Read Online Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir by Gary Taylor - Free Book Online
Authors: Gary Taylor
Tags: Suspense, Crime, Mystery, Suicide, Lawyers, True Crime, legal thriller, Texas, Law, Murder, Memoir, Women, Noir, Mental Illness, Dallas, Journalism, stalkers, Houston, femme fatale
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blonde. But I was still nearly a decade away from
hooking up with Catherine when I arrived in December of 1971 in
Houston for the next level of post-graduate education in journalism
and crime reporting. While any murder in Flint rated a story
for The Journal ,
the two Houston papers had to prioritize. They did not have enough
room to cover all, so each murder story needed its own
"man-bites-dog" element to justify the space.
I had my first taste of the fast
lane when I reported for duty in the fourth floor press room at the
Houston Police Department's 61 Reisner Street headquarters. Before
noon I had lost about $25 in a poker game that was interrupted by
the killing of a bank president who had tried to stop a robbery
with his personal sidearm only to die in a hail of gunfire as he
chased the robbers down the street.
The morning
delivery Post had
hired me specifically to become one of its night police beat
reporters. New hires usually covered the cops for about a year
before promotion to assignments with less gore and more reasonable
hours. After my daytime orientation, I began working the night
shift of six-to-two, Sunday through Wednesday. I filed stories
directly from a community press room in the police station using a
Western Union-style teletype machine.
Houston's economy
was large enough to support two daily papers, and I welcomed the
challenge of a true competitive situation with the rival
afternoon Houston
Chronicle . The
Post was owned by the venerable Hobby
family, then headed by the matriarch, Oveta Culp Hobby. She was the
widow of a former Texas governor and had distinguished herself as
well heading the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Her son,
William P. Hobby Jr., served as editor of The Post but had divided his time just
then running what would be a successful campaign to win election as
Texas Lieutenant Governor, a position he would hold from 1973 until
1991. To her credit, Mrs. Hobby was a hands-on, news junkie type of
executive with a penchant for popping into the newsroom just to see
what might be going on. The Post served as a flagship for a family media empire
that also included ownership of the local NBC radio and television
affiliates. Although those electronic outlets generated greater
revenues, the daily paper ranked as her professional love. A true
matriarch, she considered its stories the diary for her town and
its reporters part of her family. She seemed less concerned with
how much money the paper made than with how it was
done.
My city editor was
an easygoing fellow named Jim Holley who had supervised the
reporting six years earlier on a series of articles that won the
paper its only Pulitzer Prize. That saga still ranks among the most
exciting of the Pulitzer Prize archives as The Post uncovered a web of corruption
in the neighboring City of Pasadena, an industrial enclave along
the Houston Ship Channel. At one point the paper hired a bodyguard
for the reporter who eventually claimed the national investigative
prize under Holley's supervision.
As the night
police reporter for The
Post , I shared the police station press
room with my counterpart from the Chronicle , a reporter my same age
named Tim Fleck. He later would earn fame as a local political
commentator in the 1990s. But back in those days we occupied the
lowest link on the food chain at our respective publications. We
usually played several games of chess each night while waiting for
news to break by monitoring the six individual radio speakers that
broadcast conversations between police cruisers and central
dispatch. Once an hour we would walk the halls visiting detectives
in the homicide and robbery divisions to ferret out stories from
them. Back in those days, reporters enjoyed an amicable
relationship with cops, and we were usually welcome in their
offices. Often we served as witnesses on confessions, and I
sometimes participated in lineups when detectives needed extras to
fill the slots around the usual suspects. On
hooking up with Catherine when I arrived in December of 1971 in
Houston for the next level of post-graduate education in journalism
and crime reporting. While any murder in Flint rated a story
for The Journal ,
the two Houston papers had to prioritize. They did not have enough
room to cover all, so each murder story needed its own
"man-bites-dog" element to justify the space.
I had my first taste of the fast
lane when I reported for duty in the fourth floor press room at the
Houston Police Department's 61 Reisner Street headquarters. Before
noon I had lost about $25 in a poker game that was interrupted by
the killing of a bank president who had tried to stop a robbery
with his personal sidearm only to die in a hail of gunfire as he
chased the robbers down the street.
The morning
delivery Post had
hired me specifically to become one of its night police beat
reporters. New hires usually covered the cops for about a year
before promotion to assignments with less gore and more reasonable
hours. After my daytime orientation, I began working the night
shift of six-to-two, Sunday through Wednesday. I filed stories
directly from a community press room in the police station using a
Western Union-style teletype machine.
Houston's economy
was large enough to support two daily papers, and I welcomed the
challenge of a true competitive situation with the rival
afternoon Houston
Chronicle . The
Post was owned by the venerable Hobby
family, then headed by the matriarch, Oveta Culp Hobby. She was the
widow of a former Texas governor and had distinguished herself as
well heading the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Her son,
William P. Hobby Jr., served as editor of The Post but had divided his time just
then running what would be a successful campaign to win election as
Texas Lieutenant Governor, a position he would hold from 1973 until
1991. To her credit, Mrs. Hobby was a hands-on, news junkie type of
executive with a penchant for popping into the newsroom just to see
what might be going on. The Post served as a flagship for a family media empire
that also included ownership of the local NBC radio and television
affiliates. Although those electronic outlets generated greater
revenues, the daily paper ranked as her professional love. A true
matriarch, she considered its stories the diary for her town and
its reporters part of her family. She seemed less concerned with
how much money the paper made than with how it was
done.
My city editor was
an easygoing fellow named Jim Holley who had supervised the
reporting six years earlier on a series of articles that won the
paper its only Pulitzer Prize. That saga still ranks among the most
exciting of the Pulitzer Prize archives as The Post uncovered a web of corruption
in the neighboring City of Pasadena, an industrial enclave along
the Houston Ship Channel. At one point the paper hired a bodyguard
for the reporter who eventually claimed the national investigative
prize under Holley's supervision.
As the night
police reporter for The
Post , I shared the police station press
room with my counterpart from the Chronicle , a reporter my same age
named Tim Fleck. He later would earn fame as a local political
commentator in the 1990s. But back in those days we occupied the
lowest link on the food chain at our respective publications. We
usually played several games of chess each night while waiting for
news to break by monitoring the six individual radio speakers that
broadcast conversations between police cruisers and central
dispatch. Once an hour we would walk the halls visiting detectives
in the homicide and robbery divisions to ferret out stories from
them. Back in those days, reporters enjoyed an amicable
relationship with cops, and we were usually welcome in their
offices. Often we served as witnesses on confessions, and I
sometimes participated in lineups when detectives needed extras to
fill the slots around the usual suspects. On
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