Eleven Days in Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege in Huntsville, Texas (Crime and Criminal Justice) [First Edition] 1574411802, 9781574411805, 9781417593583

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Eleven Days in Hell

Number 3 in the North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

Eleven Days in Hell The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas

By William T. Harper

Number 3 in the North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series

University of North Texas Press Denton, Texas

Copyright © 2004 by William T. Harper All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America 654321 The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48.1984 Permissions University of North Texas Press PO Box 311336 Denton, TX 76203-1336 940-565-2142 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harper, William T., 1929Eleven days in hell : the 1974 Carrasco prison siege in Huntsville, Texas / by William T. Harper. p. cm. — (Crime and criminal justice series ; no. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57441-180-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Texas. Dept. of Corrections. Huntsville Unit. 2. Carrasco, Fred, d. 1974. 3. Prison riots—Texas—Huntsville. 4. Prison violence—Texas—Huntsville. 5. Hostage negotiations—Texas—Huntsville. I. Title: 11 days in hell. II. Title. III. Series. HV9475.T42H855 2004 365'.9764169—dc22 2004004121 Design by Angela Schmitt

To Joyce who—through my four years of ranting and raving while working on this project—always, as President Ronald Reagan said—managed to “find the pony” while I was mucking around in the pile.

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Contents Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 One—“Stop right there or I’ll kill you!” ................................................... 3 Two—“Let’s get the hell out of here.” ..................................................... 14 Three—“There’s a man up here with a gun.” ........................................ 25 Four—“Fred, what the hell are you doing?” ......................................... 34 Five—“I’m scared and sick, just sick.” .................................................... 43 Six—“Put down your arms and surrender safely.” .............................. 51 Seven—“He will kill those people.” ........................................................ 60 Eight—“My God! They’ve shot Mr. Robinson.” ................................... 72 Nine—“We die a million deaths.” ........................................................... 85 Ten—“You play the cards you’re dealt.” .............................................. 101 Eleven—“We have more time.” ............................................................. 115 Twelve—“If you want to come, just come ahead.” ............................. 122 Thirteen—“We will assassinate everyone!” ......................................... 131 Fourteen—“We will kill as many people as possible.” ...................... 143 Fifteen—“You don’t treat women that way.” ...................................... 157 Sixteen—“I have the four aces and the joker.” .................................... 171 Seventeen—“I’m going out of here, whether it’s alive or dead.” ..... 188 Eighteen—“Get ready because we’re going to start killing!” ........... 207 Nineteen—“I could have grabbed his gun.” ........................................ 221 Twenty—“Meet my demands or prepare for war.” ............................ 232 Twenty-one—“I’m the executioner.” ..................................................... 244 Twenty-two—“I demand that an armored truck be waiting.” ......... 254 Twenty-three—“If he’d only send out Linda Woodman.” ................ 264 Twenty-four—“I’ll see y’all soon.” ........................................................ 276 Twenty-five—“It’s Over.” ....................................................................... 287 Epilogue ..................................................................................................... 297 Citations and Notes .................................................................................. 303 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 331 Index ........................................................................................................... 335

List of Illustrations Diagram of the Huntsville Unit ............................................................................... 2 Federico (Fred) Gomez Carrasco ............................................................................. 4 Rudolfo S. Dominguez .............................................................................................. 6 Ignacio Cuevas ........................................................................................................... 6 Floor plan of the Educational complex .................................................................. 9 Ann Fleming ............................................................................................................. 13 Aline V. House .......................................................................................................... 16 Upper Yard and the gull-winged ramp leading up to the Educational complex ...................................................................... 18 Linda G. Woodman .................................................................................................. 30 Father Joseph John O’Brien .................................................................................... 35 Anthony J. (Jack) Branch, Jr. ................................................................................... 44 Elizabeth Yvonne (Von) Beseda ............................................................................. 47 Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) negotiating team .............................. 48 Bobby G. Heard ........................................................................................................ 52 Glennon D. Johnson ................................................................................................. 57 Ronald (Ron) Wayne Robinson .............................................................................. 73 Novella M. Pollard ................................................................................................... 74 Julia (Judy) C. Standley ........................................................................................... 96 Bertha (Bert) Mae Davis .......................................................................................... 97 TDC Director W. J. Estelle, Jr. conducts a press conference ............................ 119 Sandbags outside a bricked-up window protect a C-4 explosive charge ...................................................................................... 134 TDC attack team members ................................................................................... 164 Custom-made bulletproof helmet ....................................................................... 166 Aline House is taken out of the education complex after she suffered an apparent heart attack ............................................... 225 Note of condolence for Aline House signed by all ........................................... 228 A library in total shambles ................................................................................... 233 Materials available in the library were used to 234 make apparent bombs ................................................................................... 234 Novella Pollard’s daughter Kathy holds a press conference .......................... 245 Document wherein Estelle agrees to provide the armored truck in exchange for the release of the nine remaining hostages ................... 246

Carrasco’s response to Estelle’s offer .................................................................. 255 Hostage Linda Woodman makes a mad dash to freedom .............................. 270 Note from Carrasco with assurances for hostages’ safety .............................. 277 List of the amounts of money Carrasco borrowed from the hostages .......... 280 Carrasco’s note to Estelle outlining the order of hostage placement during the release ....................................................................... 284 Inmate hostage Martin Quiroz inspects armored truck .................................. 285 Eight hostages maneuver the “buggy” that holds hostage-takers and hostages inside ............................................................ 288 Fire hoses under 250-psi hit the “Trojan Taco” ................................................. 289 Father Joseph O’Brien with TDC personnel ...................................................... 292 Federico Carrasco with officers ........................................................................... 293 Rudy Dominguez on the ramp ............................................................................ 293 The drenched, rickety “Trojan Taco” .................................................................. 294

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Acknowledgments

This book came to life following a monthly meeting of the Brazos Writers group in College Station, Texas, in 2000 when—as President of that organization—I invited Dr. Donald Dahl, Curator of the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University, to speak to our group about the resources available from that special sections library. In his remarks, Dr. Dahl mentioned—as an example of those resources—the “Estelle Papers,” a large collection of private papers and documents donated to the Library by Ward James Estelle, Jr., former Director of the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC). It was, Dr. Dahl lamented, something no one at that time had ever visited. Feeling a sense of obligation and guilt that no one from our group had ever “visited the Estelle Papers,” I felt a duty to do just that. Several days later, Dr. Dahl (who has since moved on to Texas Tech University in Lubbock) graciously showed me around the magnificent library which, at the time, was featuring a collection of Mark Twain originals. He took me to its special sections room where a librarian told me there were fourteen huge storage boxes containing the Estelle Papers and asked which one I wanted to see first. Off the top of my head, I blurted out, “Box Four,” having no idea what would lie therein. As I fingered obligatorily through Box Four, I came across a large packet of newspaper clippings about a hostage-taking at the Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections prison in Huntsville, Texas, which started on July 24, 1974. Being an old newspaperman (and I mean “old,” literally and figuratively), I was intrigued by the story. Back in July of 1974, I was in the natural gas business and I had no knowledge of that prison story.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Like most people, I was absorbed by the Watergate scandal that was mesmerizing the Nation. I did an internet search on “Carrasco,” the siege’s ringleader, and found information about “Joe King Carrasco,” an Hispanic rock and roller. But, I also came across references to two books written by Aline House and Ronald Robinson, two civilian employees taken hostage by prison inmate Federico Gomez Carrasco. Both authors mentioned an FBI agent on the scene, Robert (Bob) E. Wiatt, and in 2000, he was Director of the Texas A&M University Police Department. A visit with Bob Wiatt in my own Brazos Valley backyard revealed that other than the two aforementioned books—both of which were written exclusively from a hostage’s point of view—and one chapter in a book about the long history of the Texas Rangers (Just One Riot by Ben Proctor), nothing had been written from the viewpoint of the hostages, their captors, or the law enforcement officers. On that day, May 23, 2000, this book was born. My research took me from the convenience of my computer screen to a three-day visit to Sacramento, California (interviewing Mr. Estelle); to Burbank, California (interviewing NBC-TV correspondent George Lewis, a reporter at Huntsville at the time), and across the vast expanse of the Lone Star State (two 800 round-trip miles to Port Isabel, Texas; 600 roundtrip miles to Seymour, Texas, and several 250-mile trips to Gatesville, Texas, for instance). The long trips were compensated for in large measure by the warm reception I received from the participants in the siege. They couldn’t have been more gracious, accommodating, informative, and helpful. Mr. Estelle, who initially didn’t want to relive the tragedy, gave me three days of his undivided attention. Former Walls Unit Warden Howell Herbert Husbands fascinated me with his vivid recollections of the event. Hostage Linda Woodman opened her home and her fabulous memory on several occasions. Hostage priest Joseph O’Brien welcomed me to his sanctuary and hostage Ann Fleming invited me to her home. Bob Wiatt kept me captivated in his A&M office for several days. Wayne Scott, former TDC Director provided opening day details. Former TDC Assistant Director Daniel V. McKaskle regaled me with insights into xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

the personalities involved. NBC’s George Lewis, Cal Thomas (currently a commentator on Fox-TV News), and Jim Barlow of the Associated Press and later the Houston Chronicle, all reporters on the scene in 1974, were unstinting in their efforts to help me tell this story. According to Lewis, because of the news coverage of the Watergate scandal, the story “never got the national attention that a story of such drama usually rates.” And former Walls Unit Warden James Willett (now the Director of the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville) made it possible, among many other things, for me to tour the prison and even interview a “lifer” who gave me insights into conditions there at the time of the takeover. I want also to thank one of my daughters, Beth Harper, who helped me transcribe some of the eighty-eight audio cassette tapes of conversations between the hostages, the hostage-takers, the media, and the authorities. Laura Saegert and her staff at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, allowed me access to those tapes. Dr. Russell Hilsinger, former Spanish language teacher; Enrique Carrera, a former son-in-law born in Lima, Peru; and Patrick O’Connor, federal courts interpreter in Tucson, deserve my profound thanks for their help in translating significant parts of those tapes. For all of the above, this is their story. I’m just the messenger.

xiii

Hostages: Yvonne (Von) Beseda Anthony (Jack) Branch Bertha (Bert) Davis Ann Fleming Bobby Heard Aline House Glennon Johnson Father Joseph O’Brien Novella Pollard Ronald (Ron) Robinson Julia (Judy) Standley Linda Glass Woodman Inmate hostages: Enrique Escamilla Martin Quiroz Steven Robertson Florencio Vera Inmate hostage-takers: Federico (Fred) Gomez Carrasco Rudolfo (Rudy) Dominguez Ignacio (Iggy) Cuevas Texas Department of Corrections: Director W. J. (Jim) Estelle, Jr. Assistant Director D. V. (Red) McKaskle Warden H. H. (Hal) Husbands Law Enforcement: F.B.I. Agent Robert (Bob) E. Wiatt Captain G. W. Burks, Texas Rangers Captain J. F. (Pete) Rogers, Texas Rangers

Introduction

From one o’clock on the white-hot afternoon of July 24, 1974, until shortly before ten o’clock on the balmy, moonlit night of August 3, 1974, it was—without a doubt—eleven days in hell inside the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Prison in east Texas. It was hell for the eleven civilians held captive and subjected to harassment, mental torture, and psychological warfare by three desperate killers in what was then—and is still—the longest hostagetaking of civilians in the history of the United States legal system (the infamous Attica takeover in 1971 lasted only four days). It was hell for the law enforcement officers making life and death decisions—many of which were misunderstood by the frantic families, by the media, and by the public—as they tried to extricate the beleaguered and terrified hostages who had lived for eleven days under the constant threat of execution. It was hell for some of the women who stared an ugly death right in the face and showed uncommon valor while some of their male counterparts were falling to pieces with uncontrollable sobbing as they begged shamelessly for their rescue. And at the end of this brutally true story—after 272 hours and fifty minutes—two hostages had been murdered, two convicts were dead, and lives were permanently altered for many others. The senseless killing of two innocent victims was, tragically, the result of heartlessness on the part of the perpetrators, and of mistakes made in the prison system. These mistakes did not happen because of the procedures themselves but, as shall be seen, in the way those procedures were carried out.

1

A C B

A: Education Complex B: TDC Administration Building C: Walls Unit Offices and Cellblocks Diagram of the Walls Unit at Huntsville, Texas, with attached identification drawing. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

Chapter One July 24, 1974 • Day One

“Stop right there or I’ll kill you!” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

Ronald (Ron) Wayne Robinson kept looking at his watch, anxious to get home for his daughter Sheryle’s eleventh birthday party that night. Aline V. House was kicking herself for forgetting to bring her bloodpressure medication to work. Bobby G. Heard kept looking through the doorway to see if his relief was on his way up to take his place as the only guard in the prison library. Ann Fleming was thinking about her eighty-year-old mother in a Nashville, Tennessee, nursing home. Novella M. Pollard was worried about getting her rent check in the mail on time. Elizabeth Yvonne (Von) Beseda’s concern was the alteration of her daughter ’s University of Texas cheerleader uniform. All in all, it was just a routine day in Huntsville, Texas. That routine ended abruptly with the roar a .357 caliber Ruger Speed Six, blue Magnum revolver made as it was fired in the confined quarters of the thirdfloor library of the State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, where perhaps the loudest previous noise was a whispered “shhhh.” Federico (Fred) Gomez 3

CHAPTER ONE

Federico (Fred) Gomez Carrasco mug shot (Photo courtesy of Texas Prison Museum)

Carrasco, fired that first round as the back-to-work whistle blew at precisely one o’clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 24, 1974.1 The longest civilian-hostage-taking siege in the history of the American penal system had begun. “Stop right there or I’ll kill you!” Carrasco shouted in English, with a strong Latino accent, at Novella Pollard, forty-six-year-old principal in the prison school. The angry threat had just the opposite of the desired effect. Pollard, who was conducting a typing class for twenty inmates, bolted into the adjoining library office, where she dove under a desk— a maneuver that had been practiced many times in her public schoolrooms during the previous decades with its fears of nuclear missile strikes.2 “Hit the floor,” she commanded the four other women already in the room. “There’s a man out there with a gun.” 3 Bertha Mae (Bert) Davis, Ann Fleming, Aline House, who was using the office telephone, and librarian Linda G. Woodman looked around in a moment of bewilderment until they too took cover beneath work 4

“STOP RIGHT THERE OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

tables. Woodman’s view of the situation was limited by the fact that she was not wearing her glasses. Being near-sighted, she had set them aside for routine close-up work. House crouched up to see what was going on. Her first thought was that the man with the gun, whom she did not recognize, was a lone prisoner who had gone berserk and was attempting a breakout. Fleming and Woodman had more practical thoughts. They pushed a six by five-foot wooden filing cabinet against the office door to block its entrance—a useless gesture as it turned out because they were surrounded by glass partitions.4 Education and Recreation Director Glennon D. Johnson was trapped in the complex with four other civilian employees— librarian Julia (Judy) C. Standley, teachers Von Beseda, Anthony J. (Jack) Branch, Jr., and Ron Robinson. In the library’s classroom, about thirty inmate students of the Windham School District—the prison’s educational facility—were taking a standardized math test. In the library itself, twenty-five to thirty more inmates were using the facilities, casually reading or seeking information they hoped would lead to their retrials or releases. Another twenty were taking Pollard’s typing lessons. When Von Beseda saw the inmate brandishing a pistol, her first thought was an incredulous, “Where’d he get that darned gun?”5 Jack Branch, the only Black among the teachers present, thought “it was a joke” when inmate Rudolfo (Rudy) S. Dominguez came into the classroom waving a pistol, hammer cocked. But when the inmate students started moving to the rear of the library area as ordered, Branch decided, “They know guns better than I do so I figured I’d better move, too.”6 Johnson, the ranking TDC employee in the complex said, “You don’t think about (these things) in normal hours. My first feeling was disbelief.” After looking down the menacing gun barrels, Glennon immediately surmised the worst possible scenario, “I was pretty sure we were all going to die by five o’clock that afternoon.”7 The lone prison guard assigned to the complex, Bobby Heard, beat a hasty retreat into the crawl space above the false ceiling. As the four women (Davis, House, Fleming, and Woodman) hiding in the office furtively peeked out from under the tables and through a 5

Rudolfo (Rudy) S. Dominguez mug shot (Photo courtesy of Texas Prison Museum)

Ignacio (Nacho) Cuevas mug shot (Photo courtesy of Texas Prison Museum)

6

“STOP RIGHT THERE OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

glass partition separating their hideaway from the classroom, they saw another inmate in prison whites, also brandishing a gun. This was Ignacio Cuevas. And then they, too, saw Rudy Dominguez. Neither Carrasco, who previously came to the library only on occasion, nor Dominguez were known to any of the civilian staff, although Pollard remembered that Carrasco “had sat in that library across from me while I was teaching my class.” But generally, that pair was not the type that frequented libraries and classrooms. On the other hand, Pollard “knew Cuevas quite well. I taught him when he first came to prison. He was in art class,” where his primitive work gained some admiring approval. According to the Houston Post, “some of his paintings have sold for as much as onehundred dollars.”8 All three of them had been sitting there in the library for fifteen minutes, casually scanning daily newspapers. Then, as the back-to-work whistle blew, Carrasco fired his initial shot. Cuevas and Dominguez put down their newspapers and moved to the center’s entrance. Cuevas unraveled a length of chain from underneath his pants leg and wrapped it around the entry door handles, thereby locking everyone either in or out. Carrasco sat down on a chair in the library, raised his pants leg, and peeled yards of tape from around his legs. Stuck to the tape were hundreds of rounds of .357 and .38 caliber ammunition. He threw some of his ballistic arsenal to Cuevas and Dominguez, which they crammed in their pockets. “You,” Carrasco barked pointing his pistol at the rattled teacher Robinson, “get in that office and get those women out of there.” Robinson, staring dumb-founded down the barrel of a menacing revolver, decided to do as he was told. Pounding on the blockaded office door, he pleaded with the women to give themselves up. “You have to come out,” he cried. “He knows you’re in here. You have to come out.”9 “We’re not coming out,” yelled Woodman. Carrasco bellowed at Robinson as he aimed his gun at Standley and Beseda. “Tell them if they don’t come out I’m going to shoot these two women.” The threat brought the ladies out of their hiding place. Pollard and Woodman pushed the filing cabinet away, and the four came into the library seeing that it had filled with inmates from all over the building’s third floor. House recalled Carrasco fired three shots through the thick 7

CHAPTER ONE

plate glass doors at two unarmed prison guards who were hurrying up the entrance ramp, and assumed his leadership role immediately. One of the officers headed up the entrance ramp for the classroom door was twenty-one-year-old Sgt. Bruce Noviskie, a criminology major at Huntsville’s nearby Sam Houston State University. He suffered a superficial flesh wound to his left foot.10 Another officer, Lt. Wayne Scott, twenty-three, received several scratches from splintered glass and concrete chips that were fragmented off a wall by the bullets.11 Scott, and two more unarmed Correctional Officers who were following behind him, quickly ran back down the ramp. That was too slow for Noviskie. He vaulted over the ramp’s railing to the ground some ten feet below, wounded leg and all. The first blood in the Huntsville siege had been spilled. “Everyone take it easy,” Carrasco announced. “Do as we say, and no one will be hurt. We are committed to a plan to leave this prison. We have nothing to lose, and we are willing to die if we have to.” 12 With all the civilians rounded up and gathered nervously around a table in the library, Carrasco let them know in no uncertain terms that “if the warden hurts one of us, we’re gonna kill one of you.”13 Within minutes, he was on the telephone with the prison’s warden, Howell Herbert (Hal) Husbands, to let him know that he was in control of the third-floor facility. According to Husbands, the call was very short, “only about thirty seconds or so because we didn’t have a hell of a lot to say.”14 Carrasco told the warden he was holding about eighty people— classroom and library personnel, and inmates—in the educational complex. He said he would be releasing the assembled convicts in groups of five and keeping all the civilians as hostages. With three gunmen holding seventy or more captives, some wondered how the captors would be able to maintain control in the confined quarters. Woodman was not puzzled, “Carrasco was walking around with a gun and that was supervision enough.”15 After abruptly hanging up on the warden, Carrasco snarled, “Get out of here,” to the prisoners who had just started their post-lunch studies in the classroom and library. Some of the inmates were in a state of shock and did not move fast enough toward the facility’s only 8

Floor plan of the Educational facilities on the third floor of the Huntsville Unit. (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University)

9

CHAPTER ONE

exit—two double-paned glass doors. When the initial rush for freedom unexpectedly ended, fifty-six prisoners still had not made it out. The six-foot Texan, dressed in a three-piece business suit and silvertipped lizard cowboy boots, leaned back in his chair at the head table in a meeting room at the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. For the last time, he reviewed his hand-written notes prepared for this day’s Rotary Club luncheon. The mandatory announcements were winding down. He would be up next. It was for him just another one of the two-dozen or so such speeches he gave every year before various civic groups around the Lone Star State, promoting law and order in general and the Texas prison system in particular. He had written the following: And in conclusion, gentlemen, let me just say that—one, my staff works every day with these troubled citizens who are not safe for us to have as neighbors. Two, my staff does its work in a professional and competent manner with the safety and welfare of the total prison community uppermost in their minds. Three, like any other organization composed of people, we make mistakes every day. The human chemistry alone of 17,000 inmates and 2,500 employees dictates that errors will occur, and four, until the citizens of Texas through their legislature say otherwise, the Texas Department of Corrections—what we call the TDC—will continue to be run by your employees—not by your inmates.16 Words like these—and others such as “we’re not coddling criminals” and “we’re not running any kind of a hug-a-thug club” and “you do the crime, you do the time”—usually brought thunderous applause from then all-male audiences such as Rotary Clubs. A tough stance against the bad guys always found an appreciative audience in the Lone Star State of Texas. The speaker-to-be, Ward James (Jim) Estelle, Jr., Director, TDC, congratulated the editor of the San Antonio Light newspaper for the fine 10

“STOP RIGHT THERE OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

turnout of Rotarians for this weekly meeting of the Club on Wednesday, July 24, 1974. As he did, a uniformed hotel bellman slipped unobtrusively on to the dais. Bending low and trying unsuccessfully to duck behind the seated Rotary Club leadership at the head table, the bellman approached Estelle and slipped him a pink telephone memo slip. Estelle took the memo, nodded thanks to the bellman, and quickly read the message. It was from Dorothy Coleman, his secretary at the TDC headquarters in Huntsville. “Carrasco’s got hostages. Call your office immediately.” The last word was underlined three times. Three exclamation points followed. The director knew the name Carrasco well and he looked reflexively at his watch. It would be a long time before he forgot that exact reading of 1:30 p.m. 17 Estelle knew Ms. Coleman would not send such an urgent message unless there was an emergency. He found it somewhat ironic that only three weeks ago he had told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper in a telephone interview, “As far as we’re concerned, there hasn’t been any unusual activity (among the inmates).”18 Estelle turned to the Light’s editor and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to leave and I have to leave right now.” In an effort to do a favor for his host, he continued, “If you by any chance have a reporter here who can get to the front door of the hotel at the same time as I do, he might want to go with me. And that’s all I can tell you right now.”19 Cub reporter Ed Glosson was tabbed. Using a hotel lobby pay phone to call his office, Estelle spoke to Ms. Coleman, whose information was still sketchy at best. Questions started rolling through Estelle’s mind as he headed for his TDC airplane at the airport, from which he took off at 2:05 p.m. How many hostages were there and who were they? Estelle remembered that a grand jury was scheduled to tour the Huntsville prison that day. Had the grand jury been grabbed? Was Carrasco the only hostage-taker? Was this a prisonwide riot in the making? Was this an attempted breakout? What did Carrasco want? How many and what kind of weapons did he have? The answer to those questions and more would consume Ward James Estelle Jr.’s life for the next eleven and one-half days and alter it drastically forever after. 11

CHAPTER ONE

Fifteen-hundred miles northeast of Huntsville, in Washington, D. C. and in newspaper, radio, and television reports all across the United States and many parts of the world on that day, the big news was the pending impeachment of President Richard Milhous Nixon. July 24, 1974 was the same day the Nation’s Chief Executive was ordered by the U. S. Supreme Court to turn over his damning Oval Office tape recordings. In Huntsville, the day had all started peacefully enough on that July afternoon in 1974. It was a typical Texas scorcher. But in southeastern Texas, tropical mid-nineties heat with humidity to match was not a problem for those inside the air-conditioned, carpeted educational complex at the state prison. Linda Woodman was a forty-four-year-old librarian working in the Windham School District’s educational facility. Prior to coming to work at Windham in 1972, four years divorced, with no children, she had been an eighth grade English teacher in her hometown of Conroe, about thirty miles south of Huntsville. She and co-librarians Fleming, House, and Standley had returned a few minutes early from their usual Wednesday luncheon at Hailey’s, a local barbecue restaurant. The topic of their conversation was library staffing. Naomi Rogers, who often car-pooled with Woodman, had an excused absence from work. She was working on her Masters Degree at Sam Houston State University. With a comprehensive test looming on Thursday, she took Wednesday off to bone up. Another librarian, Doris Thompson, called in sick that morning. A third librarian, Anna Dorrell, just happened to choose that particular day to quit her job—although nobody on the staff knew it yet. And reading instructor Phyllis Fox was not at Huntsville because she had been sent to check out some programs at another TDC unit. That morning, because of the day’s staff shortage in the library and the ensuing empty desks, Director of Library Services, Aline House had made a decision. She telephoned Ann Fleming who, only twenty-four days earlier, had joined the Windham school staff as a librarian. She was splitting her time between the Goree and Ferguson state prison units. “Why don’t you meet us for lunch,” Ann said, “and then plan to

12

“STOP RIGHT THERE OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

Ann Fleming (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

come back to our office at the Walls Unit. That way, we can sit down and work on a list of books to order for the women’s prisons.” 20 That worked out well for Ms. Fleming, a fifty-year-old former library science instructor at Sam Houston State University and high school librarian. She had earned a BA in English and History from Peabody College in Nashville and a Master’s at Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas. In this case, fate did not favor Ann Fleming.

13

Chapter Two “Let’s get the hell out of here.” —Steve Roach, inmate

The Texas Legislature created the Windham School District in the Texas Department of Corrections in 1968. It was subject to the certification requirements and regulations of the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Education. Its purpose was to provide educational and vocational opportunities for prison inmates that would help them when and if they returned to the general population. Attendance at once-a-week, six-hour classes was required for inmates having less than a fifth-grade education and it was voluntary for others. At the Walls Unit, the Windham group of about fifteen teachers and librarians was housed on the 11,250 square-foot top floor of a rectangular, three-story building made of reinforced concrete faced with masonry bricks with steel roof trusses. It was, unintentionally, a fortress. The 167-by-67 foot area was remodeled in 1972 from an auditorium into the educational facility. About fifty percent of the room’s interior was classroom, thirty percent was library, and the remaining twenty percent—which divided the two larger rooms—was 14

“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

restrooms, administrative offices, work rooms, and storage areas. A separate section of the library was set off by glass partitions as a special law library—the Writ Room. There was only one entrance to the third floor complex—through a pair of adjoining plate glass doors that opened out to a concrete ramp. The ramp paired off left and right in a series of four right-angle turns for about one hundred feet in total length down into the prison’s recreational yard two floors below. To prevent distractions from recreation yard noises, the library/classroom windows were bricked up. That distressed the civilian employees in the complex from day one. “We asked that that not be done and it was still done,” said Novella Pollard. “When we moved into this building, we asked for windows,” she continued. “I mean we don’t even have a fire escape in this building, although we’d asked for one.”1 Her concerns were echoed by then Education and Recreation Director Dewey Morgan who “hollered every time they closed a window with brick” and complained to the wardens, according to Pollard. He warned them, she said, “that all any prisoner had to do is secure that front door and they’d have that building.”2 As part of the 1972 remodeling, the room’s interior circumference was lined with fully stocked, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The concrete ramp that extended from the Library/Education Center also provided entrance/exit to the building’s second floor. In looking at the ramp headon, it had the appearance of a gull-winged bird. The six-foot wide inclines with their three-foot high walls, had brass handrails to aide those that received medical attention in the prison’s hospital, a major medical facility located at Huntsville Prison for inmates in all TDC Units throughout southeastern Texas. At the building’s ground level were the staff dining room, the prison’s bakery, and food storage and preparation areas. The second floor consisted of two large inmate-dining halls, kitchen facilities, and dishwashing areas. While Aline House and Ann Fleming were checking catalogs and discussing new book purchases, Woodman’s chore was unpacking and shelving a new supply of books. Judy Standley was busy pasting slots for checkout cards in the backs of other library books. Jack Branch, and 15

CHAPTER TWO

Aline V. House (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

fellow teacher Ron Robinson had just started their noon-to-six shift. They were monitoring an Educational Achievement math test for some inmates. Like most of the civilian employees in Texas prisons, all of them felt fairly safe and secure. Actually, many said they felt safer inside prison walls than they did outside on the streets of a big city like Houston, seventy miles south. As House, who spent twenty-seven years as a public school teacher prior to coming to the Walls, put it, “I feel safer up here than I did in the schools.”3 And it was only a few weeks earlier, on July 7, 1974, that TDC Director Estelle was quoted in the Temple Daily Telegram as saying he was “safer in every part of my prisons than most of you are on the streets of your communities.”4 It was while in that state of mind that Linda Woodman heard that first shot from Carrasco’s gun. Robert (Bob) E. Wiatt was the agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s two-man office in Bryan, Texas, about fifty miles west of Huntsville. Walker County, where the town of Huntsville is located, was one of thirteen counties in Wiatt’s district. Bob had official business at the prison on July 24, 1974. A twenty-three-year veteran of FBI service, he had joined the Bureau in 1951. At six-feet-one, weighing 220 pounds, he was a physical fitness fanatic. For instance, he strapped thirty-five 16

“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

pound weights to his belt before doing hand-over-hand rope climbs, using his hands and arms only. He scoffed at those who took the elevator instead of climbing three or four flights of stairs. He even teased the women for using electric mixers instead of beating cake batters by hand. When conducting his then-new Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) training classes he referred to the “softies” as “a generation of marshmallows.”5 He was seen by some as a poster-boy for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s staff recruiting drives. Wiatt’s career in law enforcement was the kind books were written about and movies made. As a matter of fact, in 1969, a high-speed car chase across three hundred miles of southeast Texas landscape ended up with the perpetrator and Wiatt in a shootout. It left the perp dead from a Wiatt bullet through his neck. That story became director Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express. Bob, however, thought most of it was a typical Hollywood “bastardization, totally inaccurate,” he commented.6 Wiatt had been directed by his superiors in Houston to go to Huntsville that day to interview a prisoner, one who was claiming a federal civil rights violation. Wiatt was in and out of Huntsville all the time on official business, some of which included training prison personnel in defensive tactics and SWAT techniques. Everybody in the Texas Department of Corrections system, including many of the inmates, knew Bob Wiatt. Just a minute or so after 1:00 p.m., Wiatt climbed into his car parked outside the prison walls in front of the warden’s office. One of TDC’s assistant directors, Alton L. Akins, shouted to him from a front window in the TDC Administration Building across the street from the prison’s north wall. “Bob! Bob! You have your gun in your car, don’t you?” Wiatt’s snub-nosed .38 encased in a canvas cashier’s bag was stashed in the car’s glove compartment because no one—not even guards— ever took a weapon inside the prison, except for an extreme emergency. “Yeah, sure,” came Wiatt’s puzzled reply. “Grab it and get in here right away,” Akins commanded. “There’s been a shooting and some convicts have taken some people hostage.” Surprised, Wiatt responded, “You’re kidding?” 17

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Akins replied, “The hell I am. They’re over in the Library above the mess hall. Our guards are heading for the armory to get their weapons. Right now, we’re not sure what the hell else’s going on.” Wiatt grabbed his .38, jumped out of his car, and dashed into the administration building, where the first person he met was his good friend, a puzzled-looking Father Joseph John O’Brien, the prison’s usually jovial Catholic chaplain. 7 At one o’clock on the afternoon of July 24, 1974, several inmates— guilty of minor prison rules infractions—were working off their “write up” by polishing the brass rails on the zigzag ramp leading up to the educational complex. At the sound of Carrasco’s first gunshot from the library two floors up, those street-smart prisoners bolted over the railing and down the ramp. Seated on a concrete abutment in an alcove outside the prison’s Chapel of Hope about fifty yards away from the foot of the ramp and talking with another prisoner was inmate Steve Roach, prison number 204971. A twenty-eight-year-old who committed murder with malice seven years

A view of the Upper Yard and the gull-winged ramp leading up to the Educational complex. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 18

“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

earlier, Roach was serving a life sentence. He was wise to the ways of the jailhouse world. When the one o’clock whistle blew, to him it meant the inmate count inside the Walls had cleared. And when the explosive reverberation of Carrasco’s gun reached his ears at the same time, he knew what that meant, too. His companion shrugged it off, saying, “There’s another one of those cars out there on Avenue I back-firing.” “Oh, no it ain’t,” warned Roach as he stepped cautiously from the alcove and peered around the corner of the chapel building where he saw the scrambling guards. “That was a shot. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Roach and friend took the five steps leading away from the chapel in one jump, and ran across the Upper Yard, the rectangular recreation area where prisoners played volleyball, pitched horseshoes, shot hoops, shadow-boxed, did calisthenics and otherwise whiled away their free time. They hurried back to their cellblock around the corner in the East Building known sarcastically to some of its inhabitants as the “Walledoff Astoria.” 8 At that same time, TDC Lt. Wayne Scott and Sgt. Bruce Noviskie were on their way from the prison’s back gate. As was often the case among prison employees, the two were talking about classes in criminal justice they and other prison staff members were taking at nearby Sam Houston State University. (Scott later became TDC Director and his classmates and co-workers James Willett and Bruce Thaler both became TDC wardens). Mopping their sweating brows in the blistering ninetydegree-plus heat, they neared the ramp on their way to the Staff Dining Room seeking a much-needed cold drink. Just then, Correctional Officer (CO) David Smith came running down the ramp. Afflicted with a terrible speech stammer, he nonetheless had no trouble getting out a warning. “Look out! Look out!” he yelled. “There’s somebody up in the library with a weapon.”9 Scott and Noviskie broke into a dead run up the ramp. What they were going to do when they got up there, they were not exactly sure, especially since they were weaponless themselves. But, they did not have to face that dilemma. Carrasco resolved it for them by firing those three shots at them as they came running up the last twenty feet of the 19

CHAPTER TWO

ramp. “I saw Carrasco through the glass doors,” Noviskie said. “He had a gun in his right hand and he fired three shots” from about twenty feet.10 Scott and Noviskie immediately turned and headed back down the ramp.10 When TDC Director Estelle arrived in Huntsville from San Antonio at about 3:00 p.m. he went directly to Warden Husbands’ office inside the Walls Unit.11 Having only sketchy details of the situation, Estelle was now trying to come to grips with the predicament they were all facing. What he heard perhaps made him wish he were back in the relative peace and quiet of the Montana State Prison, where he previously had been responsible for only about three-hundred prisoners versus the seventeen-thousand in the Texas Department of Corrections, spread out in fourteen prisons covering more than one-hundredthousand acres of land. In a book entitled Just One Riot—a history of the Texas Rangers— author Ben Proctor gives a description of Estelle with which many who worked with him in 1974 agree. “At six-feet, two hundred pounds, with even features, ruddy complexion, and dark, wavy hair, Estelle looked the part of a successful Texas business executive, neat and well-dressed but not overly so. Only his cowboy boots and a wad of Copenhagen tobacco in his left cheek possibly belied that image. Soft-spoken and deliberate in his statements, except when overly provoked, his hazel eyes, which could ‘chill you,’ were the real signals of ‘gale warnings ahead.’ He moved with an air of confidence, his every action testifying to the fact that, at age forty-three, he knew his business - and knew it well.”12 Estelle is not a man who shoots from the hip. He fully considers his every action, even his every word. An apocryphal story is told by Assistant TDC Director D. V. (Red) McKaskle. “Do you know,” he asked a friend, “how many wood panels there are on the wall behind Mr. Estelle’s desk?” When the friend laughingly answered he had no idea, McKaskle answered his own question, “There are nineteen!” When asked how he knew, Red responded, “I counted them a number of times while waiting for him to respond to some comment or some question.”13 20

“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

Correctional Officer Willett said one word described Estelle, “Integrity.” Paraphrasing President Harry S. Truman, Wiatt said Estelle was the man “where the buck stops.”14 Although the uprising was taking place solely in the Walls Unit where Husbands was warden, Estelle immediately assumed command of the situation, a position that he normally would not take with a routine problem housed strictly in one prison. But this time, with the number of civilian hostages taken, he reasoned it was going to take a tremendous amount of coordination, utilizing resources not generally available in Huntsville, to do what was needed. Already in his two-year Texas career, Estelle knew where resources were, “and if I didn’t know where to get it, I knew somebody who did.” Estelle readily recognized the potential for an ego problem right there within the Walls Unit. The director saw his role as “coach” as the solution to any such problem. “Most anything I’ve done professionally,” he said, “I’ve always got somebody around me who can do it better. Probably, as an administrator or as a leader my strength has been being a good human chemist. I was never threatened nor felt threatened by people who were smarter or quicker or faster. I don’t think I ever micro-managed too much. I liked people who would fill the void. If there’s not a law that says you can’t do it and it seems to be the right thing to do, go ahead and do it. If it turns out bad, we’ll talk about how we can do it better next time.” He admitted to being a risk-taker, but “not always. I didn’t just walk out in front of a beer truck just to see if he was going to have brakes. I’m not talking about doing anything stupid. Yeah, taking calculated risks lends itself to a healthy organization. And, one of the hardest things that I had to do constantly—and it wasn’t just in Texas or Montana or California but it was overall—was getting people who worked with me to tell me the truth. Sometimes they were afraid of the truth.” Such was not the case with Warden Husbands. “If I had been warden and my director stepped in like that,” Estelle explained, “I’d have some misgivings about it—probably more personal than professional, depending on the description of the director,” he related. “But I felt I had as much experience in prison work as any one of my wardens and in fact, I did.”15 21

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In the TDC chain of command, said Husbands, “as long as Jim Estelle tells me to do something, that’s what I’m going to do. And that’s what I expect my people to do, too.”16 The grizzled warden, Estelle knew was “his own man and a damn good warden—and one of the best quarterhorse judges in the state of Texas”.17 Husbands reiterated that the ring-leader was Fred Carrasco, otherwise known by his prison number, 237163. Beyond that singular fact, there was not much else he could tell the director about the current situation because there was not much else anyone knew for sure, other than his rap sheet details. No one was exactly sure how many and what type of guns Carrasco had, where the guns came from, how many hostages he was holding, who exactly they were, and whether they were in the educational facility by choice or by command. They did not even know exactly what it was that Carrasco wanted following his outburst. Was it part of a prison-wide conspiracy? Was he waiting for outside help? There had been no demand for transportation. Why not? Did he have a grievance with the system? Carrasco was not griping about prison conditions—even though the inmate population therein was exploding ten times faster than that of the “free world.” As he himself put it, “I know there’s a lot of people that want prison reform and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”18 Was it some other kind of protest? Was it a mass breakout? A grievance? Was it a conspiracy? Was it explainable at all? Estelle was handed a bulky file folder containing Carrasco’s rap sheet and criminal history. Carrasco was currently incarcerated in the Texas Department of Corrections following his capture in a drug-bust shootout with a dozen plainclothes officers at the Tejas motel in San Antonio one year and two days earlier. The three page rap sheet started May 27, 1955, with a charge of Theft Under Five Dollars. The list ended with a life sentence on January 9, 1974, for Assault with Intent to Murder a Police Officer in the shootout. With charges that ranged from a petty stickup to an attempt to kill a cop, Carrasco covered the entire spectrum of a career in crime. In between the first and last charges, Carrasco admitted to at least ten prior arrests and was charged with—among other things—armed robbery, drunkenness, suspicion, auto theft, 22

“LET’S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.”

conspiracy, possession of heroin, drug-dealing, parole violation, federal bond forfeiture, and violations of the Narcotics Act. He had served time in the Federal reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma; the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas; the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana; and even a previous stint at the Walls Unit at Huntsville. Not bad for a guy who listed his occupation on prison records as a “farmer and laborer.”19 Although often suspected of but never previously charged with murder (except in Mexico) during his fifteen-year career as a drug-dealing criminal, he was reportedly responsible for at least fifty killings—more than John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid put together. The sheaf of notes on Carrasco the warden had quickly attained from the prison system’s Classification Department continued its update. They showed a thirty-four-year-old, five-foot-seven man who weighed 210 pounds. The drug lord had been in the jailhouse hospital in San Antonio for three weeks because of bullet wounds from the July 22, 1973, shootout before being sent to the Walls Unit. Although a hardened and extremely dangerous killer, he was assigned to the medium-security facility in Huntsville because that was where the system’s major hospital was to treat his wounds, and the authorities considered it to be more of a security risk for prison employees to constantly transport him for medical reasons back and forth to Huntsville from one of the maximum-security facilities located throughout the vast Texas prison system. Because of his wounded condition and his need for a cane to aid him in walking, he was assigned to light duty inside the Walls as an orderly in the office of prison Catholic chaplain, Father O’Brien. With hindsight, one TDC official said “that was a mistake. He probably should have been put on a permanent lock-up.”20 In any case, Carrasco—el Jefe (the Chief), el Viejo (the old man), and el Senor (the Man) as he was known on the streets and back alleys of southern Texas and northern Mexican towns—was reduced to emptying wastepaper baskets, polishing pews, and mopping floors in the Chapel of Hope and the Chaplain’s office during those first six months of his 1974 imprisonment in Huntsville. That did not sit well with the former high-living Carrasco. 23

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Jail time—and there was much of it starting in 1959 with a two-year sentence for stabbing another teenager to death in a San Antonio dance hall fight over a girl—was not always so demeaning. Neither north nor south of the border was it hard time for the San Antonio-born ring-leader of what was called “The Mexican Mafia.” Narcotics officers called Carrasco’s operation the biggest drug-running outfit in South Texas, transporting a kilo of heroin a week from Mexico into Texas. The organization was said to be “tougher than the Mafia and they would kill to prove it.”21 Carrasco reportedly received preferential treatment in the Bexar County jail in San Antonio earning yet another title, the “King” of the jail. There were reports of a happy Thanksgiving jailhouse dinner—turkey and all the trimmings for him, his wife Rosa, his brotherin-law, and other relatives and friends—served on table linen, with his jailers as waiters. It was reported he had extra telephone privileges in his cell and was once permitted a visit with a potential heroin distributor. He used a warden’s truck to escape from a prison in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1972 after being arrested in a twenty-million-dollar heroin and cocaine seizure. Another report had him buying his way out of prison via a one-hundred-thousand-dollar cash bribe paid to one of his keepers. His narcotics money bought him many of life’s luxuries, in and out of jail.22 Exploits like these brought on “The Ballad of Fred Carrasco,” a popular song written in Spanish and sung in barrooms and dance halls of San Antonio.23 A Robin Hood legend was growing throughout the barrios on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. It was all part of the macho image he cultivated. To some psychologists, machismo is merely a cover-up for an inferiority complex. His legend in the barrios grew and he would often clown around with children in their playgrounds, saying, “Go home and tell your parents you played with Carrasco.” He would pass out candy, but other times, he would slap down a group of teenagers who he did not think was showing him proper respect. “If your parents want to know where you got that mark,” he said, “tell them you fooled around with Carrasco.” 24 And sometimes, his machismo would come from the barrel of a gun.

24

Chapter Three “There’s a man up here with a gun.” —Novella Pollard, hostage

Joseph John O’Brien was born June 20, 1928, behind Chicago’s famous stockyards. The youngest of three children, with a brother and a sister, he was the first of the Irish family to be born in the United States. Their mother emigrated from Donegal and their father from Tipperary. O’Brien left the Windy City at fourteen for San Antonio, Texas, where he enrolled in a Catholic Seminary. He knew he “always wanted to be a priest” and later joined the Oblate of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.) order and received some of his training in San Antonio in the early 1950s. He was appointed a prison chaplain with the Texas Department of Corrections in 1962. Prior to that he served Texas’ Rio Grande valley where he perfected his Spanish. Working with notorious inmates such as the wellknown Carrasco was old hat to Father O’Brien. Long before coming to Huntsville, he was chaplain at a U.S. Government alien detention camp in McAllen, Texas. He described it, “as a hideout camp for the CIA.” Among those at the camp was Colonel Rudolph Abel, the Russian spy the U.S. traded for shot-down 25

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American U-2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Another was Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, reportedly linked to the President John F. Kennedy assassination. And still a third was Eloy Gutierrez Manoyo, co-founder with Fidel Castro of the Cuban Twenty-Sixth of July Movement.1 In 1974, Father O’Brien was a short, chubby, man, with gray hair even then—as it had been since high school. “You could see the gray hair under my football helmet,” he said with a big laugh. His years of walking through the prison yards with the inmates, eating in their mess halls, playing games, and discussing problems with them had earned him the trust of many. It was a trust that was enhanced by his spontaneous willingness to “rip off his collar” and mix it up with any convict, no matter his size, who wanted to take him on. “O’Brien doesn’t pussyfoot around,” said long-time friend, Reverend Barry Chauvin. “The inmates don’t try to con him.” 2 Father Richard Beck, O.M.I., Catholic Chaplain, TDC Southern Division, stated, “When he was born, they threw the mold away. There is no doubt that this is a special work. Father O’Brien had a special gift to get to the heart of the matter, and he’s his own man.”3 He knew the inmates and they knew him, a relationship fostered by coffee and cigarettes, “Two packs a day of Viceroys,” O’Brien recalled, “that’s the social life of the prison—coffee and cigarettes.”4 When visited just two days before the hostage-taking started by Houston Chronicle reporter Louis Moore for a story on the life of a prison priest, Father O’Brien seemed proud of the job his ward, Fred Carrasco, was doing as the chaplain’s janitor. “Do you know who cleans this place?” the priest furtively asked the reporter. When he answered his own question by naming the notorious killer, O’Brien spoke with the pride of a schoolteacher whose poorest pupil had just earned his highest mark. He directed his visitor’s gaze to the chapel’s spotless floor and well-polished pews.5 In the two weeks preceding the Huntsville incident, Father O’Brien was on a vacation from which he had just returned. Two of the toughest inmate-watchers in the system were also on vacation when the takeover started—Major Andrew J. Murdock and Assistant Director Red 26

“THERE’S A MAN UP HERE WITH A GUN.”

