5.14.2021

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out of Here

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The background here is that an In-N-Out Burger had opened in Frisco and people lost their minds. I still remember the video of this girl (still available) as she cried with joy. It was so darned weird. (Unless someone shares her name, she got married a couple of years ago. Here's another fun fact: Did you know that since Jay Leno ran the clip on The Tonight Show that she got her own IMBD page?)

  • The CDC announced yesterday that if you have been fully vaccinated then you no longer need to wear a mask or socially distance. That's as close to an announcement of "It is all over!" that we are ever going to get. 

  • Well, it's technically over for a quarter of us. 

  • This was the horrible case that occurred off Greenville Avenue in Dallas two years ago. The 22 year old had gone out to celebrate her birthday when she was grabbed in a parking lot in the early evening hours.  He was charged with capital murder where he could have received life without parole. Instead he pled guilty to a life sentence to the lesser offense of simple murder which allows him to be eligible for parole after 30 years. He would be 79 at that time if he were to be paroled (which is probably unlikely.) 


  • There was a crazy police chase that ended in Alvarado yesterday. I counted at least 23 cops drawing down on a guy at the end of it.  (Something which seems incredibly disorganized and is a recipe for the whole thing going horribly wrong.)

  • Colonial Pipeline paid $5 million to the hackers to be released from their ransomware.  I'm telling you, payments like this are made all the time. (The Wise County Sheriff's Office got hit with ransomware before and paid up.) 

  • The story isn't particularly noteworthy, but that picture is. I didn't think that looked like Jenna Ryan, but I suppose it is. Edit: Readers don't think it is.


  • Oh, my. 

  • Kim Ogg is the District Attorney in Harris County. Uh, where does one go to "register to be a juror"?

  • This is pretty wild: Last weekend the president of the University of South Carolina at the end of commencement congratulated the students from graduating from the "University of California" (video), and yesterday he resigned because it was discovered he plagiarized a quote in his commencement address. He stole a quote from the famous "Make up your bed" commencement address of  Admiral William McRaven at the University of Texas in 2014. 

  • My 10 year flashback earlier this week referred to Tammie Jo Chaffee who was imprisoned for murder in Wise County. A faithful reader pointed out to me that you can write to her here at WriteAPrisoner.com.
  • It's not particularly exciting, but the Fort Worth Court of Appeal affirmed a conviction for Evading Arrest out of Wise County yesterday where the defendant received 13 years in prison. (Legal nerd stuff: The appellate court, as it will always do, seemed to affirm the case on a theory not even advanced by the State. The issue was whether the jury should have been asked to decide whether the defendant failed to signal which was the basis for his initial detention. The Court said "we don't care" because there was a reasonable suspicion to stop him anyway. I'm not so sure about that.)
  • More legal nerd stuff: President Biden just got the opportunity to appoint someone to the Fifth Circuit which governs Texas.
  • What did I tell you about large warehouses?

  • Watch the reaction of a bunch of girls' college golf teams, including North Texas and Sam Houston, being advised that the Regional event at Baton Rouge was cancelled. That was sorry. (And here is Barstool Sports mocking re-creation of the moment as they try -- for publicity's sake -- to invite the teams to their own tournament.)

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 679 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



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5.13.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




This turned out to be the crazy case of Fred Earl Ingerson, III who was accused of murdering Robyn Richter and Shawna Ferris who were found dead in the parking lot of the Miyako Japanese Restaurant in Granbury, Texas on June 28, 2008. It looked like the jury was hung, but they finally reached a guilty verdict after three days of deliberations. But I wasn't the only one who thought it was a weak case. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on insufficient evidence grounds. But then, in an incredibly rare act, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided to hear the case and reinstated the verdict in 2018. (One of the Wise County connections was that Wise County Sheriff David Walker was the brother-in-law of one of the victims. He attended the trial. The other is that one of the prosecutors on the case now works in Wise County.)  

  • The Texas open/concealed carry-without-a-license bill has hit a snag. Shockingly, yesterday the House rejected the amendments to the bill made by the Senate. Now it goes to a committee composed of members from both chambers who will try to reach a compromise, and then that comprise must be approved by the full House and Senate. I no longer know what the chances of it passing are. 

  • Video grab bag making the rounds this week:
    • Kid on kid violence that should never happen. Link.

    • Cowboys release insane video about the 2021 schedule. Link.

    • Tell your friends: The video of the lady putting gasoline into plastic bags is actually from 2019. Link.

