Archive for the ‘Crime’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–An 18-year-old from Smithville and his 14-year-old McDade girlfriend were charged Monday with the murder, possibly on Aug. 14, of the juvenile’s 42-year-old mother at their McDade home.

Joseph Dwayne Douglas is being held in the Bastrop County Jail under $500,000 bail, said Bastrop County Sheriff Terry Pickering at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. Following a detention hearing Monday, the 14-year-old was sent to a juvenile detention facility in Seguin, authorities said.

The case unfolded beginning Friday after a sister called the sheriff’s department to report that Tracy Lynn Bellard had gone missing because she failed to show up for work that day at the family restaurant, Mimi G’s, on FM 1441 north of Bastrop. Evidently Bellard’s vehicle was also missing.

The investigation moved quickly, according to court records and law enforcement reports, after Bastrop County patrol deputies located Bellard’s vehicle late Sunday or early Monday on the property on Lakeview Drive near Smithville where Douglas lived with his grandparents. Investigators said Douglas and the 14-year-old were also at the property, and both were taken for questioning about the disappearance of Bellard.

Douglas declined to talk to investigators and asked for an attorney, said officials. But Bellard’s daughter told investigators she had seen Douglas shoot and kill her mother Friday at the McDade residence, according to court records.

A 13-year-old brother of Douglas also told investigators he had brought a 22-caliber rifle to McDade and witnessed the shooting of Bellard, court documents assert.

Pickering said investigators executed a search warrant at the Lakeview Drive property Monday evening and about 9 p.m. located “charred human remains” on the five-acre site. The remains were near what the sheriff described as “a burnt brush pile.”

The sheriff said investigators believe the remains are likely those of Bellard, but positive identification is pending further examination by the Travis County Medical Examinr’s office in Austin. Results could take “weeks–or months,” said Pickering.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bastrop County, Crime | No Comments »

New technology sends cold Bastrop rape case to trial

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–Jury selection began today in a 2004 Bastrop sexual assault case which lay dormant until DNA test results and a new computer criminal data base pointed to a suspect who was in prison on an unrelated charge.

Kenneth Ray Henry Jr., 28, faces up to 99 years or life in prison if convicted of sexual assault in Bastrop on April 22, 2004. The alleged victim was unable to provide a description or other clues to the identity of her assailant, making the case a rare example of “stranger on stranger” assault, according to prosecutors.

But police investigators collected medical evidence at the time and submitted it for analysis by the Department of Public Safety crime lab in Austin. That analysis yielded a DNA portrait of the attacker–but without a name or face attached, said District Attorney Bryan Goertz.

State prison authorities now routinely take DNA samples from felony convicts, and when Henry was tested as part of the program, a state data base linked him to the old Bastrop case, said Goertz.

Judge Chris Duggan is presiding over the trial in 423rd District Court in Bastrop. Testimony in the case may last no more than one day, said officials.

Tags: ,
Posted in Bastrop City, Crime | No Comments »

Jail escapee back behind bars in Bastrop

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–After a five-day search, a Bastrop County jail inmate who escaped from a road work detail Aug. 10 was returned to the local jail early Saturday, Aug. 15.

Ross Brandon Brekhus, 24, was arrested Friday afternoon by Bastrop authorities in Texarkana where he has family, according to a statement issued today by the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department. By 12:30 a.m. Saturday Brekhus was back in the Bastrop jail.

The inmate escaped while being held on a charge of auto theft. He apparently vanished near the intersection of FM 535 and Jeddo Road in the Rosanky area. Before midnight that evening, investigators also believe he stole a pickup in the area and fled to other parts of the state.

Today’s press announcement said Brekhus now faces a seccond charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle plus escape from confinement, a third degree felony offense. Bail on the new charges is set at $60,000.

Tags:
Posted in Bastrop County, Crime | No Comments »

Child death trial nears conclusion

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–Prosecutors were trying to wrap up their case Wednesday in the capital murder trial of Christopher Murray for the June 11, 2007 death of a three-year-old in his care near Paige.

The state is not seeking the death penalty, but prosecutors allege that 26-pound, 35-inch-tall Robert “Robbie” Faske was essentially beaten to death by Murray, 30. The defense contends that the child’s injuries may have resulted from a variety of causes, none deliberate, including a fall from a tree, a later fall from a chair and an an accident in which Murray fell down a set of steep steps while carrying Faske in an attempt to get him to medical help.

Travis County Chief Medical Examiner David Dolinack testified Tuesday than an autopsy revealed more than 100 visible bruises on the child’s body in addition to severe internal injuries including bruising on the spleen, tears to the liver and small intestine and brain injuries caused by a blow to the back of the skull which fractured the bone.

Dr. James Lukefahr, a pediatrician who teaches at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and specializes in child abuse, testified Wednesday that scores of small bruises on the child’s body were likely caused by repeated blows from a closed fist, based on the pattern and size of the marks. He also said the pattern of injuries the child sustained suggests a deliberate intention to injure him.

Jury deliberations could begin Thursday. If convicted, Murray could be sentenced to a term on probation or as much as life in prison.

Tags: ,
Posted in Bastrop County, Crime, Local Politics, Traffic Fatalities | No Comments »

Jail inmate escapes work detail

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–A Bastrop County Jail inmate assigned to a county road work detail disappeared this afternoon, according to an announcement from the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities are now looking for Ross Brandon Brekhus, 24, a white man described as five feet six inches tall with blonde hair and blue eyes and weighing about 148 pounds. He was jailed on an auto theft charge and disappeared from a county road crew work assignment today, said Sissy Jones, an assistant in the sheriff’s office. Brekhus might also be identified by three “upper body” tattoos and at the time of his disappearance, near the intersection of FM 535 and Jeddo Road, was wearing an orange jail jump suit.

