My first job out college was as a reporter in Amarillo, Texas. Here is a sampling of some of my best stories in my three years as cops, courts and business reporter for the Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News:
Probe targets bribery, gambling
July 6, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
Three men arrested in raids at several eight-liner businesses Tuesday allegedly gave thousands of dollars in bribes to a Potter County investigator – who was working for the FBI – to warn them of future raids and to shut down competitors, according to a federal complaint filed in late June.
The complaint, which was unsealed Tuesday, also revealed an ongoing FBI public corruption investigation in which one of the men charged reportedly bribed a law enforcement officer several years ago in exchange for official acts.
The investigator also recorded several conversations in which Curtis Leon Fowler, 73, one of the men charged in connection with the raids Tuesday, implicated several Amarillo-area elected officials in other illegal activity, according to the complaint.
Christy L. Drake, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said she could not answer questions about the public corruption investigation or about Fowler’s allegations about local officials.
Feds get FBI inquiry of Shumate
June 4, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
An investigation into Potter County Sheriff Michael Shumate, which has been going on since last fall, has now been turned over to federal prosecutors, two county commissioners confirmed Sunday.
An FBI investigation, which has been a subject of rumors for months, was verified by commissioners Joe Kirkwood and Lacy Borger after the resignation of the chief deputy for the sheriff’s office on Friday. Ken Farren, who served as Shumate’s chief deputy for six years, cited an ongoing criminal investigation as the cause of his departure from the department.
Farren also said he will announce today his plans to run for sheriff in the Republican primary in early 2008.
Towns pick up lives
April 25, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CACTUS – Radio and television said a tornado was coming to town. Then the tornado sirens went off.
Francisco Balderrama Jr., 23, and his father then ran to the tornado shelter they built together after the senior Balderrama had a tornado scare about 10 years ago.
The shelter, which is burrowed about 10 feet into the ground and is protected by thick concrete walls and about a half-inch thick metal door, is just about 20 feet from the junior Balderrama’s home.
“When we got in, it was packed by the neighbors,” Balderrama said. “They were there before us.”
Although the shelter was crowded, Balderrama said the door was held open for more stragglers to get out of the way of the coming tornado.
“Anyone could get in,” said Balderrama, who celebrated his birthday the same day the twister struck Cactus. “As we got the door closed, and one minute later, everything was gone.”
Many Cactus homes lost
April 23, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CACTUS – Freddy Martinez had plans to marry his fiancee in three months.
Martinez, 22, had everything to start his new family: A home. A car. Even a motorcycle.
A tornado Saturday night took it all away, leaving Martinez grasping for what lay ahead for him and his future wife.
“It’s gone, nothing,” he said, pointing to the barren ground where his mobile home used to be, his voice stuttering in disbelief. “We had plans, like everyone in this world. I don’t know. I don’t know what happens.”
He and hundreds of other Cactus residents returned to their homes Sunday afternoon, a day after police and authorities evacuated them from the city because of a tornado. Wind speeds in the 7:30 p.m. storm hit 130 mph.
In all, there were 16 reports of tornadoes across the Texas Panhandle on Saturday, including one in Tulia that damaged several businesses and injured three people.
Tornado rips through town
April 23, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CACTUS - There were two pregnant woman sheltered among the 40 or so people hiding in the basement. Children were crying. Hailed thundered against the home.
Everyone prayed.
As winds up to about 130 mph hammered Francisco Carrasco’s brick-and-mortar home along Glennis Avenue in Cactus, no one knew what was happening above them.
All they knew was a tornado was barreling toward them, as hail and winds pummeled the home. Then it all subsided.
Silence fell across the group.
In tornado’s wake
March 30, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
MCLEAN – It was the retirement home Keith and Nita Riemer planned for 20 years to build. They built it three years ago.
But in the last two years, it seems nature has conspired to destroy the Riemers’ home on Texas Highway 273, about seven miles south of McLean.
First, one of largest grass fires in Texas history last March almost burned the house down, blazing within about 50 yards of their home. The home was unscathed, though two-thirds of the Riemers’ property was burned and they lost two miles of fencing.
A probable tornado Wednesday night, however, did what the fire couldn’t.
