They Do What?

In my previous post, I discussed the prevalence of drug use in our communities in Central Texas. Now I'd like to illustrate the scope of the problem more overtly.

Shown here is an announcement that was published in the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post. Reading the portion I've marked will allow you to discover that they actually have to publish it in the newspapers ahead of time when community events will need to be drug-free.

There is no other possible explanation for announcements like these than that law enforcement is being deliberately selective about when and where drug laws are enforced. (This particular event is held yearly and is marketed to families, so I'm guessing they'd had complaints in the past.)

You simply can't have situations like this if law enforcement is doing their job properly. And please don't try to convince me that the DEA and DOJ don't know about this; when law enforcement is dysfunctional on such a large scale, there's no way they could not know what's going on here.

There are a couple more important pieces of information you need to have. This particular announcement was actually published on 4/27/03 (!!) and was included in my complaints to the U.S. DOJ that were the subject of their response posted here on 9/20/09 and entitled "Response From DOJ". If this isn't a documented, clear-cut example of local, state, and federal law enforcement conspiring together to aid and abet organized crime, I don't know what is. It makes you think twice about suspicious death cases like those of Theresa Vallado, where local police were the last people to see her alive, and Linda Muegge, where local police showed up at the scene way too quickly according to published newspaper accounts.

Please keep in mind that we are located in Central Texas, well inside the United States and not right along the border. (Suddenly this side seems less safe and secure and more like what's going on in Mexico, doesn't it?) With a situation like this, is it really any wonder victims of drug addiction and crime find it impossible to get the help they need, deserve, and are entitled to here?

You might find it helpful at this point to go back and read or re-read my post of 12/8/09 entitled "Texas As A Third World Country" below. How entire communities can base their economies on narcotourism is beyond me. (What were they thinking?)

Update: Things don't exactly seem to be getting any better... (Remember, these are high school students being discussed here.)

Matters of Life or Death

Recently a local woman told me her adult child who grew up with my kids has become addicted to drugs. She bravely related her heartbreaking story of accidentally finding her child's stash, making it clear that the drugs could not remain in their house, and finally having to force her child to leave when they refused to dispose of the contraband.

What we didn't have to discuss (because it's understood) is that around here, drug and/or alcohol addiction is usually a death sentence. None of the methods you see being used to force addicts into treatment on television programs like "Intervention" will work locally. For example, if you threaten to cut off an addict's financial support, they know they can always earn plenty of money working in the drug business to support both themselves and their habit. If you threaten to end all contact with them, addicts here know they have automatic substitute friends and "family" within the local drug culture who will provide plenty of social support. (There is no social stigma regarding drug or heavy alcohol use or addiction here; in fact, it's quite the opposite.) If you are arrested, all you have to do is contact the right people and the charges disappear.

A well-respected interventionist who has published papers on the subject once explained to me that addiction is a progressive and ultimately fatal disease if not treated, just like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. The expert said the condition often plateaus for various lengths of time, but if addiction isn't treated, it always gradually worsens. Since there are no effective ways to force people into treatment here, locals have to stand by and watch their loved ones slowly deteriorate. Worse, because addicts are so difficult to deal with, our rates of domestic abuse and violence, child abuse and neglect, truancy and drop-outs, and other social ills are sky-high and getting worse. Then there's the issue of impaired drivers around here, which is so severe that it probably warrants a separate discussion.

The intervention expert also told me that addiction is actually considered a highly treatable disease if you are able to get addicts into treatment programs. (One of the main symptoms of addiction is that it interferes with judgement to the point where sufferers can have severe symptoms and yet categorically deny anything is wrong with them.) Due to the situation here, however, that also means getting addicts far away because, although I believe there are some legitimate groups attempting to treat people in our area, the majority of treatment and 12-step programs I'm aware of appear to be, like so many things here, for show only. For example, I've been repeatedly harassed by supposed 12-step groups meeting at local churches (the same churches I've written about before that have far more income than they should, major computer facilities, secretive meetings, and heavy security) over the years. Wherever they meet, major functions of these groups seem to be an attempt to appear to be complying with court-ordered rehab. from other jurisdictions as well as an excuse for persons involved in drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises to meet for both business and social purposes. (I've accidentally walked in on these meetings several times, and I got an eyeful.)

