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My mom is moving from Houston to Austin. She closes on her house next Wednesday, and we will move the next day. We will get a U-Haul truck for the move, and will store her excess furniture and other belongings in a storage unit here in Bastrop. I signed for the unit this morning. As with most business people in this town, the guy at the place was a talker. People just love to talk here. Charlie would enter something into the computer, then talk some more. As it turned out, he lived in The Heights for a good while in a rental on Dorothy near 11th. Small world. One of the stories I told Charlie was about taking a date to DePaul

Anybody have more information on this project? I know most of it is complete, but does anybody have any photos?

I'll never forget the Halloween in the mid 70's in Houston because a guy named O'Bryan had laced some candy with poison and gave it to both of his kids for the insurance money. Luckily the daughter did not consume the fatal treat, but the son did. I think he was from Deer Park or Pasadena (Houston Area). All of this sucked because of the unrightiousness of O'Bryan, the death of his son, the marks for life for his daughter and family, the fact that O'Bryan received the glorious nickname "the candyman," and the fact that O'Bryan was The Man who killed halloween that way it used to be. What hit me the hardest was O'Bryan's son was one year younger than myself.

Hi all, To anyone who is interested you are invited to attend the first official meeting of the JOE CAMPOS TORRES ACTION GROUP tomorrow (2/22/2012 @11:00 a.m.) at 2509 Navigation Blvd. to explain the objective of having a Harris County Historical Commission Marker placed in Moody Park, to commemorate and to keep alive the lesson of the May 7, 1978 INSURRECTION in the park, plus an update on the historical marker dedication on March 22, for EL BARRIO DEL ALACRAN. {Facebook page}