“Everything looks about like this,” said Nita Riemer as she pointed to furniture and electronics waterlogged from rain inside her home after winds ripped parts of the roof over their living room. “Everything is destroyed.”
Lubbock reporter arrested in Amarillo
March 28, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
Amarillo police arrested a Lubbock television reporter Tuesday at an Amarillo hospital as she conducted an undercover investigation into nursery security at the city’s two hospitals.
Cecelia Lynn Coy-Jones, 33, of Lubbock, who works for the NBC affiliate KCBD Newschannel 11 in Lubbock, bonded out of the Potter County Detention Center about 12:45 p.m. after posting $10,000 in bonds for two counts of attempted aggravated kidnapping.
“She was doing an investigative thing about checking our security,” said Sgt. Randy TenBrink of the Amarillo Police Department. “I guess she found out it is pretty good.”
Police said Coy-Jones, dressed in hospital scrubs and was holding a big orange bag, was wearing small wire with a “pin camera” inside when police arrested her at Baptist St. Anthony’s Hospital Tuesday night.
Clovis family ‘lost a lot’
March 27, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CLOVIS, N.M. – Bulldozers smashed into the earth and cleaned up the debris. Dump truck after dump truck kept hauled the mass of felled trees, scattered wreckage and home appliances to the city landfill. The noise was deafening.
But the dozens of people working to clean the scattered debris along South Prince Street on the edge of Clovis’ city limits from Friday’s tornado didn’t seem to mind the racket. They were too busy working, even in the shadow of anguish and heartache.
Several people spent their sweat Tuesday helping Jim Blevens and Iris Blevens, whose he family was dealt a tragic blow from Friday’s twister.
Victims of storms stunned by damage
March 25, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CLOVIS, N.M. – A walk down South Oak Street was a lesson in the strength of nature. Two mobile homes were smashed together and an overturned Dodge Ram pickup lay inside the homes’ rubble.
At an intersection, a yield sign hung toward the ground, its metal pole base twisted like a paper clip. Nearby, a wooden stake was smashed into a windshield – like someone had just stabbed it inside the glass.
Farther down the street, past residents fixing windows and cleaning their front yards of debris, was a lesson in the heartache nature can cause.
Larry Stapp, 47, combed through the littered debris of his sister’s destroyed mobile home, trying to find anything he could salvage.
“This is just devastating,” he said. “It just blows my mind.”
Storm cuts 4-mile trail
March 25, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
CLOVIS, N.M. - One block was spared. A neighboring block, however, was battered, with shingles, aluminum siding and snapped steel fences littering front yards.
The pattern repeated along an almost four-mile line through Clovis as weary residents began picking up the pieces Saturday after an apparent tornado laid waste to the town the night before.
Tulia group to get money
March 20, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
The last chapters of the legal wrangling surrounding the infamous Tulia drug sting, after almost 7 1/2 years of scandal and national headlines, may be coming to an end.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Monday issued an opinion that clears the way for defendants who were on probation or parole before their Tulia convictions to get compensation for wrongful imprisonment from the state.
Nine Tulia defendants affected by Texas’ “ambiguous” wrongful imprisonment statues have been waiting months for Monday’s opinion, said Brent Hamilton, a Plainview attorney representing the group.
“But for the Tulia sentence, these folks never would have been in prison,” Hamilton said. “Ultimately we are happy with the result. We believe the attorney general made the right decision.”
Workers return to refinery
Feb. 21, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
New details of an explosive fire last week at the Valero Energy Corp. McKee refinery near Sunray emerged Tuesday as federal, company and union investigators continued to probe the cause.
Valero, in a written statement, said all workers at the plant returned to work Tuesday, but that it “will be several weeks before a partial startup” of the refinery can be anticipated.
Three critically injured in Valero fire
Feb. 17, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
DUMAS – Fire erupted at the Valero McKee refinery near Dumas on Friday afternoon, critically injuring three workers and sending hundreds fleeing to safety.
The fire, which started about 2 p.m., raged so furiously that plant fire crews decided to fall back and regroup, company officials said late Friday.
“The folks at the site felt the fire got bigger than we felt we could safely fight and not put those people at risk,” said Greg Weber, director of maintenance at the Valero McKee refinery, Friday night. “No one is currently actively fighting the fire.”