  • Elon Musk made a weird announcement last night that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin for payment. They guy just manipulates the market for his own gain, but somehow it is legal. 
  • Stolen weather forecast. (Disclaimer: It's a Delkus forecast so take it with a grain of salt.) 

  • Day 16 in jail:

  • Bass infusion at Lake Bridgeport:

  • The major six lane bridge on I-40 over the Mississippi outside of Memphis has been shut down and might be so for months. Here is why: 

  • Grab bag of crazy quotes after yesterday's ouster of Rep. Liz Chaney:
    • Mature response from a freshman Republican Congressman.

    • From the loneliness of Mar-a-Lago:

    • This guy spoke up, too. 


    • But the big winner of the day was Rep. Andrew Clyde's (R-GA). This is called defying objective truth: “There was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bald-faced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the capitol and walked through statutory hall showed people in an orderly fashion, taking videos and pictures. If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist video.”

  • Fox News ran a false report last night saying that construction on The Wall had resumed. They retracted it this morning when they figured out it was just the repair of a levee, not the wall, on the border. (Reporter Bill Melugin was also the original source of the fake tampon in a cop's coffee story.)

  • Random things I did not know: A German sub sank an American ship off the coast of Mississippi in 1942 killing 26. This seems like a crazy big deal, but I don't even think it has its own Wikipedia page. 

  • The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced their inductees yesterday, but I don't care because it seems like everyone gets into the Hall of Fame.  One major oversight, however: Wings.


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5.12.2021

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts





An investigator at the courthouse and I were just talking about this case. According to the Messenger, "Chaffee, her 8-year-old daughter and Jimmy Joe Robertson, 36, of Bridgeport were northbound on Texas 101 north of Bridgeport the afternoon of May 9 when Chaffee and Robertson began arguing. Chaffee pulled the car to the shoulder, and Robertson got out of the car, crossed the median, and started walking south on the outer shoulder of the southbound lanes. He placed an emergency call to 911 operators asking for an officer to come to his location, but the line went dead before he could finish. Investigators said Chaffee, meanwhile, turned the car around and struck Robertson with her vehicle." Tammie Jo eventually received 25 years in a plea agreement.    



  • Today, the Star-Telegram has a story on the marathon executive session by the school board discussing the future of the Superintendent of Decatur ISD while the Messenger has an editorial criticizing the secrecy behind the whole thing. 


  • An attorney is now showing up next to Brooke Melton's name in the big Decatur drug case. That's a change from yesterday. 

  • Conservative Liz Chaney took the House floor last night in defense of the obvious truth -- a stance that got her removed from her leadership position moments ago. It's surreal and honestly shocking how speaking against The Big Lie and Trump got her punished in today's Republican Party. "We must speak the truth. Our election was not stolen and America has not failed," she said, adding, "Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar."




  • Maybe I missed it, but this story didn't seem to make as many headlines as I thought it would. It happened in Eden, Texas. 

  • Colt Brennan, a fantastic college QB at Hawaii, died yesterday after a battle with alcoholism. The winner for most unusual and callous headline about his death came from the Atlanta Journal Constitution: 

  • Didn't I just mention last week about people getting rich in the business of large commercial warehouses?

  • I missed this story: "A Wichita Falls jury on May 3 acquitted a 28-year-old man on a charge of making threats against Congressional Democrats on Facebook -- a rare outcome in federal court. The jury deliberated for just 18 minutes before finding Gavin Weslee Perry not guilty of a single count of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce."


  • Random surprising occupation buried in a paragraph in this story. 

    Lee Jenkins, left, and Diane Andrews of Texas traveled to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but said they
     didn't go inside.     (Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times)


  • Legal tidbit: A researcher into a Supreme Court decision has found this interesting note about the late Justice Scalia. He wrote a letter to the University of Virginia turning down an award it wished to give him because the school rejected all of his kids for admission. It's even a bit funny because although three of his children were rejected, he took exception to the way two of them were evaluated. The other kid must have been a real dolt. 

  • Odd Football tidbit: In 2018, Decatur High School set the all time Texas high school record for most points given up in a single season.   Note that this stat includes even playoff games which doesn't seem fair  - the second place team on the list gave up almost as many points but only in 10 games. But normally a team who went to the playoffs doesn't end up on this list because if you are giving up lots of points, you ain't doing a lot of winning. But that's not so with Decatur that year who played in 5 playoff games while giving up an average of 45.3 points a game. Source. 

  • Just announced: A Thursday night and the first game of the year in the NFL for the Cowboys.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold 

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