News from the Lone Star State
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Minister accused of molesting kids
He left post at Plano's Custer Road Methodist last month
By JENNIFER EMILY and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO, Texas - A minister is facing charges of indecency with a child after being accused of molesting two relatives, police said.
Tom David Brown, 67, of Dallas was arrested Thursday by Dallas police on charges of indecency with a child by exposure and indecency with a child by contact.
Mr. Brown could not be reached for comment.
Police said the incidents began in 1998 and occurred as recently as March. Authorities say the victims, preteen girls, gave accounts to police.
The incidents occurred in a northeast Dallas residence, police said.
Mr. Brown was a minister at Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano.
Church spokesman Stan Luckie said the church did not want to comment about the allegations.
"At this point, all we're doing is praying for Tom and his family and those who are involved," said Mr. Luckie, chairman of the staff parish relations committee.
Mr. Brown was an associate pastor at the church for five years before he resigned March 28, Mr. Luckie said.
Mr. Brown was released from the Dallas County Jail after posting $8,500 bail, Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.
He left post at Plano's Custer Road Methodist last month
By JENNIFER EMILY and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO, Texas - A minister is facing charges of indecency with a child after being accused of molesting two relatives, police said.
Tom David Brown, 67, of Dallas was arrested Thursday by Dallas police on charges of indecency with a child by exposure and indecency with a child by contact.
Mr. Brown could not be reached for comment.
Police said the incidents began in 1998 and occurred as recently as March. Authorities say the victims, preteen girls, gave accounts to police.
The incidents occurred in a northeast Dallas residence, police said.
Mr. Brown was a minister at Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano.
Church spokesman Stan Luckie said the church did not want to comment about the allegations.
"At this point, all we're doing is praying for Tom and his family and those who are involved," said Mr. Luckie, chairman of the staff parish relations committee.
Mr. Brown was an associate pastor at the church for five years before he resigned March 28, Mr. Luckie said.
Mr. Brown was released from the Dallas County Jail after posting $8,500 bail, Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.
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Man gets life in double shooting
Attack in 2003 blew apart girlfriend's face, killed her mother
WACO, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison Friday for the 2003 double shooting that blew off most of his girlfriend's face and killed her mother.
Jurors deliberated about 30 minutes before finding Terrence Dewaine Kelly guilty of murder and attempted murder. Later Friday, they deliberated about half an hour before deciding on two life sentences, one for murdering Janice Reeves and one for disfiguring Carolyn Thomas, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported. He will serve the sentences concurrently.
The verdict came the day after state District Judge George Allen threw out Mr. Kelly's defense of innocent by reason of insanity. Judge Allen said evidence did not support defense claims that Mr. Kelly was insane at the time of the shootings.
Mr. Kelly's attorney, Bill Johnston, then asked to reopen testimony to provide stronger evidence that a severe mental defect precluded Mr. Kelly from knowing his actions were wrong. Judge Allen rejected that motion.
During opening statements Wednesday, Mr. Johnston said he did not dispute that Mr. Kelly, 32, shot the women but that his client was insane at the time.
In defense testimony Thursday, Dr. Rod Ryan, the McLennan County Jail doctor for 25 years, said Mr. Kelly has been medicated for depression. He prescribed mood-stabilizing drugs last fall after Mr. Kelly reported hearing voices and feeling paranoid, but Dr. Ryan said he could not classify the behavior as a severe mental disorder.
Prosecutors contend Mr. Kelly was high on marijuana laced with formaldehyde that night and was not mentally ill. The judge instructed jurors that voluntary intoxication is not a defense.
Ms. Thomas, 34, earlier testified that Mr. Kelly abused her for years and threatened to kill her that night before the shooting that tore off her right eye, nose and upper jaw.
Two psychiatrists who examined Mr. Kelly after his arrest have said he is sane.
Attack in 2003 blew apart girlfriend's face, killed her mother
WACO, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison Friday for the 2003 double shooting that blew off most of his girlfriend's face and killed her mother.
Jurors deliberated about 30 minutes before finding Terrence Dewaine Kelly guilty of murder and attempted murder. Later Friday, they deliberated about half an hour before deciding on two life sentences, one for murdering Janice Reeves and one for disfiguring Carolyn Thomas, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported. He will serve the sentences concurrently.
The verdict came the day after state District Judge George Allen threw out Mr. Kelly's defense of innocent by reason of insanity. Judge Allen said evidence did not support defense claims that Mr. Kelly was insane at the time of the shootings.
Mr. Kelly's attorney, Bill Johnston, then asked to reopen testimony to provide stronger evidence that a severe mental defect precluded Mr. Kelly from knowing his actions were wrong. Judge Allen rejected that motion.
During opening statements Wednesday, Mr. Johnston said he did not dispute that Mr. Kelly, 32, shot the women but that his client was insane at the time.
In defense testimony Thursday, Dr. Rod Ryan, the McLennan County Jail doctor for 25 years, said Mr. Kelly has been medicated for depression. He prescribed mood-stabilizing drugs last fall after Mr. Kelly reported hearing voices and feeling paranoid, but Dr. Ryan said he could not classify the behavior as a severe mental disorder.
Prosecutors contend Mr. Kelly was high on marijuana laced with formaldehyde that night and was not mentally ill. The judge instructed jurors that voluntary intoxication is not a defense.
Ms. Thomas, 34, earlier testified that Mr. Kelly abused her for years and threatened to kill her that night before the shooting that tore off her right eye, nose and upper jaw.
Two psychiatrists who examined Mr. Kelly after his arrest have said he is sane.
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Woman's body found in fire rubble
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Investigators suspect foul play in the death of a woman whose body was found in the rubble of a burning house in Oak Cliff early Monday.
The single-story residence in the 2600 block of Exeter Avenue was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at 5:15 a.m.
The victim was found inside after the fire was brought under control.
Arson investigators summoned police detectives when they suspected that the woman may have been murdered.
The victim's identity has not been determined.
Neighbors said this is the third time the same house has been burned in the past year. They said they have been complaining about ongoing criminal activity at the residence since its owner moved out.
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Investigators suspect foul play in the death of a woman whose body was found in the rubble of a burning house in Oak Cliff early Monday.
The single-story residence in the 2600 block of Exeter Avenue was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at 5:15 a.m.
The victim was found inside after the fire was brought under control.
Arson investigators summoned police detectives when they suspected that the woman may have been murdered.
The victim's identity has not been determined.
Neighbors said this is the third time the same house has been burned in the past year. They said they have been complaining about ongoing criminal activity at the residence since its owner moved out.
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Family barely escapes wall of water
By MARY ANN RAZZUK / WFAA ABC 8
WAXAHACHE, Texas - An Ellis County couple said the family dog helped save their lives by alerting them just before a wall of water slammed into their home this weekend.
It happened when a tank at a nearby water pumping station ruptured at itsbase Saturday morning, letting loose over 12 million gallons of water. The water's force carried several cars, including one that ripped through a nearby house.
Donna Thompson and another relative were sucked out of the home by the furious flood, while Cindy Avant and her husband escaped through a window with their daughter's dog Cotton.
"I thought I was gonna die - we all did," Avant said. "If it had not been for that dog, I don't think any of us would have survived because we would have been asleep."
Thompson and Avant said Cotton must have sensed something was wrong or heard a noise, because she woke them up about an hour before the water hit.
The newly-constructed tank is operated by the Tarrant Regional Water District, which serves cities in ten North Central Texas counties, and serves cities including Fort Worth, Arlington and Mansfield.
Engineers spent the weekend investigating the incident, which one official described as an unusual failure.
"I'm not aware of any catastrophic failures," said engineering manager David Marshall. "There have been some leaks, but concrete tanks have been built since the 1950s and they're used by every municipality."
The water district owns the Avants' home and Lonnie Avant works for them maintaining pipelines, so the family expects their property will be replaced.
By MARY ANN RAZZUK / WFAA ABC 8
WAXAHACHE, Texas - An Ellis County couple said the family dog helped save their lives by alerting them just before a wall of water slammed into their home this weekend.
It happened when a tank at a nearby water pumping station ruptured at itsbase Saturday morning, letting loose over 12 million gallons of water. The water's force carried several cars, including one that ripped through a nearby house.
Donna Thompson and another relative were sucked out of the home by the furious flood, while Cindy Avant and her husband escaped through a window with their daughter's dog Cotton.
"I thought I was gonna die - we all did," Avant said. "If it had not been for that dog, I don't think any of us would have survived because we would have been asleep."
Thompson and Avant said Cotton must have sensed something was wrong or heard a noise, because she woke them up about an hour before the water hit.
The newly-constructed tank is operated by the Tarrant Regional Water District, which serves cities in ten North Central Texas counties, and serves cities including Fort Worth, Arlington and Mansfield.
Engineers spent the weekend investigating the incident, which one official described as an unusual failure.
"I'm not aware of any catastrophic failures," said engineering manager David Marshall. "There have been some leaks, but concrete tanks have been built since the 1950s and they're used by every municipality."
The water district owns the Avants' home and Lonnie Avant works for them maintaining pipelines, so the family expects their property will be replaced.
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Lost cellphone leads to murder arrest
Native of El Salvador accused of firing into car in southeast Texas
HUFFMAN, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – A cellphone left at the scene of a toddler's fatal shooting has led to the arrest of an El Salvador native on capital murder charges, authorities say.
Miguel Angel Castro, 19, is accused of firing five shots into the windshield of a car carrying the child on Tuesday evening in Huffman, about 30 miles northeast of Houston, said Lt. John Denholm with the Harris County Sheriff's Department's homicide division.
Mr. Castro, who was arrested Saturday, is being held without bail.
Aiden Naquin, along with his father, Ernest Naquin, 27, and his two sisters, 4 and 10, were returning to their home after a trip to get snow cones when four men followed them into the trailer park.
When three of the men jumped out and one pointed a gun at the car, Mr. Naquin yelled for his children to duck.
But Aiden was strapped in a car seat as the bullets blasted through the windshield. The 1 ½ -year-old was shot in the head.
Investigators said one of the men dropped a cellphone at the scene.
Investigators tracked down the cellphone to an apartment complex where Houston police had been involved in a standoff.
Houston police provided sheriff's investigators with information on gang members, and the child's father identified Mr. Castro as the man who shot his son.
Investigators said they don't know of a motive, but they believe the family was targeted.
Lt. Denholm said the father is not being "entirely cooperative" with the investigation.
"We're trying to establish what might have brought them to this gang's attention," Mr. Denholm said. "We're looking at any activities that might have targeted them for violence."
Mr. Naquin told the Houston Chronicle last week that he thought the shooting was a case of mistaken identity and was drug-related.
Mr. Naquin, the primary caretaker of the boy and his two sisters, has a criminal history in Harris County that includes convictions for misdemeanor assault of a family member, burglary of a habitation, arson and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to records.
Mr. Castro is believed to be a member of a violent gang made up of mostly illegal immigrants from El Salvador and other Central American nations, Lt. Denholm said.
The funeral for Aiden is set for today at Rosewood Funeral Home in Kingwood.
Native of El Salvador accused of firing into car in southeast Texas
HUFFMAN, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – A cellphone left at the scene of a toddler's fatal shooting has led to the arrest of an El Salvador native on capital murder charges, authorities say.
Miguel Angel Castro, 19, is accused of firing five shots into the windshield of a car carrying the child on Tuesday evening in Huffman, about 30 miles northeast of Houston, said Lt. John Denholm with the Harris County Sheriff's Department's homicide division.
Mr. Castro, who was arrested Saturday, is being held without bail.
Aiden Naquin, along with his father, Ernest Naquin, 27, and his two sisters, 4 and 10, were returning to their home after a trip to get snow cones when four men followed them into the trailer park.
When three of the men jumped out and one pointed a gun at the car, Mr. Naquin yelled for his children to duck.
But Aiden was strapped in a car seat as the bullets blasted through the windshield. The 1 ½ -year-old was shot in the head.
Investigators said one of the men dropped a cellphone at the scene.
Investigators tracked down the cellphone to an apartment complex where Houston police had been involved in a standoff.
Houston police provided sheriff's investigators with information on gang members, and the child's father identified Mr. Castro as the man who shot his son.
Investigators said they don't know of a motive, but they believe the family was targeted.
Lt. Denholm said the father is not being "entirely cooperative" with the investigation.
"We're trying to establish what might have brought them to this gang's attention," Mr. Denholm said. "We're looking at any activities that might have targeted them for violence."
Mr. Naquin told the Houston Chronicle last week that he thought the shooting was a case of mistaken identity and was drug-related.
Mr. Naquin, the primary caretaker of the boy and his two sisters, has a criminal history in Harris County that includes convictions for misdemeanor assault of a family member, burglary of a habitation, arson and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to records.
Mr. Castro is believed to be a member of a violent gang made up of mostly illegal immigrants from El Salvador and other Central American nations, Lt. Denholm said.
The funeral for Aiden is set for today at Rosewood Funeral Home in Kingwood.
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Amtrak train derails in East Texas
GRAND SALINE, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Amtrak's Texas Eagle passenger train derailed in Grand Saline, Texas on Saturday night, forcing passengers to backtrack to Dallas to wait for the next train.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said there were no serious injuries in the incident about 60 miles east of Dallas.
Initial reports from the scene indicated that 4 wheels of the locomotive left the tracks, forcing the train to a halt.
The train was carrying 78 passengers and 11 crew members on the Los Angeles to Chicago route, which stops in Dallas and Fort Worth.
All cars remained upright, and passengers stayed on board for four-and-a-half hours while the engines were swapped. The train was then pulled back to Dallas for an overnight hotel stay. "They're very nice, doing a real good job," said Bob Battleton, one of the affected passengers.
The passengers will continue their journey on Sunday's Texas Eagle, which stops in Dallas around 4:30 p.m.
