The Houston Years of George Floyd
Friends remember Floyd, who grew up in the Third Ward, as a gentle soul, a father, and a talented collaborator of DJ Screw’s.
Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. Mike graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1979 with a degree in government. He wrote for various publications, including Trouser Press, Third Coast Magazine, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Austin Chronicle. In 1997, he joined Texas Monthly, where he has won two Texas Gavel Awards from the State Bar of Texas and four Stephen Philbin Awards from the Dallas Bar Association. He was named Writer of the Year at the City and Regional Magazine Awards in 2015. His stories have appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Da Capo’s Best Music Writing, the New York Times, and Men’s Journal. Mike is also a musician and has played in Austin bands the Wild Seeds, the Setters, the Lollygaggers, and the Savage Trip. He pitches for the Burkas, the Texas Monthly softball team.
Friends remember Floyd, who grew up in the Third Ward, as a gentle soul, a father, and a talented collaborator of DJ Screw’s.
By Michael Hall
First came the sound of someone running hard on the breezeway outside, then a banging on the apartment door. Irene Vera opened it to see her neighbor, twenty-year-old Rosa Jimenez, holding a little boy who lay limp in her arms. “Help me! Help me!” Jimenez cried hysterically in Spanish. The
By Michael Hall
The recording career of country music’s greatest artist, surveyed, sized up, and sorted on the occasion of his 87th birthday.
The author and journalist has mobilized fans to chip in and help struggling strangers online.
By Michael Hall
The Houston icon, who passed away yesterday, sang a lot of other music too.
By Michael Hall
But we're hard at work creating another way for you to experience this incredible storytelling event.
By Michael Hall
On March 17, we're taking over the Moody Theater for a night of storytelling from some of your favorite Texas artists.
By Michael Hall
The incredible true story of two brothers raised on the hardscrabble country music of rural West Texas who dropped out, tuned in, found God, and helped launch the seventies soft-rock revolution.
By Michael Hall
Pedro Villalobos handles felony cases in Travis County, but his own legal status could be in jeopardy.
By Michael Hall
The stories, the traditions, and the deeper meanings of the boots in their lives.
Galveston’s Johnny Romano, the youngest professional skateboarder in history, passed away from leukemia.
By Michael Hall
Mezghebe fled East Africa, landed at Texas’s Casa Marianella, and performed with Maggie Rogers in Austin.
By Michael Hall
Both before and after Lee Hazlewood wrote hits for Nancy Sinatra and Duane Eddy, he was a Texas musician.
By Michael Hall
James Fulton reunites with his family, as victim Haile Beasley’s parents decry justice undone.
By Michael Hall
The obscure indie ’Taking Tiger Mountain’ offers a glimpse at the late Hollywood star as a teenager.
By Michael Hall
How does a man wrongly convicted of murder get released twenty years later? It helps to have a wife who loves you, a podcaster who believes in you, and an army of amateur sleuths who won’t stop digging for the truth.
By Michael Hall
Justices grant James Fulton a new sentencing hearing: “Tragic consequences do not elevate ordinary negligence to criminal negligence.”
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
Carly Mayo, eighteen, is now back in Tyler and living with her mom as she reckons with her past.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
The documentary, premiering on PBS December 17, looks to the elderly minister's hometown of Grand Saline to uncover why he set himself alight.
By Michael Hall
A controversial Dallas civil rights lawyer is holding police accountable—and being held accountable, too.
By Michael Hall
Brandley died last week, 31 years after the state of Texas tried and failed to kill him.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
We need a museum worthy of our music. And we need Mark Cuban's help to get us there.
By Michael Hall
The music icon talks to us about how he’s able to continue writing—and touring—well into his eighties.
By Michael Hall
The future Hall of Famer hangs with his buddy, Jason Pena, at their joint venture, BlackJack Speed Shop.
By Michael Hall
He was a highlight of Austin’s creative community and, in death, a spotlight on the city’s problems with race.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
DJ El Dusty, the unofficial mayor of the Corpus Christi music scene, is ushering in a modernized version of cumbia.
By Michael Hall
Alonso Guillen died an American hero—even if many didn’t think of him as an American.
By Michael Hall
Our executive editor's book, 'The Midnight Assassin,' won the nonfiction book of the year from the Writers' League of Texas.
By Michael Hall
The greatest Texas songwriter you’ve never heard of is a 72-year-old grandmother from Lubbock. This is her story.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
The essence of Texas barbecue—past and present—is in the Piney Woods.
By Michael Hall
Here are your not-to-miss acts across the state.
By Michael Hall, Richard Hendin and Dan Solomon
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.
By Michael Hall
Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss talks to us about Kerry Max Cook, the Texan accused of brutal 1977 murder whom Dreyfuss played on stage.
By Michael Hall
The Supreme Court says Texas must change the way it determines who can be executed.
By Michael Hall
Kerry Max Cook did everything to clear his name of a horrifying murder. So when he was finally exonerated, why did he ask for his conviction back?
By Michael Hall
For many Americans, the controversial health law is government run amok. But for these people in San Antonio, it’s been a lifesaver.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall
Kerry Max Cook, a subject of The Exonerated, is finally exonerated.
By Michael Hall
Stunning new evidence in the case of Kerry Max Cook casts serious doubt on his 1978 murder conviction--and points emphatically at another man.
By Michael Hall
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.
By Michael Hall