Contributors

Pamela Colloff

Pamela Colloff's Profile Photo

Pamela Colloff joined Texas Monthly as a staff writer and worked her way up to an executive editor before leaving in 2017. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker and has been anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Reporting, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists.

Colloff was nominated for six National Magazine Awards during her time at Texas Monthly. She was nominated in 2001 for her article on school prayer, and then again in 2011 for her two-part series, “Innocence Lost” and “Innocence Found,” about wrongly convicted death row inmate Anthony Graves. One month after the publication of “Innocence Lost,” the Burleson County district attorney’s office dropped all charges against Graves and released him from jail, where he had been awaiting retrial. Colloff next received nominations for “Hannah and Andrew” and “The Innocent Man,” which earned a National Magazine Award for feature writing. In 2015, she was nominated for a National Magazine Award for “The Witness.” Her story “96 Minutes” served as the basis for the 2016 documentary Tower, which was short-listed for an Academy Award for best documentary film. Colloff also served as one of the film’s executive producers. She further explored the subject of the 1966 UT tower shooting in her story “The Reckoning,” which was a finalist for a 2017 National Magazine Award in feature writing.

Colloff holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brown University and was raised in New York City. She lives in Austin with her husband and their two children.

192 Articles

dan rather
Politics & Policy|
January 13, 2017

Central Intelligence

During the 2016 presidential campaign, much of the mainstream media failed to understand voters in Middle America. Not Dan Rather. His early recognition of Trump’s viability, and a late embrace of social media, has made the 85-year-old Wharton native more relevant than ever.

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Politics & Policy|
August 11, 2016

Remember the Christian Alamo

Evangelist Lester Roloff drew a line in the dirt to keep the State of Texas from regulating his Rebekah Home for Girls. Years later, then-govenor George W. Bush handed Roloff's disciples a long-sought victory. But this Alamo had no heroes—only victims.

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True Crime|
August 2, 2016

96 Minutes

At 11:48 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman began firing his rifle from the top of the University of Texas Tower at anyone and everyone in his sights. At 1:24 p.m., he was gunned down himself. The lives of the people who witnessed the sniper’s spree firsthand would never

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True Crime|
May 16, 2016

The Reckoning

Fifty years ago, when Claire Wilson was eighteen, she was critically wounded during the 1966 University of Texas Tower shooting—the first massacre of its kind. How does the path of a bullet change a life?

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The Culture|
March 23, 2015

How to Drive 85 Miles per Hour

The fastest road in America does not cross the Mojave Desert or the big sky country of Montana. Instead, it cuts through an unexceptional stretch of farmland southeast of Austin, where the posted speed limit on Texas Highway 130 jumps to 85 miles per hour. The so-called Texas Autobahn

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Politics & Policy|
February 6, 2015

To Love and to Cherish

In a 5-4 ruling on June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry across the country. Here is the story of two women who fought for that historic decision in Texas—and helped to make it a reality.

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National Magazine Award Nominee|
August 12, 2014

The Witness

For more than a decade, Michelle Lyons’s job required her to watch condemned criminals be put to death. After 278 executions, she won't ever be the same.

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Criminal Justice|
April 8, 2014

Hannah Overton’s Day in Court

The Corpus Christi mother convicted of murdering her four-year-old foster son has maintained her innocence for eight years, and she finally had a chance to plead her case to Texas’s highest criminal court.

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Time Cole at the Belknap Creek bridge, where Heather Rich's body was found.
Crime|
February 11, 2014

A Question of Mercy

In 1998 famously tough Montague County district attorney Tim Cole sent a teenager to prison for life for his part in a brutal murder. The punishment haunts him to this day.

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Criminal Justice|
December 18, 2013

Why Was This Prosecutor Never Punished?

Anthony Graves was wrongfully convicted of capital murder in a trial where the prosecutor, Charles Sebesta, withheld evidence that could have helped prove Graves’s innocence. So why hasn’t Sebesta been held accountable for his egregious misconduct?

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Criminal Justice|
October 16, 2013

Anthony Graves Establishes Scholarship

Graves used funds he received from the state for his wrongful conviction to set up a law school scholarship in the name of Nicole Cásarez, the Houston attorney and journalism professor who fought for eight years to secure his freedom.

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The Culture|
May 13, 2013

The Guilty Man

Twenty-six years after Michael Morton was sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, his wife’s killer was finally brought to justice.

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Norwood Trial|
March 22, 2013

The Missing Gun

On the third day of Mark Alan Norwood's capital murder trial, an old friend testified that Norwood sold him the .45 that disappeared from Michael Morton's home after his wife, Christine, was murdered in 1986.

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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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Criminal Justice|
March 6, 2013

Reasonable Doubt: The Manuel Velez Case

UPDATED: A Brownsville construction worker named Manuel Velez was sent to death row in 2008 after he was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s baby. Five years later, new testimony from a number of forensic experts suggests that the medical evidence against Velez was deeply flawed. Now he may receive the

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