McKaskle. Murdock and McKaskle came back to Huntsville on the double. O’Brien had decided to come back a week early. “Homesick, I guess,” he quipped with a slight smile. It was that vacation that brought him and his office under a cloud of questions, criticism and, in some cases, suspicion. It was in January of 1974 that Father O’Brien saw Carrasco for the first time. The inmate was at the medical diagnostic unit in Huntsville being evaluated for assignment within the prison system. O’Brien called him “a pear-shaped man who neither looked tough nor acted mean. He certainly did not appear to be the classic desperado.”6 During a sociological interview, Carrasco said, “I do not want to be a headache to the authorities in the Texas Department of Corrections.” Claiming he only wanted “to get to a farm where I can get adjusted so that I can relieve my family of any mental anguish,” he stated that he did not want to create any problem because “I feel I need to do my time as best I can and get back to my wife and family.”7 Director Estelle warned him quietly but firmly, “Don’t be difficult.”8 As a definite security risk, Carrasco’s case was unusual. With him, TDC had the two goals of confining him and, oddly enough, protecting him. Since he had allegedly killed many underworld figures in Texas and Mexico, Carrasco had enemies inside the prison system too. Due to his wounds, he was restricted to light work. While at work inside the chapel, he did not mingle with the general prison population, not that he even wanted to. There were no favors for Carrasco inside the Walls Unit. If anything, the prisoner was more concerned about the priest’s behavior because he felt the priest would try converting him. Right away, remembered O’Brien, Carrasco said forcefully, “I am an atheist,” and he did not want to hear any preacher’s arguments to the contrary. The priest assured the prisoner that he was only interested in his employment and not his soul and he “wouldn’t mess with him if he didn’t mess with me.” When Carrasco reported for work at the chapel inside the Walls, the priest discovered what he called “a moody quality about Fred Gomez Carrasco, a controlled inner fury” as he went about 27

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his janitorial duties. What the good Father did not know—nor did anyone else in authority at the time—was Carrasco would soon be using the privacy of the Chapel to place illicit, long-distance, collect telephone calls back to his operatives in San Antonio, phone calls that no doubt, led to the events of this July day. Although the chaplain remembered Carrasco as being “polite, respectful, and even energetic as he went about chores,” at the same time, “I know now that that kind of work must have galled his soul. His brooding silence was the lull before the gathering storm.”9 Shortly after one o’clock that July 24, 1974, afternoon Warden Husbands was at his home, about fifty yards east of the Walls Unit’s main entrance on Twelfth Street. Husbands was getting ready to leave for his office when he got a telephone call from his secretary, Molly Stanley, telling him, “You’d better get down here right quick.” The warden knew of Carrasco, as his reputation for violence preceded him to Huntsville. The inmate population, especially the Latinos, was fearful of him. They had heard the stories. In one of them, Carrasco supposedly had pumped sixty bullets into one man who had crossed him, and that he also had a favorite spot in his hometown of San Antonio that he used as his own personal killing grounds.10 Husbands had started his correctional career in 1952, having been graduated from Rice University in 1940. He played center for the victorious Rice football team in the second annual Cotton Bowl in 1938. After college, Husbands was “knocking around at various jobs”— including managing a German prisoner-of-war camp in Gainesville, Texas, during World War II. He was hired as a Texas prison warden on January 1, 1952, the first college graduate so hired. In 1973, he retired and went to work in Houston at the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. TDC Director Estelle brought him back to correctional duty as warden of the Walls Unit in Huntsville, just six months and twenty-four days before Carrasco’s first shot.11 That July afternoon in 1974 Father O’Brien and FBI agent Wiatt both made a mad dash out the door and across Twelfth Street to the prison 28

“THERE’S A MAN UP HERE WITH A GUN.”

entrance where they met the then-arriving warden hustling up the steps. Husbands said, “When I first walked in, I sure was glad to see old Wiatt there. He’s a good man to have on your hip.”12 They hurried to the warden’s office, where hostage Novella Pollard was on the phone confirming that “there’s a man up here with a gun.”13 She could give precious little further information about what was going on in the educational complex. Husbands asked the distraught schoolteacher to put the man with the gun on the phone. Carrasco almost gleefully took the phone and negotiations began. Wanting no opposition to his renewed authority, Carrasco let it be known immediately that he was in charge and he was ready for a long siege, if necessary. “We have these hostages and we won’t hurt anyone if you don’t charge us,” the inmate advised the warden.14 “We won’t charge,” Husbands assured, “as long as you don’t hurt anyone.”15 During the short conversation the volatile, twenty-seven-year-old Dominguez fired two random rounds into the ceiling. To Ann Fleming, who was not remotely familiar with such violence, this made a “horrible noise.” Meanwhile, Husbands ordered in a supply of tear gas generators and gas masks—just in case. The warden’s first impulse in dealing with Carrasco’s takeover was, “We were going to do all the things we could do in order to get along with him so we didn’t lose any of our people.” The initial game plan was to “hold him off and finally wear him down.”16 It did not take long for fear to invade the minds of Carrasco’s involuntary guests. To Fleming, “looking at the faces of those three people, there was nothing there but evil. They mean business. There’s no way we’re going to get out of here, alive,” she said. “I thought I was going to die from the first moment and I accepted that.”17 The hostages worried about the convicts resorting to physical torture for the men and rape and other violence against the women. Fleming was also concerned they were going to take all the hostages’ jewelry, credit cards, cash, and other valuables. According to Aline House, Cuevas gleefully harassed Pollard by rummaging through her purse every time she passed him. Other questions flashed through their minds. How was TDC going to get them out of this mess and would their release 29

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come only at a high cost in bloodshed? Whose blood? What stress would this have on them and their families? Would they ever even see their families again? They hardly had the ringing out of their ears from those first shots from the .357 caliber Magnum when they were herded into the far corner of the library and grouped into a tight semi-circle of chairs. Some of the hostages felt they were lined up this way for a rapid-fire execution. Carrasco gave them good news and bad news in the same sentence. He reassuringly told the hostages “it is not my plan to shoot anyone—until I am ready.” House said, “We felt we were being put together for a mass execution. We were petrified with fear.”18 From the very beginning, Linda Woodman thought “we’re all going to be killed. That went on so many times—several times a day. And then you get to thinking, ‘If they’re going to shoot us, why don’t they just shoot us?’” With resignation she said, “I decided that whatever was going to happen—I thought there was going to be gunplay with TDC trying to come in—some of us would be killed. I thought for the most part, all of us were going to get killed, one way or another.”19 The men were bound and gagged with heavy bookbinding tape. Carrasco told them that if TDC did not meet his demands, “I feel sorry for you.”20

Linda G. Woodman (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 30

“THERE’S A MAN UP HERE WITH A GUN.”

As Glennon Johnson put it, “We were never, never out of a clear understanding that he would shoot anyone of us at anytime that was appropriate for him.”21 Throughout the first afternoon and night, according to House, “Dominguez paced back and forth before us, gun drawn and pointed at us, holding the cocked hammer with his thumb and with his finger on the trigger. As he made turns in his pacing, he placed the gun in his other hand, so that it always was on the hostage side of his body.”22 That was typical Dominguez behavior. “Oh golly,” recalled Pollard, “that first day, that first night, the next day and the next night he never left us. I asked Fred if he would make Dominguez not point the gun at us. And I told him my teachers would not try anything. They would do anything he said if he would just turn that gun away. He was terrifying us, really. He was going to drive the women crazy because we were not used to guns and violence.”23 The hostages could only wonder and worry when either Cuevas or Dominguez would let loose a round through their own sheer ineptitude. Every inexplicable sound sent the two inmates into a frenzy. It could be pots and pans rattling in the dining room below. It could be pigeons fluttering around outside the building. The edgy Cuevas, at forty-two, the oldest of the gunmen trio, got particularly excited about the pigeons and their flapping wings. He raced into the attic at least eight times that day to make sure the flighty birds were not being scared off by prison guards attempting to enter through the roof. The hostages were not much concerned that they themselves would do anything that would cause an angry shot to be fired at them. They were more concerned that an abrupt ring of a telephone might set off a shot involuntarily. Or worse yet, the clumsy oafs strutting in front of them might trip over their own feet, causing a trigger pull. Even eating became a trying experience sometimes mixed, it seemed, with a touch of humor. Late Wednesday night the prison kitchen sent up some hastily prepared cold pork chop sandwiches. This new culinary experience, described by Correctional Officer James Willett as “having very little real meat,” repelled Woodman. She “could just imagine bones being in them. What a way to die,” she thought with a laugh.24 31

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It did not take long for the entire population of nineteen-hundredplus inmates in Huntsville State Penitentiary to know about the takeover. From the split second that first round was fired from Carrasco’s revolver, the prison grapevine carried the word throughout every wing and into every cell in the medium security facility. Most inmates want to follow the rules in order to insure tranquility, order and security and to be protected against the “nuts” in the institution. Variations in routine such as this one are as disturbing to the majority of inmates as they are to prison employees and the general public, perhaps even more so. In fact, in some similar past situations, inmates at other institutions had joined prison officials in disarming and quelling rebellious inmates. Almost from the time the slug from Carrasco’s pistol found its way into Sergeant Noviskie’s leg, just about everyone in the entire town of Huntsville was aware something had gone radically wrong inside the prison unit. The possibility and even probability of violence was a fear all prison employees, their families, and the townspeople lived and coped with daily. The locals grew wary and it was not long until town merchants and restaurant operators noticed a considerable drop in business. Many citizens brought pistols and hunting rifles out of storage and kept them at the ready—just in case. But by and large, the townspeople felt “the people at TDC know what they are doing and can handle it.”25 The local citizenry had it right, which is a lot more than one could say about some early newspaper accounts; one paper saying four of the hostages were women, and then went on to list the names of six. It was also falsely reported that Sergeant Noviskie had been taken captive by Carrasco who then “allowed Noviskie to receive medical help in exchange for another convict.”26 Within ninety minutes of Carrasco’s first shot, Public Affairs Director Ron Taylor and his assistant, Gail Monroe, were deluged with telephone calls from the news media and concerned citizens from across the state as well as the nation. The Huntsville Item put out its first extra since World War II, knocking the story of the possible Nixon impeachment right off the front page. The Houston office of NBC-TV News “hohummed” the story when it sent a field producer—one whose primary 32

“THERE’S A MAN UP HERE WITH A GUN.”

job is dealing with the logistics of a story—to Huntsville “on spec, to make sure we were covered, in case the hostage situation was not resolved quickly,” according to reporter George Lewis. “It wasn’t,” he continued, “and I was on my way to Huntsville the next day.”27

33

Chapter Four “Fred, what the hell are you doing?” —Father O’Brien, hostage

After ordering all but the most essential civilian employees out of the Walls and clearing the yards and inside compound of all inmates by returning them immediately to their cells, Warden Husbands responded to one of Fred Carrasco’s demands to “get hold of Father O’Brien, and have him come up here so we can talk to him and negotiate through him.”1 Husbands, with O’Brien already at his side, told Carrasco the priest was on his way. However, Carrasco had conditions. The Catholic clergyman was to remove his religious collar and have his hands cuffed in front of him. Turning to the Father while Carrasco waited, the warden explained the conditions. They were no problem for O’Brien. “Now you don’t have to go up there,” the warden advised the priest as he briefly reiterated the Texas Department of Corrections policy regarding hostagetaking—a policy that all prison workers, as part of their job orientation, have to review and sign. 2 Contract employees, such as the Windham School teachers and librarians, were made aware of it during 34

“FRED, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

Father Joseph J. O’Brien (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

their initial orientation sessions. The policy, as constantly reiterated by Estelle throughout his tenure as Director, was “it didn’t make any difference if you were a physician, plumber, or whatever. If you worked for the Department of Corrections, you had to understand and appreciate that security was the first and foremost concern of every employee.”3 Estelle called the policy “the only insurance those correctional officers and the people that are in daily contact with the convict population had. I used to address every single academy class for correctional officers and I put it on a very personal basis. I told them,” the director related, “if I ever come to a gate and you have any reason to suspect that I’m under duress or have been taken hostage and I order you to open the gate, if you open that gate, you’ve done two things— you’ve signed my death warrant and you’ve been fired.”4 “No doors,” the warden said solemnly to Father O’Brien, “will be opened to escaping convicts. There will be no exchange of hostages for prisoners’ freedom—even at the cost of hostages’ lives. And you,” he warned the priest, “could become a hostage.”5 Without a moment’s hesitation, Father O’Brien shot back, “I know that. But, I want to go up there anyhow.”6 Husbands did feel somewhat confident that O’Brien would be safe in his messenger’s role because Carrasco gave his word that he would 35

CHAPTER FOUR

be. “Carrasco had told me that he’d send him back. Normally,” the grizzled warden mused, “when one of those old thugs gives you their word, their word’s pretty good. If they give me their word, I give them mine. I keep mine and they keep theirs—usually.”7 Back on the phone, a demand was made to which the stunned warden replied, “You want how many? We can’t do that.” When Carrasco said he would kill a hostage if he did not get fifteen pairs of handcuffs, the warden conceded, “We’ll send them up as soon as I can gather them up. We’ll get right on it.”8 Hanging up, the warden grinned, “This old boy up there is pretty cool. He’s not excited at all. He’s well-collected and not one time did he seem like he was out of control or having a fit. Now he says he’ll trade us about fifty inmates for fifteen pairs of handcuffs and a television set. That ain’t no bad trade,” the warden snickered, “especially since there ain’t no way a TV’s gonna work up there because we’re too far from Houston to get anything if we don’t have cable. But, he didn’t ask and I didn’t tell him.”9 When Carrasco realized the television set was useless, he demanded a technician come wire the set for cable reception. But, as the FBI’s Bob Wiatt said, “We can’t find a TV technician who wants to go in there and become a potential hostage.”10 Carrasco was indeed, “pretty cool.” He was talking in a most natural manner, with no sign of fear nor anxiety. But then again, why should there be? Many times in his criminal past he had been in situations as tight, and he knew how to handle himself under fire. His initial demand of the television was no doubt so he could see the media coverage of his siege. This was the first sign of his colossal ego, a trait that would ultimately influence the outcome of the situation. The warden began employing a negotiating tactic that was endorsed by Director Estelle and was the law enforcement’s standard operating procedure throughout the ordeal, “give and take—feint and fake.”11 Husbands was in no hurry to comply with Carrasco’s demands, even though a quick resolution was the goal. The warden was practicing a prison officer’s shared philosophy of, “I believe in having a Bible in one hand—and a stick in the other.”12 36

“FRED, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

Wiatt, “always ready for hand-to-hand combat” as Father O’Brien viewed him, immediately volunteered to be that stick.13 Wiatt wanted to go up to the library with the priest but Husbands restrained him. “Bob, as an FBI man, you’ve got no business being up there. So far, this is a state crime and not a federal crime. And if you do go up there, those sons-a-bitches will kill you.”14 So it was O’Brien alone who walked out of the Warden’s office at about half-past one o’clock and into the Upper Yard. He was dressed only in black pants and a collarless white T-shirt with his cuffed hands prominently displayed straight out in front of him (the key to the cuffs was in his pants pocket). “I remember that walk from the warden’s office through the prison yard as the longest I have ever taken in my life,” said O’Brien. “My mind was in a state of confusion. It seemed a nightmare. It was like walking underwater, or moving in slow motion as one does in dreams. I dreaded what I might find in the prison library.”15 As soon as O’Brien left, the warden and Molly Stanley, who according to Husbands “knew how to get things done,” started telephone lines to the outside world humming.16 Stanley called Estelle’s secretary, Dorothy Coleman, to have her summon TDC Director Estelle back to Huntsville. About 110 armed prison guards, fifty more than the normal complement, were on hand by mid-afternoon. Sharpshooters were deployed on the hospital roof, one-hundred yards directly across the Upper Yard from the hostage site, and down in the tunnel leading from the Lower Yard. Husbands called James Frank (Pete) Rogers, a captain in the Texas Rangers’ A Company, headquartered in Houston. The fifty-one-yearold Rogers had been a lawman for twenty-eight years, twenty-seven of them as a Ranger. Prior to that, he had served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Corps over Germany in World War II, winning three Distinguished Flying Crosses and twelve Air Medals. He pioneered the use of aircraft for the Texas Department of Public Safety and he was a pilot with jet rating. Husbands had worked many cases with Rogers, especially when Rangers needed prison tracking dog teams while chasing outlaws through the piney woods in northern Harris County 37

CHAPTER FOUR

and Huntsville’s Walker County. Calling in the Rangers was, said Husbands “the thing to do. I knew we had to have help and we needed a bunch of it. I thought, hell, with him we can cross any river.”17 One of the next things Husbands wanted was building plans for the three-story structure housing the hostages. Alton Akins, TDC Assistant Director for Construction and Maintenance, provided blueprints with technical information on the building’s structural integrity, location of vents, conduits, and electrical distribution. The roof over the library was covered with terra cotta Spanish tiles. TDC could not come in that way due to the noise. The building walls were reinforced concrete frame with eight-inch thick masonry walls laid up with brick. The third floor had an acoustical tiled false ceiling. This combination of building materials unwittingly magnified sounds—such as wind and nesting birds—which soon had a shattering effect on the nerves of both hostages and “the guns” —as Wiatt called their captors. Akins’ drawings showed lines of sight such as the hostage-takers would see from their third-floor lair inside the eastward-facing building. The floor plans also showed which portions of the Upper Yard that could be observed from the third-floor doorway, thereby assisting TDC in placing its personnel and equipment outside those sightlines. Information on the thickness of walls, as well as material used, and the types reinforcing in place were furnished to aid demolition teams in sizing and placing dynamite charges. The plans confirmed the disappointing news that the third floor had only one entryway. That fact severely limited any plans officers could develop should they need to storm the facility. The absent library windows precluded any thought of launching debilitating teargas through them. The drawings also showed the floors separating the levels of the building were five inches of solid concrete. What the detailed drawings did not show was where a knucklehead mistake had been made in the building’s construction— a mistake that would turn into a bonanza for the officers in their quest for information from within the library. The actions of Carrasco and his cohorts set off a number of other reactions by law enforcement officials ranging far beyond the walls of the Huntsville prison. Calls went out immediately from Husbands to 38

“FRED, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

other system prisons nearby. “Send as many armed officers as you can spare.” The Huntsville Police Department was notified of pending dangers. All off-duty officers were put on alert and sent into action setting up roadblocks around the prison to control any curious onlookers—and meet any possible Carrasco rescue attempts from outside. Walker County Sheriff Darrell White offered his department’s assistance in whatever manner TDC officials felt was necessary. Calls went to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) in the state capital at Austin where Texas Ranger helicopters were put on standby alert. The DPS received another phone call from Huntsville, and knowing that Captain Rogers was already on his way to the prison with Sergeant John Krumnow and two other Rangers, it called Ranger Company “B” located outside of Dallas. Company Captain G. W. Burks was told to join Rogers. In addition to his Ranger standard issue semi-automatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle, Burks carried every kind of weapon available in his car. Everything was spit-shined, from his cowboy boots to his brace of ivory-handled pistols, to his Ranger badge on his Ranger hat.18 When Father O’Brien reached the library, the metal chain the convicts had wound through the two door’s handles to block their opening from the outside was unlocked and removed to admit him. Waiting with his pistol pointed menacingly at him was inmate Ignacio Cuevas, described by a fellow prisoner as “having an IQ at just about room temperature during winter.”19 He was one week away from his forty-third birthday. O’Brien turned to his right where Carrasco awaited him behind a threefoot railing known as the “picket fence”, where a prison guard was usually stationed to check prisoners in and out of the facility. “Fred!” shouted the priest, “what the hell are you doing?”20 Not at all startled by this language being used by a priest, Carrasco merely shrugged. O’Brien recalled, “When I entered the library, I met a different Carrasco from the one who worked for me in the chapel, meekly pushing a mop. He had taken command. His air of obsequiousness had vanished. His role was now Carrasco, the commander. His orders to me were short, sharp, curt and forceful. He 39

CHAPTER FOUR

was the bandit chief with the bandolier of ammunition draped over his shoulder and across his chest. He was pure macho!”21 In his soft voice, Carrasco informed the priest that his actions were indeed “for real.” When the priest asked if he had a grievance against the system, Carrasco answered curtly, “Of course not. This is an escape.” 22 He told the Father he needed him to act as a contact between himself and the warden. O’Brien said he was willing to do anything to ease the standoff but he told him his situation was “useless and you aren’t going to make it. Nobody is going to get out.” Carrasco was willing to take that chance. Looking directly into O’Brien’s eyes, he said, “We have nothing to lose. I will die if necessary for my liberty.” And with a faint smile on his face, he told the priest, “If I die today or tomorrow, it’s all the same to me.”23 With that, O’Brien started acting as a messenger boy for Carrasco. He informed O’Brien that he intended to keep the ten civilians and the lone prison guard as hostages. He also said that four inmates would stay. The other fifty-six inmates could go back to their cells. But, in order to maintain control of the exodus, they would be released in groups of five. Realizing that Carrasco’s actions were for real, O’Brien looked around and saw about five dozen confused, frightened, and anxious people sitting or standing around the library. They were all cowering under guns held by Cuevas and Rodolfo Dominguez. Speaking Spanish, Carrasco told the other inmate hostages that if they wanted to stay with him to raise their hand. For a few moments, no one moved as the inmates pondered their options. Surreptitiously, several civilian hostages whispered to their inmate clerks, urging them to get out. From the dozen or so that finally did raise their hands to stay, Carrasco chose four. They were all either bilingual or came from his hometown’s crime scene. These men, who would be called the “inmate hostages” were Enrique (Henry) Escamilla, prison number 232744, a forty-year-old who was serving five years for theft; Martin Quiroz, prison number 349668, twenty-six, who had two months left on his two-year sentence for narcotic possession; Steven Ray Robertson, prison number 204005, twenty-five, serving a fifteen-year sentence for rape; and Florencio Vera, prison number 231256, 40

“FRED, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

twenty-nine, serving ten years for burglary, who was recuperating from a recent colostomy.24 Carrasco wanted Hispanics as helpers and of the four, only Robertson was not. But, Carrasco and Robertson had a mutual friend, a fellowinmate. Robertson was in the library that day was because he had a gripe about the prison hospital system. “I was involved with prison reform,” he said in a soft-spoken voice with a mild Southern drawl, “and every time I come to the Walls for medical attention, they put me on lockup. They never tell me why. So, I come to the library to write a formal letter of complaint. And Carrasco comes out with a pistol.”25 The reasons these four volunteered to stay were varied. Quiroz’s rationale was, “I was thinking about the ladies, you know, because, like, they’re not policemens, you know. They’re working here to help educate the convicts. I mean, I’m not going to school or anything here, but I was thinking towards them, and I was hoping that would help them in any way.”26 Robertson boasted, “I sympathized with them. I wasn’t in on it but, I was helping them, you know.” Exaggerating a bit he said, “Well, of course, I volunteered. He’s a friend of mine. He asked me to stay. I stayed.”27 Later, Robertson changed his story when answering the authorities who asked him why he volunteered. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s really hard to say. I guess more out of curiosity than anything else. I never been a part of nothing like that and I knew something was going to happen.”28 According to most civilian captives, the four inmate volunteers also were hostages, as much as any of them were. Throughout the ordeal, most civilians were vociferous in their praise for the help the inmate hostages gave them. They went to great lengths to chastise the media who mistakenly labeled them as Carrasco allies. Yet, even though none of the four was ever charged with aiding and abetting in the crimes, all of them were more than a little helpful to Carrasco in overseeing the real hostages throughout the siege. They helped guard the civilian hostages; they kept watch on the exit, and did whatever tasks Carrasco assigned them, and some that were not—such as climbing up into the rafters to keep a lookout on prison personnel through the attic’s louvers. 41

CHAPTER FOUR

Father O’Brien, who thought the four should have been charged with aiding and abetting in a criminal activity, said they “went above and beyond the call of duty” in helping Carrasco contain his captives. “At night, when one of the “hostiles”—as Estelle constantly called Carrasco and his fellow hostage-takers—would be sitting there with a gun and maybe in danger of falling asleep, there was always a so-called inmate hostage looking at you,” said the priest.29 Linda Woodman believed they were brothers with Carrasco, some hoping to be re-paid after a successful breakout. But the four were in awe of him and felt he was important. O’Brien, at Carrasco’s command, supervised the inmate hostages’ release. The piecemeal evacuation was done to prevent a stampede to freedom. Five at a time, as agreed, the priest sent them scurrying down the ramp. Prison officials shook them down and hurriedly questioned them. Some inmates offered information, sometimes contradictory; some merely said the did not know. Estelle summed up this intelligencegathering effort by saying, “we didn’t get much that we didn’t know already.”30

42

Chapter Five “I’m scared and sick, just sick.” —Betty Branch, wife of hostage, Jack Branch

In the first hour of the takeover, Carrasco instructed the hostage inmates to build a barricade inside the educational complex doorway. File cabinets, tables, and portable shelves were moved in front of the glass doors at the library entrance. Piled on the filing cabinets were boxes of books. Up against the inner side of the filing cabinets was a table, upon which two straight-back, unpadded chairs were placed, facing inward. Those were the chairs for the “honor guard”— the hostages would be seated there with a rope around their shoulders and chair backs, and across their upper legs and under the chair seat. With one wrist handcuffed to a metal filing cabinet, they would sit with their backs to the doors, serving as shields to prevent TDC sharpshooters from firing into the complex and picking off the hostage-holders. After releasing all the inmates, Carrasco’s search intensified for Correctional Officer (CO) Bobby Heard, the twenty-seven-year-old Sam Houston State University student who had retreated into the crawl space above the false ceiling. Heard was six-foot-two, 43

CHAPTER FIVE

Anthony J. (Jack) Branch, Jr. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

weighing 230 pounds, and he had been assigned as educational complex guard on a roving basis, on call if a teacher had disciplinary problems. Stationed at the desk at the entryway, he also verified late-arriving prisoners’ passes, checking inmates in and out. Or, if an inmate needed medical attention, the CO determined validity of the need. Many times inmates resented having to be cleared, and the abuse of power by some officers exacerbated that resentment. But Carrasco had nothing against Heard in particular. In general, he just represented the bosses, a term of grudging respect used by inmates when addressing their captors. At the start of the invasion Heard was in Glennon Johnson’s office with an inmate, notarizing some papers for the prisoner. Heard was to be relieved from his duties in the educational complex in less than hour. Johnson saw people rushing to the back of the room and asked Heard, “Why are all those people running?”1 Heard had stepped outside the office door and saw Carrasco standing there with a gun. Knowing he was out-manned and totally out-gunned, Heard dashed to a small storage room where an opening led to the attic. He scrambled up, looking for a way out of the building. It turned out to be an act that made Carrasco despise the guard. The warden said Carrasco told him during one of their first telephone conversations that Officer Heard had “used the women as a shield and ran.” But Husbands found that hard to accept.2

44

“I’M SCARED AND SICK, JUST SICK.”

Unfortunately for Heard, the hostage-takers saw him beat his hasty retreat and ordered him down. When the guard failed to obey, Carrasco fired three more rounds into the ceiling. Inmate Robertson spoke Spanish fluently and heard Carrasco tell Dominguez to “go up there and kill him. If he don’t come down, kill him!”3 The shots and threats were followed by a direct order from Warden Husbands over the prison’s public address system as demanded by Carrasco. “They’re gonna keep firing up there until they kill you,” the warden warned Heard.4 Loud pleas by Father O’Brien and a search of the attic by two inmate hostages brought a shirtless Heard out of his stifling hiding place with his hands up. He was blindfolded, gagged, bound hand and foot, placed in a rickety chair and carted by several inmates over in front of the entrance door. For his escape efforts and because he was a prison guard, he was awarded the label of Number One. As Father O’Brien recalled, “Heard got a lot of verbal abuse. They kept him chained at the doorway. Even if he had to go to the bathroom, they kept him chained there for hours.” According to Husbands, “he went through hell. They threatened to kill him time and time again. His nerves were next to nothing.”5 As soon as they put Heard at the entrance, Carrasco phoned Husbands and told him that if the handcuffs and TV set did not arrive “soon,” he would shoot Bobby Heard. There was no mistaking Carrasco’s intent nor his words. He spoke English, forcefully, when he wanted to. To echo Carrasco’s threat, Dominguez squeezed off two shots that missed the guard’s head by inches, leaving Heard pleading for his life. And the more he begged, the more it pleased his captors. “This,” Dominguez said sarcastically while pointing at the guard, “is what TDC put up here to protect the ladies. Just look at him,” he sneered. He told the guard he was “the biggest chicken up there” and if they killed him, they were not “killing much.” The thoroughly frightened Heard was officially designated first to be executed if and when the time came.6 The remaining hostages trembled each time Carrasco picked up the telephone. With each of his calls to the warden, making one demand after another, he always set unreasonable deadlines, most that could not be met and were not. The deadlines became times of terror for the 45

CHAPTER FIVE

hostages. As each one neared, the captive’s wrists rubbed raw against the metal handcuffs. And when each deadline passed and as Carrasco did not immediately get what he wanted, he flew into screaming rages, venting his anger particularly in Heard’s direction. The hostages as well as lawmen were quickly impressed with Carrasco’s detailed advance planning. Regarding food, the hostages had figured out a system. “They,” recalled Linda Woodman, “had food through the prison commissary—canned peaches, pears, canned meat, Vienna sausage—that they brought up to the library and put behind books in advance. We figured that out because they weren’t eating with us.”7 It seemed to the hostages that Carrasco had thought out the actual takeover in infinite detail. It was in the second stage—the getting-out stage—where things were unclear. As Heard saw it, “I don’t think that he had any set plan after he took us hostage.”8 According to Novella Pollard, Carrasco said he expected to be “in there less than seventy-two hours.”9 He intended to make very specific demands of TDC for his release. What he did not have were plans for what to do if his demands were not met. As Ann Fleming saw it, “He had the timing down. He knew who was going to be where and when. He may have even known that Estelle was going be out of town. The only thing he did not know was how he was going get out of there!”11 Confirmation of that suspicion came from conversations the hostages had with Carrasco. Pollard said hostages offered suggestions for his escape. There was talk of using a plane owned by one of his San Antonio lawyers. It was suggested he could demand the state make one of its aircraft available to him. Pollard said, “It was Father O’Brien who suggested that we shield him to get out.”11 Carrasco listened attentively to all these alternatives, leaving them to ultimately believe he did not have a plan of escape and was searching for one. Another thing Carrasco had not planned on was the steeliness of Ward James Estelle, Jr. One of the first to arrive at TDC’s Administration Building following that first shot was Dr. Lane Murray, Windham School Superintendent. “This is an agony for all of us,” she said, “and naturally, we are all fearful but at the same time hopeful.”12 46

“I’M SCARED AND SICK, JUST SICK.”

Murray was close to her staff, teachers, and librarians. She immediately committed her full staff to help prison officials any way possible for any tasks requested. At about three that afternoon, Martha Smith, TDC Administrative Assistant for Personnel, and Reverend Clyde Johnston, Director of Prison Chaplains, began calling families of those confirmed by go-between Father O’Brien as hostages. At four o’clock, Carrasco allowed hostages to call their families and assure them everything was relatively okay. Jack Branch told his wife Betty, “Things were rough at first but they’re getting better.” That did not relieve her anxiety. “I’m scared and sick, just sick!” she cried.13 R. L. (Buster) Beseda said his wife Von seemed “more concerned about the dog and the children than anything else” when they talked.14 The Windham staff did everything possible to make families comfortable and calm their nerves. They issued identification badges allowing them in and out of the Administration Building. Three television sets were brought in to keep family members abreast of news. Coffee was brought in and for the next ten days, local restaurants, businesses, fraternal organizations, banks, and churches sent meals over for hostages’ families. Bakeries sent doughnuts and restaurants sent sandwich trays. Coffee and punch were available around the clock. So too were counselors, psychologists, and nineteen members of the clergy.

Elizabeth Yvonne (Von) Beseda (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 47

CHAPTER FIVE

Telephone calls from the library were relayed through the prison switchboard to family members gathered in the Administration Building. Ann Fleming’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Frances, received one of the first, reporting that her mother said the hostages were “all right” and the convicts were “real polite.”15 Unfortunately, that was not exactly the case; it was what the mother was told say—as it would be in many telephone calls from hostages to loved ones and the media. In some cases, they were even rehearsed. On Wednesday evening, with local media outlets leading with the takeover story, several family members chose to stay all night at the Conference Center so mattresses and pillows were brought into Assistant Director McKaskle’s office. Also, as family members later became tired, nervous, upset, or ill, they too were taken into McKaskle’s office to lie down and rest. Almost every family had a member sleeping in this office at one time or another. Meanwhile, normal prison life had to be

TDC Director W. J. Estelle, Jr., is on the telephone negotiating while other Think Tank members (l. to r.), FBI agent Robert Wiatt, TDC interpreter Ben Aguilar, Attorney Ruben Montemayor, public information officer Ron Taylor, and Texas Ranger Captain G. W. Burks look on. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 48

“I’M SCARED AND SICK, JUST SICK.”

maintained. Some inmates were still in the second floor dining room that Wednesday afternoon; some finishing lunch, others doing necessary cleanup chores. All noises emanating from the clanking dishwashing machines, metal trays, banging pots and pans, put the hostage-takers on edge. They believed guards were trying to tunnel up into the third floor. Another Carrasco phone call demanded that whatever was going on there be stopped or again, he would shoot guard Bobby Heard. Warden Husbands went to the dining room and shut it down. By late afternoon, Estelle, Husbands and other members of the prison system hierarchy gathered in the warden’s sixteen by eighteen foot office—the command post, or “Think Tank” as it would soon become known—trying to figure out possible moves in this human chess game. Ranger Captains Rogers and Burks set up twelve-hour shifts for themselves and their men. Each brought about half of his Company. Public Affairs Director Ron Taylor entered with a stack of pink “While You Were Out” telephone messages. The topmost was a 3:30 p.m. call from San Antonio attorney Ruben Montemayor, one of Carrasco’s lawyers. He had heard radio news reports about the takeover and he wanted to know if he could help in dealing with his client. The Think Tank members kicked the offer around. Estelle asked Husbands, “You got any suggestions?” The warden was skeptical and suspicious. “What’s in it for him? Whose side is he gonna be on?” he asked. “I think if he has to take a stand on one side or the other, he’ll take it on Carrasco’s side.”16 The general feeling in the room was this could just be another lawyer’s trick to get some free publicity. Other opinions from those who knew of Estelle’s aversion that bordered on phobia to members of the legal profession were even stronger. “Oh, Jesus! No!” was one comment. Estelle said, “If we let him in, we can throw him out. But right now, we need somebody who knows Carrasco from a different standpoint than we do. He can maybe talk to him.”17 At about 6:00 p.m., Husbands called Montemayor and invited him to Huntsville. Montemayor said, “I know the Hispanic mind,“ and, regarding Carrasco directly, he said, “ I’ve dealt with him. I know him. I have friendly relations with him.”18 49

CHAPTER FIVE

The lawyer, who had his own plane, departed immediately. Less than two hours later, the somewhat portly lawyer wearing a lightcolored summer suit and a stylish necktie, was ushered into the Think Tank. Estelle wasted no time in getting to the point saying, “Your client is in a bind and he’s got some of my people in a bind, too. I appreciate you being here,” he continued, “but you’ve got to understand something. You don’t make any decisions. You don’t put anything on the table for him to grab onto until you’ve cleared it with this group of people here. Is that understood?” asked Estelle in a manner that would not tolerate anything but a positive answer.19 “Whatever your rules are,” Montemayor said, “that’s fine with me. I just want to see if I can get this guy out of this mess.”20 Estelle handed a telephone to Montemayor and said, “Counselor, give your client a call.” With that, the Spanish-speaking attorney handled most of the conversation between the Think Tank and the library for the next ten days. Montemayor’s position was dicey at best. He found himself working both sides of the street with his San Antonio client on one and the Texas Department of Corrections on the other. His predicament? Attorney-client relations on one hand and law enforcement on the other. The lawyer’s first conversation with his client brought a sense of relief to Carrasco when he heard the familiar voice. But it did not take him long to do away with the greetings and forcibly reiterate his point. “Let me tell you, Ruben, the thing is simple. All they have to do is give in a little. If they don’t, then they know what to expect. I thank you that you are involved in this. It is like a line in the sand. Over that line is the death penalty.”21 Some people, along with Estelle, believe Montemayor’s efforts in the negotiations, his calming manner when Carrasco was ranting, raving, and threatening the most dire consequences, saved more than a few of the hostages’ lives.

50

Chapter Six “Put down your arms and surrender safely.” —TDC Director, Jim Estelle, Jr.

Montemayor’s contact with Carrasco seemed to bring progress. Carrasco assured him that if the authorities did not “charge me, the hostages will be safe.”1 A hand-written message from Estelle was sent to the library. “You have not harmed anyone,” it read. “Neither have we. We cannot dishonor the hostages by placing them in greater danger by delivering more weapons to you . . . we cannot do more than ask you to consider the feelings of your own family and the feelings of your hostages and their family. Put down your arms and surrender safely.”2 Carrasco was told if he freed his civilian prisoners along with Heard and gave himself up, his attorney would witness his safe surrender in front of the media to make sure “we do not hurt you, injure you, brutalize you . . .”3 What they were telling him was they would give him almost anything he wanted—except exit from the prison. The mercurial Carrasco flew into a rage and negotiations fell apart. By now, Father O’Brien was hurrying back and forth between the library and the warden’s office carrying supplies to 51

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the library, sometimes alone, sometimes with an inmate helping him. Among his other chores as go-between, O’Brien became Carrasco’s human guinea pig. For example, he had to eat the first of the pork chop sandwiches. Carrasco had thought of the possibility that their food would be tampered with well in advance—as evidenced by his stashing of supplies. When the priest did not exhibit any ill effects, Carrasco allowed the sandwiches to be passed around. Each time O’Brien came back to the warden’s office, he reported conditions in the library. He brought good news—“Most of the hostages are doing all right.” And he brought bad news— “Mr. Heard is not doing too well. He’s shaking a lot. The only reason he came down from the attic was because Carrasco said he was going to keep firing shots through the ceiling tiles until he killed him.” He also brought intelligence—how the room was fortified, where people slept, and how heavy the defense was at the front door. And he brought the dire news that Carrasco “figures he can shoot his way out.”4 He brought out a typewritten list with a one-hour deadline and Carrasco’s ominous warning, “We are making these demands, determined that if they are not met we will be obligated to put all the hostages to death. In the event you refuse these demands, you can expect Mr. Heard dead.”5 The note contained the hostage-taker’s latest demands. The ante was upped considerably. Now Carrasco wanted three M16 rifles; six

Bobby G. Heard (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 52

“PUT DOWN YOUR ARMS AND SURRENDER SAFELY.”

bulletproof vests; three bulletproof helmets; five full ammunition clips, along with one-hundred rounds of ammunition for each rifle; and three walkie-talkies, all assigned to the same frequency. “If you don’t cooperate with me,” the drug kingpin threatened, he would “start killing the hostages one at a time.”6 In what seemed like an incongruous afterthought, Carrasco also demanded “suitable clothing for the three of us.”7 The issue of more ammunition and armaments was purposefully ignored as authorities stalled for more time via the clothing order. That demand gave TDC another chance to implement its stall program. “We tried,” Estelle remembered, “to buy time and we bought time by lying. For instance, he wanted civilian clothes for him and his compadres. So we bought clothing that we knew would not be acceptable, it would not fit. So, they had to be exchanged—giving us a little bit more time.”8 It was not they doubted Carrasco’s threats, they knew better. “He’s shot people before,” advised Assistant Director Dr. Don Kirkpatrick.9 But, Estelle continued the foot-dragging game into the evening. Estelle purposely tried to avoid direct contact with Carrasco over the phone, leaving that to Husbands and Montemayor. By so doing, he established a buffer between opposing camps giving TDC more time to ponder its moves, time achieved by delaying answers to the library and telling Carrasco, “We’ll have to get back to you on that after we clear it with Mr. Estelle.” Regarding the clothes order, Montemayor asked, “Tell us more. What size suits do you want?” Carrasco was again well prepared. “I want clothes, underwear, socks, razor blades, soap, deodorant, and face lotion,” he demanded. For himself, he ordered the pricey Hart Schaffner & Marx label. He stipulated Nunn-Bush brand shoes. He placed similar exact orders for Cuevas and Dominguez. But, in an almost whispered caveat, he required that his suit be at least twice as expensive as the others. And once again, Carrasco could not resist making another threat, “If the clothes are not good, I will kill the hostages.”10 Even as Montemayor asked Carrasco again to free the hostages and surrender, things took another, more bizarre twist. Carrasco was part 53

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of a four-way telephone call to San Antonio with another of his other lawyers, James H. Gillespie; assistant managing editor Peter Franklin, of the San Antonio Light; and newscaster Will Sinclair, of KITE Radio. The conversation opened with the expected questions about why Carrasco was trying to pull off this escape and the consequences it would have on him and his family. “Aren’t you willing,” Sinclair asked, “to save your wife Rosa from all of the agony of what might happen?” Carrasco’s response was, “If I’m dead, it’s all over.” The newscaster shot back, “Yeah, but it’s not over for her.” “She’ll find another life,” Carrasco replied. “Little by little, she’ll forget all about me.” Gillespie reminded him that Rosa “loves you so much . . . and your kids love you, too.” That made no difference. The law “can’t hurt me more than it has already,” Carrasco said, dismissing the subject. Then, in plenty of time for the evening’s late newscasts, Carrasco dropped a bomb. When asked where he got the guns and ammunition, he said he paid twenty-five-thousand dollars for the contraband weapons and he named none other than the security chief for the entire Texas Department of Corrections, Major Andrew J. Murdock, Jr. 11 According to Father O’Brien, Murdock was “as tough as a boot.”12 He watched Carrasco like a hawk, and that scrutiny infuriated Carrasco. The attention from Murdock, and Carrasco’s fury at the increased interest, intensified after Estelle received a March 28, 1974 letter from the United States Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency in Dallas. It said the agency had “received information that an escape attempt will be made in the near future by Federico Carrasco”. It said “information was received from four separate and extremely reliable informants that Carrasco would be a model prisoner and the escape attempt would not be made until he received an outside job.” Carrasco never got that “outside job.”13 Estelle quickly refuted Carrasco’s charges against Murdock. With the officer off on a regularly scheduled fishing vacation and unable to defend himself, Estelle said emphatically Carrasco might just as well 54

“PUT DOWN YOUR ARMS AND SURRENDER SAFELY.”

have “accused my own mother.” He continued, “Murdock’s not going to win any popularity contests in elections from the convict body, that isn’t his mission in life. He’s a no-nonsense, security-minded individual and I’m not about to let Major Murdock hang out there twisting in the wind. I‘m not going to let some lying, hostage-taking, skirt-protected, convict damage a good man.”14 Public affairs officer Ron Taylor said the major was one of the most respected officers in the entire system and called Carrasco’s statement “a set up.” When Estelle was asked why would Carrasco single out the major, a veteran of thirty years service in the prison system, he replied, “Carrasco knew Murdock had him under surveillance from the minute he stepped inside the Walls Unit. Murdock wasn’t going to let up on him.”15 Murdock had “convict sense, a combination of quick insight and manipulative skill. At the lowest level, having convict sense would keep an officer from being tricked or duped by an inmate, ‘buying a hog’ in TDC parlance. 16 More generally, it meant knowing what inmates were thinking or planning and using that knowledge to control them,” said Estelle.17 It was also speculated that Carrasco fingered Murdock to throw law enforcement off the trail of anyone else who may have, in fact, smuggled the guns into the Walls. Estelle’s extended defense of Murdock backfired on him later when anxiety-ridden hostages felt the director was spending too much time defending the major and not enough on getting them out. As Ann Fleming put it, “Why wasn’t he working as hard on us? It seemed to me he was more concerned about the wrong things.”18 Warden Husbands felt there was another reason Carrasco was trying to get at Murdock. “He was trying to get even with the Major,” as the warden saw it, “because he had been assigned to Father O’Brien as a cleanup boy and that was lowering his status in life. He was no longer a macho man.” Husbands surmised, “Here was Carrasco, a gang leader that was now nothing but a god-damn janitor.”19 When it came to defending Major Murdock’s integrity against any charges of impropriety, Red McKaskle came up with the most succinct answer to Carrasco’s allegation, “Bullshit!”20

55

CHAPTER SIX

Still another cloud formed in the developing storm. As noted, Father O’Brien also had been on vacation prior to the start of the siege. That led to speculation that Carrasco used the priest’s absence to have his weapons shipped in. Assistant Director Kirkpatrick said, “We are looking at the possibility that the guns came from inside the prison. A guard, a teacher, or a chaplain could have brought them in, perhaps unknowingly. There are only three ways to get contraband inside the prison: by mail, by vehicle, or by someone either on the outside or inside bringing it in.”21 The fact that contraband did get into the prison was a given, according to Dwight Covell, in his sixth of a thirty-year murder sentence. “Everybody knows that. I mean, there’s some things that comes in. But,” he was quick to add with a laugh, “I’ve never heard of no guns or nothing like that coming in.”22 Some suggested Carrasco timed a mailing from his San Antonio associates to arrive at the chapel office during O’Brien’s absence, thereby giving Carrasco the freedom to open the package and get his guns and ammunition. The now-angry priest scornfully said, “That was a damned lie and I resented that because I was very security wise.”23 Such speculation was further negated because the chaplain received most mail at his residence outside the Walls Unit. According to inmate chapel worker Troy Halcomb, “it could easily come through the mechanical department or some other spot such as your print shop, your box factory, your mechanical department,” and other places where packages were routinely brought in to the prison.24 The bizarre chain of events continued seemingly ad infinitum on the long, long Wednesday. Every thirty minutes or so, Carrasco would arbitrarily move the civilian hostages from one corner of the library to another. He simply did not want TDC to know exactly where they were. At about three o’clock, sixty-one-year-old widow Aline House began to feel effects of her captivity. She was on medication for angina, but she did not have a supply of pills at work. The prison hospital was called and after a check with her family doctor, the medication was sent up to the library. 56

“PUT DOWN YOUR ARMS AND SURRENDER SAFELY.”