"I'm a little upset, because I'm supposed to be in school on Monday," said Lia Feifarek upon arrival in Dallas early Sunday morning. I'm going to lose credit for this.
Another passenger, Loren Martin, said he will miss an appointment in Illinois. "It kind of screws us up for Monday," he said. "I guess they're handling it as good as they can."
Passengers who had been scheduled to get off in Longview had the option of taking a bus to that destination.
Amtrak has also been having equipment problems on its popular Acela Express route between Boston and Washington, D.C.
Brake problems forced the beleaguered passenger railroad on Friday to suspend high-speed service in the Northeast at least through Wednesday—and probably for more than two months.
WFAA-TV photojournalist Bryan Titsworth and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
GRAND SALINE, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Amtrak's Texas Eagle passenger train derailed in Grand Saline, Texas on Saturday night, forcing passengers to backtrack to Dallas to wait for the next train.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said there were no serious injuries in the incident about 60 miles east of Dallas.
Initial reports from the scene indicated that 4 wheels of the locomotive left the tracks, forcing the train to a halt.
The train was carrying 78 passengers and 11 crew members on the Los Angeles to Chicago route, which stops in Dallas and Fort Worth.
All cars remained upright, and passengers stayed on board for four-and-a-half hours while the engines were swapped. The train was then pulled back to Dallas for an overnight hotel stay. "They're very nice, doing a real good job," said Bob Battleton, one of the affected passengers.
The passengers will continue their journey on Sunday's Texas Eagle, which stops in Dallas around 4:30 p.m.
"I'm a little upset, because I'm supposed to be in school on Monday," said Lia Feifarek upon arrival in Dallas early Sunday morning. I'm going to lose credit for this.
Another passenger, Loren Martin, said he will miss an appointment in Illinois. "It kind of screws us up for Monday," he said. "I guess they're handling it as good as they can."
Passengers who had been scheduled to get off in Longview had the option of taking a bus to that destination.
Amtrak has also been having equipment problems on its popular Acela Express route between Boston and Washington, D.C.
Brake problems forced the beleaguered passenger railroad on Friday to suspend high-speed service in the Northeast at least through Wednesday—and probably for more than two months.
WFAA-TV photojournalist Bryan Titsworth and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Shoes line streets to honor DWI victims
By JOLENE DeVITO / WFAA ABC 8
The streets of downtown Dallas were lined with 1,700 pairs of shoes Saturday morning. Each pair represented a Texas victim of an intoxicated driver.
The shoes were a striking backdrop along the route of a walk that raised money for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Irving-based national organization now celebrating its 25th year.
"That's 1,700 families who are never going to see their loved ones again, and that doesn't even represent the number of people injured in those crashes," said Wendy Hamilton, MADD's national president.
One of the pairs of shoes represented Amy Anderson, killed one year ago Saturday by a suspected drunk driver in Wills Point, Texas. The walkers included Anderson's 7-year-old daughter, husband and sister, Angela Kreil.
"I always thought nothing like that would happen to us, and of course it did," Kreil said.
Anderson's husband, Jimmy Brown, urged drivers to be responsible. "Responsible enough to understand that you can take somebody away just by making the wrong decision in life," he said. "Then a family will be going through what we all go through here on a daily basis—the pain don't stop."
Every year, 17,000 people die in alcohol-related accidents in the U.S.
By JOLENE DeVITO / WFAA ABC 8
The streets of downtown Dallas were lined with 1,700 pairs of shoes Saturday morning. Each pair represented a Texas victim of an intoxicated driver.
The shoes were a striking backdrop along the route of a walk that raised money for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Irving-based national organization now celebrating its 25th year.
"That's 1,700 families who are never going to see their loved ones again, and that doesn't even represent the number of people injured in those crashes," said Wendy Hamilton, MADD's national president.
One of the pairs of shoes represented Amy Anderson, killed one year ago Saturday by a suspected drunk driver in Wills Point, Texas. The walkers included Anderson's 7-year-old daughter, husband and sister, Angela Kreil.
"I always thought nothing like that would happen to us, and of course it did," Kreil said.
Anderson's husband, Jimmy Brown, urged drivers to be responsible. "Responsible enough to understand that you can take somebody away just by making the wrong decision in life," he said. "Then a family will be going through what we all go through here on a daily basis—the pain don't stop."
Every year, 17,000 people die in alcohol-related accidents in the U.S.
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Abuses found at foster homes
Exclusive: Abuse found in foster homes overseen by contractors
By RANDY LEE LOFTIS and PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Private contractors that handle three-fourths of Texas' foster care have placed children with foster parents who later abused, molested or neglected them or even disappeared with kids in their care, records reveal.
Some contractors have failed to act for nearly a year after learning that foster children were living with people with criminal records or in homes with fire or safety hazards.
One contractor was investigated for sending a 14-month-old girl on a breathing machine – who was born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus and bladder disease – to live with a foster mother who smoked.
The same organization placed "very medically fragile" children with a woman who later admitted concealing a recent psychiatric hospitalization. She also was a suspected drug user who, when requested, refused to take a drug test or turn over medical records.
State legislators are poised to put all of Texas' 26,000 foster children – victims of abuse, neglect or disintegrated families – in the hands of private managers, either nonprofit groups or for-profit companies. Backers say that's because private managers have shown they can keep children safe.
"They have proven, in those areas, to do a very good job," said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chief author of a plan that has passed the Senate.
Told of The Dallas Morning News' findings, she added, "We've got to put protections in place ... whether it's through private agencies or the state."
But others say the state is moving too fast and that some plans, especially one due for House debate this week, give private managers too much power without enough state oversight. What's really needed, some say, is a much tougher approach by state Child Protective Services in investigating child abuse.
"The public's upset with CPS has all been about investigations," said F. Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Priorities, an Austin-based group that focuses on Texas child-welfare and related issues. "We've got an investigative problem, but what we're addressing [in the Legislature] is something else."
Child welfare
The News reviewed tens of thousands of pages of state files on foster care contractors that either the newspaper or a state agency obtained through open-records requests. Many details on abuse investigations aren't available to the public, so the newspaper focused on contractors for which the records it reviewed were most complete. It then chose some cases for a closer look.
Whenever possible, The News compared those records with the much more limited information that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services makes available to the public via an online database of foster contractors' compliance histories.
The contractors recruit and train foster parents and place children in the foster homes for the state after a judge puts a child in the state's care. Then they oversee the foster parents' performance.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services regulates the contractors and also directly supervises a quarter of the state's foster care homes. Under the current system, the department is the case manager for each foster child's overall welfare, whether the child is in a private or a state foster home.
Contractors receive state payments for each child and pass on part of the money to the foster parents for the children's general needs. In the current fiscal year, contractors get $36 per child per day for basic care, with the foster parent getting $20 of that.
Children with specialized needs, such as serious medical or emotional problems, generate higher payments – $87.25 per child per day to the contractor, $45 of that to the foster family. In addition, the state covers all foster children's medical and dental bills.
Records show that after some serious violations by foster parents, such as physical punishment, which isn't allowed, the contractors removed the children and cut off the foster parents from future assignments. In other instances, however, problem foster parents were allowed to keep working.
Either way, many serious problems never appear in the state's online database of the contractors' compliance histories, which are supposed to help the public judge the quality of foster care.
Foster care agencies say they work hard to make sure children are safe. "We're not going to leave a child in a situation where there is risk to the child," said Ron McDaniel, vice president of marketing for DePelchin Children's Center of Houston. One of the state's largest foster care providers, DePelchin oversees about 250 foster homes.
How safe Texas' foster children are, however, is hard to tell. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which includes Child Protective Services, said last year that 96 percent were in safe homes.
But Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's office found that the figure "greatly overstates" foster child safety. For example, the figure included only physical or sexual abuse or neglect by adults; it left out child-on-child abuse in foster homes.
The 96 percent also omits instances in which the state didn't confirm abuse or where it "administratively closed" cases without investigating. The Department of Family and Protective Services has stopped the latter practice.
In addition, the comptroller's office said it couldn't account for 250 children in November 2003, who were either missing from Texas foster care or living in unapproved places. The department – long at odds with the comptroller's office – disputes that figure and says it knows of no child who cannot be found.
"We're not pretending we're doing an adequate job" at managing foster care, said Darrell Azar, the department's spokesman. "We need more resources to do it better."
'Minor violations'
In reviewing cases from 2002 to 2004, The News found that in addition to keeping many violations away from public view, the department frequently downplays the seriousness of abuse or neglect allegations. Records often classify allegations of physical or sexual abuse or cruelty as minor violations of minimum standards that pose a low risk to children.
One such allegation involved a 7-year-old foster child who told an adult that his 11-year-old brother was sexually molesting him. In another, a foster mother was allegedly disciplining a psychotic, suicidal 8-year-old girl by taking her outside and telling her there were monsters in the bushes. State records classified both as minor, low-risk situations.
An allegation that a 17-year-old male in a foster home had twice raped an 8-year-old girl in foster care was classified as a case of neglectful supervision.
The records that The News reviewed concerned contractors ranging from mainstays such as the 113-year-old DePelchin to newcomers such as Dallas-based Youth in View, in business just four years.
The examined records include complaint and investigation reports and licensing files and inspections on foster care providers. Some contractors show up more often than others in the cases the newspaper reviewed, but that might be because they handle more foster children.
Some documents are dry accounts of required record-keeping, a massive task that forced Youth in View to stop accepting new foster children for several months in 2003 while the fledgling contractor tried to correct paperwork problems.
Others contain easily disproved allegations by disturbed or angry children. One girl, for example, accused her foster father of sexual abuse, but an investigation found that he was hospitalized for heart surgery at the time of the alleged assault. She then changed the date of the abuse to a time years before she entered the home.
Others are accounts of quick action that limited harm to children. One case from 2002 involved two children whose foster parents physically and mentally abused them and eventually ordered them to lie to cover up the foster parents' role in a car crash.
The contractor, Cedar Ridge Foster Care, based in Lometa in Central Texas, swiftly removed the children, investigated and cut off the parents from any more foster work. The children's therapist, who had triggered the action with a call to CPS, was "very complimentary" of Cedar Ridge's response, a report said.
Often, however, the records reviewed by The News describe cases in which foster care providers knew about problems but did not act.
In one such case, two foster families – not identified by name or location in a 2004 report – were having their foster children assemble weapons in the families' home-based gun store.
"All of the children work or spend at least 20 hours a week at the barn" that housed the armory, according to a state report. "The children are putting together and packing knives, gun magazines, etc. ... Many of the kids reported that one night they worked until 2-4 a.m. in the morning helping their [foster] dads complete an order."
A caseworker for the foster care contractor, New Horizons Ranch, based in Brownwood, knew the children were working at the armory "because the children told her," a state investigation found. After a tip triggered a state inspection, the contractor removed the children and shut the foster homes.
One problem, the inspector noted, was that the contractor's reports of its home visits, meant to document conditions and reinforce the rules, seemed to be copied verbatim from reports the parents themselves wrote and sent in.
New Horizons' executive director, Del Barnett, said New Horizons knew about the gun store when it approved the families as foster parents. New Horizons also knew that the children were working there, he said. They worked voluntarily and were paid more than minimum wage, he said. New Horizons regularly checked the kids and the families and didn't find any abuse in the kids' work at the gun store, he said.
The state inspection report said the children should never have been allowed to work in such a place. "The [foster] facility director was told that this is not an appropriate working place for children," the report said. "It is against standards for children to be around these types of items."
Mr. Barnett said New Horizons didn't object to that finding.
"It's just a question of whether a kid should be around a gun or not," he said. "We might debate that both ways. It certainly could get out of hand, and that's the danger. If it's a job and it's supervised, well, I don't know. I'm not really trying to defend or not defend that."
New Horizons kicked the parents out of its foster program for unrelated reasons in September 2003, six months before the state wrote its report, he said. The families moved on to another foster care contractor, he said.
Almost no penalties
Except for cases listed as physical or sexual abuse, the state almost always has the contractor investigate its own foster home. State officials review the findings and the steps needed to fix the problem. If the state concurs, it closes the case without any mention in the contractor's public, online compliance record that the incident ever happened.
One such case in 2002 concerned a foster home operating through A World for Children, based in the Austin suburb of Round Rock. The state received complaints about the home over a five-week period.
Two foster children regularly had to change a younger child's diaper. Two children went without needed glasses. The foster mother didn't always provide school supplies. Children rode four-wheelers without helmets.
"One child had a bruise on her pubic bone and a swelling at the back of the spine that were not explained," the state wrote to the contractor.
The contractor investigated and found the home deficient on a half-dozen standards, including one barring "any harsh, cruel, unusual, unnecessary, demeaning, or humiliating punishment." It kicked the foster parents out of the program.
State officials concurred but took no action against the contractor, despite a regulation saying the contractor has an ongoing duty to ensure that foster parents obey the rules. The state's online database says only that an investigation found no violations – no names or details.
The News found scores of similar cases involving various contractors.
Char Bateman, in charge of residential child-care licensing for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said the state doesn't cite a contractor for a foster parent's violation if the contractor handled the case properly – for example, if it responded quickly and took the right steps to correct the problem.
If the contractor mismanages the investigation, the contractor itself might face a violation. The state also does routine inspections that look at a sample of the contractor's files.
Even when the state cites the contractor for a violation, there's seldom a penalty. That happened with a 2002 case in which a foster mother concealed the presence in her home of a man with a known criminal record and the contractor didn't act.
A worker for A World for Children had told the foster mother that the man, who wasn't identified, couldn't be in the home. The mother then ordered the foster children "not to tell the [contractor] staff that the man was in the home."
The state found that the contractor had known about the problem for months but didn't force the issue until CPS was tipped Sept. 24, 2002.
The state closed the case by citing two violations against A World for Children. For each, the solution included a talk with the foster mother, agreements that she wouldn't let the man back in the house and that she wouldn't keep any more secrets, unannounced visits by supervisors, and increased training for the contractor.
