The Wild Bunch
Two years after a deadly Waco shoot-out, the local district attorney is trying to take down the Bandidos and Cossacks biker clubs. It won’t be easy.
Skip Hollandsworth is a staff writer at Texas Monthly specializing in longform narratives. He grew up in Wichita Falls, attended TCU in Fort Worth, and after graduation worked as a reporter and columnist for newspapers in Dallas. He also worked as a television producer and documentary filmmaker.
In 1989, Hollandsworth joined Texas Monthly, where he has received several journalism awards, including a National Headliner Award, the national John Hancock Award for excellence in business and financial journalism, the City and Regional Magazine Association gold award for feature writing, and the Texas Institute of Letters O. Henry Award for magazine writing. He has been a finalist four times for a National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and in 2010 he won the National Magazine Award in feature writing for “Still Life,” his story about a young man who, after suffering a crippling football injury in high school, spent the next 33 years in his bedroom, unable to move. The comic crime movie Bernie, which Hollandsworth cowrote with director Richard Linklater, was released in May 2012. It’s based on Hollandsworth’s 1998 story “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas.” His book, The Midnight Assassin, a true-crime historical thriller, was published in April 2016 and became a New York Times best-seller.
Two years after a deadly Waco shoot-out, the local district attorney is trying to take down the Bandidos and Cossacks biker clubs. It won’t be easy.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
He’s a billionaire. He says whatever is on his mind. He thinks he can run the country. No, it’s not Trump we’re talking about. Could Mark Cuban be our next president?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Edwin Debrow committed murder at age 12. Now 37, he remains behind bars. When should a child criminal be given a second chance?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
On the heels of tragedy, community policing in Dallas remains as valuable as ever.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Texas may have inspired Larry McMurtry to become a writer, but there is no writer who has inspired an understanding of Texas quite like Larry McMurtry. At age eighty, our most iconic author still has work to do.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Two decades after killing Marjorie Nugent, Bernie Tiede was sentenced this spring for her murder—again. So what do we make of him now?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
An exclusive excerpt from The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer reveals a forgotten time in Austin history, when a series of brutal, unsolved slayings terrified officials and left them wondering if a madman was on the loose.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The descendants of Richard and Henrietta King do hereby invite you into the King Ranch with these exclusive photographs of the one-hundred-year-old Main House.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The district attorney of Dallas County is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. What happened?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Behind the lens with photographer Laura Wilson.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
He’s the best defensive player in the NFL but writes his own Christmas cards. He has thousands of fans who’d love to party, but he goes to bed at seven-thirty. He could be the league’s next MVP but enjoys buying his own groceries. Is Houston’s J. J. Watt for real?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Ah, NorthPark, how Dallas loves thee.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
After the deadly shoot-out in Waco, what do the Bandidos want? To be left alone.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
When I was a teenager growing up in Wichita Falls, which is regularly hailed as one of the hottest cities in the state (and sometimes the country), I spent my summers smelling like roadkill. The moment I stepped outside my house, sweat began sliding like syrup down my back.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Last summer, Theresa Roemer’s three-story closet made her the country’s most famous social climber. But she was only getting started.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Skip Hollandsworth drills into the surprising (and not so surprising) fortunes of Denton’s anti-fracking ballot measure.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Olivia Lord told Dallas police officers that her boyfriend put a gun to his head after a drunken argument. Detective Dwayne Thompson couldn’t see how the evidence—or motive—made any sense. How did Michael Burnside die on May 9, 2010?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
University of Texas regent Wallace Hall has been accused of leading a witch hunt against UT-Austin president William Powers. But the Dallas investor insists he's doing his job. And he doesn't care what you think.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The 76-year-old Amarilloan gained international fame for funding the Cadillac Ranch art installation, which turns forty this weekend. But his legacy was tainted by sordid allegations of sexual abuse.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Scott Catt was a single dad who held up banks to make ends meet. As his greed intensified, he knew just whom to enlist as accomplices: his kids.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
And he'll live in Richard Linklater's garage apartment.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
How did Robert Jeffress turn Dallas’s once-declining First Baptist Church into a vibrant megachurch? Certainly not by pussyfooting around.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Robin Doan was ten years old when a stranger killed her entire family. Nearly ten years later, she refuses to let the past haunt her.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Bernie Tiede, the Carthage man whose story of shooting the town's richest widow inspired a movie, may be walking free next week.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Six years ago, the State of Georgia sent U.S. marshals to Murphey’s home in Frankston, Texas, to take her back to the prison she’d escaped from 33 years earlier. That didn’t work. But now the state has another plan.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The juiciest celebrity trial of the year concluded in December but not, alas, with a satisfactory answer to the most important question of all: Who was Farrah Fawcett’s true love?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
For decades, Stanley Marsh 3 was one of the most celebrated eccentrics in Texas. Then one Houston attorney set out to prove that he had a dark and terrible secret.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Half a century ago, the women’s basketball team at Wayland Baptist College set an extraordinary record that may never be broken: the longest winning streak in sports history.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
How the sex scandal consuming Amarillo art patron Stanley Marsh 3 also might bring down America's most famous roadside attraction.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
In a city that loves its parties, there’s perhaps none so aesthetically significant as Two x Two for AIDS and Art, Dallas’s most cutting-edge fundraiser—and one hell of a good time.
