Wrapping
a journalism career of 45 years in 2012, I entered retirement with two filing
cabinets full of clips. I have no way to count how many stories I wrote and
published between 1969 and 2012, but I can safely estimate the number at more
than 16,000. They ranged from short, three-paragraph news items to lengthy
feature articles of 10,000 words or more, including investigative projects as well
as human interest features.
In
looking back, I wanted to pull a few of the most memorable writing projects
from those cabinets and list them according to certain criteria. My career
actually divided neatly into three more specific eras of journalism: Newspaper
reporter (1969-1980), freelance writer (1980-1997) and business reporter for
two large corporate publishing concerns (1997-2012). I hope to use this blog as
an archive for analyzing some of the most memorable and meaningful projects and
have narrowed those down to top 10 list covering many years. They include
coverage as diverse and infamous as the Huntsville prison hostage siege of 1974
to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill of 2010; the Jacinto City
police corruption scandal of 1978 and the Ken Lay Enron trial of 2009; the
trials of Houston mass murderers Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks as well
as the trials of Fort Worth billionaire T. Cullen Davis in 1978 and two Houston
police officers tried in 1977 in the death of Joe Campos Torres.
For
anyone interested in my career (my children and grandchildren, perhaps?),
reviewing this list seems a lot easier than digging through my filing cabinets.
For anyone interested in the mechanics of journalism and coverage of news
events, I hope to provide some nuggets of understanding about the ways that
stories are told in the media, or at least how they were told during my years
of telling them. And for anyone who recalls some of these events, I hope to
provide additional perspective of an historical context.
Given
the significance of those other events, the top story on my list might seem a
bit unusual. Whenever I’ve been asked to name my finest moment as a reporter, however,
I’ve never hesitated in citing the stories I wrote about a man named Gene
Winchester as a reporter for The Houston
Post in 1976. For Winchester, they
resulted in release from prison, and for me they resulted in a nomination by The Post for the Pulitzer Prize in
investigative reporting. I didn’t win it.
But
I did succeed in accomplishing what ranks as the mythical holy grail for any
reporter—the near-impossible mission of forcing the state to release someone
from prison. So, the degree of difficulty with the Gene Winchester story ranks
about nine on a ten-point-scale. That quest has served as the theme for several
movies all the way back to Jimmy Stewart’s 1948 portrayal of a troubled reporter
in Call Northside 777. In addition to
those accomplishments, the story of Gene Winchester ranks also as a mesmerizing
yarn. When I’ve mentioned it to friends in bars they always want to hear it
all, shaking their heads at each turn of the plot.
My
discovery of Winchester began about as innocuously as any newspaper
investigation could begin. There wasn’t a leaker or a whistleblower or an
anonymous tip. There was just me looking to do a human interest feature story
about old men in prison. During this period at the paper, I had cultivated a
mini-beat of covering the Texas Department of Corrections, convincing my
editors to let me visit prison units a couple of times each month just looking
for interesting tales. This beat had unearthed a number of fascinating stories
about inmates as well as the administrators who guarded the gates. I had become
a welcome visitor at several TDC units, particularly the main facility in
Huntsville known affectionately by everyone simply as “The Walls.”
For
example, I had written one story about an inmate known for his abilities as a
jailhouse lawyer, and another story about the editor of TDC inmate newspaper, The Echo. I also had written about the
top administrators, George Beto and Jim Estelle. I dined regularly in the
inmate cafeteria. I had spent three days with one inmate released after serving
a term for marijuana possession, penning a three-part series on his efforts to
rejoin society. I also had covered the major story in 1974 of a 13-day prison
hostage siege that made international headlines, and I will share more details
about that event later. I wrote another story about a female inmate giving birth
while incarcerated.
Like
many reporters, I maintained a list of story ideas, adding new thoughts every
day. Each month I would review my list, pick a topic that appealed to me, and
then pitch my editors to see if they would allow me to risk my time pursuing an
idea that might not even result in a finished story. By 1976, they had gained
enough confidence in me, however, that just about anything I suggested would
receive a green light. This system might surprise those who have thought
reporters just sit around reacting to events as they occur. At least in my
newspaper years, every reporter kept a list of story ideas, waiting for that proverbial
slow news day when they could create a story out of nothing but a thought.