The Department of Family and Protective Services has no real police power over the contractors, Ms. Bateman said. The department can boost monitoring requirements and inspect more frequently, in serious cases can tell a contractor to stop putting children in a home.
But it can't fine a contractor for poor performance. The final option, revoking a contractor's license, is rarely used.
"Our philosophy is to try and help them succeed and do a good job," Ms. Bateman said.
'Low risk'
It was often hard to tell from the reports how serious the problem was. Records reviewed by The News classified all of the following as minor, low-risk allegations that, under state policy, would give the state up to15 days to launch an investigation:
A foster mother verbally abused the children, withheld water on a hot day, withheld food as punishment, pushed a child into a van and drove 11 children in a van, forcing some to sit on the floorboards.
A 17-year-old foster child was found sitting by a trash container behind a restaurant at night, "bleeding from her arms, crying and being obviously upset." Apparently kicked out of the home by her foster mother, the girl was cutting herself because it helped "get the pain out."
Four foster children, ages 11 to 14, were forced to take care of the toddler of the foster mother's 20-year-old, methamphetamine-hooked daughter.
A foster mother habitually went 14 hours between changing the diaper of a 12-year-old mentally retarded girl with cerebral palsy, eczema, scoliosis and a reactive airway disease that forced the use of a tracheotomy tube. The girl was developing a "skin breakdown" and blisters under her diaper.
Sometimes, state child-abuse hotline workers recommended a higher priority and more serious category, only to have the final paperwork later reflect lower, less serious risk. That's what happened in the allegation that a foster mother had tried at least three times to get her mother-in-law to give her some prescription Valium and Xanax to medicate a 10-year-old boy.
The hotline worker recommended labeling the case medical neglect, priority 2, which would call for a response within 10 days. The child "is accessible to [the foster mother] and is unprotected," the worker wrote.
However, the official "intake" report called the case a minor violation, priority 3, the classification for low risk to a child – giving the state five additional days to start an investigation.
Abuse or neglect allegations are supposed to be the highest urgency, priority 1, requiring an investigation within 24 hours, Ms. Bateman said. Each new report is reviewed by one of three investigation supervisors to make sure it's been given the right priority, she said.
However, if that review isn't done within 24 hours, the state risks violating its own time limit for investigating abuse complaints.
Ms. Bateman said the supervisors upgrade cases into more urgent categories more often than they downgrade them to lower priorities. The News found one such case in the files it reviewed.
In July 2004, the Department of Family and Protective Services started checking samples of intake reports to make sure cases were given the right priority, said Mr. Azar, the department spokesman.
No results are available yet, he said.
Another "minor, low-risk" case stirred concerns by police in McAllen.
On Sept. 18, 2003, two children in a McAllen foster home overseen by A World for Children were being moved to a temporary home while the foster mother was hospitalized. However, one child, a 13-year-old girl, ran away before being moved.
According to the other child, the foster mother's 30-year-old son was living in the house and had started buying the girl gifts and giving her "a lot of attention,"
While investigating the girl's disappearance, a McAllen detective learned something else about the foster mother's son: Two months earlier, a security guard had caught him in his car in a shopping mall parking lot, videotaping girls without their knowledge.
A police officer who responded watched the tape and saw that it contained shots of girls at the mall, a Target store and McAllen High School, "zooming in on their breast and buttocks area."
The officer didn't arrest the son because he didn't know that a new state law made it a crime to secretly taping someone for sexual purposes. Still, the detective who was looking for the runaway girl "was wondering why [the son] was allowed to live with [the foster mother] in a foster home."
All that information was available when the state classified it as a minor, low-risk case.
The News did not find the son's name in Texas' sex-offender and criminal convictions records. Sgt. Mike Zellers of the McAllen Police Department said he couldn't find a report of the incident, but he added that his small department gets from 75 to 100 referrals from CPS each month.
Neither the documents themselves nor the McAllen police could determine if the girl ever came home.
Staff Writer Reese Dunklin contributed to this report.
Exclusive: Abuse found in foster homes overseen by contractors
By RANDY LEE LOFTIS and PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Private contractors that handle three-fourths of Texas' foster care have placed children with foster parents who later abused, molested or neglected them or even disappeared with kids in their care, records reveal.
Some contractors have failed to act for nearly a year after learning that foster children were living with people with criminal records or in homes with fire or safety hazards.
One contractor was investigated for sending a 14-month-old girl on a breathing machine – who was born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus and bladder disease – to live with a foster mother who smoked.
The same organization placed "very medically fragile" children with a woman who later admitted concealing a recent psychiatric hospitalization. She also was a suspected drug user who, when requested, refused to take a drug test or turn over medical records.
State legislators are poised to put all of Texas' 26,000 foster children – victims of abuse, neglect or disintegrated families – in the hands of private managers, either nonprofit groups or for-profit companies. Backers say that's because private managers have shown they can keep children safe.
"They have proven, in those areas, to do a very good job," said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chief author of a plan that has passed the Senate.
Told of The Dallas Morning News' findings, she added, "We've got to put protections in place ... whether it's through private agencies or the state."
But others say the state is moving too fast and that some plans, especially one due for House debate this week, give private managers too much power without enough state oversight. What's really needed, some say, is a much tougher approach by state Child Protective Services in investigating child abuse.
"The public's upset with CPS has all been about investigations," said F. Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Priorities, an Austin-based group that focuses on Texas child-welfare and related issues. "We've got an investigative problem, but what we're addressing [in the Legislature] is something else."
Child welfare
The News reviewed tens of thousands of pages of state files on foster care contractors that either the newspaper or a state agency obtained through open-records requests. Many details on abuse investigations aren't available to the public, so the newspaper focused on contractors for which the records it reviewed were most complete. It then chose some cases for a closer look.
Whenever possible, The News compared those records with the much more limited information that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services makes available to the public via an online database of foster contractors' compliance histories.
The contractors recruit and train foster parents and place children in the foster homes for the state after a judge puts a child in the state's care. Then they oversee the foster parents' performance.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services regulates the contractors and also directly supervises a quarter of the state's foster care homes. Under the current system, the department is the case manager for each foster child's overall welfare, whether the child is in a private or a state foster home.
Contractors receive state payments for each child and pass on part of the money to the foster parents for the children's general needs. In the current fiscal year, contractors get $36 per child per day for basic care, with the foster parent getting $20 of that.
Children with specialized needs, such as serious medical or emotional problems, generate higher payments – $87.25 per child per day to the contractor, $45 of that to the foster family. In addition, the state covers all foster children's medical and dental bills.
Records show that after some serious violations by foster parents, such as physical punishment, which isn't allowed, the contractors removed the children and cut off the foster parents from future assignments. In other instances, however, problem foster parents were allowed to keep working.
Either way, many serious problems never appear in the state's online database of the contractors' compliance histories, which are supposed to help the public judge the quality of foster care.
Foster care agencies say they work hard to make sure children are safe. "We're not going to leave a child in a situation where there is risk to the child," said Ron McDaniel, vice president of marketing for DePelchin Children's Center of Houston. One of the state's largest foster care providers, DePelchin oversees about 250 foster homes.
How safe Texas' foster children are, however, is hard to tell. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which includes Child Protective Services, said last year that 96 percent were in safe homes.
But Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's office found that the figure "greatly overstates" foster child safety. For example, the figure included only physical or sexual abuse or neglect by adults; it left out child-on-child abuse in foster homes.
The 96 percent also omits instances in which the state didn't confirm abuse or where it "administratively closed" cases without investigating. The Department of Family and Protective Services has stopped the latter practice.
In addition, the comptroller's office said it couldn't account for 250 children in November 2003, who were either missing from Texas foster care or living in unapproved places. The department – long at odds with the comptroller's office – disputes that figure and says it knows of no child who cannot be found.
"We're not pretending we're doing an adequate job" at managing foster care, said Darrell Azar, the department's spokesman. "We need more resources to do it better."
'Minor violations'
In reviewing cases from 2002 to 2004, The News found that in addition to keeping many violations away from public view, the department frequently downplays the seriousness of abuse or neglect allegations. Records often classify allegations of physical or sexual abuse or cruelty as minor violations of minimum standards that pose a low risk to children.
One such allegation involved a 7-year-old foster child who told an adult that his 11-year-old brother was sexually molesting him. In another, a foster mother was allegedly disciplining a psychotic, suicidal 8-year-old girl by taking her outside and telling her there were monsters in the bushes. State records classified both as minor, low-risk situations.
An allegation that a 17-year-old male in a foster home had twice raped an 8-year-old girl in foster care was classified as a case of neglectful supervision.
The records that The News reviewed concerned contractors ranging from mainstays such as the 113-year-old DePelchin to newcomers such as Dallas-based Youth in View, in business just four years.
The examined records include complaint and investigation reports and licensing files and inspections on foster care providers. Some contractors show up more often than others in the cases the newspaper reviewed, but that might be because they handle more foster children.
Some documents are dry accounts of required record-keeping, a massive task that forced Youth in View to stop accepting new foster children for several months in 2003 while the fledgling contractor tried to correct paperwork problems.
Others contain easily disproved allegations by disturbed or angry children. One girl, for example, accused her foster father of sexual abuse, but an investigation found that he was hospitalized for heart surgery at the time of the alleged assault. She then changed the date of the abuse to a time years before she entered the home.
Others are accounts of quick action that limited harm to children. One case from 2002 involved two children whose foster parents physically and mentally abused them and eventually ordered them to lie to cover up the foster parents' role in a car crash.
The contractor, Cedar Ridge Foster Care, based in Lometa in Central Texas, swiftly removed the children, investigated and cut off the parents from any more foster work. The children's therapist, who had triggered the action with a call to CPS, was "very complimentary" of Cedar Ridge's response, a report said.
Often, however, the records reviewed by The News describe cases in which foster care providers knew about problems but did not act.
In one such case, two foster families – not identified by name or location in a 2004 report – were having their foster children assemble weapons in the families' home-based gun store.
"All of the children work or spend at least 20 hours a week at the barn" that housed the armory, according to a state report. "The children are putting together and packing knives, gun magazines, etc. ... Many of the kids reported that one night they worked until 2-4 a.m. in the morning helping their [foster] dads complete an order."
A caseworker for the foster care contractor, New Horizons Ranch, based in Brownwood, knew the children were working at the armory "because the children told her," a state investigation found. After a tip triggered a state inspection, the contractor removed the children and shut the foster homes.
One problem, the inspector noted, was that the contractor's reports of its home visits, meant to document conditions and reinforce the rules, seemed to be copied verbatim from reports the parents themselves wrote and sent in.
New Horizons' executive director, Del Barnett, said New Horizons knew about the gun store when it approved the families as foster parents. New Horizons also knew that the children were working there, he said. They worked voluntarily and were paid more than minimum wage, he said. New Horizons regularly checked the kids and the families and didn't find any abuse in the kids' work at the gun store, he said.
The state inspection report said the children should never have been allowed to work in such a place. "The [foster] facility director was told that this is not an appropriate working place for children," the report said. "It is against standards for children to be around these types of items."
Mr. Barnett said New Horizons didn't object to that finding.
"It's just a question of whether a kid should be around a gun or not," he said. "We might debate that both ways. It certainly could get out of hand, and that's the danger. If it's a job and it's supervised, well, I don't know. I'm not really trying to defend or not defend that."
New Horizons kicked the parents out of its foster program for unrelated reasons in September 2003, six months before the state wrote its report, he said. The families moved on to another foster care contractor, he said.
Almost no penalties
Except for cases listed as physical or sexual abuse, the state almost always has the contractor investigate its own foster home. State officials review the findings and the steps needed to fix the problem. If the state concurs, it closes the case without any mention in the contractor's public, online compliance record that the incident ever happened.
One such case in 2002 concerned a foster home operating through A World for Children, based in the Austin suburb of Round Rock. The state received complaints about the home over a five-week period.
Two foster children regularly had to change a younger child's diaper. Two children went without needed glasses. The foster mother didn't always provide school supplies. Children rode four-wheelers without helmets.
"One child had a bruise on her pubic bone and a swelling at the back of the spine that were not explained," the state wrote to the contractor.
The contractor investigated and found the home deficient on a half-dozen standards, including one barring "any harsh, cruel, unusual, unnecessary, demeaning, or humiliating punishment." It kicked the foster parents out of the program.
State officials concurred but took no action against the contractor, despite a regulation saying the contractor has an ongoing duty to ensure that foster parents obey the rules. The state's online database says only that an investigation found no violations – no names or details.
The News found scores of similar cases involving various contractors.
Char Bateman, in charge of residential child-care licensing for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said the state doesn't cite a contractor for a foster parent's violation if the contractor handled the case properly – for example, if it responded quickly and took the right steps to correct the problem.
If the contractor mismanages the investigation, the contractor itself might face a violation. The state also does routine inspections that look at a sample of the contractor's files.
Even when the state cites the contractor for a violation, there's seldom a penalty. That happened with a 2002 case in which a foster mother concealed the presence in her home of a man with a known criminal record and the contractor didn't act.
A worker for A World for Children had told the foster mother that the man, who wasn't identified, couldn't be in the home. The mother then ordered the foster children "not to tell the [contractor] staff that the man was in the home."
The state found that the contractor had known about the problem for months but didn't force the issue until CPS was tipped Sept. 24, 2002.
The state closed the case by citing two violations against A World for Children. For each, the solution included a talk with the foster mother, agreements that she wouldn't let the man back in the house and that she wouldn't keep any more secrets, unannounced visits by supervisors, and increased training for the contractor.
The Department of Family and Protective Services has no real police power over the contractors, Ms. Bateman said. The department can boost monitoring requirements and inspect more frequently, in serious cases can tell a contractor to stop putting children in a home.
But it can't fine a contractor for poor performance. The final option, revoking a contractor's license, is rarely used.
"Our philosophy is to try and help them succeed and do a good job," Ms. Bateman said.