Mary Rose Brown, a Valero spokeswoman, said Friday night that the fire at the refinery had subsided substantially, but was not extinguished.
Finally a ‘forever family’
Feb. 16, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
Jackson Coffee was a boy who wanted nothing more than a cowboy for a father.
For several years, he had been in foster-care homes, waiting for the day he would find his “Forever Family.”
In a simple, short adoption hearing Thursday in 320th District Court, Jackson’s dream came true.
“Are you ready for the responsibility of raising another young man?” Amarillo attorney Bill Hamker asked Edwin Davis, the cowboy father Jackson, 6, always wanted.
Bust derails meth traficking in Amarillo
Feb. 16, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
About 100 area law enforcement officers arrested eight people in raids at separate Amarillo locations Thursday morning, nabbing two men whom federal investigators say are sources for several drug traffickers in the area.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents, along with local law enforcement officers, raided the Colonial Manor Hotel, 5407 E. Amarillo Blvd. – reputed to be the center of a large criminal drug business – and other locations about 5 a.m. Thursday. A black helicopter swept across the sky and agents searched the motel.
Bust exposes wide range of suspect activity
Feb. 16, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
Intercepted phone calls and wiretaps. Arrested drug-dealers flipping on their suppliers. Undercover drug deals. Alleged drug dealers complaining about their parents being greedy.
An affidavit filed with a federal complaint Wednesday charging 21 people with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine for two men, describes a large criminal enterprise with two men atop, or near the top, of the meth and cocaine trade inside Amarillo.
Family tries to carry on
Jan. 12, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
HEREFORD – Mary Nicole Duran was only 4 years old, but she was protective of her two younger sisters and brother and wanted nothing more than to watch over them.
When she would visit her grandparents’ home in Hereford, she would often tell her grandfather, Paul Estrada, that she would have to go home and help look after her siblings – twins Kaya Hope Duran, 2, Giovanna Fayth Duran, 2, and Oryan Xsavier Duran, 18 months – he said.
When Estrada gave Mary Nicole a final kiss Wednesday night as she lay dying at University Medical Center in Lubbock, he couldn’t bear to see what had happened to her and tried hard to understand what had happened to her three little siblings, who all died in a tragic fire a day before at their home in Hereford.
Horrific house fire kills four children
Jan. 11, 2007
By PHILLIP YATES
Children playing with matches led to a devastating fire in Hereford Tuesday night that killed four children, fire officials said Wednesday.
The fire cast a dark pallor across city officials Wednesday as they announced the deaths of the children and worked outside the charred and blackened home, which was surrounded by yellow tape.
Kaya Hope Duran, 2, Givonna Faith Duran, 2, and Oryan Xavier Duran, 18 months, all died in the fire at their home in the 300 block of East Fifth Street. Another child, Mary Nicole Duran, 4, was airlifted to the burn unit of University Medical Center in Lubbock, where she died Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said.
The children’s mother, Danielle Marie Duran, 22, was found in the front yard by firefighters and was airlifted to UMC, but was no longer at the hospital late Wednesday.
Motorists stranded
Dec. 31, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Home was about four hours away, but snow drifts as high as vehicles and some as high as buildings blocked every road out of Clayton, N.M., for Bob Richard.
Richard, of Westcliffe, Colo., who was traveling home from visiting family in Ohio and Tennessee, was stranded Saturday at a Day’s Inn & Suites, 1120 S. First St., in Clayton. He said the situation in that city Saturday was slowly deteriorating as law enforcement and other area officials began assisting the hundreds of travelers stranded there.
“People are just stuck, period,” Richard said Saturday afternoon. “There are drifts as high as buildings.”
Grand jury to hear probe into Marshals shooting
Dec. 22, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Findings from an investigation into the U.S. Marshals’ November shooting of a wanted Colorado fugitive, who shot himself in the head after marshals’ rounds hit him, are expected to be presented to a Potter County grand jury next month.
Restraining order in raid denied
Dec. 21, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
A federal judge Tuesday denied a temporary restraining order sought by Amarillo attorneys in connection with the Dec. 12 illegal immigration raid at the Swift meat packing plant in Cactus.
U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson denied the temporary restraining order, which sought to prevent government officials from detaining the workers until they have access to legal and union representation and to end a “concerted effort to intercept detainees’ earned paychecks,” according to court records.
