The Scales of Injustice

About a year ago, it was reported that Randall Dale Adams had died, bringing to a close one of the more tragic stories in recent Texas history. A construction worker from Ohio, Adams (pictured here, in 1989) was convicted and sentenced to die in 1977 for the murder of Dallas

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Letter From Corpus Christi|
January 21, 2013

Hannah’s Prayer

Five years ago, Hannah Overton, a church-going Corpus Christi mother of five, was convicted of murdering her soon-to-be adoptive child and sentenced to life in prison. In April, she returned to  court—and watched her lawyers put the prosecution on defense.

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Feature|
January 21, 2013

Trials and Errors

Over the past two decades Texas has exonerated more than eighty wrongfully convicted prisoners. How does this happen? Can anything be done to stop it? We assembled a group of experts (a police chief, a state senator, a judge, a prosecutor, a district attorney, and an exoneree) to find out.

By Michael Hall and Jake Silverstein

True Crime|
January 20, 2013

Innocence Found

Anthony Graves had been behind bars for eighteen years when the prosecutors in his case abruptly dropped all charges and set him free. How did it happen? What happens next?

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January 20, 2013

Searching for Truth

Pamela Colloff talks about reporting on an eighteen-year-old murder case and interviewing Anthony Graves, who was sent to death row for the crime.

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Editor's Letter|
January 20, 2013

Tenacious P

If it’s something you’d just as soon not think about, chances are Pamela Colloff has written about it for TEXAS MONTHLY. Here is a partial list of the subjects she’s covered since coming to work at the magazine thirteen years ago: murder, arson, abortion, heroin addiction, hate crimes, illegal immigration,

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True Crime|
November 1, 2012

The Innocent Man, Part One

The National Magazine Award–winning story about Michael Morton, a man who came home from work one day in 1986 to find that his wife had been brutally murdered. What happened next was one of the most profound miscarriages of justice in Texas history.

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Web Exclusive|
March 31, 2012

Justice in Time

Fifteen years after being released from death row, Kerry Max Cook is still looking for freedom.

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True Crime|
January 1, 2012

Hannah and Andrew

On October 3, 2006, a four-year-old boy named Andrew Burd died in a Corpus Christi hospital. The cause of death was determined to be salt poisoning, an extremely unusual occurrence. Even more shocking was what happened next: his foster mother, Hannah Overton, was found guilty of killing him. But could

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Web Exclusive|
October 29, 2010

Free at Last

For eighteen years Anthony Graves insisted that he had nothing to do with the gruesome murder of a family in Somerville. That’s exactly how long it took for justice to finally be served.

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True Crime|
September 27, 2010

Innocence Lost

Anthony Graves has spent the past eighteen years behind bars—twelve of them on death row—for a grisly 1992 murder. There was no plausible motive nor any physical evidence to connect him to the crime, and the only witness against him repeatedly recanted his testimony. Yet he remains locked up. Did

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Politics & Policy|
August 31, 2007

Craig’s List

Of the many things the first black district attorney of Dallas County is doing, none is more important than rethinking the concept of guilt and innocence.

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