Bob Ruff is working on his fifth Texas case in fewer than four years, this time hoping to prove the innocence of Sandra Melgar in the killing of her husband, Jaime Melgar.
Carly Mayo, eighteen, is now back in Tyler and living with her mom as she reckons with her past.
Driving through a dangerous curve in Tyler, James Fulton crossed into oncoming traffic and killed a young woman. He wasn’t drunk, and the cops said the crash was an accident. But the Smith County DA saw it differently.
Appreciations by current and former staffers who know them all too well.
Found guilty in 1987, the freed man will be paid $2.5 million by the state of Texas, which he'll use to support his prison ministry.
The documentary, premiering on PBS December 17, looks to the elderly minister's hometown of Grand Saline to uncover why he set himself alight.
A controversial Dallas civil rights lawyer is holding police accountable—and being held accountable, too.
Brandley died last week, 31 years after the state of Texas tried and failed to kill him.
How a motley crew of young Texas lawyers, a burly Michigan podcaster, and his army of amateur sleuths—including actor Jon Cryer—helped free a man convicted of a murder he swears he didn’t commit.
He worked 80-hour weeks to send money home to his family. The driver who ran him over had been in and out of trouble for years.
The case of a man who slaughtered his family, then gouged out his eyes, will be reviewed Tuesday by an appellate court panel in New Orleans.
We need a museum worthy of our music. And we need Mark Cuban's help to get us there.
The music icon talks to us about how he’s able to continue writing—and touring—well into his eighties.
The future Hall of Famer hangs with his buddy, Jason Pena, at their joint venture, BlackJack Speed Shop.
He was a highlight of Austin’s creative community and, in death, a spotlight on the city’s problems with race.
A decade ago, Gabby Sones accused her parents and five others of running the most depraved child sex ring in Texas history. Now she’s ready to clear their names.
Pedro Villalobos is a star prosecutor. Gerardo De Loera is a musician. Joseph Ramirez is a tech entrepreneur. They’re young, they’re smart, they make America great. They’re also undocumented. And now, they face being sent back to a place they’ve never called home.
DJ El Dusty, the unofficial mayor of the Corpus Christi music scene, is ushering in a modernized version of cumbia.
Alonso Guillen died an American hero—even if many didn’t think of him as an American.
Our executive editor's book, 'The Midnight Assassin,' won the nonfiction book of the year from the Writers' League of Texas.
The greatest Texas songwriter you’ve never heard of is a 72-year-old grandmother from Lubbock. This is her story.
Kerry Max Cook, who spent almost twenty years on death row for a murder he maintains he didn't commit, sues the people who sent him there.
The essence of Texas barbecue—past and present—is in the Piney Woods.
Here are your not-to-miss acts across the state.
Louise Rowe was the only female musician to play with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Now she's taking her own band to San Marcos.
Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss talks to us about Kerry Max Cook, the Texan accused of brutal 1977 murder whom Dreyfuss played on stage.
The Supreme Court says Texas must change the way it determines who can be executed.
For almost forty years, Kerry Max Cook did everything to clear his name after being convicted of a horrifying murder in Tyler. So when he was finally exonerated, why did he ask for his conviction back?
For many Americans, the controversial health law is government run amok. But for these people in San Antonio, it’s been a lifesaver.
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.
Kerry Max Cook, a subject of The Exonerated, is finally exonerated.
Stunning new evidence in the case of Kerry Max Cook casts serious doubt on his 1978 murder conviction--and points emphatically at another man.
The sixty-year-old spent 35 years on death row for a crime many believe he didn't commit. He died Sunday from natural causes.
How one woman’s fight for freedom inspired Houston’s lawyers and artists more than a century and a half later.
A new documentary tells the story of the San Antonio Four, a group of lesbians who were accused of sexually abusing two children in what many consider a modern-day witch-hunt.
A hipster paradise, a high-tech nirvana, a festival wonderland. Today Austin barely resembles the sleepy college town I moved to in the seventies. How it changed is the story of a lifetime.
The host of the beloved radio show "Twine Time" on KUTX in Austin died Friday at 73.
Science
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December 23, 2015
How the once troubled Texas Forensic Science Commission put the state at the forefront of the criminal justice reform movement.
The famed musicologist’s obsession with history made him one of the great chroniclers of American music.
Music
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November 16, 2015
Cotton Mather translates the wisdom of 'I Ching' to Texas power pop.
”Booger Red,” a film by Berndt Mader and based on a Texas Monthly story, premieres at the Austin Film Festival.
Criminal Justice
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October 21, 2015
A dark incident almost twenty years ago put Greg Torti on the sex offender registry for life. But the real story, he insists, is much more complicated.
Criminal Justice
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October 20, 2015
Critics denounce this arm of forensic science as bogus and subjective.
Thirty-eight years after Kerry Max Cook was convicted of murder, he continues to seek exoneration. And now he might finally have a chance to convince the courts of his innocence.
Music
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September 14, 2015
The banjo player from Belton recently won the Steve Martin Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass award, a recognition of his “barnyard electronic aesthetic.”
Innocence Project of Texas executive director Scott Henson says his organization is about more than DNA evidence.
Old friends Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett talk about songwriting Texas music history, and the early days back in College Station.
This state has been shaped by its songs. And as these 25 tales show, the stories behind them are often as great as the songs themselves.
Oh, the endless arguments about Texas music. But don’t feel the need to master it—no one really can. Instead, here are ten songs to help you hold your own at almost any party.
Head west on FM 170 through an astounding wilderness of shallow canyons, ancient riverbeds, and craggy limestone hills.