Lawyers battle for workers
Dec. 20, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Government attorneys and lawyers for Swift workers detained during a six-state illegal immigration sting argued in a hearing in federal court Tuesday over a temporary restraining order motion filed in response to the Dec. 12 sting.
Perjury verdict upheld
Nov. 29, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
The Texas 7th Court of Appeals, in an opinion issued Monday, upheld the aggravated perjury conviction against the undercover agent involved in the infamous Tulia drug sting.
Tom Coleman, in his appeal to the court, raised five points of error in his conviction. All five points were overruled by the 7th Court of Appeals, according to court records.
The life of a cowboy
Nov. 23, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
A year ago, Jackson Coffee was in a Tulia foster home, dreaming that a cowboy would adopt him.
He wanted a home where he could ride horses, tend to calves and have room to rope steers. He wanted to live on a farm and find a father to teach him the cowboy life.
As the low-pitched din of cattle hummed across a wind-swept south rural Randall County ranch, Jackson, 6, walked Hickory – the horse he just learned to ride – out of its stall, and threw his small legs into the air, climbed into the stirrups and on to the horse’s back.
Jackson was home. He had found his “Forever family.”
And his hope came true: A cowboy was going to adopt him. Next month, it will be official.
Death of fugitive probed
Nov. 22, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Internal investigators within the U.S. Marshals Service are reviewing a shooting in which a 54-year-old fugitive from Colorado apparently shot himself in the head Wednesday night.
9-year-old helps mom give birth
Oct. 19, 2006
Candace Thornburg probably didn’t expect to deliver her baby brother on her ninth birthday Tuesday. Her mother was having contractions.
An ambulance that served the area was out of service, while another one was near Amarillo, far away from her home in Claude. And her brother, who wasn’t expected for at least another three weeks, was coming into the world, one way or another. So 9-year-old Candace called 911. The young girl was going to have to help her mother, Misty Stitt, 29, deliver the baby.
“The lady on the phone told me to get two towels and a blanket if the baby comes,” Candace said. “She told me to tell my mama to take deep breaths.”
Candace – who had persuaded her mother to let her stay home from school because it was her birthday – was now thrust into a position of awesome responsibility, no matter her age.
“I was nervous about what to do,” Candace said. “My mama was screaming. The woman on the phone was screaming. The woman on the phone wasn’t screaming as much, though.”
Ruling may save killer from death
Oct. 14, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
A man facing execution in the 1990 slaying of a pizza delivery driver may be saved by a judge’s recent opinion that says he shows signs of mental retardation.
If the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agrees with 181st District Judge John Board’s opinion, which was issued Monday, and also determines that Gregory Van Alstyne, 40, is mentally retarded, his death sentence would be commuted and he could be considered for parole, prosecutors say.
Accused predator arrested
Oct. 18, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Amarillo police arrested a disguised New York violinist on arrest warrants charging him with sex crimes against an Amarillo girl after he arrived at an Amarillo hotel Monday afternoon.
Timothy Stephen Baker Jr., 54, who performs with a touring group and as a soloist across the country, was arrested when he tried to meet a 16-year-old girl he met at an Austin music camp this year, police said Tuesday.
Ruling sought in drug sting
Oct. 7, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
The American Civil Liberties Union submitted a brief to the Texas Attorney General Friday on behalf of defendants sent to prison in the infamous Tulia drug sting, arguing they are entitled to “full compensation” for time they spent in prison.
Friday’s filing is in response to a request for a Texas Attorney General opinion from Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The comptroller sought a clarifying opinion as to whether she can approve compensation for defendants who were on probation or parole before they were convicted in the discredited Tulia drug sting.
A lock on savings?
Aug. 30, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
For the past eight years, Amarillo police officers have surveyed hundreds of houses. If the homes met state security requirements, officers gave residents a certificate that qualified them for a break on their homeowner’s policies.
The surveys have saved homeowners a tidy pile of cash.
“Thousands of dollars,” Sgt. Randy TenBrink said. “If we save each person with a medium-sized home a $100 a year, how much do we save total for everyone? Thousands.”