Glennon D. Johnson (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

After the shock of the initial takeover, things settled down in the library to what in the ensuing picture could almost be called mundane. Much of the afternoon and early evening were occupied with inmate releases from the library, Father O’Brien’s go-between activities, telephone calls from Carrasco to the warden, building the barricade in front of the door, and the hostages’ panicky phone calls to their families. Dr. Glennon Johnson, fifty-one, Education and Recreation (E&R) Director for the prison’s educational facility, was normally in charge on the third floor. Johnson became a member of the hostage honor guard after Jack Branch and Ron Robinson spent some time at the library entrance. Johnson was blindfolded and handcuffed, and his legs were taped together. Hours of rough treatment coupled with lingering fear of possible death from either side of the entryway, caused Johnson to suffer from severe chest pain. On one occasion, Dominguez shoved his gun in Johnson’s face and threatened to kill him. That attitude terrified Johnson and all the hostages. The E&R Director had already been nauseated earlier in the day, vomiting in the bathroom. The added pressure of being placed at the entrance overwhelmed him. “I sat there for approximately thirty minutes,” he said, “and things started happening in my chest region and I practically passed out, slumped over on the table.”25 57

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Johnson turned a gray clay color and began to moan, gasp, and shake violently. He was released from the chair and brought back to the hostage area, collapsing on the way. To Ms. House, it seemed, “he was suffering some kind of heart attack.”26 Dominguez and Cuevas said he was faking. “I believed the man was about to die,” noted Linda Woodman. “I really did. I don’t think there was any doubt in the world that the man was being scared to death.”27 Johnson was unbound by the four hostage volunteers and laid on the floor, gasping for breath. Two women hostages tried to administer aid, loosening his necktie and rubbing his hands. His skin was clammy, his complexion a pallor. Among the hostages, the feeling was unanimous that Glennon Johnson was suffering from a heart attack or hyperventilation. When Carrasco came over to see for himself, to Dominguez’ dismay, he removed Woodman’s handcuffs and ordered her to telephone the warden. At approximately 9:00 p.m., Linda made the call from the educational complex and said, “Mr. Johnson is having a heart attack.” She urged that some oxygen be sent.28 Carrasco only wanted a doctor. Husbands would have no part of that, saying “we could not send a doctor” fearing he might also become a hostage.29 Montemayor warned that if Johnson died from heart failure, Carrasco would be charged with murder of a hostage, a capital offense. With Carrasco’s sullen acquiescence to that logic, in a few minutes four stretcher-bearing inmates came running up the ramp. They were admitted and hustled the stricken man on the stretcher back out the door, down the ramp, and over to the prison hospital. From there, it was off to Huntsville Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed by his personal physician, spent the night and was released the next day. Warden Husbands reflected, “Hyperventilation? Heart attack? I don’t know what he had but he was smart enough to get out of there. He was in a hell of a spot and he knew he wasn’t no hero. To tell you the truth, I think he just plain out-smarted Carrasco. I don’t think he had a damn thing wrong with him.”30 Glennon Johnson was the first to get a ticket out of Hell with a “heart attack.” He would not be the last. 58

“PUT DOWN YOUR ARMS AND SURRENDER SAFELY.”

Sometime just before midnight on that first day, Montemayor and Carrasco had a long telephone chat, with the lawyer outlining the gravity of the situation and the killer rebuffing the arguments. The lawyer tried to take the conversation into a new direction. Alternating between Spanish to English as he usually did while Carrasco hardly ever strayed from his mother tongue in their conversations, Montemayor said, “I want you to think about your friends, your wife, your kids, your Momma. It’s very important. It’s never too late. And, there’s a lot of people behind you. Ok, Cuate?”31 Montemayor often used this term, meaning friend or buddy, when he spoke with Carrasco. Carrasco again put that subject on hold until morning, but he did ask about the media coverage his takeover was getting locally and sounded pleased when Montemayor told him “there are a lot of people outside, lots of reporters.”32 The first day ended when the handcuffed hostages, exhausted by fear and apprehension, fell asleep on their pallets, which consisted of a couple of sheets and a pillow laid on a rough indoor-outdoor carpet spread over a concrete floor. That is, everyone except Bobby Heard, still strapped tightly to his iron chair up on the barricade in front of the entrance, and the rotating shift of captors who kept a twenty-four-hour vigil.

59

Chapter Seven July 25, 1974 • Day Two

“He will kill those people.” —Father O’Brien, hostage

Somewhere around one o’clock on Thursday morning, Father O’Brien made his last trip to the prison library. Fred Carrasco offered to let him sleep at home, “Or, if he wants to sleep here, it’s up to him.” 1 O’Brien returned to the third-floor complex, bringing more sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, and minor medications such as aspirin and antacids. At least three times during the preceding twelve hours he had walked in and out, a courier of supplies and messages. Each time he left, he promised the women he would come back. And each time he left, the wily Carrasco made the hostages move to another part of the library so the priest could not tell authorities exactly where they were. But the ever-suspicious Cuevas and Dominguez were convinced that O’Brien was spying on them. O’Brien was indeed giving the authorities as much information as he could. He told them more about Bobby Heard, who was being constantly taunted by his captors with comments like, “Why don’t you run to the attic again, Heard?”2 He reported on the mirrors 60

“HE WILL KILL THOSE PEOPLE.”

rigged at the doorway so the captors could oversee the situation without being in the prison sharpshooters’ line of fire. He reported that Carrasco (whom he described as calm, polite and serious) “will kill those people” and will “shoot his way out if he has to.”3 The Father was hoping to continue going in and out. But, he said, “I think Dominguez and Cuevas started to figure out what I was doing. And they got into a fight—the three of them. Carrasco wanted me to keep doing what he thought I was doing and the other two said, ‘No.’ They wanted to keep me as a hostage.”4 Finally, Cuevas and Dominguez stood up to Carrasco and demanded that the priest either be kept in or kept out. It came down to a facesaving compromise and the leader firmly delivered an ultimatum to the short, burley priest, “Father, you are free to leave again if you want to. But, if you do, you do not come back. If you want to stay, you become a hostage like the rest.”5 He had been offered his last chance at freedom. He refused it. “I was disappointed by the choices,” the forty-six-year-old priest recalled. The civilian hostages begged him to go. They insisted, “Don’t come back. Don’t come back.” But, they were unanimous in their joy at his response. “I’m staying with my people,” was his defiant answer. It was where he knew he belonged. “I never had any second thoughts about staying.”6 The hostages “were pleased with his decision,” remembered Aline House, “and we became more and more grateful for his presence as time dragged on. His sincerity, his understanding of the Spanish language, and his ability to relieve tension with his calmness and wit helped everyone,” said the librarian.7 “I knew,” O’Brien said, “it was going to be a long, long siege. I also knew some of us would never survive the ordeal.”8 It was now after four in the morning, and in between their catnaps, Director Estelle, Warden Husbands, and attorney Montemayor could only surmise the worst may have happened when O’Brien did not return from his last trip to the library. Without definite knowledge, however, they could not and would not act on their worst fears. Shortly before the summer morning’s early daybreak, John Buchin of United Press International Radio in New York got a telephone call 61

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through to Estelle and asked about the mood at the penitentiary. Estelle told him it was calm. “We went through our regular evening meal last night. No problem. The rest of the inmates understand the situation. They, of course, have been watching their own televisions, listening to their own radio stations, getting the news from the free-world community. It’s been very calm. They recognize the situation for what it is.” The reporter asked if TDC had a timetable. “Negative,” Estelle responded in a calm voice. “We’re in a holding pattern at this time. We’ll be back in touch with them a little later this morning.” Buchin asked, “What are your expectations?” Estelle answered, “John, it’s really difficult to predict at this point. We’ll do everything humanly possible to protect them.” 9 Another early Thursday morning telephone conversation had none of the animosity one would expect between two adversaries, especially when one of them was, according to hostage House a “mad dog killer.” It opened with Warden Husbands. “Fred,” he said, “I want you to know this ahead of time. We’re going to start serving breakfast fairly early in the morning. And that same noise is going to start back because we can’t do that without making those noises. You have my word, we’re not going to pull a damn thing on you and we’re not going to deceive you and I’m not going to lie to you. But, we’re going to feed the people. And, we’ve got some men we’ve got to discharge, we’ve got to parole, and sick people got to go to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston and we’re going to take care of what we’ve got to take care of.” Carrasco had no problem with the routine and even asked, “By the way, how did that old man come out?” Carrasco was assured Glennon Johnson was “getting along fine.” The inmate confessed, “Believe me, I thought I had a dead man on my hands.” Husbands told Carrasco, “You just keep your word to me like you have been and I’ll keep mine to you and we act like men about it. Fair enough?” 10 Agreeing on that, they wished each other a pleasant good night.

62

“HE WILL KILL THOSE PEOPLE.”

With the dawn of the second day, Huntsville, Texas and the Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections were, via ever expanding media attention, becoming better known than most citizens of either domicile would have preferred. Huntsville was founded as an Indian trading post circa 1836 by Pleasant and Ephraim Gray who chose the name Huntsville after their former home so named in Alabama. By 1974, Huntsville had grown from less than 1,000 in 1860 to about 18,000. The Walls Unit received its first convict on October 1, 1849, a cattle rustler. Construction of the facility among the tall pines and red clay of eastern Texas featured a 15-to-20-foot high sandstone brick wall. There is no doubt as to the purpose of the structure. The Walls, with five cellblocks and administration buildings, covers almost 100 acres. Although it is just a part of today’s 100-prison system stretching 900plus miles across the Lone Star state from Beaumont to El Paso, every one of the system’s 17,000 inmates is processed in one way or another at the Walls Unit. Inside the Walls in 1974, a medium-security prison, everyone of the 1,900 inmates had an eight-hour job—making cloth for bed linens in the textile factory; cooking or cleaning or serving food in mess halls; repairing TDC vehicles in the automotive maintenance center, or cleaning the prison chapel. The rules applied equally to everyone, from convicted ax murderers to petty thieves. As in a lot of places then in the South, segregation existed within the Walls Unit; the Hispanics were housed in one cellblock, the Blacks, and the Whites in others. Inmates shot hoops in the yard, lifted weights, shadow boxed, played shuffleboard, or tossed quoits. They played chess or checkers, watched television or listened to the radio, or went to the rodeo ring next door for an annual show of horses and horsemanship, one of the largest displays in the entire Lone Star State. They ate three square meals a day; had clean clothes and shoes and socks; fresh bed linens, and all kinds of counseling and medical care. They went to the library or to school or to the barbershop. If they were in any way artistically or mechanically inclined, there was a “piddling shop” to ply their craft. They visited with friends and family. It was not hard time.11 63

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But, they could think about getting out. And some thought about it night and day. They could plan. They could scheme. Time was on their side. Time was on Federico Gomez Carrasco’s side. He had a year to think about his plans. All he had to do was to wait for the right time. As the Huntsville siege settled into its second day, sharpshooters and guards carrying shotguns were brought in, as was equipment to generate tear gas. Four military helicopters—one Medevac unit and three armored attack machines—were standing by at the Huntsville airport. Law enforcement officers on scene started to learn more about their primary adversary, Federico Carrasco, el Senor, as he was called by the San Antonio press.12 As Estelle put it, “It’s awfully easy to underestimate people you don’t know. The more you know about a person, the more accurate your assessment of their weaknesses and strengths are. Carrasco didn’t know me well enough; I didn’t know him well enough. I never underestimated the man’s intelligence. I hate to say it, but I knew he was a worthy adversary, intellectually.”13 Estelle enlisted the services of a battery of state criminal psychologists. “We gave these ‘deep thinkers’ and psychoanalytic types all of the information we had,” the director said. “We told them to call the hostage-takers families, their neighbors, probation officers, parole officers—we didn’t care. We tried to get a profile of these people to learn as much about them as we could.”14 Nine TDC Physiological Services Department psychologists and psychiatrists worked on psychological profiles. “We did not expect them to tell us their every move,” said Dr. Don Kirkpatrick, head of Treatment. “We just studied all that we knew about their behavior so that we might formulate a plan of action.”15 One thing was apparent; Carrasco was unpredictable. Kirkpatrick and the other doctors concluded that “Carrasco was a man to pull surprises. The problem was there was nothing to show us what those surprises would be.”16 Unfortunately for Estelle, it would be another five days before he received the reports on the psyche of Carrasco and his co-inmates. The professionals studied the trio’s prison history files, talked with associates in San Antonio and Mexico, and with other law enforcement 64

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agencies as well as experts in Mexican-American culture. They listened to some of the audio tapes of conversations between the library and the Think Tank, reviewed Cuevas’ primitive art work, and analyzed Carrasco’s doodles found in garbage that was sent out from the library. As a result they came up with “sensitive spots for division of the three inmates against each other, strengths and weaknesses of each of the personalities, and probabilities of behavior of each in various situations.” 17 Their evaluation told them, “Of the three rebelling inmates, Fred Gomez Carrasco is the obvious ringleader. (His history) yields a picture of high intelligence, cunningness, and total disregard for existing social and moral values. . . . Carrasco is a very smooth and polished individual who uses his confidence, graciousness, and gentlemanly manner to conceal his less desirable social traits. He is a masterful manipulator of people; one who is able to identify the weaknesses in others and capitalize upon them. (He) exhibits rather marked psychopathic trends. Also present are mild paranoid tendencies which make him especially sensitive to others. His sensitivity to people, coupled with his intelligence and ability to relate ends to means, makes him an especially effective individual who could have been successful in any one of a number of fields. However, his anti-social outlook on life has led to his being one of the most capable, cunning, and evasive individuals with whom Texas law enforcement officials have ever had to deal. “In summary, Carrasco is psychopathic to an extreme degree, but he possesses the charm and social graces to effectively conceal these antisocial traits. His history reveals a disregard for human life and other social and moral values. He has an almost omnipotent conceptualization of himself, and is concerned with how history will remember him. Out of his desire to live, this is perhaps the most significant motivating factor in (his) background. Carrasco is “el Senor” and all activities are attempts to preserve and maintain that entity.” 18 The team also developed the following about Rudolfo Dominguez, prison number 233414. “He appears to be a borderline mental defective with psychotic or near-psychotic homicidal tendencies and would probably act them out when appropriately frustrated or threatened. His paternal grandfather committed suicide during the course of a gun battle 65

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with police. Dominguez appears to be preoccupied with the thought of dying in an equally honorable fashion. He seems to be a passivedependent person and while unpredictable in most situations, he seems to have a hero worship for inmate Carrasco and would probably remain under his control in almost any circumstance. Inmate Dominguez seems fanatical in his fatalistic adoption of ‘machismo’. He is probably suspicious and resentful to the point of hostility toward anyone who shows more intelligence than himself. He is most likely an extremely prejudiced individual and would react violently toward anyone who would threaten or appear to threaten his machismo orientation. Special heed should be taken of a possible strong tendency for committing suicide. It is speculated that he derives pleasure from thinking about ‘going out in a blaze of glory killing all the white people he can.’” 19 As for Ignacio Cuevas, prison number 218121, the psychiatric team reported, “(He is) reasonably intelligent and spoke Spanish at a good level. . . . Somewhat fatalistic in outlook, he was bitter about his incarceration, feeling that he had been unfairly treated because of his Mexican origin. There was some confirmation . . . that guns held a strange fascination for him and this assumption was important in assessing his potential for harming people. Prior to the incident, Cuevas was described as almost subservient. . . . data suggested that he was in good self-control but that if shooting began and Cuevas began to participate, he would probably participate with gusto. He is closely identified with Carrasco and all the strength, power and adequacy he represents. Cuevas is clearly a follower but a very dangerous one if the situation becomes volatile. He is prepared to ‘die like a man’ and would not be likely to surrender unless led by Carrasco.” 20 Bobby Heard agreed with that assessment when he later said, “Cuevas, of the three, was the least dangerous, I think, although he’d have done anything that Fred told him to. If Fred told him to run out in the middle of the yard and get shot, I believe he would have done it. If Fred said kill everybody, I believe he’d kill them.”21 Subsequent events would prove the team’s evaluation of Carrasco and Company would be a fair evaluation of the conditions facing Estelle and the others in the Think Tank. 66

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Federico Gomez Carrasco was born on February 10, 1940, the son of Jose Andres Carrasco and Mary Gomez. He was raised in “Tortilla Flat,” one of the toughest areas of San Antonio, described by some as a hell hole.22 He dropped out of school in seventh grade and worked as a butcher, and then as a stock boy for a neighborhood coffee shop. His fifteen-year association with the law began on November 28, 1958. According to San Antonio Detective Frank Castillon, there was a fight in a dance hall near the Alamo. “This girl Fred liked started dancing with another boy (Manuel Garcia). Fred objected and they went outside to settle it. Fred settled it by fatally stabbing the eighteen-year-old in the heart.”23 Carrasco fled in a stolen car, was captured, tried, and convicted in 1959. He served two years in the Huntsville prison. Shortly after his 1961 parole, he became a fugitive for violating his parole provisions. “El Viejo” went on to become ringleader of a narcotics operation based in San Antonio known to police as “the Mexican Mafia” bringing heroin from Mexico to Texas.24 But, according to Carrasco, the cops were wrong. “It wasn’t the Mafia,” he later lectured reporter Virgil Teter of KSAT-TV ABC Channel 12 in San Antonio, “it was el Hampa. The Mafia is Sicilian and the Hampa is Mexican.”25 Physically speaking, Carrasco did not look like the stereotyped Latino leader as seen in movies like 1951’s “Viva Zapata.” But he no doubt ardently subscribed to the Zapata credo: “It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” Carrasco built his heroin operation while dodging the law on both sides of the Rio Grande where he was known by his street name, Don Ramon.26 In October 1972, Carrasco was jailed in Guadalajara, Mexico, for among other things, audaciously stealing a Mexican general’s antique pistols and a truck. He was released a month later and shortly thereafter a man was gunned down in a San Antonio bar. The man was Gilberto “The Cow” Escobedo, reportedly Carrasco’s cousin, who some said, made off with about eighty-thousand dollars of Carrasco’s money.27 Witnesses said Carrasco was his killer. Within weeks, four more Carrasco associates—Roy Castaño, Agapito Ruiz, Joe Richard Garcés, and David 67

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Garcia—were murdered, execution style. Garcés and Garcia were, according to the mother of the former, instrumental in buying Carrasco out of the Mexican jail with one-hundred-thousand dollars of Carrasco’s drug money. Ms. Garcés said the jailers got only forty-thousand dollars.28 Could the sixty-thousand dollars difference have ended up as a death sentence for Garcés and Garcia? The word on the Alamo City streets was Carrasco was angry because some of his lieutenants began taking over his drug business while he was in jail in Mexico. One of them, according to San Antonio police, was Rene Guzman, found with 145 bullet holes in him.29 Sheriff Fred Cropper said, “Carrasco likes to make a point. No one pockets Carrasco’s money and gets away with it.”30 On July 22, 1973, after a three-day stakeout, San Antonio police cornered Carrasco and his twenty-six-year-old wife, Rosa, in the Tejas motel.31 As they left their motel room shortly after midnight that Sunday morning, “We rushed out and hollered ‘Police, Freeze!’” remembered San Antonio homicide Inspector Jack Hutton. “The Jefe drew his pistol and started shooting.” Carrasco was shot in the abdomen, shoulder, ankle, knee, and hand. Rosa was named an accessory in an indictment charging her husband with heroin smuggling and one murder. Within forty-eight hours, police heard of a plot to spring Carrasco. His confederates were to enter the hospital dressed as doctors, take several nurses hostage, and wheel Fred out.32 It didn’t happen. Carrasco later plea-bargained to a life sentence for an Assault with Attempt to Commit Murder on a Police Officer charge in exchange for dropping of all charges against his wife. According to San Antonio attorney James Gillespie, “He insisted he was not going to have his wife put on trial.”33 The TDC files for Carrasco’s fellow hostage-takers were not quite as extensive as were those for the mastermind. Rodolfo (Rudy) Sauceda Dominguez, Jr., was born on October 10, 1946, in Winters, Texas, a town of less than two-thousand people located some two hundred miles northwest of San Antonio. His FBI rap sheet showed that Rudy Dominguez finished nine grades of formal schooling—thereby making him the most scholarly of the trio. On October 25, 1963, two weeks after his seventeenth birthday, he was arrested for burglary; on November 68

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11, 1963, for robbery; on March 24, 1964, for vagrancy. Dominguez moved up when he was arrested on July 11, 1965, for aggravated assault with knife; and for aggravated assault with pistol on October 23, 1971; and once more for assault with attempt to murder Manuel S. Vasquez of San Antonio on April 12, 1973. He was finally jailed in Huntsville on July 19, 1973, to serve a fifteen-year sentence for assault to commit murder with malice. In between all these run-ins with the law, he got married to Teresa Hernandez and had four children. Standing only five-feet-six-inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds in July of 1974, Dominguez looked almost boyish but with a permanent snarl on his fleshy lips under his turned-up nose. The product of a broken home, he started sniffing glue and lighter fluid when he was thirteen, moved up to marijuana when he was fifteen, and graduated to heroin when he was twenty-three. He was also listed as “a very dangerous person who will, without remorse, shoot or stab someone if the mood so strikes him.” 34 Said Father O’Brien, “Dominguez, plainly and simply, was vicious; a man who believed in nothing. He always snarled. He hated me with a vengeance. I have no idea why,” the priest pondered, “other than the fact that I was a man of the cloth. He didn’t even know me. He would have hated any priest up there.” 35 While not necessarily certifiable, Ignacio Cuevas was considered by most of the 1974 hostages and even some of his fellow inmates as a real “nut case.” This was backed up by a TDC report that politely said his “intellectual capacity was determined to be mildly retarded.”36 It went on to say that he had “reported a history of impulsive and explosive behavior.” Linda Woodman agreed. “He said he shot a man once and he didn’t die. He shot again and he didn’t die, so he shot a third time,” she said.37 Another prison report showed him to have “a vivid imagination and . . . an almost child-like joy in performing for any audience.”38 He was liked by the Windham teachers who, before the siege, could not imagine him as being a threat to anybody. He had theological certificates showing he was studying to be a priest. He was baptized 69

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just two weeks before the siege started, a move that O’Brien did not favor. “I don’t care much for that particular minister’s doctrine but he convinced Cuevas that Jesus loved him and he could do no wrong and that he was ‘saved’. And Cuevas believed that. He told me, ‘I can kill you but Jesus loves me.’” Father O’Brien also remembered Cuevas saying, “I always wanted to kill the priest.” 39 Unlike Carrasco and Dominguez, Cuevas had only one serious brush with the law. On January 9, 1970, he was involved in a beer tavern argument that led to a shooting—three times in the back of Rito Villanon’s head with a .38 caliber pistol, according to Reeves County Sheriff Raul Florez. An hour later, he was arrested at home and charged with murder with malice aforethought in his hometown of Pecos, Texas, about one-hundred-and-fifty miles due east of El Paso. 40 Sentenced to a forty-five-year term, he arrived at Huntsville in 1971. Ignacio Cuevas (known as “Nacho” to his family) was born on July 31, 1931, the son of migrant farm laborers who followed the crops throughout southwestern United States. He later claimed to be a U. S. citizen but he said he never attended any type of public school. His primary language was Spanish, although he could speak and understand some English. He was married once in Mexico and once in Pecos, unions that resulted in nine children. He worked as a farm laborer, a truck driver, and a house-mover. He enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1948 where he spent less than a year before getting a medical discharge. He stood only five-feet-two-inches and weighed about 140 pounds. 41 In the Think Tank, the question arose, Why did Carrasco—the “brains” of this outfit—pick a pair of losers such as Cuevas and Dominguez? Wiatt figured it was “because they are the types he could control without question. All he had to say was ‘do this’ or ‘do that’ and they did it. He didn’t have to worry about them, he didn’t have to argue with them, explain, justify.” Continuing his thesis, he said, “They were complete sycophants, right at his disposal and that’s who he liked to have around him. And they, of course, looked up at him. He was God. Hell no,” Wiatt protested, “Carrasco didn’t want somebody his equal. They did what he bid. That’s all he wanted.”42 70

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Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominguez spoke to each other in Spanish because it was their Mother tongue and it helped them deny information to the hostages. Father O’Brien was the only civilian hostage who spoke and understood more than a smattering of the Latino language. He had spent eight years preaching solely in Spanish. But there were times when the captors’ conversations left even him confused. “Two words,” he said, “did cause me some confusion and they were cura and jura (priest and guard). Cuevas wanted to kill the cura and Carrasco wanted to kill the jura. I thought everybody was trying to kill me at the same time.”43 In one way or another, all three of the hostage-takers were psychopaths, having aggressive anti-social behavior. Dr. Jack Ryan, president of the Houston Psychiatric Society, using Carrasco as an example, said there was no way to predict what he would do in this situation. “A person of this type has no conscience,” the psychiatrist said. “He is completely self-centered and selfish. He uses others to his own advantage.” Such an individual is “extremely cruel,” he warned.44

71

Chapter Eight “My God! They’ve shot Mr. Robinson!” —Novella Pollard, hostage

It was somewhere around seven o’clock on Thursday morning when Warden Husbands received the next telephone call from the library. “Some of the hostages,” he recalled, “said Carrasco was going to kill them if we didn’t meet his demands” of the night before for arms and ammunition. Carrasco had hostages lined up in chairs in front of the filing cabinet barricade. Heard was still tied to a chair on top of the protective wall where the rattled guard would catch the first bullet were it to come from the inside or the outside. 1 Threatening the hostages with death, an edgy Carrasco complained about noise coming from the second floor area below, saying TDC was trying to break in again. As it turned out, any noise—any noise at all—coming from outside the library’s confines made Carrasco and the others certain TDC was coming in. As Husbands had earlier explained, the cooks came to work at their usual 4:00 a.m. and began serving breakfast at 6:00 a.m. Carrasco ordered Linda Woodman to stand at the railing near the doorway. “I really thought this was when we were going to get 72

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shot,” she said. “I smarted off, I guess, saying ‘does this mean I’m going to be the first one to be killed?’ And he said, ‘No, Mrs. Woodman. You’ll be the second one. Mr. Heard will be first.’” Woodman thought, “Well, I’m not going to just stand here and watch him kill me.” She turned her back to the whole group. “Okay, if he’s going to shoot, it’s going to go through my back and it’s going to smart a lot. And I’m going to fall over this rail and I’m going to look so disgusting, so unladylike, so embarrassing.” 2 As Novella Pollard spoke on the telephone to the warden, Cuevas ordered everyone else to start screaming, “Please, don’t kill us!” Cuevas had heard sounds from the floor below and to him it meant TDC was attempting drill its way up into the library and enter through a utility closet located near the library’s door. He went to the closet and got down on his knees to listen more carefully. Rudy Dominguez was also convinced the authorities were tunneling up to get them. He ordered hostage Ron Robinson to sit on the closet floor, with Dominguez using his ever-present .357-caliber Magnum “Security Six” revolver to point just where he wanted Robinson to sit. Rudy then assumed a firing position, both hands on his weapon pointing straight out with the trigger cocked. He squatted down on his haunches in front of the thirty-five-year-old terrified teacher whose hands were cuffed and feet were taped. 3

Ronald (Ron) Wayne Robinson (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 73

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Carrasco told Pollard to tell the warden that “Mr. Robinson is sitting over the spot” where he suspected TDC was trying to break through and “if all noises in this building don’t stop at once, Mr. Robinson will be shot.”4 Pollard, a widowed mother of three sons and a daughter, crisply relayed the warning. As they spoke of the death threat, the stunned warden heard a shot ring out. Husband recalls, “Mrs. Pollard screamed, ‘My God! They’ve shot Mr. Robinson!’”5 Dominguez had squeezed off a round that crashed into the electrical fuse box in the closet, just about nine inches above Robinson’s right shoulder. Even Carrasco was caught unprepared. Robinson crashed backwards into the closet. Some of the civilian hostages became hysterical. Jack Branch reported that when the shot hit, the concussion caused the circuit breaker box to briefly shut down and all the lights went out. “And boy,” he said, “you talk about yelling and hollering.”6 Aline House, who had privately nicknamed Dominguez “the Rattlesnake” thought, “My God, I just saw a man killed.”7 Dominguez stood up in front of the prostrate teacher, whose knees and feet were twitching, and told Carrasco, “he’s still breathing.” He again aimed his gun at Robinson, then turned toward Pollard, whose scream had alerted the TDC to the details surrounding the gunfire. “I’ll kill you next,” Dominguez said. Pollard fell to her knees and begged Carrasco, “don’t let this man kill me.” As the remaining hostages begged

Novella M. Pollard (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 74

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Carrasco for mercy, he told Dominguez to hold his fire.8 This was not an act of mercy. Carrasco knew that if the authorities learned Dominguez had killed anyone it would result in an immediate assault on the library. As Robinson remembered the incident, he fell on his back, his head hitting hard against the floor. He lay there for a moment in a state of shock, not even seeing Dominguez. “A haze floated before my eyes, and my ears rang from the sound of the shot. My head buzzed.” He thought, “What am I doing here?” Then he heard Carrasco tell Father O’Brien, “Give him last rites, and we’ll throw the son-of-a-bitch out of here.” 9 According to O’Brien, “When I went over to Robinson, he came right back like Lazarus.”10 In Robinson’s confusion he wondered, “I’ve been a Baptist since I was ten years old. Why is Father O’Brien, a Roman Catholic priest, preparing to administer last rites to me? I’m not dead! But if they throw me out the door, that’s fine with me. I may have to go to the hospital, but thank God I’ll be out of here”11 Dominguez kicked Ron’s foot, twice, but the fallen man did not move. House heard Rudy say, “Robinson, get up. You’re not hurt.”12 Robinson ran his hand across his perspiration-drenched temple. “I thought I had been grazed. I thought blood was running down the side of my head, but I guess it was just sweat.”13 Dominguez made sure Robinson’s relief was short-lived. “You know I could have killed you—and I will when the time comes.”14 From then on, according to House, Robinson “was just a broken man.”15 The other hostages had little sense of relief as Dominguez issued them a warning too, saying, “Let’s get something straight, right now. If we do kill any of you—and we will if we can’t get out of here any other way—it will be them killing you. It will be the state that kills you; not me, or Fred, or Cuevas. It’s up to the state, whether you live or die.”16 Carrasco was quick to capitalize on the situation, whether by plan or by improvisation. Angered by Pollard’s cry that a hostage had been shot, he was also afraid that TDC would now have to storm the library. 75

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At the same time, he realized he had an unexpected bonus on his hands. His line of reasoning was to allow the authorities to think he had shot a hostage. Thus began the Ron Robinson charade. Grabbing the phone from Pollard, Carrasco started yelling at the stunned warden that they had “already shot one” hostage and if the “drilling” noise from the dining room below did not stop now and their other demands were not met, they would shoot another hostage “every fifteen minutes.” Husbands handed the phone over to the lawyer/negotiator Montemayor “hoping he could quiet him down and assure him I was going to the dining room to stop the noise in the kitchen area immediately.”17 Husbands rushed to the second floor dining room and “stopped the feeding in the dining room. I shut them down right in the middle of a meal. Just like that.” He had it emptied of hundreds of inmates in midmeal leaving leftovers on tables. This decision would cost the authorities dearly later on, but the noise stopped. Husbands came back to the office and called Carrasco explaining that it was the dishwashers and mealtime noise he was hearing from the dining room area. “I assured him again that we were not going to try to break in. He told me again that if we tried to, they were going to ‘kill all of the hostages.’” 18 As Estelle remembered, “We had our suspicions but we weren’t sure for a while whether or not it was a staged or faked injury. But, we weren’t about to endanger the rest of the hostages by making a decision or taking a course of action that was not founded on fact.”19 And they were not about to tip their hand to Carrasco about what they knew and did not know. Husbands just did not believe “all that crap from up there.”20 By this time, Linda Woodman had picked up the phone Pollard had dropped. She said, “Hello.” And heard Estelle ask, “Is Ron dead?” She knew Robinson was shaken but unhurt. “But, just as Mr. Estelle asked me that, Carrasco gave me a look, like ‘you better watch what you’re saying,’ and I said, ‘He may be. I don’t know.’”21 Her hesitancy, her emphasis on the word “may,” and the tone of her voice gave the director a hint of what was going on. There were those, according to FBI agent Wiatt, who wanted to make a move on the library 76

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right then and there. “We’ve got to go in. Now! Before he kills any more of them.” 22 At this time, that move was unacceptable to Estelle. “Well,” he continued over the phone, “tell Fred to just put the body out on the ramp. He should be buried. You don’t want to leave him up there in all this heat. Show us the body.”23 It was one of the most tense moments of the entire eleven days. If the gunmen produced a body, law enforcement was committed to an assault, an action that would, no doubt, lead to immense bloodshed. Carrasco’s response relayed through Woodman was, “No. We’re not doing that.” Relieved that he had guessed right thus easing this crisis, Estelle countered with, “Well, tell him that we need to get him to the hospital and get him bandaged up.” Carrasco countered, “No, you tell him to send bandages for us to take care of a gunshot wound and medication.”24 This request proved TDC’s suspicions. If Robinson was dead, they would not need bandages and medication. Carrasco changed the subject and warned the authorities they had just four hours to comply with his other demands—which now included breakfast. Constantly switching back and forth between the murderous and the mundane with hardly a pause between, Carrasco told Ruben Montemayor they had already killed one and if TDC did not meet their demands they would kill one every fifteen minutes. With Robinson’s status still cloudy in their minds, Estelle and his leadership team—assistant directors Dan McKaskle and Jack Kyle; Warden Husbands; the FBI’s Wiatt; and Texas Ranger captains Rogers and Burks—had other puzzles to consider. Why had Carrasco still made no demands for transportation out of the prison? They speculated he had some plan for that rather important contingency. They just did not know how or when. Carrasco had been asked Wednesday night during the four-way telephone call to San Antonio, where would he go if he got out? “Maybe Castro would give me a piece of sugar cane,”25 he replied. Father O’Brien had offered “him two horses from the Goree prison farm” as an facetious alternative.26 77

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Estelle was adamant in his conviction that there was no way Carrasco was, under any circumstances, going to get out of the confines of the Walls. That was something the director never considered. To do so would have provided an open invitation to any one of thousands of other convicts to grab hostages and threaten to kill them unless given a ticket out. No matter how vile the pressure from Carrasco, no matter how many times he threatened to slaughter the hostages, Estelle was not— absent visual proof of violence against the captives—going to be forced into any kind of a rash action. His mantra was ‘give-a-little-get-a-little but never give without getting.’ He also realized that without hostages, Carrasco knew his position was untenable. No hostages, no protection. To kill all the hostages, he knew when he thought rationally, was to commit suicide too. Because more than one local citizen reported seeing a sudden influx of Latinos walking the quiet streets of Huntsville, special law enforcement agencies—the FBI, the Federal Department of Justice, the Texas Rangers, the Federal Narcotics Bureau, and the Drug Enforcement Agency—were now combing the area. Were the sightings coincidence, curiosity, or complicity? Grasping at straws, authorities searched for persons, principally Mexican-American, who might be in Huntsville trying to aid Carrasco in the escape attempt. According to Wiatt, the thinking was, “Carrasco might get some of his old drug cartel buddies to come here with machetes and take over the town.”27 As ludicrous as that sounded, everyone was simply on edge. A system of roadblocks was set up around town. Many vehicles were stopped and checked out if they appeared too often or if they seemed suspicious. Huntsville Patrolman Joe French said he and his fellow officers were under instructions to “stop all suspicious-looking persons and vehicles, and if somebody doesn’t have good identification, we’ll take him down to jail and run a check on him.”28 Unofficially, the primary suspect in any attempt to free Carrasco was his suddenly unavailable wife, Rosa. Just about every weekend on visiting days prior to the takeover, Rosa came to see her husband at the Walls. Some people felt sure Carrasco was giving his wife instructions 78

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on how to keep the drug running operation going during his absence. Later speculation was that his breakout plans had been on their agenda. There were those back in San Antonio who felt that Rosa “was the real brains behind” Carrasco’s outfit.29 A prim, quiet twenty-six-year-old, she was “probably the only one that Carrasco listens to,” one officer said.30 Some people called her “cold-blooded” and said she proposes and Carrasco disposes. San Antonio police Inspector Jack Hutton reported that Rosa left her home in suburban Macdona “at about 4:30 p.m. the evening Fred started that thing. And that’s the last time anybody saw her.”31 He would “rather not comment” when asked if she took her three young children into hiding with her. Carrasco lawyer James Gillespie described Rosa as “a little local girl, daughter of humble people here in San Antonio.” Another San Antonio lawyer, Richard Cross, said, “I think she’s probably hiding because she’s afraid of the police. She’s afraid of going back to jail. But from what I know of her, I wouldn’t believe that she’s part of any plan to get him out of jail.”32 As a matter of fact, Gillespie told Carrasco that Rosa was “very worried.” She had called on Wednesday, and “she was crying, and she asked me if there was anything I could do.”33 Carrasco snapped his reply to this, “Tell her that there is nothing she or you can do. Everything is in the hands of the prison administration and I would rather die, Jimmy, than be caged up like a dog. But, if it so happens that I do die, I leave you in charge of Emiliano (his son). I would hope you give him a good education. And tell my senora that I don’t want to be an obstacle. I realize that I am hurting her, but it’s hell for me to be in prison. I’d rather die.”34 Nonetheless, Estelle wanted Rosa in Huntsville, hoping she could talk her husband out of his mad adventure. Via an All Points Bulletin (APB), authorities throughout Texas were put on the lookout for Rosa and three Mexican men—all armed and dangerous—riding in a 1974 Ford Thunderbird. It was a fully-loaded, gold T-Bird with a white top, a Christmas present from Carrasco to his ecstatic wife. The gift had been ordered by the drug lord and paid for with sixty-five-hundred dollars in cash delivered in a brown paper bag by the lawyer Gillespie to a San Antonio new car dealer—all while Carrasco was ensconced in 79

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the Bexar County jail awaiting trial following the shootout during which he was captured just five months earlier.35 Even though TDC had received no previous complaints from Carrasco about prison conditions, they wondered if this whole thing could be a protest. Historically, the most common reason for hostagetaking and breakout attempts in correctional facilities was just that. Was this really about lousy food, hard beds, lack of air-conditioning, spider bites, lack of adequate medical care, censored mail, or guard brutality? Statistics also said most prison takeovers last twenty-four hours or less, and only a few went on for three days or more. Carrasco was not asking for anything in the way of easier jail time. He did not demand promises from the State to take care of his wife and children. He was not asking for a new trial nor for any changes in court actions past, present, or pending against him. At the same time, authorities wondered if Rosa was not his contact, how did Carrasco get the guns and ammo? Rumors in San Antonio suggested “his mother was wanted for providing firearms.”36 With the phony charges against Major Murdock having no credibility whatsoever, speculation about all aspects of the take over ran rampant. One theory regarding the guns said they were smuggled inside the Walls Unit in a garbage truck. The prison’s trash was hauled out daily in trucks. According to the theory, three guns were secreted in some residue garbage and brought back in as garbage no one really wanted to inspect closely. Still another theory was the guns were smuggled into the prison on a piece-by-piece basis and re-assembled. Wilbert Herring, recently released from the Walls, added to the conspiracy theory by saying that Carrasco was planning a breakout because, as Herring’s “underground” informed him, Carrasco “got guns from outside trustees.” Herring said outside trustees were inmates “heavy with the Man” who move in and out of the Walls Unit and sometimes “are not even shaken down when they come back in.” More menacingly Herring said, “If Carrasco doesn’t get what he wants, he will blow their heads off.”37 According to Bill Weilbacher, a San Antonio police sergeant involved in Carrasco’s capture a year earlier, “Several months ago, I predicted 80

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this type of a break would come when we found out he was carrying holy water in the penitentiary.” The way the burly cop saw it, “a lot of money changed hands or somebody was awfully stupid; probably a combination of both.”38 According to Carrasco himself, the only thing he wanted was out. He said as much to the KITE newsman, Will Sinclair, during the interview on the first night of the siege. “You know I was convicted on a false charge. I don’t have any intention of completing my time.”39 Carrasco claimed the Bexar County grand jury the previous December rejected allegations by a “secret witness” that two San Antonio police officers—Sergeant Weilbacher and Detective Manuel Ortiz—had executed two Carrasco associates, and framed him for the murders. The grand jury said it could find “no evidence” to support the “secret witness” charges and not a “scintilla of evidence” implicated the two local officers.40 So, whined Carrasco, “I got sent to prison for their crimes.” Of course, he neglected to mention that he was sent to prison not for any specific murders but for assault to murder on a police officer, Lt. David Flores. As he told Gillespie, “I would rather die than lead a dog’s life in prison. I am not the type of man who can live life behind bars.” 41 Over and over Carrasco called life in prison “humiliating.” He complained, “I was a big man with big power in South Texas. Now I am being pushed around by a bunch of cigar-chewing rednecks. It’s humiliating. What’s the sense of living,” he asked, “when you’re caged up like an animal.” 42 The countdowns leading up to the deadlines Carrasco set became times of particular terror for the hostages. When he asked the warden about things he demanded—such as bulletproof vests and the helmets— Husbands told him, “We are having trouble getting them.” Carrasco at first assured Husbands via Montemayor that no one was in danger. But when the administration failed to provide the weapons and protective materials he wanted when he wanted them, Carrasco slammed down the phone. He paced back and forth, ranting and raging against Estelle 81

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and threatening to blow everybody away. Cuevas and Dominguez followed their boss’ lead and lined up the hostages against the wall. Parading up and down in front of them, they taunted the hostages. “Who will be first,” they sneered, threatening to blow their heads off as they stood there. “Will it be you, Chico, or you, or you?”43 And all the hostages knew once the killing started there would be no end until all were dead. Through it all, the “Stockholm Syndrome” began to filter unknowingly into most hostages’ minds. This was a newly recognized phenomenon in the early 1970s. There was evidence of it in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. It was seen in cult members, battered women, POWs, hijacking victims, and of course, hostages. It is quick to manifest itself when hostages have their lives threatened but are then shown various kindnesses by their captors. Many times the hostages retain warm feelings for their captors and there have been cases of hostages marrying captors after their ordeal is over. Virtually anyone can succumb to the Stockholm Syndrome under the following conditions: perceived threat to survival and the belief that one’s captor is willing to act on that threat; the captive’s perception of small kindnesses from the captor within a context of terror; isolation from perspectives other than those of the captor; and perceived inability to escape. 44 When FBI agent Wiatt tried to describe it to others in the Think Tank, it was news to them. McKaskle said, “Quite frankly, I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”45 Some of the female Huntsville hostages, whether they believed it or not, whether by accident or design, played up to their captives, resorting to flattery by telling them later how good they looked in their new suits, even helping them select proper neckties. Some of the men succumbed to it, too. On July 24, 1974, Ron Robinson was a three-year Windham School District academic instructor. Like many co-workers, the thirty-five-yearold was also a student at nearby Sam Houston State University, working on a doctorate in criminology. A resident of Conroe, Texas, he was 82

“MY GOD! THEY’VE SHOT MR. ROBINSON!”

married to his wife Jeanne, an elementary school music teacher, and father to an eleven-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. According to hostage Ann Fleming, it was “right at the very first, during the first hour or so that he was just so distraught about everything, completely upset. He just went to pieces.”46 Father O’Brien said it was Robinson who “came up with the idea to put his arm in a sling. He had red paint or catsup or something so everybody could see that he was shot. He was cooperating,” O’Brien recalled. “He was being a ‘good boy.’ He hoped to win their favor. He caused a lot of problems. He was screaming, ‘Estelle is a villain. The Governor is a villain.’ He was a real Stockholm Syndrome.”47 Robinson suggested Carrasco may have complaints about the prison system and he volunteered to help present any questions about his rights as a prisoner. But Carrasco was not “interested in my rights or anybody else’s rights. I’m getting out of here.”48 To this Robinson replied, “I agree. I can understand. I would prefer dying to life behind these prison bars.”49 His co-hostages said Robinson constantly vilified Estelle and the rest of the TDC while praising Carrasco for his understanding. “It is us (the hostages) and them (the inmates) against the TDC,” he said on one occasion. On another, he put it this way, “If the TDC would be as good in their word as (Carrasco’s) men are, we would be getting out of this place without getting anybody hurt.”50 Throughout the ordeal, Robinson was vociferous in condemning the Texas Department of Corrections for the predicament, claiming that its negotiating actions were “a political ploy rather than a true concern for the individuals involved”. He called it “buck-passing.” He further stated “these (TDC) people have broken their promise every day” while the captors brought the captives “only courtesy and consideration for our personal needs.” Robinson criticized TDC officials for negotiating in bad faith, branding their efforts as “absurd to ridiculous.”51 Estelle agreed with him. “We were,” he admitted, “absurd and ridiculous but we were buying time. Robinson was not in a position at that point to appreciate the fact that time was working for us and it was 83