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll keep on saying it until the problems causing it begin to be seriously addressed: we are losing people here way too young and at an alarming rate because of the pervasive casual attitudes toward alcohol, illegal drugs, and criminal activity. I've read articles in major newspapers and magazines in the last few years about the tragic loss of an entire generation of young people in a certain small town to the west of us along I-10 due to either death or incarceration caused by the same kinds of attitudes and problems we have here. Coincidentally (?), certain members of the same very wealthy, powerful, and nationally prominent family (you would recognize their name immediately) happen to reside in both that town and ours, and my children and I have been harassed relentlessly by some of their family members over the years. (And yes, they are friends of my ex-husband's.) Ironically, in a strange twist of fate, I was actually born in a hospital in another state that bears this family's name instead of at the military base hospital where my father was stationed at the time (because my mother went into premature labor and was transferred to a larger hospital that had better neonatal care).

Because I believe people who criticize should also try to propose possible solutions, I'd like to suggest starting with thorough required drug testing by respected out-of-state laboratories for all local law enforcement officers, probation officers, first responders, and jailers. (Lie detector tests, although expensive, would be even better.) Then I'd require the same from all local professionals holding public licenses of any kind: teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. (although, unfortunately, I'm not very optimistic about the State of Texas supporting this), both because these people are our community leaders that others look to and follow, and also because interventionists say the threat of losing their licenses makes it easier to force these people into treatment and gives them a higher rate of recovery.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that these are truly matters of life or death for our citizens (especially our young people) and our communities. Drug addiction has been described as the ultimate pyramid scheme: con as many people as possible into becoming addicted by making drug and alcohol use seem cool and popular and fun, because then you have all of their money for life and they are forced to bring in more and more participants to the scheme in order to survive. Proper law enforcement and treatment programs are the only ways to stop these deadly schemes. Both in combination have been shown to work extremely well at saving lives, but first they have to be present and they have to be legitimate.

Winter Texans

Since the subject of "Winter Texans" came up previously (see my "To The Beach And Back Again" post of 3/16/10), I decided I needed to post some additional information in order to show that what might have seemed like an offhand comment earlier should probably be taken more seriously.

The document shown here is a copy of a letter one of my children received from their grandfather in 2005 while they were off at college. (This child is an adult, and the letter is reproduced here with their permission.) Notice that most of the body of the letter contains a discussion of persons who were apparently visiting in Central Texas from North Dakota at the time.

My children and I do not know any of the visitors mentioned in this letter. My kids have actually received (and kept) many more letters like this one over the last ten years or so. Most of these letters follow the same general format: a small amount of very general/generic information plus a large section documenting the visits from elsewhere (usually either the Northern U.S. or overseas) of people none of us has ever heard of. Often these letters also contain detailed descriptions of various trips the writers/grandparents have taken as well, even though these trips were routine ones, not trips of any particular interest to my kids, and the details written about these trips are, like the descriptions of the visitors' trips, far more extensive and detailed than the rest of the letters. In fact, many of these letters seem very strange as a result, and over the years, my children have asked me many questions about them that I've been unable to answer.

As I've learned more and more about the situation here, I've come to believe these letters may have been written in an effort to try and provide documentation about the stated purposes for certain trips by certain persons. Because the letters contain detailed information about names, places, and dates, I've been very concerned for some time about whether our having this information might be dangerous for us, especially since we have no secure way of turning it over to law enforcement.

This was one of the reasons why the strange phone call I received from the man claiming to be an FBI agent in which he asked me repeatedly whether I'd gone to the DEA or not (see "He Said", posted on 9/17/09) was so disturbing and frightening to me and why I pressed first the FBI and then the DOJ so hard to either confirm or deny and investigate whether the call had actually come from them or not as detailed in my 9/19/09 and 9/20/09 posts below.