'Low risk'
It was often hard to tell from the reports how serious the problem was. Records reviewed by The News classified all of the following as minor, low-risk allegations that, under state policy, would give the state up to15 days to launch an investigation:
A foster mother verbally abused the children, withheld water on a hot day, withheld food as punishment, pushed a child into a van and drove 11 children in a van, forcing some to sit on the floorboards.
A 17-year-old foster child was found sitting by a trash container behind a restaurant at night, "bleeding from her arms, crying and being obviously upset." Apparently kicked out of the home by her foster mother, the girl was cutting herself because it helped "get the pain out."
Four foster children, ages 11 to 14, were forced to take care of the toddler of the foster mother's 20-year-old, methamphetamine-hooked daughter.
A foster mother habitually went 14 hours between changing the diaper of a 12-year-old mentally retarded girl with cerebral palsy, eczema, scoliosis and a reactive airway disease that forced the use of a tracheotomy tube. The girl was developing a "skin breakdown" and blisters under her diaper.
Sometimes, state child-abuse hotline workers recommended a higher priority and more serious category, only to have the final paperwork later reflect lower, less serious risk. That's what happened in the allegation that a foster mother had tried at least three times to get her mother-in-law to give her some prescription Valium and Xanax to medicate a 10-year-old boy.
The hotline worker recommended labeling the case medical neglect, priority 2, which would call for a response within 10 days. The child "is accessible to [the foster mother] and is unprotected," the worker wrote.
However, the official "intake" report called the case a minor violation, priority 3, the classification for low risk to a child – giving the state five additional days to start an investigation.
Abuse or neglect allegations are supposed to be the highest urgency, priority 1, requiring an investigation within 24 hours, Ms. Bateman said. Each new report is reviewed by one of three investigation supervisors to make sure it's been given the right priority, she said.
However, if that review isn't done within 24 hours, the state risks violating its own time limit for investigating abuse complaints.
Ms. Bateman said the supervisors upgrade cases into more urgent categories more often than they downgrade them to lower priorities. The News found one such case in the files it reviewed.
In July 2004, the Department of Family and Protective Services started checking samples of intake reports to make sure cases were given the right priority, said Mr. Azar, the department spokesman.
No results are available yet, he said.
Another "minor, low-risk" case stirred concerns by police in McAllen.
On Sept. 18, 2003, two children in a McAllen foster home overseen by A World for Children were being moved to a temporary home while the foster mother was hospitalized. However, one child, a 13-year-old girl, ran away before being moved.
According to the other child, the foster mother's 30-year-old son was living in the house and had started buying the girl gifts and giving her "a lot of attention,"
While investigating the girl's disappearance, a McAllen detective learned something else about the foster mother's son: Two months earlier, a security guard had caught him in his car in a shopping mall parking lot, videotaping girls without their knowledge.
A police officer who responded watched the tape and saw that it contained shots of girls at the mall, a Target store and McAllen High School, "zooming in on their breast and buttocks area."
The officer didn't arrest the son because he didn't know that a new state law made it a crime to secretly taping someone for sexual purposes. Still, the detective who was looking for the runaway girl "was wondering why [the son] was allowed to live with [the foster mother] in a foster home."
All that information was available when the state classified it as a minor, low-risk case.
The News did not find the son's name in Texas' sex-offender and criminal convictions records. Sgt. Mike Zellers of the McAllen Police Department said he couldn't find a report of the incident, but he added that his small department gets from 75 to 100 referrals from CPS each month.
Neither the documents themselves nor the McAllen police could determine if the girl ever came home.
Staff Writer Reese Dunklin contributed to this report.
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Killer's ex-teacher knew of captive
She says she also lived in fear of retribution from escapee
By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
CENTER, Texas – A longtime acquaintance of escaped killer Randolph Dial knew for years that he was hiding in East Texas with the wife of a prison warden he abducted during a 1994 prison break.
But the acquaintance, one of Mr. Dial's high school teachers more than 40 years ago, says she was too afraid to help the warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, get away from the abusive, hard-drinking grifter and was too scared to go to police.
"I tried to do as much for her as I could," said the retired teacher, a single woman in her 70s. She told her story to The Dallas Morning News on condition that her name not be published. She said she still fears Mr. Dial's claimed underworld ties and threats to hurt her loved ones.
"I knew the kind of threats she was living under for herself and for her family, because, damn it, I was living under the same kinds of threats. The people that blow their heads about, 'Oh, she could've gotten away.' They don't know him."
Oklahoma state police say they're trying to sort out whether Mr. Dial should be charged with kidnapping or Mrs. Parker should be charged with helping him stay on the lam – questions that hinge on whether Mrs. Parker was a victim or a chicken-house Patty Hearst.
"There are strong feelings on both sides of the fence. A lot of people that you interview feel that she is just a pure victim," said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations agent Robert Williams. "Then there's lots of people that we talk to that say that she was there willingly, and they were husband and wife."
But the teacher, who sometimes wept while recounting her story to The News, said she and the warden's wife were powerless against a sociopath she calls "evil."
"She had no choice. I had no choice," she said. " Sometimes you do what you have to do to survive."
Investigators from several police agencies that tracked down Mr. Dial said the teacher was one of two friends Mrs. Parker contacted immediately after they arrested him and found her on April 4.
"I got the impression that, yes, she knew," said Nacogdoches County Justice of the Peace Donna Clayton, a reserve sheriff's deputy brought in by the FBI and Texas Rangers to stay with Mrs. Parker after Mr. Dial's arrest.
"I felt like once she was coerced into doing what she did, she became attached," Ms. Clayton said of the teacher. "She couldn't get out, either."
Anonymous tip
Mr. Dial, 60, was arrested after an anonymous tipster saw his picture on a TV crime show and pointed police to the Shelby County chicken farm where he and Ms. Parker lived as Richard and Samantha Deahl. Mr. Dial told reporters he had abducted Mrs. Parker at knifepoint and kept her from fleeing by threatening to hurt her family.
Mrs. Parker, 42, was reunited with her husband, Randy, a prison warden at Fort Supply, Okla. Several officers involved in finding her said they believed Mrs. Parker was kept against her will because she genuinely feared for her family.
Mr. Parker said his wife hasn't talked about what she endured from Mr. Dial but has said the teacher helped her "through some very difficult times." He is convinced that both women were "paralyzed" by fear. He said his wife remains so traumatized that she has difficulty venturing from their home and won't let relatives take photos of her reunited family.
"People don't understand how gripping that fear is," Mr. Parker said. "People who haven't lived with it can't understand."
The teacher's account and those of neighbors, employers and others who knew the couple as Richard and Samantha Deahl paint a bleak picture of Mrs. Parker's existence with Mr. Dial: For much of the time, she labored dawn to dusk, seven days a week, in reeking chicken houses. Her only respite was outings with the teacher to spend her pay on booze, cigarettes and groceries for Mr. Dial and, more rarely, on charity-store hand-me-downs for herself.
Those who knew "Samantha" said she never talked about her past, "worked like a slave," and silently endured drunken rages and even beatings for offenses as small as speaking to another man. And she told neighbors, employers and others that she had to stay with "Richard Deahl" – no matter what.
From boy to man
The teacher said she never could say no to Randolph Dial, not when he came to her as a troubled teen and not when he returned to prey on her.
She said she met Mr. Dial when he enrolled in her Houston-area high school. The stepson of a wealthy oilman seemed smart but disturbed. She liked helping troubled students, so she took him as a class assistant, the teacher said.
She discovered "his stepfather was beating the hell out of him" and got school officials to intervene. They grew friendly, she said, and she told him about her East Texas origins. She said Mr. Dial's mother, also a teacher, stayed in contact with her for years. She heard that her former student briefly owned a bar and taught art in Mexico and that he followed his mob-connected birth father into criminal trouble.
She said Mr. Dial began calling her in the mid-1980s. He was living as a sculptor in Galveston and hinted that he also did contract work for wiseguy friends. And, he began asking her for money and favors.
"He would say things like, 'You know what I do for a living and you know if I'm displeased, you know what I can do about it.' That's the way it was," she said. "It was whatever he wanted."
In 1986, Mr. Dial confessed to an execution-style slaying five years earlier in Broken Arrow, Okla. He was described in local papers as a mob hit man and eventually drew a life term.
The teacher said Mr. Dial told her from jail that someone wanted him dead and "the only way he could get out of it was to turn himself in."
She said he demanded commissary money and art supplies and mentioned that one of his five ex-wives was murdered just after he went to prison. She said he hinted that the woman, whose killing remains unsolved, had crossed him, angered his associates or talked too much.
The teacher said Mr. Dial quit communicating in the summer of 1994, after she sent him $200 in paint and canvases. She said she called the prison to inquire about the shipment and was told that Mr. Dial had escaped by abducting an assistant warden's wife.
Meeting 'Samantha'
Mr. Dial contacted his old teacher "out of the blue" in 1999, just after she moved back to East Texas, and summoned her to Crockett, she said. She went, and he introduced her to a woman she immediately knew was the warden's wife.
"She was like a frightened bunny," the teacher said. "She did whatever he said."
The teacher said Mr. Dial bragged about kidnapping her and said the teacher's relatives could be hurt if she didn't take the woman he called Samantha to run errands on his demand.
In the years that followed, she said, Mr. Dial would count out money that the couple earned from farm labor and dictate a grocery list that began with Milwaukee's Best beer, Bugler cigarette tobacco and jug wine. The teacher said he also gave a strict timetable and took Ms. Parker's change when they returned – a ritual recounted by others who knew the couple.
The teacher said she confided when she was alone with the warden's wife that she was too scared not to obey Mr. Dial. Gradually, Mrs. Parker trusted her enough to tell snatches of what she had endured.
"She told me that there were no choices," she said.
The warden's wife said that Mr. Dial had initially drugged her to keep her docile, the teacher said. Even after she was too intimidated to escape, the teacher said, Mr. Dial made a habit of telling Mrs. Parker that her husband and kids would reject her as convict trash if she tried to go home.
"He worked on her constantly," the teacher said. "I heard it."
Mrs. Parker sometimes spoke of her daughters, 10 and 8 when she disappeared. "We would both end up crying," the teacher added. " 'I'm missing it all,' is what she'd say."
The teacher said she and Mrs. Parker commiserated about escaping and came up with plans to sneak to police at least three times.
"But we'd talk each other out of it."
Life on the chicken farm
Mr. Dial and Mrs. Parker moved in late 1999 to Nacogdoches County to work for Debra Grace.
Ms. Grace said she was leery when Mr. Dial applied to work in her chicken houses, because he and the woman he called his wife seemed unsuited for such hard labor. But she needed the help. She offered them $200 in cash a week and a trailer to live in.
"You don't ask a lot of questions," she said. "It's dirty, and it's stinky, and it's not the kind of work that people want to do if they can find anything else."
Ms. Grace said the teacher drove the couple's belongings to the farm, and she "thought better of him" when she learned that her new hand's one-time teacher thought enough of him to maintain a friendship.
Mrs. Grace said the teacher became a regular visitor, taking "Samantha" on errands because the couple had no car. She said the woman worked nonstop and said little, but "Richard Deahl" was lazy, told outrageous lies, called the cops on Mrs. Grace's nephew and feuded with her deliverymen.
She fired him, relenting when "Samantha" begged to keep working.
One day, Mrs. Grace said, she caught "Richard" beating "Samantha" for talking to another man. She said she separated them and told "Samantha" "that she could leave him, that he was a piece of [expletive], that there was places she could go," Mrs. Grace recalled. "She was just like, 'no, no, no.' "
Soon after, Mrs. Grace said, the couple took another chicken job in a neighboring county. After that, Mrs. Grace said, she occasionally got letters from her former farmhand, notes focused on work and worry about her teacher friend's failing health.
"She is such a big part of my life. I can't imagine her not being here," "Samantha" wrote at Christmas 2003.
Noting that Mrs. Grace would have "children everywhere" for Christmas, Mrs. Parker wrote that she would spend the holiday getting in 200,000 new chickens. "I'm looking at it as a good thing. ... New life!!"
She mentioned "Richard" in passing, saying in one letter that she'd given him a sports TV package from the Dish Network for his birthday.
Mrs. Grace said an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent recently questioned her hard about such behavior from Mrs. Parker. She said she believes that her friend was doing what some women will do to appease sorry men.
"If she gives him presents to keep him from beating her, that's OK," Mrs. Grace said. "That agent asked, 'What if I found out that she had had a romance, would I change my mind? Well, I've lived in a dysfunctional marriage, and I've lived with my mom being beat ...
"If she wrote love letters to him, or Valentine cards, none of that matters," Mrs. Grace said, adding that her friend never put up a Christmas tree because she didn't ever want to associate a joyous holiday with "Richard." "Sam did what she could do to keep the peace."
Dial's demands
In early 2003, the teacher's brother died, and Mr. Dial demanded to have the dead man's 50-year-old Rolex watch.
The teacher said Mr. Dial had made her introduce her brother after surfacing in East Texas, and the men became drinking companions, but she never told her brother what she knew.
"I cried and cried over having to give him that watch," she said.
Mr. Dial had a massive heart attack in March 2004, and both the teacher and Mrs. Grace said they were incredulous that "Samantha" got him to the hospital instead of letting him die.
"She was too gentle," Mrs. Grace said. "She had trouble killing a sick chicken, even when I told her she had to."
Mrs. Grace met her former worker at the Nacogdoches hospital and heard "Richard" tell his cardiologist that the couple was broke and couldn't pay for his care.
"The doctor said he probably wouldn't live long enough to see any bills," she recalled. "He said three-quarters of his heart was gone."
Ms. Grace said she took "Samantha" aside and asked her point blank whether she and "Richard" were really married.
"She said no, and I said, well, then you know you're not responsible for these hospital bills," Mrs. Grace recalled. "I told her that if he would just go and die, I knew how to bury him cheap, and she would be free. She looked at me and smiled."
