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Web Exclusive|
March 1, 2009

Overexposure?

The Dallas Police Department’s posting of photos in its “indecency” section on its Web site is probably constitutional—the fact that prostitution cases are also listed means that gay men as a class are not being singled out—but is it responsible?

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Web Exclusive|
March 1, 2009

Crime Scene

Read classic Skip Hollandsworth on serial killers, bank robbers, drug dealers, gangs, and more.

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Web Exclusive|
January 1, 2009

Legalize It?

The El Paso City Council may override the mayor’s veto to create a debate on the current U.S. drug policies. In these interviews, the mayor, council members, and others explain their views.

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Web Exclusive|
January 1, 2009

The Science of Murder

Someone killed Melissa Trotter and dumped her body in the Sam Houston National Forest. But according to six forensic experts, that someone was not Larry Swearingen.

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Letter From Austin|
December 1, 2008

The Unusual Suspects

The arson of the Governor’s Mansion in June was as mystifying as it was heartbreaking. Could Austin anarchists have been to blame?

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True Crime|
July 31, 2008

The Killing Field

Before they clubbed two deer to death in their tiny West Texas town, the four high school football stars were treated like royalty. Afterward, when news of their exploits hit the Internet, they were celebrities of a very different sort.

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True Crime|
March 1, 2008

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Did Kari Baker, despondent over her daughter’s passing, commit suicide? Or was she killed by her husband, Matt, a Baptist preacher in Waco and an alleged sexual predator? He says he didn’t do it, but her family insists otherwise—and they say they’ll keep after him until justice is done.

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True Crime|
July 1, 2007

Angel of Death

What was it, exactly, that caused Vickie Dawn Jackson, a sweet, soft-spoken nurse at Nocona General Hospital, to become one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history?

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True Crime|
December 1, 2006

“You Don’t Want to Know What We Do After Dark”

The young, tattooed men who are members of the Southwest Cholos, La Primera, La Tercera Crips, Somos Pocos Pero Locos, Mara Salvatrucha, and other Houston gangs are vicious career criminals who regularly rob innocent people in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. They steal cars and break into businesses.

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True Crime|
August 1, 2006

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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Politics & Policy|
April 30, 2006

Walled Off

As a record number of demonstrators hit the streets this spring, one Texas border town was rolling the dice on a draconian method of dealing with illegal immigrants. And it’s working.

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True Crime|
April 30, 2006

The Last Rustler

If he was asked what he did for a living, Roddy Dean Pippin would smile and say something about the cattle business. But he didn’t exactly buy and sell cows. He stole them. And right up until he was caught, he was as good as any such thief had ever

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Betty Williams as a high school junior.
True Crime|
February 1, 2006

A Kiss Before Dying

Forty-five years after Betty Williams was shot to death by the handsome football player she had been secretly seeing, her murder haunts her Odessa high school—literally.

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Reporter|
August 31, 2005

The War on Thugs

Five years after the Tulia fiasco put the state’s amateurish, irresponsible drug task forces in the national spotlight, more than half of them have been dissolved. That’s a good start.

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Polaroid shot of Bob Dow hugging Bobbi Jo Smith from behind, surrounded by other polaroids of them and Jennifer Jones.
True Crime|
August 31, 2005

Girls Gone Wild

Bobbi Jo and Jennifer were young, in love, and on the road, with the wind at their backs and a happy future ahead of them. All that stood in their way was a dead body back in Mineral Wells.

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Image of a man in scrubs holding a knife in front of a bloody wall.
Feature|
August 31, 2005

Dr. Evil

By almost any measure of performance, including the sheer number of patients who are crippled and maimed, the medical profession has rarely seen anyone like Houston orthopedic surgeon Eric Scheffey. So why did he get to keep his license for so long?

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Feature|
August 31, 2004

Wrecked

The car crash that killed four teenage girls in Tatum last September is an East Texas version of a Greek tragedy, one that has forced the tiny town's residents to address some of life's most agonizing questions: When the worst things happen—when the most heartbreaking events come into your life

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Web Exclusive|
May 31, 2004

Fast Times

Senior editor Pamela Colloff on methamphetamine's grip on East Texas, talking to addicts, and what it's like to follow around narcotics investigators.

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Feature|
May 31, 2004

Life and Meth

Around the Piney Woods, most people will tell you that they know someone who’s addicted to homemade speed. Drug recovery centers are overwhelmed; court dockets are backed up; jails are filled. There’s no end in sight.

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Web Exclusive|
April 1, 2004

Crime Scene

Suzanne O'Malley, the author of Are You There Alone? The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates, talks about mental illness, postpartum psychosis, and Rusty Yates.

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Feature|
March 1, 2004

The Pedophile Next Door

How do you know when a child molester is cured? Are you willing to take his word for it? David Wayne Jones hopes so. Thirteen years ago he was convicted of preying on little boys at the East Dallas YMCA, but he could soon be out of jail and back

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Web Exclusive|
February 1, 2004

True Crime

Journalists around the nation wanted access to Todd Becker, the all-American dad who also ran a safe-stealing ring, but only executive editor Skip Hollandsworth got him to talk.

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True Crime|
February 1, 2004

Family Man

To his suburban Dallas neighbors, Todd Becker was a doting husband and devoted father. They had no clue that he led a secret, lucrative life as a safecracker.

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Feature|
December 1, 2003

Jasper

The town's name will forever be synonymous with one of the worst hate crimes in American history. But the story doesn't end there.

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Feature|
July 31, 2003

Little Shop of Horrors

If you've ever thought of donating your body to science, read what happened at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston—and then ask yourself if a good, old-fashioned burial might not be a better idea.

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Web Exclusive|
May 31, 2003

Being There

Writer-at-large Cecilia Ballí describes what it is like to be in Juárez, where hundreds of women have been murdered in the past ten years.

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Headshot of Clara Harris.
True Crime|
November 1, 2002

Suburban Madness

Why would a devoted wife deliberately run over her beloved husband three times? It’s quite simple, really. He was having an affair with a woman accused by her allegedly pill-popping ex-husband of carrying on a lesbian relationship with her best friend, whose ex-husband has been indicted for an illegal wiretapping

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Web Exclusive|
June 30, 2002

Usual Suspects

Senior editors Pamela Colloff and Michael Hall talk about this month's special crime issue.

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Darlene Routier maintaining her innocence behind shatterproof glass at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville.
True Crime|
June 30, 2002

Maybe Darlie Didn’t Do It

Darlie Routier has been on death row for five years now, always insisting that she didn't kill her sons Devon and Damon. And as her lawyers prepare to head into court yet again, new information about her case raises the possibility that she may have been telling the truth all

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True Crime|
June 30, 2002

A Bend in the River

In 1996 the body of a cheerleader from a small town in Oklahoma was found on the Texas side of the Red River. She had been raped and shot. The brutal crime destroyed several families and the illusions of an isolated slice of the world.

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Energy|
November 1, 2001

How Enron Blew It

The Houston-based energy giant put the pursuit of profits ahead of all other corporate goals, which fostered a climate of workaholism and paranoia. And that was only part of the problem.

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