News from the Lone Star State

[TexasStooge]

Family guys

By Troy Phillips, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - The time came when Little Tommy wasn't so little anymore. He had outgrown his dad, Big Tommy, by a good half-foot, but that was about the extent of their role reversal.

Big Tommy still looked out for Little Tommy. Always did, always would. When the pittance of a grocery-store paycheck wouldn't do, Big Tommy taught his son to install linoleum flooring and do carpentry. Contract work beats bagging milk and eggs.

When you end up 6-foot-10, like Little Tommy Swanson did, the growing pains can be horrendous. Sometimes, Big Tommy had to help him put his pants and shoes on, lift him out of bed or carry him to the car after a game.

[TexasStooge]

Man, 24, gets 52 years in crime spree

By Deanna Boyd, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - Less than two hours.

Prosecutors say that in that short time on the morning of Jan. 30, 2004, Veronn "Chris" Favors went on a crime spree that targeted six women and included kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.

On Tuesday, a jury found the 24-year-old Fort Worth man guilty of two of the criminal offenses -- sexual assault and burglary of a habitation with intent to commit assault.

Jurors deliberated 30 minutes before finding that Favors sexually assaulted a 51-year-old woman after forcing his way into her mother's car and later broke into the home of another woman and attempted to strangle her.

[TexasStooge]

Juror's illness delays verdict

By Melody Mcdonald, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - A juror deciding the fate of a 19-year-old man accused of killing a couple inside their Candleridge home was taken to the hospital Thursday after becoming ill.

State District Judge Scott Wisch said deliberations in Lance Kirk's capital murder trial could resume at 9 a.m. today if the woman is able to serve.

The only alternate juror was dismissed when the case went to the jury.

Kirk is accused of robbing and fatally shooting Joan and Robert Griswold on May 24, 2003, inside their home in the 7100 block of Francisco Drive.

Kirk is on trial in Joan Griswold's death, but he also faces a capital murder charge in her husband's death.

[TexasStooge]

Cities planning to form water district

By Gale M. Bradford, Special to the Star-Telegram

ANNETTA, Texas - Officials with the city of Annetta in eastern Parker County voted unanimously to join Annetta South and Annetta North in creating a utility board to consider purchasing an existing water system.

The planned district would develop and operate water and wastewater utilities and serve three communities. Annetta has a population of 1,400, Annetta South has 300 and Annetta North 600. Annetta South adopted the resolution last week. Annetta North is expected to approve it Thursday, Annetta Mayor Olan Usher said.

Rumors that Willow Park was about to buy the Deer Creek Waterworks system brought the three cities together. Residents and officials expressed concerns that the sale could adversely affect their properties, water rights and water service.

Doyle Hanley owns Deer Creek Waterworks, which is state-permitted through a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity. The sale of Hanley's certificate would increase its service area from the current 600 acres to between 6,000 and 7,000 acres, Usher said.

Hanley is asking about $4.5 million for the system and might already have a contract with Willow Park, Usher said.

Willow Park City Manager Claud Arnold said he believes that the city has a contract but does not know whether the sale has been finalized.

Annetta, Annetta South and Annetta North are south of Interstate 20 in eastern Parker County. Willow Park straddles I-20, but most of its 3,200 residents live north of I-20.

Usher said Hudson Oaks, a city of about 2,500, and Aledo, with about 2,000 residents, have verbally committed to join the Annettas in creating the utility district.

[TexasStooge]

Trooper Shot During Traffic Stop

Suspect Has Been Arrested

DALLAS, Texas (KXAS NBC 5) -- A Texas state trooper was recovering Sunday morning after being shot.

The shooting happened late Saturday night during a routine traffic stop just east of Dallas in Terrell, NBC 5 News reported.

The trooper was taken by helicopter to Baylor Medical Center.

He was in good condition Sunday morning, NBC 5 News reported.

Details of the shooting were not immediately available.

The alleged shooter was arrested.

[TexasStooge]

Pelican Bay considers annexing 50 acres

By Don Chance, Special to the Star-Telegram

PELICAN BAY, Texas -- The Pelican Bay City Council has authorized Mayor Marlyn Hawkins to enter into negotiations to annex 50 acres owned by developer Justin McWilliams.

Hawkins said that the 44 houses planned at the Power Squadron Road site, expected to sell for $300,000 to $500,000 each, would add $20 million to the town's tax base.

Hawkins said utilities were the driving force behind the agreement.

"Being where it is, they can't put their own sewer out there," Hawkins said. "We're right here next to them. Not only would annexation provide sewer, but it would provide water, police protection, fire protection, trash pickup -- the whole ball of wax."

The City Council unanimously approved the annexation Feb. 8.

"They gave us a plat showing what the lots were going to look like, and we thought it looked good," Hawkins said.

McWilliams said he is happy with the deal. His plans for the upscale gated development include dredging a small private lake connected to Eagle Mountain Lake so that all the lots will be waterfront properties.

"Waterfront lots like that are very hard to find right now," McWilliams said. "This one is going to be ... a pretty good-size project, because of the dollar values we're dealing with. And there's not any development anywhere on Eagle Mountain Lake where you can get 45 lots right now."

McWilliams said he thinks his development is going to help Pelican Bay.

"It probably wouldn't have worked 10 years ago," he said. "It's working now because there's nothing left to develop on the lake. They're not building any more lakes right now, where you can have private docks and those kinds of things."

[TexasStooge]

Inconsistent residency statute irks baliffs

By Jennifer Autrey, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas - Every now and then, legislators change a law in hopes of straightening out one mess, only to create a new one.

That appears to have happened with the state law that applies to bailiffs.

For many years, that law required the bailiff for the 297th state District Court to live in Tarrant County. The rule didn't apply to any other court, however, so local judges asked legislators to fix the disparity.

In 1997, Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington, and Rep. Glenn Lewis, D-Fort Worth, stepped in. They pushed through a change that made the residency requirement apply to all Tarrant County criminal court and grand jury bailiffs.

Now the judges want the law fixed -- again.

"They've asked us to go back in and change it," said Scott Barnett, a legislative aide to Harris.

A new disparity had been created. The 1997 change meant that court bailiffs were required to live in Tarrant County, while Sheriff's Department bailiffs, who perform similar jobs, were free to live wherever they wanted.

"That's a dopey statute," state District Judge Sharen Wilson said.

State District Judge James Wilson said his bailiff bought a house in Tarrant County even though he found better deals outside the county.