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working for him. We didn’t negotiate in good faith. We lied. We did all kinds of things to stall.”52 Robinson’s view of his actions and what he saw as some by some other hostages differed markedly. “Throughout the ordeal,” he later wrote, “I was personally disturbed by the behavior of some of the women toward Carrasco. Some of them found it very easy to talk to him, laugh and joke with him, and generally behave in a manner that I found unbecoming.”53 Reflecting on his captivity—where Carrasco had him assigned to the women’s area (“He slept there with them most of the time,” Heard remembered.54)—Branch said Robinson was there because “he was kind of upset and kind of weak.”55 Robinson wrote, “I merely said what I thought Carrasco wanted me to say.”56 Ron Robinson also later wrote “I know it didn’t happen to me, but I can’t presume to speak for what feelings the other hostages might have developed for our captors.”57

84

Chapter Nine “We die a million deaths.” —Linda Woodman, hostage

At one point on Thursday, things started looking up— somewhat. Tables were set up in the center of the library forming a dining area and the hostages ate the food the TDC sent up in short-lived comfort. They had taken turns ordering food for the group. Ann Fleming remembered “When I was trying to make up my mind about what I wanted, Carrasco asked, ‘Don’t you like Mexican food?’ and I said I love Mexican food.”1 Linda Woodman had been appointed to be Carrasco’s secretary. “He had no reason to just choose me,” she stated. “I think I may have instigated some of that. I am a person, if I’m involved, I want to be in the know. I don’t want things going on I don’t know about.”2 She had to place his phone calls to the warden and others on the outside—such as Carrasco’s mother-inlaw, his San Antonio lawyer Gillespie, and the governor of Texas. She typed up his demands for presentation to TDC. She put a call through to Cuevas’ wife, via the sheriff’s office in Pecos, Texas. The inmate 85

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told his wife Juanita she “should look for something better and (their) kids should abandon” him. After an angry exchange, Cuevas slammed down the receiver and told Woodman, “Never place that call again. I don’t want to talk to my wife any more.”3 Father O’Brien was still the official food taster while Cuevas, Dominguez, and Carrasco gobbled theirs down from their stash of cans of fruit, tuna fish, chili, and crackers. Lesser demands were made. Dominguez called for the San Antonio Express newspaper delivered to him daily. The only problem with the delivery demand was that it was almost impossible to find the San Antonio Express at any newsstand in Huntsville. As the FBI’s Wiatt remembered, “We would fly in the papers because we were stalling for time.”4 And when that did not work, officers were sent out on the early morning streets of Huntsville to find copies of out-of-town newspapers on locals’ lawns and “borrow” them. No matter what delivery system brought the newspapers into the library, Cuevas and Dominguez often had to have them read or explained to them by civilian hostages. Carrasco and the hostages even engaged in some small talk, which was, he said later “just like being out to sea in a raft. You all get to be very tight.” He said of his children, “They’re my whole life.” He said he was married in 1968 to Rosario Leyva, who he described as la hembra, “the woman,” whom he considered perfect. She had a daughter, Lorraine, from a previous marriage. He told how his daughter, Leticia Ana, was born in 1969, and his son, Emiliano, two years later. He proudly told them his son was named after his hero, the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. “I’d rather,” he said, “die than to be separated from them.” 5 He went on to say he was just a “simple rancher and stockman” in Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. He then told the hostages to telephone their families, tell them they were all right, and will be “as long as the TDC does right.”6 One of the first things the hostages told their families was they needed clothing changes—especially guard Bobby Heard. His fellow hostages advised him to get out of his uniform as quickly as possible. “You’d be safer,” they said, because “they won’t view you as the enemy if you’re not in uniform.”7 86

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When Heard called his wife to ask for clean clothes, he emphasized, “Whatever you do, do not bring my uniform.” She brought him brown and blue slacks, black and gray suede shoes, and a new white, shortsleeved dress shirt. However, more than forty-eight hours would pass before the Carrasco would allow the guard to clean up and get out of his uniform soiled by the dirt and dust and sweat from his venture into the false ceiling at the opening of the siege.8 Things continued to look up. Carrasco told Ruben Montemayor he expected all hostages would be “seeing their families tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow the situation will be resolved,” he said. Continuing his solicitous conversation he asked, “So lawyer, you plan on returning home, or are you going to wait another day?”9 When the counselor asked, “What do you want me to do?” the client answered, “Well, I would like for you to stay because I think that by tomorrow everything should be resolved.” Encouraged by the hopeful tone, Montemayor agreed to stay and then asked, “Did you get the food and the medicine? Do you need anything else?” With an obvious smile on his face, Carrasco answered, “No. But I could do with some cognac.” The lawyer took the client seriously but the client shrugged off the offer, noting that it was time to hang up for the night. But before doing so, he also got another threat on the record. “Look, I’m going to tell you something,” he warned. “If they are going to try only for me to give up, that will not be possible. We are prepared for anything. If they want to come in, let them. Or if not, they should give us what we are asking for, demanding actually, because we are not playing,” he rambled on. “We are not rookies. They can’t think this is like dealing with children.” Montemayor countered, telling Carrasco again that TDC gave its assurances that “Nobody’s going to get hurt. Nobody. They won’t sign any charges against you or anybody if you would just call it quits.” Carrasco simply laughed. “They should not have their hopes up,” he growled, “that we are going to give ourselves up. No way in hell. 87

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They should comply with what they said and if it is bullshit they are throwing at us, it’s better to know right away.” Montemayor handed the phone off to TDC Director Estelle. His telephone conversation with Carrasco was brief and both of them danced around with words. “I have an understanding,” the killer intoned, “that you have considered to meet my demands by tomorrow morning.” Evasively, the director answered, “We’re making every effort to do that.” When Carrasco turned the phone over to the hostages, they were more direct. “Are you going to let us out?” Novella Pollard asked pointedly. Estelle was again non-committal, “There is not going to be any effort to rush that building. . . . Just hang in there.” Not easily deterred, she shot back in a brusque manner, “But you are going to do it. Can we go on that hope—that we going to get out?” Estelle could only say, “Yes, ma’am” and leave a listener to interpret as s/he would. The word-dance continued when Woodman followed Pollard to the phone. “You think this will be over in the morning?” she asked.10 Carrasco gave the hostages reason to believe it would. Pollard remembered, “When they took the building over, Fred made the remark to me that they would be there less than seventy-two hours.”11 Meanwhile, Estelle could only answer Woodman’s question by saying, “We’ll be back in touch tomorrow morning.”12 Woodman revealed another hostages concern when she asked the director, “If and when you call and you give us a time when you’ll call back, would you call on time or even five or ten minutes early?” Her reason was “that things really get up tight about twenty minutes beforehand and if (Carrasco) has to wait for two or three or five minutes, we die a million deaths.”13 Another hostage worry was the monitoring of their telephone calls— mostly by Dominguez. “It was pretty bad,” when he did this, Pollard said, “because he didn’t understand (much English) and one little bitty tiny word that you said could be the wrong thing. And it got to the 88

“WE DIE A MILLION DEATHS.”

point where we just didn’t really want to talk on the phone because you just never knew what word was going to be the wrong word.”14 The terror never ceased. Everybody in the library prison believed “tomorrow” the siege would end. Carrasco told Bobby Heard’s wife Judy on the telephone, “Tomorrow they will take care of this.” Pleading for her husband’s safe return, Judy said, “I know that you have a family, Mr. Carrasco, and I know how much you think of your family and I want you to know that Bob is all I’ve got and he’s all his mother’s got. And I’d like to keep him as he is.”15 In an early evening call, Aline House reassured her son, Bennie, and her daughter, Connie Everts, who came up from Houston, she was getting her high blood pressure medicine. She even said Carrasco told her if negotiations continued “to go well,” the hostages would be out of the library before the next day ended. The librarian said the inmate hostages were treating her and her co-workers well. According to Ms. Everts, her mother did not sound like she was reading a script nor was she being coerced by the hostage-takers. Everts told the press her mother described Carrasco as “calm and intelligent” and he was treating all the women hostages just like they were “his mother or sister.”16 Carrasco allowed inmate hostages to call home, too. “Mama, don’t worry,” was essentially the message from two of them. Henry Escamilla told his mother in San Antonio things “would turn out well.” Dora Escamilla said both her son and Carrasco told her, “not to worry.” Carrasco went out of his way to explain that the inmate hostages were not part of his escape plans. As he said to Escamilla’s sister, “I want to assure you that your brother is not involved in this business. I mean, he volunteered, in order to be able to help out the people that are detained. But he’s not, how should I say, mixed up in the business, and there’s no danger for him. I’m telling you this from the bottom of my heart.”17 That assurance would ring hollow before the siege was over. A similar phone message went to Consuelo Vera in San Antonio where she was recovering from a recent eye operation, from her solicitous son Florencio. But, according to Father O’Brien, he was “always on drugs,” the tranquilizers . . . TDC sent up to calm them all down.18 As Woodman said in a call to Red McKaskle on duty in the 89

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warden’s office, “Several people are a little nervous here. Can you send some Valium up?”19 The pills were delivered and the supply was constantly renewed throughout the siege. At first, Carrasco kept them and doled them out to anyone who requested them. He later assigned that task to Pollard. Inmate Steve Robertson made a call to Cameron Mennard in a Dallas suburb. She had read about “the hostage thing” in the newspaper. “I’m right in the middle of it. I’m dead in the middle of it,” he boasted. Confiding in her, he said, “I sympathize with them. I wasn’t in on it but I’m helping them, you know.” Then, realizing all telephone calls were probably being monitored by TDC, he backtracked to say, “I didn’t have no choice, you know. I don’t entirely agree with what they’re doing. They’re treacherous people. They’re dangerous. If the officials don’t give them what they want,” he confided, “they’re damned sure going to kill all of them.”20 All in all, Woodman remembered, the inmate hostages “were having a good time” during the siege. “I believe they probably didn’t want us killed or hurt but I think they wanted the whole thing to go on; they wanted Carrasco to be released. I think that they had it in their heads that ‘we’re not going to get blamed for this.’ They were just up there doing their job—whatever they were told to do.”21 It seemed to be a pleasant change-of-pace from their normal prison routine. They did not have their cell bunks to sleep on but some of their meals were a lot better. Law enforcement officials were not the only ones listening in on the telephone conversations. So were Florencio Vera, Martin Quiroz, and the other hostiles. Dominguez broke into Robertson’s conversation telling Mennard, “This guy here, he don’t have nothing to do with this. He just got caught when we took over library.” Mennard asked, “Do you realize what’s going to happen to you?” Rudy Dominguez, whose conversational tone was usually short, clipped sentences hardly ever spoken above a grunt, said, “Yeah, we decided it when we started it. We’re goin’ all the way. We have the nerve. We have the guns. And we have enough to kill too.” Mennard asked Dominguez, “Do you really think this will solve anything?” 90

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Shrugging off the question, Rudy answered, “Well, it’s up to them (TDC). It’s their decision. Not ours. We’re still waiting. We ain’t gonna wait too long.”22 All this, obviously, was not something the other hostages wanted to hear. Nobody got a good night’s sleep with only a thinly-carpeted floor for a mattress and a sheet for bed covers. The ladies were generally handcuffed together in pairs. Throughout the siege, the male hostages were cuffed singly but sometimes at both feet and hands. Most female hostages were easily able to slip out of their handcuffs when they were on guard duty at the door, at night on their pallets, or when they used the ladies room—a fact that the hostiles never did catch onto throughout the eleven-day siege. The inmate hostages did the handcuffing—mostly Robertson and Quiroz. According to O’Brien, “Robertson put them on lightly; Quiroz tightly. And when Cuevas put them on, I could hardly breathe.”23 The librarians’ biggest aggravation (other than death threats) was the wantonness with which their captors unceremoniously dumped their thousands of carefully alphabetized master file cards all over the floor when they upended the filing cabinets to construct the barricades. It made Woodman “furious”. She had just spent the entire previous weekend at the library getting those cards in order. Ann Fleming said that it was ironically amusing that the other librarians seemed to be angrier over the scattered filing cards than they were over their impending deaths. Estelle did receive a day-brightener that Thursday morning. The governor of Texas, Dolph Briscoe, phoned from the state capital of Austin and said, “I know you’re busy but here are three telephone numbers; one’s directly here to my desk, another is for my home, and the third is for my ranch. I’ll always be at one of those phones. Just call me once a day, give me five minutes and an update. Other than that,” he continued, “all the decisions are yours to make. They aren’t going to be made in Austin.”24 Briscoe’s office later sent out a press release explaining his decision, “Jim Estelle is one of the most experienced criminologists in the United 91

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States and I have placed in him the faith which his experience justifies. I have delivered and will continue to deliver to him every support of which I am capable in his efforts to save these heroic men and women. God willing, we shall succeed.”25 Having been given complete operational command and control by the governor and knowing that Briscoe would keep him free from any political interference and grand-standing, the director said, “I appreciate that.” Before hanging up, the governor added a few more words of assurance, “Whatever the state of Texas has that you need, it’s available.”26 It did not take long, however, for other “grand-standing” to start as politics reared its ugly head. One gubernatorial rival said Briscoe belonged in Huntsville and not handling the situation by phone from Austin. The director got word “there were three or four legislators that wanted to come to Huntsville and do whatever legislators think they ought to do. I knew,” Estelle continued, “who they were and I knew what they represented philosophically and politically. And so, I arranged for a conference call between the Attorney General John Hill, and the Governor.” Estelle told them “they’re going to come over in a state airplane from Austin to Huntsville and do their thing, whatever that ‘thing’ is.” He said, “General Hill, you can advise me on this but if they show up, I’m declarin’ martial law and they ain’t going in that prison.” The Attorney General laughed and said, “I don’t think you need to declare martial law. You still got the keys to the gate, don’t you?” Then the Governor said, “Well Jim, it’s a long drive over there and there isn’t going to be any state airplanes taking off for Huntsville today—or until you tell us it’s OK.”27 One problem Estelle did have was on the Federal level. If the director had to select one man to be with him in a tight spot, the FBI’s Bob Wiatt would his choice. Almost immediately after the siege started, Wiatt asked his Houston office to send a newly formulated SWAT team to Huntsville. The problem was, Wiatt’s superiors in the Federal bureaucracy did not want even Wiatt in Huntsville. “They’ve got guns. They’ve got ammunition,” his Houston headquarters told him. “They’re 92

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demanding freedom and we know this is going to end up in a bad scene. And we,” the FBI concluded, “are without any jurisdiction, any reason to be there, and we do not want to be involved as the Federal government, period.”28 It was an image problem. They were afraid of a massive shootout, what the press might call a “slaughter” with inmates and hostages being gunned down at random. That would, of course, lead to an investigation, something the Feds wanted no part of because, among other things, they were undergoing probes into the Bureau’s stewardship under its legendary leader, J. Edgar Hoover who died two years before. Word came from Washington to Houston to Huntsville to Wiatt. “Get out of town, fast.” Wiatt felt he needed to be with the law enforcement people, “his people,” as much as Father O’Brien needed to be with his. Estelle agreed. No one in the Think Tank had the knowledge of and the ability to use SWAT team tactics Wiatt had. Estelle had put him in charge of the assault force, the five-man teams of Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety officers who were being shipped in to help out should an attack on the library become necessary. So they developed a plan that Estelle used on the FBI district office in Houston. “I need Wiatt to stay on scene. He has some particular knowledge that I think we can utilize—SWAT, hostage negotiation, etc. So, can we keep him here?”29 When Houston declined, Estelle got Governor Briscoe to back up his claims. After bucking the problem all the way up to the Justice Department and the Attorney General’s office in Washington, FBI headquarters decided Wiatt could stay, “only as an official observer. He is only there to make reports. He’s not to get involved in decisionmaking, etc.” Estelle assured the Feds that their agent would not participate in any overt actions.30 Wiatt had in essence agreed to become merely a benign reporter of events, totally out of character for him. But he would have agreed to anything in order to stay on the scene, where the action was. But when there was no indication as to when it would end, other officers had to go back to their posts and replacements were sent in. So, it was constant training and re-training. “We were,” Wiatt said, “leading them through 93

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assault tactics, getting ready to storm the fortress—if worse came to worse. I worked constantly with them in this regard.”31 It did not take long before Estelle had to seek more help from Governor Briscoe. Carrasco demanded to speak to the governor, to have him intercede and assure him safe passage out of the prison and the country. That was something TDC did not want to see happen. According to Wiatt, it “was one of the things we wanted to avoid. You don’t want the final decision-maker involved in the negotiations. We knew and they knew that the governor had the power to give a full pardon in exchange for the hostages’ safe return.”32 That would have put the governor on the spot because he knew as well as Estelle did that he could not and would not, under any circumstances, let the hostage-takers go. With the stall tactic still his principal weapon, Estelle again called Briscoe and engaged him in a scam. Carrasco had set a noon deadline for his call to the governor to be put through. Woodman placed the call to Austin and “somebody told me that the governor is not in. And I said, ‘Well, where is he? We have this situation in Huntsville.’” As part of the stall plan, Briscoe’s aides were avoiding direct communication with the captors for as long as possible. They said they did not know where he was. Woodman countered, “That isn’t so. You always know where the governor is. And wherever he is, I’m in a desperate situation and I need to speak to the governor.”33 Excuses were piled on excuses. Carrasco extended his deadline for another hour. Cuevas got his two cents worth in with his usual false bravado. “If we don’t get what we want by 1:00 p.m., we’ll line them all up and kill them all. We have nine hostages; we’ve killed one already,” Cuevas said. 34 Not only was he a liar—they had not “killed one already”—he could not even count right; there were eleven hostages. But the setting of these constant deadlines terrified the hostages, according to inmate Steve Robertson. “Carrasco’d give a deadline and that would totally freak them hostages out, especially the women and Mr. Robinson. Them people, they probably never ever seen a gun before. If you was in their position,” he suggested, “I guess you’d kind of cry too.”35 94

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Having run out of excuses why TDC could not get calls in to Austin, it was finally agreed to put Carrasco through. “But,” advised Estelle in the preparatory call to Briscoe, “Carrasco’s going to ask you some questions or make demands and all of a sudden the line will go dead.” TDC would pull the plug. Carrasco would think he had been cut off by a technical foul-up. Actually, it was one more ploy, one more stall. “I told more lies during those days than I told in the rest of my life,” he confessed.36 The governor agreed to the plan. Lying was not necessary in the day’s first three-way telephone hookup at 1:15 p.m.—between the governor at the airport in Austin, Carrasco in the prison library, and lawyer Montemayor in Warden Husbands’ office. Briscoe was totally shaken by the desperate pleadings of the hostages and Carrasco’s high-pressure tactics. With Montemayor translating ever so slowly and deliberately, Carrasco said, “Tell the governor that we don’t want in any way to do away with the lives of these people that we have as hostages. But, if they don’t give us what we demand, then yes, you oblige us to put them . . . to shoot them.” Montemayor continued Carrasco’s chilling words, “At this moment, there is an individual pointing a pistol at two people. And this is the reason we want to know what your decision is.”37 In the background, the governor heard the voices of the hostages who were begging, screaming, “Help! Please!” What the governor did not know was they were orchestrated into these pleas by Cuevas and his snub-nosed .38 caliber Charter Arms pistol and his flailing arms. As Woodman described the scene, Cuevas “was acting as a cheerleader, telling us to cry, yell, beg, plead,” she said. “Then we would begin our ‘help us, save us’ routine.”38 Briscoe did not know it was an act forced upon them at gunpoint. They sounded and were all too sincere in their pleas. As was Ron Robinson when he said that if he was killed, he hoped Governor Briscoe and Director Estelle would come to his funeral.39 The fifty-one-year-old governor was not a stranger to pressure. He had served in World War II, but this was different. This time he held innocent, non-combatant lives in his hands. These were schoolteachers, librarians, a prison guard—men and women. With just one word from 95

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him, they would all go free. Without that word, they may all be slaughtered. What should he do? Could he just tell Estelle and the entire Texas Department of Corrections to “go to hell and let Carrasco out?” Then what? He did the only thing he could do at that time. He stalled. He said he had just arrived at the airport from out of town and he “wasn’t aware of the details of the situation.” The cries of the frantic hostages drowned out the conversation as they increased in volume. Briscoe, with Montemayor unnecessarily acting as translator because Carrasco understood English and the governor was fluent in Spanish, promised to review the situation with his staff “as soon as I can get them together” and call Carrasco back.40 “How much time will that take,” the convict demanded. “About an hour-and-a-half,” was the answer. Carrasco put Von Beseda on the phone for emphasis. She was uncharacteristically crying, almost uncontrollably. With encouragement from Cuevas, the usually enthusiastic, vivacious, life-of-the-party teacher implored, “Governor, if you’ve ever done anything, please do it now. These men have been nice to us but all they want is to get out of the country. And I don’t think they’ll be any bother to us. Please, Governor. Please. We all have children. We’re just teachers. Please.” Ms. Beseda had two children, a daughter at the University of Texas and

Julia (Judy) C. Standley (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 96

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a son, a recent graduate of the Julliard School of Music, and now with the Stratford Shakespeare drama ensemble in Connecticut. Next came Judy Standley and she was even more dramatic, despite her almost child-like sounding voice. “Governor Briscoe,” she sobbed, “we’re only human beings. Can’t you help? This is critical. You have to act immediately. We only have a few minutes to live. We’re just teachers and we have children at home and he’s gonna kill everybody. Please help us. Give them what they want. Please.”41 The strain on Estelle, the governor, and everyone in law enforcement was tremendous as they agonized over whether or not they should give in to Carrasco’s demands or hold fast. “Does he mean it or is he bluffing?” “Will he really kill those people?” The unspoken questions came in rapid-fire order. They had no way of knowing for sure whether the hostages were “telling it like it is” or if Carrasco was merely bluffing. Do they sit tight and call the bluff while risking possible killings? Or do they storm the fortress and try to minimize the certain losses? As the governor tried to assure Standley, Carrasco put Woodman on. She was a disappointment to the killer’s drama staging; she was in control of herself. “This is the most serious thing that’s ever happened, ever, ever. They are about to kill every one of us. If you don’t do this,

Bertha (Bert) Mae Davis (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 97

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they’re going to shoot every one of us.” Woodman, with her lack of dramatic screaming and pleading was not hysterical enough for Carrasco and so he immediately replaced her on the phone with Ms. Bertha Davis. Carrasco’s problem continued. She too was too calm. She made an appeal to good citizenship saying, “I have three sons that I brought up in a good Christian home and I’m afraid that this kind of violence will really create a problem with them. I’d hate for them to lose respect for the law that my husband and I have taught them. We really are depending on you. Please, please give it immediate consideration because it is an ultimate, right now, decision.” Even at a time like this, the short, gray-haired teacher who was not in the best of health, was more concerned about her children and their respect for the law than she was about her own well-being.42 The widow handed the phone to the usually-in-control, ever-forceful principal, Novella Pollard, the de facto person-in-charge of those Windham personnel following Glenn Johnson’s departure on Wednesday evening. Carrasco, as usual, was listening in making sure the hostages said what he wanted them to say. “Would you please,” she cried, “tell this man you’ll give him what he wants. Please? Would you? He’s going to kill the officer (Bobby Heard, who had Dominguez’s gun at his head at that very moment). Please. Please. Please, governor, right this minute tell him.” When Briscoe tried to reassure her, she too lapsed into crying, whimpering and begging—which seemed unlike her usual in total control and demanding self. The guard got a reprieve when Carrasco handed him the phone. “Would you please,” he cried, “tell this man you’ll give him what he wants. Please? And it’s up to you. Now look,” he continued, “he’s fixin’ to shoot me. You know, I’m fixin’ to die if you don’t do something. Right now. And the rest of us in here are gonna die, too. These people don’t have anything to lose and they’re serious. All they want to do is get out of the country and that’s not too big a price to pay for eleven lives. Now, is it? Do you understand?”43 The governor said he did and he told Montemayor to “tell Mr. Carrasco that we will be back to check with him just as soon as I can talk with Mr. Estelle and talk to my staff. I’ll be back in touch with 98

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him within an hour.” Carrasco agreed to the delay. But Montemayor, seizing the opening, pitched his client’s case and told the governor how Carrasco was “ambushed” in San Antonio, how he would have beaten those charges if he had gone to trial, and how he was pressured into accepting a life prison term in exchange for his wife’s freedom. “Now, Governor,” he went on in courtroom style summary, “I, as his attorney, am asking you if you could please give this your top priority and a complete review of the charges? It is very, very important.” Saying that he was not familiar with that case either, Briscoe promised to “give it top priority.” Montemayor had the bit in his teeth and he was not about to let go. “And Governor, there’s another charge pending in Federal court. Being a defense attorney, I can tell you it’s very weak. Would you also consider helping us in this matter?” The governor’s response was, “I will have my staff check into that. I know nothing about it.” Carrasco told the governor, “I’ll wait and we give you the one and one-half hours.”44 In his first detailed discussion of his participation in the negotiations at an impromptu news conference, Briscoe said even though the hostages, “are under great stress, they are brave, extremely brave, and I think heroic people.”45 Asked if the talks shook him up, the governor said, “You bet.” But his silent intent was to buy time. Thus, the day’s second deadline for death came and went. Carrasco was satisfied the governor, his staff, and Estelle and his staff had to parlay over his demands and their deliberations would get him “out the front door,” as Heard had said. TDC reported to the media assembled on the administration building lawn that “we have more time.”46 The fact that the authorities had more time, did not deter Ron Robinson from another complaint—this one aimed at Governor Briscoe. “Briscoe should be on the scene,” Robinson asserted. “This is not a game of politics. This is a game of life and death. . . . This has been massive buck-passing.” Robinson later claimed the governor told the hostages “he could not meet the demands,” abruptly ended the call, and did not 99

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call back again. Robert H. Hardesty, Briscoe’s press secretary, refuted all those claims, saying the governor “did not tell any of the hostages that he could not meet Carrasco’s demands. And he did call Carrasco back two hours later.”47

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Chapter Ten “You play the cards you’re dealt.” —TDC Director, Jim Estelle, Jr.

Meanwhile, Fred Carrasco had a new reason to get nervous. Jim Estelle recalls the arrival of some unexpected guests. “Here comes a whole half-dozen of these big Hueys, an Army convoy of helicopters going on maneuvers out of Camp Polk, Louisiana on their way to Fort Hood. They set down at the Huntsville airport to re-fuel! That meant they were coming in a low altitude on approach. Carrasco and his people got really excited over that. They didn’t know what the hell was going on. I said to him, ‘I’m as much in the dark as you are. Trust me for a few minutes and I’ll find out.’” Estelle and one of the Texas Rangers rushed to the airport where they met an army chief warrant officer. When Estelle told him what the situation was and “he just about drained white.” With helicopters on the ground and a dozen more en route, the director told the CWO to “get on the telephone, the radio, or whatever communications you got, get back to your people, and tell them to change their route because if you keep stopping here at Huntsville, you ain’t going 101

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to leave Huntsville. We’ll just confiscate your helicopters and take you down to the sheriff for awhile.”1 No sooner had the Army choppers evacuated the area than another helicopter from a Houston TV station was hovering overhead, filming the scene and zooming in on the education building and Upper Yard. Carrasco was sure it was a Department of Public Safety chopper readying an assault. Prison spokesman Ron Taylor went to the media encampment and asked them to get the whirlybird out of there. In this case, Taylor got cooperation. Then, authorities called the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington and asked it to declare dead air space over Huntsville. Even prior to the governor’s telephone call, Estelle had turned over the one-on-one dealings between his Think Tank and Carrasco to Ruben Montemayor because of the mutual trust relationship between the lawyer and client. This would remain the case for the duration of the siege, although the TDC Director was still in charge. Having accommodated Carrasco’s earlier demands for the television set, handcuffs, food, medications, etc., and with promises of helmets, walkie-talkies and clothing to come, Estelle reported to the press that the “negotiation picture has brightened.” Much to the chagrin of an ever-growing media mob, he would not elaborate on his reasons why. He merely said, “We cannot risk compromising the relationship between this administration and the captors by going into specific details.” 2 Taylor told the media “all options are still open in negotiations. All we’ve been buying is time, primarily keeping the hostages alive.” Sounding hopeful, he said, “I don’t think it will go beyond today.”3 Negotiations were going well. In situations like this, negotiating is nothing more than talk. But, as Estelle warned at the time, “you never give up something unless you get something back.” Bob Wiatt, based on his FBI training, said, “Patience is a virtue. And unless they harm a hostage, you just keep going on and on and on. You talk and you talk and you talk. You try to establish a rapport.” The FBI agent grinned when he recalled an earlier case. “There was a bank robber in Houston. 102

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The agents went to get him and found him in the bathtub with a gun in his mouth. They tried to talk to him but to no avail. So, they called me. And I no sooner get in the bathroom and say, ‘Excuse me, I’m Bob Wiatt,’ and BOOM! The other agents kidded me about what a good job I did. ‘You took care of another case that we don’t have to go to trial on.’ But seriously,” he said getting back to the situation in Huntsville, “most of the time, you just talk. Patience is a virtue.”4 Newsmen were having their problems covering stories of prisoners, prison officials, and negotiations. Sometimes the problems were among the media representatives themselves. Prison officials agreed to let one reporter and one photographer inside the prison but they would have to pool their information with the others. With almost one hundred members of the press milling about outside the Walls and all but fistfighting over access to the eight pay telephones Southwestern Bell temporarily installed on the lawn, the best Taylor could do for them was the one reporter/one photographer arrangement. They would be admitted to the Think Tank for brief interviews with the authorities and by telephone with Carrasco, if he agreed. Jim Barlow of the Associated Press news service in Houston won a coin flip as the reporter. Things did not go quite so smoothly among the photographic crews from TV and newspapers. They argued for twenty minutes trying to agree on whether the cameraman should be shooting motion picture shots or still shots. Still photographer Gary Edwards of United Press International won. Along about this time, Estelle was wishing he had a “cook book,” something that would give him a well-thought-out recipe for handling a situation like the one facing him. He was wishing for a here’s-what’s-happening-and-here’s-what-you-do, a 1-2-3 formula to spell it out for him and the rest of his officers. Unfortunately, such a book did not exist then (and probably still does not exist today) because each hostage-taking situation is so different, so personalized. Hostage-negotiation techniques were in their infancy, as were SWAT teams. Flash/bang devices for stunning and immobilizing hostagetakers had not yet been developed. “And besides,” said Estelle, “we 103

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wouldn’t have used them even if we had them. They would have not given us any assurance that they resolved the situation without injury to the hostages because we didn’t know where the hostages were. In the library, they had tables overturned. They had all these catacombs they could go into if we had a gunfight. We couldn’t see them until they started shooting at us.” Tear gas was about the only viable chemical device available but it was unreliable. In some cases, it made its victims violently ill and in others, it had no effect at all. “You know,” said Estelle, “in our Think Tank we even considered supplementing their food with something harmless, even putting hydro chlorate in their soft drinks. But we never did. We were trying to think of some sedative that would put them all to sleep so that we could go in and quietly separate the sheep from the goats.” In a situation like this, the weapons of war were still back in the Stone Age. The alternative? As Estelle put it ever so softly with an air of finality, “You play the cards you’re dealt.” Naturally, there are some basics for almost any situation. Estelle firmly believed in the old adage, “Luck is when preparation and opportunity meet.” In his career, Estelle had helped write checklists for various contingencies in prison life back in Montana and California. He participated in and directed exercises in emergency operations any number of times—planning for the usual—APBs to local hospitals and law enforcement agencies, meals and accommodations for the calledin officers, duty rosters and assignments, back-up utilities systems such as natural gas, water, and electricity. Even though he was blessed with a photographic memory, it was not doing him much good at this stage because “this one just wasn’t like any other. The dynamics were so different. In my opinion,” Estelle said, “you cannot write a cookbook for hostage situations. There are too many variables—numbers of people, the environment, and physical structures. They’re all different.”5 Not only that, but Estelle was faced with a similar dilemma defined by Albert Einstein as “the significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” But now his inadequate checklist did not measure up to those he so enjoyed seeing airplane pilots run through. Instead what Estelle had 104

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was a huge jigsaw puzzle with very few straight edges. It was like what Sir Winston Churchill once described as “a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.” Estelle called Norman Carlson, head of the Federal Prison System (and “a top-flight prison administrator”) and “I just would run down a checklist, ‘This is what we’ve got. This is what I’ve done. What have I forgotten?’” Unfortunately for Estelle, although Carlson admired the list, he could not add anything to it. As hostage-taking experts agree, there is no classic, set-piece way in a hostage-taking situation but there are certain guidelines. The first one is to try to avoid the use of force and then gather as much intelligence as possible. The Texas Department of Public Service’s Intelligence Division entered the picture, providing information from “all kinds of sources; from street sources to courthouse records.” Information relevant to the hostage-taking was passed on to Ranger Captains Rogers and Burks who evaluated and relayed anything they thought would interest Estelle. The best they came up with was “a couple of unconfirmed and unsubstantiated phone calls about ‘possibilities.’” How good those “possibilities” were is illustrated by Estelle’s final thought on the matter, “God, if I’d have listened to and acted on every piece of information I got, why you wouldn’t have time for a cup of coffee.”6 As for the rest of the information gathering and negotiating, as Wiatt noted earlier, you talk, you talk, and you talk some more. While waiting for the governor’s promised return call, Carrasco and his lawyer did some telephone chatting on their own. “What I hope,” Carrasco said, “is that the governor is a prudent man, and that he makes the right decision. But,” he continued, “this is something that has to be done.” Montemayor asked, “But why do you say it has to be done, man?” The answer, “Because that’s the way this thing is.” The lawyer tried to assure his client that maybe the governor could get his conviction overturned. “That’s all water under the bridge now,” Carrasco brooded. “Now we’ll just see what that man’s decision is, good or bad.” 105

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Searching for the killer’s soul, Montemayor said, “I don’t know about the others, but you don’t have the heart to do it. Cuate, you don’t have the heart to do that. Those poor women. Oh, man . . . I heard them cry.” Overcome by the prospect of the women being murdered, both men were virtually whispering now. “But, that’s life,” Carrasco murmured. “If the governor doesn’t cooperate, well, that means we’ll all die.” With a hoarseness in his voice brought on by desperation, Montemayor stressed, “It doesn’t have to happen.” The response he got was not one he wanted. “No,” Carrasco said, “but the thing is, that’s fate.” Governor Briscoe got back on the phone for a second three-way conference call at 3:30 p.m.7 The strategy he and Estelle decided on was a continuation of stall, stall, stall. Montemayor relayed Carrasco’s first question, “Ask the governor what his decision is and I’ll listen to what he’s decided.” The governor answered, “I have not been told what all the demands are. I have had conflicting reports regarding your demands. I need to hear straight from you specifically what those things are.”8 With some reluctance, Montemayor asked Carrasco to repeat his demands again. With a huge sigh of exasperation, Carrasco went into his litany once more. “First of all, we want three helmets, bulletproof.” He continued his list: three M-16 rifles, five clips, one-hundred rounds for each rifle, and “free world” clothing. “Now we want to know,” he said briskly, “what his decision is so that these people can put their hearts at rest, and their minds at peace.” Or else. And at that most critical moment, just as Estelle said it would, the connection was cut, leaving only a persistent dial tone. “Hello? Hello,” stammered Montemayor. “We’re cut off, Fred.” “What happened?” Carrasco wanted to know. “Let’s wait a little while,” Montemayor said. “These conference calls are complicated. Hello? You hear anything?” he asked Carrasco who did not hear anything either. “God damn,” cursed Montemayor. “Let me check it out. Hello?” The three-way connection between the library, the Think Tank, and the governor’s office had been severed, but the link between the latter two remained open while Briscoe and Estelle 106

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discussed further strategy. There was nothing much they could do except to continue to stall. The connection with Carrasco was reestablished. Montemayor immediately tried to placate Carrasco. But Carrasco was insistent.9 “Look,” he growled, “they’re messing around and they’re not doing anything for us. We’re in the same spot we were in. . . . What we want to know is if he’s gonna cooperate or not!” The governor’s response via Montemayor was, “Well certainly we’re going to cooperate. . . . I’ve been assured by the officials there that they aren’t in any way going to endanger his safety, that he will be safe and that the others who are there with him will be safe.” Carrasco did not want to hear about safety. “What I want to know,” he persisted, “is if they’re going to give us the demands?” Briscoe continued, “I’m back here in my office. I have met with my staff. I have been working with the Board of Pardons and Paroles and we are looking into the matters that we discussed before. Now that I have heard directly from you I am in a position to take these issues under advisement with my staff.”10 Estelle and Briscoe hoped this would mollify Carrasco thereby gaining more time for the situation to resolve itself or for the hostagetakers to make a mistake and trip themselves up. They wanted Carrasco to believe he had a chance of getting a trial review or a pardon of some sort. Given that hope, he might be less inclined to jeopardize any possible favorable ruling or parole. Maybe, was the implication, he might just be seen as “saving” the hostages from a horrible death. “Of course,” Briscoe went on, “this takes some time to determine the legal matters. I do have my staff working on that. I don’t know how long it will take them to dig completely into it.”11 “Look,” Carrasco told Briscoe via Montemayor, “all that about cases doesn’t matter at all to me. What’s at stake now is the lives of these people. Right now I’m ready to shoot. Now, are you going to give us our demands? Yes or no!” Pointing his gun at Bobby Heard and Father O’Brien who had honor guard seats at the library door, Carrasco continued. “First, these two people and after that, I’ll take two more and then two more and two more until we run out and then have them 107

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come in and kill us once and fuckin’ for all. Now, if he wants to (cooperate), fine. If not, he can go fuck himself!” With the hostages screaming, “Please!” in the background, Montemayor begged. “Fred, hold off. Por favor, Fred. Hold the line. Hold the line.” Flitting as usual between English and Spanish when he was excited, Montemayor blurted, “Fred, they want to cooperate with you.” An agitated Carrasco shot back angrily at the governor, “You tell that mother-fuckin’ son-of-a-bitch that it’s got to be done. If not, he can go fuck himself. You let me know right now.” Totally rattled at the prospect of a mass slaughter, Briscoe choked back. “All right. All right. Tell him he’ll have his answer in just a minute. In just a second.” Again Montemayor begged, “Por favor, Fred. Don’t, Fred. Hold on, Fred. Please don’t, Fred. Just hold on. These people are trying their best to cooperate.” The volume and intensity of the hostages’ cries for mercy assaulted ears of the governor and the director. Their anxiety level came close to that of the hostages’. Would he really start shooting the priest and the guard and all the others? Suddenly, Carrasco thought he had an advantage and he pressed it. This was his best chance to get what he wanted and the hostages, with guns pointed directly at their heads, did not need Cuevas’ staging to scream for mercy. “It completely depends on whether he says yes or no. That’s all we want to know,” he told Montemayor. “It’s sheer agony for these poor people and they need it to end. So, we’ll kill them and that’s that.” At this point, Cuevas pulled back the hammer on his pistol. Dominguez did not have to. His gun was always cocked. Briscoe and Estelle, off mike so to speak, tried desperately to come up with a strategy to counteract Carrasco’s death sentence for the hostages. “Hold on, Fred,” pleaded the lawyer. “Fred, give us a little bit of time.” Carrasco was having none of that. “No, no. I don’t want to wait anymore,” he said. “A yes or no. That’s all I want. That’s it.” With a deep sigh, Montemayor begged again, “For God’s sake, don’t do anything until we get back to you.” 108

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The killer demanded, “Now. I want an answer right now. Whether it’s yes or no.” The lawyer asked, “If they tell you yes, how much time will you give them to get this? These things have to come one at a time.” Carrasco replied, “I think they can get them fast if they really want to.” After another long pause, Montemayor asked, “They want to know if they do agree and they do get the stuff for you, if you’ll turn those people loose?” Somewhat puzzled, Carrasco answered, “When they have the things I want, then we’ll discuss it.” With that came the kicker. “Then we’ll just take the people with us that we need for our escape. And we won’t bother anyone anymore,” he said. That was the first anyone in law enforcement heard that. Even Montemayor was taken aback. “Let me write that down, Fred.” He was having trouble hearing Carrasco. The ringleader said, “Naturally, I’m going to take some people with me. But I’m not going to take the whole group. As soon as we’re on solid ground, we’ll let them go because why would we wanna hurt them? They haven’t done anything to us. But I want to know yes or no. Are they going to do it or not? Period. You’d better hurry because it won’t take long for us to start shooting people. We’ve already been waiting all day. We’re not getting anywhere, just talking and talking.” Panicking, Montemayor asked, “So tell me exactly how long you give him to get your answer, yes or no.” The answer was, “fifteen minutes until a shot gets fired or he tells us yes or no or I’ll kill the two people. Then, I put down more people. The priest, we have him at the door. So they know they’re all going to go. In fourteen minutes, now. Give me a yes or no, and don’t mess around. Adios,” he said and he hung up.12 The governor could not stay with the negotiations any longer. He had to get out so Carrasco could not force that “yes or no” answer from him. He turned the decision-making over to Estelle, thereby leaving the TDC Director with an “out”—the need to “go to a higher authority,” if push came to shove. Those in the warden’s office started scrambling 109

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for ideas. They were up against a stonewall. Give in or not? They would be damned by the public and the press if they did and damned if they did not. One thing that Estelle did know was that “A frontal assault was out of the question,” he said. “I’m sure there are people who thought we took too long in initiating resolution with that type of action. The immediate response kind of thing is fine in theory—until you’re the one confronted with decisions on how many people you’re willing to sacrifice for that immediate response.”13 The ball was now squarely in the director’s court and that is where, if he had to chose, he wanted it to be. With the clock ticking towards Carrasco’s fifteen-minute deadline, Estelle agreed to Carrasco’s demands but said that he would have to send for the rifles, the vests, and the ammunition at the U. S. Army base at Fort Hood, one-hundred-and-fifty miles north of Huntsville. But, Estelle had one more thing. As Montemayor put it on the phone to Carrasco, “Now, they want the women released if you can possibly find it in your heart to release them.”14 Carrasco was quick to answer. “No way. They’re not going to take my bargaining chips. You know I’m a card player,” he reminded his lawyer. “So they’ll have to play the game my way. But they better not take me for an idiot because no one’s going to put one over on me. So, they cooperate, I cooperate. And now I want everything all at once. The suits, the weapons, everything. I’ll guarantee the women’s lives with mine. The women won’t be touched at all, or the people, as long as (TDC’s) word is good.” Montemayor repeated, “It’ll take a little time, Fred.” “How long?” Carrasco demanded. When the lawyer did not know the answer, Carrasco decided to eliminate the middleman. He wanted to talk directly to Estelle. “Look,” he warned the director in perfectly good English, “we have two people at the end of a gun. We have the women, too, who are crying. And we don’t want to hurt them. So, if you give me your word that you give me what I’m demanding, I won’t touch a hair on their heads. Now, I’m going to let one of the people who’s going to be executed come and talk with you. Then, when he’s done . . . I’ll let other people talk to you. If the answer is no, you know they’ll get their last rites.” 110

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Carrasco put Bobby Heard on the phone. “Mr. Estelle, this is Heard. Look. We’re in a jam. I mean, we’re in a serious jam. And they’re fixin’ to kill me. I mean, right now. They’re tired of waiting.” For one looking down the barrel of a .38, Heard was remarkably calm and seemed to be in control of himself at this point. “All you gotta do is come through. And don’t take so long. Every minute that you waste, you’re jeopardizing our lives. It’s dead serious. They’re not kidding. They’re willing to die for it. I mean, out and out die for it.” More than any of the hostages, Heard should have known TDC could not possibly let the hostage-takers go free. Whatever on-the-job training he had received, he had to know that freeing Carrasco, Dominguez, and Cuevas would certainly lead the way to similar actions in prisons throughout the state and the nation. But, as noted, Heard was looking down the barrel of a loaded pistol and that, no doubt, influenced his thought process. Estelle tried to reassure him. “I understand and I hear you and we’ll do everything we can to get you out.” That was not enough for Heard. Almost insolently, he demanded to know, “How long is it gonna take?” The director answered, “Just as soon as we can.” “Well, that’s not very comforting. All they want is just to go out. And I don’t think that’s too big a price to pay. So do what you can and do it quickly,” the guard demanded of the director. All Estelle could do was listen and tell Heard and the other hostages, “I understand.” After issuing that “order,” Heard—following Carrasco’s directive— put Von Beseda on the phone. “Mr. Estelle?” she asked, weeping almost uncontrollably, “everyone of us up here have children. Altogether we have around twenty-five. Three of us are widows and their children would be orphans,” she pleaded. Her breathless sobs were even more rapid. Again, “I understand,” is all Estelle could say. “I don’t think y’all do,” she cried. “I don’t think you understand. And I wish you’d try.” “Yes, ma’am,” was the director’s response, the exercise confirming in his mind why it was best for him not to be in direct contact with 111

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hostages or hostages’ families.15 Still, he hung in there because at the very least, as long as the hostages were talking, Carrasco was not shooting. In a later telephone interview with reporter Wayne Jackson from the Austin American-Statesman, Beseda elaborated on her frustration. “I’ve talked to Mr. Estelle numerous times,” she said, “and he said he understood. But, I kept telling him he didn’t understand. I don’t think he does. You read about these things in books and you go to movies.” Regaining her sense of humor, she continued, “If I get out of this, I don’t think I’ll ever go see anything but a lovey-dovey movie.”16 Estelle admitted he might have taken a harder approach had there not been women there. He reasoning was that “you have to understand the community we work in. I was in the community of Texas and even the ‘guns’ treated the hostages differently because some of them were women. It was the culture of Texas,” he continued, “and it was the culture of the Latinos.”17 The diabolically clever Carrasco was getting just what he wanted from his captives. They were laying their lives right in Estelle’s lap. Judy Standley was next to plead. “Please, Mr. Estelle,” she said sobbing, “do anything you can, quickly. I have five children and they won’t have a mother. Please help us. Quickly,” she begged, her voice getting higherpitched with every word. With growing resignation, Estelle said, “We’ll do everything we can.” It was Linda Woodman’s turn. Unlike Beseda and Standley, she was very firm sounding, very composed, not crying. “Mr. Estelle?” she asked, “I think we’re all doing pretty well but they’re getting pretty up tight which gets us awfully uptight. And honest to goodness, they mean everything they say. They have just come so close. Just let them out of the country.” Sounding more and more weary, Estelle assured her, “We’ll do everything we can to get you out.” Woodman persisted. “Well, can you tell us when?” Estelle explained that answer depended “on them as much as it does on us. We have wheels in action to try and meet their demands.” 112

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The frustrated librarian replied, “Well, honest to goodness, it’s just within an inch of our lives each time it’s delayed. But, all of us are getting up tight and something is going to happen any moment.” Once more came the standard response, “I understand, Ms. Woodman.” A self-satisfied Carrasco got back on the phone, asking Montemayor, “Is it yes or no?” The lawyer answered, “They’ve already said yes, Fred. There’s a car on the way to Fort Hood to get the stuff for you. Now they got to negotiate with the army to try to get the damned things, you know? It’s going to take a little time.” Answering Carrasco’s query about how much time, Estelle continued with the stall and told Montemayor, “It’s a three-hour trip one way. I have no idea how much trouble we’ll run into with the army negotiating for the weapons and the defensive armor.” The mercurial Carrasco blew up again. “Counsel, they’re taking me for an idiot. Does he think I don’t know he can make a call and talk to a general or a colonel and see if they’re going to give us the weapons or not? Tell him then he fuckin’ better know he’s not talkin’ to some dumb kid.” Via Montemayor, Estelle came back. “Ok. In good faith, Fred, we are ready now to deliver the helmets and the radios, or the walkietalkies to show our good faith.” Gambling on the killer’s mood, he continued, “We would like some assurance, in our display of good faith; you would show the same thing and deliver the women.” Estelle lost that gamble. Talking quickly, loudly, excitedly, and angrily, Carrasco yelled to Montemayor, “Tell him that I’m going to kill the people now.” The lawyer begged, “Not now, Fred, please.” Carrasco sneered, “Now. They’re trying to make demands on me.” Hoping to defuse the situation, Montemayor said, “They’re just negotiating.” Carrasco wanted no part of it. “No, they’re not going to negotiate with these Mexicans.” The paranoid gang leader needed his ego massaged. “They shouldn’t try to take me for an idiot.” His vanity 113

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seemed to overcome his demands. “They can’t say ‘we’ll see’ if the military wants to. He tells me three hours there, three hours here. What the fuck, they don’t have planes?” His rant with the lawyer continued. “These people aren’t gonna understand until we send them two bodies down. That’s how they’ll understand—violence with violence. Right now, he has exactly five minutes to tell me he’s gonna give what I’m asking for—without conditions. If he doesn’t, in five minutes I’ll kill people.” When Estelle tried to settle him down, Carrasco interrupted, “There’s three minutes left now.” Again Estelle tried, “Fred, up to this point, you have not hurt anyone and neither have we….” Carrasco cut him off. “You got two-and-one-half minutes.” The countdown was interrupted by Bobby Heard. “This is Heard again. Look! They’re countin’ down now on me. It’s all in your hands right now, whether we live or die,” he pleaded. “Give them anything they want. Anything. They’re fixin’ to kill me, right now! And it’s up to you. And this old bull about you can’t do this and you can’t do that, well, what price is a human life? So, do what you can. Please. Save my life. God. Please, help me. Can you help us?” In the face of this constant threat of murder, Estelle’s voice never wavered. He conveyed a firmness that became unnerving to the hostages and to their captors. Resolutely he told Heard, “Put Carrasco on the phone.” And then he told Carrasco, “Give me an hour to see what I can scrape up in the armory in exchange for the M-16s.” Carrasco was adamant. He wanted M-16s and bulletproof vests. He gave Estelle just one hour to call back and “tell me what you have for me.”18 And just like that—from immediate threats of wholesale killings— the drug lord ordered dinner for himself and the hostages. He wanted Kentucky Fried Chicken, “but make it, how do you say it, crunchy?”19

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Chapter Eleven “We have more time.” —TDC Director, Jim Estelle, Jr.