I have two additional observations that concern this particular letter. One of my ex-husband's business partners is from North Dakota and has family living there. This happens to be the same business partner one of my children and I observed driving a vehicle we photographed and then were told had a license plate that didn't belong on it a few months later. Secondly, this letter was written by the same grandparent/attorney who wrote the 2005 letters urging me to have my over-18 children sign trust documents he'd drawn up that gave control of all my children's assets to my ex-husband as discussed here in several posts from 9/23/09 and 9/24/09. (My kids didn't sign these documents or anything else that might be similar. By the way, my children have no assets to speak of unless they were to inherit our house and property from me.)


Finally, in case you haven't figured it out by now, I am using this blog to try and get out as much accurate information as possible because so far, every person, agency, and organization I've contacted about helping us has refused to do anything, including those groups and people specifically charged with helping and protecting innocent victims of crime and domestic abuse, which my children and I very clearly are. The flagrant official violations of our civil and human rights (right to proper legal representation, right to protection both from and against law enforcement, right to privacy, right to proper treatment by public officials, etc.) are particularly shameful, as is the DOJ's refusal to do anything about any of this. Because no one speaks out to stop what's being done to myself and my children or takes any action to stop it, our situation only continues to escalate.

The State Bar of Texas Did

...Nothing again.

I filed a very serious and well-documented complaint with the state bar against the Boerne lawyer I've discussed previously in "They Said" (9/16/09) and elsewhere after it became clear that I would have to do so in order to force him to turn over copies of documents Ed Hodges said he'd sent to this lawyer, the lawyer was refusing to give me a complete copy of my file, and I desperately needed these documents for my lawsuit with Hodges. I also included in this complaint copies of the statements made by this lawyer as exemplified by the ones posted in "They Said", as well as copies of some of the legal documents this attorney had insisted on drawing up for me that the document expert I'd hired had found very serious problems with.

Officials with the State Bar of Texas notified me that they were investigating my complaint, and they eventually told me they had called the lawyer in for some sort of questioning session. However, I soon received notification that they had found no wrong-doing and would not be taking any action against the attorney. On the evening of the same day I received a letter from the state bar to this effect, someone in one of the houses close to ours threw a very large and loud party. We saw the lawyer I'd complained about and some of his family members at this party, and we also saw the lawyer, his family, and various friends of theirs doing repeated drive-bys, walk-bys, and even "bike-bys" of our home all evening long.

I also filed a formal complaint with the State Bar of Texas against the "government lawyer" (from her listing on their website at the time) who accepted a retainer check from me after meeting with the Boerne lawyer and his two p.i. friends (the former FBI and DEA agents) without my knowledge but supposedly on my behalf and then refused to meet with me or speak to me by phone. (See "Versions Of The Truth", posted here on 9/29/09). By the time I filed my complaint against her, I'd learned she had formerly been with the DEA but now had a criminal defense practice and had almost certainly actually been working for my ex-husband and his family. Despite my documenting what had been said and done by all involved and providing the bar with a copy of my cancelled check and bank statements regarding this lawyer, the bar association refused to even look into the matter, much less take any action. (This same attorney later suddenly moved to Washington, D.C. with her attorney husband after being charged in a strange incident in Boerne involving another attorney and a local police officer.)

The State Bar of Texas Said

...Nothing, of course.

As I've explained earlier, after I caught the Boerne lawyer and his two p.i. friends allowing my former father-in-law to listen in on my supposedly confidential meeting with them and had to fire them, I began extensively searching for an attorney to represent my children and me properly. I repeatedly tried using the state bar referral services, but none of the attorneys they sent me to would speak with me, return my phone calls, etc. After a while, I got tired of being given the run-around by lawyers the state bar had deliberately sent me to, so I wrote this letter and sent it to them in desperation, but I never received any response of any kind.

Then two years later, after having to also fire the San Antonio lawyer that was recommended to me by the highly regarded document expert with FBI contacts, I decided to give the state bar's referral services another try. Unfortunately, after dealing with numerous attorneys they recommended at different times, I eventually realized that of the ones that would speak to me (about half), all of them insisted that I either "sign off on" the clearly fraudulent trust I knew full well by know had never existed and that I sign over a percentage of my land as payment for their services, which I also knew was part of the con; when I refused to do this and indicated I was aware of what was going on, they inevitably got nervous and dropped me. Eventually, I got tired and disgusted with this "game" and reluctantly gave up on the referral service entirely, deciding instead to pursue other possible legal options (state and national organizations) instead. Meanwhile, my ex-husband, his family, and their associates were all claiming that even if I did succeed in finding us proper legal representation, they could easily bankrupt me with legal fees, since they have unlimited legal resources.