She, the teacher and others said "Richard" went home several days later and seemed a little changed. They say he seemed to listen when his employer warned him he was a mean man in need of Jesus. He and "Samantha" joined a Pentecostal church.
But neighbors say he still watched his "wife" like a hawk, toting a shotgun around his red-dirt yard to monitor her. Some area residents say Mrs. Parker seemed to come and go as she pleased, driving her bosses' farm truck every few weeks to a convenience store six miles from her home. But others say she seemed frightened and secretive until the day police came.
That night, the teacher said, she made her regular nightly phone call to "Samantha," and a strange male voice said the Deahls were "tied up." She called back, terrified, and learned that police had just arrested Mr. Dial. Mrs. Grace then got a call from "Samantha" and learned for the first time who she really was.
Ms. Grace said she called the teacher and was stunned that she admitted knowing about Mr. Dial and the warden's wife. "She knew all about the SOB," she said. "I said, 'Then why didn't you do something?' Why didn't she do something? ... I'm still kind of angry."
When police burst into the couple's trailer, Mr. Dial was cooking meat patties and gave up peacefully after glancing at a nearby .32-caliber pistol. One officer said he asked if he could keep his 50-year-old Rolex in jail, saying it was a prized high-school graduation present.
The cop retorted that would've made Mr. Dial a 10-year-old graduate. Mr. Dial mumbled that it was his grandfather's and finally said he wanted Mrs. Parker to have it. "That made me suspicious, so I asked her about it," the officer said. "She said it's [the teacher's] dead brother's watch. ... He had scammed [the teacher] out of it."
The next day, Mrs. Parker gave the watch back to the teacher, and the two cried. The teacher said how relieved she was that Mrs. Parker was free. Ms. Clayton, the law officer who stayed with Mrs. Parker after she was found, had to remind the teacher: "Did it occur to you that you're also free?"
Mrs. Grace said she talked on Friday to Mrs. Parker, who acknowledged still struggling with going about normal life – even using the bathroom – without asking permission. "She still doesn't really know she can have her freedom."
Letter from prison
The teacher says she has talked several other times to Mrs. Parker, and she was interviewed last week by an Oklahoma police investigator. The investigator, Mr. Williams, said it is clear that the teacher knew who Mr. Dial and Mrs. Parker were, adding "we're going to present that to the district attorney as well."
Ultimately, he said, the prosecutor will have to decide who is a suspect and who was a victim and whether new charges are warranted in the decade-old escape case.
"We're going to consult psychiatrists," the investigator said. "People have mentioned Stockholm syndrome. I read in the newspaper where one expert from Michigan said that if this were Stockholm syndrome, it would be the longest case ever seen. There's lots of questions in people's minds of how you could keep somebody captive for 10 ½ years and them having the freedom to come and go."
Authorities say Mr. Dial has already tried to communicate with the warden's wife, though he is in a tiny isolation cell – once through a letter to his old teacher.
The teacher showed a reporter a letter that Mr. Dial wrote her on April 6, the day that he arrived at the Oklahoma prison.
The single-page letter, written in a shaky penciled hand, marked with prison stamps and mailed in a printed prison envelope, includes Mr. Dial's admission that he was disoriented, in disbelief and in need of prayer over what had just happened. Using names that the teacher said were fictitious, he said he had to know whether someone stayed or had "gone back to Kansas" – an apparent reference to Mrs. Parker. He also asked for help in recovering $1,000 that he claimed to be owed.
The teacher said she wrote back to say she couldn't help him anymore. But she said she will probably fret forever about what he might do.
"This man is crazy. If you're a relatively normal person, you can't guess what he was thinking. He was always planning, planning, planning. He still is," she said. "We were scared of everything we could do. And that's hell."
She says she also lived in fear of retribution from escapee
By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
CENTER, Texas – A longtime acquaintance of escaped killer Randolph Dial knew for years that he was hiding in East Texas with the wife of a prison warden he abducted during a 1994 prison break.
But the acquaintance, one of Mr. Dial's high school teachers more than 40 years ago, says she was too afraid to help the warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, get away from the abusive, hard-drinking grifter and was too scared to go to police.
"I tried to do as much for her as I could," said the retired teacher, a single woman in her 70s. She told her story to The Dallas Morning News on condition that her name not be published. She said she still fears Mr. Dial's claimed underworld ties and threats to hurt her loved ones.
"I knew the kind of threats she was living under for herself and for her family, because, damn it, I was living under the same kinds of threats. The people that blow their heads about, 'Oh, she could've gotten away.' They don't know him."
Oklahoma state police say they're trying to sort out whether Mr. Dial should be charged with kidnapping or Mrs. Parker should be charged with helping him stay on the lam – questions that hinge on whether Mrs. Parker was a victim or a chicken-house Patty Hearst.
"There are strong feelings on both sides of the fence. A lot of people that you interview feel that she is just a pure victim," said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations agent Robert Williams. "Then there's lots of people that we talk to that say that she was there willingly, and they were husband and wife."
But the teacher, who sometimes wept while recounting her story to The News, said she and the warden's wife were powerless against a sociopath she calls "evil."
"She had no choice. I had no choice," she said. " Sometimes you do what you have to do to survive."
Investigators from several police agencies that tracked down Mr. Dial said the teacher was one of two friends Mrs. Parker contacted immediately after they arrested him and found her on April 4.
"I got the impression that, yes, she knew," said Nacogdoches County Justice of the Peace Donna Clayton, a reserve sheriff's deputy brought in by the FBI and Texas Rangers to stay with Mrs. Parker after Mr. Dial's arrest.
"I felt like once she was coerced into doing what she did, she became attached," Ms. Clayton said of the teacher. "She couldn't get out, either."
Anonymous tip
Mr. Dial, 60, was arrested after an anonymous tipster saw his picture on a TV crime show and pointed police to the Shelby County chicken farm where he and Ms. Parker lived as Richard and Samantha Deahl. Mr. Dial told reporters he had abducted Mrs. Parker at knifepoint and kept her from fleeing by threatening to hurt her family.
Mrs. Parker, 42, was reunited with her husband, Randy, a prison warden at Fort Supply, Okla. Several officers involved in finding her said they believed Mrs. Parker was kept against her will because she genuinely feared for her family.
Mr. Parker said his wife hasn't talked about what she endured from Mr. Dial but has said the teacher helped her "through some very difficult times." He is convinced that both women were "paralyzed" by fear. He said his wife remains so traumatized that she has difficulty venturing from their home and won't let relatives take photos of her reunited family.
"People don't understand how gripping that fear is," Mr. Parker said. "People who haven't lived with it can't understand."
The teacher's account and those of neighbors, employers and others who knew the couple as Richard and Samantha Deahl paint a bleak picture of Mrs. Parker's existence with Mr. Dial: For much of the time, she labored dawn to dusk, seven days a week, in reeking chicken houses. Her only respite was outings with the teacher to spend her pay on booze, cigarettes and groceries for Mr. Dial and, more rarely, on charity-store hand-me-downs for herself.
Those who knew "Samantha" said she never talked about her past, "worked like a slave," and silently endured drunken rages and even beatings for offenses as small as speaking to another man. And she told neighbors, employers and others that she had to stay with "Richard Deahl" – no matter what.
From boy to man
The teacher said she never could say no to Randolph Dial, not when he came to her as a troubled teen and not when he returned to prey on her.
She said she met Mr. Dial when he enrolled in her Houston-area high school. The stepson of a wealthy oilman seemed smart but disturbed. She liked helping troubled students, so she took him as a class assistant, the teacher said.
She discovered "his stepfather was beating the hell out of him" and got school officials to intervene. They grew friendly, she said, and she told him about her East Texas origins. She said Mr. Dial's mother, also a teacher, stayed in contact with her for years. She heard that her former student briefly owned a bar and taught art in Mexico and that he followed his mob-connected birth father into criminal trouble.
She said Mr. Dial began calling her in the mid-1980s. He was living as a sculptor in Galveston and hinted that he also did contract work for wiseguy friends. And, he began asking her for money and favors.
"He would say things like, 'You know what I do for a living and you know if I'm displeased, you know what I can do about it.' That's the way it was," she said. "It was whatever he wanted."
In 1986, Mr. Dial confessed to an execution-style slaying five years earlier in Broken Arrow, Okla. He was described in local papers as a mob hit man and eventually drew a life term.
The teacher said Mr. Dial told her from jail that someone wanted him dead and "the only way he could get out of it was to turn himself in."
She said he demanded commissary money and art supplies and mentioned that one of his five ex-wives was murdered just after he went to prison. She said he hinted that the woman, whose killing remains unsolved, had crossed him, angered his associates or talked too much.
The teacher said Mr. Dial quit communicating in the summer of 1994, after she sent him $200 in paint and canvases. She said she called the prison to inquire about the shipment and was told that Mr. Dial had escaped by abducting an assistant warden's wife.
Meeting 'Samantha'
Mr. Dial contacted his old teacher "out of the blue" in 1999, just after she moved back to East Texas, and summoned her to Crockett, she said. She went, and he introduced her to a woman she immediately knew was the warden's wife.
"She was like a frightened bunny," the teacher said. "She did whatever he said."
The teacher said Mr. Dial bragged about kidnapping her and said the teacher's relatives could be hurt if she didn't take the woman he called Samantha to run errands on his demand.
In the years that followed, she said, Mr. Dial would count out money that the couple earned from farm labor and dictate a grocery list that began with Milwaukee's Best beer, Bugler cigarette tobacco and jug wine. The teacher said he also gave a strict timetable and took Ms. Parker's change when they returned – a ritual recounted by others who knew the couple.
The teacher said she confided when she was alone with the warden's wife that she was too scared not to obey Mr. Dial. Gradually, Mrs. Parker trusted her enough to tell snatches of what she had endured.
"She told me that there were no choices," she said.
The warden's wife said that Mr. Dial had initially drugged her to keep her docile, the teacher said. Even after she was too intimidated to escape, the teacher said, Mr. Dial made a habit of telling Mrs. Parker that her husband and kids would reject her as convict trash if she tried to go home.
"He worked on her constantly," the teacher said. "I heard it."
Mrs. Parker sometimes spoke of her daughters, 10 and 8 when she disappeared. "We would both end up crying," the teacher added. " 'I'm missing it all,' is what she'd say."
The teacher said she and Mrs. Parker commiserated about escaping and came up with plans to sneak to police at least three times.
"But we'd talk each other out of it."
Life on the chicken farm
Mr. Dial and Mrs. Parker moved in late 1999 to Nacogdoches County to work for Debra Grace.
Ms. Grace said she was leery when Mr. Dial applied to work in her chicken houses, because he and the woman he called his wife seemed unsuited for such hard labor. But she needed the help. She offered them $200 in cash a week and a trailer to live in.
"You don't ask a lot of questions," she said. "It's dirty, and it's stinky, and it's not the kind of work that people want to do if they can find anything else."
Ms. Grace said the teacher drove the couple's belongings to the farm, and she "thought better of him" when she learned that her new hand's one-time teacher thought enough of him to maintain a friendship.
Mrs. Grace said the teacher became a regular visitor, taking "Samantha" on errands because the couple had no car. She said the woman worked nonstop and said little, but "Richard Deahl" was lazy, told outrageous lies, called the cops on Mrs. Grace's nephew and feuded with her deliverymen.
She fired him, relenting when "Samantha" begged to keep working.
One day, Mrs. Grace said, she caught "Richard" beating "Samantha" for talking to another man. She said she separated them and told "Samantha" "that she could leave him, that he was a piece of [expletive], that there was places she could go," Mrs. Grace recalled. "She was just like, 'no, no, no.' "
Soon after, Mrs. Grace said, the couple took another chicken job in a neighboring county. After that, Mrs. Grace said, she occasionally got letters from her former farmhand, notes focused on work and worry about her teacher friend's failing health.
"She is such a big part of my life. I can't imagine her not being here," "Samantha" wrote at Christmas 2003.
Noting that Mrs. Grace would have "children everywhere" for Christmas, Mrs. Parker wrote that she would spend the holiday getting in 200,000 new chickens. "I'm looking at it as a good thing. ... New life!!"
She mentioned "Richard" in passing, saying in one letter that she'd given him a sports TV package from the Dish Network for his birthday.
Mrs. Grace said an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent recently questioned her hard about such behavior from Mrs. Parker. She said she believes that her friend was doing what some women will do to appease sorry men.
"If she gives him presents to keep him from beating her, that's OK," Mrs. Grace said. "That agent asked, 'What if I found out that she had had a romance, would I change my mind? Well, I've lived in a dysfunctional marriage, and I've lived with my mom being beat ...
"If she wrote love letters to him, or Valentine cards, none of that matters," Mrs. Grace said, adding that her friend never put up a Christmas tree because she didn't ever want to associate a joyous holiday with "Richard." "Sam did what she could do to keep the peace."
Dial's demands
In early 2003, the teacher's brother died, and Mr. Dial demanded to have the dead man's 50-year-old Rolex watch.
The teacher said Mr. Dial had made her introduce her brother after surfacing in East Texas, and the men became drinking companions, but she never told her brother what she knew.
"I cried and cried over having to give him that watch," she said.
Mr. Dial had a massive heart attack in March 2004, and both the teacher and Mrs. Grace said they were incredulous that "Samantha" got him to the hospital instead of letting him die.
"She was too gentle," Mrs. Grace said. "She had trouble killing a sick chicken, even when I told her she had to."
Mrs. Grace met her former worker at the Nacogdoches hospital and heard "Richard" tell his cardiologist that the couple was broke and couldn't pay for his care.
"The doctor said he probably wouldn't live long enough to see any bills," she recalled. "He said three-quarters of his heart was gone."
Ms. Grace said she took "Samantha" aside and asked her point blank whether she and "Richard" were really married.