That meal must have totally satiated Fred Carrasco and induced some sort of temporary amnesia. Amazingly and inexplicably, there was neither further conversation nor demands for weapons nor threats of killing hostages for the rest of Thursday night. Carrasco did not call Estelle nor did he call Montemayor. And there was no way those in the Think Tank wanted to renew the day’s previous discussion. Though glad to still be alive, the hostages were, to say the least, confused. The TDC director could not explain it to the media. He would only say, “We have more time.” Prison spokesman Ron Taylor said there would be no more moves at all until 10:00 a.m. the next day, Friday. “We asked the inmates if they were agreeable to break off negotiations. They were, so we did,” Taylor said. He called the suspension of negotiations “a good sign” and added it had allowed prison officials to “buy time.”1 And time was the commodity Estelle and the Texas Department of Corrections was most in the market for. 115

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None of the media was privy to Carrasco’s conversations with Governor Briscoe which was the way the authorities wanted it. On Thursday evening’s national network television newscasts, CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and reporter-on-the-scene, Ed Rabel, talked about the siege to about one-third of the nation’s TV viewers. Their report featured a film clip from the shootout in the San Antonio motel in 1973 when Carrasco was captured. The newscasters described the situation in Huntsville as “tense.” With Harry Reasoner anchoring the ABC-TV telecast, it came up with the “good news” that “so far, Carrasco has extended deadlines to kill the hostages.” John Chancellor anchoring NBC-TV’s telecast gave almost two full minutes to the Huntsville story, which he opened erroneously by saying “seven convicts” were holding the hostages. George Lewis, on scene from NBC’s Houston office, focused on Novella Pollard’s daughter Kathy’s belief that “Carrasco will carry out threats if necessary.”2 Many people both inside the Texas Department of Corrections system, members of the media, and local folks walking the streets of Huntsville, were wondering why Carrasco was housed inside the Walls in the first place. One citizen asked no one in particular, “I wonder why Carrasco was placed here? He should have been in a maximum security facility such as the nearby Ellis Unit.” What the questioners did not realize was the Walls Unit was, in fact, operated under maximum security policies, even though classified as medium security, simply because high-risk inmates were often in and out of the unit for such things as medical attention in its prison hospital. It is also an old prison axiom that the first goal in classification is the protection of the public. You do not knowingly put an escape risk in a situation that he can take advantage of. And secondly, “if he’s got trouble in his heart,” as Estelle described it, “if he’s got a violent background, a flash point of low elevation, you’re not going to put him in a situation where he’s going to be exposed to weapons material or ready-made weapons.” Prison officials long ago discovered that some of the worst citizens make the best convicts, and some of the best citizens are the worst convicts. It was a lesson brought home when Estelle was growing 116

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up in California. Although he was born in Indiana in 1931, the family moved to California where they suffered economically due to the Great Depression. Estelle went to work in the prison system because he needed a job when he found out it “took money to pay the light bills.” There were other jobs available in the late 1940s but he gravitated to the prison system and found out he enjoyed doing what he was doing. “I’ve always said,” he reflected, “that if I find myself hating to go to work for three days in a row, I’d better find another job.” His father, Ward James, Sr., was a prison administrator in the California Corrections Department. When he was selecting inmates as “houseboys” or “yard boys” he would always seek out those serving time as murderers because “most of them are just ordinary people who have made one huge mistake in their life. They’re not thieves who are going to rob you or child molesters who are going to hurt your family,” Estelle, Jr., recalled of his father’s practice which he too adopted.3 And that belief was confirmed at Huntsville. As for Carrasco, Estelle set some parameters because of Carrasco’s disability. “I didn’t want to see him in any position to enhance his ego. I didn’t want him to be seen by himself or by other convicts as getting special opportunities or privileges. So we assigned him to Father O’Brien as a porter. It was a constructive, necessary contribution to the welfare of that chapel. Somebody had to sweep the floors, pick up cigarette butts.”4 In this case, it was Federico Gomez Carrasco. That is what he was doing on the morning of July 24, 1974. He started at his normal time, eight o’clock. The only unusual thing his fellow chapel inmate and bookkeeper William Blanton noticed was when Carrasco left at the usual time for lunch, noon. “He went down the stairs where a lot of Chicanos and Blacks were sitting and he can hardly get by. He was real polite. He told them, ‘excuse me’. And they kept setting there and he took his cane and he punched one of them in the back. It was the first time I’d ever seen him get irritated with anybody because he was real easy going, a real nice man.”5 Carrasco had an important date to keep and he did not want to be late.

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Deadlines were constantly being set by Carrasco for compliance with his demands. Then they would be rescinded. First, it was noon, then one o’clock, three-thirty, and five-thirty—came and went without consequence, although each evoked a high degree of tenseness in the Think Tank and in the library. Estelle and Company knew if there was any certainty a hostage was killed, they would have to take action and unleash the assault team. They would have no choice. If the gunmen killed one, they would kill all. So, the stalling continued with the likes of, “Here’s what we do,” TDC offered. Or, “Let’s not get over-anxious, Fred.” Or, “Let’s see what we can do. We’ll get back to you, Fred.” Through Montemayor they told Carrasco they were trying to accommodate him, giving him hope that, as Bob Wiatt remembered, “he shouldn’t mess it up because there’s a possibility that he might make it and get out” on a legal technicality.6 Aline House remembered those moments vividly. “While he was on the phone talking with the warden’s office,” she wrote, “and later with the governor, Cuevas again decided to act as a cheerleader . . . urging all of us to scream and cry out for help. The scene became wild and surreal: Cuevas gesturing and grinning, saying, ‘Louder! Louder! Make them hear you! Scream for help!’ Cries of ‘help!’ ‘Please, do something for us!’ ‘Please, help us!’ became a mad blend of frenzied voices.” Carrasco, on the phone, was motioning for quiet, saying he was unable to hear. The hostages, looking from Cuevas to Carrasco, became uncertain, not knowing which order to follow or whose gun would go off. The cries died down, but started over again at Cuevas’ insistence, and the whole episode became so artificial that it became ludicrous.7 Ludicrous, but not funny. Carrasco appeared to accept the authorities’ story that they were having difficulty rounding up the helmets and arms he wanted. And the fact that the hostage-taker was not acting on the deadlines he set, led Estelle to become even more convinced Carrasco was waiting for something—or someone. Montemayor told his client that it would be best to “play it safe and wait until tomorrow morning.” Prison spokesman Ron Taylor assumed the recess was to allow time for the situation to wind down. Estelle briefly addressed the large group of 118

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TDC Director Estelle conducts one of his few press conferences before the packed media horde from the front of his office in Huntsville, Sunday, July 28. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

news people just after six that evening saying the situation was “reasonably calm.” He added, “We have more time.” Don Kirkpatrick, TDC assistant director, told reporters that “they’ve got the ball and they’ve got the diamond. But,” he said, “it’s still in our ball park.”8 With that little bit of hope, it now sounded like some people needed some sleep, even though that was almost impossible for the hostages because their “bedrooms” were hardly four-star hotel. Estelle, however, was not one of those who needed some sleep—or so he thought. In about seventy-two hours, that miscalculation would almost cause one of the most disastrous decisions of the entire eleven days. Shortly after speaking with Governor Briscoe for the second time that day, Carrasco told the hostages “it would be Saturday, at the latest, when we are ready to leave. We will have to take some of you with us. As soon as we are on safe soil, you will be released to return home.”9 119

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He did not say where “safe soil” was. His plan was to screen himself and his companions with human shields as they exited the library and made their way down the ramp to whatever vehicle—helicopter, automobile, whatever; no survivor knew for sure—he planned for his getaway. He asked for volunteers. Carrasco said he wanted only one man and three women to go with him. He immediately selected O’Brien even before the Father had a chance to raise his hand. He left it to the ladies to choose among themselves who would go with him. As Ann Fleming remembered, Carrasco “was our only hope. The other two men would have killed us in a heartbeat. We would’ve already been dead. But Carrasco had to keep us alive for himself.”10 Every one of the women hostages volunteered to accompany Carrasco during his exit from the library. Their rationale, according to O’Brien, was that by so doing, “they would save the greatest number of people because if there was (a TDC attack), there would be a hell of a lot more dead. This way, there was only four.” In other words, he suggested, “if there was to be a shootout, we’d rather have it in the yard than in the library because then (the authorities) could see who was who and who was where.” When asked about the women’s criteria for volunteering, the answer he gave was, “The babies. The women got together and they decided who would be the three that would go. Whose family was raised? Who had the best husband? Who could best afford to go?” It all boiled down, he said, to the fact that “the women who mostly had grown children—as opposed to babies.”11 Even if the hostages did get out of the Walls with Carrasco, they all were not positive about what he would do to them once he was free and on “safe soil”. What they were positive about was if they all stayed inside the library, sooner or later TDC would have to storm the building and then they would all either be massacred by Carrasco and his henchmen or they would die in the ensuing gun battle. Therefore, it was simple. Three of the ladies and Father O’Brien were laying their lives on the line in an effort to save the lives of the other seven. “We volunteered,” said Novella Pollard. “We all did. All seven of us. And then Fred finally said, ‘Ok, which of you are going? You make 120

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your choice.’ And I said, ‘I’m going.’ I said Mrs. Davis is not going. She has a fourteen-year-old son and no husband and she is not going. “And Linda Woodman said, ‘I’m going because I have no children at all.’ And then Ms. Beseda said she was going. So, the three of us were going.”12 Pollard, Woodman, and Beseda freely and quickly volunteered. It did not ultimately work out that way but that is the way it was at the end of that second day in hell.

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Chapter Twelve July 26, 1974 • Day Three

“If you want to come, just come ahead.” —Rudy Dominguez, hostage-taker

The morning sun bolted out of the swamps of western Louisiana, its rays slid across the Sabine River and spiked through the Piney Woods of East Texas. Another scorcher was on its way. The sun’s rays climbed twenty feet to the top of the walls surrounding the red brick fortress in Huntsville and spilled over into the prison yard. With the morning temperature already approaching eighty degrees— the high for the day would near the triple digits, and its late evening thermometer would hover near ninety. Negotiations began again at 10:00 a.m. Warden Husbands told Carrasco he would be given everything he demanded—helmets, walkie-talkies, clothing—everything, except the bulletproof vests. “The bullet-proof vests were something we would not want to give them,” FBI-man Bob Wiatt said. As for the helmets, “the hostiles were more concerned about somebody coming up behind them and shooting them in the head. We didn’t want to make them totally impregnable with bulletproof vests and helmets. It 122

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might have brought some act of bravado on their part so we said no to that. But, the helmets seemed to placate them,” Wiatt concluded.1 The warden, with Director Estelle’s approval, offered the M-16 military carbine rifles but there would be no ammunition unless the hostages were released. Carrasco really did not care about the weapons. For him, the demand was just a bargaining chip. He already had all the guns and ammunition he needed. Showing his considerable vanity though, Carrasco shifted his focus to the new clothing. He repeated his demand for tailored suits, Nunn-Bush shoes, shirts and ties, underwear, toilet articles, cologne, shaving cream, razors, toothbrushes, the entire accouterment. He again warned the warden, “I will kill the hostages if the clothes are not good.”2 Such egotism manifested itself among all the hostage-takers. For Dominguez, constantly waving his gun under the noses of cowering hostages made him feel he was a real man. For Cuevas, he beamed when he demanded to make a telephone call and his wish was immediately granted. And for Carrasco, according to Novella Pollard, he gloated when all he had to do was pick up the phone, call the warden’s office, and command almost anything of the authorities and, most of the time, they did his bidding. Steve Robertson felt Carrasco’s ego got its biggest boost from “the press coverage. That made him a hero. He was known all over the world. In my opinion, it wasn’t the clothes, the food, or nothing like that. It was the coverage by the press.”3 Some routines were beginning to develop within the chaos. Carrasco began to think seriously about how his captives were going to get fed. The prison sack lunches were quickly becoming old hat. Everybody needed something more substantial. The hostages sent out orders for food—huevos rancheros, refried beans, rice, tacos, enchiladas, nachos, and flour tortillas. As the official food tester, Father O’Brien got his fill of Tex-Mex cuisine. Then, a demand was telephoned to the warden’s office ordering an electric hot plate, a sauce pan in which food could also be heated, bowls, cans of soup, chili con carne, roast beef, beef stew, fruit cocktail, pears, and peaches. All the requested food was to be delivered in unopened cans. The wily Carrasco wanted 123

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to make sure there was no way the Texas Department of Corrections could alter the food. Always anxious and forever “hearing things,” Dominguez heard noises again and was convinced TDC was coming. He forced Von Beseda to call Estelle, and while he listened in, she asked Estelle directly, “Are you getting men ready to do something?” Urgently, the director reassured her. “No way! No. No way.” With Dominguez’ prodding, she sought further guarantees. “Now you promise us that you’re not sending anybody over here?” His answer was, “You have my word on that. Your safety is the only thing we’re interested in.”4 Dominguez butted in, deep and menacing. “Let me tell you something. We’re willing to die. If you want to come, just come ahead.”5 It was just one of many instances that made Linda Woodman believe, “The whole picture would have been totally different if Cuevas or Dominguez would have been in charge. I don’t know what they would have done but I don’t think they had the ability to think things through. In my mind,” she continued, “I think Carrasco thought he was going to get out. He would leave there as a gentleman-inmate that treated his hostages fairly. Even if he killed them.” she said with irony.6 Those initially put “up front” were Jack Branch, Bobby Heard, Father O’Brien, and Ron Robinson, assigned to sitting on the barricade in front of the doorway. Handcuffed to the metal chairs two at a time—usually it was O’Brien/Robinson and Branch/Heard—they spent twelve hours a day in four-hour alternating shifts. Heard spent even more. It was a grueling, painful, frightening, but also a sometimes boring existence for them. It was of little solace to the men that their captors and the inmate hostages had to guard them while they guarded the door. The seven convicts were not chained to chairs, were not bound hand and foot, were not restricted in their restroom needs, and were free to move about, read the newspapers, and listen to the radio when they pleased. Meeting their restroom needs quickly became a source of irritation for the civilian hostages. Just about everything they needed to do could only be done with the consent of the hostage-takers. It was as it was 124

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when they were in kindergarten. They had to raise their hand and ask (sometimes beg) for permission. When they got telephone calls from their families, it was—according to Woodman—a case of “may I go in there and use the phone?” The library had a small work room that had a sink. Woodman said she, “had to ask permission to go in and wash out my glass or my cups. When we go to the table to eat we would say, ‘may I go to the table.’ We didn’t move without asking that question.” On one occasion she wanted to work on her index cards and she had to tell Dominguez what she was doing “so he wouldn’t come back and shoot me.”7 Woodman and Novella Pollard came up with a schedule for guard duty. They talked it over with the other women, and all of them were willing to share the burden. With all eleven hostages doing guard duty, the shifts could be reduced to a tolerable two hours on and eight hours off with two hostages serving on each shift. Woodman drew up a shift schedule and took it to Carrasco. Twice Carrasco refused to consider the change. Woodman thought it was a “culture thing.” In his Latino mind, ‘women don’t do that,’” she mused. After further persuasion, Carrasco finally bought in. It was the first measurable break the male hostages had since lunchtime Wednesday. And for some of the women, it was an unexpected bonus. A truly positive thinker, Ann Fleming found being on guard duty “was kind of refreshing to be up there because you could see outdoors and you could feel the fresh air coming in.” And she said, “I would sing softly to myself. I would sing church songs. Things like ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Jesus, I Love Thee’ and all the songs I had learned as a child.”8 In retrospect and although it will never be known for sure, the extended guard duty roster might have been the first sign that Carrasco’s original escape plan had gone wrong. It seemed plausible that if Carrasco knew he was going to still be a prisoner for more than forty-eight hours after his takeover, he would have planned, for instance, for better food service than “John Henrys” at the outset. Obviously, his “rescue”—be it by armed vigilantes swooping into Huntsville with Rosa Carrasco riding shotgun in the lead car, or via a chartered helicopter hovering over the Walls’ educational complex 125

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with rope ladders hanging down—was not coming. As Pollard remembered Carrasco’s plans, “It seemed like he was waiting for someone or something to happen.”9 Estelle later talked about the theory wherein Carrasco thought he was going to abduct a grand jury and hold it hostage, thereby upping the ante because of a grand jury’s stature and the ensuing pressure. He said it was quite common for grand juries to tour the Huntsville facilities and he said, “a grand jury was scheduled to tour on July 24, but was called off at the last minute.” If Carrasco had taken them, “that would have put a whole lot of pressure on us,” said Estelle, “because they are civilians and even though they’re verbally warned of the ‘there are no hostages’ policy, they aren’t employees of the prison.”10 Inside the warden’s office there was much hustle and bustle. Think Tank One was now the communications center with telephone lines, monitoring equipment, and personnel. Most of the time there was a Deputy Attorney General in there monitoring legalities. Then too, there were ongoing normal prison operations. Warden Husbands was constantly visited by his counterparts from other nearby institutions. His was a dual role. Not only did he have to deal with an insurrection, he also had a prison to run. Estelle moved his command post to Think Tank Two—the prison barbershop. Since barbering was another thing the general inmate population had to do without during the siege, there was no clipping, cutting or shaving going on, and Estelle said, “the four chairs sure were comfortable” and a cuspidor was available for the tobacco-chewing officers. So was the informational security. He said, “It was kind of an informal, relaxed atmosphere, to say the least.” Think Tank Two, also known as the Command Post, was now operational headquarters for Estelle, Wiatt, Husbands and Texas Ranger captains Rogers and Burks. There were those in Huntsville who were sure Rosa Carrasco with a band of vigilantes would come riding into town. “I heard that Mrs. Carrasco is around here with ten cars belonging to the Mexican Mafia and they are supposed to be on their way to break out Carrasco,” blurted Jane Eastman, whose warnings gained added credence because her 126

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husband was a TDC employee.11 As he did with most things, Estelle took the vigilante possibility seriously. “There were,” he said, “some unsubstantiated rumors that Carrasco had people in the Conroe area that were going to take hostages in Huntsville. The suggestion,” he continued, “was that members of Mr. (Assistant Director Jack) Kyle’s family and my family might be the targets. Jack lived next door to me and he and I moved our families to friends’ homes across town. They stayed there for the duration.”12 Ranger Captain Rogers’ wife Gladys came up from Houston to be with her husband. She encountered one of the siege’s lighter moments. Gladys Rogers went to a local laundromat and began speaking with one of the many tourists in town . The women discussed “this hostage situation” and the tourist asked Gladys “What brings you here?” Gladys answered, “My husband’s with the Rangers and I’m here taking care of him.” To which the visitor responded, “What in the world do they want a ball team down here for?”13 Warden Husbands, who was not laughing about the Texas Rangers American League baseball team, also made special arrangements for his family. He recalled, “I had a friend with one of the hotel chains and I moved my family to his hotel in Houston. My son who lived in Huntsville closed his business up and went down there for a week, too.”14 Captain Rogers suggested Warden Husbands have sharpshooters stationed on the prison hospital roof and down in the tunnel leading to the Upper Yard. Using his Army Air Corps experience, Rogers showed the riflemen how to fire at a helicopters’ most vulnerable spots. At the same time, law enforcement agencies ratcheted up their searches on Huntsville streets for individuals, principally Mexican-Americans, who might be coming to town to help Carrasco. The lawmen were acting on a reported recent influx of Mexican-Americans that might be more than coincidence. The DPS put extra state troopers on the principle highways in the Huntsville area, watching for individuals or vehicles that might be headed that way with “trouble in their heart”. They stopped a couple of cars north of Conroe that were headed towards Huntsville that just “didn’t seem right.”15 127

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Meanwhile in Estelle’s thoughts, Carrasco had been set up. He figured Carrasco’s lieutenants in San Antonio, with perhaps the concurrence and even the assistance of Rosa Carrasco, encouraged him to make his bold attempt at freedom. There was a certainty that even though Carrasco was behind bars, he was still running the drug-running operation in San Antonio. As Estelle surmised, “There are all kinds of rumors that get generated by something like this; that there were, for instance, internal quarrels within Carrasco’s organization as to who was going to take over. There was some indication that Rosa had taken over.”16 There was even some indication a coup d’etat had taken place. “‘Yeah, Fred,’” the director postulated as to el Hampa’s position, ‘We’ll give you the guns and ammunition,’ fully knowing that—in their own minds ‘we got to get rid of Fred before we can solve our problems’. So if Fred wants to break out of that prison, ‘here’s the stuff, Fred. Have at it,’” was Estelle’s best guess. Father O’Brien concurred in Estelle’s theory. “I honestly and sincerely believe Carrasco was conned into making his attempt. I think he was set up by whoever was the mastermind behind getting those guns smuggled into the prison,” the priest said. “I have nothing to base this theory on but my instinct . . . but I sincerely believe he was set up as surely as I’m alive.”17 Carrasco was probably still running the show in San Antonio, and, by extension, receiving a major portion of the illicit financial benefits. For some of his lieutenants on the streets who were taking the risks of running the drugs while he sat safely behind bars, this obviously did not sit too well. With Carrasco at somewhat of a disadvantage in affecting retaliation from his jail cell, perhaps more than one of the lieutenants felt this was an opportune time to get Carrasco out of the picture altogether. If nothing else, it would lessen the number of slices in the financial pie. Did those involved promise him whatever assistance he needed in carrying out his escape plan—the guns, the ammunition, and the deliveryman? Were they to come riding to his rescue once he initiated the plan? Maybe once he was committed to the deadly misadventure, they would leave him holding the bag, the hostages, and his death warrant. A man driven by his ego, this made Carrasco an perfect foil for such a conspiracy. 128

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That was Estelle’s scenario. “It was a perfect set up,” the director said. Carrasco was pre-ordained to failure, his deputies thought, and his Mexican Connection was up for grabs and they would be the principal beneficiaries. While Carrasco was fighting for his life in Huntsville, they would be looting the treasuries in San Antonio and Guadalajara. It had happened to him at least once before. In a telephone interview during the siege with newscaster Virgil Teter of Channel 12 in San Antonio, Carrasco was asked, “Do you think that someone within your group or close circle of friends set you up for the arrest at the hotel (a year ago in the San Antonio shootout)?” “Well, let’s put it this way,” he answered matter-of-factly but menacingly, “There had to be somebody that had a little say-so.”18 Estelle, too, subscribed to the theory. “I suggest,” he mused, “that they furnished him with the tools and then didn’t furnish him any infrastructure to accomplish it. They said, ‘Go ahead and commit suicide if you want to Carrasco. It serves us well.’”19 Despite all the speculation, no law enforcement officer had any informed idea how Carrasco thought he was going to get out of the Walls Unit. All they knew was he was not. At this time, Estelle and Company was also worrying about how they were going to get into the library. They were totally stymied. They did, however, catch a break. If they could not get into the library physically, they could get in electronically. And it was almost by accident they found a way. Estelle and his team spent hours pouring over library floor plans looking for an opening, any way they could get in and with the element of surprise, affect a rescue. No idea was too far off-the-wall to be considered. For instance, it was suggested, said Assistant Director Red McKaskle that “we try to send a message up in their clothes or in the food. But we were afraid of what would happen to the hostages if we got caught.”20 Estelle said, “We tried to free-up our thinking as much as we could. Not many of us in the criminal justice system are really creative thinkers because we’re used to rules and regulations and laws and paramilitary structure. These kinds of things don’t lend themselves to creative thinking.”21 So, the Command Post members concocted “what if” games, 129

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trying to free-up their thinking while maintaining one primary ground rule: They would initiate no lethal action. They continually asked themselves questions, such as one by the FBI’s Wiatt, “How can we get a microphone up there with five inches of concrete between the floors and no windows or openings other than the doorway into the library?”22 TDC Assistant Director Alton Akins was in the group when it came like a bolt out of the blue. Akins smacked his forehead, almost knocking off his horned-rimmed glasses, and moaned, “My God, I almost forgot.” He remembered aloud, “When we rebuilt that facility, I was so mad, I was going to fire the knucklehead.”23 Someone, it developed, forgot to pour the requisite five inches of concrete to seal a hole for a chase pipe that carried the building’s electrical wiring from the second floor up to the third. The vertical chase pipe hole was open and it went into the utility closet, the very same utility closet that almost became Ron Robinson’s coffin the day before. All the authorities had to do was secretly run a “spike mike” up the pipe and they had listening ear ten feet from where Carrasco staked out his space in the library. The Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence Unit provided the microphone and very early Friday morning the monitoring began. Right away, the conversations heard confirmed that Ron Robinson had definitely not been shot the day before, and that most of those hostage cries for mercy were staged. Keeping the information pipeline’s secret away from everyone outside the command post rivaled that of cracking an enemy’s secret code during wartime. It was a good thing Akins did not make the “knucklehead” do the job over.

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Chapter Thirteen “We will assassinate everyone!” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

With their intelligence-gathering system in place, the Command Post returned to the task of formulating a plan for entering the library with an attack team, if necessary. No thought, scheme, nor concept, was rejected out of hand, no matter how far out of the box it might seem to be. Some ideas had what TDC Director Estelle called a “Buck Rogers” quality about them.1 Under even the best-case scenarios, they knew an assault would no doubt be a blood bath. The aim was to hit hard, hit fast, with as much firepower as they could muster, and with the element of surprise. It would have to be a massive, shocking blow, stunning the gunmen and traumatizing them before they could get off any rounds aimed at their captives. Everyone in the Command Post knew there was no way they could hit hard enough and fast enough to save all the hostages. It was just a matter of reducing the losses, of lowering the body count. How many hostage lives could they afford to lose in order to save how many others? How many body bags would they need? 131

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A frontal assault through the library doors was out. Not only would the approach of armed officers up the zigzagging ramp tip off the hostage-takers, it would also be a suicide mission for the guards coming up the last leg. The element of surprise would be compromised and the captors, with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, could pick off the assault team with little trouble. Even knowing that, someone asked, “Can’t we just storm the place; hit them with everything we have? We’ll send a squad up the ramp and through the door. Maybe we can even drop some Rangers down through the roof. No matter how you slice it,” the FBI veteran implored, “we’re going to have to go in there because I can’t believe that nut case Carrasco isn’t—sooner or later—going to take some hostages out. It’s just a matter of which course results in the fewest casualties.”2 There had to be another way. Estelle, Rogers, Burks, and Wiatt burned up the telephone lines all over the country calling law enforcement agencies and professional friends seeking ideas. There was nothing in Wiatt’s new SWAT team tactics book designed for this situation. He made numerous calls to Houston and Washington but no one in the FBI nor even the entire U. S. Department of Justice had any good answers. The Texas Ranger captains could not get any help out of their headquarters in Austin nor from any field offices because of the uniqueness of the Huntsville facility. Estelle was sure he had heard about the U. S. Army developing some sort of a non-lethal gas that would knock out the enemy. He called the Department of Defense’s Redstone Arsenal in, ironically, Huntsville, Alabama and the United States Department of Defense at the Pentagon. Ever secretive, the military told him such a gas did not exist and even if it did, they could not let him have it because it was top-secret. According to Estelle, he was told, “you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, and you can’t have it.” Estelle said he spent so much time on the telephone that “some people thought I was coming loose at the seams.”3 The way Wiatt remembered it was “we had no suggestions other than ‘Just wait them out. Play it by ear.’ We were frustrated. We couldn’t get any help from anybody. We just knew there had to be someone sitting in some place like Pocatello, Idaho, who would be saying “Here’s what 132

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you do.’” To add to their frustration, they got some unwanted phone calls. “Once this story came out,” Wiatt recalled, “we were inundated with callers, including a lot of ‘loony-tunes’. We got calls from out in California from people saying they could go and put a spell on Carrasco. We had calls coming out of the woodwork from psychics, from people saying they had a friend who was an alien and would come down from Mars to help us.”4 The one suggestion they got most often was “how about tear gas?” Pumping enough gas into the educational facility’s 112,000 cubic foot void fast enough to be effective would be impossible. Besides, the cunning Carrasco had already anticipated that weapon and threatened Warden Husbands, “If we smell gas, we will assassinate everyone.”5 But the point was, recalled Estelle, “Carrasco didn’t get the kind of response from us that I think he anticipated. Nobody fell apart. Nobody screamed at him. None of us said, ‘If you kill one of ours, we’re going to kill one of yours.’ There were times when he wanted to force the issue. But, we just listened, and listened some more.”6 Someone in the Command Post came up with the bright idea to rig an unseen explosive device in the steel helmets Carrasco was demanding and which the TDC shop was fabricating. Even Father O’Brien was thinking of that. As he said when the helmets were finally delivered, “I took one look and I snapped my fingers and I felt ‘they’ve got it. They put an explosive in the helmet.’ That’s what they should have done.”7 However, a wiser head in the Think Tank questioned, “But, what happens if Carrasco uses one of the hostages to model the helmet before he tries it on?” The way Wiatt remembered it, “There were a lot of esoteric things that we kicked around that we knew were completely stupid. We were so frustrated.8 Another plan actually got underway. The library windows had been replaced with brick during the remodeling. The thought was that those somewhat thinner areas could be blown out with a coordinated series of military-style C-4 explosives in a surprise attack. Then the TDC storm troopers could come barging in through the debris and smoke-filled holes while the gunmen were recovering from the shock effect. No 133

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matter what, putting this plan into operation “was not an acceptable option—except as a last resort,” Estelle ordered.9 It was a command, as seen later, that was fully justified. However, Warden Husbands said, “We were fixed up to do that. We had the whole thing fixed to go in those holes if they threw a body out.” But, continued Husbands, “if Carrasco started shooting hostages, we had to stop the slaughter. Who knows,” he questioned, “we might have killed them all, too. We didn’t know that.”10 Bruce Thaler was a twenty-year-old CO on July 26, 1974, having been with the TDC for two years after graduating from high school. His job that day was to lug sand bags up the wall behind the library building and place them outside three of the then-bricked up windows on shelves that had been built and hoisted into place at the windows’ base by a forklift. With four-pound packages of C-4 plastics about onefoot square placed against each of the bricked-up windows, the sandbags were packed around the outside of the explosives, placing the C-4 between the sandbags and the wall, thereby forcing the full impact of

Shown at the top of the ladder outside a bricked-up window are sandbags, behind which was placed a C-4 explosive charge to be detonated if authorities had to storm the library. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 134

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the blast forward into the building. After Wiatt suggested using the C4, Estelle called the Army in Houston and asked for help. The Army said it would only show TDC how to use and place the C-4. It would not, however, give the explosive to any civilian agency, not even a paramilitary force such as the Texas Department of Corrections. Estelle was right back to his “you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, and you can’t have it” frustration. The ever-resourceful assistant director Red McKaskle—described by Estelle “one of the most loyal people I’ve ever worked with”—came through instead.11 Calling on his vast array of contacts, McKaskle telephoned J. F. Russell, Operations Manager, Engineered Explosive Services Department, Welex, a division of the Halliburton Corporation, the oil field service company in Houston. Russell hurried to Huntsville and brought the C-4 (used in oil well drilling operations), the necessary electrical wiring, and the triggering devices with him. Trouble was, said Husbands, “This man didn’t know how much of it he needed to knock those windows out. He didn’t know whether it would knock out a little bitty hole; blow the whole wall down, or what.”12 Something else no one knew, something they only found out at the end of the crisis, was that inside those bricked up windows was where the hostages sometimes slept. But while the sandbags were being loaded against the windows in the late afternoon, Rudy Dominguez heard noises coming from that area. Some of the hostages heard it, too. Novella Pollard whispered to Linda Woodman, “‘I can hear something.’ And Linda heard it too. It sounded like a tap, tap, tap, tap.” Just then, a book on one of the shelves where the noise was coming from fell to the floor. Dominguez bolted over to the guilty shelf and swept it and several others clean of their books and listened intently. He took a couple of steps back and, before any one of the hostages had even the slightest chance to cover their ears, Dominguez ripped off five shots from his .357 caliber Magnum, hoping dim-wittedly he could hit whoever or whatever he thought was on the other side of the brick wall.13 The explosive sound of a pistol firing in a library area was deafening and once more the nerves of the hostages were shattered. Carrasco was 135

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at the other end of the room on the phone with Montemayor but even his gunshot-hardened ears were rattled. He dashed back to the far wall to see what was going on. Dominguez spoke excitedly in Spanish that TDC’s assault was underway, that it was coming from outside that wall. Carrasco immediately ordered all the women hostages back to the opposite side of the library and made Father O’Brien and Jack Branch get on the floor with the fallen books. Then he ordered Woodman to telephone Warden Husbands and say, “We know what’s going on out there. Tell him,” he yelled, “I want it stopped instantly. If he wants some shooting, I’ll show him some shooting.”14 He went to the door where Bobby Heard and Ron Robinson were handcuffed to the barricade and fired two shots over their heads. With each shot, the hostages were almost jolted out of their chairs, frightened out of their wits. Pollard said, “We jumped with every shot.”15 The bullets fractured the upper half of the glass door, and broke windows in the prison chapel belfry about fifty yards away. The gunfire reverberating throughout the prison yard brought fire trucks and ambulances rushing to a side entrance of the prison. Back in the library, a shard of the glass splintered by Carrasco’s shots hit Linda Woodman. She felt a trickle of blood running down her cheek, instinctively cried out she had been shot, and then drug Novella Pollard, to whom she was shackled, behind a protective desk. She recalled with some embarrassment, “It was just a sliver (of glass). It stung so that I thought I was really hit and when I reached up there was blood.”16 That pistol shot also brought another element of fear for the hostages. When one of the prison inmates subsequently brought food up the ramp to the library entrance, he accidentally brushed the food tray against the door’s broken glass. “When this guy stuck the food through the window,” remembered Jack Branch, “it made the glass shatter all over. This made a loud sound. I was frightened then that somebody was going to shoot. I actually thought someone was trying to open the door wider so maybe they could send gas through it or something. I was real frightened then.”17 Causes for panic, real or imagined, were never far away.

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The times were getting particularly tough for the Director of the Texas Department of Corrections. Estelle was ever aware that he had the lives of eleven of his co-workers placed squarely in his hands. “That element,” he recalled, “will keep you focused.” Like a military commander during the heat of battle, Estelle made sure he did not get too close to the families of those hostages facing life or death through his decisions, right or wrong. “I made it a point not to be around (them),” he explained to Dr. Lane Murray, the Windham School superintendent. Through Public Affairs Director Ron Taylor, TDC tried to keep the hostages’ families appraised of what was happening but only on a needto-know basis. “Obviously, we didn’t tell them everything,” said Estelle, “but we told them what we thought we could without compromising their loved ones’ safety.” But Estelle made it adamantly clear to Taylor and Murray specifically that he could not and would not meet personally with family members. Naturally, they all wanted to meet with the director, but Estelle decided, and other members of the operational team supported him, that it was much easier for a subordinate, a staff person to say “No” or “I don’t know.” They could hide behind the fact that “the director’s already considered that” or say many other things that would avoid the direct and unavailable answers the families were seeking. What the subordinates did not say was, “No, because the director can’t meet with you because he’s afraid that his vision would be colored by his emotional response to your situation.”18 According to McKaskle, it was a “gut-wrenching” time for Estelle. The assistant director said, “There were periodic phone calls to Jim Estelle from some of the families of the hostages. They didn’t want to talk to Red McKaskle. They wanted to talk to Jim Estelle because he’s the head guy. There were people saying stuff like, ‘you’re sentencing my wife to a death sentence. If she dies, it’s all your fault.’ I don’t know how he handled that.”19 What made Estelle’s situation even tougher was he knew some of the hostages on a very personal basis. Marilyn and Jim Estelle had double-dated with Buster and Von Beseda. Judy Standley and the Estelles went to the same Huntsville church. He knew prison guard Bobby Heard and other hostages at least by sight and by name, mostly through some social activities such as barbeques and the 137

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Huntsville rodeo TDC put on for its employees and families. So it was tough for Estelle to cut himself off from his friends, his co-workers and their families. But it was necessary. Outside the Walls Unit and beyond the TDC administration building, other people were engaged in related activities. Faced with the daunting prospect of a shootout with numerous and major casualties, nearby Huntsville Memorial Hospital went on full-staff emergency alert on Friday night to provide backup to the prison hospital. Memorial’s personnel—from nurse’s aides to administrator Jim Spann—were on standby almost from the moment the three inmates took the hostages. All employees were told to stay within three minutes of the hospital. Two surprise alerts to test employees’ reaction time were called. Everyone reported within the allotted time. Supplies of blood were brought in from Houston.20 Additional supplies of syringes, sterile trays, bandages, x-ray sheets, and surgical gowns and masks were brought in. The hospital admitted only emergency patients. No elective surgeries were scheduled. Extra cots were ordered, not only for those that might be wounded, but also for hospital workers on duty day and night. The emergency room, normally manned by a single doctor, had at least four on hand. Closer to the scene, technicians from Southwestern Bell telephone company were on duty twenty-four hours a day. Their job was not only to secure and maintain communication lines within and without the Walls, they were also working feverously to keep the media lines open. The original eight telephones in the media area on the administration building lawn were expanded to twenty as the newsmen and women advanced on the scene and scrambled with each other to get their stories out. The media rivalry in Huntsville was intense. Jim Barlow was working out of the Associated Press five-man office in Houston when the first news alert came. He was, as usual, ready. “I kept a bag under my desk with a couple of changes of clothing,” he remembered. Then, as he put it, “I drove the seventy-five miles from Houston to Huntsville at about one-hundred miles per hour. I figured every patrolman in the 138

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state was gathering at the prison and they wouldn’t be out there looking for speeders like me violating the double-nickel (55 miles per hour) limit.”21 ABC News brought in ten staffers from Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio, Atlanta, and Miami to augment the three reporters it sent up from Houston. NBC also had ten staffers from its radio and television stations all across Texas, and CBS sent in six correspondents. Newspapers in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio sent news crews to the scene where they settled in for the duration. Virtually every newspaper in Texas covered the story, as did others such as the New York Times. The weekly news magazines, Time and Newsweek, showed up. Throughout the siege, Walter Cronkite brought millions of television viewers up to date on the CBS Evening News telecasts, as did Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith on ABC-TV, and John Chancellor on NBC-TV. After President Nixon’s possible impeachment stories, the Huntsville Siege was the second story in almost all media outlets across the nation.22 As for the media competition, Barlow said, “Sure there was rivalry. We all were trying to cut each other’s throats. That was especially true between AP and UPI, which used to boast in weekly publications sent to customers when they had beaten each other by just a few minutes.”23 Being the resourceful newsman he was, one of the first things Barlow did upon arrival in Huntsville was to get to the nearest motel and check into its largest available room. Then he dashed off to a hardware store and bought himself a lawn chair and table. As it turned out, he got back home to Houston only once during the entire eleven days, to grab a change of clothes and hustle back. Barlow had been on big stories before. Cal Thomas, reporting the news for NBC Houston station KPRCTV, did not have such “luxurious” working conditions. He wrote his television scripts on a Royal typewriter on the tailgate of his station wagon. To make matters worse in the broiling Texas noonday sun and the high humidity, Thomas said his news director, Ray Miller—a World War II U. S. Navy submarine commander who still ran a very tight ship—“required all his reporters to wear Brooks Bros. suits, neckties and buttoned-up shirts” when covering any story.24 Most of the rest of the media mob ran around barefoot and casual. George Lewis from the 139

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recently formed NBC-TV bureau in Houston recalled a “kind of a culture clash” between NBC local and network television staffers. “We (the network staffers) were kind of a bunch of slobs,” he joked. The thirtyfour-year-old Lewis and many of his associates on scene had served time reporting in Vietnam and so they dressed “very casually.”25 In a hostage-taking siege, especially a long one, there isn’t a whole lot of hard news coming available. Things just drag on. The newsmen are generally left to bantering among themselves, speculating on events, complaining about the heat, joking about “combat pay,” the Watergate Scandal, and the relentless boredom. As the media war heated up, Lewis remembered “talk among us was about how that ‘war’ was escalating. CBS now has three chairs and an umbrella and we’re getting four chairs, an umbrella and a picnic cooler.”26 Technical advances in television broadcasting and coverage were primitive by today’s standards. Word processors with cathode-ray tube displays and speedy printers were just beginning to replace typewriters. It was a year or two before remote, live transmission capabilities were developed. Some TV reporters phoned in their updates, which became voice-over for still photographs or stock film footage, much of which was outdated by the time the report hit the late-night news programs. Whatever television film that was shot on scene—and how many different ways could they shoot pictures of the prison and the huge clock face outside on the prison wall and still have something new?— had to be rushed back to Houston by car through rush-hour traffic, processed and edited. But in the jockeying and skirmishing between the newsmen when any real news did become available, Thomas caustically said he had an advantage. “One of our cameramen was Jesse Valdez, the Olympic boxer who won the bronze medal for the U.S. at the 1972 Olympics.”27 Evaluating the media’s role, the FBI’s Bob Wiatt said, “Basically, they’re usually always a hindrance. You’ve got to supply them with information. There’s so much you cannot give them and yet, they are so consuming of data and information that they are persistent and they get on your nerves.” Continuing his indictment, Wiatt said, “And then 140