Harassment 101

Events from the last couple of days form a good illustration of some of the basic principles of the harassment that goes on around here all the time.

Late yesterday as I was finishing my daily walk with my dog [Principle #1: Use known daily schedules; see "Right On Time: below], I noticed a large rock sitting in the street in front of our property. I had not noticed this rock when I left on my walk and did not see any obvious signs of where it had fallen from, but the weather was stormy and the rock was at the base of a steep, rocky slope, so it's possible that the wind and rain had loosened it [Principle #2: Use the weather to your advantage].

Although this rock was over to one side of the street, it was still on the driving surface and was clearly a road hazard, especially as it was starting to get dark. It was too big and heavy for me to move by myself, so I went inside and immediately phoned the law enforcement dispatch number and told the dispatcher I wasn't sure where to call because it was a Saturday evening. She said there was an after-hours street crew number, which she gave me. Although I had clearly identified both myself and my address at the start of my call, this dispatcher also went through an elaborate process of repeatedly asking me my name, address, and phone number, which I dealt with patiently [Principle #3: Make a game out of pretending not to know who I am--I can assure you she wouldn't be working there if she didn't know me!). I then called the number she'd given me, reported the road hazard, and went through the same process of having to repeatedly identify myself [reread Principle #3].

About 15 minutes later, a city police officer rang my front doorbell and asked if I'd called the police [Principle #4: Involve local law enforcement as much as possible]. Without opening the door, I called to him that I'd reported a large rock in the road out front and had already phoned the street crew about removing it. The officer claimed he couldn't hear me through the door, which I knew wasn't true because my children and I have been talking with people through the door for years [Principle #5: Try to talk your way inside]. Instead of opening the door, I went and got my coat and my house key, went out the back door, locked it behind me, and went around to the front to talk with the officer outside.

The officer again asked me if I'd called the police [Principle #5: Pretend you are clueless]. I repeated what I'd told him through the door, and I explained that with darkness falling and kids on spring break speeding up and down the road, I believed the rock needed to be moved as quickly as possible because it was dangerous. The officer said he'd already seen a rock in the road and rolled it up onto the curb so it was out of the street, and I thanked him and suggested the city still come and remove it (tire tracks clearly show how often people drive up over the curb in that area). He then asked me where the rock by my driveway was that I'd called about. I told him I'd never mentioned my driveway in either of my calls and had in fact clearly stated that the rock was in the street just to the east of our house [see Principle #5 again]. He repeated that he'd moved the rock onto the curb, and I repeated my thanks for his clearing the hazard. Then he left.

This morning, the last morning of spring break when I could still sleep late [Principle #6: Always interfere with sleep whenever possible--how do they always know when we're asleep??], I was awakened by a call on my cell phone. The caller identified herself as a dispatcher with local law enforcement [see Principle #4], and although she never gave her name, I immediately recognized her from her distinctive voice as a woman I know well who not only works as a dispatcher but also does various jobs for my former mother-in-law [Principle #7: Involve people very close to my ex-husband and his family as much as possible]. (This woman and her immediate family members are part of a group of close associates of my ex-husband's family that my children and I have run into many times under extremely suspicious circumstances in San Antonio. This woman's husband makes long trips by truck all over the U.S.) The woman said she was calling to see if I had a miniature horse that had gotten loose [Principle #8: Involve loose livestock and/or dogs as much as possible]. I told her we didn't own any miniature horses, a fact I knew she was fully aware of in our small town [see Principle #5]. She said "Okay" and hung up before I could ask her how she'd gotten my cell phone number, since I'd called the dispatcher and city the previous evening from my land line and had only given both the dispatcher and the street crew my land line number [Principle #9: Make stupid, careless mistakes that show how unafraid you are of facing any possible consequences of your actions]. Finally, I have heard repeated and persistent rumors of a Principle #10 over the years: Record the harassment and post it somewhere online so all the "insiders" can laugh about it. Also, many (and perhaps all?) of these same principles can be applied to many of the suspicious deaths around here; see numerous previous discussions elsewhere on this blog.