Does anybody remember this? My little sister was at Red at the time and I was at Johnston. Mass killer counts down to freedom /Survivor painfully recalls '73 rampageHouston - Karen Kurtz's scarred right leg begins to ache every afternoon, and she has to use a cane to get around, every painful step a reminder of her brush with Houston's first mass murderer. She was walking home from Red Elementary School on a spring morning 25 years ago when Larry Delon Casey, angry following an argument with his girlfriend, drove intersection to intersection gunning down little girls with a .22-caliber rifle. After fatally shooting an elderly woman on that day in April 1973, he killed two schoolgirls and injured Kurtz and another girl. Two months earlier, he'd killed a convenience store clerk. Despite Casey's notoriety - Harris County prosecutor Bert Graham calls him Houston's "original" mass murderer - few Houstonians nowadays are familiar with his name. That probably is because the horror of his 1973 shooting rampage in southwest Houston was eclipsed just four months after it happened, when the entire nation learned how Dean Corll and two young accomplices had killed dozens of teen-age runaways here. But Kurtz, now 35 and living far from Houston, remembers Casey. In a recent interview - after insisting that her new address or married name not be published for fear the killer might find her someday - she recalled how the slug that shattered her right leg also shattered her life. "I've dealt with 25 years of leg problems because of him," she said. For Kurtz, the Casey shootings didn't fade away with the next Page 1 crime. Every few years, she gets a postal reminder that the stranger who shot her is alive, standard notices from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that he is being considered for parole. The last letter she got on the subject arrived in mid-July, and sometime this month the board likely will make a decision about freeing Casey. Kurtz and Graham, who convinced a jury to sentence him to 99 years in prison, both expect the board to reject him for the fourth time in a decade. That is not what concerns them. Thanks to a pristine prison record and a lot of 3 -for-1 "good-time credit," Casey, 48, knows he must be freed on a mandatory release on Feb. 19, 2006. He will have no parole officer watching him, no letters warning his new neighbors about him, no legal limitations on him whatsoever beyond the rules all Texans face daily. Larry Casey does not look like a murderer. Gone is the cocky, smirking expression he displayed when Houston homicide detectives brought him downtown. "I guess I went out of my head for 15 to 20 minutes," he told a Chronicle reporter at the police station that day. "I just flew off the handle." Today, watching Casey interact with other prisoners and guards at the prison system's Wynne Unit outside Huntsville, he comes across as a pleasant, schoolteacher-ish sort of guy. He received a bachelor's degree from Sam Houston State University in 1988, and it shows in the way he talks. He is fully aware he would have been sent to death row but for a fortuitous twist of legal timing. At the time of the shootings, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the Texas capital murder law invalid. A revision of the law went into effect two months after the girls were shot. If he committed his crimes today, prosecutors could seek the death penalty under several statutes - killing children under age 6, committing multiple murders and, in an unrelated offense, executing a 7-Eleven clerk during an $80 robbery. As Casey describes it, he was fresh out of the Army after two years in Germany as a radar operator, and he had "quite a chip on my shoulder" when he returned to Houston. By then, he had been accused of numerous minor crimes - theft, burglary, possession of marijuana, pretending to be a policeman, drunken driving, shooting up a mobile home and more. But the potential to hurt somebody was always present, he said, because he usually was armed. He said this was because his father, Theron Casey, 53, had been murdered by two junkies in New York City, a crime Larry Casey blames on his father's giving a Brazoria County man nine hot checks to cover gambling losses. Whatever the reason, Larry Casey had a pistol on Feb. 21, 1973, when he and his girlfriend, Yvonne Ellis, were at a 7-Eleven on Burdine Street. Casey said they got into a dispute with the clerk, Dorothy Jones Young, 48, about selling beer after hours, a fuss that Casey ended by shooting her three times. In an interview, he described it as a simple method of ending a problem. "If there would have been the death penalty when I was in the 7-Eleven arguing with the manager, I never would've pulled the gun," Casey said. "But I knew there wasn't any death penalty, and I figured I could get away with it because there weren't any witnesses around." In his confession, Casey did not mention that his girlfriend was there. He said he shot Young "because I thought she was reaching for a gun." That killing became just another unsolved Houston crime until the Red Elementary shootings two months later. According to Casey, he and Ellis - who he says visited him in prison just once, several years ago - were both hard-drinking pot smokers who supported themselves with a Houston Post delivery route. Both were on probation on April 18, 1973, and Ellis was increasingly unhappy that Casey was drinking while driving, fearing he would get her in trouble for violating probation. "Yvonne was mad at me about drinking and driving and wanted out of the car," his confession says. "She got out at the intersection of Bissonnet and Chimney Rock." His confession says he was mad and went to fetch his mother's .22-caliber rifle. "I left the house and drove across Willowbend and into the neighborhood," it reads. "I was near where my little brother (went) to school." The confession says he shot a woman standing in front of her house. But in the interview, he described how Beulah Davis saw him stop near her home and came over and saw weapons in the vehicle. She may have gotten a good look at Casey's license plate. "I felt threatened by her," he explained. "I'd just been put on probation, and I figured she'd call the law." So he shot her in the back. The confession jumps from that to his spotting a child riding a bicycle in a driveway 75 yards away. One shot and the child fell down. "I do not remember shooting at anyone else," the confession says. Prosecutor Graham has not forgotten the rest. After shooting Claire Jakubowski, 5, off her bicycle in the driveway at 10423 Green Willow, Casey drove two blocks and wounded Lynn Jean Tucker, 10, with a shot to the back as she walked home in the 10600 block of Willowilde. Next was Jana Whatley, 10, fatally shot through both lungs as she walked home in the 4700 block of Kinglet. Last was Karen Kurtz, 10, walking with her younger sister near Cliffwood and Stillbrooke. "I was on the street corner waiting for (Casey's) car to go by," Kurtz said. "I looked straight at him." Casey was arrested almost immediately, after he returned to the shooting scenes with Ellis and his little brother. Police had scant trouble getting a confession since Casey freely admitted to killing the 86-year-old and the 5-year-old girl, contending that he did not remember the others. Nowadays, he said, he does remember them. But he said the actual shooter was a man called "Rooster." Casey insisted he did not tell the police about Rooster to avoid being "a snitch." Kurtz, however, said no one else was in Casey's car when she was shot, and a man from the neighborhood positively identified Casey as the car's sole occupant. Graham argued that Casey alone did it, and that is what the jury believed. Casey's version of the events, it seems, has evolved over the years, polished perhaps to make it more palatable to his cellmates and others in a penal environment where tattletales are not popular. Though he somehow still blames Graham's "twisted lies" for the conviction that he set up himself with his confession, Casey now calls his prosecution reasonable. "I don't have a problem with them prosecuting me for the murders," Casey said. "If one of my family members had been shot, I'd want them to do what they did and what they're still doing. I just don't agree with why they're doing it. They're just getting revenge." Graham said Casey should be jailed forever simply because anyone who could get mad at his girlfriend and then go shoot up schoolgirls he did not even know remains too dangerous to be released.

So I was driving down Studewood tonite and at the corner of 11th where they are rebuilding that historic building that was hit by a car, I noticed something that really pissed me off. All the bricks that are stacked outside from the original structure were tagged by guess who? It seems the crew that is working on the building was able to remove the majority of the paint but you can still see the outline of the name ROWDY. If anyone spots this moron, take a pic and call the cops. This idiot should be ashamed to call himself a Houstonian.

