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January 20, 2013
On screen and off, his affect is that of someone who should not be disturbed: a crotchety, contentious, impatient, and thoroughly genuine West Texan. That’s what makes his characters—including his latest, the lead in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada— so believable.
The thirty Texans with the most iconic, unforgettable, eye-popping looks, from Davy Crockett to Beyoncé.
Thanks to her fight against illiteracy, the first lady of Texas is getting more attention than most of her predecessors— and much more than she’d like.
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January 20, 2013
What really happened to Kari Baker? We may be about to find out.
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January 20, 2013
The shocking testimony of Vanessa Bulls against Matt Baker.
Did Kari Baker, despondent over her daughter’s passing, commit suicide? Or was she killed by her husband, Matt, a Baptist preacher in Waco and an alleged sexual predator? He says he didn’t do it, but her family insists otherwise—and they say they’ll keep after him until justice is done.
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January 20, 2013
The young, tattooed men who are members of the Southwest Cholos, La Primera, La Tercera Crips, Somos Pocos Pero Locos, Mara Salvatrucha, and other Houston gangs are vicious career criminals who regularly rob innocent people in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. They steal cars and break into businesses.
History makes no mention of what was one of the most popular all-female country acts ever. Yet the story of the Goree Girls—inmates who banded together in the forties at Texas’ sole penitentiary for women—is worth a listen.
Goree prison unit inmate Hattie Ellis had a short-lived recording career, but her music made a lasting impression.
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January 20, 2013
The bust that nabbed Houston’s top dogfighters was the work of two gutsy undercover cops who knew that the only way to infiltrate this secret world was to become dogfighters themselves.
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January 20, 2013
Without the cooperation of Texas law enforcement, the dogfighting subculture will continue to thrive.
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January 20, 2013
How did a girl from Harlingen become Houston's hostess with the mostest? Sweetie, Becca Cason Thrash has always been the life of the party.
After spending her adolescence largely out of view (except for a few scrapes with restaurant and bar employees), presidential spawn Jenna Bush is emerging as a public person in her own right. But her return to private life can’t come soon enough.
So what if Sandra Brown’s novels have wildly implausible plot twists, banal endings, over-the- top characters, and other literary no-no’s. She’s published nearly 70 of them since 1981, and 55 have gone on to be best-sellers. We’re sure the sex scenes have nothing to do with it.
A violent tackle in a high school football game paralyzed John McClamrock for life. His mother made sure it was a life worth living.
In suburban Fort Worth the frail psyche of a football prodigy collided with the crazed ambition of his dad, who himself had been a high school football star way back when. The consequences were deadly.
What was it, exactly, that caused Vickie Dawn Jackson, a sweet, soft-spoken nurse at Nocona General Hospital, to become one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history?
His dreams. His fears. The truth about his love life. A candid chat with Texas’ most misunderstood sports hero.
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December 1, 2012
Her husband, Fred Baron, helped bankroll John Edwards's presidential campaign, only to die of cancer amid the most sordid political scandal in recent history. But before long, Dallas's newest rainmaker had emerged from the wreckage—with every hair in place.
The strange case of Jeffrey and Yvonne Stern gets stranger. Yvonne filed a lawsuit against her husband's ex-mistress, Michelle Gaiser, who is expected to testify that Jeffrey helped plot his wife's murder.
Letter From Joshua
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May 31, 2011
The suicides of four Texas teens who were brutally bullied have prompted cries for new legislation. But one lawyer has a different plan: Sue the school districts.
Letter From Athens
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January 1, 2011
The tragic culture clash that led to the murder of a governor’s son.
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October 31, 2010
CBS’s 48 Hours fills in the final chapters of the notorious Matt Baker.
The faces—and voices—of eighteen Texans who are living the debate over illegal immigration.
Dad wanted us to remember our family camping getaways. After so many disasters, how could I forget?
63 things that all Texans must do before they die.
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February 1, 2010
That’s the number of times Harris County housewife Susan Wright stabbed her husband in a brutal 2003 murder that riveted the nation and landed her in prison for 25 years. But should the butcher of the burbs be freed?
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December 1, 2009
Cathy McBroom loved working as a case manager for Samuel Kent, Galveston’s brilliant, charismatic, all-powerful federal district judge. Then he started attacking her.
Letter From Refugio
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June 30, 2009
Has an out-of-work Los Angeles musician discovered a sunken Spanish treasure worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a lake near Refugio? Maybe!
Location: Lakeway Resort and Spa, outside AustinWhat You’ll Need: Bathing suit, trashy magazinesDon’t get me wrong: My wife and I are happy to take the Beloved One (our daughter) around the state so she can see things. Still, there are times when our idea of vacation heaven
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May 31, 2009
Texas is full of buried booty—or, to be a bit more accurate, full of stories about buried booty that no one has been able to find. Here are six of the supposedly greatest Texas treasures still out there. May the hunters strike gold.
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April 30, 2009
Can a former member of a vicious Houston gang leave crime behind and build a new life for himself?
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March 31, 2009
How a mother and daughter hired a hit man to kill their husband and father, and why they might just get away with it.
Letter From Houston
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March 1, 2009
A Houston funeral home where the dead do not go modestly into that good night.
On January 13, the girls’ basketball team for the Covenant School of Dallas, an elite private Christian school in upscale North Dallas, demolished its opponents from the Dallas Academy, a lesser known East Dallas school that focuses on students who face a variety of learning problems.
When T. Boone Pickens launched his Pickens Plan last summer, crude oil was at $136 a barrel. Now, with crude at or below $40, does anyone care anymore about what Pickens has to say?
Trammell Crow made millions based on what he called hunches—warehouses, atrium marts, huge hotels—and amazingly, most of his deals he did on a handshake.
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December 1, 2008
Friends and family knew Deborah Murphey as a mild-mannered nurse and a loving wife and mother. Then a U.S. marshal knocked on her door.
Letter From Dallas
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October 31, 2008
Why everyone in Dallas is talking about a depressed elephant.
Our most iconic oil and gas man, lately a water marauder and now a celebrated windcatter, has saved himself a couple of times in his eighty glorious years. Who’s to say he can’t save America?
Before they clubbed two deer to death in their tiny West Texas town, the four high school football stars were treated like royalty. Afterward, when news of their exploits hit the Internet, they were celebrities of a very different sort.
Letter From Houston
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April 30, 2008
Houston’s most famous teenage killer is trying to reclaim her life and move on.
Summer vacation is right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean you should panic. We’ve rounded up 68 of our favorite things to do with your toddlers, teens, and every kid in between. Dance the hokey pokey. Rope a horse. Eat way too many hot dogs. Zip down a waterslide.
Letter from Stephenville
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March 31, 2008
When a UFO streaks across our skies— c’mon, the truth is out there!—Ken Cherry gets to work.
The Horse's Mouth
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February 1, 2008
David Hanson on robot love.
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October 31, 2007
No Country for Old Men is Tommy Lee Jones’s new movie. I don’t think he’ll be granting me an interview anytime soon.
Letter From Houston
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August 31, 2006
Andrea Yates does battle with her demons. Again.
The Horse's Mouth
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April 30, 2006
As Helen Wagner’s world turns.
If he was asked what he did for a living, Roddy Dean Pippin would smile and say something about the cattle business. But he didn’t exactly buy and sell cows. He stole them. And right up until he was caught, he was as good as any such thief had ever
A real-life G.I. Joe, Master Sergeant James Coons hardly seemed like a candidate for post-traumatic stress disorder. But when his demons got the best of him, there was nothing anyone could do—not that anyone really tried.