One more important note related to harassment--for some reason, a former city judge has suddenly taken to walking by our house repeatedly again (she seems to do this periodically). This is the same attorney and former city judge who has headed hospital boards, whose husband is in local construction, and whose father has recently purchased a multi-story medical office building from the hospital that happens to be located two blocks down the street from our house.

Money Laundering?

The same man who impersonated a licensed private investigator and security guard as discussed previously in "Impersonation" (posted 9/1/09) also told me there were signs of money laundering in some of my ex-husband's business dealings, as documented by the emails shown here. Of course the promised investigation was paid for by me and then never done--or if it was, I was never furnished with the report on it that I later requested by certified letter from this investigator's boss, Ed Hodges. (Hodges' refusal to provide me with a report when I requested it was one of the DPS violations that caused him to lose his investigator's license as discussed in "Revoked" below.)

The sample invoices from Hodges posted here show that the author of these emails, George Petrie (GP on the invoices), billed me through Hodges' company for both investigative work and travel expenses to and from Dallas, where he claimed to live, as documented in the additional posted email and handwritten note. However, in the spring of 2005 when one of my children and I were touring Schreiner College in Kerrville, we happened to spot the name "George Petrie" on an office door, and I remembered that I'd mainly met with Petrie in and around the Kerrville area. After our tour ended, we went to the information desk, requested a catalog, and discovered that a George Petrie just happened to teach accounting there. When we got home later, we also discovered a listing for a residence for him in Kerrville in the phone book--but with a different wife's name from the one he'd told us.

As discussed earlier, despite my filing repeated complaints against Petrie with the Texas Department of Public Safety and meeting with an investigator, Petrie was never disciplined for or charged with any offenses as far as I know. If he did have evidence of money laundering, he was required to turn it over to law enforcement.

To The Beach And Back Again

The warmer weather recently, coupled with the start of spring break, bring back memories for us of past trips to the beach. Ironically, the beach trip my children and I remember most wasn't over spring break and didn't even involve me. This means that the account of the trip you are about to read is based on what my kids all told me rather than anything I actually experienced. That said, I also need to make it clear that I wouldn't be writing and posting this if I felt any of it was inaccurate; my offspring are intelligent, accurate, and all had the same story, and I believe them completely.

During Christmas vacation visitation with their dad at the end of 2002, my ex-husband and his wife borrowed a large RV from his brother and told the kids they were going to the beach for a few days. The kids said they were excited about the trip and getting to ride and camp out in their uncle's fancy RV. They loaded up and made the long drive down to South Padre Island.

My children said their first surprise was that upon arriving, their father and step-mother parked the RV, had them unload their bags, and checked them into a hotel. The kids said they were disappointed about not being able to sleep in the RV, but as soon as they discovered their fancy hotel (the Sheraton) had a "really cool pool" and was located right on the beach, they apparently decided it was an acceptable substitute.

The kids said their next surprise was discovering they weren't on this trip alone with their father and step-mother as they'd thought. At some point, they met up with their step-mother's sister, her husband, and her son who'd driven down from their home in Boerne in a separate car. They then started using the car to get around in instead of the RV.

While riding around in this car, all of my children said there was a small suitcase or briefcase in the back seat. They were emphatically told they were not to open or even touch the case for any reason, and they said being told this frightened them; no one would answer any of their questions about it, either.

I think they said it was on the last day of their trip that their dad told them they were going down to the border to cross into Mexico and have lunch at a favorite restaurant of his. They loaded up the RV, drove down, and pulled into a parking lot that the kids said was right beside the border. Their dad parked the RV and then went over to pay the attendant an additional sum of money and heard him ask that the attendant keep an especially close eye on the RV. Then they all crossed a footbridge into Mexico and spent a few hours eating and looking around.

Apparently it was quite sunny and warm that day, because the kids said they all returned to the RV hot and tired. They climbed inside and prepared to leave, but to their surprise, the engine wouldn't start--the battery was dead. Their father herded everyone outside and called his automobile club to send someone to jump-start them. The kids said both their father and step-mother were very angry and kept saying over and over again the the battery was dead because someone had left the lights on inside, even though the kids tried to tell them they didn't think they'd done this.

