True Crime
March 31, 2008
The Night in Question
Thirty years later, we still don’t know who murdered Border Patrol agent Jose Gamez. Or maybe we do.
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True Crime
March 1, 2008
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Did Kari Baker, despondent over her daughter’s passing, commit suicide? Or was she killed by her husband, Matt, a Baptist preacher in Waco and an alleged sexual predator? He says he didn’t do it, but her family insists otherwise—and they say they’ll keep after him until justice is done.
Being Texan
October 31, 2007
The Glorie of Defeet
What Samir Patel learned in five years of not winning the national spelling bee (other than the root words of “eremacausis”).
Texas History
August 31, 2007
A Lady First
Today, many younger Texans may be inclined to think of Lady Bird Johnson as belonging entirely to the past. But if her demeanor and style seemed faintly anachronistic, the virtues instilled by her parents back in East Texas—practicality, thriftiness, good manners, and an open mind—made her remarkably effective as a
News & Politics
September 1, 2006
The Good Book and the Bad Book
When parents at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, in Austin—where the Capital City’s moneyed elite have educated their kids for more than fifty years—rebelled against the teaching of ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ it was, you might say, a learning experience for everyone involved.
True Crime
August 1, 2006
96 Minutes
At 11:48 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman began firing his rifle from the top of the University of Texas Tower at anyone and everyone in his sights. At 1:24 p.m., he was gunned down himself. The lives of the people who witnessed the sniper’s spree firsthand would never
True Crime
July 31, 2006
The Bad Guy With the Badge
How Conrado Cantu, the sheriff of Cameron County, lived down to people’s expectations of South Texas law enforcement.
True Crime
June 1, 2006
The Gangstas of Godwin Park
Whatever else you can say about it, the life and death of Bellaire High School junior Jonathan Finkelman is a tragic tale of drugs, money, race, and MySpace.
Feature
May 31, 2006
The Truth Is Out There
Spoiler alert: The mythic Marfa lights may not be real. But there’s no way to know for sure, and that’s why they’re cool.
True Crime
February 1, 2006
A Kiss Before Dying
Forty-five years after Betty Williams was shot to death by the handsome football player she had been secretly seeing, her murder haunts her Odessa high school—literally.
Texas History
December 1, 2005
Embarrassment of Riches
At Westlake, even if your parents wouldn’t spring for Ralph Lauren, you could still work your way into the in crowd.
True Crime
November 1, 2005
The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob
The feds knew him as a prolific bank robber. But the bearded man who eluded them for so long was not who they imagined him to be. And absolutely no one expected the story to end the way it did.
Sports
September 30, 2005
Six Brothers
The tragedy of the Von Erichs—the state’s first family of pro wrestling—is well known not just to fans of the sport but to the many groupies who oohed and aahed at the matinee-idol athletes over the years. Still, you haven’t really heard the story until it’s told by the sole
Politics & Policy
September 30, 2005
Flipping Out
The letter-sweater-wearing, pom-pom-shaking, pep-rally-leading girl next door has been a beloved Texas icon for generations. So why do so many people today— lawmakers and lawyers, preachers and feminists—think cheerleading is the root, root, root of all evil?
True Crime
August 31, 2005
Girls Gone Wild
Bobbi Jo and Jennifer were young, in love, and on the road, with the wind at their backs and a happy future ahead of them. All that stood in their way was a dead body back in Mineral Wells.
Being Texan
July 31, 2005
Prime Minister
The fastest-growing church in the world. The biggest congregation this side of the Vatican. The highest ratings of any religious broadcaster. One of the best-selling religious books in years. Can Joel Osteen get an “Amen”?
Being Texan
May 1, 2005
Pug
He asked me if I was going to be white my whole life. I was, of course. But because of our friendship, I’m no longer the clueless upper-middle-class kid I once was.
Texas History
April 1, 2005
Unholy Act
No one in McAllen saw Irene Garza leave Sacred Heart that night in 1960. The next morning, her car was still parked down the street from the church. She never came home.