"She said no, and I said, well, then you know you're not responsible for these hospital bills," Mrs. Grace recalled. "I told her that if he would just go and die, I knew how to bury him cheap, and she would be free. She looked at me and smiled."
She, the teacher and others said "Richard" went home several days later and seemed a little changed. They say he seemed to listen when his employer warned him he was a mean man in need of Jesus. He and "Samantha" joined a Pentecostal church.
But neighbors say he still watched his "wife" like a hawk, toting a shotgun around his red-dirt yard to monitor her. Some area residents say Mrs. Parker seemed to come and go as she pleased, driving her bosses' farm truck every few weeks to a convenience store six miles from her home. But others say she seemed frightened and secretive until the day police came.
That night, the teacher said, she made her regular nightly phone call to "Samantha," and a strange male voice said the Deahls were "tied up." She called back, terrified, and learned that police had just arrested Mr. Dial. Mrs. Grace then got a call from "Samantha" and learned for the first time who she really was.
Ms. Grace said she called the teacher and was stunned that she admitted knowing about Mr. Dial and the warden's wife. "She knew all about the SOB," she said. "I said, 'Then why didn't you do something?' Why didn't she do something? ... I'm still kind of angry."
When police burst into the couple's trailer, Mr. Dial was cooking meat patties and gave up peacefully after glancing at a nearby .32-caliber pistol. One officer said he asked if he could keep his 50-year-old Rolex in jail, saying it was a prized high-school graduation present.
The cop retorted that would've made Mr. Dial a 10-year-old graduate. Mr. Dial mumbled that it was his grandfather's and finally said he wanted Mrs. Parker to have it. "That made me suspicious, so I asked her about it," the officer said. "She said it's [the teacher's] dead brother's watch. ... He had scammed [the teacher] out of it."
The next day, Mrs. Parker gave the watch back to the teacher, and the two cried. The teacher said how relieved she was that Mrs. Parker was free. Ms. Clayton, the law officer who stayed with Mrs. Parker after she was found, had to remind the teacher: "Did it occur to you that you're also free?"
Mrs. Grace said she talked on Friday to Mrs. Parker, who acknowledged still struggling with going about normal life – even using the bathroom – without asking permission. "She still doesn't really know she can have her freedom."
Letter from prison
The teacher says she has talked several other times to Mrs. Parker, and she was interviewed last week by an Oklahoma police investigator. The investigator, Mr. Williams, said it is clear that the teacher knew who Mr. Dial and Mrs. Parker were, adding "we're going to present that to the district attorney as well."
Ultimately, he said, the prosecutor will have to decide who is a suspect and who was a victim and whether new charges are warranted in the decade-old escape case.
"We're going to consult psychiatrists," the investigator said. "People have mentioned Stockholm syndrome. I read in the newspaper where one expert from Michigan said that if this were Stockholm syndrome, it would be the longest case ever seen. There's lots of questions in people's minds of how you could keep somebody captive for 10 ½ years and them having the freedom to come and go."
Authorities say Mr. Dial has already tried to communicate with the warden's wife, though he is in a tiny isolation cell – once through a letter to his old teacher.
The teacher showed a reporter a letter that Mr. Dial wrote her on April 6, the day that he arrived at the Oklahoma prison.
The single-page letter, written in a shaky penciled hand, marked with prison stamps and mailed in a printed prison envelope, includes Mr. Dial's admission that he was disoriented, in disbelief and in need of prayer over what had just happened. Using names that the teacher said were fictitious, he said he had to know whether someone stayed or had "gone back to Kansas" – an apparent reference to Mrs. Parker. He also asked for help in recovering $1,000 that he claimed to be owed.
The teacher said she wrote back to say she couldn't help him anymore. But she said she will probably fret forever about what he might do.
"This man is crazy. If you're a relatively normal person, you can't guess what he was thinking. He was always planning, planning, planning. He still is," she said. "We were scared of everything we could do. And that's hell."
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Corpus Christi seeing revitalization
City's improved infrastructure cited in economic growth
By SCOTT WILLIAMS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – It sounds like a question you'd find on one of those standardized tests they give kids in school. Which one of these cities doesn't belong on the list: New York, Detroit, Chicago, Corpus Christi and Dallas-Fort Worth?
"You can give that to a third-grader and he can pick that out," said Jim Barnette, co-owner of Corpus Christi's largest general contractor.
Most would answer Corpus Christi. But Site Selection magazine, a trade publication geared toward industry relocation professionals, recently ranked it fourth in the nation for new investments at $3.1 billion, slightly ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth at $3 billion.
The ranking and five-year growth spurt the city has experienced come with a few caveats. The $3.1 billion in new investment includes $828 million for an expansion at one of the city's refineries, projects at two other refineries and three proposed liquefied natural gas terminals in the nearby city of Ingleside.
For a city that for years embraced a no-growth attitude, the last five years have been unusual.
Changes to the city's landscape, economic and otherwise, include:
•Expansion of the city's convention center and construction of a connecting 10,500-seat multi-purpose arena;
•New construction at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi;
•Construction of a modern airport terminal;
•Construction to extend one of Corpus Christi's few highways to the city's South side;
•Raising of the John F. Kennedy Causeway between the mainland and Padre Island, making the trip between city and island quicker; , and
•Dredging a channel between Padre and Mustang islands to make it easier for boats to get to the Gulf of Mexico, a move that is considered key to island development.
Add to all that a string of successful bond elections and sales tax increases tied to economic development and infrastructure improvements and it's clear that the city's attitude toward growth has changed.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't get a phone call from someone looking to move to Corpus Christi or looking to invest here," said Gene Guernsey, a real estate broker who's lived here all of his 43 years. "The past three years both for me personally as a real estate broker and for the [Corpus Christi] Association of Realtors, as a whole, have seen record-setting years."
New-home construction permits have climbed 75 percent in the last five years, Mr. Guernsey said.
Little growth in the '90s
To fully appreciate the change, you have to go back to the 1990s when the U.S. economy was booming. Corpus Christi's population grew at around 7 percent in the 1990s compared with a statewide average of around 21 percent, and voters had rejected every pro-growth initiative for the last 15 years.
"Because of that, as I told people, we were very successful at not being successful," said Mark Scott, a city councilman since 1999.
A residents group called the Corpus Christi Taxpayers Association had successfully campaigned against bond packages and proposed sales tax increases to the point that some began to lose hope that anything would change.
"Corpus Christi has always had an element that has enjoyed being almost a sleepy fishing village," said Tom Niskala, transportation planning director for the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization. "They were able to utilize the problems of the moment as kind of their little mallet to beat the politicians back into their holes."
Mr. Niskala, who moved to the city in 1981, said that atmosphere began to change with the election of the late Mary Rhodes, a forward-looking city councilwoman who later became mayor.
She was followed by Loyd Neal, who completed his fourth term last week. Mr. Neal credits the council's work to put the city back on sound financial footing and the formation of a pro-growth group as for the turnaround.
Eventually, the city put forth a $30.8 million bond package – small even by Corpus Christi standards – that served as a catalyst. Voters approved that and several other bond packages in subsequent years, including a $95 million bond package in 2004.
City's fragile self-esteem
Still, not every bond package and growth initiative has been approved. Voters last year rejected a $230 million school improvement package, and two proposals to develop the city's bayfront died.
And not everyone is happy with increased property values – especially on Padre Island, where land values are rising 2 percent per month.
John Trice, 52, a Corpus Christi banker and lifelong city resident, said cars driven by county tax appraisal employees are common on the island.
"They do not miss a beat out here because they know this is a growth economy," said Mr. Trice, who moved to Padre Island in 1978.
Still, Mr. Scott worries that the cohesiveness he sees on the city council might someday fall apart. The city failed for so long that its self-esteem is still fragile, he said.
"The goal of the leadership at this point," he said, "is to be able to handle whatever failure comes our way."
Scott Williams is a freelance writer based in Corpus Christi.
City's improved infrastructure cited in economic growth
By SCOTT WILLIAMS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – It sounds like a question you'd find on one of those standardized tests they give kids in school. Which one of these cities doesn't belong on the list: New York, Detroit, Chicago, Corpus Christi and Dallas-Fort Worth?
"You can give that to a third-grader and he can pick that out," said Jim Barnette, co-owner of Corpus Christi's largest general contractor.
Most would answer Corpus Christi. But Site Selection magazine, a trade publication geared toward industry relocation professionals, recently ranked it fourth in the nation for new investments at $3.1 billion, slightly ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth at $3 billion.
The ranking and five-year growth spurt the city has experienced come with a few caveats. The $3.1 billion in new investment includes $828 million for an expansion at one of the city's refineries, projects at two other refineries and three proposed liquefied natural gas terminals in the nearby city of Ingleside.
For a city that for years embraced a no-growth attitude, the last five years have been unusual.
Changes to the city's landscape, economic and otherwise, include:
•Expansion of the city's convention center and construction of a connecting 10,500-seat multi-purpose arena;
•New construction at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi;
•Construction of a modern airport terminal;
•Construction to extend one of Corpus Christi's few highways to the city's South side;
•Raising of the John F. Kennedy Causeway between the mainland and Padre Island, making the trip between city and island quicker; , and
•Dredging a channel between Padre and Mustang islands to make it easier for boats to get to the Gulf of Mexico, a move that is considered key to island development.
Add to all that a string of successful bond elections and sales tax increases tied to economic development and infrastructure improvements and it's clear that the city's attitude toward growth has changed.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't get a phone call from someone looking to move to Corpus Christi or looking to invest here," said Gene Guernsey, a real estate broker who's lived here all of his 43 years. "The past three years both for me personally as a real estate broker and for the [Corpus Christi] Association of Realtors, as a whole, have seen record-setting years."
New-home construction permits have climbed 75 percent in the last five years, Mr. Guernsey said.
Little growth in the '90s
To fully appreciate the change, you have to go back to the 1990s when the U.S. economy was booming. Corpus Christi's population grew at around 7 percent in the 1990s compared with a statewide average of around 21 percent, and voters had rejected every pro-growth initiative for the last 15 years.
"Because of that, as I told people, we were very successful at not being successful," said Mark Scott, a city councilman since 1999.
A residents group called the Corpus Christi Taxpayers Association had successfully campaigned against bond packages and proposed sales tax increases to the point that some began to lose hope that anything would change.
"Corpus Christi has always had an element that has enjoyed being almost a sleepy fishing village," said Tom Niskala, transportation planning director for the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization. "They were able to utilize the problems of the moment as kind of their little mallet to beat the politicians back into their holes."
Mr. Niskala, who moved to the city in 1981, said that atmosphere began to change with the election of the late Mary Rhodes, a forward-looking city councilwoman who later became mayor.
She was followed by Loyd Neal, who completed his fourth term last week. Mr. Neal credits the council's work to put the city back on sound financial footing and the formation of a pro-growth group as for the turnaround.
Eventually, the city put forth a $30.8 million bond package – small even by Corpus Christi standards – that served as a catalyst. Voters approved that and several other bond packages in subsequent years, including a $95 million bond package in 2004.
City's fragile self-esteem
Still, not every bond package and growth initiative has been approved. Voters last year rejected a $230 million school improvement package, and two proposals to develop the city's bayfront died.
And not everyone is happy with increased property values – especially on Padre Island, where land values are rising 2 percent per month.
John Trice, 52, a Corpus Christi banker and lifelong city resident, said cars driven by county tax appraisal employees are common on the island.
"They do not miss a beat out here because they know this is a growth economy," said Mr. Trice, who moved to Padre Island in 1978.
Still, Mr. Scott worries that the cohesiveness he sees on the city council might someday fall apart. The city failed for so long that its self-esteem is still fragile, he said.
"The goal of the leadership at this point," he said, "is to be able to handle whatever failure comes our way."
Scott Williams is a freelance writer based in Corpus Christi.
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- TexasStooge
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To city, new baseball stadium fits like a glove
By SCOTT WILLIAMS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Located near the entrance to one of the nation's busiest ports, Corpus Christi's new baseball field sits on the best site in minor league baseball, says Reid Ryan, son of Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan.
Fans seeing the stadium for the first time today at the Corpus Christi Hooks' home opener against the Midland RockHounds will probably agree. They've bought out all the tickets.
Just behind right field, the city's Harbor Bridge arches 253 feet above the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, where slow-moving oil tankers pass behind the outfield like targets in an arcade game.
"To me, it is the best Double A stadium in the country, hands down," said Mr. Ryan, president of Ryan/Sanders Baseball, which owns the Corpus Christi Hooks, an affiliate of the Houston Astros, as well as the Round Rock Express, the Astros' Triple-A affiliate north of Austin.
The opening of Whataburger Field, named for the fast-food chain headquartered in Corpus Christi, began as a dream almost five years ago. That was not long after the newly formed Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. hired Ron Kitchens, its first chief executive officer.
Mr. Kitchens thought a baseball team affiliated with a major league team would be good for the city. No one else seemed all that excited at the prospect – that is, not until Mr. Ryan, toting his father's famous name and a successful track record in Round Rock, came to Corpus Christi.
After the two met, Mr. Ryan presented a proposal to the other owners.
The proposal called for Ryan/Sanders Baseball to purchase a Triple A team for Round Rock and move the Double A team to Corpus Christi. The city, in turn, would build a minor league stadium near downtown.
Mr. Ryan said his family had long believed that Corpus Christi needed a baseball team and hoped that it someday would be home to a Texas League club. Corpus Christi voters overwhelmingly approved a 1/8 -cent sales tax increase to fund the 7,000-seat Whataburger Field, at an estimated cost of $28 million. Mr. Kitchens said the Hooks could bring national attention to Corpus Christi.
The team also is expected to attract tourists, and Mr. Kitchens believes the stadium will spur development in the area. He said getting the team "is a lot like bringing a Fortune 500 headquarters to Corpus Christi," he said.
Critics complain that parking and traffic will be a problem, especially on nights when Hooks games coincide with concerts at the city's new multipurpose arena.
