Only in Texas could crime stories contain such characters as a murderous cheer mom, a fraudulent fruitcake accountant, and a polo shirt–wearing bandit. Over the years, we’ve shone a light on these true tales to look deeper than the headlines and tell the stories of the victims.
Terri Lee Hoffman was a New Age Aunt Bee whose gospel attracted many followers. But some of those believers ended up on a dark, twisted path that led to violent death—and the enrichment of their guru.
The guy whose name is synonymous with swindling is finally a free man—but it may not last.
She was a hooker. He was a race car driver. They fell in love. She moved in. He put on his three-piece suit and went to work. She was always on call. They fought. She moved out. Then she found out that his real job was bank jobs.
Two nice guys with financial troubles thought they found the perfect solution to the bust. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The disappearance of a University of Texas student in Matamoros led police to the discovery of a drug-dealing cult whose rituals were not only unholy but unthinkable.
They were elderly people, flattered by the attention of a nice young man. But sometimes it’s a mistake to depend on the kindness of strangers.
An employee’s vandalism by computer might have gone unpunished but for a rookie prosecutor out to test a new law.
As Texans’ pride of place rose with the price of oil, collectors scrambled for the few documents of the Texas Revolution. Suddenly there seemed to be plenty to go around. But no one thought to ask why.
In the town George Parr once dominated, a nineteen-year-old mother was gang-raped by her neighbors. In the aftermath of the crime, the old horrors of San Diego have surfaced anew.
He had a wife and a girlfriend. His ambition was unchecked. He tried to commit suicide. But when I came face to face with the minister of my boyhood church, the sin we talked about was murder.
The parents of a confessed killer went to jail rather than testify against their son. Now the murder conviction has been reversed, and the family of the deceased must endure renewed anguish.
There are three secrets to Miguel Felix Gallardo’s multimillion-dollar empire of drugs and power. Corruption, corruption, and corruption.
When Randall Adams was sentenced to death ten years ago, the Dallas community thought a cop killing had been put to rest. But it hasn’t.
Had she joined some cause? Was it suicide? Or had she wanted to disappear? After months of searching, I found the answer.
Nobody could stop San Antonio’s killer cop—except another cop.
In a ninety-minute reign of terror, gunshots rang out that still echo in the history of Texas.
When Jimmy Lee, an unrepentant troublemaker, felt he had taken one insult too many from the powerful Fredeman family, he called in the law. The results of that action have exposed decades of larceny and corruption in Port Arthur and threaten a Gulf Coast empire.
In a small East Texas town a black principal and a white coach loved the same woman. First came the gossip. Next came the strange letters. And then there was a murder.
Starting with his alma mater and using little more than charm, Robert Hicks conned the college fundraising industry out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. His name is mud at A&M.
When five-year-old Christi Meeks disappeared and the police couldn’t find her, her father turned to Bill Dear, one of the most controversial private detectives in Texas.
He had it all: a wife and a mistress, a limousine and a motorcycle, the second-highest job at the Pentagon and some good-time Dallas buddies. Then the SEC took an interest in his life.
Everything is bigger in Texas, including the scams.
From his early days in Big Spring, Eugene Anderson wasn’t what he seemed; neither was the mysterious element he later claimed turned water into fuel.
The three-to-eleven evening shift, Bexar County Hospital, San Antonio: nurse Genene Jones was on duty in the pediatric intensive care unit, and for months babies kept having mysterious—sometimes fatal—emergencies. Why?
A high school teacher shot up the First Baptist Church in the East Texas steel town of Daingerfield, and the agony lasted longer than anyone could have imagined.
The end of the Chagra family’s drug empire, a few words on murderer-for-hire Charles Harrelson, and the most incriminating tapes since Watergate.
Multiple-choice question: UT’s Tom Philpott is (a) the best professor on campus, a selfless reformer, and the victim of an assassination attempt; (b) the worst professor on campus, a publicity hound, and a nut who staged his own shooting.
The life—promising beginning, overripe middle, bloody end—of Lee Chagra, the biggest drug lawyer in El Paso.
A tale of passion in the double-knit aristocracy.
The Denton millionaire hated drugs and liked cops. He also liked Muscles Foster, a footloose cowboy who was one of Texas’ biggest drug runners.
Someone was gunning down members of the state’s toughest motorcycle gang one at a time. Doe hoped her man wouldn’t be next.
It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. But was it justice?
Bob Doherty was a Texas ranger who believed in the myth of the Old West; Greg Ott was a college dope dealer, a child of the sixties. When they met, it destroyed both their lives.
Amarillo millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 couldn’t believe his own good fortune—the Cullen Davis murder trial was coming to town.
Profile of a society murder and the woman who lived to tell about it.
Two self-styled Texas soldiers of fortune engineered one of the more bizarre jailbreaks in history. Here’s how it happened.
The girl wanted love, the men wanted money, and when they all got together it was murder.
Whodunit?
A real-life detective caper, complete with surprise ending.
For A.O. Pipkin, happiness is a head-on collision he wasn’t in.
He left a police department, a mayor, and fifty bodies in his wake.
Crime is a craft and has its secrets.
Tired of running, he let himself be caught; then he busted right out again.
At least 90 are already dead as drug lords fight for routes into Texas.
Don't look now Dow-Jones, but white collar crime is becoming a major growth industry.