But the Amarillo Police Department recently learned that State Farm Insurance asked the Texas Department of Insurance in May to discontinue the discount. Police fear the move might signal a trend and that other insurance carriers will move to rescind the discount, TenBrink said.
Banks watch for money laundering
Aug. 26, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Amarillo banks say they do everything they can to track and report transactions of possible money laundering. They do it for their customers and because the government is watching.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General on Wednesday released a report that said the nation’s top banking regulators failed to publicly cite Wells Fargo for its problems in complying with a federal law meant to create a “money trail” to track money laundering and terrorism financing.
New tax may fuel more furor from business owners
Aug. 20, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
It was a debate that spilled over into multiple special sessions. A state judge even imposed a deadline for a solution. And when the Texas Legislature finally reached an agreement on school finance in May, the furor surrounding the debate subsided.
That furor may soon be rekindled when businesses large and small learn the consequences of a new business tax — which will take effect next year and must be paid in May 2008 — that was created to replace revenue lost to slashing local school property taxes.
Preparation kept peace at Klan rally
Aug. 8, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Two large fences separated the Ku Klux Klan demonstrators from their supporters and also their opponents. In the middle of the steel fences was a phalanx of state troopers and Amarillo Police Department officers.
But as much as the Saturday rally was raucously loud — with dozens of people banging on pots and pans — the rally was also peaceful, with just one arrest coming because of an outstanding warrant. And it was just what the officials from the city of Amarillo and the Amarillo Police Department wanted.
Grand jury declines to indict
June 30, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
For the second time, a Potter County grand jury did not return an indictment against a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who shot an unarmed man. The 18-year-old ran from a crashed stolen vehicle in November of last year. Trooper Mike Vennell was no billed – where a grand jury decides there isn’t enough evidence to indict – when the case was originally presented Dec. 15.
Gag order issued
June 22, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
A federal judge Wednesday issued a gag order forbidding anyone involved in a federal lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety in the death of an unarmed man last year from talking or leaking documents to the media.
U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson granted the motion filed by Texas Assistant Attorney General Karen Matlock on Friday that sought to restrict attorneys and plaintiffs involved in the wrongful death suit from speaking with the media.
Panhandle grad remains positive despite cancer
May 17, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
The spotlights High School’s auditorium shone down on Caitlin Bullock, illuminating a big, bright smile across her face. The school’s National Honor Society induction ceremony — like the other memories that will come during the final days of her high school experience — was a moment she was savoring.
It was a moment Bullock has worked so hard and overcome so much to reach. Melanoma, chemotherapy, surgery and radiation all tried to stop her. And failed.
“It feels so good, I have reached my goal,” Bullock said after the induction ceremony. “But I have a lot more to do in my life.”
Yates: In heroes’ company
March 20, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
SKELLYTOWN – The 610 residents of Skellytown were gone. Everyone in the small town had evacuated their homes after packing their lives into their vehicles in just minutes.
All that was left in the small city last Sunday afternoon – besides the thick, choking smoke that turned the afternoon sky into a hellish orange – was the Skellytown Volunteer Fire Department and other area firefighters sent to help save the endangered town.
As a ground-to-sky column of smoke and fire marched toward the city, a call went out over the radio that fire units who had gathered on the west side of the city should pull back.
But the town’s volunteer firefighters and their colleagues from out of town decided they would make a stand. They would not leave their fire engines, which were at the head of the approaching flames, said Capt. Vance Griffith.
“We were not going to give up our town,” Griffith said, recalling the moments before the fire arrived. “We are kind of bone-headed that way, especially when you live here. We said ‘This is the line.’”
Firefighters get handle on blaze
March 17, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Winds returning to a soft crawl and the marshalling of massive resources Thursday helped weary firefighters stem the advance of destructive grass fires across the northeast Texas Panhandle.
Flare-ups bear down on Panhandle towns
March 16, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Ferocious winds Wednesday afternoon led to flare-ups of two massive grass fires that have scorched an area larger than Rhode Island across the Texas Panhandle and have killed 11 people.
Firefighters gain ground ahead of high winds today
March 15, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Firefighters threw as much as they could against the largest grass fires in Texas history Tuesday, although dangerous conditions that fanned the deadly blazes were expected to return today.