Anyone with information about where Berkhus may be located is asked to call the sheriff’s department at (512) 303-1080.

Posted in Bastrop County, Crime | No Comments »

Jury selection begins in capital murder case

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–Jury selection began today in the capital murder case of Christopher Murray who is charged in the death of a three-year-old boy who was left in his care more than a year ago in a Paige area residence which the defendant shared with the child’s mother and grandmother

335th District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett is presiding over the trial which is expected to last about two weeks. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The state is expected to argue that Murray, who was 23 at the time of his arrest, savagely beat the child so that bones were broken and internal organs damaged, causing his death. Criminal investigators have also said that the defendant, before being charged, offered more than one story to account for how the child was injured.

Defense lawyers, who may also offer expert medical testimony, are expected to argue that Murray, if guilty of anything, may be guilty of some lesser charge such as injury to a child or negligent homicide.

If convicted of capital murder, Murray will automatically be sentenced to life in prison. If convicted of some lesser crime, the jury will decide Murray’s sentence which could range from probation to 99 years in prison.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bastrop County, Crime | No Comments »

Kids + matches = 40-acre wildfire

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–A 10-year-old was charged with arson today in connection with a wildfire which was reported about 2 p.m. near the Hunters Crossing subdivision, according to Bastrop police.

Matches and two other juveniles may also have been involved.

The blaze covered about 40 acres, largely outside the city limits, and threatened two rural homes as well as some farm out buildings and equipment, said police spokeswoman Michal Hubbard.

Firefighters remained at the scene on mop up duty into the evening.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bastrop City, Crime | No Comments »

Man sought for questioning in shooting death near Elgin

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–Criminal investigators with the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department are looking for Douglas Ray Leverett, 54, for questioning in the shooting death of an Elgin man.

Leverett may be driving a gray 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with the Texas license plate #982 MCM, according to a sheriff’s department press statement.

The gunshot victim was identified as Robert Leonard Stallion, 50, who lived at 155 Mariposa Lane in Elgin. Stallion, who had not been seen since July 10, was found dead in a chair at the residence July 14 after deputies responded to a call requesting they check on his welfare.

Investigators believe Leverett may be from the Odessa area and may have contacts in Austin and/or in Hays County.

To contact investigators with information about the case, call 303-1080.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Crime | No Comments »

Suspected human smugglers jailed in Bastrop

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Bastrop, Tx–Following a raid in far southwestern Bastrop County near Dale on Wednesday afternoon, two men were jailed on kidnapping charges in connection with allegations they had been holding seven Central American men in an uncooled trailer house while the immigrants’ families were facing demands for cash payments.

Nabor Rodriguez-Guillen, 20, and Juan Carlos Sanchez-Comacho, 29, were booked into the Bastrop County Jail shortly after 7 p.m. July 8 where they are being held under $700,000 bail each. They were seized during a raid about 4 p.m., along with a 9 mm handgun, on a site near 380 FM 672 close to the Bastrop/Travis County line.

The raid was mounted by the Bastrop County SWAT unit, a similar force from Travis County and officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service with air support from the Austin Police Department, according to Bastrop County Sheriff Terry Pickering.

The suspects did not resist arrest, the sheriff said. “I think we caught them by surprise,” he said following a July 9 press conference in Bastrop.

The investigation was sparked by a telephone call to investigators about 10 a.m. Wednesday from a nearby resident who said he found a man sleeping in his pickup who claimed as many as 25 immigrants were being held under armed guard by three men in the trailer. The group, including three women, had been held for three or four days without food or water, the man said. The women had been sexually assaulted and the others physically ablused, he reported.

The man was later identified as Bayron Paz, 28, according to the sheriff’s department. Pickering said Paz told investigators he had escaped from the trailer during the night through an opening he found or created in the floor. All the immigrants may be from El Salvador and/or Honduras, said Pickering.

The sheriff said the investigation is far from over. Officials are still seeking the others reported to have been held in the trailer, including the three women, he said. Some may have escaped before authorities arrived and others may have been transported elsewhere by their captors, said Pickering.

So far the two suspects are being held on state criminal charges which could result in prison terms of up to 99 years. Federal charges could also result, said Pickering. He said he expects the Bastrop County Distict Attorney’s Office to be consulting with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Austin about how to proceed with the case.

Those freed in the Wednesday raid are being housed at an Austin shelter, the sheriff said Thursday. In addition to Paz, a press statement from the sheriff’s department identified the others recovered in the raid as Josue Edcarado-Gonazalez, 20; Carlos Antonio Pichinte-Flores, 35; Nelson Antonio Perez-Coreas, 32; Olman Eduardo Sierro-Benavides, 36; Bayron Ronaldo Barrientos-Rosales, 19; and Leonard Murilto-Avila, 46.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Bastrop County, Crime | No Comments »

Elgin man jailed in sex solicitation sting

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Basrop, Tx–Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department investigators arrested an Elgin man July 1 and charged him with soliciting sex online with an underage girl via text messaging.

The investigation began June 25, according to a statement issued today by the sheriff’s department. Juan Pablo Ramos, 21, was jailed on a felony charge of online solicitation of a minor under the age of 14, according to jail records.

The sheriff’s announcement said Ramos had sent sexually explicit messages to the girl before investigators became involved and began impersonating her online.

Ramos arrived July 1 at a prearranged meeting site but met sheriff’s department investigators instead, according to the press statement. If convicted, Ramos faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

Tags: ,
Posted in Crime | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »