On my to-do list this weekend is finishing Michael Hall's excellent story in Texas Monthly on the Lake Waco murders and the possibility that the men convicted of the crime - one of whom was executed - were actually innocent. Central to the convictions were statements from a jailhouse snitch and forensic testimony about bite marks, a discipline whose credibility in recent years has been seriously called into question. (At trial, jurors were told bite-mark evidence was as reliable as fingerprints.)
The missus left town for work on Wednesday and took the magazine with her for the plane ride, so I haven't yet finished the article. But TM has begun to serialize the lengthy piece on their website. Check it out. This is long-form journalism at its best.
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24 comments:
Wow, best story I've read in years. Incredibly in-depth and provides insight into the minds of these psychopaths that gravitate to jobs in law enforcement. Every single case that Simons' ever worked should be reinvestigated. Truly scary that people like him are allowed to wear a badge. No one is safe.
I guess every crime prior to DNA..arson detection..retina reading....voice analysis deserves retrial or out and out dismissal..Good way to completely empty out prisons and jails with null and void convictions prior to this magic. I certainly dont believe everything I read and certainly not everything in Texas Monthly.
To continue from 10:38..dont trust Truman Simons or Vic Feazell either.
Can't anybody here PLAY this game?
Why wouldn't Simons and Feazell agree to an interview? "...the patrol sergeant who investigated the case and the DA who prosecuted it—refused to be interviewed."
Mr.Kerry Max Cook was railroaded by Skeen and Hardy from Tyler,Smith County. The Waco Lake and White murders with Vic Feazell and Simmons in Waco, McClellan County are frightening similar! Connect the dots.
It's McLennan County, not McClellan County. And yes, Vic Feazell was and is a scumbag schyster.
So friggin true...but 58 million dollar lotto winner...shame
Nothin to gain lots to lose if they do.
Referring to Truman Simons: "In his long career, he (Simons) had discovered that he could often feel the violence in the air at a crime scene—and later use that sense to connect the perpetrator to the deed." He discovered he could FEEL the violence in the AIR...wtf?
I was a teenager in Waco during Vic Feazell's reign back in the 80s. He always oozed sleaze like a used-car salesman or a tent preacher. He was and is a shameless, grand-standing, self-aggrandizing charlatan. Everyone knew he was dismissing DUI cases for bribes back in the day, but he was able to muddy the waters enough that the feds couldn't convict him.
He and DA Mighty Mouse would make a great team.
Feazell was a moral prig, too. He loved to make a great show of prosecuting mom-and-pop video stores for having small, adults-only sections in a room at the back.
Read the TM piece and you'll get the feeling that Mr. Hall already interviewed Mr. Simmons, explaining why he didn't want to talk.
I had to stop after two paragraphs because it started reading like a CNN special for the blind. We didn't need to know his pants size or favorite ice cream flavor, just the facts Mr. Hall.
http://www.withviclegal.com/about/vic-feazell/
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I worked for one of Spence's defense attorneys (Hayes Fuller) as a law clerk and he was totally convinced that he was being railroaded by Feazell.
Great read. Looking forward to tomorrow's final installment.
Let me see, the Melendez brothers luered a teen to a house where they sodimized him and Simons is the bad guy. Makes a good story.
"The MELENDEZ BROTHERS" did not lure a teen to a house where they sodomized him. It was Gilbert Melendez, not Tony Melendez. Your facts are as bad as your spelling.
If you think Truman Simons and Vic Feazell are not the "bad guys" take a look at........
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JKGhBIjAuNekFoVktibDBaYXZPLW84dVhVVFA0RncyOTJJ/view?pli=1
It is a Clemency Petition filed on behalf of Anthony Melendez. Page 13 Exhibit shows Feazell actually bugged the Grand Jury that indicted Spence.
Feazell, in his great EGO, taped himself constantly, he also taped Simons and others, the conversations are set forth in this Petition, with Exhibits. Where is State Bar in this? Where is the press? WHY is this Clemency Petition not on a front page somewhere? No one cares.
This is worse than Ken Andersen, and on tape, yet................nothing happens to Teflon Feazell and his detective obviously can "Simonize" everyone with lies.
Let the case rest, it's over a long time. They were guilty and got what they deserved. If the law is so unjust in Texas, the feds would have stepped in. Get over it and let this go.
Not until they run the DNA. The DNA has been at an Arkansas lab since April 3, 2013. WHY it hasn't been run, I have no idea. There are 36 samples to run Spence or Melendez's DNA against, so why not?
DNA is the only way to find the truth. WHY, Dotty, should we let this go when there's DNA to be run??
Especially now that BITE MARK evidence has been totally tossed. You say, "the feds would step in if something were wrong"...........I don't think so, recently Waco had the TWIN PEAKS mess and the Feds didn't step in, we know something isn't right there too.
I DIDN'T READ THE STORY IN TEXAS MONTHLY. I LIVED IN WACO AT THE TIME. WENT TO SCHOOL WITH GILBERT MELENDEZ AND SAW HIM SEVERAL TIMES AFTER THAT. HE WAS MY FRIEND! I BELIEVE TO THIS DAY THAT HE WOULD SAY ANYTHING TO SAVE HIS BROTHER'S LIFE. I KNOW IN THE DAY YOU DIDN'T MESS OR SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE LAW HERE. THEY COULD MAKE YOUR LIFE A NIGHTMARE!! IF THEY HAD LET THEIR PRESENCE KNOWN INSTEAD OF PUTTING SNIPERS IN PLACE. THE WHOLE TWIN PEAKS SLAUGHTER WOULD NEVER HAD HAPPENED. MAYBE THOSE NINE KILLED WOULD STILL BE HERE!
Since there was no evidence except bite marks and talk, what will happen now that the State Forensics people have ruled that bite marks are junk science. I read where the same forensics dentist, Homer Campbell, testified against a guy in Dallas and that guy got out of prison after 23 years through DNA. Campbell has been thoroughly discredited!! Why does it take 23 years to run DNA? Why did it take 16 years to run DNA in the Lake Murder Case? Since there is no DNA, when the Spence case is thrown out does that mean the famous Waco PD will re-open the case and find the right ones? Will that terrible Vic Feazell have to take down his awful sign on I35? Will Truman Simons have to swallow the toothpick he always is sucking on, or will the worst bullshi* in Texas murder history just go on? Can we get another installment, Mr. Hall?
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