Does anyone remember this 1981 true story/film and does anyone know what ever became of the doctor? If I recall the film leaves you hanging. The film also took a peek at River Oaks society. Sam Elliott as the Dr., Katherine Ross the mistress, Farrah Fawcett the wife. There must be many people out there that knew the real people? Wonder if the mansion is still there? Photo anyone? Comments? A Murder In Texas True story of plastic surgeon who was suspected of causing the death of his first wife, the daughter of a wealthy member of Houston society. The doctor then marries his mistress, whom he had been keeping during his marriage. His former father-in-law, convinced that his daughter was murdered determines to see the doctor punished.

I'd read Kathryn Casey's Deliver Us: Three Decades of Murder and Redemption in the Infamous I-45/Texas Killing Fields a few years ago, particularly interested in the case of Kim Pitchford who was abducted January 3, 1973 from my alma mater, Dobie High School. Just a heads-up if you've followed any of these unsolved murders along I-45 during the early 70s, A&E is premiering a series on the man who has confessed to eleven of them. It's prompted the opening of two of the cold cases. The series starts this Thursday night if you're interested. http://www.aetv.com/blog/news/ae-network-to-premiere-new-nonfiction-limited-series-the-eleven-on-thursday-october-19-at-9p

3001 Main may be renovated soon for Crime Stoppers of Houston. There is a variance request set for consideration on January 23, 2014. The added security will be good for the area and there is a courtyard extension along Main Street. This should flow nicely with the Superblock Park. http://crimestoppershouston.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html "Crime Stoppers of Houston is engaged in a capital campaign to fund the purchase and the renovation of 3001 Main. Once complete, 3001 Main will be transformed into a state-of-the-art headquarters. A law enforcement strategy and call center, advanced media center, and 20,000 square feet of offices will create a hub for crime prevention now and in the future."

I read somewhere that the crime rate in Houston was going down and then a few weeks later I read a conflicting report that stated that the crime rate was actually going up. What is the real story?

Is it my imagination or has there been an armed crime on FM1960 reported on the local news nearly every day for the last week or so? This is getting completely ridiculous!! What's going on with law enforcement that criminals feel they can act with impunity in this corridor?! Something needs to be done!!

Does anyone remember Charles Rogers who, in 1965, murdered and then butchered his grandparents (or parents) and stuck the body parts in the freezer? The couple went missing, and a search of the house turned up no clues. When police looked in the freezer, they thought someone had butchered a hog

New Territory becoming gang territory? What's the deal with all of the recent crimes in what appear to be decent neighborhoods? Are the assailants mostly Katrina people or local gangbangers? Ch. 13 says they seem to be targetting people of South Asian descent.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...ro/5580519.html The chron comments are interesting. Many people think that she made the story up. Where are they getting that from? They're saying it sounds fishy. Also, many of the early comments were complaining that they didn't announce the color of the men, but yet now the article includes it. This is strange. Police have yet to determine a motive for the attempted kidnapping of a woman from her River Oaks neighborhood Thursday morning. The 39-year-old woman was walking along the 3800 block of Del Monte near the River Oaks Country Club when two men approached her in their car and forced her inside the trunk, Houston police said. "One of them struck her on top of the head," said Sgt. John Chomiak, a Houston Police Department spokesman. The woman found the escape lever to pop the trunk open, Chomiak said. "She was able to get out of the trunk and run away from the scene," he said. "That was smart thinking. She was able to keep cool." The pair reportedly drove off after the woman escaped and didn't try to recapture her. Police said there is no indication the woman knew the men.

Received this release today from the Harris County Fire Marshal: ----------- Pranksters Set Off Acid Bombs Acid bombs exploded in a Baytown neighborhood in the 5400 block of Thyme just before midnight last night. Two men are in custody while a third is still being sought. The Harris County Fire Marshal's Office, Baytown Fire Department, Baytown Bomb Squad and the Harris County Sheriff's Department all responded to the home of an off-duty Baytown police officer. "The suspects set off two of the improvised devices in one of the suspect's own back yard," said Investigator James Bolton with the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office. "A third device was thrown in the officer's back yard. It did not go off and had to be "rendered safe' by the Baytown Bomb Squad." No one was injured and at least one of the suspects lives next door to the officer. All three will be charged with a third-degree felony involving an explosive weapon. "These men thought it was a prank," added Bolton. "But anyone within close proximity to the devices, when detonated, could have been seriously injured. This is a serious crime. "It's no laughing matter."