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they will go outside and try to get some information that you can’t give them. For instance, somebody from the news media was trying to find out what the telephone numbers were up there in the library so they could make direct calls to Carrasco and get an ‘exclusive’. Yeah,” he concluded, “in something like this, they’re a hindrance.”28 Such was the case when Rudy Dominguez heard a radio report saying the authorities were not going to give them what they demanded. “Well, you know what?” he ranted to Ruben Montemayor, “If it’s going to be like that, then, like I told you, I’ve made up my mind to die.”29 Before the siege was over, there would be other breaches of security by the media, including one that could have resulted in a total collapse of the efforts to free the hostages. The radio became a menace. “We could listen to it if we wanted to,” said Linda Woodman. “But it seemed that things would be said there that would alarm the (the hostiles) so we just kind of quit that.”30 Even though it was touch-and-go for the media personnel on scene, their presence and the usual crowd of gawkers that gathers at any tragedy, soon created a mini-economic boom for Huntsville’s merchants. One fast-food joint reported it was slinging two-hundred-dollars more a week in hamburger sales. At another restaurant, a waitress reported, “We did more business by the middle of the afternoon than we do in a whole day most of the time. But,” she added only somewhat ruefully, “I sure wish it was all under different circumstances.” Checkout counter transactions at Brookshire Brothers, the town’s supermarket, rose due to the influx of hostage relatives who flocked into the tiny Texas town for an extended stay. But an attendant at a nearby gasoline station complained, “Seems to me like people just aren’t driving anywhere at all today. They just come over here and park and look at what is going on and I know they aren’t buying gas like they usually do.”31 A slight ray of hope for the hostages appeared in the Huntsville Item, on Friday. A local tire dealer, Andy Martinez, believed Ignacio Cuevas was “on our side.” As a volunteer, Martinez taught a Spanish language Bible class inside the Walls. One of his students for the past three months was Cuevas. Martinez called The Item saying he might have some 141

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influence on his former pupil. The offer was relayed to TDC. Agreeing to the idea, skeptical authorities allowed teacher and student to talk by telephone at about three o’clock Friday afternoon. The conversation led Martinez to believe, “When the chips are down, he may turn the tide for us.” According to Martinez, if Carrasco tried to harm one of the women hostages, it was likely that Cuevas would shoot him dead. 32 The tire dealer reported Cuevas was the first of eight Bible class inmates to “be saved and accept Jesus as their personal savior.” With his baptism pending, Martinez did not believe Cuevas would want to die before receiving those rites. He also said, “Cuevas has an obsession with guns.” The merchant/teacher believed Cuevas joined the prison escape attempt when he saw the gun made be available to him. The gun made “something snap.” Cuevas talked about his obsession with guns a number of times, Martinez said.33 Later events proved Martinez’ hopes for Cuevas false, to which Father O’Brien attested. It was when the hostages were not supposed to be talking and, as O’Brien recalled, “I was reading a newspaper,” as most hostages did avidly, many times interpreting and even softening stories they felt would anger their captives. “Cuevas saw my lips moving and he thought I was whispering to another hostage,” the priest said. “So he grabbed the newspaper, dragged me up to the front where the doors were and pushed me against the open closet door. That’s when I realized that ‘rage overcomes fear.’ Cuevas shoved that cocked gun up my nose, and I screamed at him, ‘Cut the shit and shoot!’”34 Cuevas’ bluff was called and the feisty priest’s verbal rebellion brought a chuckle from those in the warden’s office listening to the spike mike. For Novella Pollard it prompted her to take her first tranquilizer during the siege. “I had become hysterical when Cuevas was going to kill Father O’Brien.”35

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Chapter Fourteen “We will kill as many people as possible.” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

Federico Gomez Carrasco’s moods were hard for those in the Command Post to predict. On several occasions, TDC Director Estelle made, or authorized lawyer Ruben Montemayor to make, offers to Carrasco that quickly backfired. For instance, late Friday after about thirty minutes of negotiations directly between Estelle and Carrasco, an offer of transportation was made. Estelle assumed, one way or the other, the three hostiles would need a getaway vehicle. According to Warden Husbands, “We told Carrasco there would be a car inside the Walls waiting for his instructions. We told him that the car would be pulled up to the ramp in front of the building, filled with gas with the motor either running or off, whatever he wished.”1 Although authorities had had expected it since day one of the siege, Carrasco had not asked for transportation in exchange for the hostages. Estelle did not tell the hostage-takers they were being allowed to go free. They were only offered transportation. Estelle remembered, “Had they taken it up, we’d have arranged their safe conduct—but only 143

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out of the building, not off the grounds. And we probably embellished the offer a little bit.”2 The fact that that transportation was not going anywhere was, obviously, not mentioned. It was a very deliberate choice of words. The intent was to get the three captors out of the library. If he could get them out in the open, the feeling was TDC would have a much better chance of ending the standoff in the least painful manner. Estelle knew he was not going to let the murderous trio get outside the Walls. Engaging the killers in a high-speed highway chase or a shootout would definitely mean the end for any hostages they still held. A further promise of full media coverage of the hostiles’ exit from the library was made; pseudo-guaranteeing there would be no unprovoked violence against the convicts. “We even told him,” said Husbands, “there would be no attempt to prevent him from getting in the vehicle.” Carrasco was also told, said Husbands, “that everything would be delivered to him except the rifle ammunition, and that we were unable to get the other rifles. We told him that the ammunition would be released upon delivery of the women hostages.”3 Once again, Carrasco’s reaction was not what they had hoped. Carrasco screamed at Estelle over the phone via Ruben Montemayor, “You think that you are going to tell me when and how I’m going to leave this prison? I’ll tell you, Mr. Director, how and when I’m leaving.”4 Furious, Carrasco said, “I will never accept orders from them. I’d rather die. I want them to know that they are not negotiating with a newcomer. I will then tell them how I am going to leave. They are not going to make the plans for me. They insult my intelligence. From now on,” he threatened, “when I tell them what time one of the people at the door will die, we will open the door so you can pick him up.”5 Inmate hostage Steve Robertson thought “he was going to probably hijack his lawyer’s plane. I don’t know how big it was, if it could carry the four hostages. But, he was talking about South America and an airplane.”6 The latest outburst from the convict convinced the director that whatever plans Carrasco originally had for getting out were now long gone. He was simply winging it as illustrated by his answer to a reporter who asked what his mode of transportation out of the prison would be. 144

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Carrasco’s answer was, “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. There’s no sense,” he admitted, “talking about one thing when another thing hasn’t been even considered.”7 As Estelle and his lieutenants pondered Carrasco’s possible moves, there was one big fear they all had that none of them wanted to discuss. Suppose Dominguez, Cuevas, and Carrasco each came marching out of the library, went down the ramp to a waiting vehicle while holding one of the women hostages in front of them with a revolver pointed directly at the base of each woman’s skull? Or they could come down with all the hostages providing a protective, human shield around the hostiles. The dilemma any of those scenarios posed was staggering. According to Wiatt, “If all three came out with one hostage with a pistol to their heads and wanted to get into a car, they might have gotten away with it.”8 How could law enforcement stop them? It was a strong possibility that if any of the convicts were shot by TDC sharpshooters, the immediate flinching reaction of the person hit would cause a trigger pull, thereby blowing the brains out of the woman being held. Anything used as an attempt to stop the hostages—tear gas, stun guns, flash/ bang devices could result in that knee-jerk reaction. However, the TDC director speculated, “Even if they had gained access to the vehicle, what are they going to do when they get to the back gate? There’s nobody there to open it.”9 Warden Husbands ran this one up the flagpole, “Well, it was agreed,” he said, “that when they got to Upper Yard, there’d be six Texas Rangers down there—each one of them with a gun pointed at these convicts’ head. They’d have one gun and we’d have six. And we’d be in pretty good shape,” he thought. “It was something we might have had to do. Certainly we didn’t want that because somebody has to get hurt on a deal like that.” 10 “But in the end,” said Wiatt with an audible sigh of relief, “the hostiles didn’t go for that plan.” According to Estelle, another reason they did not was Carrasco “let his ego get in his way and he tripped over it. He was going to do it on his terms. He conceived of this idea that all three of them were going to go out with hostages and that was his plan and he was stuck with it.”11 145

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What Wiatt did not know was that plan—coming down the ramp while holding a pistol to the head of a hostage—did cross Carrasco’s mind. According to inmate Steve Robertson, Carrasco was “gonna take a gun and cock it and hold it to a hostage’s head and tape it both around the hostage’s neck and his arm. In case he got shot, the gun would discharge. Everybody was gonna get around him and the other two and walk down the ramp. But then he realized there’s no way he could’ve walked down that ramp. Anybody could’ve slipped; any one of the hostages, they could slip and it would have been over.”12 After Carrasco’s blowup about the transportation offer, he said he wanted to talk to Joe Sweeney, a newsman for WOAI television in San Antonio. Sweeney had interviewed Carrasco in the Bexar County jail a year earlier following the shootout. Sweeney was part of the nearby media pool of eighty-six accredited reporters as compiled by Public Affairs Director Ron Taylor. Sweeney would spend three hours talking to the killer. When the interview ended, Sweeney—as previously agreed—played the interview tapes for the assembled media members. The net result was that Carrasco’s already inflated ego was blown to even greater heights as he realized he was, alongside the President of the United States, the big news in media outlets across the country. Carrasco—who at times refuted claims that he had killed over fifty people and at times bragged about it—said, “I’ve been accused of killing forty, fifty or sixty. I don’t know how many persons.” In a gesture of atypical compassion, he went on, “I know what I’ve done and I know what I haven’t done, and I know I don’t want to harm these people because they are innocent.” He further claimed, hoping to raise the pressure level, that he and Cuevas and Dominguez were “getting tense and nervous” due to the vigil, which now had continued for almost sixty hours. And to reemphasize his point, Carrasco told Sweeney, “We will finish them off and kill as many people as possible if we are provoked or our demands are not met. They can storm the place or do whatever they want. I’ve got plenty of ammunition and I’m ready to use it.”13 146

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“That’s what kept everybody on edge,” said Wiatt. “We never knew whether the guy was going to do it or not.”14 Earlier in the day, Carrasco also had a telephone interview with Gloria Delgado, a San Antonio Express-News reporter. He told her he expected to be out of the Huntsville prison no later than the next day, Saturday. “I don’t care,” he protested, “what they say about me. My friends and family know me. They know I’m not the man I’ve been made to seem. And,” he said, “we are going where we will not see the face of the gringos again. We will take a few hostages with us,” he continued, because “they will kill us like dogs if we do not.” He said he had been planning his escape “since they caught me like a dog” in San Antonio a year ago. “If I die today or tomorrow, it’s all the same to me. Destiny is destiny,” he repeated calmly. “But these others don’t deserve to die.” Then Carrasco offered to let some hostages talk and Delgado spoke with Linda Woodman and Von Beseda.15 The reporter’s first question to Woodman was about Ron Robinson. “I understand one man’s been shot, is that correct?” The librarian was not about to fall into that trap. The last thing she wanted to do was to give out any information that Carrasco did not want given out. So, she immediately turned to her captor, who was monitoring her call, and asked, “Was there one man shot?” Her hesitant, questioning response to the reporter gave the TDC officials—who were also monitoring and taping phone calls—another indication that Robinson had, indeed, not been shot. Delgado then asked, “What is the general feeling among the hostages? Are you scared; are you a little bit bewildered?” Woodman answered, “Well, of course, we are frightened. We can’t stay here day after day without the feeling of tension and fear. But, we’re just hopeful everything will work out all right. And the women have not been mistreated in any way. But this is a nightmare.” At that point, Woodman became the interrogator. “Do you know what just bugs me?” she asked rhetorically, and proceeded to chastise the media for the errors it was reporting. “A lot of what appears in the paper is wrong,” she protested. Specifically, she cited the status of the four inmate hostages. Many of the early reports coming out of Huntsville 147

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described Henry Escamilla, Martin Quiroz, Steve Robertson, and Florencio Vera as co-conspirators. “We have read several papers and when something in there is wrong, it gets us all up tight—Carrasco and his men and then us too. Then we all have to kind of calm down again.”16 The four inmate-hostages were trapped in the situation. As Novella Pollard told her daughter Kathy, “They’re just as much prisoners as we are.”17 Their job, as assigned by Carrasco, was to care for the needs of everyone in the library, including the bad guys. When they could the inmate-captives secretively translated some of the hostiles’ conversations, trying to let the hostages know what the plans were. Steve Robertson and Martin Quiroz, in particular, spent long hours sitting, talking, and trying to allay the fears of those who were at the doorway, targets of both friendly and enemy fire. Ann Fleming told her husband Herman that Robertson “sat there and talked to me for the whole two hours. It gets lonely when you don’t have anybody to talk to.” 18 She also told Herman about her religious discussions with Robertson. “I talked to Steve—the only one of the four I would describe as personable; he wasn’t a Christian yet—and I talked to him, trying to get him to straighten up when he got out of prison. These inmates were very much interested in trying to do better.”19 Ms. Davis was another who talked with the inmates about being a Christian. Some of their words made Robertson curious, at least. “I don’t believe in Christ,” he related, “but they got me second-guessing because somethin’ held them together for all those days. They wasn’t afraid to die.”20 Generally, the civilian hostages and their inmate counterparts chatted about where they came from, where they lived, and their families. These conversations were a huge solace for many civilian hostages. The inmate foursome had their concerns, too. If it ever did come to a massacre, what would be their status? On one occasion, Linda Woodman recalled, “Carrasco got real, real angry with Steve Robertson. The inmate-hostages were getting medicine from the hospital for their various ailments,” she said, “They evidently had a lot of pain medicine and I believe Robertson must have taken too much. Carrasco seemed to be angry with him because he wasn’t alert or he was stoned or whatever. I don’t know what it was but all of a sudden, Steve was just kind of walking 148

“WE WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.”

across the floor and he just kind of slumped to the ground and Carrasco came over and threatened to shoot him. It scared us to death. Carrasco chewed him out royally.”21 Carrasco had him handcuffed for a while. When asked by the authorities if he was ever in fear for his life during the siege, Robertson answered emphatically, “Yes, sir. Because I knew if y’all come here, you weren’t gonna discriminate. You-all were gonna shoot anything in white.” His fears definitely were two-sided. Even if they did live through it all, what would be their status in the eyes of the law? Would it be determined that they had assisted Carrasco as Father O’Brien charged? Or would they be seen as comforters to the other hostages? The latter was a point the civilian hostages could not stress strongly enough to the authorities and to the media and it angered them when either entity got it wrong. Woodman remembered the inmate hostages had an even more immediate fear. “Those boys up there are petrified. I mean, they could leave at any time. Not that Fred would release them but they’re the ones who open the door when the messengers come up and that hole there’s big enough to slide through. But, they’re afraid of what TDC will do to them. They figure they’re going to be beat to death for even taking part in this. And they’re actually hostages.”22 Robertson did his best also to make the “we’re-hostages-too” point during a telephone interview with Fort Worth reporter Henry de la Garza who asked him if he was a volunteer hostage. “Well, at first I was,” Robertson answered, “because I just felt I ought to stay. We all are hostages. I guess we could leave but we would jeopardize the lives of the other people here and I just couldn’t bear that on my conscience. I’ve been familiar with violence all my life and I just couldn’t, you know, do anything to jeopardize their lives. If they can take it, the least I can do is stay here with them and help them as best I could.”23 Following Woodman’s comments about the treatment the women had been receiving, Von Beseda got on the line with confirmation, “It’s just like Linda said. We have been treated very nicely. They’re treating us just like ladies. But,” regarding the media errors, “there have been some very tense moments and, of course, when they get tense, we get tense.” Continuing the defense of the inmate hostages, she said, “If we 149

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come out of this alive, which we will if TDC will come through, I feel that those fellows that are up here are real nice; they’ve treated us real nicely.” According to Florencio Vera, “nice” went both ways. “Everybody was treated nice, you know. I ain’t in very good health you know. . . . And one time I had a fever, my stomach was hurting and I was throwing up. Somebody came and gave me some drugs, you know. I took them and I slept about all day, about twelve hours. Everybody’s treating us nice. . . ”24 It did not take Carrasco long to recognize the power of the press. His very first outside telephone call the previous Wednesday night to the San Antonio Light, and KITE Radio brought him unexpected newspaper and radio coverage due to the charge that he had paid Major Murdock twenty-five-thousand dollars for the weapons he was using in his takeover. Two days later, the press corps had swollen to over one hundred accredited reporters, commentators, and camera crew members. The siege was covered nationwide by newspapers ranging from the Sacramento Bee from Estelle’s former home state of California to the Lakeland Ledger in Ron Robinson’s former hometown in Florida. It must have been somewhere around this point that Carrasco realized—although none of the hostages ever heard him say it—that he was the victim of the set up by his associates in San Antonio. Efforts to get hostages to beg their families to get in touch with any influential people they knew to put legislators’ weight on Governor Dolph Briscoe and TDC Director Estelle had failed. The only pressure point left for the killers was the court of public opinion. If he could get enough public outcry demanding the hostages’ release and therefore his freedom, he thought he could end the crisis on his terms. So Carrasco singled out Joe Sweeney for that three-hour telephone interview. The Huntsville media crowd gathered around but was getting very little information from Ron Taylor’s press office, mainly because he had little information to give. Some media members felt it was because Taylor was “in over his head” with this major blowup. That feeling was mitigated somewhat by the realization that there were not too many prison PR men anywhere in the country who had basic training in handling a frenzied media 150

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horde during a hostage-taking uprising. As much as possible, however, Estelle made sure the media was kept informed. “I have a high regard for the First Amendment,” he said, “and freedom of the press is something that you don’t always enjoy but it’s something that’s absolutely necessary.”25 With that freedom, the media gobbled up everything Carrasco said on Sweeney’s tape and the killer’s views were plastered across every front page of every newspaper in Texas and featured on radio and television news broadcasts in the Lone Star State and beyond. As the Houston Post reported, “The grim-faced relatives clung to every word, and when the recordings ended, they returned to wait as prison officials bargained for their loved ones’ lives.”26 With that kind of a propaganda bonanza, even the less-than-bright Cuevas could see potential benefit. And it did not take Carrasco long to realize he had a tool. It took him even less time to decide how to use it. When Carrasco finally hung up around midnight Friday with his phone call to Joe Sweeney, he took the negotiations down an entirely new path—down the road to public opinion. According to Ron Robinson, “After he finished talking to Sweeney, he announced, ‘Tomorrow we try new tactics. All of you will talk to the news reporters. You will bring the pressure to bear on them, so they will help force the state to help you. You have to tell the press the Department of Corrections will cause all of you to die. You have to appeal to public opinion through the reporters.’”27 Carrasco obviously hoped the army of newspaper reporters, television newsmen, and others gathered outside the Walls Unit would—via the pleadings of hostages— carry his message to the public at large. That public, fearing for the hostages’ lives and feeling a collective obligation to protect them, would then command prison officials to accede to his demands for his and therefore the hostages’ release. If that did not work, he would use the media once more to put added pressure on legislators, the administrators of fiduciary control over the prison system, to force Estelle to let him go. The idea of using the media to get his message out was heightened after Novella Pollard’s twenty-four-year-old daughter Kathy, 151

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following a Thursday telephone conversation with her mother, told reporters Carrasco “will kill them if he can’t come out and they believe that if they let him out with hostages, he will let them go.” Noting that Carrasco was “getting very tired, and harassed, and not as calm as he was,” the daughter said her mother thought prison officials were purposely “drawing it out.” Kathy Pollard told reporters, “My mother asked me to talk to you and to beg Mr. Estelle and the officials for her life and the lives of her teachers and the other hostages.”28 When that plaintive plea headlined the evening news reports, Carrasco drew up a list of sixteen radio, television, and newspaper reporters he extracted from the press pool list Taylor sent up to the library. He gave the list to Linda Woodman and she telephoned it to Assistant Director Red McKaskle as follows:29 Roberto Guiterrez, KENS-TV, San Antonio Joe Sweeney, WOAI-TV, San Antonio Enrique de la Garza, WBAP, Fort Worth Will Sinclair, KITE, San Antonio Andy Yema, UPI, Austin Wayne Jackson, Austin American-Statesman Ron Smith, Channel 12, San Antonio Tom Overstreet, KDWF-TV, Dallas Dennis Murphy, KHOU TV, Houston Clay Robinson, San Antonio Light Larry Reese, Dallas Morning News George Lewis, NBC News, Houston Don Critchfield, NBC News, Houston David Henderson, CBS News, New York Bernard Goldberg, CBS, New York Darryl Davidson, Houston Chronicle “When the initial list of newsmen’s names was sent up to us and he was choosing some,” Woodman recalled, “his first choice was anyone with a Mexican name. I remember we had one name nobody knew (Andy Yema) and he said, ‘Well, I’ll find out what he is before I 152

“WE WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.”

decide I want to be interviewed by him. But he could be Chinese,’ and that brought a big laugh from all of us going over the list with him.”30 When asked by Austin American-Statesman reporter Wayne Jackson about the list, Carrasco replied matter-of-factly, “I’ve been through this myself, that I’ve tried to tell people how I’ve been treated. I’ve tried to get my feelings in the papers and let a lot of people know. Now, the way things were going, only the Administration was telling people out in the street how everything was going. And that wasn’t true. So now, I believe that these people in here have a right to talk to the news media to try and, ah, well, save their lives, really. That’s what it all amounts to.”31 Jackson pushed the matter and asked if that was the “main reason” he asked to talk to news people? Carrasco answered, “Well, that’s for one. For another, this lets their family hear from them constantly which would be an impossibility to have them use the telephone every five or ten minutes. But, it’s keeping their minds occupied also. Otherwise, there would be nothing but tangled nerves by now.”32 Carrasco’s media scheme also fit Estelle’s plans well. In addition to giving hostage families some knowledge of the captives’ circumstances, it also dove-tailed into the director’s efforts to “stall, stall, stall.” The only negative was most of hostages did not and could not know of the Estelle stall plan because that would have tipped the TDC hand to his adversary. Father O’Brien, however, did subscribe to the delaying tactics. As he told his brother Tim in a telephone conversation, “The more time, the better. It gives people a chance to think and settle down.”33 As Carrasco selected his cast of media personnel, family members tried to reassure the hostages that things were going be all right. Judy Heard, wife of guard Bobby, told him over the phone, “These people are all doing all they can do. Don’t worry about (the delays) because they’re having problems getting (the equipment demanded by Carrasco). That’s what the hold up is,” she explained. “There’s many obstacles, you know. But they are working on it. So, it’s going to take a little time. These things have to be sent in.” 153

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Other family members tried a bit of humor to ease the tension. One said to Heard, “I guess you can relax. You got plenty of beer and wild women up there.” Judy Heard also tried a little joking to relieve the strain. “I got your bed boarded out, Bobby,” she giggled. By this time, the guard’s spirits had picked up considerably. He told his family just before signing off at 11:15 p.m., “it’s just going to take a little time, a little negotiation. We’re going to get out. Everything’s going to be all right.”34 Judy Standley engaged in a bit of gallows humor when she told her son Stuart, “I feel like we’re playing Russian Roulette with Mexican bullets.”35 On the other hand, academic teacher Jack Branch was not quite as upbeat as he talked to his wife Betty, a usually perky bank teller with a pleasant, fun-sounding voice. Mostly they talked about how their fifteen-year-old son was doing and a change of clothes he wanted sent up. He then asked her to talk to Estelle and anybody she could think of in a position of any authority “so we can come out of this alive . . . because,” he continued fearfully, “they might kill some of us or all of us.”36 During one of the many telephone conversations between the library and the warden’s office, Ruben Montemayor asked, “They want to know if Mr. Robinson’s all right.” Carrasco put the “wounded” teacher on and he continued the charade. With Carrasco feeding him his lines in the background, Ron Robinson, barely audible, sounding weak, said, “I’m doing all right. It was my fault. I made a wrong move and they took a shot at me. And the man could have killed me but he did not. I have a wound which is not bleeding that much. Mrs. Davis has wrapped a towel and the blood is not that bad. I would appreciate a first-aid kit. I really would.” Montemayor sounded eminently relieved, “Thank God they didn’t kill him.” 37 It was shortly after Montemayor breathed his big sigh of relief when Von Beseda put a call through to Estelle—at least she tried. Delays, foulups, misconnections, and cutoffs in the prison’s internal telephone system seemed to be interminable. When you are a hostage being held by a pack of trigger-happy killers who, at the slightest provocation, 154

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could blow you away in a heartbeat, you do not need these endless delays. But even the telephone operators, it seemed, were playing Estelle’s stall, stall, stall game. When Beseda finally did get through to Estelle, he got his first inkling of Carrasco’s revised escape plan. Dynamic, intelligent, very informed, and very personable, the teacher told the killer’s plans in a matter-of-fact manner. “I want merely to say that Fred wants all of us to get out of here together,” she reported. “Once he identifies the getaway place, whatever it will be, before he goes, we will go with him. And he definitely wants the women to go with him.” That was the first clue the authorities had that Carrasco had a specific “getaway place” in mind. Beseda went on to say she felt once Carrasco and Company reached whatever destination they were aiming for, “they will send us straight back.” When Estelle gently reminded her of the TDC’s policy regarding use of hostages in escape plans, Beseda almost merrily replied, “But you know, sometimes rules are made to be broken.”38 As for that hostage policy, most of them needed a “gentle reminder” about its existence. Hardly anyone remembered signing it when they first came to TDC. After all, who remembers all the papers one signs during a job orientation? Or else they put it out of their mind, preferring not think about the dangers. As Linda Woodman said, “I guess when you work in a place like a prison you expect that there are certain dangers to the job. Just as a fireman, you know, you don’t go through that job thinking ‘when I get burned’. It’s just an accepted fact. ‘I may get burned’.”39 Nobody spoke much about the natural fear on the part of the female hostages of sexual molestation. They were, after all, dealing with three hardened convicts who had little to lose and who had been locked up for long periods of time with little or no contact with the opposite sex. For the most part, the teacher/librarians were in their early forties. Some were divorced, some widowed. Even the inmate hostages were a matter of concern (Steve Robertson was a convicted rapist). But Carrasco made it plain to his accomplices that if they so much as laid a hand on any of the woman up there, “they would die in their tracks because I would kill them.”40 155

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Rudy Dominguez was the one that everyone was most afraid of because of his explosive and menacing manner. Even Carrasco expressed concern for his behavior when he, the leader, was asleep. The trouble was, as Pollard said, “It seemed Carrasco was always asleep when something would happen. And anything could set Cuevas and Dominguez off.” Woodman felt that Dominguez was often leering at her and other female hostages. At one point, he rummaged in an “oohla-la” manner through her clothes bag that was sent up to her.41 The twenty-eight-year-old father of four children, incarcerated for over two years, had reportedly attempted suicide while serving a previous sentence and was under mental observation and treatment in that prison hospital. On two other occasions, inmate hostage Florencio Vera, who according to Father O’Brien, “was always shaky” (from overdosing on TDC-provided Demerol for his surgical pain and insulin for his diabetes), “tried to snuggle next to Von Beseda in the middle of the night. I got Carrasco to break it up.” The fear never was alleviated despite Carrasco’s attitude about how gentlemen treated ladies. Even though he made it known early on that “we don’t mess around with ladies,” the apprehensive women were only too well aware of Dominguez’s explosive nature. There were those among them who wondered what it would take for him to completely “lose it” and turn on Carrasco, bringing the mentally insufficient Cuevas with him. Then who would be their protector? Reflecting on Carrasco’s civility toward women, Father O’Brien said, “He knew how to act. But, he was always acting; he was always ‘on stage.’ Somewhere in his childhood, someone taught how to behave before women. Carrasco had good breeding. He treated the ladies well. For instance, there were no sex problems up there. That was due to Carrasco. He could have been a fine gentleman,” the priest said ruefully, “but instead, he was a cold-blooded killer.”42

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Chapter Fifteen July 27, 1974 • Day Four

“You don’t treat women that way.” — TDC Director, Jim Estelle, Jr.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, Aline House— awake because of a painful back ache from sleeping on the library floor—saw some strange goings on in the room. Even at that hour, it was not dark in the complex because the overhead lights glared twentyfour hours a day. The first thing she noticed was Rudy Dominguez and Ignacio Cuevas, using electrical cord wrapped around the door handles, had locked shut the two staff restrooms in the library. They were afraid prison guards could enter their fortress through those rooms so they closed them off, leaving only the inmates’ restroom to serve the needs of all seventeen people. Then she saw the four extremely busy but quiet hostage inmates moving a study carrel (an enclosed, partitioned table often used for individual study in libraries) to the middle of the floor. They were building an interior barricade to further protect themselves from their expected TDC attack. “One of the inmate captives,” she recalled, “had a load of something. And I said to myself, ‘My God, they’ve got hand grenades.’ He put one down and it went 157

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clank. I couldn’t tell exactly how many.” Squinting through one eye while pretending to be asleep, she saw what looked like sections of pipe several inches long which she thought were pipe bombs. From their fortified study carrel, the men could effectively lob those bombs, just like hand grenades, in any direction—at hostages or at the assault team when and if it entered the premises.1 The unusual activity continued throughout the morning. When Von Beseda and Judy Standley, handcuffed together, got up to use the inmate restroom, clinking noises coming from within alarmed Cuevas and Dominguez. They thought the women were trying to unlock their handcuffs. Actually, Von had slipped her one hand out of the cuffs and was washing her hands at the sink while Judy used the stall. What the convicts heard was merely the sound of Von’s handcuff clinking against the washbowl. Cuevas opened the outer door to the restroom to see what was going on. When the quick-thinking Beseda heard him coming, she dashed over to Standley’s stall door and thrust her cuffed arm in towards Judy, making it look like the two were still linked. When the women later stormed out of the restroom in indignation and confronted Cuevas for his invasion of their privacy, he merely said a handcuff key was missing and he accused Von of having it. She told him she had no such thing. The embarrassed Cuevas got together with Dominguez and they started muttering in Spanish about how they would like to kill the women. After Carrasco awoke from his late-morning sleep, Novella Pollard told him about the handcuff key incident. The ringleader confessed that he put the key under one of the telephones. Ann Fleming thought “they might be testing us to see if we would try to escape. Fred later told us he told his clumsy cohorts, ‘You all would go hungry if you have to depend on security for a living.’ We even joked with Fred about it, asking him, ‘Don’t you want us to keep the keys?’”2 According to Pollard, Carrasco “didn’t like to get up before noon. And always,” she recalled, “the crises started early in the morning. Sometimes Father O’Brien would be sitting there saying, ‘I wish Fred’d wake up because he could handle things. He could keep them calm.’”3 Of Carrasco, House said, “Even though he was a mad dog, he still had some intelligence. The other two didn’t have any.”4 FBI agent Bob Wiatt 158

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believed that Carrasco’s close surveillance of Dominguez was particularly necessary. “I think,” Wiatt mused, “his concern over Dominguez was him doing something indecent towards the women. He counseled Dominguez on several occasions. ‘You don’t talk this way’ or ‘You don’t do this in front of the women.’”5 The hostages’ apprehension was never-ending. What they discovered next when they awoke from whatever fitful sleep they managed was that Cuevas and Dominguez had scotch-taped cardboard to an interior office. Eye-holes were cut in the cardboard at various intervals so, it was assumed, that they and Carrasco could hide behind the glass partitions in that office and engage the authorities from behind the cardboard in a final shootout should the library be invaded. Hiding behind glass partitions and cardboard in a blazing shootout gives some idea of the hostiles’ mental acuity. Later in the day, House recalled, Cuevas sidled up next to her and some other hostages to do a little bragging about his professed bombmaking prowess. “I make a bomb,” he giggled. When he was asked how he did this, he replied, “It easy. I in army, in ordnance. I put powder from twenty-five bullets in pipe.”6 Cuevas had once bragged, “I’m a bandit from Guerrero,” an area in Mexico known for its violence.7 House was “convinced they had bombs.”8 Sometime around three o’clock that morning hostage Ann Fleming’s husband, Herman, received word that Ann’s eighty-year-old mother, Naomi Walker, had died peacefully in her sleep in a Nashville, Tennessee nursing home. When Herman called the prison to break the sad news to his wife, Dominguez was on duty at the telephone. The unconscionable killer delayed calling Ann for more than an hour, insisting that her husband and TDC were pulling a trick to have Fleming released. Dominguez continued his rant telling Herman how he would “like to kill all the hostages and roll their bodies down the ramp.” The convict finally agreed to wake Fleming and bring her to the phone. When Herman gently told her the news, Ann started crying softly. She was very close to her parents, saying that she had lived a “charmed life because of the way my mother and daddy spoiled me from the minute 159

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I was born.” Regaining control of her emotions, she tried to console her husband by reminding him her mother had “been bedridden for two years since her stroke and has not been aware of things around her. I’m sure,” she told Herman, “that this affair had nothing to do with her dying. We’ve been expecting her death all along.” Besides, she said, “I didn’t want to use that (as an excuse to get out) because I felt like it was important for us to stay as a group.” Later on she said with a slight grin, “I now think that was faulty thinking on my part.”9 The other hostages gathered around and offered condolences and a shoulder to cry on. Ann Fleming felt she was an outsider because of her newness to the group, having started to work with the Windham School on July 1, only twenty-four days before the start of the siege. Her former employer, Sam Houston State University, required her to get a doctorate degree in library sciences to go with her master’s degree. Pondering her fiftyfirst birthday Fleming felt she “was too old to start down that path” so she quit the university and signed on as a librarian with Texas Department of Corrections.10 The other hostages said they would ask Carrasco to release her so that she could attend her mother’s funeral. But, according to fellow librarian Linda Woodman, “that gracious but silly woman, instead of just sitting and waiting for Carrasco to decide to let her go, kept insisting, ‘Oh no. I don’t want to do anything to rock the boat. No, it’s perfectly all right.’”11 They told her they felt Carrasco would let her go just to show the world that he really was “a fairly decent person.” They told her, “You’ve got to go.” It was an offer she should not have refused because by leaving the library, she could very possibly have given authorities valuable information on what was going on. Despite her negative response, the other hostages persisted and approached Carrasco and begged for Fleming’s release. At first, Carrasco would not hear of it, agreeing with Dominguez that it was a trick by the authorities. But then the wily one realized he might have another poker chip to play. He would magnanimously offer to let Fleming go “if I get a machine gun, vests, and ammunition. My concern,” he said, “is for the hostages, especially one that is in grievance.”12 He knew that if TDC accepted the deal, he would get what 160

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he wanted without giving up anything. If the authorities refuse, then he looks good and TDC looks bad. Inside the library, as Woodman recalled, Fleming would not budge, insisting to Carrasco she would send her only child, her eighteen-year-old daughter Frances Ann, to represent she and her husband at her mother’s funeral. “If she’d have kept quiet,” at the start and before Carrasco had a chance to dream up his arms-for-hostage scheme, Woodman said, “she might have gotten out of there.”13 Warden Husbands, who was lauded by Director Estelle for doing a tremendous job in maintaining order throughout the prison during the entire ordeal, tried to get routines back to square one. Obviously, the inmate population could not be allowed back in the Upper Yard to shoot hoops or lift weights. They could not have visitors, nor go to church, nor get back to the mess halls and kitchens for their meals. Their only diversions were their radios, TV, reading, and talking. While confining prisoners to their cellblocks but not their cells, Husbands—with his kitchens shut down by Carrasco’s threats—took care of feeding problem by having his counterparts in other prisons prepare hundreds of sack meals and ship them to Huntsville. As Estelle put it, “Warden Husbands didn’t want to punish nineteen-hundred convicts for the acts of three violent idiots.”14 Even though they had to resort to sack meals, they were augmented with fresh fruit and cold drinks. Husbands sent hot wagons to the cellblocks where soup and chili was ladled out. He sent out calls to the local citizenry to donate whatever books and magazines in an effort to keep the cons occupied. He “walked the tiers” more than normally. He said, “I tried to act like everything was normal although it wasn’t and they knew it.” He also had to continue the mundane; getting the mail out, and the important things like operating the prison hospital that housed 140 inmates. If anyone in sickbay had a serious condition during the siege, the warden said, “We’d more than likely send them to John Sealy hospital in Galveston”15 In his modest, down-home manner, the lanky Texan credited his staff for most of the success in keeping a lid on the rest of the prison throughout the siege. “I had a good assistant warden, Wesley Warner,” 161

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he said. “I had Molly Stanley and she was an excellent clerk. She’d been around there a long time and knew everybody and knew how to do things and get things. My captains and my lieutenants—like Wayne Scott—knew their jobs. I’m not really sure that I did anything except just take care of that thing (the siege).” There were times, too, when Husbands resorted to a bit of free-world cajoling. “I kept on trying to get something different for those inmates to eat. I finally said, ‘Hell, we need some ice cream.’” He put a call through to Blue Bell Creamery in nearby Brenham, Texas. Because of the widespread media coverage of the Huntsville situation, Husbands just said, “I’ve got a problem here and I need four-thousand ice cream servings and I need them pretty quick. I’m just wondering if you can help me? And,” he remembered with a big smile, “that’s what they did and they didn’t charge us for them either.”16 At first, about 100 prisoners continued working in the shops, the laundry, and the hospital. They went to their jobs on a controlledmovement basis. Then the prison was forced into a lock-down status. The administration was markedly open with the inmate population. They allowed radios in the cells and television sets in day rooms to be kept on. The prisoners’ mail and their newspapers kept coming. The inmates knew as much or more than the general public about the situation. Of course, they were not all too happy about being locked down. They had jobs they wanted to go to. They had schools they wanted to attend. Prisoners in Texas did not spend a lot of time in their cell, contrary to the general public vision of jail time. “I’m sure,” Estelle reflected, “that the inmates were as tolerant about this situation as they could be—even more tolerant than I anticipated. And again, I credit the warden and his staff and their relationship and rapport with the inmates. In corrections,” he noted with a touch of irony, “and most of us hate to admit it, but we run those prisons with the consent of the captives.”17 The inmate population within the Walls Unit was not the only one operating under strained conditions. The entire prison staff was continuously on call. Everyone was on a twelve-on/twelve-off schedule with some, like those manning the Think Tank, feeling like they were working twenty-four hours a day. Home life for some was non-existent. 162

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By and large the Walls inmates went along with the restrictive program, with even less griping than the norm. If Carrasco was hoping for a sympathy strike from his fellow convicts, or a general uprising to support his cause, he would be disappointed. Most of the inmates condemned what he was doing. In the first place, most of his hostages were women. According to Estelle, “In spite of their value system or their lack of—and it was probably truer in Texas than in most states at that time—you don’t treat women that way. You just don’t do that to women, to ladies. And with a lot of Hispanics particularly, with a priest involved, you don’t do that, either.”18 Another factor entered the general prison population’s resentment of Carrasco’s takeover. Those people he was holding hostage and threatening to kill were, for the most part, teachers and librarians, people who were trying to help inmates to live a little better life inside the walls and prepare them for their release into the free-world. Aline House, in a telephone conversation with Andy Yema of UPI, had such thoughts. “We felt that we were doing something that could help. We felt that the men and women were responding to what we were doing for them,” she told the reporter.19 Maybe if Carrasco had just taken a few prison guards or TDC officials, he might have gotten more sympathy from the cellblocks. Also, the inmate population was not too happy with Carrasco’s takeover because they felt the uprising would lead to stricter enforcement of rules needed to govern their environment. They were even afraid the Texas Department of Corrections would impose more stringent conditions on the granting of paroles or time-off-for-goodbehavior early releases. The fact that Carrasco was holed up in the temperature-controlled confines of the prison library and the prisoners were restricted to sweltering cellblocks without air-conditioning did not help generate much inmate sympathy either. There is a value system inside prison walls and Carrasco had violated it. His strength inside the Walls came from the Hispanic population who knew of his reputation for mayhem on both sides of the TexasMexico border. As for the rest of the inmates, they were not, according to Estelle, “impressed with people who disturbed their house.”20 And 163

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TDC attack team members while away the boring hours on call, some wearing their riotgear helmets, others grabbing forty winks. Six of the speciallyfabricated steel body shields are also at the ready. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

they were even less impressed by those who would hide behind the robes of a priest and the skirts of women. If Carrasco was hoping his actions would propel him into hero status within the Walls and instigate insurrection by his fellow prisoners, it was another thing on which he guessed wrong. One of the first things Carrasco demanded when he started the takeover on Wednesday was bulletproof helmets and walkie-talkies, the latter needed he said “to communicate when we leave the building.”21 As part of his stall program, Estelle did not come up with the helmets and radios until more than forty-eight hours had passed. Even then, Estelle knew they “wouldn’t be acceptable.”22 There was an Army-Navy surplus store in Huntsville, and that is where Carrasco’s first set of “bulletproof” helmets and walkie-talkies came from. They did not satisfy the leader, but they did provide another bit of humor. According to Linda Woodman, “On the two-way radio, the first thing

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they heard was ‘get a car over here to Eleventh Street right away.’ That shook Cuevas until someone figured out it was the taxi company on the same frequency.”23 Warden Husbands called the plastic helmets “little itty-bitty things that kids would use when playing.”24 Wiatt laughed when he described them as “G. I. Joe types of things and it blew his mind.”25 Speaking in Spanish with KTRH radio reporter Sam Rodriguez, Carrasco shrieked, “We demanded three helmets, bulletproof; three radios, three bulletproof vests, some weapons, etc. So then they say they are going to send us the helmets and they send us who knows what helmets? From what war? Those you find in Kmart store, seventy-five cents for all three. And three radios also from Mickey Mouse.”26 According to Judy Standley, when Carrasco saw the helmets, “He about threw a hissy fit all over the place.”27 With all the hostages lined up and forced to watch, one well-placed shot from his .357 caliber Magnum from fifteen feet away blew a test helmet “to smithereens,” as head librarian Aline House recalled. Bobby Heard thought he might be next in the line of fire. “I was fearing for my life every second”.28 The walkie-talkies that Standley described as “little old Boy Scout transistor things,” suffered a fate similar to the helmet when Carrasco smashed them to the floor. “This is something not even junior high school kids would use. They must think I’m an idiot,” Carrasco roared.29 His string of expletives consisted of just about every vile word ever uttered. Once again, Ruben Montemayor bore the brunt of Carrasco’s telephone tirade. The hostage-taker demanded the warden send new helmets that were truly bulletproof. With some help from a diagram drawn up by the mechanically-inclined inmate Martin Quiroz, Carrasco described what seemed to be a welder’s helmet. What he wanted was, in effect, two welder’s helmets fused together back-to-back giving protection from both front and rear. “And,” he threatened, “if it isn’t bullet-proof, the hostages die.”30 Husbands told Carrasco, “We’ll make you some helmets out of whatever kind of metal you want.”31 Carrasco’s threat set off more thinking in the Command Post. The way Wiatt saw it, whether or not the hostiles had bulletproof helmets 165

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“would be irrelevant in a shootout but if that’ll placate him, let’s go ahead.”32 Jack Pursley was chief of the prison’s maintenance shop (and later a TDC warden). He and one of his welders and Quiroz spent hours on the phone conceptualizing the protective garb. Finally, Quiroz sent another rough drawing to the warden’s office showing what he had in mind. “When they put out their spec sheets for their helmets,” Estelle drawled, “we just slow-bought that. We sent some counter-drawings up that we knew would be unacceptable. So, we had to go back and do it over again. We bought a lot of time working on that.”33 At the time, Pursley’s shop was busy fabricating full-length steel body shields with hand- and arm-holds that were mounted on rollers designed to give assault team members protection from hostile gun fire should they have to storm the library area. The shields looked like they were hammered out by a blacksmith for King Arthur’s Knights of the Roundtable. Then Husbands recalled, “This lasted for two or three days. We’d get something done on one helmet and send it up there for him to check it and he wouldn’t want it and we’d change it.”34

FBI agent Robert (Bob) E. Wiatt “models” one of the custom made bulletproof helmets hostage-taker Federico Carrasco demanded. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 166

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Wiatt said, “We played stupid, stupid, stupid.” Every time even the slightest modification was telephoned from the library, a message went back, “What do you mean?” or “What are you talking about?” or “You’ll have to explain that to me.”35 The shop welders purposely screwed up some of the inmates’ instructions. “And every time,” Husbands continued, “we tried to make the helmets heavier and heavier by attaching quarter-inch steel plate. I think one of them weighed about thirty pounds. Imagine having thirty pounds of steel sitting on your head,” he said with a grin. Later the Warden called to say a prototype for the helmets was on the way but, he cautioned, “don’t shoot at it because it’s not bulletproof yet.”36 What they got was something that looked like two armor-plated welder’s masks fused together, flanged outward at the base to sit on one’s shoulders. A one-inch by eight-inch slot was the vision opening. Both Texas Ranger Captain Rogers and FBI agent Wiatt “modeled” the prototype. Wiatt said, “When I turned my head with the helmet on, I couldn’t see a thing. I lost the little porthole.”37 That would put the wearer at a distinct disadvantage. The helmets also provided another moment of levity. When Montemayor told Carrasco that the three helmets were ready for delivery to the library, he said laughing, “It might be three trips, Fred, because I don’t think one man can carry three.”38 The inmates put the helmet to the test. Linda Woodman remembered “they were very careful to measure it on their shoulders and see if the bullet could go up under it”39 But, “Carrasco was finally satisfied with them,” Husbands recalled, “and he never did say anything about having ear holes cut in. And we didn’t either.” With a conspirator’s smile on his face, the warden noted, “See, we had those things built so that when hit they’d reverberate like the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral and that’d knock a man out just by itself. We didn’t put any ear holes in to let that air pressure out.”40 Carrasco was “delighted” when he saw the finished product, not realizing that when he needed it most it would be useless to him. He even had the good grace to call Husbands and tell him not to be alarmed when he heard gunshots as he tested the helmet’s bulletproof-ability with a pair of live rounds. He ordered the hostages 167

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to gather in the far end of the library so a ricocheting bullet would not hit them. When they made their move and a headcount showed Father O’Brien was not with them, Aline House among others was afraid “they might (make) him wear the helmet while they were testing it.”41 Cuevas, Dominguez, and Carrasco tried the prototype on parading up and down in front of the hostages. The hostiles approved the concept and removed the helmets. When Carrasco now fired two test shots, neither penetrated the helmet. They didn’t even dent it. Then the ringleader and Quiroz further refined the specifications and sent them back to the warden. For the moment, Carrasco was satisfied and he telephoned the warden’s office to order two more helmets. According to Ron Robinson, “For the first time, I believe Carrasco thought this was the turning point (he) had been looking for.” After more extensive explanations and modifications between Quiroz and Pursley’s metal shop, the helmets were fabricated according to the new specs with some unrequested add-ons that further increased the weight, creating even more of a hindrance than a help. The hostage most relieved to see a satisfied Carrasco was Bobby Heard. After the first go-round with the plastic helmets sent up two days earlier that had Heard “fearing for (his) life,” he had told authorities to give Carrasco “whatever he wants.” The roar of Carrasco’s two shots fired the day before at the prison chapel were still ringing in the badly shaken guard’s ears. “I’ve been so close to death so many times,” he pleaded with the officials, “that I can’t remember. Give him whatever he wants so at least we’ll know that we didn’t die cooped up here like in a slaughterhouse because that’s what it’ll be.”42 To the hostages, Carrasco’s smiling satisfaction with the new helmets was a relief. Carrasco originally ordered new clothing on Wednesday, the opening day of the siege, and Estelle instituted another stalling tactic. He told Husbands to delay the purchase for as long as possible, knowing full well the vain Carrasco would not want to go anywhere dressed in his lowly prison whites. But, under another threat of immediate hostagekilling, he okayed the purchase of the clothes, and would approve a duplicate set later. The cost of each set of clothing was a total of $660.50, and broke down as follows: Suits—$200 (Hart Schaffner & Marx for 168

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Carrasco), $145 and $125 (Cricketeers for Dominguez and Cuevas); Shirts—three at $12 each; Neckties—three at $8.50 each; Shoes—one pair at $53 (Nunn-Busch for Carrasco), and two pair at $38.43 The Huntsville storeowner who sold the clothes called them “the best of anything available without having special tailored clothes.” Carrasco called them “rags”. They could not have been too bad because in a few days, he would demand and receive a second set of similar clothes at a similar cost. And, he never thereafter showed his face in the library without wearing his new duds, coat, tie, and all. As for his associates, they provided the hostages with a chuckle. “Cuevas and Dominguez looked like clowns,” the hostages remembered. “They looked like they had never owned a suit of clothes in their lives.”44 Cuevas was particularly comical-looking. His suit was too big for him but he did not know it. Dominguez, wearing his suit, with a necktie Ron Robinson had left in the rest room, wore his undershirt and his dress shirt outside of his trousers, causing his shirttail to peek out from under his suit coat. As Linda Woodman remembered it, “Even Carrasco grinned when he looked at them.”45 Although some hostages were trying to ease the tension, their actions appeared to not sit well with Ron Robinson. “He hated the women,” said Father O’Brien, “because they were—in his eyes—playing up to Carrasco; to all three of them. For instance,” the priest recalled, “when they put on their suits, the ladies told them how good they looked. That drove Robinson crazy. I don’t know why that bothered him except he may have thought if somebody was going to get killed, it wouldn’t be them. It would be him.”46 Robinson also was, according to Ann Fleming, “so unhappy about Judy and Von taking things too lightly. But, if we hadn’t laughed some, we’d have never made it.”47 According to House, Robinson thought “these silly little attempts at humor” were being made by “stupid women and (he) often almost flew into a tantrum, asking ‘How can you laugh? How can you take this so lightly?’ To these questions, we always replied, ‘We are scared to death, but with crisis after crisis, we must have some means of relief from tension. You do what you have to in facing the situation, but please allow us the same privilege.’” 48 As Robinson put it, “It seemed to me, a 169

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clear distinction was made between the value of the women and the value of the men. Carrasco was going to hold on to the women to the last; the men were expendable.” With his breathless speech patterns and choosing his words carefully, he admitted, “I was afraid much of the time, tense always. I did not like or approve of the behavior of the women under the circumstances.”49 Though Dominguez had at least finally combed his hair, the sight of him and Cuevas made Carrasco smile. The ringleader was also smiling about feeling “like a man again” as he shed his prison garb for his expensive suit.50 But the ultimate $1,300 bill notwithstanding, the cost to the Texas Department of Corrections and citizens of the Lone Star State would be a lot higher before this ugly chapter in Texas history ended.