Death toll rises to 11
March 14, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
The death toll in the largest grass fires in Texas history jumped from seven to 11 on Monday even while firefighters struggled to stop a torrent of flames that have consumed more than 1,000 square miles of the Panhandle. Two people remained missing in Hutchinson County and untold numbers of livestock are dead throughout the region.
Skellytown residents retreat from flames
March 13, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
SKELLYTOWN – As columns of black smoke cascaded over the small skyline of Skellytown, Kitite McGuire sat in her car at the outskirts of town and wondered if it was her house that fueled the dark black, billowing clouds.
‘Day the Panhandle burned’
March 13, 2006
By PHILLIP YATES
Wind gusts as high as 58 mph across the Texas Panhandle on Sunday fueled up to 14 grass fires that burned hundreds of thousands of acres, caused evacuations of several communities and contributed to seven deaths.
‘He died doing what he loved’
Jan. 24, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
Tears rolled down the cheeks of friends and family as they remembered the life of a man who devoted himself to his duty, his family and his faith.
Even among the multitude of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers who lined the Hereford Church of the Nazarene, few had dry eyes as they solemnly remembered the memory of their colleague. A standing-room-only crowd filled the pews and overflow space of the church Monday for a celebration-of-life service for DPS Trooper Matthew DeWayne Myrick, 36, who died in the line of duty Friday night.
“He died doing what he loved: serving others,” the Rev. Ted Taylor said during the service. “Matt would lay his life down for his family, his country and you.”
Bivins explains resignation
Dec. 29, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
The symptoms were all too apparent: fatigue, burning in the mouth, difficulty communicating.
The diagnosis, however, was not. A short time after Teel Bivins — a former Texas state senator who represented the Amarillo area for 15 years — presented his credentials as American ambassador to King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm, Sweden, he knew something was wrong.
Almost two years later and after dozens of visits with doctors, he still doesn’t know.
Bye-bye Sweden
Dec. 14, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
In Stockholm, Sweden, it was a well-known fact. But in Amarillo, the news that Teel Bivins decided to resign from his post as the American ambassador to Sweden wasn’t nearly as public. Not until the Bivins’ Christmas card arrived in Amarillo this year did most people know he was coming back to Texas.
The card’s words were simple: “We bid farewell to Stockholm.”
U.S. State Department officials on Tuesday confirmed that Teel Bivins had announced his intention to resign his ambassadorial post in Sweden.
Five-year-old looks to move out of foster care, into a ‘forever family’
Nov. 26, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
Jackson Coffee is an exuberant, talkative 5-year-old boy.Dressed in black-and-white boots, a shiny belt buckle and a black cowboy hat, Jackson’s smile never breaks as he plays with his sister and mother in their Tulia home.
Jackson’s conviviality turns to quiet reflection, though, when he thinks about the one thing that everyone wants for him: To move out of the foster system and find a “forever family.”
How much would Jackson miss Darla and Dennie Trammell , the couple Jackson thinks of as his real parents?
“A lot,” he said, his voice a soft whisper. “I like it here.”
Shooting leaves two dead
Nov. 18, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
A shooting at an Amarillo home Thursday night left two people dead and family members stunned.
Friends and family wept and held each other after they converged on the home in the 1700 block of Southeast Fifth Avenue after learning of the shooting. One woman even yelled at a prostrate woman, her hands covering her grief-stricken face.
“Are you happy? Are you satisfied he’s dead?” the woman yelled to the other.
TASER ends standoff
Nov. 17, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
A 2½-hour standoff between Amarillo police and a 34-year-old man barricaded inside a stranger’s garage attic ended Wednesday afternoon after the SWAT team stormed the home and subdued him.
The SWAT team took David Mojica of Amarillo into custody about 5 p.m. in a home in the 3600 block of Northeast 17th Avenue after officers deployed a TASER against him twice, said Sgt.
Randy TenBrink of the Amarillo Police Department.Officers fired the TASER, an electrical stun device, the second time because it failed to connect with Mojica the first time, TenBrink said.
Suspect shot in head
Nov. 16, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper shot a man who ran from an allegedly stolen truck after he crashed it into a light pole after a high-speed chase along U.S. Highway 287.