Feature
January 1, 2005
“She Had Brains, a Body, and the Ability To Make Men Love Her”
Meet the 22-year-old hooker who, with her fellow “massage therapists,” scandalized Odessa
Sports
December 1, 2004
The Shot Not Heard Round the World
Elmo Henderson’s entire life story can be summed up in a single moment: when he stepped into the ring in San Antonio one night in 1972 and knocked out Muhammad Ali. At least that’s the way he tells it. And tells it.
Film & TV
November 1, 2004
They Came. They Sawed.
And they most definitely conquered. The inside story of how a ragtag bunch of hippies made the wildest Texas movie ever (and spilled no more fake blood than was absolutely necessary).
Feature
August 31, 2004
Reversal of Fortune
Eight years ago, 42 people in the West Texas town of Roby—7 percent of the population—pooled their money, bought lottery tickets, and won $46 million. And that's when their luck ran out.
Politics & Policy
April 30, 2004
Cast Away
For Sharon Bush, membership in the world's most powerful family had its privileges. But as she discovered after her husband of 23 years—the brother of one president and the son of another—ended their marriage via e-mail, it can be revoked without warning.
Sports
March 1, 2004
Good-bye to a Horse
She named him Mark. I didn’t know why, any more than I knew why my daughter was drawn to riding in the first place. But I did know that she loved him—and that letting him go was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Critters
March 1, 2004
Conversations With a Grasshopper
To experience the majesty and peril of the desert on my own terms, I spent a week alone in the Solitario, the most remote area of Big Bend Ranch State Park. I confronted my darkest fears—and made small talk with an insect.
True Crime
February 1, 2004
Family Man
To his suburban Dallas neighbors, Todd Becker was a doting husband and devoted father. They had no clue that he led a secret, lucrative life as a safecracker.
Texas History
January 1, 2004
Showdown at Waggoner Ranch
It’s the nation’s biggest spread within the confines of a single fence—more than eight hundred square miles extending across six counties. So it’s fitting that the family feud over its future is big too. And mythic.
Politics & Policy
November 1, 2003
The Witness
For forty years Nellie Connally has been talking about that day, when she was in that car and saw that tragedy unfold. She’s still talking—and now she’s writing too.
Feature
August 31, 2003
The Most Perfect, Charming, Elegant, Graceful, Cozy, Genteel, Affluent 2.2 Square Miles in Texas
After thirty years, I still love Highland Park.
Feature
February 1, 2003
Queen for a Day
At this year's Miss Texas Teen USA pageant, girls from big cities and small towns stuffed their bras, slicked Vaseline across their teeth, and prayed that their thighs were toned enough. Anything for the crown.
Politics & Policy
December 1, 2002
The Secret History
Did Richard King cheat his partner's heirs out of a chunk of the King Ranch nearly 120 years ago? He may have—and if the Texas Supreme Court permits Chapman v. King Ranch, Inc., to go to trial, the past could come back to haunt the state's most storied spread.
Politics & Policy
November 1, 2002
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
Once upon a time, the Central Texas town of Crawford was like Mayberry: Everyone knew everyone, no one talked politics, and the air was ripe with the aroma of hogs. Then the leader of the free world bought a little place west of the Middle Bosque River, and nothing was
True Crime
June 30, 2002
Two Barmaids, Five Alligators, and the Butcher of Elmendorf
He was a ladies’ man who owned a tavern. He kept gators in a pool behind the place, into which he liked to toss small animals. He hired women to wait tables, and some of them disappeared. What happened? With Joe Ball, it was easy to believe the worst.
True Crime
June 30, 2002
A Bend in the River
In 1996 the body of a cheerleader from a small town in Oklahoma was found on the Texas side of the Red River. She had been raped and shot. The brutal crime destroyed several families and the illusions of an isolated slice of the world.