"He just wouldn't do it, because he didn't want it to reflect on me," James Wilson said.

Sharen Wilson said her bailiff has not lived in Tarrant County for the past 12 years. She believes he was grandfathered in when the law changed in 1997 -- although the law does not say whether the change applied to bailiffs already on the job.

The residency requirement came up again recently when the criminal court judges hired a Tarrant County sheriff's deputy to be a grand jury bailiff, Sharen Wilson said.

The man lives outside Tarrant County -- fine when he was working for the sheriff. Not fine now.

What will happen to him if the requirement isn't removed?

"Oh, I don't know," Sharen Wilson said. "We probably won't do anything to him."

[TexasStooge]

Pianist makes herself at home

By Matt Frazier, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - Jade Simmons once stood on the runway as first runner-up to Miss America, and she has been a spokeswoman for the Labor Department's Youth Opportunity Movement.

But taking the stage Saturday at Texas Christian University to kick off local screening recitals for the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition felt a little like coming home.

"I remember seeing the Van Cliburn on television when I was young and I didn't know what it was but I knew that I wanted to do that," Simmons said after her performance. "I expected to have a lot of nerves. But when I sat down, I felt like this is where I was supposed to be."

After hearing more than 100 pianists in Europe and New York, the Van Cliburn screening jury is listening to the final 27 auditions at TCU's Ed Landreth Auditorium.

The auditions, being held through Tuesday, are free.

On March 1, the Van Cliburn Foundation will announce the 30 pianists chosen for this year's competition. After more than two weeks of performances, starting May 20 at Bass Performance Hall, the winners will be announced June 5.

[TexasStooge]

After years of complaints, worn road getting attention

By Heather Landy, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - For more than a decade, people who work on Cold Springs Road in Fort Worth have griped about the street's minefield of potholes, dips, bumps and cracks, and its pools of standing water.

A new round of efforts to bring the problem to the attention of city officials began two months ago, after drivers said the asphalt wore down enough to expose part of a gas line under the street.

Among those who complained was John Beaman, who works at Tarrant County's jail on Cold Springs Road. He called the city manager's office, the mayor's office, and the Transportation and Public Works Department.

"I got the usual bureaucratic [response]," Beaman said. "All I want is an answer as to whether they are going to fix it or not, and, if they are going to fix it, when?"

An answer has finally arrived. On Feb. 10, after exasperated drivers told city officials that they had alerted local news media to their plight, the exposed gas line was covered with asphalt.

And last week, the public works department said the road will be repaved in August or September.

The project has been on the drawing board for some time, public works Director Robert Goode said. But it was delayed while the city Water Department evaluated water and sewer lines that run beneath the street. Goode said the Water Department gave the green light last week after determining that the pipes would not need major maintenance for at least 10 years.

"We had understood the frustration of the citizens," Goode said. "The good news is, it's going to get done, and the bad news is that it's still going to be a ways away."

Meanwhile, the city will patch the road where it can. "But the pothole repairs just don't hold for very long," Goode said.

Cold Springs takes a daily pounding from commercial vehicles. Dump trucks haul materials from the APAC-Texas asphalt plant on Cold Springs. Delivery trucks ride to and from the UPS depot at Cold Springs and Northside Drive, and city and county vehicles make frequent trips to the jail.

Also, hundreds of people park along the road each day when reporting to the county facility to serve out community service sentences. Many who have been protesting the street's condition joke that the threat of car damage is an unintended part of the punishment for those assigned to work detail.

Because of the road's poor condition, Alvin Brinkman, a sergeant at the jail, said he stopped driving his new car to work and bought a 1987 Toyota. "It's a secondhand, cheap car just for driving out here," he said.

Brinkman said he has seen UPS van doors fly open and packages fall out. Last year, he said, he watched a tailgate pop off a city dump truck that was rumbling down the road.

Drivers on the two-lane road often ride on the less treacherous east side of the street, regardless of which direction they are traveling. Todd Spitz, a UPS driver who often takes Cold Springs to get home from work to skirt the rush-hour bottleneck at Northside Drive and Interstate 35W, said he worries that the situation could lead to an accident. Spitz said that many of his UPS colleagues have called the city over the years to complain about the road.

Why wasn't something done sooner? Goode said the road's poor condition was obvious. "But we have a lot of roads like that in the city, and we have limited funding," he said.

The city will dip into its operating budget and work with the county to repave Cold Springs. "Our standard deal with the city is that if they will buy the materials, we will provide the labor," said Roy Brooks, Tarrant County commissioner for Precinct 1. "And this road is of mutual interest because we have a major facility along the road."

Ray Ayers, a corrections officer at the jail, said he was thrilled that city officials have acknowledged the need for repairs. "We've gotten the runaround so badly, and we are taxpayers," he said. "If they do it, it will be great. Now we'll have to follow up and see if they do anything."

[TexasStooge]

Trustees to name final candidate for top job

By Amie Streater, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fort Worth school district trustees will announce the finalist for the superintendent's job Wednesday.

Two candidates being considered are Corpus Christi Superintendent Jesus H. Chavez and Melody Johnson, superintendent of schools in Providence, R.I.

A special meeting to name the finalist has been called for 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Because school board members agreed to conduct the six-month search for a superintendent in secrecy, trustees have declined to discuss the candidates publicly. School district officials indicated that Johnson is the front-runner but that Chavez has some support on the board.

After a finalist is named, the school district must wait 21 days before taking a final vote.

Johnson, 55, is a 2002 graduate of The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems' Urban Superintendents Academy, an executive development fellowship program that trains education, military and business professionals for leadership roles in urban education, according to the center's Web site.

Before moving to Providence, she was an associate superintendent in San Antonio and senior director for middle school education at the Texas Education Agency.

"I am honored to be one of two people being considered," Johnson said. "I love Fort Worth, and I would consider it a privilege to be superintendent."

Chavez, 48, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Before becoming superintendent in Corpus Christi, Chavez worked as superintendent in Harlingen and as a teacher, principal and administrator in Round Rock, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Trustee Jean McClung said she is confident the board will select the best candidate.

"This board wants what is best for Fort Worth ISD," McClung said. "When the vote comes down, I have faith that is how it is going to be. We are going to do the right thing for Fort Worth ISD and for the kids. I would like for the board to be unanimously for the best person for this job."

The new superintendent will replace Joe Ross, who has been working in the job since last summer, when then-Superintendent Thomas Tocco was reassigned until his contract expired in December.