Others complain that the stadium is running over budget because the council has approved four change orders adding to the original cost.
"Some communities by-God-believe they're going to succeed, and Corpus failed for so long, it was hard for people to really believe we're a winner," said council member Mark Scott. "But when you walk into that [stadium] for the first time ... you're going to say to yourself, 'We're a winner.' "
Scott Williams is a freelance writer based in Corpus Christi.
By SCOTT WILLIAMS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Located near the entrance to one of the nation's busiest ports, Corpus Christi's new baseball field sits on the best site in minor league baseball, says Reid Ryan, son of Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan.
Fans seeing the stadium for the first time today at the Corpus Christi Hooks' home opener against the Midland RockHounds will probably agree. They've bought out all the tickets.
Just behind right field, the city's Harbor Bridge arches 253 feet above the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, where slow-moving oil tankers pass behind the outfield like targets in an arcade game.
"To me, it is the best Double A stadium in the country, hands down," said Mr. Ryan, president of Ryan/Sanders Baseball, which owns the Corpus Christi Hooks, an affiliate of the Houston Astros, as well as the Round Rock Express, the Astros' Triple-A affiliate north of Austin.
The opening of Whataburger Field, named for the fast-food chain headquartered in Corpus Christi, began as a dream almost five years ago. That was not long after the newly formed Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. hired Ron Kitchens, its first chief executive officer.
Mr. Kitchens thought a baseball team affiliated with a major league team would be good for the city. No one else seemed all that excited at the prospect – that is, not until Mr. Ryan, toting his father's famous name and a successful track record in Round Rock, came to Corpus Christi.
After the two met, Mr. Ryan presented a proposal to the other owners.
The proposal called for Ryan/Sanders Baseball to purchase a Triple A team for Round Rock and move the Double A team to Corpus Christi. The city, in turn, would build a minor league stadium near downtown.
Mr. Ryan said his family had long believed that Corpus Christi needed a baseball team and hoped that it someday would be home to a Texas League club. Corpus Christi voters overwhelmingly approved a 1/8 -cent sales tax increase to fund the 7,000-seat Whataburger Field, at an estimated cost of $28 million. Mr. Kitchens said the Hooks could bring national attention to Corpus Christi.
The team also is expected to attract tourists, and Mr. Kitchens believes the stadium will spur development in the area. He said getting the team "is a lot like bringing a Fortune 500 headquarters to Corpus Christi," he said.
Critics complain that parking and traffic will be a problem, especially on nights when Hooks games coincide with concerts at the city's new multipurpose arena.
Others complain that the stadium is running over budget because the council has approved four change orders adding to the original cost.
"Some communities by-God-believe they're going to succeed, and Corpus failed for so long, it was hard for people to really believe we're a winner," said council member Mark Scott. "But when you walk into that [stadium] for the first time ... you're going to say to yourself, 'We're a winner.' "
Scott Williams is a freelance writer based in Corpus Christi.
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Campus offenses shoot up
Officials pin 65% jump in crime, violent actions on improved reporting
By RUSSELL RIAN / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas - Irving ISD reported a 65 percent increase in violent or criminal acts on campuses during the 2003-04 year, compared with the prior year, according to figures released last week as part of a state-mandated report. Student populations for those campuses increased only 4 percent during the same period.
The result: a crime rate of 13.9 incidents per 1,000 students districtwide, up from 8.5 incidents per 1,000 students in 2003, an analysis of crime and student population data shows. The data do not break down which types of crimes were most common but cover everything from assaults and weapons violations to false alarms, smoking and truancy.
District officials say the increases are in part the result of more accurate reporting of incidents by campuses: more training to ensure incidents are properly categorized and better computer programs that make reporting easier and more consistent.
"I think the reporting of it is making a difference," said Lane Ladewig, director of campus operations. "We have seen an increase, but from my perspective of dealing with issues of violence, it seems like we have not had many major issues."
Still, students feel safe, according to a district survey taken the same year. The random survey of about 1,100 students indicated the vast majority – 90 percent – felt safe at school. Three-quarters said they had never been physically threatened or hurt, and more than two-thirds said they hadn't been bullied. Eighty-six percent said no one had made sexual advances or had tried to sexually assault them at school.
Ninety percent said they had not had anything taken from them directly by force, though more than half – 55 percent – said they had something stolen from their desk or locker.
The state requires campuses to report disciplinary actions that involved violent or criminal behavior as part of an annual Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) Report, adopted by trustees last week. The latest data is for the 2003-04 school year and include incidents including assaults and drug possession.
Ten of 29 campuses reported more crimes, including all three high schools and all but one middle school, compared with the previous year. Reported crimes more than doubled at four campuses, and the number of crimes per student increased at six campuses. Such crimes at elementary campuses were rare and about the same as previous years.
The analysis showed a 74 percent increase in the number of incidents at high schools and a 65 percent increase at middle schools from the 2002-03 school year to the 2003-04 school year.
Rates also surged: up to 33 incidents per 1,000 students at the high school level and 18.7 per 1,000 students at the middle school level.
The rate was highest at DeZavala Middle School, where 66 violent and criminal incidents occurred, a rate of 7 incidents per 100 students. That's up from 3 per 100 the previous year and represents a doubling of the number of incidents.
Principal Sebastian Bozas said the state data was "lamentable" but does not indicate the campus is unsafe.
"DeZavala is a safe place to be," he said. "We take student safety as our No. 1 concern."
All disciplinary actions are faithfully recorded at the campus, which may result in more reported cases, he said.
"We take discipline very seriously," Mr. Bozas said. "If a student sees me, it's logged."
Among high schools, Nimitz had the highest rate – 5 per 100 students, up from 3 per 100 students the previous year. Nimitz reported 119 incidents, the most of any campus. It was more than double the number of crimes at MacArthur, although the student populations are about the same.
Total crimes and crime rates per 100 students were fairly static across all elementary campuses. There, the differences amounted to a single incident on any particular campus.
The jump in crimes in 2004 was historically large for the district, which may signal an emerging problem, some community members said.
The number of crimes has risen steadily over the past four years, but crime rates increased only the last two years. Districtwide crime rates increased from about 7 incidents per 1,000 students in 2001 and 2002 to 8.5 incidents per 1,000 in 2003. It's now at about 14 incidents per 1,000 students.
The percentage of criminal disciplinary cases compared with the total disciplinary cases has dropped, according to the report, from about 2.7 percent in 2002 to 1.8 percent in 2004.
Officials pin 65% jump in crime, violent actions on improved reporting
By RUSSELL RIAN / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas - Irving ISD reported a 65 percent increase in violent or criminal acts on campuses during the 2003-04 year, compared with the prior year, according to figures released last week as part of a state-mandated report. Student populations for those campuses increased only 4 percent during the same period.
The result: a crime rate of 13.9 incidents per 1,000 students districtwide, up from 8.5 incidents per 1,000 students in 2003, an analysis of crime and student population data shows. The data do not break down which types of crimes were most common but cover everything from assaults and weapons violations to false alarms, smoking and truancy.
District officials say the increases are in part the result of more accurate reporting of incidents by campuses: more training to ensure incidents are properly categorized and better computer programs that make reporting easier and more consistent.
"I think the reporting of it is making a difference," said Lane Ladewig, director of campus operations. "We have seen an increase, but from my perspective of dealing with issues of violence, it seems like we have not had many major issues."
Still, students feel safe, according to a district survey taken the same year. The random survey of about 1,100 students indicated the vast majority – 90 percent – felt safe at school. Three-quarters said they had never been physically threatened or hurt, and more than two-thirds said they hadn't been bullied. Eighty-six percent said no one had made sexual advances or had tried to sexually assault them at school.
Ninety percent said they had not had anything taken from them directly by force, though more than half – 55 percent – said they had something stolen from their desk or locker.
The state requires campuses to report disciplinary actions that involved violent or criminal behavior as part of an annual Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) Report, adopted by trustees last week. The latest data is for the 2003-04 school year and include incidents including assaults and drug possession.
Ten of 29 campuses reported more crimes, including all three high schools and all but one middle school, compared with the previous year. Reported crimes more than doubled at four campuses, and the number of crimes per student increased at six campuses. Such crimes at elementary campuses were rare and about the same as previous years.
The analysis showed a 74 percent increase in the number of incidents at high schools and a 65 percent increase at middle schools from the 2002-03 school year to the 2003-04 school year.
Rates also surged: up to 33 incidents per 1,000 students at the high school level and 18.7 per 1,000 students at the middle school level.
The rate was highest at DeZavala Middle School, where 66 violent and criminal incidents occurred, a rate of 7 incidents per 100 students. That's up from 3 per 100 the previous year and represents a doubling of the number of incidents.
Principal Sebastian Bozas said the state data was "lamentable" but does not indicate the campus is unsafe.
"DeZavala is a safe place to be," he said. "We take student safety as our No. 1 concern."
All disciplinary actions are faithfully recorded at the campus, which may result in more reported cases, he said.
"We take discipline very seriously," Mr. Bozas said. "If a student sees me, it's logged."
Among high schools, Nimitz had the highest rate – 5 per 100 students, up from 3 per 100 students the previous year. Nimitz reported 119 incidents, the most of any campus. It was more than double the number of crimes at MacArthur, although the student populations are about the same.
Total crimes and crime rates per 100 students were fairly static across all elementary campuses. There, the differences amounted to a single incident on any particular campus.
The jump in crimes in 2004 was historically large for the district, which may signal an emerging problem, some community members said.
The number of crimes has risen steadily over the past four years, but crime rates increased only the last two years. Districtwide crime rates increased from about 7 incidents per 1,000 students in 2001 and 2002 to 8.5 incidents per 1,000 in 2003. It's now at about 14 incidents per 1,000 students.
The percentage of criminal disciplinary cases compared with the total disciplinary cases has dropped, according to the report, from about 2.7 percent in 2002 to 1.8 percent in 2004.
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'Ragtime' opens at Lyric Stage on Friday
IRVING, Texas (The Dallas Morning News) - Lyric Stage presents the first local production of the Tony-award winning musical Ragtime from Friday through May 7 in the Dupree Theater at the Irving Arts Center.
Based on E.L. Doctorow's novel, the musical by Terrence McNally tells the story of three families of different cultural backgrounds whose lives intertwine at the turn of the century. Lynn Ahrens wrote the lyrics, and Stephen Flaherty wrote the music to the book.
Antionette Dipietropolo will direct the play, and Sheila Vaughn Walker is the musical director and conductor.
Irving actors in the cast include leads Wendell L. Holden Jr. as Coalhouse Walker Jr. and James Wesley as Younger Brother, and ensemble members Doris Howard, Eric Hopkins and Vicki Dean. Other leads include Bob Hess as Father, Kia Dawn Fulton as Sarah, David Lee Staggers as Houdini, Lois Sonnier Hart as Emma Goldman and Christine Cunningham as Evelyn Nesbit.
The musical closes Lyric Stage's 12th season.
For tickets, call 972-252-2787 or order online at http://www.ci%20.irving.tx.us/arts.
IRVING, Texas (The Dallas Morning News) - Lyric Stage presents the first local production of the Tony-award winning musical Ragtime from Friday through May 7 in the Dupree Theater at the Irving Arts Center.
Based on E.L. Doctorow's novel, the musical by Terrence McNally tells the story of three families of different cultural backgrounds whose lives intertwine at the turn of the century. Lynn Ahrens wrote the lyrics, and Stephen Flaherty wrote the music to the book.
Antionette Dipietropolo will direct the play, and Sheila Vaughn Walker is the musical director and conductor.
Irving actors in the cast include leads Wendell L. Holden Jr. as Coalhouse Walker Jr. and James Wesley as Younger Brother, and ensemble members Doris Howard, Eric Hopkins and Vicki Dean. Other leads include Bob Hess as Father, Kia Dawn Fulton as Sarah, David Lee Staggers as Houdini, Lois Sonnier Hart as Emma Goldman and Christine Cunningham as Evelyn Nesbit.
The musical closes Lyric Stage's 12th season.
For tickets, call 972-252-2787 or order online at http://www.ci%20.irving.tx.us/arts.
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District has 140 ideas for thought
Panel's suggestions include upgrades in security, technology
By RUSSELL RIAN / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas - Valedictorians and salutatorians should get laptops to keep after graduation. Middle schools should have security cameras added. And the district should seek more online textbooks.
Those are among more than 140 recommendations proposed for improving Irving schools made by a 40-member committee of students, parents, business leaders, teachers and administrators.
Most of the strategies carry over suggestions from last year, but a number of new proposals are also included.
"I don't think we have any smoking guns in here," said Bob Harper, parent representative and chairman of the 40-member District Improvement Committee, which meets annually to review district goals, progress on the goals and make suggestions. "I think these are all really constructive suggestions."
Ruben Franco, school board vice president, said trustees will look over the recommendations to determine community priorities and what the district can afford.
"It's how we get an idea of how the community feels," Mr. Franco said. "We don't deviate very much from it. ... The only thing that limits us is money."
"Some of the highlights here focus on secondary literacy and teaching reading in grades six through 12 for students who are not proficient readers, a continued emphasis on writing and focusing on the needs of English language learners."
Among other new recommendations:
Security
•upgrade existing closed circuit cameras on high school campuses and install them at middle school campuses
•consider software to track campus visitors
•consider an e-mail alert system for parents
Parental involvement
•improve communications among parent groups
•add college information to the district's Web site
•develop parent support for transitions between elementary and middle schools and middle and high schools
Technology
•move toward more online textbooks
•use students to help teachers with technology
•better training for teachers on technology use
•encourage businesses to fund laptops for valedictorians and salutatorians
Staff
•cooperate with alternative certification programs to improve minority hiring
•get all teachers to gain English as a second language training
•keep all classes with a student-teacher ratio under 22-1
The latest plan also adds strategies to inform the public about school funding problems and calls for using bond money to build more classroom space.
