Mass Murders Texas

In the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history, a man crashed his pickup truck into a cafeteria crowded with lunchtime patrons here Wednesday afternoon and began firing rapidly and indiscriminately with a semiautomatic pistol, killing 22 people. The gunman later was found dead of a gunshot wound in a restaurant restroom, police said. The massacre resulted in injuries to 20 others, many of them listed in "very critical condition."

As Andrea Yates was formally sentenced to life in prison Monday for drowning her children, some of her relatives accused her husband of not doing enough to help her. State District Judge Belinda Hill told Yates she was going to prison for two concurrent life terms for drowning three of her children. "Good luck to you, Mrs. Yates," Hill said as she dismissed the 37-year-old former nurse, who will be eligible for parole in 2041.

After more than a day of combing through every piece of evidence they could find, police Thursday said they may never know what caused an unemployed former Merchant Marine seaman to crash his pickup truck into a cafeteria here and then systematically kill 22 people, the deadliest shooting spree in the nation's history.

Andrea Yates' five children died slowly, each struggling and gasping for air as she drowned them one by one in the family bathtub, a pediatric pathologist testified Saturday. It would have taken each child three minutes to lose consciousness, and another three minutes to die, the pathologist said. In each case, he said, Yates would have had time to resuscitate the child afterward but didn't. "Each of these children did not want to die, and they fought their deaths," Dr.

Survivors of the 1984 massacre at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro said Thursday that the Killeen killings resurrected images of death and suffering that continue to haunt their lives. Some still can't bear to talk about the Wednesday afternoon on July 18, 1984, when James Oliver Huberty, an unemployed security guard, methodically killed 21 men, women and children.

Legends die hard in Texas, and so the truth may never be known about who really killed Charles Whitman on top of the University of Texas tower here nearly three decades ago. Was it Officer Ramiro Martinez, showered with national acclaim as a true Texas hero, who rode that fame in a 20-year career with the fabled Texas Rangers and was lionized in a made-for-TV movie?

An autopsy of George Jo Hennard, who crashed his pickup into a restaurant and shot to death 23 people last week, showed no signs of alcohol or illegal drugs, police said Monday. Hennard, 35, was shot and wounded by law officers in the restaurant before he fatally shot himself in the head, according to results of an autopsy performed in Dallas and released Monday by Killeen police. Hennard had a history of drug use. He was kicked out of the Merchant Marine for smoking marijuana.

Police alerted by a call from a screaming victim found a boy and his three teen-age sisters stabbed to death in their mobile home Friday. Leo Narvaiz, 20, was taken into custody later after being treated at a hospital for stab wounds, police spokeswoman Sandy Perez said. Narvaiz was charged with four counts of capital murder and held on $4-million bail. He was a former boyfriend of one of the victims, police said. Lt. Albert Ortiz said a girl called the 911 emergency number at about 3:27 a.m.

Andrea Yates' five children died slowly, each struggling and gasping for air as she drowned them one by one in the family bathtub, a pediatric pathologist testified Saturday. It would have taken each child three minutes to lose consciousness, and another three minutes to die, the pathologist said. In each case, he said, Yates would have had time to resuscitate the child afterward but didn't. "Each of these children did not want to die, and they fought their deaths," Dr.

Officials of Luby's Cafeterias Inc. said they hope to leave tragic memories behind when Luby's in Killeen, Tex., reopens Thursday. The restaurant was the scene of a massacre last Oct. 16, when 22 people were fatally wounded by a gunman in the lunchtime crowd.

Every glance and every word will be dredged up and reexamined for traces of lucidity as a jury decides whether a Christian homemaker was insane when she drowned her five children in a bathtub. As the trial of Andrea Pia Yates got underway Monday, the jury--dominated by women--listened to a painfully detailed re-creation of June 20, 2001. That was the morning that Yates fed her children a breakfast of dry cereal and then killed them, one by one.

The Houston mother accused of methodically drowning her five children in the family bathtub has been found mentally competent to stand trial on capital murder charges. A jury in Houston deliberated more than eight hours before concluding on Saturday that Andrea Yates--the former nurse who said she heard Satan's voice speaking to her in her jail cell--understands the charges against her and is able to assist her attorneys.

A jury in Houston began deciding whether a mother accused in the bathtub drownings of her five children is mentally fit to face a capital murder trial. The jury of 11 women and one man began deliberating after hearing three days of testimony about the mental competence of Andrea Yates, 37. The panel must decide whether Yates understands the proceedings against her and is able to assist her lawyers in a trial that could lead to a death sentence if she is convicted.

The woman accused of killing her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub will likely plead not guilty by reason of insanity, her attorney said. Andrea Yates, 36, told police she drowned her children--Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old Mary--at their home in Houston. She was charged with capital murder. Yates' attorney, George Parnham, said psychiatrists have examined her at the Harris County Jail and have found cause to enter an insanity plea.

The woman who told police she drowned her five children in her Houston home Wednesday would be employing a risky but occasionally successful defense if she told the court she had acted because of postpartum psychosis. "It's a very rare case where this type of defense is successful. It's not guaranteed to persuade a jury," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Investigators will exhume the bodies of about 10 elderly patients who died in a rural North Texas hospital to check whether they were killed with a drug stolen from the hospital pharmacy, authorities said Monday. Montague County Dist. Atty. Tim Cole said the investigation focused on missing doses of a muscle relaxant and a higher-than-usual number of deaths, all during the night shift, at a 68-bed hospital in Nocona, about 105 miles northwest of Dallas.

Hundreds of mourners, some wearing white ribbons in memory of those slain in a gunman's rampage through a Killeen, Tex., restaurant, gathered for the first funerals following the nation's worst mass shooting. Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 23 victims when a woman injured in the rampage died. "The tragedy of Wednesday is very personal; it is unbelievable, it is inexplicable, it was unpredictable," the Rev. Andy Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Belton, told about 350 mourners.

Investigators will exhume the bodies of about 10 elderly patients who died in a rural North Texas hospital to check whether they were killed with a drug stolen from the hospital pharmacy, authorities said Monday. Montague County Dist. Atty. Tim Cole said the investigation focused on missing doses of a muscle relaxant and a higher-than-usual number of deaths, all during the night shift, at a 68-bed hospital in Nocona, about 105 miles northwest of Dallas.

A Dallas jury took just 15 minutes to convict a fired carwash employee of murder in connection with a massacre that left five former co-workers dead. Robert Wayne Harris, 28, could get the death penalty for the shooting rampage. The jury will begin hearing testimony today on whether he should receive lethal injection or life in prison.

The Killeen, Texas, cafeteria where 23 people were killed nearly nine years ago by a deranged gunman has closed, falling victim to competition from other eateries. Despite the horrifying memories of the slayings, residents had continued to dine at Luby's Cafeteria, but the restaurant--one of 15 Luby's scheduled to close--turned off the lights for the last time Friday night. The killings occurred shortly after George Hennard drove his truck through the window of the cafeteria's dining area Oct.