Board members voted to reassign Tocco after a former Fort Worth construction administrator and contractor were sentenced to prison for participating in a billing scheme that cost the district $16 million.

IN THE KNOW

Fort Worth school district

• Size: 80,000 students

• Operating budget: $500 million

• Student makeup: 52 percent Hispanic, 18 percent Anglo and 28 percent black

• Students qualifying for free and reduced meals: 71 percent

Corpus Christi school district

• Size: 39,200 students

• Operating budget: $232 million

• Student makeup: 73 percent Hispanic, 20 percent Anglo and 6 percent black

• Students qualifying for free and reduced meals: 58 percent

Providence, R.I., school district

• Size: 26,000 students

• Operating budget: $288 million

• Student makeup: 56 percent Hispanic, 14 percent Anglo and 22 percent black

• Students qualifying for free and reduced meals: 80 percent

[TexasStooge]

Donkey Basketball raises funds for scholarship fund

IRVING, Texas (Irving Rambler) - Spectators in the Irving high school gym bore witness to the ageold struggle between man and beast during the IISD Council of PTAs’ annual Donkey Basketball game. From the seating surrounding the basketball court, it was all too evident that man came in a distant second.

Throughout the games, well educated professionals, apparently with limited riding experience attempted to cajole, encourage or pull their donkeys to chase after the ball and head toward the basket. In order to get started, players attempted to mount the unsaddled creatures by climbing up or jump on them. Amid the fray, donkeys kicked, bucked or did their own thing seemingly unaware of the game. More than one rider was thrown when a donkey unexpectedly broke into a run or came to a sudden stop. Donkey basketball has a number of rules, but since donkeys can’t read they aren’t very useful.

From the starting buzzer, the donkeys ruled the court. These professional athletes play up to 150 basketball and baseball games a year in 30 states. Over time, these sports loving animals have learned a variety of ways to make their human teammates look ridiculous in public. Owned by the Buckeye Donkey Basketball Company, the donkeys have the best job around; they work for a maximum of 40 minutes a day.

During each game, four players per team entered the court with a donkey to vie for trophies and bragging rights. Teams representing Irving, MacArthur, and Nimitz High School clusters and a Police/Fire team participated in the tournament to raise funds for the IISD Council of PTAs’ scholarship fund. The purpose of the fund is to award scholarships to three or four high school seniors graduating from Irving ISD.

[TexasStooge]

Texas fest 2005 will be a ‘Supreme’ affair

IRVING, Texas (Irving Rambler) - The Irving Healthcare Foundation’s premier fund-raising gala, TexasFest, will step back in time with headliner Mary Wilson of The Supremes. The Motown singer and her band will perform at the 26th annual event on Saturday, April 16 at the DFW Hyatt Regency Hotel.

“We want to pay attention to the past while looking to the future,” Tammy Davis, event co-chair, said. Mary Wilson was selected because back in 1964, the year the hospital opened its doors, one of the top its was Baby Love by the Supremes.

The fund-raiser’s theme is “A Stroll own Memory Lane”, and the music will add to the memories that will be on display during the event. There will also be great food, a host bar, dancing, live and silent auctions, drawings, and casino games.

The co-chairs, Matt and Tammy Davis, are newlyweds and excited to help plan the festivities. “We are blessed to have careers that allow us to give time to volunteering,” Mr. Davis said.

Together, Mr. and Mrs. Davis are leading an army of volunteers who are working not only to present a great evening of entertainment but also to secure sponsorships. Individual and corporate sponsorships range from $500 to $25,000. At all levels, donors receive attendance and recognition benefits.

Gifts to TexasFest will help the Irving Healthcare Foundation contribute funds to Baylor Irving. Previous gifts to the hospital from the foundation have benefited the Women’s Pavilion of Health, the Emergency Room expansion and the Coronary Care Unit/Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit. All fundsraised remain in the community and directly benefit hospital patients. So “Stroll Down Memory Lane” and celebrate the exemplary healthcare offered at Baylor Medical Center at Irving. Tickets are $150 each ($100 is tax deductible) and may be purchased with cash, checks or a credit card. To register online, visit http://www.irvinghealthcare.org or call 972-579-4390.

[TexasStooge]

Search expands for missing FW boy, mom

By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8

FORT WORTH, Texas — The intense search for a pregnant woman and her young son was expanded overnight. The pair disappeared from their Fort Worth home under mysterious circumstances on Saturday.

The Amber Alert issued for 7-year-old Jayden Underwood and his mother Lisa—who is 7 months pregnant—was broadened from Texas to include the neighboring states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Fort Worth police are questioning family, friends and neighbors about the possible whereabouts of the two. Authorities said they became seriously concerned about the family's safety based on evidence they observed inside the home, including what a police report described as "a large pool of blood."

"There is evidence inside the missing woman's home that gives us strong suspicion that foul play was involved," said Fort Worth Police Lt. Gene Jones.

The search of Underwood's home led police to issue an Amber Alert just after 10 p.m. Saturday night.

Underwood's dark blue 2002 Dodge Durango is also missing from her home.

Educators at North Riverside Elementary School, where Jayden is a student, prepared to answer difficult questions from classmates on Tuesday when after the holiday weekend.

Family and friends reported the 34-year-old business owner missing after she didn't show up for her Saturday afternoon baby shower held at Boopa's Bagel Deli in North Fort Worth. "Boopa" is Jayden's nickname.

Holly Pils said she co-owns the deli with Underwood. "I'm just shocked and stunned, and want to know where she is," Pils said.

Pils said Underwood also missed a birthday party she planned to attend with her son Saturday morning.

"No one reported seeing her," Pils said. "I asked all the neighbors (and) talked to everybody ... we've called everybody."

According to Pils, Underwood lived alone with her son and stayed busy with work and her son's activities. "He and his mom ... they're everything to each other," she said.

Underwood's friend said the woman would never have left without letting her family and friends know where she was going. Pils said she talked to Underwood Friday night, and said she was jovial and excited about the next day's baby shower.

WFAA-TV reporter Mary Ann Razzuk and The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.

[TexasStooge]

Woman shot, found dead inside SUV

DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A woman was found dead Sunday morning, shot multiple times inside her sport utility vehicle.

Dallas police Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick said people in the 500 block of Hillburn Drive near Elam Road heard gunshots between 4 and 5 a.m. Sunday. The 31-year-old woman's identity wasn't released, pending notification of her family.