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Chapter Sixteen “I have the four aces and the joker!” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

Fred Carrasco’s two-day media scheme met with Estelle’s approval, in spite of the many things the frantic and misguided hostages told the reporters, some highly critical of him and the Texas Department of Corrections. The director felt as long as Carrasco was using the hostages for his propaganda purposes, they would be relatively safe. He was not using them for target practice. Then Cuevas instilled another huge dose of terror into the hostages. Their fear was heightened tremendously and its byproduct was a highly elevated sense of urgency in the hostages’ voices when they subsequently talked with their families and the media. It started when Cuevas was still incensed following his animated telephone conversation with Juanita Hernandez, his second wife and mother of the last four of his nine children, who called him from the Sheriff’s office in Pecos, Texas. Steaming over that apparent argument, the former farm laborer stormed over to Novella Pollard and Bobby Heard who were manning the barricade in front of the door. Pointing 171

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the barrel of his cocked pistol at a stopwatch he had pilfered from the educational complex, he screamed, “Seven minutes!” As Pollard remembered it, Cuevas “gave us seven minutes to live.” With the murderer shifting his glance and his pistol from the face of the watch to the faces of the hostages, the terrified pair felt they were going to die. Pollard yelled to Steve Robertson to “go wake up Carrasco quick.” The leader came over, and with only a mild pat on Cuevas’ bald head, ended the threat. 1 But one threat was usually followed by another. Rudy Dominguez became irritated when the hostages walked around a bit to get some muchneeded exercise. Once again he heard more noises. This time, however, he took a slightly more rational approach and called the warden’s office, said he heard something and demanded the noises coming “from behind the laundry” be stopped. Told that what he heard was only compressor in the refrigeration room located in that area, his disbelieving answer was, “how come every time I tell you somebody’s on the back wall, you tell me they’re some trucks. I think y’all are making it up. Do you want somebody thrown out that window with bullet wounds?”2 Before the first telephone call was made from the library to the press corps that Saturday morning, Carrasco conducted a rehearsal. The hostages were told in general what he expected of them. The way Father O’Brien put it, “they were not told directly. Not verbatim. But they knew what they should be saying.”3 The day became part of what Aline House described as an “interminable” and repetitious two-day session.4 The speech was always the same, “These people will kill us if the Texas Department of Corrections doesn’t give in to their demands for freedom.” To make sure the hostages delivered that same message time and time again, the hostages were also warned that either Carrasco or Dominguez would be listening in on an extension phone or seated nearby so their every word would be monitored. Cuevas did not do any monitoring because he did not understand English that well. But, according to Heard, the inmate hostages did a lot because “they were told that if they didn’t that they would be killed. And Quiroz monitored most of the calls.”5 172

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The reporters gathered in the warden’s office, one by one, to talk on the telephone with the interviewees held hostage just one-hundred yards away. Usually present in the office for the tape-recorded sessions were Husbands; Montemayor; prison spokesman, Ron Taylor; and several corrections officers—most notably, Ben Aguilar, a corrections records clerk fluent in Spanish. who acted as interpreter when needed. At times Texas Ranger Captains Rogers and Burks listened, as did Bob Wiatt. It was rare for TDC Director Estelle to sit in. He felt it was best to stay detached. Associated Press newsman Jim Barlow said the reporters, “stood around there in the rubble of cigarette butts, stale coffee, and frustration.”6 Once again, radio and television reporters fought with print media writers for the chance to speak with inmates and hostages. One of the first telephone interviews on this very busy Saturday almost derailed the entire process. Cal Thomas of Houston’s NBC affiliate KPRC-TV, was talking with hostage Jack Branch. “After some general questions about his health,” Thomas recalled, “I asked Branch about weapons and ammunition. Obviously, prison officials were interested in that and were monitoring the conversation and they nodded approvingly when I asked. But they didn’t suggest questions for me to ask,” he said emphatically. 7 Branch, in all innocence, answered Thomas’ questions about how many guns and how much ammunition Carrasco had. Listening in was Dominguez. Screaming Spanish expletives, he ripped the handset from the hapless Branch. When Carrasco rushed over to see what the commotion was all about, he joined the cursing brigade and quickly added the stunned teacher to the numbers list. With Rudy’s gun aimed squarely at Branch’s horn-rimmed glasses, Carrasco told the teacher, “You are Number Two. The man in gray is still Number One, but you are Number Two.”8 Branch remained calm and did not, as some hostages did on similar occasions, beg his captors for his life. But, Branch henceforth spent almost as much time as an honor guard as did Heard. According to Fleming, “Jack Branch was a real hero.” 9 Heard picked up the telephone and berated Thomas. “I want you to know that you’ve put that man’s life in danger,” the guard wailed at 173

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the reporter. “If anything happens, if they make any move toward that door, then he’ll be the second to die. Right after me. I’m still the biggest coward in here. It would be best,” he went on, “if I go first and not see the others get their heads blown off and lying there in the blood. I want to go first so they’ll have to see me go. I don’t want to see it. I’m just being real selfish.” In the aftermath, Branch said he was just trying to remain calm and ultimately slept very good Saturday night, “except for Mr. Heard’s snoring.”10 The highly indignant New York Times quickly took Cal Thomas to task editorially, claiming the reporter had allowed himself to be “used” by prison officials, that he was doing their work. The newspaper’s editorial even suggested that—as Thomas told it—“I might be compromising my journalistic integrity.” He vigorously denied the charge. “I was doing my work, trying to get information. That it benefited the ‘good guys’ was incidental. But it was gratifying to me as a fellow good guy.”11 The suggestion the media was being “used” by either or both sides in the standoff did not die easily. As a result of the Thomas-Branch incident, NBC-TV reporter George Lewis said he “was very concerned about trying not to ask anything that would trip something off like that. I didn’t want to say anything to get (Carrasco) riled up and I didn’t want to do anything to endanger the hostages further. Some of the press, I think Ed Rabel from CBS, decided to not even take part in (the hostage-interview process),” Lewis remembered. His concerns went even further. “At what point do you cross the line from observer to participant in a hostage situation? At what point does your news gathering intrude on the safety of the individuals involved? We had those discussions about ‘were we being used?’ and ‘what should our proper role be?’ There was a lot of that kind of discussion.”12 The intrepid Cal Thomas caused another problem shortly thereafter when he was interviewing Carrasco. In an attempt to gain favor with the hostage-taker and get him to “open up,” Thomas mentioned that his television station staff might be interested in reporting on what some perceived as negative conditions within the Texas prison system. Carrasco’s reaction was to slam the phone down, saying he had no time 174

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to listen to a “gringo racist.” Ron Robinson, standing nearby the convict leader, picked up the phone and told Thomas that Carrasco “would not listen to the garbage you’re putting out.”13 Everyone who knew Von Beseda agreed that she was very personable. That personality and her fun-loving nature came out during her interview with reporter Mauri Dial of WFAA-TV in Dallas. When asked about personal hygiene conditions inside the library, Beseda shot back, “We have a wash basin and I been thinking about trying to jump in it. But I don’t think it’s quite large enough. We’re about at the stage where our clothes can kind of walk out.” With a sly chuckle, she continued, “Someone suggested that we just all change clothes. That way, everybody would have on something different.”14 Things turned a touch more serious when the reporter asked about methods for delivering food, clothing, and other supplies. With the vigilant Carrasco listening in, Beseda said she would “rather not say.” And when Dial tried to get her to confirm a report of hostages seen sitting in front of the library door, Beseda turned to her captor, got his nod of approval and after a long pause sternly said, “Yes. At all hours. Night and day.”15 Dial, just like many of her media counterparts in the interviews, then played directly into Carrasco’s hands when she asked, “Is there anything else I can do, other than my knowing anyone in authority and sending them a message?” Beseda assured her that was exactly what she should do. She then handed the telephone over to Novella Pollard and Dial once again asked, “Is there anything you would like me to convey to the other reporters outside?”16 Even if Carrasco had written the script, it could not have come out more favorable for him as Pollard continued, “You can help us by getting Mr. Estelle to give these people what they want. They’re not going to turn us loose. Now, Mr. Estelle has got to face this. They are not going to turn us loose. There’s no if, and, or but about it. We know it. Now, he’s got to know it. We’ve known it for four days. Waiting them out is not going to do it. If TDC doesn’t send up what they want, and give them everything they want, then we’re going to die.” All of this was said 175

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very forcefully, flat out, with no weeping, no wailing, no begging. She was being as matter-of-fact as she could be. Dial then asked, “Has TDC told them they’re trying to get what they want?” The principal replied, “Well, they tell him they are. And then we don’t get it or we get the wrong thing. And this upsets him and then we start all over again. I think it’s hard to believe,” she declared, “that a state agency cannot get what it wants when it wants it. I really do. I think they’re stalling, just like Fred thinks they’re stalling and his patience is just about worn out.”17 The Stockholm Syndrome was again becoming evident with the hostage’s personal reference to her captor in a friendly manner, as well as her attempts to explain his position, and the negative opinion of TDC’s efforts. It was becoming “us” against “them.” In another telephone interview with Fort Worth radio newsman Henry de la Garza, Pollard said, “I have been asked if I was one of (those) to go out of here as a hostage, how would I feel safety-wise. As long as TDC did not shoot at me, I would feel very safe. It’s TDC I’m worried about shooting at us if we go out as hostages.” She continued, discussing the choice to accompany Carrasco. “It is our decision to make. It is not Mr. Estelle’s. We weighed all the consequences. We’re grown people. Now, Mr. Estelle needs to give the man what he wants and let us go with him. That’s all there is to it. If he does not,” she said with urgency, “we’re not going to leave this building alive.”18 When de la Garza asked her why she felt safer with Mr. Carrasco than with the TDC, she shot back, “We trust the man. I think that we have learned to know him probably better than most people have known him. We’ve been under a lot of different circumstances than most people have. And Mr. Estelle is just going to have to see that this is what we want.” She said they felt very strongly about it. “We have women up here who are widows and some with small children. If four of us can leave and save those people, then it’s what we want. And we firmly believe we will return. If we don’t return, we have still saved lives. Which is more than TDC seems to be trying to do right now.”19 The strain grew greater every day. 176

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What Pollard and all the hostages still did not know and could not know was that each of those procrastinations was a deliberate effort on the part of TDC to delay. Ron Robinson chimed in with Mauri Dial. He said Governor Dolph Briscoe’s radio comments about the situation were a “pompous declaration about ‘we’re doing everything’ and ‘be assured we are’ and this kind of stuff.”20 All of that was particularly hard on Estelle and other members of the law enforcement team, even with a show of public support from Governor Briscoe who, along with his wife, Janey, flew into Huntsville that Saturday afternoon to survey the hostage scene and get a face-toface report from the TDC Director. The authorities were, the governor was assured, doing everything they could possibly think of to help the hostages. But, the very people they were trying to help condemned them. Judy Standley put it succinctly when she said, “We’re not afraid of what Fred will do. We’re afraid of what TDC won’t do.”21 Day in and day out, the hostages begged Estelle to do what Carrasco wanted him to do; which was what he could not do under any circumstances. It was particularly galling to the lawmen when one of their own turned on them—as Bobby Heard did when he told anyone who would listen, “If we die up here, it’s the administration’s fault. It’s absolutely the administration’s fault.”22 Robinson expanded his comments about the authorities during an extended telephone call with his wife Jeanne who, at his direction, stayed at their home in Conroe rather than come to Huntsville and join the rest of the hostage families in their vigil. He told her, “We were led to believe by the TDC people that we would have been out of here by now. They talked about Thursday and they talked about Friday. But when it came time for them to put up the goods, they refused. . . . When are they going to live up to their end of it?”23 Not all the hostages felt unkindly toward Estelle and the Texas Department of Corrections. When a reporter asked Father O’Brien what he thought the director should do, he responded, “I don’t know what he should do but whatever he does, it’s going to be right according to his conscience and I go along with him one-hundred percent.”24 Even so, Carrasco gained points in the arena of public opinion as the 177

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sympathetic media and an increasingly angered citizenry questioned the TDC’s actions. All the negativity directly bolstered Carrasco’s hopes. If enough people outside the prison pleaded his cause loudly and long enough, if enough people argued that his demands be met, he became increasingly certain they would be. His confidence that he was winning the game rose. No longer content with allowing only the hostages to speak, Carrasco decided he’d like a little airtime too. He granted a telephonic interview to Andy Yema, the same UPI reporter from Austin, of whom Carrasco had mockingly said, “could be Chinese.” The reporter and the killer got along well with the latter waxing philosophically during their chat. When asked how he would spend his new life in Castro’s Cuba if he ever got there, Carrasco said he would like to get a ranch and do something for mankind. Just what, was “hard to say.” He felt that “at my age, it would be hard to become a doctor or anything like that. I should have done that when I was sixteen.”25 In his quest for public sympathy, he said if the judge that sentenced him the first time “would have given me a chance to go into the service instead of sending me to the school for boys, I believe I’d have another outlook on life.” He boasted ever so modestly how he actually was a Latino Robin Hood, saying “I opened several places of recreation” for his Mexican neighbors, “for like picnics, things like that.” But then, in the most common lament in prison history, Carrasco claimed he was framed. The foreman on his cattle-raising ranch in Guadalajara, Mexico was “caught with a quantity of heroin.” Carrasco said he and his brother were arrested, his brother killed, and “they tortured me for seventytwo hours with cattle-prods, just like you read about the Gestapo. But actually,” he concluded, “all that is just water under the bridge. The thing is, I only hope this thing can be straightened out one way or the other because I hate to see people suffer.”26 He went on. “I was brought up a Catholic,” but he came to believe there was no God “when I was about twenty.” His adoption of atheism came because, “Like I tell you, I have the heart to kill but I don’t have the heart to see a person suffer. And if there is a God . . . I mean, I’d 178

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rather not talk about religion. Everyone’s got his own opinion.” He talked about his wife, Rosa, and how he feared the law was “trying to get ahold of her so that they can use her as a shield” to force his surrender. But that, he swore, would not work. “Even if they bring my mother in,” he said angrily, “and she kneels down and told me to throw down my gun, I would not do it. And if my wife desires it and my children, I still wouldn’t do it. I’ll fight to the death.”27 Things were not always to his liking during the extended series of interviews. When asked by Wayne Jackson of the Austin AmericanStatesman about his contacts with the media, Carrasco replied, “Well, I’ve talked to some and on some I have hanged up because they are red-necks. I can tell right away. Mostly, I’ve let these people (the hostages) talk to them.”29 The reporter pursued the subject. “On these that you hung up on, what did they do, try to play on your sympathies or something?” Carrasco jumped in. “Well, they were trying to tell me to surrender, trying to use penny-ante psychology, I guess.”28 Even though an APB had been issued for Rosa Carrasco two days earlier, Estelle did not believe it would set Fred Carrasco off because the APB read that she was wanted only for questioning. But on this Saturday, the director wanted a warrant for Rosa’s arrest ordered. He believed he might be able to use the threat of Rosa’s arrest if future negotiations broke down. The authorities wanted her because they also believed that Rosa was the source for the money used to buy the guns and ammunition for her husband and his two associates. If she had put up the money, chances were good she also knew who got it—and a lot more. Estelle was concerned about the possibility of Carrasco hearing about the warrant with its implied threat to his adored Rosa. So he warned Ruben Montemayor to keep his mouth shut about the warrant when talking with anyone in the library. He did not want to lose the strategic effects of breaking the news to Carrasco when the opportune time came. However, it did not work out the way Estelle planned it. Instead, it soon led to preparations for mass-murder.

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In addition to their mandated telephone calls to the press, the hostages were also allowed to make calls to their families. Most conversations dealt with matters such as which relatives were coming to Huntsville for support, how other family members were bearing up, and change of clothes they wanted. Novella Pollard’s concern was about where her checkbook was at home so her daughter could pay the rent due at the end of the month. She was also mildly concerned that her daughter and her three sons were “driving the wheels off” her Plymouth sports car. Judy Standley chided her daughter Pam to “Remember, I have a dress on lay-away at Penney’s.” Aline House worried about her “old pepper plant in the backyard” and the fact that the ordeal was causing her to “look like hell.” Mrs. Davis was concerned about her daughter-in-law Susan, a month away from childbirth. Von Beseda advised her Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Carroll Pickett, that “we told Fred if we got out of this alive that in five years we were going to have a reunion and wherever he was he was going to pay our way there and pay the whole expense.”29 That brought a big laugh from both the preacher and the hostage. Father O’Brien’s external concern came during a telephone conversation with his brother Tim. “The most dramatic thing,” Tim joked, “is that this is the first time to my knowledge that anyone has been able to shut you up.” Laughter erupted on both ends of the line. Tim also asked his priestly brother if he “needed an altar boy up there?” Looking always for a bright side in a dismal situation, the priest’s brother surmised that being handcuffed would “handicap the smoking bit.” Facing almost certain death, the hostages did not lose their sense of humor. They even found some advantages to their captivity. As Judy Standley put it with a laugh, “Cuevas got us up today and made us do exercises.” She then counted to four in Spanish, like a gym teacher, which prompted her son to ask if she were learning much of the language. The fun-loving hostage replied, “Oh yes. Bano means bathroom and cafetera means coffee pot.” Still joking with her son Stuart, Judy warned him, “You’re not going to recognize your mother when she gets out. She looks fifty-three and completely white. She looks like a hag. I think the buzzards must be circling.”30 The break in tension was enjoyed by all. 180

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Some other conversations, however, were ominous—such as Pollard’s concern about who would be the guardian of her children should the worst happen. Von Beseda told her husband Buster that “in case something happens and I don’t come out,” she would like to have Reverend Pickett preside at her funeral. “I know Mr. Estelle probably thinks I’m an idiot woman,” she said. “I’ve called him and I’ve been hysterical several times. All he would say is ‘I understand’ but I kept telling him he didn’t understand.” Other hostages did not understand Estelle’s words either. Bobby Heard told his wife Judy, “He just keeps telling us ‘I understand.’ I’m so sick of hearing ‘I understand’.”31 The hostages’ almost unanimous bitterness over Estelle’s attitude was expressed by Ann Fleming. She talked to her husband Herman about hearing the director on the radio in the library. “To me, his comments were so very cold and I want Mr. Estelle to know that I hope he can live with that book he’s going by when we’re all killed. He might,” she continued, “like to think if his wife were up here, would he want to go by the books so much. We’re getting so tired of the words, ‘I understand.’ He doesn’t understand. He’s saying he’s going to go by what is in that rule book. That’s what he’s saying. I believe in following rules too. But like we’ve all agreed up here, there never has been a case where rules haven’t been broken. It’s very easy to see what they’re doing. They’re gambling. They’re gambling just as sure as anything.”32 In an unnecessary defense of his “I understand” position, Estelle said, “We knew that the hostile convicts were monitoring those calls and we couldn’t compromise the safety of the group to satisfy their thirst for information.” When told that Von Beseda said to a reporter she had asked the director, “What the hell to you mean, ‘you understand?’” Estelle said, “that sounds like Von.” He described her as “a very forth-coming person in any situation and . . . one of the strengths of the hostage group. And I wouldn’t have expected any less of her knowing her as I did.”33 The usually ebullient Beseda broke down more than once in telephone conversations with her husband. Sobbing pitifully on one occasion, she told Buster that she could not, as he 181

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advised, “hang on much longer. There’s not a damn soul in this state of Texas that can do a damned thing.”34 Trying to calm his distraught wife, the husband told her, “Let’s do the best we can and hold on a little bit longer.” Crying even harder, Von responded bitterly, “When you talk to them they say they understand. They understand. And that’s it! They just ‘understand.’”35 Many calls were made by hostages to friends and family beseeching them to contact people of influence who could plead their case to other people of influence. For instance, Judy Standley’s family tried unsuccessfully to reach Dave Ward, news anchor for Houston’s KTRK-TV. They called his co-worker, Marvin Zindler, a television investigative reporter famous for exposing the infamous Chicken Ranch. But he was “on another assignment and said he’d be here as soon as he could.” Standley’s reply was, “Well tell him, as a matter of public service and to save my life, to get off his rear and get on the phone and talk to Fred.” She was not optimistic. “It may be too late by the time he gets around to it.”36 The only person of influence reached by the hostages and their families was Texas State Representative James “Jimmy” Edwards, III, a ex-Marine turned politician representing the 18th District and Linda Woodman’s home town of Conroe. When he asked, “How you doing, Sweetheart?” she could only answer, “We’re in a very bad predicament. We’re trying,” she continued, “to call anyone that may have any influence over the Governor or the Board of Corrections. And I don’t know what you can do but we need your help badly.”37 In a not-too-encouraging response, Edwards asked, “What do you want me to tell them?” After the librarian enumerated, point-by-point, all the demands Carrasco had made, the Representative promised to “do everything I can . . . and I will certainly relay the message to them and ask them to do everything that they can to help you all.”38 With that verbal pat on her head, Woodman dejectedly turned the phone over to Ron Robinson. In a plaintive voice, the teacher asked if the state legislature was currently in session. Assured it was, he asked, “Could you interrupt that body and introduce an emergency resolution directing TDC to release these men so that they will release us? Jimmy, 182

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this is serious. There are ten people here, I mean, you know, your constituents plus who knows how many other people are going to get killed if this is not resolved.” When Edwards tried to tell Robinson efforts were being made, he interrupted, “No, Jimmy, no. They are misleading these men . . . and these men will not be misled.” Described by Edwards as “urgent, very emotional, desperate,” Robinson went on with his indictment.39 “The TDC is lying,” he claimed. “They are not doing what they said they are doing.”40 Robinson did not limit his comments to the Texas Department of Corrections. He reiterated some of his feelings about his hostage-mates, too. As he later wrote, “I was certain that our conversations were being monitored, and I was concerned that those listening would think our situation wasn’t as perilous as we claimed. Twice I took Novella Pollard aside and told her what I thought about the women’s behavior.”41 According to Robinson, Pollard answered, “We are just as scared as you are, and with one crisis after another, we just have to have some way of relieving our tension. This is our way of coping.”42 He said, “I may have been out of order in wanting them to conform to my idea of hostage behavior. I respected their right to behave as they thought appropriate, but it didn’t change my feelings about what they were doing.”43 Linda Woodman echoed some of Novella’s thoughts when she said, “That’s what we do up here when we’re upset. We just kind of fall to pieces every once in a while, you know. We get in hysterics. And there are a few that this rips to pieces, you know, and we just had to explain, well, everyone reacts differently.”44 She cited an example of one laughter binge. “It’s strange,” she said, “when you’re so tense, the crazy things that run through your mind. One of the first things that went through my mind was, ‘Will my coffin be open or closed?’” That brought peals of nervous laughter from her audience. Her response—“it would probably be best if it was closed because I didn’t know if my head would be blowed off or what”— brought more laughter. “We had to giggle over that but there were a couple of us at the table that didn’t think that was one bit funny.”45

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Woodman made another call this day to Estelle. Acting as Carrasco’s secretary, she relayed his new offer. He threatened a “demonstration” by exploding the bombs Aline House had seen being made earlier that morning. Woodman confirmed they came from “some of the ammunition they have plus the science lab equipment.” Carrasco said he would call off the demonstration—with its implied threat to hostage safety—if Estelle would send the bulletproof vests he had demanded. She continued, “We’re just hoping and praying that you’ll give him the vests.” Estelle employed his stalling tactic again by having Woodman repeat the request, asking her to do it again while he wrote it all down “so I can talk to the folks about it.”46 Carrasco even offered to sweeten the pot saying, through Woodman, if he got the vests he would not make any further demands for weapons. The librarian added, “Doesn’t this seem to be reasonable enough? Wouldn’t it be all right to give them the vests?” The director avoided a disheartening answer by saying he would “have to go to my Board and discuss it.” In desperation she closed, “When these things aren’t given, we sure do go through something awful up here. And we never know, you know, if the next one is going to be it. It’s been so close so many times.”47 Some phone calls turned out to be the height of obsequiousness by the media when talking with Carrasco. In one, reporter Ron Fulton of Houston radio station KILT, puffed Carrasco up telling him his takeover “has been very systematically done. You’ve done it well.” When Carrasco said Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was “a prudent man who’s suffered a lot . . . and what he got he took by power,” Fulton inflated the killer’s ego further telling him Castro “is a lot like you.” In talking about Carrasco’s drug cartel, Fulton assured him it was “super successful.” And when the leader told the reporter that he and his companions were “together in death,” that they made an abrazo (a death pact) among themselves, Fulton told him, “That’s honorable.” 48 Comments such as these seemed to be just what Carrasco needed to feed his ego. 184

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Carrasco proceeded to joke about his past and future. When the reporter asked him, “How much do you figure you’re worth,” his answer was, “Dead or alive?” He said he was worth at least eightthousand dollars dead, the reward amount offered by authorities in San Antonio, which he claimed was not even enough “for a decent funeral.” Queried about fleeing to Mexico, he said, “I doubt it because Mexicans do have a way of not forgetting things. They said I killed some federal officers and I’m sure they want to hang me.” When asked how he planned to get to Castro’s Cuba, he laughed, “I don’t intend to hitch-hike.” Would getting to Cuba be workable? “Well,” he hesitatingly responded, “first I’m a person that likes to take any problem a step at a time. Once I get one phase behind me, I’ll go to the next.”49 Here again was confirmation of what Estelle and others were beginning to feel for certain. Whatever original plan Carrasco had, it was out the window. When he was finished bantering with Fulton, Carrasco put the terrified Bobby Heard on the phone, describing him mockingly as “the prime target.” It seemed as if he too had fallen victim to the Stockholm Syndrome as in a pleading voice he told the reporter, “It looks pretty grim if they don’t come through pretty quick.” Heard claimed the authorities “told a bunch of lies. I can’t understand those people out there. They’re fools.” But when asked for specifics, he could not come up with any. He did come up with his usual defense of his captor. “If they (the authorities) would only trust him, he’d take care of this. He’d let us go. He’d keep his word. I know he wouldn’t hurt us,” the guard continued. Again came the litany, “Y’all have got to get together and put some pressure on them to get us out safe.” Trying to comfort him, Fulton said, “I can tell you’re crying. Why don’t you take a deep breath and kind of lean back and…?” Heard interrupted, repeating his plea, “I wish you news people would put pressure on those people across the street to come through and get us all out of here. Y’all can do it. There’s no reason why you can’t.”50 On the other hand, Bert Davis was not cooperating with Carrasco’s plan. When Mauri Dial asked her how she was doing, Davis simply answered, “Well, we’re doing fine under the circumstances. . . . We’ve 185

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found our strength from one another,” she said in her soft, positive voice. Pressing for something negative, Dial asked, “Are you getting all the things you need?” The fifty-four-year-old widow calmly responded, “Oh, definitely. As a matter of fact, I had an upset stomach in the middle of the night and they called over to the hospital and they had medicine here within fifteen minutes.”51 Sensing that there would not be a lot of chilling news coming from this mother of four, Dial quickly asked to speak to Carrasco again. Instead, she was handed off to Von Beseda. Dial asked if she was being treated fairly. Her response was upbeat. “Oh yes. We have been treated very nicely. There have been a few times that we lived moment-tomoment (but) on the whole, they’ve treated us very nicely.” While it was not a crying plea for help, it suited Carrasco, portraying him in a benevolent light. Beseda went on to laud the inmate hostages. “They,” she said laughing, “wait on us just like we’re in a hotel.”52 Not all the telephone calls were so benign. Rudy Dominguez made a call to old “friend” Sheriff Dan Smith at the Runnels County jail in Ballinger, Texas. He told the lawman in a voice that was loud enough for the hostages to hear, “I got a gun and they’re gonna have to kill me to get it away from me. I’m not gonna surrender. I’m willing to go all the way. When we planned this, we knew we’d die or make it. That’s it. Freedom or dead. We’re willing to kill everyone in here.”53 Even with the doom and gloom conversation, the ebullient Linda Woodman was not to be denied. She had a pleasant telephone conversation with her brother, Charles (Sonny) Glass. The sister and brother were both optimistic about the morrow. Noting that “we’ve been on the phone all day long talking to reporters,” she said, “I think possibly it’s doing some good. We’re hoping Fred’s thinking it (the telephone campaign) is working a little better.”54 Glass, an oilman who had worked extensively in Venezuela, spoke fluent Spanish and talked to Carrasco, asking the hostage-taker how much money it would take to get his sister’s release. Carrasco said, “This doesn’t have a thing to 186

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do with money because I have all the money I need.” Linda had more mundane matters on her mind. She was hungry for a good steak dinner. Sonny promised the same, plus shrimp, refried beans, chips “and a bunch of guacamole salad.” family picnic.

55

It sounded like they were planning a

Carrasco liked a lot of what he heard during the eleven hours of telephone calls, and in another with Ron Fulton of KILT Radio, he said, “If I was in power like that redneck, the governor, I would release the people so they wouldn’t get killed.”56 The reporter asked him if “things are getting any better today? Are you any closer to a settlement with these guys?” Carrasco answered, “No. Not really.”57 Having spent no small amount of time in gambling halls both north and south of the Rio Grande River, the killer compared his standoff with the authorities as being like a poker game—with the lives of the hostages as the ultimate stakes. “I mean, actually,” he said with a chuckle, “what they’re doing is they’re just playing a card game, a poker game. But the thing is,” he repeated, “I have the four aces and the joker.”58 Ann Fleming was more familiar with another game. She felt that Carrasco and Estelle “were playing a game of checkers with the hostages as pieces.”59

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Chapter Seventeen July 28, 1974 • Day Five

“I’m going out of here, whether it’s alive or dead.” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

On Sunday, July 28, 1974, the NBC-TV Sunday Evening News broadcast with Floyd Kalber anchoring from New York City, the President Nixon impeachment story got prominent billing. Four of the first five items dealt with it. Kalber also introduced stories about peace talks between Greece and Turkey, fighting in Vietnam, a new sex manual being released in the USSR, the Eleventh Annual Craftsbury Common Old-time Fiddlers’ convention in Vermont, and how the “Texas state prison siege continues.” It was still national news.1 For those involved with the siege, the impeachment proceedings were not a major concern, and in fact received no discussion that day. Except for Ignacio Cuevas. Speaking like a self-imposed victim of social oppression, he talked about the presidency. “The only president worth anything,” he wailed, “was Kennedy and that’s why they killed him. They kill the good people and the poor people.”2 Recalled FBI agent Bob Wiatt, “We didn’t have any contact with the outside world other than with other 188

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agents and other officers. The only contact we initiated,” he said, “was to see if something was out there that we don’t know about, that we could get that would help us expedite the solution to this matter.”3 According to Father O’Brien, the hostages “didn’t talk about anything on the outside.”4 Linda Woodman said, “We just talked about our families, what they were doing and how this was affecting them. We talked about vacations and places we’d been and where we were going.”5 Shortly after the new day started inside the Walls Unit and after a huge breakfast sent up by TDC—bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, orange juice, sweet rolls—the inmate hostages set up a makeshift altar and pews. Carrasco called and ordered priestly vessels and Father O’Brien’s robe— all of which were thoroughly searched by the inmates. O’Brien conducted an informal Catholic Mass for his religiously varied flock. Carrasco, Dominguez, and Cuevas did not take part. The trio did not go unnoticed by the priest. Trying to make light of the situation, Father O’Brien said, “Dominguez and Cuevas will now take up the collection.”6 The good father was always trying to inject a little humor into the tense surroundings. Aline House remembered him saying “If and when I ever get out, I’m going to change my profession. I think I’ll become a nun.”7 Among the civilian hostages were Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians, but they almost all welcomed and joined in the Catholic service as the priest prayed for their lives and talked about “what life is all about . . . about death.” He called it “the best Mass I ever said.”8 Ann Fleming, a member of Huntsville’s First Baptist Church, said the Mass was “a beautiful service and quite a comfort.”9 Ron Robinson found the service “disturbing” because O’Brien “spoke of the life to come and how it would be a better life than this one.”10 With the hostages’ religious services out of the way and with them feeling somewhat more spiritually comforted, it was time for lunch. Linda Woodman’s brother delivered on his promise of the day before— a dozen baskets of fried shrimp, four grilled steaks sized for splitting, four Mexican plate lunches with guacamole salad, two-dozen flour tortillas, refried beans, steak sandwiches, and vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream. Big meals such as this one led Judy Standley to 189

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complain factiously that, “We’re like a bunch of cattle; we eat and then we go lay down, we eat and then go lay down.”11 So, for a few moments that Sunday afternoon, life was not all bad in the library. Some sat around and talked about their religious beliefs that were sustaining them. Someone found a deck of cards and Jack Branch tried to teach his fellow hostages how to play Whist. They tried playing other card games like Old Maid and Solitaire. But, as Woodman said, it was hard to play games because, “you couldn’t concentrate. You were so busy looking up to see what everybody was doing.”12 And for the hostages, dealing cards while wearing handcuffs proved to be exasperating. Judy Standley told her son Mark that she also “tried to read a book today but it’s hard. It’s very hard.” He responded, “I think the best thing for you to do is to think of the past, like vacations that we’ve taken or….” His mother interrupted to say, “No, it’s too hard to think about things I might never get to do again.”13 Carrasco’s media scheme continued and one of the first hostages interviewed was inmate Martin Quiroz. He had something he wanted to get off his chest. Speaking with Roberto Guiterrez, KENS-TV, CBS Channel 5 in San Antonio, the prisoner got right to the point. “Look,” he told the reporter, “I’m a little disgusted with the newspapers indicating that we . . . are seven armed convicts in here. Me and Robertson and Escamilla and Vera have nothing to do with it. We’re just victims of circumstances.” Quiroz had yet another beef. “You’re a Chicano just like I am,” he told the Spanish-speaking television reporter, “and you know Chicanos have a hard time with the officials here in the penitentiary. I’m afraid that when this is over—if it’s over—that I’m going to need some kind of assurance from the news media or somebody that those people won’t try to take any action against us.” Guiterrez promised to spread that concern among the other members of the media.14 Soon it was time for the star of the show, the host of “Meet the Press in Huntsville,” Federico Gomez Carrasco to be interviewed by Guiterrez. Once again in rapid-fire Spanish he brought forth his brief on the 190

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unfairness of his situation. “Why have they tried to make me out to be an animal that would kill people just to kill them?” he wailed. “They never mentioned that I was a family man.” He carried his theme of inability to express himself over to the hostages he was holding. “The hostages should have the right to talk with the people, right; the public, and tell them what they feel at this moment of agony. I am giving these people the chance to tell the world what they think.” Guiterrez asked, “So what are the hang-ups? What’s holding things up?” Carrasco answered, “My demands have not (been) met by them. And naturally, Mr. Estelle and the governor think that they’re playing cards, right? But, the thing is I have four aces and the joker. So, they’re going to have to meet my demands or the jig’s up. There is no other alternative.” “Yesterday,” Guiterrez stated, “you told a reporter that a Mr. Weilbacher and another detective from San Antonio killed four of your best friends. Who were they and how did they die?” Carrasco launched into a defense. “Roy Castaño, may he rest in peace, and Agapito Ruiz were very close friends of mine. Now we’re talking about Ricardo Garcés and David Garcia. They were close friends of mine, too. And Gilberto Escobedo was also a very close friend of mine. I did have a falling out with him, but I didn’t kill him.15 That “falling out” was reportedly a matter of a missing eightythousand dollars and the victim was literally blown off a barrio barstool. With Garcés and Garcia, it was sixty-thousand dollars. “Now,” Carrasco continued, “they’re saying that I was the person responsible for those five deaths. Right now, I don’t have anything to lose because if they don’t open the gate for me, I’m going to kill myself right here with these people.” He repeated his story told earlier about that “secret witness” and how two San Antonio police officers “executed” two Carrasco associates, and tried to frame him. It was information he said he got while in the Bexar County jail. “That’s when I started to figure out exactly how things were. But that’s the way it is.” Guiterrez then asked, “If they write a folk song about you, and if you could write it, what would you say?” 191

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“Believe me,” Carrasco replied, “I have no intention of writing a folk song because I’m not egotistical. There may be other people that may want to do it but I have no intention.” Guiterrez closed the interview saying, “Sir, I just wanted to tell you that it’s been an honor to speak with you . . . and I’ll remember you until the day of my death.”16 Over the two-day weekend, Federico Gomez Carrasco spent many hours on the telephone talking with some thirty members of the media, local, state and national. This became a matter of concern for the TDC as they began to wonder if he was using his air-time to somehow get a coded message out to a ally, perhaps to Rosa Carrasco. During the course of the Sunday interviews, there was no pause in the stream of criticism coming from the library. Novella Pollard issued warnings to the media, to the TDC in general, and to its director in particular. She was also disturbed by some newspaper accounts she felt were false and made Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominguez angry. During a telephone interview with Henry de la Garza of WBAP News in Dallas-Fort Worth, Pollard blasted the media. “The newspapers are printing half-truths, mistruths,” she exclaimed vociferously. “It’s these things that are killing us. If they would just say what we say and nothing else.” Continuing her lecture, she said, “I am very provoked,” she told the stunned reporter, “that one of your papers, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, in an article from yesterday’s paper had a headline that said— let me see, I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget—‘Seven Convicts Reject Freedom.’ Now, there are not seven convicts holding us here. There are three convicts holding us here. . . . The other four are hostages, just like we are. There is no other word (for them) except for hostages.”17 To mollify her outrage, de la Garza noted that Texas Department of Corrections said it would not reprimand the four inmate-hostages. The attempt at consolation did not work with the educator. She went on, “I see no reason for TDC to punish them. They are just under the same guns that we are. But, I’m telling you—and you can tell Mr. Estelle,” she warned, “that if any of these four men are harmed or punished by TDC in any way once they leave this place and we’re still alive when 192

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they leave, then Heaven help him because we are going to watch and see that they are not hurt.”18 Her parting words to de la Garza were, “I’ll tell you something that won’t be funny to you but we have all decided that if we ever had a wish, we’d wish that newsmen, TV men, and radio men could be held hostages for a while and let them see what the newspapers do to you. They tear you up. I know you don’t like to hear that,” she concluded, “but you know it’s true.”19 Father O’Brien also had some words the media did not want to hear. When asked by a reporter about reincarnation, the priest retorted, “I gave a lot of thought to that and I wanted to come back as something that would be meaningful and give you a lot of pleasure. I decided I’d like to come back as a hemorrhoid on a reporter’s ass.”20 Judy Standley chimed in with a pair of complaints, one light and one dark. “We get angry,” she said, “because the paper says we’re middle-aged librarians and they quote our ages. They get everything else wrong but they quote our ages just right. Next time we’re going to tell them that we’re actually eighty-four years old.” It was still “a scary situation,” she said, “and we’re supporting each other but they’re all cracking now. It’s too much. I don’t know how many days you can go before you absolutely crack.”21 Next up was again Will Sinclair from KITE radio in San Antonio who opened his interview with Carrasco by asking when is it going to end? The answer was, “it will only take a fortune-teller, really. But, if my demands are met, then there will be no problem whatsoever. (It) all depends on the governor . . .” Sinclair asked if was all this planned before? Carrasco boasted, “Any place they put me, I’ll get out of. I’m getting out of here, whether it’s alive or dead, I’m going out. One way or another. So actually, it’s immaterial whether I had planned it or not.” When the reporter reminded the killer that he was not out yet, the killer shot back, “No, but there is a better chance than I had (last) Tuesday.” Having enough of the bantering with the reporter, Carrasco decided to let Ron Robinson do some talking for him. Sinclair asked, “Ronnie, how do you feel?” 193

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The teacher sighed, “Oh fine, thank you.” The reporter questioned the teacher about his wound. Once again Robinson was evasive about being shot, saying it was “in the right shoulder” and “it’s not very serious. It’s a kind of flesh kind of thing” and “It’s just more of a tear.” Changing the subject, Robinson returned to complaints about TDC Director Estelle. “Fred said,” the teacher related, “that you had a question about the transportation that Estelle (offered). I don’t think he offered anything that you could take very seriously. He said something to the effect that if Fred would release the hostages, he (Estelle) would allow the three of them to come down and be photographed by TV newsmen. . . . They were to be guaranteed free access to the outskirts of Huntsville. Now, let me ask you. If you were in Fred’s position, would you take that offer as serious?” Continuing his captor’s point of view, Robinson said, “It’s quite clear to any logical, rational person, when you get to the edge of Huntsville, they’ve got a roadblock set up and they’ve got a helicopter gunship probably hovering overhead. That would be suicide.” “Sounds to me,” Sinclair asked the teacher, “that you might be counseling with Fred and advising him. Are you helping him with his . . . ” Robinson quickly jumped in. “Oh no! Fred does not need my counseling and advice. We’re in this together. He wants his freedom and I want my freedom.” Sinclair asked to speak with Carrasco. Instead, Fred handed the phone to Ann Fleming. The spunky redhead was upbeat. “We think tomorrow’s going to be a very important day.” Why? “Well, Fred’s given us two days of rest. That means, you know, we haven’t been negotiating or anything. And so tomorrow we are going to pick up again where we left off and we feel like important decisions are going to be made tomorrow.” 22 But, Judy Standley was less optimistic. “We’ll have a real bad day tomorrow because they’ll be negotiating again and it’ll be hairy and if we don’t get what we want, if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do tomorrow then . . .” Her voice drifted off with the ‘we’ versus ‘they’ again surfacing. “These guys are tired of waiting. And the time is up, so it’ll be a Shootout at OK Corral. But, I’m resigned to it. I’m not afraid,” she said. As she told 194

