'It was a pretty violent encounter ...'
An orchestrated yet unsuccessful escape attempt on Wednesday will likely add to the time that three Tarrant County Jail inmates will be behind bars.
Erick "Truman" Davila, 21; James Dwayne Edwards, 24; and Herschel Jerome Hurd, 21, will face additional charges that could include aggravated assault on a public servant and attempted escape, officials said.
Two of the three have made headlines in recent months.
Davila is charged with capital murder in a shooting at a crowded birthday party April 6 that killed Annette Stevenson and her 5-year-old granddaughter Queshawn Stevenson. He's also charged with murder in the unrelated shooting of Darrell Ford, 37, that month.
Edwards has been jailed since November on several charges, including the strangulation of a 45-year-old Grand Prairie woman whose remains were found in Arlington last fall.
One of the inmates was armed with a "shank" during the botched jailbreak.
"It was a pretty violent encounter obviously," Sheriff Dee Anderson said. "There was a number of cuts and quite a bit of blood, according to people who were there."
Staff Writer Deanna Boyd reports.
Man to repay $2.5 million in pyramid scheme
A 72-year-old Mineral Wells businessman has promised to repay nearly $2.5 million to an estimated 135 investors he defrauded through a Ponzi-like scheme since 2000.
Ronald Keith Owens agreed to the restitution as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. U.S. Magistrate Paul D. Stickney accepted Owens’ guilty plea last week to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return in connection with his investment scheme.
Owens could be sentenced to up to 23 years in prison and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine when he is sentenced in November.
-- Staff Writer Martha Deller reports.
And speaking of scams ... beware of collect calls from jail
A telephone scam operated by inmates is back.
A Richland Hills business owner was bilked out of more than $72 in telephone charges last weekend after she became a victim of a scheme called "*72" or "72#," in which someone gets free access to a phone line by asking a phone customer to forward a call.
Police continued to search Wednesday for a Tarrant County Jail inmate accused of operating the scam on Saturday.
"The owner has managed to stop the process," Richland Hills Detective Tye Bell said. "But inmates apparently do this all the time, and people have to be careful."
The 46-year-old business owner said she got involved only because she thought she was helping an inmate take care of his 2-year-old daughter.
Learn more about the scam in this report from Staff Writer Domingo Ramirez Jr.
-- Bill Miller
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