Sgt. Kirkpatrick said the woman left a friend's house in the area about 4 a.m. Sunday and never returned home.

A passer-by found her several hours later and called police.

Ian McCann contributed to this report.

[TexasStooge]

Welders' torch was cause of building fire

DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A welder's torch set off Saturday's six-alarm fire at a Wells Fargo building, Dallas fire officials said Sunday.

According to fire Capt. Jesse Garcia, investigators traced the cause of the fire to a spot where construction workers had initially reported seeing flames in the seven-story building near Interstate 35 and Mockingbird Lane.

It took more than 120 firefighters to control the blaze, which caused more than $6 million in damage.

Capt. Garcia said investigators learned that someone tried to extinguish the flames unsuccessfully before calling Dallas Fire-Rescue.

The building housed the Visiting Nurse Association and a Meals on Wheels food-preparation site.

Tim Wyatt contributed to this report.

[TexasStooge]

37 illegal immigrants found on train in Fort Worth

Return to Mexico likely awaits men held in Tarrant County jail

By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH, Texas - Dozens of illegal immigrants were in police custody Saturday in Fort Worth after Union Pacific Railroad police conducting a routine inspection discovered them late Friday hiding in large containers on a Dallas-bound train, authorities said.

A few of the people on the train were believed to have escaped as police tried to round them up, a Union Pacific official said.

Authorities captured 37 men and took them to the Tarrant County jail after the train stopped in the railroad's Centennial Yard in Fort Worth.

The men, migrant workers from Mexico, appeared Saturday before a magistrate who arraigned them on Class B misdemeanor charges of interfering with railroad property. Each was held in lieu of $750 bail.

Immigration officials also put a hold on the 37 men, said Terry Grisham, a Tarrant County Sheriff's Department spokesman.

Luis Lara, a Mexican Consulate official in Dallas, spoke with the men for more than an hour Saturday afternoon. They told him they had crossed the Mexican border from Juárez to El Paso, where they hopped a train Wednesday. Mr. Lara said the men told him that human smugglers were not involved.

"They're OK," Mr. Lara said. "Nobody was hurt. All they wanted to do was to take a shower."

He said three groups were traveling on the train.

"Most of them were heading to Tennessee," Mr. Lara said. "Some of them were going to Oklahoma. Some of them were going to Austin. They were sleeping on the train when they were caught."

The groups were from small towns in the states of Hidalgo and México in central Mexico. Some had made the trip before, while others were crossing over for the first time. Many were headed to work in chicken and meat processing plants, Mr. Lara said.

He said the men had no idea they were in Fort Worth until he told them.

Normally, the illegal immigrants would have been taken to the Border Patrol's immigration detention center in Euless, but "they said they were full," Mr. Grisham said.

So authorities filed state criminal charges against them so they could be housed at the county jail.

"That's the only reason we have them," Mr. Grisham said. "Normally, we would not take federal prisoners. We're sort of stuck in the middle."

U.S. Border Patrol officials could not be reached for comment.

The immigrants probably will be voluntarily returned to Mexico unless they have criminal backgrounds, authorities said.

The Union Pacific train departed Los Angeles on Feb. 13 headed for Dallas. The train would have made several stops in Texas, including El Paso, Odessa and Sweetwater, Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said.

Mr. Davis said that during Friday's routine inspection, evidence of people riding the train led railroad police to look inside "ocean-going" containers used to transport a variety of goods.

"Under more thorough inspection of the containers, that's when they found the 37," Mr. Davis said.

Officials said that finding so many illegal immigrants on a train in the Dallas area is somewhat rare because such discoveries usually occur in border areas.

Railroad and immigration officials cautioned about the dangers of riding in rail cars, pointing to a gruesome October 2002 discovery in Denison, Iowa, where employees of the rail yard there found 11 dead immigrants in a locked grain car. Authorities in that case believe human smugglers, often called "coyotes," helped them get on the train.

[TexasStooge]

Big Thicket's threats growing

By DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News

KOUNTZE, Texas – When the trees start to bud and the wildflowers burst into bloom, Maxine Johnston will adjust her hearing aids, strap on a backpack and set off into the heart of the Big Thicket National Preserve.

Ms. Johnston has hiked for decades in the East Texas forest described by some as "America's Ark" for its astonishing array of life: all manner of creatures and plants, including mushrooms, fungi, wildflowers and four of the five carnivorous plants found in the United States.

But this year, Ms. Johnston feels an urgent need to visit her favorite remote places. Not because she's 76 and wonders how many more seasons she'll be healthy. But because even if her body lasts, she fears that her beloved Big Thicket won't.

Defenders of this swath of towering woods and murky, primeval swamp fear that the battle has turned against them because of quickly approaching exurban growth and a land ownership turnover that began a few years ago when large timber companies unloaded huge tracts.

And there are other concerns, such as an increasing number of oil and gas rigs operating in and around the preserve because of streamlined federal restrictions. Not to mention a state highway expansion that skirts the preserve.

Last year, the National Parks Conservation Association named Big Thicket to its most endangered parks list for the second year in a row.

Ms. Johnston, part of a group that lobbied to establish the preserve in the 1970s, fears the onset of diesel trucks and off-road vehicles and is trying to get others behind preventative measures such as private land purchases.

But not everyone shares her sense of urgency.

Like many conservation efforts, this one is caught in the sometimes-opposing gears of environmental desire and economic need.

"We're terribly depressed economically," said Huntley Kenesson of J.B. Best and Co., owner of a clothing store established by his grandfather in 1919 in the Tyler County town of Woodville. "There's just hardly any economic activity at all."

In Woodville, population 2,400, a marquee welcomes a new Super Wal-Mart, and the downtown shopping area still boasts several longtime businesses. In some stores, however, clerks can outnumber customers.

"If we don't get some industry in here, we're going to be like all these other little towns," one woman warned while picking up a prescription at Jarrott's Pharmacy. "We're going to be a thing of the past. ... We need something to give our young people a reason to stay."

Some residents think their economic salvation might be in their back yards: the Big Thicket itself, which has been named an international biosphere by the United Nations.

"We feel like we're kind of sitting on the edge of a gold mine so far as tourist opportunities are concerned," Mr. Kenesson said.

But while 3 million visitors trekked to Yosemite last year, just 100,000 people visited the thicket. On a recent weekday, the introductory movie at the Big Thicket Visitors Center played to an audience of one.

Truth be told, the Big Thicket has an image problem. Its climate and geography – more Deep South than Old West – run against Texas' mythic grain.