To make matters worse, the auto club took a long time to arrive (the kids described it as "hours", for whatever that's worth). They were hot and thirsty, but their dad and step-mother refused to let them go back into the RV for a drink. The eldest said they were all also bored and remembered having left a pad of paper and a pen just inside the door, but when they tried to reach in for it, their step-mother ran up and started screaming at them not to go back inside. (The children all described it as screaming, the oldest said her step-mother "lost it bigtime", and they all agreed it was "scary".) Thankfully, someone eventually came and jump-started the RV, and they were finally able to leave.

As they were heading back home, the RV pulled up to the highway checkpoint inside the border (U.S. side). The kids said there was a very long line of vehicles in front of them (including other RVs), and they assumed they'd be stuck there for some time. Instead, to their amazement, officials waved them on through; my oldest two children claimed theirs was the only vehicle that was never stopped.

After returning, the children decided they all wanted to cut their visitation with their dad short and return home, so he brought them back early. Once they started telling me about their trip, I became alarmed, because it sounded a lot like drug trafficking. Trying to question them about the details of what they'd experienced had to be very carefully done in order to keep from frightening or upsetting them further, and I had no lawyer to discuss the situation with, but gradually over the course of about a week, the kids told me more and more and I also heard them discussing the trip with each other and learned a few additional disturbing details.

As you can imagine, I was extremely upset by the thought that my children might have been taken on a drug trafficking trip. Eventually, I decided I'd better inform law enforcement and let them handle it, so I wrote a letter about what the kids had told me and sent it to the FBI in San Antonio. However, I mailed this letter to a special post office box the FBI had asked me to use rather than to their main office, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. I also contacted a woman I knew from my church whose husband had high-level law enforcement contacts about what the kids had said. (I now know this was definitely a big mistake!) Of course, I never heard anything back from the FBI about it, and the woman from church told me not to talk about it.

Since this happened, I've learned that RVs are commonly used for smuggling. In fact, one RV was recently found to contain a total of 7.5 million dollars worth of cocaine. (Yes, you read the figure correctly.) With that much in a single RV, well... I'll let you do the math. Kinda puts a whole new spin on "Winter Texans", doesn't it?

My former brother-in-law often parks his RV directly across the street from the entrance to our high school football stadium on game days. He erects tall flags in front of it that can be seen for quite a distance, and then he and his family and friends hold big parties until the game begins (and sometimes longer). His close friends on the local police force are usually nearby.

Kamau Statements

Here are some sample emails I received from Diop Kamau in 2007 that document what he was telling me. (Compare these to what he has posted on his website, www.policeabuse.com, and elsewhere on the internet!)

Hodges Statements

Here are some sample excerpts from emails I received from private investigator Ed Hodges in 2004 that document some of the things he was telling me. (See "My Story" at the beginning of this blog.)

There are a couple of additional things you should be aware of. Notice that Hodges used "Pegasus" for his email address, which also happens to be the well-known symbol of Louisville, KY where my father and step-mother live (see "My Story" and "Check Connections"). Also, I have learned that "falco", or falcon, is Mexican narco-slang for a drug lookout; Hodges' p.i. company was called Peregrine International.

Siblings

Speaking of local school board members as I was in the previous post,... Back in the days when my former brother-in-law served on the school board, one of his fellow members (a close friend he'd grown up with) nearly lost two of his children in very frightening incidents. In Oct. of 2001, this man's teen aged daughter was shot in the stomach and nearly died. She first said an intruder shot her and later claimed she'd tried to kill herself, but as noted in the San Antonio Express-News article on the incident, her explanations weren't consistent with the facts. Then in July of 2004, this girl's brother somehow fell off a high cliff in Australia wearing only a shirt and socks and somehow managed to survive a night of subfreezing temperatures while perched on the side of the drop; this incident also was never explained properly.