Michelle Gaiser, the mistress who is charged with collaborating with Stern on a murder-for-hire plot to kill his wife, has now been accused of taking a hit out on Stern.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
. . . from teaching my fifteen-year-old daughter about her Texas roots. So when I realized I was failing to accomplish this most sacred of duties, I did what any well-meaning parent would do: loaded her (and her friends, of course) into the car and hit the road.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
To Addison they come, tweens and teens with talent in abundance, so Linda Septien can teach them how to be the next big thing. Jessica Simpson is her most famous success story, but there are many others. And more in the making.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The latest Alamo chronicler offers a glimpse of his reference library.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
In sleepy Carthage a rich, haughty widow disappears, and nobody seems to notice. When she turns up dead, everybody seems to feel sympathy for the nice young man who killed her.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Nearly fifteen years after Richard Linklater and I started talking about turning a Texas Monthly story into a major motion picture, it’s finally hitting the big screen, with a little help from Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine—and a seventy-year-old retired hairdresser from Rusk named Kay Baby Epperson.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Yvonne Stern knows that her husband, the wealthy Houston attorney Jeffrey Stern, had a steamy affair with a woman named Michelle Gaiser. And she knows full well that two years ago Gaiser hired a series of men to kill her. But she refuses to believe that Jeffrey was in on
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Police had all but given up looking into a pair of assaults against two prostitutes in the Houston neighborhood of Acres Homes. But when a third turned up dead, investigator Darcus Shorten embarked on a search that revealed a brutal reality.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Miranda Lambert has a lot to be happy about—she’s recently married, with a brand-new album and a string of hits that has made her the toast of Nashville. So why is she so twangry?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Who cares if TCU went to the Rose Bowl last season and shocked the world? If the extremely intense coach of the Horned Frogs is going to keep his thrilling roll going, he’s got to keep! these! kids! focused!
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Have you heard the one about the Mormon polygamists who descended on a tiny West Texas town? It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. (Okay, it's pretty funny too.)
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Why I have no sympathy for the Eldorado polygamists.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Dorothy Hilligiest's son David disappeared one day in 1971. She spent her days and nights searching for him, following leads, and eagerly awaiting his return. And then she found out about Dean Corll, one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Researchers have discovered a mistaken identity and another possible victim.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
It was the most shocking crime of its day, 27 boys from the same part of town kidnapped, tortured, and killed by an affable neighbor named Dean Corll. Forty years later, it remains one of the least understood—or talked about—chapters in Houston's history.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Two luxury retailers: Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. One desirable market: Houston. The fight for the hearts and credit cards of couture clotheshorses like Lynn Wyatt and Carolyn Farb officially begins next month, but already the fur is flying.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
Thanks to his wildly popular bluebonnet paintings, Dallas artist W.A. Slaughter is living on easel street.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The richest man ever tried for murder has found the Lord, along with a new career peddling hand cream. Are you buying the latest incarnation of Cullen Davis?
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
The L.A. life of a girl from Burleson (or, You can take Kelly Clarkson out of Texas . . .).
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
How an East Texas attorney spawned the most massive products-liability case ever—one that has cost millions of dollars and involved thousands of plaintiffs and might never end.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.