Instead of bright, endless horizons, the thicket is a damp, sometimes dim world of dense beech, magnolia and pine forest as well as swamps, bogs, orchids and azaleas. Buffalo don't roam here, but bobcats and beaver do, along with occasional alligators and cougars. And, in the summer months, a plague of mosquitoes.

The Texans who thrived here weren't cowboys but hardscrabble backwoodsmen, called "Dog People" because they hunted the tough terrain with dogs. And the thick woods were home to outlaws on the run and fugitive slaves.

"It's a sanctuary for the dispossessed," said Peter Gunter, a philosophy professor at the University of North Texas who has worked to preserve the thicket for more than 40 years.

The thicket is "an acquired taste," acknowledged Ms. Johnston. She recalled that when she first came to East Texas, "I thought it was the most monotonous-looking country I'd ever saw."

But after awhile, "you readjust your sights," she said, "and you start looking for the unusual and the significant. ... After you've got your sights readjusted, you become absolutely enchanted."

Chuck Hunt, management assistant for the National Park Service, said appreciating the Big Thicket often involves looking down.

"We don't have the grand vistas that make wonderful calendars," he said. "We have the micro-vistas which are these ... fascinating little mushrooms, fascinating fungi, fascinating wildflowers."

In the thicket, you can find the carnivorous pitcher plant and both the bladderwort and butterwort. And the sundew, a coin-sized plant with leaves covered in red hair-like glands that help it catch insects.

Mr. Hunt notes the region's rich history, too. "This is the birthplace of Texas, this is where it all started," he said, noting that many of Texas' early settlers entered from the east.

On historical maps, the Big Thicket is designated as a giant oval running from just north of Beaumont almost up to Tyler. Some experts estimate it covered 3.5 million acres, but settlement – farms and ranches, houses, railroads and oil exploration – whittled it down to about 300,000 acres today.

"The thicket was threatened as soon as the white man came to Texas," says Ellen Buchanan, regional parks director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Tyler, and president of the nonprofit Big Thicket Association.

In 1974, the association thought it had won the conservation battle when the federal government set aside 84,000 acres in a dozen or so patches of land scattered across southeast Texas.

Members wanted a larger, contiguous chunk of land. But carving public land out of a state owned almost entirely by individuals was not easy. "Texas is not an environmental state," Dr. Gunter said. "We just had to do what we could."

Timberland protection

If supporters of the Big Thicket couldn't have one big park, they took comfort in the knowledge that most of the land connecting the pieces of the preserve at least was owned by timber companies.

The land, they reasoned, would be logged, but replanted trees would provide a buffer. Civilization would be kept at bay.

"We always thought the timber companies were going to be there forever," said Ms. Johnston.

But in 2001, Louisiana-Pacific and International Paper announced they would sell more than 1.5 million acres to reduce debt and be more financially flexible.

Temple-Inland, which has long owned hundreds of thousands of acres, has said it is committed to keeping its East Texas holdings. However, the company is in the midst of battling a possible hostile takeover attempt by corporate raider Carl Icahn.

The sale announcements in 2001 caused "red flags and cardiac arrest," Dr. Gunter said. Supporters feared the result of piecemeal land sales, a countryside dotted with fast-food joints, storage units and strip shopping centers.

Unlike logging, "What you can't recover from is concrete," said Mr. Hunt.

And the concrete has come.

Particularly along U.S. Highway 69, out of Beaumont, acre after acre formerly owned by timber companies, has been paved over for small businesses and homes. Locals who remember driving quickly through the small town of Lumberton have grown accustomed to sitting in traffic.

Signs of more to come are tacked to trees and utility poles. "For Sale." "Will subdivide." Twenty acres here. Fifty acres there.

And observers expect the pace to pick up as U.S. 69, which runs north-south through the historic thicket, continues its expansion. Fifty-eight miles of new four-lane highway is being built in an abandoned rail corridor between Beaumont and Lufkin.

Another 14 miles of the existing U.S. 69 will be expanded from two to four lanes. The $400 million project is scheduled for completion in 2015. Another proposed project is the Trans-Texas Corridor, or Interstate 69, which may also catch the perimeter of the Big Thicket.

Local officials and park employees have been working with the Texas Department of Transportation to reduce the potential impact of road expansion.

For example, on-off ramps will be concentrated near towns to focus growth while leaving natural areas relatively untouched. Longer, elevated bridges will allow wildlife to traverse the area without crossing the road, and construction materials will include "quiet pavement" that absorbs much of the sound of traffic.

Because no state money is available, private donations will be required to buy land from developers. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and other lawmakers have shaken some federal dollars loose – but that money is designated to fund a 1993 commitment to expand the preserve by about 11,000 acres.

Conservationists have tried to buy as many parcels as private donations will allow, but raising funds to buy big parcels is difficult.

In Texas, a state known for large individual fortunes often wrested from the land, "you'd think... that'd be easy to do," said Andy Jones of the Conservation Fund, "but it ain't."

So far, the Conservation Fund has purchased a few thousand acres, mostly land within the boundaries marked for preservation before the timber companies started selling land. Of the land put on the market by timber companies four years ago, about 400 acres have been saved for the preserve, Mr. Hunt said.

Unfulfilled promise

Eco-tourism, the locals say, could provide answers to economic problems, if only the Big Thicket would fulfill its promise.

"We don't see a strong economic benefit because the traffic's not that strong," said Hardin County Judge Billy Caraway. He and area business leaders would like to see the preserve add amenities such as campgrounds and promote activities such as bird watching and trail rides.

He said the government has not followed through on even basic amenities. A permanent visitors center wasn't built until 2001, more than a quarter century after the preserve was created and only after the town of Kountze, population 2,000, pitched in $150,000.

The 100,000 visitors annually generate an estimated $7 million in sales and support 155 area jobs.

Big Thicket Superintendent Art Hutchinson agrees the preserve could be promoted to a wider audience. He points proudly to a recent article about the thicket in Gourmet magazine as a sign that word is spreading.

Maxine Johnston certainly hopes so. If the Big Thicket survives but remains Texas' best kept secret, others will miss an experience that "rewards your senses and your spirit," she said.

"I've spent 40 years hiking in the Big Thicket. And it's all glorious."

[TexasStooge]

Drugs seen as dentist's undoing

Friends tell of descent from dynamo in school to gaunt suspect in jail

By MATT STILES / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS, Texas - The contrast in Jill Reitmeyer's two photographs is striking.