The man, whose age and name were not available Tuesday night, was shot one time in the head after crashing the allegedly stolen truck at Hilltop Drive and Hastings Avenue said DPS Trooper Wayne Beighle. The man’s condition was not known Tuesday night, but Beighle said he was alive and breathing when he was taken to Northwest Texas Hospital.
Beighle declined to reveal the name of the trooper who fired his weapon, but said he was from the Amarillo District.
Relying on his faith to fight back
Oct. 7, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
Once able to speak in front of hundreds of congregants, Ron Sullivan couldn’t talk. He couldn’t move many parts of his body, including his mouth.
Lying in his bed at an Amarillo hospital, the only way Sullivan could speak with his wife, Deanna, was for her to read through the alphabet. They would form words when Sullivan nodded his head for the right letter.
“I couldn’t communicate for three months,” Sullivan said. “Couldn’t drink. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t communicate. The only way my wife could communicate with me was to play the ABC game.”
Guillain-Barré syndrome had taken Sullivan, a senior pastor at South Georgia Church of the Nazarene, away from his flock in January and confined him to area hospitals for six months, three of those spent on a ventilator.
“I was helpless,” Sullivan said. “I felt lonely at times not being able to be with them.”
Slayings hit ‘too close to home’
Oct. 2, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
PAMPA — Few in this town can understand the tragedy. Some are still in fear of it happening again.But many say the slaying of three members of a family found dead Friday morning in their rural Gray County home near Pampa should never have happened here.
“It is too close to home,” said Will Daniel, who lives near where the killings occurred. “This stuff ain’t supposed to happen in your community.”
Brian Conrad, 31, his wife, Michell Conrad, 35, and her 14-year-old son Zach Doan were found shot to death in their home on Texas Highway 70 about 14 miles south of Pampa, said Trooper Daniel Hawthorne of Texas Department of Public Safety. Michell Conrad was about six months pregnant when she was killed.
Texas to add to FBI’s DNA database
Nov. 12, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
For 24 years, the killing of Narnie Box Bryson was shrouded in mystery. Raped and murdered during a vicious attack in her Amarillo home on July 8, 1981, the evidence from the killing linked no one to her death.
The case remained cold for the next 23 years until a piece of evidence from the killing of the 77-year-old woman was submitted to a criminal laboratory in 2004. Finally, the Combined DNA Index System, a system administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and nicknamed CODIS, kicked back the result: A DNA link to Leoncio Perez Rueda, 55. On Jan. 3, he pleaded guilty to killing Bryson.
Board to decide on Osprey’s production
Sept. 25, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
Critics said the technology wasn’t feasible.
Dick Cheney, when was he was secretary of defense, even tried to kill development of the aircraft.But after several years of retooling the aircraft and months of rigorous testing during its operational evaluation from April to June of this year, the fate of the Osprey is looking up.
The Defense Acquisition Board will decide Wednesday whether to approve full-rate production of the MV-22 for the U.S. Marine Corps, said Michael Cox, vice president of communications for Bell Helicopter Textron.
Leaving town
Sept. 8, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
A little more than a year ago, 50 Texas Army National Guard troops from Amarillo walked onto buses that would carry them to Fort Hood and then on to war in Iraq.
Now the remnants of Amarillo-based Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 142 Infantry, are off to help the country again after Texas activated the unit late Tuesday to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
When the 18 troops left Amarillo on Wednesday, only about two or three soldiers available for deployment remained at the Texas Army National Guard Armory.Surrounded by a circle of large green duffel bags, Spc. Matthew Voges held onto his fiancee, Tiffany Fixsen, 20, as they said their final goodbyes.
“If you look around, hardly few of us are going, but it seems that they need us,” said Voges, 23. “Sometimes we get stretched thin, but it isn’t anything we can’t handle. I am glad I can help.”
Asarco files for bankruptcy
Aug.11, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
James Price has two children in high school he plans to send to college in the next few years.
But supporting his Asarco co-workers in their strike against the company has complicated his savings plans and made life more difficult for Price, 53, who depends on two rental homes to supplement his income.
“It’s been rough,” Price said while on the picket line Wednesday as several motorists driving by the plant along Texas Highway 136 honked their support of the strikers.
When Price arrived at the picket line, he learned there will be one more complication in his life: Asarco, the copper-mining company where he has worked for 26 years, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday amid high copper prices and a labor dispute.