Investigators in the Houston Police Department Robbery Division are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying five suspects believed responsible for at least six robberies in Houston's westside. The suspects are described only as five black males. One is believed to be in his 20s and a second is believed to be in his 40s. Surveillance photos of the suspect are attached to this news release. The incidents all occured at residences in which the suspects forcibly entered and took the home's safe with its contents inside. On May 29, the suspects entered a residence on the 10 block of Shady Lane and tied up a female housemaid. The suspects then used tools to remove the home's safe and secured contents, and fled the location. Another robbery occured on June 30 when the same group of suspects are believed to have entered a residence in the 300 block of Terrace and also tied up a housemaid. There were security cameras at the residence and images of the suspects entering and leaving the residence were captured. There are at least two more incidents linked to these suspects. Anyone with information on the identities of these suspects is urged to contact the HPD Robbery Division at 713-308-0700 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

Barry Horn, Former Channel 13 Contributor, Murdered In Brownsville Called the Truman Capote of Houston

METRO SECURITY CAMERAS HELP CATCH PARK & RIDE VANDALS Two burglary suspects were arrested today, caught red-handed breaking into two vehicles at METRO’s Maxey Rd Park & Ride lot. An MPD officer monitoring the security cameras at the lot noticed the suspicious activity this morning and alerted MPD and HPD. An undercover HPD officer arrived at the scene as the two suspected vandals – one male, one female – were leaving one of the vehicles they attempted to hot wire. Investigators say the suspects broke into a red truck and a white truck by smashing a window in each vehicle. Police say nothing was taken from the vehicles as the two were reportedly trying to steal the trucks. According to investigators, the pair admitted to the break-ins and each is now facing two counts of burglary of a motor vehicle. Police believe they will be able to clear other Park & Ride vehicle burglary incidents, as well as cases in other jurisdictions with the arrest of these two suspects.

METRO PARK & RIDE VANDAL CAUGHT BY K-9, SECURITY CAMERAS Security cameras at METRO’s Kingsland Park & Ride lot - with the help of a four-legged officer - led to the arrest of a 24-year old man, who is now facing burglary charges and a felony assault charge. Christopher Sean Burks (photo at left) was arrested Nov. 23 and charged with two counts of burglary of a motor vehicle, and interference with a police service animal, which is a felony. METRO police say one of their officers at TranStar spotted Burks on the security cameras walking through the lot, looking into the vehicles. Armed with a hand full of rocks, Burks smashed the window of one of the vehicles, and broke into another vehicle, according to investigators. MPD and Harris County Precinct 5 Constable units surrounded the area to search for Burks, who was seen fleeing the lot. METRO’s K-9 officer Vigo tracked the suspect, who was hiding along Mason Bayou. Investigators say Burks then attacked the dog, and after a brief struggle with both Vigo and its police handler, Officer John Wiggins, Burks was taken into custody and treated for dog bites. Police say Burks stole small items of little value and abandoned them at the lot before he fled. Investigators believe Burks may be responsible for two other vehicle break-ins at the same lot.

PARK & RIDE SECURITY VIDEO HELPS METRO POLICE NAB VANDAL A 43-year old woman is behind bars, charged with burglary of a vehicle at METRO’s Eastex Park & Ride lot. The image to the left was captured Monday, Nov. 9 by METRO’s security cameras. It shows the suspect, Cynthia Lynn Brooks, entering the lot. The video helped METRO police track down Brooks, who confessed to having ransacked the patron’s silver Mitsubishi Galant. Brooks allegedly stole several items such as house keys, perfume, a phone charger, tennis shoes, a jacket, loose change and two purses – none of which has been recovered. MPD said the suspect has an extensive criminal history, and drug addiction. METRO police would like to remind customers to store their valuables such as wallets, purses, cell phones and electronic devices out of sight. Editor’s note: Attached are two security videos. The first shows the suspect entering the Eastex Park & Ride lot. The second, though difficult to see, shows someone inside the silver car (behind a white truck) where the victim’s vehicle was parked. 20091109-164340.mov 20091109-164920.mov

I can't confirm these with police records, but I have received a few emails today about two robberies (one outside Visage Day Spa and the other outside the Planet Fitness at Grant). Apparently someone got a look at the robber at PF and said he was a white male with tattoos but there were no other details about the robbery at Visage. Either way, it seems to be a growing trend and this is just more reason to always be aware of your surroundings.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32594143 disgusting.

METRO SEARCHING FOR INDIVIDUAL SUSPECTED IN VEHICLE THEFTS AT KINGWOOD PARK & RIDE METRO is asking for the public

This happened Saturday. I remember seeing this woman in the halls at Klein High School. She smiled a lot. She graduated in 2000, a year behind me. Her maiden name was Sabrina Tolentino. The suspect also was in that graduating class, but I don't remember him. Her truck was found in the Kohl's parking lot on 249, and she was found in a ditch 15 miles away fully clothed. The kidnapping apparently happened at 2 in the afternoon. His prints were on the duct tape on her head. He says he's had no contact with her since graduating high school, and while they knew each other it is not clear what recent dealings they have had or why he would have done this. http://www.khou.com/news/local/brazoria/st...s.4bbe2a45.html This story is getting some national airplay. I saw it covered on Fox News.