Illustration by Hokyoung Kim
Austin attorney Jamie Balagia, a.k.a. “the Dude,” thought that he’d finally hit the big time. Then everything fell apart.
In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. After 20 months in a psychiatric facility, he was freed. His classmates still wonder: What really happened?
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
Once, the State of Texas was going to put Kenneth McDuff to death as payment for his crimes. Instead, it set him free to murder again.
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.
Tom Brown went missing in 2016.
To this day, no one knows what happened. The mystery has upended the Panhandle idyll of Canadian.
In 2016 a popular teenager disappeared in the tiny Panhandle community of Canadian. Two years later, his remains were discovered beneath a tree outside of town. But to this day, no arrests have been made, and it seems that nearly everyone involved in the case has fallen under suspicion.
“My gut tells me he hasn't left Hemphill County. I think he's here somewhere, and I don't know if he intends to come out in the next day or two.”
“Makes you want to go to the church, get on your knees, and say a few words, right?”
“I'm sitting there thinking, ‘Oh God, I'm so scared right now.’ I couldn't convince them. And so I just let them hammer me.”
“It’s kind of strange that your investigator calls this search, and, lo and behold, right after he starts the search, a cellphone is found.”
“I’m like, ‘What in the heck is that?’ So, I walk around some shrubs, and as I get closer, I can see that it kind of looks like bone.”
“The people of the town are calling us and saying, ‘Do we have a monster that lives in our community?’ I wish I could give them solace.”
“I’m definitely more paranoid wherever I go. I definitely watch my back more and pay attention to what’s going on around me.”
“I’ll never lose that hope. It could be five years from today. The door is always open at our office for anything that will bring resolution to this case.”
Behind the Scenes
Urban refugees fleeing high-tech Dallas have created ersatz rural communities in the nearby countryside. This isolated, pastoral life sometimes erupts into adultery and murder.
Candy Montgomery thought her affair with Allan Gore was over, until she found herself fighting for her life against Allan’s wife.
HBO Max turned my house into that of Candy Montgomery, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Then things got hyperreal.
Was the quaint East Texas town of Mineola home to a horrific child sex ring? Were the three people sent to prison last year for running it guilty? Was justice served? Depends on which district attorney you ask.
The Max Original, based on Texas Monthly reporting by Michael Hall, is set to debut May 23.
Ortiz was found guilty of capital murder this week. In 2019, Texas Monthly reported on the string of murders targeting sex workers in Laredo.
A new Netflix docuseries revisits the string of murders near League City. Texas Monthly interviewed Abel in 1999.
Austin attorney Jamie Balagia, a.k.a. “the Dude,” thought that he’d finally hit the big time. Then everything fell apart.
A man approached Cecilia Ballí and asked, “Are you looking for work?” It shook her—and helped her grasp the danger in early-aughts Juárez.
The writer looks back on his 1998 reporting on an unforgettable murder plot that inspired the 2011 Richard Linklater film ‘Bernie.’
McCurley was living a quiet life in Fort Worth when new DNA evidence linked him to the notorious crime. Police suspect it wasn’t his first murder—or his last.
Luci Zahray is an expert on poison and is a consultant to mystery writers around the world.
Greg Curtis’s first story about Sam Corey was supposed to be a colorful human interest piece, but in some ways it was actually the beginning of a heinous murder.
Pediatric nurse Genene Jones may have murdered "up to sixty" babies in the 1980s. It took three more decades to ensure she'd stay locked up for life.
What pushed an East Texas mother to kidnap at gunpoint the director of the famed college drill team and her nineteen-year-old daughter?
“I’ll never lose that hope. It could be five years from today. The door is always open at our office for anything that will bring resolution to this case.”
In “the trial of the century,” a Houston socialite was accused of plotting her husband's murder—and of having an affair with her nephew. But Candace Mossler was only getting started.
Since 1980, police and an army of amateur sleuths have puzzled over the East Texas cold case. New forensic DNA techniques have finally given a name to the teenage girl whose brutal murder has haunted so many for so long.
A shoot-out at a Big Bend ranch captured the nation’s attention: first as an alleged ambush by undocumented migrants, then as a fear-mongering hoax. The real story is much more mysterious.
The sheriff blames his death on a big cat—but animal experts aren’t buying that theory.
The young woman who mysteriously drowned in the Ropers Motel pool in 1966 might have remained anonymous forever, if not for cutting-edge genetics, old-fashioned genealogy—and the kindness of a small West Texas town.
“I’m definitely more paranoid wherever I go. I definitely watch my back more and pay attention to what’s going on around me.”