So
it was in February of 1976 that I reviewed my list on unwritten epics and
spotted an entry that made me think: “What happens to old men in prison?” I had
jotted this question one day after watching a couple of older inmates in the
yard at The Walls, arousing my curiosity. How do they get along with younger
inmates? What kind of special care do they need? How difficult is life for them
as they age in a confined setting? What kind of crimes placed them in this
situation?
The
next day I was on my way to Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston, after
alerting my TDC contacts I wanted to visit their geriatric unit in the hospital
at The Walls. After getting the official tour of the unit and an overview of
the situation from the administrators, I started wandering around so I could
interview some of the inmates. The first one I approached was an 82-year-old
convict named Gene Winchester.
Bald
and toothless, Winchester was still a large imposing man, well over six-feet
tall and muscular. He was willing to chat, but really failed to make much
sense. I immediately feared this story would not work very well. I didn’t want
to write a sugar-coated account of the great things TDC did for its aging
inmates. But it looked like I might have trouble getting information from the
inmates’ view if Winchester was any example of the senility among them there.
He told me he had killed a soldier and wanted to go to New York where he could
make $12.50 per day working on the railroad.
But
I had invested a day in this endeavor and knew I needed to produce some kind of
copy. I interviewed a couple of other geriatric inmates, but they didn’t seem
that interesting. Winchester couldn’t even remember when he had come to prison,
but did recall he had killed somebody a long time ago. So I visited an acquaintance
who worked in the TDC public information office for additional details about
this guy.
She
really wasn’t allowed to share prison files with a reporter, but I had come to
know her well and she respected the stories I had done about the prison system.
She opened his file, left it on her desk and told me she needed to take a
break—code from sources who want to share information without actually granting
permission. I sat in her chair and read the Winchester file, where something
caught my eye. I’m sure she had no idea about the problem in his file. And
later she confided she had no regrets about letting me read it because of the
way things unraveled.
“Here’s
my question,” I said when she returned. “Gene Winchester was sentenced to 50
years in 1917. It’s now 1976 and he’s still here. There’s no indication of an
extension for infractions, no second sentence for anything. Why is he still in
prison nine years after his full term has ended?”
She
stammered and grabbed the file to read it herself. Finally, she looked up and
said, “I don’t know. This must be a clerical error. I can’t make sense of this.
We’ll have to investigate this discrepancy.”
Suddenly,
my slice-of-life “human interest” feature on old timers in prison had shifted
focus to one old timer who appeared to have been lost in the system. I told her
I would need to learn more tomorrow because I intended to write a story about
Winchester one way or the other. If I had no answers, I would just list the open
questions in my story while the “investigation” was under way.
When
she called me the next day to reveal what she’d found, I was expecting a blast
from the bureaucratic fog machine and excuses. Instead, her candor made my
story even better. After coming to prison for murder in 1917, she explained, Winchester
had killed another inmate two years later. Instead of charging him with a
second murder, prison officials shipped him off as a “lunatic” to the state
mental hospital at Rusk, where he remained until 1969. He returned then to TDC,
but he did not receive credit for time served in the mental facility between
1919 and 1958, due to a ruling by the Texas Attorney General’s office.
I
was stunned. Not only had he now been locked up for nine years more than his
original 50-year sentence, Winchester only had credit for 24 years total—the two
he served from 1917 to 1919 and the 18 he had served since 1958 plus good time.
He still had 26 years left on his sentence from 1917! And TDC was emphatic
there was nothing it could do about him. So I started seeking a solution.
On
Wednesday, March 17, 1976, I introduced Gene Winchester to the world with a
story that began above the masthead of The
Houston Post and beneath the headline: “50-Year Sentence Closer to Life.” It
began: “Although Gene Winchester, 82, has never been sentenced to serve more
than 50 years in prison, the State of Texas has kept him locked up since 1917.”
I noted that unless pardoned or paroled, Winchester would be 111 years old when
released in 2005.
