Hannah Overton Hearing: Day Two
The leading salt poisoning expert testified on the second day of Overton's hearing.
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.
The leading salt poisoning expert testified on the second day of Overton's hearing.
Executive Editor Pamela Colloff reports from Nueces County, where testimony in the Hannah Overton hearing focused on scientific evidence supporting the Corpus Christi homemaker's claims of innocence.
Anthony Graves, who spent eighteen years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, speaks out as the Washington County sheriff’s race heats up.
Although Michael Morton was formally exonerated last year of his wife’s murder and released from prison after nearly 25 years behind bars, he has made few public comments until now. On Sunday night, in a 60 Minutes exclusive, he spoke to CBS correspondent Lara Logan about his ordeal.Morton recounted how
The legendary Houston criminal defense attorney will examine former DA Ken Anderson, who prosecuted Michael Morton. With this appointment, things just got a whole lot more interesting. Here's why.
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.
Only a man who came within three days of being executed for a crime he didn’t commit could be as passionate an advocate for a death-penalty moratorium as former death row inmate Randall Dale Adams.
Why did Jason Bourque and Daniel McAllister, two Baptist boys from East Texas, set fire to ten churches across three counties last year?
On November 18, 1999, at 2:42 a.m., the most passionately observed collegiate tradition in Texas—if not the world—came crashing down. Nearly sixty people were on top of the Texas A&M Bonfire when the million-pound structure collapsed, killing twelve, wounding dozens more, and eventually leading to the suspension of the ninety-year-old
Fifty years ago LBJ won—some say stole—a U.S. Senate runoff. What happened to the South Texas ballot box that saved his career?
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?
"It's still easy to walk around New York unrecognized. I'm kind of nerdy and not fashionable, so people don't give me a second look."
Getting personal.
What do you do if your university's administrators extinguish your Bonfire? If you're Aggies, you take the show on the road.
From a boutique hotel in hip South Austin to a bed-and-breakfast across the Mexican border, from fly fishing on the Llano River to bathing in the Chinati Hot Springs, 33 getaways the guidebooks don’t tell you about, courtesy of our intrepid staff of weekend warriors.
Yes, even famous people have favorite burgers. And since the hamburger was invented right here in Texas, we decided to ask a few famous Texans to tell us their stories about their favorite burger experiences. Rebecca RobinsonMiss Texas 2008, Miss Congeniality in Miss America 2009Lives in Dallas Rebecca
The most shocking thing about the murder of the Caffey family in East Texas last year was not how gruesome or inexplicable the crime was. It was that it was masterminded by sixteen-year-old Erin Caffey, a pretty girl who worked at the Sonic, sang in her church, and loved her
While politicians and bureaucrats endlessly debate the best ways to secure our borders, undocumented immigrants are dying to get into America—literally.
Two Border Patrol agents are sent to prison while the dope smuggler they pursued and wounded is granted immunity by federal prosecutors and goes free. A miscarriage of justice? Not so fast.
What is ex–football star Bill Glass’s plan for reforming hardened prison inmates? God is in the details.
An East Texas prison ministry is trying to heal crime victims and rehabilitate criminals by getting them to talk.
The short, slight, mentally disabled black man was found on the side of a road in Linden, huddled in a fetal position. He was bloody and unconscious—the victim of a violent crime. But another tragedy was how residents of the East Texas town reacted.
Most of the 42,000 soldiers stationed at Fort Hood, one of the largest military installations in the world, are in Iraq or preparing to go. Meanwhile, the loved ones who are left behind wait—and hope they don't hear an unexpected knock at the door.
There are countless theories about why Dallas women are so crazy about makeup, but there's something approaching a consensus about the place to buy it. Which is why, against all odds, I found myself at the NorthPark Center Neiman's.
Every February, on the weekend of Presidents’ Day, the daughters of Laredo’s most prominent families are presented to society in dresses that cost $20,000 or more at a colonial pageant that is the party of the year.
For the longest time, quinceañeras were simple, down-home celebrations held in parish halls and backyards. Then along came the stretch Humvees, the carriages and thrones, the choreographed dance routines, the smoke machines, the climbing walls, and the dinners for four hundred bedazzled guests. One thing remains the same, though: It’s
Elegant antebellum furniture in Jefferson, Latin American folk art in Smithville: Where the buys are in two dozen communities.
By Anne Dingus and Pamela Colloff
ANN DICKENSON, 61 TEACHER’S AIDE Eats at: Donald Citrano’s Coffee Shop Cafe, McGregor“We go to the Coffee Shop Cafe every Friday and Saturday night. They always reserve a table for us, so we call if we’re not coming. It’s always the same table—the round one in
Michael Morton spent 25 years wrongfully imprisoned for the brutal murder of his wife. How did it happen? And who is to blame?
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.
The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a lower court to examine claims of innocence by the Corpus Christi mother of five, who was charged with capital murder nearly six years ago.
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
The faces—and voices—of eighteen Texans who are living the debate over illegal immigration.
The Biscuit Brothers on teaching kids about music.
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.
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
The strange case of Mauricio Celis, the Corpus Christi lawyer who was not a lawyer.
On March 31, 1995, South Texas came to a standstill as the shocking news spread that the hugely popular Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez had been shot and killed in Corpus Christi. Fifteen years later, the people who knew Selena best recall the life and devastating death of a star
Era una chica del barrio cuya voz la hizo acreedora de un Grammy, vendió millones de álbumes y la convirtió en una sensación como ninguna otra. Y cuando fue asesinada, el 31 de marzo de 1995, la estrella de la música tejana Selena Quintanilla Pérez pareció llevarse consigo las aspiraciones
63 things that all Texans must do before they die.
Texas parents have the choice to opt their children out of school vaccination requirements based on “reasons of conscience.” But what about the other kids around them?
The CNN contributor and syndicated columnist talks about the future of media.
Texas school districts will no longer be required to offer health classes—and that’s just sick.
Was the Army as much to blame for the Mahmudiyah killings as its perpetrators?
Location: San AntonioWhat You’ll Need: Significant OtherMy husband and I have an annual tradition of going to San Antonio for the weekend—away from errands, our toddler, and everything else that keeps us too busy when we’re at home. It’s easy and inexpensive enough that even a short
The Grande Dame of Dish is far from retired.
How a high-profile member of Austin′s radical progressive community became an FBI informant.
Bonnie Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, dies at 64.
The facts of this case are quite simple. Two Border Patrol agents shot at an unarmed man as he was running away from them. And then, they covered it up.
With the Big Three teetering on the brink, it’s worth noting that the Toyota plant in San Antonio is still motoring. Oh, what a feeling!