Music
April 1, 2002
Mack McCormick Still Has the Blues
His cache of unpublished interviews and unreleased recordings is unrivaled—but both collector and collection are showing signs of age. Who will save the legacy of the man who saved Texas music?
True Crime
March 1, 2002
The Day Treva Throneberry Disappeared
The North Texas teenager went missing in the late eighties. For years, no one knew where she was, or even if she was still alive-no one, that is, except a mysterious young woman two thousand miles away.
True Crime
February 1, 2002
Durst Case Scenarios
Last September a human torso was found floating in Galveston Bay—a gruesome discovery that opened a window into the bizarre life of the accused murderer, New York multimillionaire Robert Durst.
Arts & Entertainment
January 1, 2002
My Short, Unhappy Life as a Rodeo Clown
Once upon a time I thought I wanted to be a bullfighter (and not the kind that wears sequined tights). A legendary cowboy named Leon Coffee and an animal named Pretty Boy changed my mind.
Music
December 1, 2001
A Long, Strange Trip
The life of Roky Erickson—one of the most influential Texas rock and rollers of all time—has been one calamity after another. His family and friends have taken care of him with the best of intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell.
Energy
November 1, 2001
How Enron Blew It
The Houston-based energy giant put the pursuit of profits ahead of all other corporate goals, which fostered a climate of workaholism and paranoia. And that was only part of the problem.
True Crime
September 30, 2001
Hit Man
Psst! Looking to have somebody murdered? You might want to call Gary Johnson, the number one hired killer in Houston. Then again you might not. You see he works for the cops.
The Culture
July 31, 2001
Queen of the Rodeo
For teenage girls in the Hill Country town of Llano, life can be short on glamour and excitement—except at the annual rodeo, when one of them gets a rhinestone tiara and a rare, thrilling moment of glory.
Being Texan
February 1, 2001
Love and War in Cyberspace
Brandon and Denise were not like other people. They were smarter, more introverted. They adored computers, playing games online at three in the morning with people in Finland. When they and other hard-core techies moved to Walden, a Houston apartment complex with the fastest residential Internet connection in the world,
Texas History
February 1, 2001
The Whole Shootin’ Match
The most famous bank-robbing lovers of all time weren't nearly as glamorous as Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Although the fragile, pretty Bonnie Parker had her good points, Clyde Barrow was a scrawny, two-timing psychopath. They were straight out of a country and western ballad. And when they died in
True Crime
January 1, 2001
Under the Gun
Nine years after the brutal murder of four teenage girls in a yogurt shop rocked the city of Austin, the police say they have finally caught the killers. But they have no evidence and no witnesses—only two confessions that the defendants say were coerced. Which is why, when the case
Travel & Outdoors
November 1, 2000
Airport 2000
These days, a plane trip can entail more time in the terminal than in the air. But why get stressed when you can have a massage, taste Texas wines, go for a jog, check your e-mail—even eat gumbo while watching (other people’s) planes take off? A survivor’s guide to DFW,
News & Politics
November 1, 2000
They Haven’t Got a Prayer
In the Gulf Coast town of Santa Fe, high school football games had always kicked off with a prayer, but in June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the practice violated the separation of church and state. Now the issuewhich has turned neighbor against neighbor and provoked some decidedly un-Christian
Music
April 30, 2000
And You Will Know Them By the Trail of Debt
What they lack in cash they make up for in cachet: on the road with the Trail of Dead, Austin's coolest punk rockers of the moment, as they head east in search of fans, fame, and a free place to crash.
Music
April 30, 2000
Gotta Lubbock
Buddy Holly. Waylon Jennings. Carolyn Hester. The Hancocks. The Flatlanders. An oral history of the state's most storied music scene.
Feature
April 1, 2000
The Sins of the Father
For Tom Cherry, the precise place where loyalty to his dad ends and a larger obligation to society begins lies deep in the woods of East Texas, at the intersection of history and conscience, where the truth about a church bombing during the struggle for civil rights in the South