“The people of the town are calling us and saying, ‘Do we have a monster that lives in our community?’ I wish I could give them solace.”
“I’m like, ‘What in the heck is that?’ So, I walk around some shrubs, and as I get closer, I can see that it kind of looks like bone.”
“It’s kind of strange that your investigator calls this search, and, lo and behold, right after he starts the search, a cellphone is found.”
“I'm sitting there thinking, ‘Oh God, I'm so scared right now.’ I couldn't convince them. And so I just let them hammer me.”
“Makes you want to go to the church, get on your knees, and say a few words, right?”
“My gut tells me he hasn't left Hemphill County. I think he's here somewhere, and I don't know if he intends to come out in the next day or two.”
In 2016 a popular teenager disappeared in the tiny Panhandle community of Canadian, Texas. Two years later, his remains were discovered beneath a tree outside of town. But to this day, no arrests have been made, and nearly everyone involved in the case has fallen under suspicion. Beginning September 29,
In 2016 a popular teenager disappeared in the tiny Panhandle community of Canadian. Two years later, his remains were discovered beneath a tree outside of town. But to this day, no arrests have been made, and it seems that nearly everyone involved in the case has fallen under suspicion.
Over a decade, Theodore Robert Wright III destroyed cars, yachts, and planes. That was only the half of it.
Two years after the shooting left ten dead and thirteen injured, survivors like Isabelle Laymance and their families are still dealing with the aftermath.
In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. After 20 months in a psychiatric facility, he was freed. His classmates still wonder: What really happened?
Brenda thought she and Ricky would be together forever, until he left her. Kendra thought she and Ricky would be together forever. Then Brenda took matters into her own hands. Inside the case of jealousy, spying, and murder that shook Uptown Dallas.
Last September, law enforcement officers were confounded by a murderer targeting prostitutes along the border. As the investigation intensified, they discovered that the killer had been hiding in plain sight.
After Josefina De León’s daughter went missing in the Mexican State of Tamaulipas in 2012, she was determined to find her. Seven years later, she hasn’t given up.
He called himself the Tiger King and plastered his face on highway billboards in Texas and Oklahoma. He bred big cats, bears, baboons, and more. He lived, with a parade of partners, on the grounds of his private zoo. He threatened a rival with murder—repeatedly, on YouTube—and tried to hire
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.
A young city councilman’s Grindr photos were leaked, and he now faces a recall election. Was there a conspiracy to oust him, and did it come from inside City Hall?
One year ago, after Stephen Willeford disrupted the mass murder at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, he was hailed as the ultimate good guy with a gun, but he's still reckoning with what happened that day—and what his life has become.
The podcast looks to an old case—and suggests a new model for archival true crime podcasts.
How prosecutors tied a brazen murder in an upscale Dallas suburb to one of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations.
Life on the ranch was hard enough already, and full of uncertainty. Then a string of dead calves turned up, and everything pointed to murder. But why? And how? A Longview mystery.
In our premier Texas Monthly Trove film, Skip Hollandsworth takes a look back at one of the strangest stories in his writing career, involving a beloved funeral director, a wealthy widow, and a tragedy in the small Texas town of Carthage.
Jeff Henry often said that his goal in life was to make customers of his family’s legendary water parks happy—“to put a smile on their faces, to give them a thrill or two.” It was a beautiful vision. Until it went horribly wrong.
When Given Kachepa first arrived from Zambia as a young boy, he expected to sing in a choir and gain an education. Instead he was forced into servitude.
Earlier this spring, Jeff Pike, the head of the infamous Texas-based Bandidos motorcycle club, went on trial in federal court for racketeering. Prosecutors called him a ruthless killer, the man behind one of the deadliest biker shootouts in American history at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Pike, however, said
Beginning in 2015, Houston was plagued by a series of brutal armored car robberies that bewildered FBI agents for nearly two years. To finally bring down the unassuming mastermind behind it all, the agents had to stage an elaborate trap—and catch him in the act.
A quarter century after 82 Branch Davidians and 4 federal officers died outside Waco, retired FBI agent Byron Sage still can't stop thinking—and arguing—about what happened.
The Midnight Assassin, who terrorized Austin 138 years ago, also targeted minorities first.
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.
Priscilla Villarreal doesn’t work for the local news in Laredo—but for her 80,000 Facebook followers, that doesn’t matter.
When Alberto Mendiola returned to El Paso from the war in Afghanistan, he was suffering from severe, untreated PTSD. But is that a viable defense for murder?
Edwin Debrow committed murder at age 12. Now 37, he remains behind bars. When should a child criminal be given a second chance?