A lively, well-coiffed dentistry school graduate smiling a decade ago for her college yearbook – compared with a gaunt, disheveled inmate staring blankly in a December jail mug shot.

They capture a once beautiful and successful Dallas dentist who spiraled downward in recent years – to a life haunted by addictions, neglected patients and charges that she illegally sold narcotics prescriptions from her home.

"I want to sit down and cry. It's just such a waste," said Mary Lou Anders, a friend and former employee. "That woman had so much potential, so much to give. I cannot understand why someone would go from where she was to this."

Once, Dr. Reitmeyer, 43, owned a $280,000 home near Love Field. She appeared healthy. Had a bustling Lemmon Avenue dentistry practice. Raised prize show dogs.

Today, all that's gone.

A Dallas County grand jury indicted her in December on four felony charges. She's accused of selling fraudulent prescriptions to an undercover police officer, as authorities suspect she did with numerous people. They also say the Baylor College of Dentistry graduate practiced without a license.

From jail, Dr. Reitmeyer declined an interview. Her attorneys didn't return calls.

Court documents and interviews tell the tale of a professional, vibrant woman who wasted away, losing everything. What neither the court papers nor her friends can answer is why. Some think a teenage addiction resurfaced, while others wonder whether an illness caused depression.

"It's a shock and bewilderment to everyone who's ever known her," Ms. Anders said.

Those who lived around Dr. Reitmeyer on hilly Labron Avenue – a quiet area but for the periodic roar of airliners overhead – knew something was wrong.

They'd seen their neighbor change since 2002. She lost weight, began acting strangely.

The immaculate flowerbeds around her brick home – with its Sub-Zero refrigerator and hardwood flooring – grew unkempt.

The neighbors' worry grew when the flood of traffic to the home began. People came at all hours. Some flashed headlights to get Dr. Reitmeyer's attention.

Neighbors saw her or her one-time romantic partner, Stephanie Scarth, making hand-to-hand transactions in the driveway, court records show.

"We just didn't know what to do," said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "It was just really, really getting annoying,"

They started taking pictures, documenting license plates.

Suspecting drug sales, they complained to police.

A decade earlier, Dr. Reitmeyer was an attractive, smart and friendly dentistry student, former college classmates said.

They recall that while she was older than many graduates – age 34 for her doctorate in dental surgery – she was also more lively. She made them laugh.

At senior skits, Dr. Reitmeyer arranged several ultraviolet dental lights like a tanning bed. Then she came out in a bikini.

"She was really always high-spirited," said William Roper, a Dallas dentist and a fellow 1995 graduate. "She was pretty fun, always wore a smile."

The student yearbook shows Dr. Reitmeyer posing in an honor society. Another picture shows her in medical scrubs, grinning after a test. She looked fit, tan – happy.

The alumni office, helping plan a 10-year reunion, recently mailed RSVP requests to Dr. Reitmeyer's class. She never responded.

Around the time police got complaints from neighbors, Dr. Reitmeyer left her practice after erratic behavior and a dispute with her business partner.

She had for years shared the office – in a Lemmon Avenue strip mall – with Dr. Troy Carmichael. He asked her to leave.

Ms. Anders, a former hygienist, said Dr. Reitmeyer started missing work. Her patients suffered.

The state dental board began an investigation and was receiving complaints.

Some patients paid for work that had to be finished elsewhere. Another needed work redone.

Roger Reeves went to Dr. Reitmeyer a year ago to have a bridge replaced and a tooth capped. After preparation, she told him she'd finish later.

Months went by, and nothing happened, Mr. Reeves said.

The dentist he once adored left him "walking around like a Halloween jack-o'-lantern."

It wasn't always this way.

Jane Bishkin, a Dallas lawyer who went to Dr. Reitmeyer from 1997 until 2000, remembers her as professional and attentive. She cracked jokes with patients, made them comfortable. She wore a white medical coat, her name proudly embroidered on the front.

"She seemed like someone who had everything going for her," Ms. Bishkin said.

Dr. Reitmeyer had once before left the practice, in 2003, reportedly to get help for alcohol and crack cocaine abuse. It was there she met Ms. Scarth.

Most suspected a relapse.

Ms. Anders recalls when the pair raised one of Dr. Reitmeyer's beloved Cavalier King Charles spaniels together.

Until a recent jail visit, she hadn't seen Dr. Reitmeyer in months, since driving her to a flight for her father's funeral.

Flat broke, a thin Dr. Reitmeyer had borrowed $60. She then asked Ms. Anders to deliver $20 to Ms. Scarth, who abandoned a husband, two young boys and an $800,000 Plano home to live with Dr. Reitmeyer.

Dr. Carmichael, too, fondly remembers better times. Now he's tired of the ordeal.

"I just want it to go away," he said, declining to discuss the end of their partnership.

By late April, Dr. Carmichael told police he suspected Dr. Reitmeyer had stolen checks from his office.

Dr. Reitmeyer had financial troubles. In May, she unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy for the third time in 12 months. A trustee called her filings "an arguable fraud."

The same month, narcotics detectives got a complaint from a pharmacy asked to fill a prescription signed by Dr. Reitmeyer. An employee noticed that the dentist's federal drug license was expired.

Another request signed by Dr. Reitmeyer came a day earlier. It was for promethazine with codeine – a cold and cough drug usually dispensed by a medical doctor – and Xanax, an anxiety medication.

Prescriptions appeared on Dr. Carmichael's stationery, but his telephone number had been scratched out, replaced by Dr. Reitmeyer's home line.

The woman trying to buy the drugs told police that Dr. Reitmeyer, working from a computer next to her kitchen sink, authorized the drugs when the woman claimed to have an abscessed tooth.

Other pharmacies reported suspicions, too.

Promethazine with codeine is often abused as a street drug, so police suspected Dr. Reitmeyer was selling the prescriptions to pay for her own habit.

Undercover detective Bonita Morgan knocked on Dr. Reitmeyer's door July 15. She told Ms. Scarth that a friend sent her.

Once inside, the detective filled out a patient form. There were no signs of dentistry equipment.

The detective then saw Dr. Reitmeyer in a back room with a syringe, "possibly shooting up," records show.

Dr. Reitmeyer then emerged, wearing rubber gloves, and looked into the detective's mouth. Without probing further, she diagnosed an infected tooth.

She prescribed an antibiotic – and the suspicious promethazine with codeine. The price: $50.

The detective, who had no tooth condition, left $60 because Dr. Reitmeyer couldn't make change.