Rising above its past
Aug. 7, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
Ever since two crashes in 2000 that killed 24 people, the MV-22 and the Osprey program has been linked to two words: Troubled, flawed.
But now, more than four years after a massive overhaul of the aircraft and the successful completion of a three-month operational evaluation (OPEVAL) that ended in June, new words could replace the old Osprey reputation: Full-rate production.
Reporter one of first civilians to ride in Osprey
July 17, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. — A pen in my hand and a waiver in front of me, I had to decide whether to absolve the Marine Corps if the aircraft I was about to ride in crashed, killing me.
“I assume all risks associated with flying as a passenger on a Marine Corps operated aircraft, including but not limited to severe injury or death result from said flight or flights or ground operations thereto,” it read.
I signed it without hesitation.
Feverishly, she thought: ‘How do I get out of here without killing myself?
May 26, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
The man tried to pull her back, but the door on the speeding Hummer was open, and a decision had to be made.
As the asphalt blurred from the speed of the vehicle, a woman who had been held against her will for almost two hours with her feet bound by duct tape pondered her escape.
“How do I get out of here without killing myself?” she thought, as the man who earlier had pepper sprayed and punched her tried to keep her inside the speeding vehicle.
She chose to jump.
“When I hit the ground, I thought it was the second time I was going to die,” said the woman, a real estate agent who was kidnapped from a rural Randall ounty home Monday. The Globe-News agreed to withhold the woman’s identity to protect her privacy.
Closing of Air Force base will likely hurt business in and around Clovis
May 14, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
CLOVIS, N.M. — Not a single stitch of clothing inside Da’s Tailor and Dry Cleaning comes from a civilian. On every hook and hangar, are military fatigues and dress uniforms, all of them listing the last names of U.S. Air Force officers and airmen.
The dry-cleaning and alterations shop, which is only a few hundred feet from Cannon Air Force Base’s main exit onto U.S. Highway 60 that heads into Clovis, hummed with activity Friday, as dozens of Air Force personnel came in to pick up and drop off their uniforms.
Affidavit says man admitted some role in double murder
March 10, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
A 32-year-old man shot by police Tuesday morning, after he confronted them in connection with the killing of a Portales couple, reportedly confessed his involvement in the double homicide.
Jerry Fuller, 32, of Portales, who faces two open counts of murder in the killings of Odis Newman, 70, and Doris Newman, age unknown, was so distraught over his involvement in their deaths that he reportedly wanted to kill himself, according to an affidavit for arrest warrant filed Tuesday.
Man charged in double slaying
March 9, 2005
By PHILLIP YATES
PORTALES, N.M. — A 33-year-old man faces two counts of murder in connection with the killings of a Portales couple after Clovis police officers shot and arrested him during a short standoff Tuesday morning in Portales.
Three other people face charges in connection with the deaths of Odis Newman, 70, and Doris Newman, age unknown, whose bodies police think were found in a burned car in Portales on Thursday morning.
Stratford learns to appreciate the support of a small town
Dec. 14, 2004
By PHILLIP YATES
STRATFORD — No matter where Chris Ortega looks in Stratford, he knows the entire town is behind him and his 50 teammates.
With only one day until the biggest game of the football season, as the Stratford Elks face Shiner for the Class 1A state championship on Saturday night in Wichita Falls, this close-knit town is decorated for the occasion. Blue and white streamers hang from nearly every ceiling panel in the high school
Ochiltree County backs Bush best
Nov. 12, 2004
By PHILLIP YATES
Ochiltree County is Bush country more than any other county in the United States, according to one blogger on the Internet. Results from Ochiltree County in the Nov. 2 presidential election showed President George W. Bush was a near invincible opponent, garnering almost every vote in the county.
President Bush received about 92 percent of all presidential votes cast in Ochiltree, said County Clerk Jane Hammerbeck.
Mother seeks closure in daughter’s death
June 9, 2004
By PHILLIP YATES
The pain of not knowing is what hurts most. Every day for four years, Joyce Ivory has gone to her daughter’s grave, with no answers, no clues and no idea who may have murdered her daughter. Or why.
“It is still like it happened yesterday,” Ivory, 48, said. “I don’t know what it could have been all about. I can’t imagine what was so bad that someone would take her life for it.”
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