Another set of local siblings did not survive. On 1/21/03, a local woman, 48, died. On 3/27/03, her 45-year-old brother died. Her obituary mentioned another brother of hers who had died earlier; there were no surviving siblings. In 2003, I asked p.i. Ed Hodges about these deaths, and he eventually told me someone who worked for him had learned that all three siblings committed suicide. I've never been able to get anyone else around here to discuss these deaths at all. I was especially concerned about trying to find out what happened to them because their mother is related to my former father-in-law.

Fair Game

The library of our local high school is currently being expanded by knocking down an outside wall and building farther outward into a grassy area. This much-needed expansion was supposed to include two new computer labs, one on each side of the expansion, that were fully equipped.

Recently, however, my youngest was told by a very reliable source at school that 1.3 million dollars have already been spent on this project and that the planned computer labs have had to be scrapped as a result. This seems outrageous in light of the amount of work being done. Local taxpayers should immediately demand a full accounting of the project from the school board.

Are our young people, our most precious resource, really to be the latest victims? Apparently everyone and everything are considered fair game. (Now consider carefully who is on the local school board and who is currently running for it.)

The Rumor Mill

Rumors here are flying concerning the election results in the recent Kerr County Republican primary race for County Attorney. The situation sounds disturbingly similar to what happened in the Miller/Macias race in our area a few years ago. (Macias began filing charges of election fraud and then suddenly dropped them.) Important notes: Rob Henneke is the son of the former law partner of the attorney representing the late Ed Hodges. I believe the Hennekes also have ties to Wisconsin, home of former Secret Service agent Jim Ferrier (see various previous posts here) and where my ex-husband happens to have a checking account for some reason.

Also, do the many local "insiders" who are suddenly honking their horns, waving, laughing, and yelling things at me in large numbers really believe they and their relatives are immune from losing their assets? For example, there are persistent rumors that land grabs related to the proposed new outer loop around our town have already begun.

Finally, I continue to hear that safe deposit boxes in local banks aren't secure, particularly with regard to important documents. I know for a fact that my gold high school ring disappeared out of one many years ago, so I suspect this rumor is probably accurate.

Lawyer 5

Shown here is an email exchange I had with the first lawyer recommended to me by the document expert I hired. (See my 9/16/09 post below entitled "She Said".) The document expert recommended this attorney (who specializes in personal injury law) when I first met with her and hired her (which was the day before she said she'd had some sort of mysterious all-day meeting; I'm not sure why she told me about this).

On the morning of June 14, 2006, my cell phone rang while I was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist's office waiting to get my teeth cleaned. The number came up as being from San Antonio [I can provide the entire number]. When I answered, a man who sounded like this lawyer said my former brother-in-law's name in a questioning manner. [My former brother-in-law is also a personal injury lawyer.] I told the caller they had the wrong number, and they immediately hung up without saying anything else.

As you can see here, this lawyer refused to represent us a few days later, so I called the other attorney the document examiner referred me to as shown below in "She Said". (I then met with and hired this second attorney, but I later had to fire her as I explained in "My Story" at the beginning of this blog.)

Coincidentally, a 30-year-old man from Austin with the same somewhat unusual last name as the lawyer in this email exchange was shot to death in our town on 10/28/06. This fatal shooting happened at a home just off the same road that borders my property to the north, but about a mile past my place to the west. The young man was supposedly killed by the owner of the house because he was trying to break in. The newspapers reported that the Texas Rangers were investigating, but as far as I know, no charges were ever filed in the case.

There are some other odd coincidences regarding this shooting. The victim's mother's last name (which is different from her son's) is the same as that of 3 local siblings who also died fairly young. (At least 2 of these died suddenly around the same time.) A step-brother of the victim's has the same last name as that of the lawyer Ed Hodges used for the fraudulent trust he forged my initials on and illegally manipulated and is from the same city. The lifelong best friend of the victim (according to his obituary) happens to live in a rental house owned by my ex-husband that borders my property, and this friend lost his own sister in a suspicious car accident years ago. Furthermore, this same best friend also happens to be a cousin of one of my former father-in-law's and brother-in-law's long-time law partners. [Now are you thoroughly confused??]

If At First You Don't Succeed

When I was unable to get any information from the city on the easement taken from my property for the new road extension, I filed open records requests with both the city and the county--and received a receipt for some fencing.