The police returned in September, after Dr. Reitmeyer's license expired, to buy $100 more.

The detective noticed a glass "crack pipe" on a living-room table, records show.

Dr. Reitmeyer sold her $200 worth of drugs a month later.

In mid-November, detectives raided the home. They seized numerous items, including patient files, sample pill packets, crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia.

Dr. Reitmeyer lost the house to foreclosure about this time. Police reports and neighbors describe a bizarre scene inside: clothes left behind, filthy conditions and a large hole sliced into the master bedroom floor.

Soon, few knew Dr. Reitmeyer's whereabouts. The new owner found $15,000 in damage at the home – including strange symbols and slogans painted in cabinets and on walls.

One read, "All ways and always."

The four felony indictments followed in December.

Dr. Reitmeyer was on the run more than a month after a judge ruled $1,500 bail was too low.

Last month, sheriff's deputies arrested her at the Candlewood Suites on Interstate 35E north of Mockingbird Lane.

Ms. Scarth – who hasn't been charged with a crime – was still there two days later, seen digging around the driver's side floorboard of Dr. Reitmeyer's Ford Explorer.

She looked tired. Her skin was blotchy, her hair greasy and her nails dirty. She wore a CIA cap and was dressed in designer, if slightly dirty, clothes.

She said she believed Sen. John McCain was communicating with her from a television. She questioned whether the world was round and said she saw angels and demons – some of which once rose from Dr. Reitmeyer's prized spaniels.

They are no longer romantic but remain close, she said, and both miss the home on Labron Avenue.

"That back yard of hers is a modern-day Garden of Eden," she said, her hands trembling.

She worries about Dr. Reitmeyer, who remains in jail, unable to post her $20,000 bond. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

No trial date has been set.

Asked why her friend's practice fell apart, Ms. Scarth replied, "She just gave up."

[TexasStooge]

Annexation battle brews in Ellis County

By HERB BOOTH / The Dallas Morning News

WAXAHACHE, Texas - Clay Jones moved from Dallas to rural Ellis County in 1996 to live in the country.

Now, Mr. Jones and hundreds of other residents of unincorporated Ellis County could soon be living in a city or its extended boundaries – whether they want to or not.

Four Ellis County home-rule cities – Ennis, Midlothian, Red Oak and Waxahachie – have gone on a land-annexation spree during the last couple of years.

Officials with those cities say without annexation that development would go unchecked and that the cities would eventually lose tax money by taking no action. Homeowners in the targeted areas want to remain independent – and don't want to pay city taxes.

"We all work for a living. None of us are legal scholars," said Mr. Jones, whose property may become part of Red Oak's extraterritorial jurisdiction. "You really don't have much recourse against a home-rule city. They have a unilateral right to take you in."

A city can decide whether to become a home-rule city once its population surpasses 5,000. When it becomes home-rule, the city can annex lands and expand its extraterritorial jurisdiction, a one-mile buffer around the actual city limits reserved for potential annexation.

Once a city reaches 25,000 in population, as Waxahachie recently declared, the extraterritorial jurisdiction buffer increases to two miles.

Red Oak officials had public hearings last week on the expansion. Today, Waxahachie plans a hearing, and Ennis has an annexation vote scheduled. Midlothian has already annexed land around its borders.

Elizabeth Penny, a longtime Ellis County resident, believes that living in the small town of Palmer, population 1,800, is more palatable than living in Ennis or Red Oak.Ms. Penny said she has about 500 signatures of property owners in the proposed Red Oak annexation and extraterritorial jurisdiction that are trying to get Palmer to annex them.

She's formed the Palmer Community Action Group and has been speaking to neighborhood groups for the last several weeks. She believes the Palmer council beat Red Oak to the punch because the property owners voluntarily asked Palmer to annex them two hours before Red Oak's initial annexation meeting.

"My big statement is that we don't want to be part of a big city. If so, we would have moved there," said Ms. Penny. "We are the descendents of Hans Smith. We will fight Red Oak like we fought the Indians back in the 1800s. We won then, and we'll win now. We will escape the illegal annexation of Red Oak."

The moves are not unprecedented for the area. In the late 1980s, Ennis and Waxahachie annexed land, anticipating the construction of the Superconducting Super Collider.

In 2002, Red Oak tried annexing land near Ferris, but homeowners fought the attempt, and the plan was dropped.

If Red Oak is successful this time with its annexation and extraterritorial expansion efforts, city boundaries could extend east of Interstate 45.

Red Oak Mayor Todd Little said council members believed that the city had to take action because it was landlocked on three sides. The expansion of Waxahachie's extraterritorial jurisdiction from a mile ring to a two-mile ring also concerned the council, he said.

"It's really a bigger issue than economic development," Mr. Little said. "It's the only way to promote orderly growth. We saw what Ennis and Waxahachie were doing and needed to act."

He insists that the city isn't after tax revenue. If the council officially approves the annexations in March, it will mean only about $1,500 more in property tax revenue to the Red Oak budget, Mr. Little said. He added that a church – which doesn't pay taxes – is the only structure in the proposed annexation.

Mr. Little compared Red Oak's experience with Duncanville's in the 1970s. He said Duncanville had a chance to annex land to the west along Interstate 20, but it didn't.

"The city of Dallas began developing that area," Mr. Little said. "Duncanville used to be one of the highest per-capita earning cities in the DFW area. But Duncanville sat conservatively and that cost the city and school district."

Mr. Little also said that the expansion of Waxahachie's extraterritorial jurisdiction from a mile ring to a two-mile ring concerned the council.

The proposed annexations have homeowners choosing sides.

"I have a Waxahachie mailing address. My children go to Palmer ISD, and we're supposed to be annexed by Red Oak," said Liz Slovak, who has lived near Palmer in unincorporated Ellis County for 20 years.

Red Oak's council has held public hearings on annexing 1,000 foot-by-one-mile strips of land and increasing its ETJ more than 28 square miles – to include Mr. Jones, Ms. Slovak and other homeowners.

Ms. Slovak and Mr. Jones prefer what she said she's heard from Ennis officials – that actual annexation is another 40 or 50 years down the road.

The homeowners attended a recent Ennis City Commission meeting, asking officials to include them in the Ennis extraterritorial jurisdiction.Ellis County Judge Chad Adams has moderated discussions between the cities but said the county is not taking sides.

County governments have no zoning power under state law.