Several proposals touch on issues already under consideration by the board.
A consultant this year called for adding more security cameras, and district officials have said a new bond package will likely be needed in the coming years to build additional schools.
"We've had an inkling on a lot of these things," he said, adding that the committee's review helps identify community sentiment as well.
"This is a time-consuming document," said trustee Randy Stipes. "I would like to thank Bob, the chairman and all the people – the administrators, the parents, the patrons – who worked on this."
Panel's suggestions include upgrades in security, technology
By RUSSELL RIAN / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas - Valedictorians and salutatorians should get laptops to keep after graduation. Middle schools should have security cameras added. And the district should seek more online textbooks.
Those are among more than 140 recommendations proposed for improving Irving schools made by a 40-member committee of students, parents, business leaders, teachers and administrators.
Most of the strategies carry over suggestions from last year, but a number of new proposals are also included.
"I don't think we have any smoking guns in here," said Bob Harper, parent representative and chairman of the 40-member District Improvement Committee, which meets annually to review district goals, progress on the goals and make suggestions. "I think these are all really constructive suggestions."
Ruben Franco, school board vice president, said trustees will look over the recommendations to determine community priorities and what the district can afford.
"It's how we get an idea of how the community feels," Mr. Franco said. "We don't deviate very much from it. ... The only thing that limits us is money."
"Some of the highlights here focus on secondary literacy and teaching reading in grades six through 12 for students who are not proficient readers, a continued emphasis on writing and focusing on the needs of English language learners."
Among other new recommendations:
Security
•upgrade existing closed circuit cameras on high school campuses and install them at middle school campuses
•consider software to track campus visitors
•consider an e-mail alert system for parents
Parental involvement
•improve communications among parent groups
•add college information to the district's Web site
•develop parent support for transitions between elementary and middle schools and middle and high schools
Technology
•move toward more online textbooks
•use students to help teachers with technology
•better training for teachers on technology use
•encourage businesses to fund laptops for valedictorians and salutatorians
Staff
•cooperate with alternative certification programs to improve minority hiring
•get all teachers to gain English as a second language training
•keep all classes with a student-teacher ratio under 22-1
The latest plan also adds strategies to inform the public about school funding problems and calls for using bond money to build more classroom space.
Several proposals touch on issues already under consideration by the board.
A consultant this year called for adding more security cameras, and district officials have said a new bond package will likely be needed in the coming years to build additional schools.
"We've had an inkling on a lot of these things," he said, adding that the committee's review helps identify community sentiment as well.
"This is a time-consuming document," said trustee Randy Stipes. "I would like to thank Bob, the chairman and all the people – the administrators, the parents, the patrons – who worked on this."
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Euless police say man killed daughter, then self
EULESS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Euless police are investigating the death of a 4-year-old girl who was apparently killed by her own father.
Police said they found the girl and her father dead of gunshot wounds when they arrived at a home in the 600 block of Brenda Lane Sunday morning.
Some other family members were present at the time, but they were not hurt.
The gunman, identified as Johnny Khanthalangsy, 24, was convicted of a weapons charge two weeks ago and was scheduled to begin serving a jail sentence soon.
Police said the dead girl is Mya Ling Khanthalangsy, and that she and her father had been living at the Brenda Lane address with her grandfather.
EULESS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Euless police are investigating the death of a 4-year-old girl who was apparently killed by her own father.
Police said they found the girl and her father dead of gunshot wounds when they arrived at a home in the 600 block of Brenda Lane Sunday morning.
Some other family members were present at the time, but they were not hurt.
The gunman, identified as Johnny Khanthalangsy, 24, was convicted of a weapons charge two weeks ago and was scheduled to begin serving a jail sentence soon.
Police said the dead girl is Mya Ling Khanthalangsy, and that she and her father had been living at the Brenda Lane address with her grandfather.
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Wichita Falls man claims 'W' logo stolen
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A supporter of President Bush is suing the Republican National Committee and one of its suppliers, claiming they stole his design for the ubiquitous "W" bumper sticker logo in the 2004 campaign.
Jerry Gossett of Wichita Falls says he pitched his design for a logo to the RNC's supplier of campaign materials, The Spalding Group of Lexington, Ky., in 2001 and to the RNC in 2003, and was turned down.
But in early 2004, he says, a similar logo appeared on a Web site and he traced it back to the RNC. This month, Gossett's Rally Concepts LLC sued in federal court, seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement and conspiracy.
Tracey Schmitt, the RNC's press secretary, called the lawsuit frivolous.
Officials at Spalding did not respond to calls seeking comment, but a company lawyer, William H. Hollander, said in a letter to Gossett's attorney that his design doesn't meet the legal test of being "substantially similar" to Spalding's.
Gossett, inspired by scenes of firefighters raising a flag at the site of the World Trade Center, drew an American flag fluttering from a large W, next to the number 43 for Bush as the 43rd president.
The Spalding design reads "W '04" instead of "W 43," and is rounded, unlike Gossett's rectangular design. Hollander said key elements in the company's design had emerged as early as 1999.
Gossett says he is a loyal Republican and voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, but has become jaded by his experience.
"The big RNC against little me, there was absolutely no chance to win," he said.
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – A supporter of President Bush is suing the Republican National Committee and one of its suppliers, claiming they stole his design for the ubiquitous "W" bumper sticker logo in the 2004 campaign.
Jerry Gossett of Wichita Falls says he pitched his design for a logo to the RNC's supplier of campaign materials, The Spalding Group of Lexington, Ky., in 2001 and to the RNC in 2003, and was turned down.
But in early 2004, he says, a similar logo appeared on a Web site and he traced it back to the RNC. This month, Gossett's Rally Concepts LLC sued in federal court, seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement and conspiracy.
Tracey Schmitt, the RNC's press secretary, called the lawsuit frivolous.
Officials at Spalding did not respond to calls seeking comment, but a company lawyer, William H. Hollander, said in a letter to Gossett's attorney that his design doesn't meet the legal test of being "substantially similar" to Spalding's.
Gossett, inspired by scenes of firefighters raising a flag at the site of the World Trade Center, drew an American flag fluttering from a large W, next to the number 43 for Bush as the 43rd president.
The Spalding design reads "W '04" instead of "W 43," and is rounded, unlike Gossett's rectangular design. Hollander said key elements in the company's design had emerged as early as 1999.
Gossett says he is a loyal Republican and voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, but has become jaded by his experience.
"The big RNC against little me, there was absolutely no chance to win," he said.
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Man Sent To Hospital After Shooting At Dallas Club
Police Unsure What Led To Shooting
DALLAS, Texas (KXAS NBC 5) -- A man was taken to an area hospital Saturday night after a shooting at a Dallas club.
Police said the shooting happened in the parking lot of the El Texas Club on Military Parkway.
Police said they are not sure what led to the shooting.
The suspected shooter was arrested at the scene. Officials said the victim's injuries are not life-threatening.
Police Unsure What Led To Shooting
DALLAS, Texas (KXAS NBC 5) -- A man was taken to an area hospital Saturday night after a shooting at a Dallas club.
Police said the shooting happened in the parking lot of the El Texas Club on Military Parkway.
Police said they are not sure what led to the shooting.
The suspected shooter was arrested at the scene. Officials said the victim's injuries are not life-threatening.
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Truck Accident Closes Part Of Central Expressway
No Injuries Reported
DALLAS, Texas (KXAS NBC 5) -- The southbound lanes of Central Expressway at Spring Valley road in Dallas were closed Saturday after an accident involving a tractor-trailer.
The backside of the 18-wheeler's trailer ended up going off the bridge, NBC 5 News reported.
Authorities haven't said how the accident happened but no injuries were reported, NBC 5 News reported.
No Injuries Reported
DALLAS, Texas (KXAS NBC 5) -- The southbound lanes of Central Expressway at Spring Valley road in Dallas were closed Saturday after an accident involving a tractor-trailer.
The backside of the 18-wheeler's trailer ended up going off the bridge, NBC 5 News reported.
Authorities haven't said how the accident happened but no injuries were reported, NBC 5 News reported.
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Raw sewage floods 2 Mesquite homes
By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8
MESQUITE, Texas - Two Mesquite families have been forced to make alternative living arrangements after raw sewage flooded their homes.
Now they're waiting for the city to pay them damages.
Uncomfortable but exhausted, the family van is the only place for Johnny and Torrey Taylor's four children to take a nap.
"I feel safer with them in the car," Torrey said.
The Taylors can no longer live in the Mesquite home they rent, and can't afford to go somewhere new. Earlier this month, raw sewage flooded nearly their entire house.
"When you just step on the carpet, it's like brown soup," Johnny said.
"It was like a tsunami in there," said Torrey.
The toilet spewed like a geiser, they said, after an accident with city crews working on a nearby sewer line. The waste contaminated walls, furniture and clothes; they lost nearly everything. More than two weeks later the smell is still unbearable, and their landlord has gutted the home.
The city of Mesquite has promised to reimburse the Taylors for their damages and hotel expenses, but only after a full appraisal is processed.
"They can go through the process all they want to," Johnny said. "In the meantime, what are they going to do for us right now?"
The Taylors have run out of money and options. So has their neighbor Bryan Lee, whose family was also flooded out and is dealing with the city.
"I was called to duty and I did it," said Lee, a disabled veteran who is now forced to sleep in his SUV. "All I ask is they return the favor to me."
The Taylors are now taking it day by day, to see where their children will sleep night by night.
"We're not looking to get rich off this," Johnny Taylor said. "We just want to be done right."
By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8
MESQUITE, Texas - Two Mesquite families have been forced to make alternative living arrangements after raw sewage flooded their homes.
Now they're waiting for the city to pay them damages.
Uncomfortable but exhausted, the family van is the only place for Johnny and Torrey Taylor's four children to take a nap.
"I feel safer with them in the car," Torrey said.
The Taylors can no longer live in the Mesquite home they rent, and can't afford to go somewhere new. Earlier this month, raw sewage flooded nearly their entire house.
"When you just step on the carpet, it's like brown soup," Johnny said.
"It was like a tsunami in there," said Torrey.
The toilet spewed like a geiser, they said, after an accident with city crews working on a nearby sewer line. The waste contaminated walls, furniture and clothes; they lost nearly everything. More than two weeks later the smell is still unbearable, and their landlord has gutted the home.
The city of Mesquite has promised to reimburse the Taylors for their damages and hotel expenses, but only after a full appraisal is processed.
"They can go through the process all they want to," Johnny said. "In the meantime, what are they going to do for us right now?"
The Taylors have run out of money and options. So has their neighbor Bryan Lee, whose family was also flooded out and is dealing with the city.
"I was called to duty and I did it," said Lee, a disabled veteran who is now forced to sleep in his SUV. "All I ask is they return the favor to me."
The Taylors are now taking it day by day, to see where their children will sleep night by night.
"We're not looking to get rich off this," Johnny Taylor said. "We just want to be done right."
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Drug house fight hampered by red tape
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
NEWS 8 EXCLUSIVE
DALLAS, Texas - There are thousands of empty homes throughout Dallas-Fort Worth being used as drug houses - yet when it comes to stopping the problem, police said their hands are often tied.
Sunday night one of those houses may have turned into a murder scene. Fire investigators suspect the killer or killers set the home on fire after murdering a woman inside.
Dope houses are such a problem in southwest Dallas that a crime response team does nothing but find houses where drugs are being used and sold.
Since January 1 of this year, the team's officers have made more than 300 arrests. Hundreds of pounds of drugs have been confiscated, and the team has also recovered 96 guns and rifles.
"It's a real big problem, because they are not boarded up," said Dallas police officer Chris Wagner. "It just breeds a lot of crime."
In Sunday's incident, police found a woman's body inside the abandoned home. Even the home's owner told News 8 squatters were probably using the home to do drugs.
Jackie Broadnex lives next door.
"They need to demolish it," Broadnex said. "If they patch it up, they'll just go back in."
There are thousands of homes in Dallas just like it. Police said bad ones need to be condemned, but said it takes the city months - if not years - to knock them down.
"Sometimes you feel you are just spinning your wheels, because you know how to resolve the problem but it's not getting done," Wagner said.
Code compliance officials said they are restricted by law in how a home is demolished, so it does takes a long time.
"I think it's important to realize that of course this is not something the police department can do by itself, and code compliance can not do this by itself," DPD deputy chief Paula Paulhill said. "We have to get everybody involved."
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
NEWS 8 EXCLUSIVE
DALLAS, Texas - There are thousands of empty homes throughout Dallas-Fort Worth being used as drug houses - yet when it comes to stopping the problem, police said their hands are often tied.
Sunday night one of those houses may have turned into a murder scene. Fire investigators suspect the killer or killers set the home on fire after murdering a woman inside.
Dope houses are such a problem in southwest Dallas that a crime response team does nothing but find houses where drugs are being used and sold.
Since January 1 of this year, the team's officers have made more than 300 arrests. Hundreds of pounds of drugs have been confiscated, and the team has also recovered 96 guns and rifles.
"It's a real big problem, because they are not boarded up," said Dallas police officer Chris Wagner. "It just breeds a lot of crime."
In Sunday's incident, police found a woman's body inside the abandoned home. Even the home's owner told News 8 squatters were probably using the home to do drugs.
Jackie Broadnex lives next door.
"They need to demolish it," Broadnex said. "If they patch it up, they'll just go back in."
There are thousands of homes in Dallas just like it. Police said bad ones need to be condemned, but said it takes the city months - if not years - to knock them down.
"Sometimes you feel you are just spinning your wheels, because you know how to resolve the problem but it's not getting done," Wagner said.
Code compliance officials said they are restricted by law in how a home is demolished, so it does takes a long time.
"I think it's important to realize that of course this is not something the police department can do by itself, and code compliance can not do this by itself," DPD deputy chief Paula Paulhill said. "We have to get everybody involved."
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