TDC
officials admitted they were shocked to learn the circumstances of Winchester’s
life. I quoted one saying “Jesus, something should be done. He could probably
be helped more in a nursing home than in prison but his time is governed by the
1958 law and opinion.” And that gave me an idea for some follow-up coverage. I
also received encouragement from the bosses at The Post.
As
soon as the story appeared, I was approached by an assistant managing editor
named Jim Holley, the editor who supervised prize submissions among other
things at The Post. He said, “You
probably have a good shot at a Pulitzer if we can get this guy out of prison.
We need to make a list of follow-up stories and do something for him. We need
to keep this story on the front page until he gets out.” Holley had been the
one who hired me in 1971, when he was city editor. He also had been the
architect of the paper’s only Pulitzer win in 1965, when the prize saluted The Post for its work uncovering
corruption in the city government of Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb. So, I
recognized his expertise in managing coverage of a major story and appreciated
his suggestions.
I
started outlining a strategy that seemed more like a dream at first. But the
more people I called, the more plausible it seemed. I knew we couldn’t just
release Winchester to die on the streets. I thought he was probably better off
in prison. His prison record showed not a single visit from anyone in the course
of his life. I would make a search for long-lost relatives, but expected that
to lead nowhere. That official’s comment about a nursing home aroused my
curiosity. I wondered: What if I can find a nursing home to take him if the
governor will grant a pardon? What if I found a way for him to get enough
public funding to pay his nursing home bill?
But
I also wondered if that would be wise. He still resembled a robust old man,
even if he was a tad diminished upstairs. I didn’t want to work to release this
guy only to see him kill again. No story or prize would be worth that kind of
tragedy. While wrestling with this moral dilemma, however, I moved ahead to see
if we really could make anything happen. And I also decided to learn more about
the old coot and his crime from 1917.
While
I worked away on these angles for additional stories, my first story spawned a
life of its own. National and international news wires picked it up, and NBC’s
Today show cited it. I got a call from a woman who said, “That’s my uncle Gene.
All these years we thought he was dead.” The Texas Nursing Homes Association
contacted me with an offer to help. Other would-be relatives starting coming
out of the brush pile.
Then
I learned that TDC actually had launched a program in 1975 to aid elderly
inmates who can’t win parole for issues of senility or indigence. The program
already successfully had placed eight aged inmates in nursing homes with a
grant from Social Security paying the bills. Winchester’s case was different,
however, because he was not yet eligible for parole. He needed a pardon. And I
needed to learn his back story.
That
mission sent me rooting through the archives of The San Angelo Standard-Times for 1917, reviewing an old book about
Texas prison life in those years and interviewing a TDC psychologist who
examined Winchester when he returned to prison in 1969. Not trying to generate
unwarranted sympathy for Winchester, I truly wanted to learn how safe it might
be to set him free. The result was a story that ranks among the best I ever
wrote as a journalist. Rather than summarize that article, I’m including it
here as the most effective way to tell Winchester’s story.
It
appeared on the front page a few days after my initial story under the headline:
“Dice Roll Sent Inmate on Jail Odyssey.”
Gene Winchester began his long trek toward a
prison hospital bed as a journey of friendship 59 years ago when, as a West Texas
country boy, he and a pal set out for town.
The world was engaged in the first war to end
all wars. Woodrow Wilson was President. A few people drove cars but things like
jet airplanes and television were science fiction dreams.
And going to town for 23-year-old Gene Winchester
and his buddy. George Parramore, 27, meant a visit to San Angelo. Winchester
had been urging the trip for some time.
So, on July 27. 1917, they left the town of
Monday and headed for San Angelo. Parramore was never to return alive. And
Winchester was sent spinning down a road to oblivion, a road which tunneled through
the dark caverns reserved for the crazy in the 1920s, a road which twisted back
onto the modern American mainstream of penal philosophy and a road which
finally deposited him last week in the midst of controversy with no past and a
future of hazy dreams.
Senile and wasted, he was discovered in a
state prison hospital, legally locked away for 59 years on a 50 year term, a
lost and ugly reminder the primitive past of our social conscience sleeps just
a generation away.