"Sometimes I wish we had more authority to help keep the peace in some neighborhoods," Mr. Adams said. "But whether a person wants to be annexed or not, I think that's up to the individual."

[TexasStooge]

Mexican Zetas extending violence into Dallas

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – A team of rogue Mexican commandos blamed for dozens of killings along the U.S.-Mexico border has carried out at least three drug-related slayings in Dallas, a sign that the group is extending its deadly operations into U.S. cities, two American law enforcement officials say.

The men are known as the Zetas, former members of the Mexican army who defected to Mexico's so-called Gulf drug cartel in the late 1990s, other officials say.

"These guys run like a military," said Arturo A. Fontes, an FBI special investigator for border violence based in Laredo, in South Texas. "They have their hands in everything and they have eyes and ears everywhere. I've seen how they work, and they're good at what they do. They're an impressive bunch of ruthless criminals."

Dallas and federal officials said that since late 2003 eight to 10 members of the Zetas have been operating in North Texas, maintaining a "shadowy existence" and sometimes hiring Texas criminal gangs, including the Mexican Mafia and Texas Syndicate, for contract killings. The Texas Syndicate is a prison gang that authorities blame for several murders statewide.

The Zetas' activities in North Texas were described in interviews with two U.S. federal law enforcement agents, two former Drug Enforcement Administration officials, a former Dallas undercover narcotics officer and two undercover informants.

"We're aware of the Zetas' threat to U.S. cities, and we consider it a growing threat," said Johnny Santana, a criminal investigator for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Office of the Inspector General. "We're conducting investigations into several cases statewide to establish evidence. We still don't have those links yet, but the telltale signs are there, and they point to the Zetas."

The Zetas' presence in Dallas represents a sharp departure from standard practice for Mexican cartels, which traditionally have kept a low profile on U.S. soil and have sought to avoid confrontations with U.S. law enforcement.

The Zetas, who are accused off carrying out killings and acting as drug couriers for the cartel, are regarded by U.S. law enforcement officials as expert assassins who are especially worrisome because of their elite military training and penchant for using AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles.

"The Zetas are bold, ruthless and won't think twice about pulling the trigger on a cop or anyone else who gets in their way," said the former Dallas narcotics officer, who asked not to be identified.

"And they like to take care of business themselves or, when forced to, hire their own assassin."

Gil Cerda, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department narcotics division, said he had personally not heard of the group and could not comment.

Mexican authorities have downplayed the threat posed by the Zetas, saying that a major government crackdown has left the group leaderless and on the run.

Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the country's deputy attorney general for organized crime, suggested that many of the crimes attributed to the group may have been committed by outsiders emulating the group's violent tactics. "There are many Zetas wannabes," he said.

Still, Fontes of the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement officials said the former commandos are both a potent threat and are bolder and more ambitious than their predecessors.

They are extending their reach – and violence – beyond the Nuevo Laredo-to-Matamoros border area into Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, where they blend into burgeoning Mexican immigrant communities, state and federal officials said.

The group may have ventured as far as Nashville, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga., the officials said.

"These guys are anything but wannabes," said Fontes. "They're the real thing, and they're a threat to law enforcement officers on both sides of the border."

Dallas and federal law enforcement officials have linked murders and drug violence in Dallas during the past 18 months to cocaine and marijuana trafficking in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, a base of operations for the Zetas. Dallas and federal investigators have blamed at least three Dallas killings on the Zetas, and some officials said that more than a dozen violent incidents can be attributed to the group.

Federal and Dallas authorities have blamed the following incidents on the Zetas:

At 1:20 a.m. on Dec. 5, a gunman stepped out of a red sports car with a semi-automatic weapon and opened fire on three suspected drug traffickers as they played pool in the open garage of a home in the 5100 block of Mimi Court in Oak Cliff. Christian Alejandro Meza, 26, alias Juan Antonio Ortega, a parolee from Wichita, Kan., who was wanted on weapons charges, died of multiple wounds to the abdomen. Two other men were severely wounded and are being held on drug charges.

Law enforcement officials said the men were attacked because they allegedly worked for a rival drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from the maximum-security Puente Grande prison in Jalisco state in January 2001, hidden in a laundry truck.

Guzman is reputed to be a leader of the Juarez cartel, a rival of the Zetas' employer, the Gulf cartel, and is wanted in the United States, said Fontes, the FBI agent.

Dallas police seized 45 kilos of cocaine – said to have been smuggled from Monterrey, Mexico – with a street value of $2.5 million and about $300,000 in cash from the Oak Cliff home and one next to it.

"The hit was a message to Chapo Guzman, and the killer is believed to have been a Zetas member," said the former Dallas narcotics officer. "The gunman was very meticulous, didn't shoot a lot because he didn't have to."

The case is under investigation, and the gunman remains at large.

On Sept. 28, police found the bodies of Mathew Frank Geisler and Brandon Gallegos, both 19 and from Laredo, in a burning 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe in a field near the corner of Morrell Avenue and Sargent Road, in the Cadillac Heights area of Oak Cliff. Both men had been shot, and the case probably involved drugs, according to police accounts.

A federal investigator said that "without a doubt" both incidents were carried out by the Zetas.

"We're seeing an alarming number of incidents involving the same type of violence that's become all too common in Mexico, right here in Dallas," said the former Dallas narcotics officer. "We're seeing execution-style murders, burned bodies and outright mayhem. It's like the battles being waged in Mexico for turf have reached Dallas."

The Zetas are in North Texas because the area has become an important hub of drug activity, law enforcement officials say. An estimated $10 million in drug transactions, including money laundering, takes place in the area daily, according to the federal and local officials.

Transportation links such as Interstate 35, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and dozens of smaller airports in the region have contributed to the growth in drug activity, the officials said.

"We're victims of our geography," the former Dallas narcotics officer said, "and an insatiable appetite for dope and coke."

Concern over the Zetas' activities in Dallas comes at a time of increased violence along the border and a crackdown on drug cartels by Mexico that President Vicente Fox has dubbed "the mother of all battles." In the first seven weeks of this year, about 135 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, mostly in northern states, including Tamaulipas and Chihuahua – which border Texas –and Sonora and Sinaloa.

In Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state, about 300 people have been reported missing in recent months, including 27 Americans, some of whom are believed to have been victims of the Zetas-sponsored drug violence. The Americans included two abducted this week and released Thursday after a ransom was paid, a U.S. law enforcement official said.

Last month, the U.S. government warned Americans about increasing violence and crime in Mexican border cities.