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marijuana and another $13,000 in cash. It took six months for the police to unravel the events of that night. Lured by a $10,000 reward raised by Vandiver's and Davis's families and friends, Michael Charbeneau finally came forward to finger Mathes.
In the end, Dennis Holland turned state's evidence and pleaded guilty to Vandiver's murder. Joe Makosky pleaded guilty to the murders of both Vandiver and Davis. Tom Mathes and Cecil Covington were convicted of murdering Debbie Davis; Mathes's conviction was for capital murder, which carries a life sentence.
Photo Archive II
Debbie Davis and John Vandiver.
Shake Russell and John Vandiver.
Tom Mathes.
Cecil Covington.
Dennis Holland
Joe Makosky.
Hurley Fontenot — The Lone Star Love Triangle
By Kathryn Casey
LAURA NUGENT KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG. She had been sitting for hours on the porch of her parents' small home 40 miles east of Houston, waiting for her lover, Bill Fleming, to drive up in his white pickup truck. He never came. He had said that he'd be there by 4:30 to have supper with her family. It was already 6:00, but she still expected him to arrive at any moment. By 7:00, she was pacing the porch of the white clapboard house, nervously tugging the ends of her long, ink-dark hair. By 8:00 that April evening in 1985, she was frantically driving the dark country roads near her home, searching for him. On Saturday, she used her key to check his apartment. It was empty.
On Sunday, Laura found Bill's truck parked at Hull-Daisetta Junior School where he coached, but Bill wasn't there either. Fearful and discouraged, she again took to her car, driving slowly down deserted roads, watching for any sign of the man she loved.
By Monday night she was frantic.
She lay in her bed, going over and over her weekend's desperate search, remembering the phone at his apartment that rang endlessly without answer. Bill hadn't shown up for work that morning at the school, and the district's superintendent had called the police, reporting him missing. Bill’s pickup, still parked in the school lot, hadn't been moved all weekend. Now, despite her exhaustion, Laura had difficulty sleeping. When she finally drifted off she had a hazy dream: Bill stood in the distance. She ran toward him, but just as she came close enough to touch him, he turned away. He couldn't see her. Laura bolted upright in bed.
"I knew it then," she whispered. "I knew then that Bill was dead."
On a quiet Monday morning a week later, Don Griffin, a retired electrician, found the body. While supervising workers cutting a road to his brother-in-law's land in the pine forest off FM 943 in southeast Polk County, Griffin spotted dewberries growing on bushes. As he popped a few into his mouth, Griffin smelled a peculiar odor. Edging toward a clearing he saw it – the decomposing body of a large man lying face up. The body was dressed in shirt and jeans but had no shoes or wallet. There was a ring, however, from Stephen F. Austin State University, dated 1973 and engraved with the initials BMF.
A month later, a grand jury indicted the principal of the junior school where Billy Mac Fleming taught. Before long, stories of a love triangle involving the accused black principal, the slain white coach, and the white school secretary, Laura Nugent, spread quickly throughout the little towns. Photos of the three from school annuals were published in newspapers and national tabloids with headlines that linked the love triangle with murder. The principal, Hurley Fontenot, with light tan skin and thinning brown hair, appeared on the television news turning himself in to the Liberty County Sheriff. He was charged with pumping two small-caliber bullets at close range, execution-style, into the back of Bill Fleming's head.
THERE'S AN AURA of frustration in these small east Texas towns that border the Big Thicket, the nearly mystical expanse of pine forests and swamps that merge Texas and Louisiana. The bucolic landscape thinly veils
In the end, Dennis Holland turned state's evidence and pleaded guilty to Vandiver's murder. Joe Makosky pleaded guilty to the murders of both Vandiver and Davis. Tom Mathes and Cecil Covington were convicted of murdering Debbie Davis; Mathes's conviction was for capital murder, which carries a life sentence.
Photo Archive II
Debbie Davis and John Vandiver.
Shake Russell and John Vandiver.
Tom Mathes.
Cecil Covington.
Dennis Holland
Joe Makosky.
Hurley Fontenot — The Lone Star Love Triangle
By Kathryn Casey
LAURA NUGENT KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG. She had been sitting for hours on the porch of her parents' small home 40 miles east of Houston, waiting for her lover, Bill Fleming, to drive up in his white pickup truck. He never came. He had said that he'd be there by 4:30 to have supper with her family. It was already 6:00, but she still expected him to arrive at any moment. By 7:00, she was pacing the porch of the white clapboard house, nervously tugging the ends of her long, ink-dark hair. By 8:00 that April evening in 1985, she was frantically driving the dark country roads near her home, searching for him. On Saturday, she used her key to check his apartment. It was empty.
On Sunday, Laura found Bill's truck parked at Hull-Daisetta Junior School where he coached, but Bill wasn't there either. Fearful and discouraged, she again took to her car, driving slowly down deserted roads, watching for any sign of the man she loved.
By Monday night she was frantic.
She lay in her bed, going over and over her weekend's desperate search, remembering the phone at his apartment that rang endlessly without answer. Bill hadn't shown up for work that morning at the school, and the district's superintendent had called the police, reporting him missing. Bill’s pickup, still parked in the school lot, hadn't been moved all weekend. Now, despite her exhaustion, Laura had difficulty sleeping. When she finally drifted off she had a hazy dream: Bill stood in the distance. She ran toward him, but just as she came close enough to touch him, he turned away. He couldn't see her. Laura bolted upright in bed.
"I knew it then," she whispered. "I knew then that Bill was dead."
On a quiet Monday morning a week later, Don Griffin, a retired electrician, found the body. While supervising workers cutting a road to his brother-in-law's land in the pine forest off FM 943 in southeast Polk County, Griffin spotted dewberries growing on bushes. As he popped a few into his mouth, Griffin smelled a peculiar odor. Edging toward a clearing he saw it – the decomposing body of a large man lying face up. The body was dressed in shirt and jeans but had no shoes or wallet. There was a ring, however, from Stephen F. Austin State University, dated 1973 and engraved with the initials BMF.
A month later, a grand jury indicted the principal of the junior school where Billy Mac Fleming taught. Before long, stories of a love triangle involving the accused black principal, the slain white coach, and the white school secretary, Laura Nugent, spread quickly throughout the little towns. Photos of the three from school annuals were published in newspapers and national tabloids with headlines that linked the love triangle with murder. The principal, Hurley Fontenot, with light tan skin and thinning brown hair, appeared on the television news turning himself in to the Liberty County Sheriff. He was charged with pumping two small-caliber bullets at close range, execution-style, into the back of Bill Fleming's head.
THERE'S AN AURA of frustration in these small east Texas towns that border the Big Thicket, the nearly mystical expanse of pine forests and swamps that merge Texas and Louisiana. The bucolic landscape thinly veils
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