As in the discovery of some unspoiled tribe
in New Guinea, officials in charge hastened to find a solution for his
existence.
And the only version of how he arrived in his
current position—how it all began—lies in the faded pages of The San Angelo Standard-Times of 1917
where reporters recorded the events that became the case of the State of Texas
vs. Gene Winchester.
Parramore’s body was found in a clump of
mesquite bushes near Harriett, the newspaper reported. He had $81 in his blue
serge pants and his shirtless body was wrapped in a quilt. His boots were off
and wrapped with him. He had last been seen alive a few days before in Miles,
buying a shirt with Winchester.
An autopsy revealed Parramore had been shot
in the back of the head with a .32-caliber pistol. The pistol, Parramore’s hat
and automobile were found together in Knox County, and Winchester was charged
with murder.
The newspaper reported Winchester intended to
plead insanity due to “a kick by a cow to his head at the age of 7.”
In October the trial began, and Winchester
told his story. He and his friend had been shooting dice where they stopped on
the way to town. Parramore claimed credit for a crucial seven, which Winchester
said had not been rolled.
They argued, Winchester said, and Parramore
headed for his car threatening to kill Winchester with the rifle hidden there.
So, Winchester said, he shot Parramore and
hid the body. The jury deliberated 14 hours and then sentenced him to 50 years.
He arrived at the state prison Nov. 15, 1917.
In those days, the prison, according to an official Texas Department of
Corrections history, had very little of which to be proud.
Inmates lived in shacks and toiled away their
time in the fields. One ex-convict from that era described the life which greeted
Winchester in a book: Hell in a Texas
Pen.
“I helped dig 26 graves. Only three were from
natural causes. The others were beaten to death When a convict did any little
thing to displease a guard, they would make him ride a pole stark naked all
night--astride three 2x6 timbers nailed together, the sharpened sides up.
“I was being worked to death and bleeding
like a stuck hog. I went down to 96 pounds from 176. A boy couldn't work and
the captain beat him until his back bled. He told he boy that if he was sick he
should die…and prove it.”
Death was ever present and old timers have
described scenes where guards let fighting inmates battle to the death rather
than risk injury stopping them.
After less than two years in prison, Winchester
was accused of killing another inmate, officials recalled, and it was decided
he was too dangerous for the prison.
Winchester had a background of mental
problems. Tom Green County records reveal transcripts of “lunacy” proceedings
brought against him in 1915 by his mother.
The record describes a slow-witted youth with
a speech impediment who could sit emotionless for hours until asked a question.
Then he would explode and, court records cite, “he would say, ‘Dot Damn you, I
will det your doat.’”
The prison system had just the place for
inmates like Winchester. There was a new state “lunatics asylum” just opened at
Rusk. A brother had assumed custody of the lad before he could be committed.
But this time there was no way to stop it. He was declared a lunatic and sent
to Rusk.
The state considered him dangerous and
disturbed and he grew old at Rusk. The mental illness faded into senility and
the criminal burned out.
Dr. Robert B. Sheldon, Rusk superintendent,
worked at TDC in 1969 when Winchester returned to prison to finish up his term.
“I am confident he is no longer a danger to
anyone,” Sheldon said. “I complained about him going back to prison.”
When they added up Winchester’s time,
officials refused to credit him with the first 40 years he spent at Rusk.
Officials believe he is the last of three
inmates who failed to receive credit for many spent confined at Rusk.
One is dead, another has been placed in a
nursing home. TDC officials hope Winchester will soon be placed in a nursing
home.
Until then he bides his time in the prison
hospital at Huntsville. He answers questions with confused phrases, depicting a
memory of broken fragments.
Do you fear death in prison? “No,” he replies.
“I’m getting out someday to work on the railroad.”
The stories he could tell about the things he
has seen are probably the best part of his saga. But they lie buried inside his
mind where not even he can get at them.
By
the time we published that back story, some things were starting to snap into
place for him. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had moved the day after
my first story to launch an investigation into a solution for Winchester,
triggered by my story. I learned Winchester actually had been considered for
parole seven times in the previous eight years, but denied each time due to his
mental condition. So, it turned out, he did not require a pardon. In fact, he
and the community would be best served with a normal parole that would allow
parole officers to monitor his condition as well as his behavior.
I
learned that other aged inmates had behaved well when transferred to nursing
homes because they had already become institutionalized. One had even developed
a reputation as a “ladies’ man” in one placement, and another had volunteered
for a job polishing floors in his home
One
member of the parole board went out of her way to salute my reporting and the
power of a free press to shine the light on situations like Winchester’s. And
Winchester’s 71-year-old sister contacted me for an interview. She had been 11
when her brother went to prison, and verified that he had suffered a head
injury at the age of two.
“For
59 years I didn’t know anything about my brother,” she told me. “We’re the only
members of our family left.”
When
she came to visit him on April 13, I wrote a story about their reunion. It was
Winchester’s first recorded visit since 1920 when a brother had seen him in the
mental hospital. They talked for an hour and a half, and prison officials said
they saw him smile.
I
even located relatives of Winchester’s 1917 victim, George Parramore, to sample
their attitude toward a parole for him. They did not object.
Although
TDC needed a guardian to control Winchester’s Social Security payments,
officials were reluctant to use anyone claiming to be a relative. It turned out
that the Social Security administration itself was able to make payments for
him directly to a nursing home just south of Houston that agreed to take him
in. Then Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe got involved. Moved by the coverage he
expedited a parole to Winchester.
And
so, on April 29, 1976—little more than a month after The Post had published my first story on Gene Winchester, the man
who came to prison aboard a horse-drawn wagon in 1917, left The Walls in an
automobile headed south for his retirement home.
On
the front page of the paper for April 30, 1976, I wrote: “Prison officials
retired their oldest inmate number Thursday when Gene Winchester exchanged his
white uniform stamped 41811 for the first set of free world duds he had donned
since 1917.”
But
I was still a bit worried. For his exit interview with me, I asked what he
planned to do in his new home. He said quickly, “Going to get me a woman.” Oh
oh, I thought. Then I lived in fear for a while of the day I would report for
duty in the newsroom only to hear about a multiple homicide at a nursing home
perpetrated by some old convict who should have been in prison where he
belonged. But it never happened.
I
visited Winchester a few weeks later to produce one more follow-up story
published June 3, 1976, under the headline: “No Visitors Come; Convict, 82,
Leads Quiet Life of Loner.” I interviewed one of his new nursing home pals and
a member of the staff who told me Winchester had been timid about socializing.
They had persuaded him to attend a picnic where he enjoyed the hamburgers. I
attempted an interview, but he couldn’t recognize me.
“He
sleeps most of the day,” said a nurse. “He’s a sweet old man whose eyesight is
nearly gone. And he’s really a loner.”
Afterward,
I checked on him a couple of times each year. When I called on May 20, 1980,
the nursing home reported he had died two months earlier after breaking a hip
in a fall. He had lived to the ripe old age of 86. A representative told me his
sister had visited him several times during the last four years, as well as a
parole officer. The representative recalled that Winchester “did not like to be
bathed. He hated it. He was a loner.”
Throughout
my career I covered a number of “big” stories with national implications that
would make the saga of Gene Winchester seem pretty small. But I often thought
about that old man as a reminder for my profession. Although my reporting freed
him from prison, I believe he might have done more for me than I did for him.
The story did not win any journalism prizes. It wasn’t like I had freed an
innocent man. And Winchester really wasn’t that sympathetic of a character as a
murderer. But at least he had some peace for the last few years of his life.
And his sister got closure.
For
me, however, he always loomed as a reminder how powerful a free press can be.
Any time I had a moment of doubt about my work in the years since then, I could
always recall the time I stumbled across Gene Winchester one slow news day in
1976 with the perseverance to ask “Why?” when the dates in his official record
failed to reconcile with reality. Reporting 101 requires us to answer five
questions in every story: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And How? Of those five,
Why? and How? are always the most difficult. But no story is ever complete
without them.