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Reverend Carroll Pickett, “Whatever has to be will be and I’m not afraid any more. I think it’s in God’s hands.”23 Robinson got back on the telephone and furthered his captor’s case. He told Sinclair, “Fred, according to the newspapers, has killed forty to fifty people. For how many of those murders has he been convicted?” When Sinclair said he did not know, Robinson came back with, “What I’m getting at is that he’s either a murderer or he isn’t. How newspapers can speak of forty to fifty murders and there has never been a conviction, that sounds quite contradictory to my way of thinking.” Robinson continued. “I happen to be a student of criminology. I’m very near my degree in criminology, as a matter of fact. And in criminology, we know for a fact there is a very high degree of what we call ‘victim precipitated homicide.’ It’s where the victim himself causes the murder.” Continuing his lecture, Robinson said, “I can imagine that if he has murdered anyone outside, in many cases it was, I mean, I would not call it ‘justifiable homicide,’ but it was, in fact, brought on by the person who was killed.” Sinclair’s response, “In other words, he’s a nice guy.” He then asked to talk to Carrasco again. The reporter got right to the point. “Everyone believes,” he stated, “that you’re going to take the lives of these hostages, one by one with a pistol, unless you’re given freedom. . . . Now if you’re forced to do that, are you going to be able to live with it on your conscience and go to Hereafter with having done that?”24 Unfazed, Carrasco simply said, “Well, like I said, I’m an atheist so, I mean, that wouldn’t bother me. Let me put it this way. If I had been sentenced to die in the electric chair, the one that would pull the switch, I don’t believe that he would have it on his conscience because someone else made the decision, not him.” And then Carrasco hung up. Ruben Montemayor was right back on the telephone. “Fred, Mr. George Lewis from the Houston bureau of NBC is ready to talk to you. NBC. Nationwide.” That got Carrasco’s attention. “Nationwide?” he pondered, now anxious to talk some more. Lewis asked, “Do you think a lot about the suffering the hostages are going through?” 195

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Carrasco shot right back. “Well, let’s put it this way. I am not even thinking about the suffering of my own people, about my own wife, my own children, my mother. . . . I’m trying to be as humane as possible and still keep from committing suicide.” The reporter then asked, “Do you think if you let the hostages go, you would be committing suicide? You don’t think the authorities would let you surrender peacefully?” Perturbed now, Carrasco shouted, “Mister, do you know what you’re talking about?” Lewis switched gears to Carrasco’s history as a killer and asked, “How do you feel about all those news reports, about this reputation you have?” The drug king was ready for that one, too. “You have to consider the source,” he said. “Just like any profession, the news media man has to eat. So, he’ll do anything for a buck. . . . Let’s put it this way,” he continued, “I could say that you killed a hundred. How many have you been convicted of?” The reporter admitted that he had not “been convicted of any.” To which Carrasco answered, “Ok. I been convicted of one. So you take it from there. If you can believe hearsay, go ahead and believe hearsay. It’s a free country—from what they say.”25 Later, Carrasco came up with another bizarre plan. He tried to arrange a prisoner swap—the hostages in exchange for Estelle and some other TDC officials. That offer caused “the one big argument” in the Command Post, according to FBI agent Bob Wiatt. It all started in the early Sunday morning hours when the director was already in the early stages of sleep deprivation. “There was always,” said Wiatt, “communications going on via telephone at all hours of the night. Carrasco and his people would call and they would want something and back and forth. Then there was planning, conjecturing; we had all these contingencies we were playing around with. I slept on the floor a couple of nights for a couple of hours. So, we would sleep an hour here, an hour there. That’s all we got. That’s one of the bad things we often talked about. You have to get your rest. You’re not inclined to make good decisions when you go without that.”26 Almost every day of the 196

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siege, Estelle sought counsel and comfort from the prison chaplains. He did not try to make a deal with the Almighty. “You don’t bargain with God,” he warned, “not my God anyway. He’s holding all the cards. I was looking for help. Any source I could find.”27 He thought he found a source after he took a walk with Texas Ranger Captain G. W. Burks who had to “make his rounds and check on our troops.” That inspection trip lasted a lot longer than either one expected, not that there was anything unusual going. As a consequence, Estelle went through a fourth consecutive night with only two or three hours of fitful sleep, a pattern altered by thoughts of some prisoners who offered themselves to Carrasco in exchange for the hostages. The warden at the Clements Unit—one of TDC’s southern units—called Estelle and said, “We’ve got a petition here signed by a bunch of convicts who are willing to trade places with the free people up there as hostages.” Some other prisoners told the warden they were willing “to storm the library and bring Carrasco out in pieces.” Another inmate told Husbands, “Warden, you give me a .45 and I’ll go settle that thing for you.” With a rare chuckle, Estelle told the warden, “Serve them ice cream with their lunch today and thank them.” The director knew those volunteer missions would not work. “First of all,” he surmised, “Carrasco wouldn’t go for it because he would assume that we would have less regard for convicts’ lives than we would have for free peoples’ lives— which was not true.”28 Other volunteers of a decidedly less violent nature offered themselves. Buster Beseda suggested himself as an exchange hostage for his wife,Von. When she told him about the exchange stories, her husband asked. “Well, how about Buster? Ask him about Buster.” 29 In another phone conversation, Ms. Lillie Crockett told her daughter, Judy Standley, “If there’s anything that I could do to take your place, I’m willing to do it. I’m a lot farther down the line than you are and I’d gladly give it for yours. Tell Fred if it comes to the point, to please switch.”30 But Estelle carried the scenario a step further. What, he wondered silently, if he offered himself as the exchange medium? The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced it was the way out for the captives. He was sure Carrasco would leap at the idea. 197

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Estelle was not the type who took his work home. He did not burden his wife and family with his job-related troubles. This time was different. Recognizing that “the worst” could come to pass, Estelle got out of his rumpled bed in the middle of that short night and penned what he called a “contingency letter” to his wife Marilyn and their children: Marilyn — The only woman of my life that bore my wonderful children, made my home where I want to be, and held my everlasting love. I don’t know how this will turn out—I hope you never read it. My decision is not involved with any death wish, devotion to duty, or emotion. We have a plan to rescue the hostages— my being in the building would make the plan work better. 5 hostages in the way are too many, but 11 innocent people are twice too many. I know my people and their skills—they’ll do everything to get us out that is humanly possible. Never, never let you or our children be bitter—what we’ve had is too good to be shadowed by anger or regret. How much else to say—I love you—always have—always will. This is true for my children—support one another and your Mother—you each one have a great future—use it wisely and always with kindness, tolerance and grace. Always, Jim & Dad31 When he was back in the Command Post at six o’clock Sunday morning, his thinking process, by his own admission, was at times sorely lacking. During negotiations, Carrasco, who must have been practicing ESP, surprised Estelle. After Estelle, just in case, relayed the inmates’ offer to take the place of the hostages or at least the females, Carrasco scoffed at it and hung up. But then he called back and upped the ante, suggesting mockingly that Estelle come up himself and bring Warden 198

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Husbands, Major Murdock, and the Walls Unit’s assistant warden, Wesley Warner with him in exchange for the women hostages. As Wiatt remembered it, Estelle said, ‘You know, I think that would be something. If we could get in there and he’d let the other people go. . . . I’m going to do it!’ And that’s when he and I got into it.”32 For reasons still unknown to him today—other than his consuming desire to end the trial for the hostages—Estelle “bought into Carrasco’s idea hook, line, and sinker.”33 When he broached the idea to Wiatt, Rogers, and Burks, he was at first almost hooted out of the room. According to Wiatt, Estelle was animated—a rare occasion for him— when he said, “I think we have something here . . .” His voice trailed off as he pondered the possibilities. When Wiatt and the Rangers found out the director was serious, they considered getting a rope to tie him down. Wiatt said to him very firmly and simply, “Neither of us has had any sleep for a couple of days—or at least very little. Think about it. Who says he’s going to release those hostages once he gets you inside that library? Ain’t going to happen, Boss.”34 Rogers, as usual, was even more blunt. “You dumb son-of-a-bitch,” he laughed at Estelle, “where’d you come up with that stupid idea.” Although they could not overrule the Director of the Texas Department of Corrections, at least they could take a different tack and remind him that he would need permission from the system’s Board of Directors. Estelle agreed to a conference call with the nine TDC board members. The Board’s vote was immediate and a unanimous: Negative! Not under any circumstances. One of the Board members, Lou Austin, told Estelle, “Suppose we let you go up there? Then they’re going to want the lieutenant-governor. And then they’ll want the governor. And then they’ll want President Nixon.”35 Asked about the possible trade, one ex-con said, “I think it would be pure murder for Estelle, Murdock, or Husbands to trade themselves. Those guys got to be crazy.”36 And Estelle too later admitted that the exchange idea was “outrageously stupid.” With a smile, Estelle said, the Board’s decision “kind of turned a light bulb on for me.” So, he chuckled and said, “I don’t think I can get anyone to go up there after the President. Maybe we’d best forget it.” Another Board member ended 199

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the discussion by saying, somewhat in jest, “Somebody call McKaskle and tell him to see to it that Estelle gets some sleep—and soon.”37 The authorities made a huge public relations mistake when they explained their position on the exchange to the media. They told the truth—that the TDC Board vetoed the idea. Jim Estelle and Ron Taylor should have offered another bit of the truth—that if Estelle went up to the library, who would Carrasco want next? Carrasco jumped right on the weak explanation. In a telephone interview with Henry de la Garza, the reporter asked Carrasco about “your proposal to have prison inmates replace the civilian hostages.” He was quite ready to set the record straight. “Let’s correct that. I stated that I’m prepared, one-hundred percent ready, to let the seven ladies go; but I would demand four persons in return (Estelle, Husbands, Warner and Murdock). Mr. Estelle said in so many words that I wasn’t man enough because I had taken woman hostages. So therefore, I’m only asking for four of them for the seven of the female hostages.” When the reporter asked what response he was given to that proposal, Carrasco—his voice dripping with sarcasm—said, “What was it? He wish with all his heart that he could take their place. But unfortunately, he was working for somebody else. In other words, he don’t want to put his neck up here.”38 The drug-dealer was almost gleeful telling his version of the event. Pollard repeated Carrasco’s spiel saying, “and that offer was refused.”39 Intentionally or not, Pollard had assisted in Carrasco’s attempt to cast the Texas Department of Corrections in the worst possible light. This was the last time the media was able to interview any hostage until the siege ended. That did not make the hostages unhappy. As Pollard put it after two days of interviews, “We were very sick and tired of talking to reporters.”40 But there were still questions inside the prison within the prison. Cuevas had questions about Woodman. “I was sitting down,” she remembered, “alphabetizing our library cards. And he came over. We had one of these labeling guns,” she said, “and that startled him. He knew it wasn’t a gun but he didn’t know exactly what it was. It looked like a gun. He wanted me to stop what I was doing 200

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right then.” She told him that Carrasco had given her permission to do it. Aline House and a couple of the other women, Woodman said, “were sitting in a little circle talking and Cuevas went over to them and they started talking and I heard Aline say, ‘FBI?? She’s just a school teacher.’” Suddenly, “just a school teacher” was very interested in that conversation. “Well, I didn’t know for sure that they were talking about me but they were both looking my way. Aline told me later that Cuevas thought I was with the FBI or something because I was constantly looking around and my eyes ‘were evil.’ That alarmed him. I couldn’t be trusted.”41 Rudy Dominguez also made it known he did not much care for Woodman, one of the most calm and stable of all the hostages. As Pollard remembered, “Carrasco seemed to prefer to talk to me and Mrs. Woodman. I think it’s because we didn’t break down all the time. We were very serious about the whole business. Now Cuevas and Rudy didn’t like this, you know. And we were their targets because we didn’t break down.”42 But Linda did, for a moment. She was in the library office with her back to the door ordering groceries through the warden’s office. She added, “Dominguez wants his newspaper. He’s just crazy.” Something made her turn around and “he was right behind me and his gun was right at my head—right between my eyes. It just infuriated me. I just grabbed his arm and pushed his hand down and I said ‘Either shoot or leave me alone!’ My knees turned to Jell-O. But I stomped out of that room and I went in the restroom and cried for a while. It startled me so when I realized what could have happened.”43 There was another occasion when she woke up to find “Dominguez squatted down at the foot of my pallet. I couldn’t even sleep without being watched. He just squatted there with his gun on me. I don’t know what he was doing.” And later, Woodman was on duty at the library entrance with Cuevas there as lookout when he asked her where her car was. She told him it was out in front of the prison. Then he asked her if she knew where the Houston airport was. She did and he said, “when this is all over, I’m going to Cuba and have plastic surgery and get my fingerprints altered.” Then he told her that she was going to drive him and when they got there, “he was going to kill me.” Her 201

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quick response was, “Then I’m not driving you.” When Cuevas told her she was, she said emphatically, “No. No. I’m not going. You can kill me here. I’d rather be dead here than at the airport in Houston.” “I told Carrasco,” Woodman said, “to get that man off my back. And he said, ‘Well, he’s just very primitive.’ And I said, ‘I don’t care how primitive he is. I’m not having any more to do with him. I’m not helping any more. I’m not doing anything anymore. I’m out of it. “And he said, ‘Well, that was up to me.’ Sometime a little later when I was on guard duty with Bert Davis, I told her about my decision and she didn’t try to talk me out of it or discourage me in any way. Then we all had a meeting and I told them I’m through with this. What ever happens happens. I’m not having any more to do with this.’ Everybody seemed to accept that. They didn’t say otherwise.”44 Ann Fleming remembered that “we talked about it. Bert Davis had a young boy and three older children and her husband had just died a couple of years before and Novella Pollard had already ruled her out during the first go-round of volunteering.” Standley was not concerned about her children who were all older. But, she was concerned about her mother who had undergone heart surgery twice during the past year. “So,” Fleming continued, “we were trying to decide on a third person and that left me. I had only my husband and a teen-age daughter so the logical thing was for me to go. We made that decision.” Fleming would replace Woodman on the trip to Cuba—or wherever. But, as Ann remembered it, “Judy Standley walked up to me and said she wanted to go with Von. I said let’s just let it go like it is. But she said she wanted to be with Von, her best friend. You talk about two people; they were together all the time. They did everything together.”45 Von Beseda and Judy Standley were indeed the best of friends, even before the siege and certainly during it. Most of the time, by their choice, they were handcuffed together. They lived a half-block apart and went to First Presbyterian Church of Huntsville where they said their prayers with Rev. Carroll Pickett. With that decision made—Father O’Brien, Novella Pollard, Von Beseda and Judy Standley going with Carrasco et al as shields—and with the long day of endless interviews over, a record 202

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was set for the longest period in American penal history that hostages had been held inside a state or federal institution. Five days. With their media chores over, the hostages got another chance to call their loved ones. The cruel grind of the siege was wearing on the hostages and some conversations were less than up-beat. As she closed her Sunday telephone call with her children, Judy Standley admonished them gently. “Remember for the rest of your life, life is very valuable and don’t waste your life because it’s something you can’t buy. Stay close together. Life is very simple and very precious. And be very strong. I love you all, too.”46 Ann Fleming was resigned to her fate, as indicated in her Sunday night telephone exchange with her husband Herman who told her he was praying the two would still have a lot of time together. “I hope so, Sugar,” she assured him. “And I love you very much and thank you for the wonderful life we’ve had together. I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated everything. I’ve written you a little note and put it in my pocketbook about one or two things you wouldn’t know what to do. They are things there on the desk; business stuff and everything. I’ve got two bills, I owe them, and the best thing you can do is get someone to come in and try to help you straighten all that junk out.”47 Herman was not having any of that negative talk. “We won’t worry about straightening it out because actually, I look for you to be home.” As did the other female hostages, she tried to tell her loved one that his problems were bigger than hers. “I know it’s been an awfully hard five days on you with everything you’ve had to take care of. Is your mother feeling all right?” Again, deflecting feelings away from herself, the former library science teacher asked, “Have you heard from any of my students?” Herman had the right answer. “Oh,” he said, “all your students have called. The Methodist preacher has called. Judy called about every two or three hours. This girl from New Waverly, she called from Maine or somewhere. And we’ve got one from Lufkin and two or three from Houston. You’ve got letters and you’ve got phone call after phone call.”48 Both the wife and the husband were trying to comfort one another. 203

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There were times when efforts by the hostages to ease their loved ones’ worries backfired. Linda Woodman was talking to her family on the telephone and, she said, “something to my oldest sister that when this was over, and I truly did expect that we would be killed, and I just said, ‘Well, don’t have an open casket for me.’ It got her upset.”49 Some of the other spouses found a modicum of comfort elsewhere. In a telephone conversation with her husband Bobby Heard, his wife Judy noticed how good he sounded. He was even chit-chatting about the Houston Oilers football team and the Houston Astros baseball team. “Yeah,” he told her, “I took a Valium a while ago and I feel pretty good.” And Judy giggled back, “I won’t lie to you. I had a few myself.”50 Carrasco be damned. Bobby Heard’s biggest concern of the moment was, “I just hope they don’t run out!” In Father O’Brien’s judgment, the female hostages held up much better than some of their male counterparts throughout the entire siege. His judgment was seconded by inmate hostage Steve Robertson who said, “The women were so strong. I mean, they were much stronger than the men. In fact, I was disappointed in the men.”51 That perception is perhaps illustrated in two telephone conversations made Sunday night. In the first one, Ron Robinson talked to his wife Jeanne who told him he “mustn’t lose hope.” Crying uncontrollably, he said he hadn’t. “It’s just that it’s been so hard.” Almost shouting about TDC, he went on. “These people have broken their promise every day. They said tomorrow that we would give (us) this and every day they’ve not done it. They’ve not done it.” When Jeanne volunteered to call Estelle, her husband said, “No. I don’t want anything to do with him any more.” She told him, “You’ve just got to keep on hoping. We really believe that God is going to take you out of this. You mustn’t lose that. You mustn’t.” At this point, Robinson was crying so loudly that Jeanne asked him, “Can you hear me?”52 Robinson later wrote, “I believe it was another miracle that not one of us hostages ever lost complete control of our emotions . . . ”53 The second call, in a much lighter tone, had Bert Davis talking to her daughter Carol, and her sons, Scott and Brett. When Brett asked 204

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his mother how she was doing, she answered brightly, “Well, it’s going all right. We’ve had a real nice day. Father O’Brien had Mass this morning.” After some further family chitchat, she cheerily told them all, “Y’all ought to go home and get a good night’s sleep.”54 And so went that family conversation and not a tear was shed. There was no whining and crying. The women seem more concerned about the people they were talking to rather than themselves. Once again, it appeared that Father O’Brien was exactly right. The women were stronger. Late Sunday night Carrasco told the hostages he “hoped this would be over in seventy-two hours but it looks like it’s going to be another seventy-two and possibly another.”55 Naturally, the hostages suffered a tremendous letdown as they faced the dismal prospect of another six days under these fearful conditions. Adding to the hostages’ unrelenting terror was a new threat from Dominguez and Cuevas and an admonition from Father O’Brien. Aline House said, “At one point late on Sunday, they carried on a long conversation in Spanish, and at its conclusion, Dominguez pointed to the back of Bobby Heard’s head and then to Cuevas. He then pointed to Anthony Branch’s head and moved his finger to indicate that Anthony was his. And later,” she continued, “Father O’Brien told some of us, ‘Pass the word along. They are going to test some of the hostages. If any one of the seven inmates indicates to anyone that he will help him escape or try anything, don’t accept it. They want an excuse to start something.’”56 The something occurred later that night. “Rudy,” House explained, “was unlocking Judy’s handcuffs to allow her to go to the restroom, and he allowed one of the keys to fall on the blanket. She happened to see it fall and told Rudy about it.” Dominguez denied he dropped the key. “Only when she moved to point it out did he pick it up.”57 Branch had his problems with Dominguez, too. After he and Cuevas were “drawing straws” to see who would shoot whom, the teacher asked his captor, “Why is it that you’re going to shoot me? Do you have anything against me because I am a Negro?” Branch told Dominguez 205

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he thought he heard him say he wanted to kill him first because he was a Black.58 Dominguez answered, “No I ain’t never said nothing like that.” The teacher was not totally comforted by the denial. Carrasco’s newly announced timeline sent Aline House mentally searching for what would prove to be a dangerous gamble. “I thought,” she said, “well, somebody’s got to get out and tell the authorities what they needed to know” about the strategic and tactical conditions inside the library. Besides, as she laughingly told one reporter, “I have a heart condition, my back is bad, and I’m just getting old.”59 In another twenty-four hours, the sixty-one-year-old widow would be telling the authorities what they “needed to know.”

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Chapter Eighteen “Get ready because we’re going to start killing!” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

Henry Escamilla, less than two weeks away from his forty-first birthday, was a San Antonian serving five years on a shoplifting conviction. As a volunteer hostage, he sat almost completely silent throughout the ordeal, off by himself most of the time, wearing large dark glasses. According to Linda Woodman, “when he did walk around, he never said a word to any of us. I had the feeling that he was more frightened than any of us.”1 To Novella Pollard who remembered him from one of her typing classes, he was an enigma. “He was a very strange person,” she recalled. “He never did talk much at all in class. In fact, for two days (of the siege) I didn’t see him. I thought he had left. But finally, he came over to our side in the library and just sat and watched us.”2 While serving his shift at the door, Escamilla sat on the pile of book boxes stacked there and watched Cuevas intently. The captor, who was also on guard duty, appeared to be dozing off. It was time for the inmate hostage to initiate the plan he hatched only 207

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the day before. At 5:40 a.m. on Monday, he crouched in front of the double-paned plate-glass doors that provided the only passage to and from the library. Hostage Jack Branch was observing Escamilla and when he realized what Henry was preparing to do, yelled, “Hey man, don’t do that!”3 Heedless of the warning, Escamilla dove into the quarter-inch thick glass door that had been cracked by Carrasco’s bullets. Henry’s head broke through the door but, he fell back on Bobby Heard, who was also on duty. Lunging again, he propelled his head and shoulders through, hung there briefly, and then pushed through, shattering the remaining glass. Rudy Dominguez and Fred Carrasco came running with guns ready to shoot and yelling, “What the hell’s goin’ on?” When the now fully awake but still slow-witted Cuevas told them, Carrasco looked through the blood-stained door, raised his pistol and drew a bead on the figure stumbling down the ramp. Then, for some unknown reason, he lowered his .357 magnum and muttered, “Let the damned fool go. He’s not a man. He’s a damned coward.” Dominguez yelled at Quiroz, Vera, and Robertson, “Why don’t you go too? Go on and then we can get it over with.”4 The trio of inmate hostages might have been afraid Escamilla would divulge information to the authorities that would put them in a bad light whenever and however the siege ended. Or worse yet, he would say things that would put them in a bad light with Carrasco. They also knew, according to Novella Pollard, “they could have gone at any time through that door if they wanted to. And they told us this. But they felt, if they did, it would cause problems for us.”5 The suddenly charitable Carrasco called the warden’s office to report Escamilla’s breakout and advised a bloodied hulk was headed that way. “One of the convicts,” he reported nonchalantly to TDC officer Ben Aguilar, who was on watch duty in the warden’s office monitoring the spike mike and the telephones, “tried to jump through the door. He is probably all cut to pieces. So, he’s out in the yard.” The noise of shattering glass and the commotion in the library awakened the other fitfully sleeping hostages. “We worried then that (TDC was) trying to storm us,” said a terrified Judy Standley.6 208

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Escamilla, bleeding freely from severe cuts to his head, hands, and arms, rolled down the ramp. Aguilar saw him lying at the foot of the ramp “for a few seconds, not knowing which way to turn.” He continued, “At that moment, I hollered to him in Spanish, ‘Lay down! Relax!’ He did what I told him.” It took Escamilla approximately two minutes to crawl from the ramp to Aguilar and several other officers. They placed him on a mattress. Escamilla’s first words were, “I’m so glad I make it.” When asked why he jumped, he gasped, “They were gonna kill me anyway. I hear Dominguez say I would be shot because I was a snitch.”7 Within seconds, Dr. Ralph Gray, TDC Director of Medical Services, and an assistant entered with a first aid kit, and a stretcher was on its way. The doctor immediately began applying tourniquets and bandages. The bleeding was profuse. Escamilla required surgery in the prison hospital to repair severed tendons in both arms. Two hours and onehundred stitches later, prison doctors issued a positive prognosis even though he was heavily sedated and still in shock. The authorities did not learn much from Escamilla’s subsequent interrogation, except to confirm their belief that whatever plans Carrasco originally had for coming out were long gone. He told the officers the only thing Carrasco talked often about was going to Cuba. How he was going to get there was still a mystery. Warden Husbands saw Escamilla’s escape this way, “I knew he was scared . . . . A man who’d jump through a jagged glass door like that’s gotta be scared.”8 The possibility that any escape attempt would cause problems for those left behind also crossed the minds of some civilian hostages as they too contemplated such a move. As Linda Woodman remembered it, “We discussed among ourselves after the glass (in the door) was all gone that although it would be dangerous, there would be times when, if you were fast enough, you could get out there; just jump down to the ramp and run down. But the idea that most of us had was that we would be putting other people in jeopardy because Carrasco had stated that if anyone tried to leave, why he would ‘just mow down everybody.’”9 Ann Fleming also had some thoughts about escaping after Escamilla fled. “I knew it would be real easy. But two things kept me from it. I 209

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knew it would be very dangerous. In the first place, they’d shoot me and the glass would cut me to pieces. Secondly, I could not help but think every time somebody left it made it worse for the other people. I resented it when (Glennon Johnson) left but he did have a heart attack.”10 At least one inmate hostage thought about going out the library door. “I could have left probably any time I wanted to,” said Steve Robertson matter-of-factly. “When Escamilla left, he almost got Mr. Heard killed. Dominguez, he was trigger-happy anyway, he wanted something to happen. And he started cussin’ Escamilla. But I could have left. But, if something happened to them hostages, I felt it would have been my fault.”11 Even though Escamilla made good in his escape—albeit at a considerable price—his gory getaway did not prompt any other hostage to follow his bloody trail down the ramp. According to Fleming, “Escamilla didn’t count, he was a convict. If one of us had tried to escape, Carrasco would have shot one of the other hostages.” Continuing she said, “Oh, we talked about taking their guns, but even though Rudy and Cuevas were stupid, we knew we couldn’t win by jumping them.”12 Woodman agreed. “There was a time when we were ready to fight,” she said. “But, that was so dangerous. We needed the help of the inmate hostages. And we didn’t know how much we could count on them.” The fear was that bringing them in on any escape plans would lead them to squeal to Carrasco. She went on with a tone of frustration. “We only talked about escaping if things got difficult. What to do. Don’t stay in a position where you can just be shot. Move, roll, tumble, do whatever,” she remembered. “If you have to knock them down or whatever, keep moving if possible. Father O’Brien was partially responsible for giving some of these instructions because we didn’t know what to do. We asked, ‘What’ll we do if they start shooting?’ And he was just letting us know, ‘don’t stay still. Make it difficult for them to hit you.’”13 That same kind of indecision about where help would come from also led Father O’Brien to discard an opportunity to emulate Escamilla. It happened when he was doing guard-duty and his inmate watchdog 210

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went to the restroom. Small of stature, he—like the women—could slip into and out of his handcuffs, which he often did when the captors were not looking. “I could have gone right down the ramp,” he said. “But I also felt that if I went, they’d take out their revenge on the remaining hostages. And I also didn’t want to go because I felt I belonged there. I knew I could have made it.” Unlike Fleming, he thought “we could have jumped them.” Sadly, however, the wary padre also was not totally sure of his flock in such a conspiracy. “I didn’t know who would relay information back to (Carrasco) to curry favor, spill the beans. I felt confident with the three ladies—Standley, Beseda, and Woodman. But I didn’t know if I’d get help from Branch or Robinson or Heard. Branch, yes. Heard was not quite another Robinson but . . . I just didn’t know.”14 O’Brien’s indecision was unfortunate because Jack Branch was, in fact, formulating some escape plans of his own. The six-foot teacher said, “If I had of had any help, I believe I could’ve overcome them. They got careless after the first couple of days. I knew Fred was weak and Cuevas was small, smaller than I was.”15 As for getting help from the remaining inmate hostages, Father O’Brien developed more reservations about them as the siege progressed. “They weren’t inmate ‘hostages,’” he protested. “They were inmate ‘volunteers’. They enjoyed it. They were at the hub of the action. They were safe. They were having fun. This was going to be history and they were part of it.” He was especially wary of Martin Quiroz. “He was the worst one—although other people may tell you differently. Quiroz knew what the hell he was doing. Carrasco, Dominguez and Cuevas depended on him quite a bit. He was their security agent. He kept the handcuff keys. They listened to him more and more. One time,” the padre continued, “Robertson tried to give me a knife which he had strapped to his leg. And I wouldn’t take it because I thought it was a setup.”16 Florencio Vera was not very high in the priest’s opinion. Asleep one night on his palette next to Von Beseda’s, the padre remembered that Vera “came in and got in between us. So right away I got up and I poured myself a cup of coffee and I kicked him in the butt and I said, 211

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‘Hey, roll over.’ He did. Then I told Cuevas ‘you better get Vera’s ass out of there or there’d be big trouble’. That happened twice with Vera. But neither time did he bother Ms. Beseda. But, he would have.”17 Thus, in considering an escape plan involving others, there was not much trust there for the inmate “hostages” or “volunteers.” Father O’Brien’s voice trailed off. He would get another chance at an escape a little later—a chance that would result in what he called his lowest point during the entire eleven-day siege. On this same day Estelle played what he thought was his trump card— the indictment issued two days before against Carrasco’s wife, Rosa. Everyone who knew Carrasco knew he was very much in love with his wife. As a matter of fact, it was because of that love that Carrasco was behind bars at Huntsville in the first place. After the shootout in San Antonio a year earlier, his lawyers told him if he went to trial he might be able to win. But in exchange for Rosa’s freedom, Carrasco pled guilty to an attempted murder charge. Rosa went free. Fred got a life sentence. Estelle and others in the Think Tank thought they could turn that love once again in favor of law enforcement. Make Carrasco believe his beloved Rosa might be doing hard time in a women’s penitentiary and maybe he would come to his senses and call this whole thing off. With Estelle filing the charge against Rosa, Walker County Justice of the Peace, Precinct One, Mabel Franklow, issued a warrant for Rosa’s arrest, charging her with “a felony, providing an implement for escape, to-wit; a pistol,” thus being an “accomplice” to Carrasco’s takeover and escape attempt.18 The complaint was sworn out on Saturday, July 27. Estelle chose that day because it gave him a weekend before it would get public notice and because he did not want Carrasco to know about it—yet. As he told Ruben Montemayor, “Don’t tell him until I tell you to. One of these days soon we’ll reach an impasse and I’ll need it.”19 The opportunity came when Carrasco abruptly broke off negotiations with Estelle on Monday afternoon. The bargaining had turned into another heated argument. “There’s only one way these (hostages) will see the light 212

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again,” Carrasco warned Estelle, “and that’s for you to cooperate. But you people don’t want to negotiate.”20 Estelle countered by advising Carrasco that he had already attained much of what he wanted. “You’ve gotten your case before the public. You’ve gotten the state government to promise that your case will be reviewed.” Carrasco’s response was blunt. “I told you mister, they can shove that up their ass. I’m not interested in what the government thinks.”21 When Estelle offered a change of incarceration location for him, Carrasco sneered, “Say, mister, who do you think you’re talking to?” Having reached that predicted impasse, Estelle told Montemayor to drop the bomb. Ever so casually the lawyer coolly announced, “Oh, by the way, Fred. I need to tell you. Mr. Estelle has issued an arrest warrant for Rosa.”22 The news sent Carrasco into a rage. Menacingly the killer told the lawyer, “If they pick her up and try to break me . . . I’ll show them what I can do. If they think by picking her up that I’ll plead guilty or surrender, they’ve got something coming.”23 According to Warden Husbands, Carrasco became furious and told Montemayor, “I will never accept orders from them. I had rather die. I want them to know that they are not negotiating with a newcomer.”24 Screaming in Spanish and lacing his anger with expletives, some of the bandido’s words amused both the lawyer and Ben Aguilar, the TDC officer who was monitoring and translating the phone calls. Despite the enormity of the situation, Montemayor and Aguilar started grinning at one point in the tirade. Shortly after Carrasco slammed down the phone in anger, a disbelieving Estelle demanded to know, “What the hell are you two laughing at?” Montemayor replied. “Well,” he said, “according to Mr. Carrasco, you’re a snuff-dipping, red-necked, son-of-a-bitch.” That also brought a chuckle from Ranger Captain Rogers who was sitting nearby with his cowboy boots propped up on the warden’s desk. Tipping his hat to the back of his head, he smiled at the Montana transplant and said, “Well, my boy, you finally got your papers as a true son of the great state of Texas.”25

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Back in the library there was no laughter. Carrasco “went berserk” according to Father O’Brien. “He lost his cool. He went hog-wild. He just about killed us.”26 Ron Robinson wrote, “One look at him told us that something very upsetting to him had occurred. When he spoke, we knew what it was. ‘I’ve just heard that the state has issued a warrant for my wife’s arrest. They think she had something to do with this but she didn’t! She doesn’t know anything about it—I don’t even know where she is.’” Robinson continued, “We had never seen him so near to losing control of himself. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is it. We’re going to force their hand.’”27 Aline House remembered, “That was the most furious Fred became during the whole thing. That was one of the two or three times that we saw him with a gun in his hand.”28 Officer Bobby Heard recalled Carrasco saying, “Even if they killed her right in front of me, it wouldn’t matter. I’m following my plan. There’s no way they can use her and she wouldn’t let them.”29 In minutes, Carrasco was back on the phone, ranting at Montemayor, demanding to know exactly what was going on. The lawyer read the indictment, word for word, concluding with, “She can be prosecuted. They’re saying that she helped set up the escape.” He warned Carrasco that if Rosa was picked up and a single hostage was hurt in any way, she would be considered an accomplice and as guilty as the person inflicting the hurt. “As your attorney, Fred, I have to tell you that whatever happens it’s the same as if she were there with you.” Carrasco demanded to know how his wife could be charged with anything. Getting angrier by the second, he said, “Fine, you know what I’m going to do right now, Counsel?” He did not give the counselor time to answer. Turning away from the telephone, he ordered one of his henchmen to “get ready because we’re going to start killing! Put (Jack Branch) up here. He’s the first one we’re going to kill off.” Continuing, he roared, “Those mother-fuckin’ sons-of-bitches want to dominate me, that’s what they want to do.” He raged on threatening that if he killed Branch, “I’m not going to feel anything.” Montemayor argued, “Rosa would know and so would the kids.” 214

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Carrasco charged that Estelle was “showing he doesn’t have a heart. And so I show him again that I don’t have a heart. Tell him to get ready because we’re going to start killing!” At that, he ordered, “Put handcuffs on everybody. On their feet and their hands.” He turned to Branch and yelled at the lawyer, “Branch is going to go first.” Then he slammed down the phone. Montemayor called him right back and tried to calm him. The lawyer begged, “Cuate, please. Please, Fred.” Fred was not listening. “My wife doesn’t have anything to do with this. But those fuckers want to fuck with me and like I told them, they’re going to make the biggest mistake of their lives. I don’t want to negotiate anymore. Now I want to kill. And now I’m getting the people ready.” Addressing one of his cohorts, Carrasco said, “Did you get the people ready?” Turning back to his lawyer, he said, “These people already tried to get my wife, like a hostage, in other words. They’re going to kidnap her is what they’re going to do; but legally. That’s what those motherfuckin’ sons-of-bitches are going to do. But, I’m going to off these eleven people.” Truly dismayed, Montemayor moaned, “See if it’s true. Wait, Cuate.” Carrasco responded, “I don’t care if it’s true or not.”30 When talking with Montemayor, someone he did not need to impress, Carrasco showed how brutish, base, and obscene he really was.31 Overhearing the gist of the mostly Spanish conversation—it was impossible not to—and sensing his impending doom, Bobby Heard tried to interject himself into the conversation. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he begged, “Maybe I can get Estelle to back off. Let me talk to him.” Carrasco shot back, “Man, do you know that this sorry son-of-abitch has already put a warrant out for the arrest of my wife as an accomplice?” Grudgingly he handed the phone to Heard. “Here,” he snarled, “talk to the son-of-a-bitch!” Heard, weeping as he talked to Estelle asked, “Say, have you done that? Have y’all put out a warrant for the arrest of his wife as an accomplice?” 215

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The director answered simply, “There is a warrant out for Mrs. Carrasco.” Heard turned to Carrasco and said TDC “just wanted to talk to her.” Carrasco replied, “That’s bullshit.” The guard tried again. “Listen,” he commanded of Estelle, “he’s fixin’ to kill us. Please. For God’s sake. Now,” he continued audibly weeping, “you’re fixin’ to kill us. Withdraw that warrant, for God’s sake, man.” Estelle responded that the authorities had no intentions of prosecuting Ms. Carrasco “if the hostages come out of there safely. In fact,” he said in a message directed at Carrasco listening on another line, “I can almost guarantee it and I will let his attorney go to the county attorney and assure him that. You’ve got to give his attorney a chance to work something out. You’ve got to play the part of a negotiating team, Mr. Heard.” The guard replied, “I can’t if I’m dead. For God’s sake, man,” Heard’s crying almost choking off his words, “can’t you do anything right? All the man wants is to get out. And for God’s sake, give him what he wants. Do it now, before it’s too late.”32 Estelle persisted. “Let Mr. Carrasco’s attorney work this thing out for him. I’m convinced he can.” With almost uncontrollable sobbing, Heard continued. “Now, I know he loves his wife and his family and he wants to see them. That’s why he wants out. He wants his freedom.”33 His sobbing became completely wracking. The guard asked, “Can’t you put a helicopter in the yard or something and take him out? You could land one right there in the yard and get him in it and take him away and let him go. That’s all you have to do.”34 Again choosing his words carefully, Estelle told Heard, “Mr. Carrasco can continue negotiations at any time. We’ll keep this line open and pray that he will. We can let him out of that building without firing a shot or harming a hair on anyone’s head. And we’d do it under the supervision of his own attorney to protect his rights and the rights of any other inmates up there.” Obviously drained, Heard meekly asked his captor, “Can I go sit down now?”35

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Montemayor continued to plead with his client who was back on the phone. “Don’t close the door, Fred. Let me find out. Don’t get mad. Don’t! Don’t blow up. Think.”36 Carrasco stormed back toward the hostages. “This is the end,” he raged. “We’re going to force the issue.” Jack Branch and Heard were placed on top of the barricade at the entrance door. Father O’Brien was bound hand and foot with book tape and with Ron Robinson was put next to the library office with the women inside. Once more, the countdown to execution began. Dominguez was almost salivating at the prospect. Cuevas went into his cheerleading act again. “All Die! All die,” he threatened in broken English while waving his pistol like a baton. He forced the women to beg for mercy, making sure they screamed loud enough to be heard over the open phone line. With Carrasco ranting and raving, the two henchmen truly thought the time had come to start the killing they so desperately wanted. For the hostages, it was merely a matter of who among them would be first. They had visions, as House said, of “hearing two terrifying blasts from Dominguez’ gun and seeing the dead bodies of Heard and Branch being rolled down the ramp.” As Linda Woodman said, “We’re sitting in there thinking, are they just going to come in and shoot us all here sitting on the floor or what?” Steve Robertson whispered, “I’m afraid this is the end.” The priest murmured a prayer asking “God to stay with and help us meet death in a brave way.”37 House said Dominguez approached them and in a low, menacing voice said, “You people think you’re gonna get out of here? There’s no way. You mean nothing to me.” Ann Fleming resorted to repeating the Twenty-third Psalm. “If I hadn’t . . . I believe I would have cracked up,” she said.38 Robertson had a different solution for anxiety. According to Branch, Robertson was a big drug user while a hostage. He had a stash of drugs he was going to take if the shooting started. “I can’t face a gun,” Robertson confessed, “so I’m going to OD.”39 Martin Quiroz had a similar idea. He whispered, “If it comes to the worst, I’ll pass something to anyone who wants it.” It was something 217

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more than the regular supplies of Valium and Seconal TDC was sending up to calm the hostages’ nerves. House recalled that “two or three of the women immediately said yes.” She responded, “No way, I’ve never depended on anything like that and if it comes to the end, I’m going to look him right in the eye and he’s going to have to turn me around and shoot me in the back or he’s going to have to look right at me when he does it.” Defiantly she continued, “If I’ve got to go and it’s in the cards, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I’m going to make him know that I know what he’s doing.”40 Then, like a sudden summer storm with its booming thunder, the tempest died as quickly as it came. While Dominguez and Cuevas were menacing the hostages, the steaming Carrasco went back to the telephone with counselor Montemayor. Pleading, cajoling and playing heavily to the convict’s ego, Montemayor tried to cool him down. “This is your life, Fred. This is the way you are. This is you. This is you, Fred. And like I told you, this country has heard about everything that’s happened to you, Fred. They know exactly what’s happened to you. There’s been a lot of inquiries. It could open investigations. It could open almost anything, Fred.” Reflecting on his perceived injustices, Carrasco said, “When I was telling them the truth they never wanted to believe me. Everything’s the same, Counsel.” Undeterred, Montemayor came back. “Fred, you’re a legend. You have an image. Your kids’ll probably be proud of you later on. Do you understand what I’m saying, Fred?” Softening somewhat, Carrasco said, “If it’s true that they don’t want there to be blood, all they have to do is give me what I want. End of story. And there’s no blood, guaranteed.” Feeling he was making progress in calming Carrasco, Montemayor continued his cajolery as if he was appealing to a courtroom jury. “In San Antonio, you went down like a hero, Fred, because of what you did. And thank God, Fred, that you are the one in charge, because if it weren’t for you, Fred, who knows what would’ve happened. The reason that these people are still alive and that nothing’s happened, you know, 218

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is because of you, Fred. And these people down here are convinced now that it’s because of you. They’re convinced, Fred.”41 With a huge sigh, Montemayor continued with his soothing sermon. “The rest, it’s touch and go. Fred, it’s forward and backward, forward and backward. Now, what do you advise me to do, man?”42 Carrasco’s fury was spent. He turned the telephone over to Judy Standley and TDC Assistant Director Red McKaskle. Her anxiety was apparent. “Would you please send us some more Valium? We need it badly. We’re just about to the breaking point. I mean we need it. We need something.”43 With understanding, McKaskle replied, “We’ll just send them all up right now.” The hostages called their families. Von Beseda called her husband and broke into tears, saying, “Today is not a very good day.” She did not get much solace. “Not a good day? Try to control yourself and tell me all about it. We don’t have very much time so let’s make the best of it.”44 A three-way conference call Carrasco had with the two lawyers, Montemayor and James Gillespie, soothed him further. With neither attorney having been in contact with Rosa, he reaffirmed to Gillespie, “You know darn well that I don’t want to talk with her, at all. Not on the phone, not by telegram, not in person. There’s nothing that’s going to change my mind. So the thing is, in case there is really an arrest warrant out, I’d like you to have the bond ready. Because I don’t want them to have her for two or three days, or for twentyfour hours.” Gillespie assured the him, “I already have it,” but warned him, “The bond this time, Fred—because of the situation with the people you have in the library—is going to be sky-high. They’re going to try to use her as leverage.” Naturally, that didn’t sit well with Carrasco. “So those motherfuckers think that they’re gong to pull that mother-fuckin’ number on me again,” he exploded. He then took a deep breathe, calmed down somewhat, and asked, “How much do you think it’ll be?” 219

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Treading lightly, Gillespie answered, “Well, Fred, it could be fiftythousand, twenty-five thousand, or it could be something quite common, like ten-thousand. I don’t know.”45 With resignation Carrasco closed, “So then, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it and we’ll all be in contact with each other and we’re all in agreement, right?” They were—much to the ultimate relief of the hostages. Robinson remembered that after Carrasco hung up he told the hostages, “Ruben says things might be worked out.”46 Hearing what he wanted to hear he had calmed down. Conversation with Novella Pollard helped. “We did discuss his wife,” she said. “He told me not to worry; that they would never find her. He also said that she was well taken care of. It was just the fact that they put a warrant out for her that made him mad.”47 That left the teacher to believe that “we were going to pick Rosa up wherever she was when we left here—if we left here.” Father O’Brien believed that too. “My feeling on this was wherever we were going, we were going to meet Rosa Carrasco.”48

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Chapter Nineteen “I could have grabbed his gun.” —Father O’Brien, hostage

Once again, Carrasco demanded to talk to Estelle. “Yes or No. Are you going to send me the bulletproof vests?”1 Firmly, Estelle answered, “No. There will be no body armor. You’ve got all the firepower you need to get safe passage out in that yard and keep those hostages safe, as you have up to this point.” The hostage-taker shot back, “So, then you are saying you are not going to cooperate no more?” In a quiet, calm voice, the director replied, “We’re perfectly willing to cooperate. In fact, we want to cooperate to a greater degree than we have.” Easing up slightly, Carrasco asked, “In what sense?” Estelle replied, “In the sense that we will guarantee you safe passage from that building and full protection with not only your attorney but the public media to witness it.” Carrasco could not resist the sarcasm. “To witness what? My execution?”2 Incredibly, in the midst of all the violence, Montemayor and Carrasco began discussing an autobiographical book telling the convicted 221

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murderer’s life story. The idea had a partial genesis in one of the idle conversations Carrasco had with some hostages. “We did a lot of talking when we could,” said Linda Woodman. “As silly as it sounds, sometimes we would just say, ‘you know, this whole thing’s going to make a big movie’—just to get his reaction and get him on something that might have a more pleasant ending than the ending we thought we were going to have,” she related shuddering at that possibility. “We were just trying to get him to know he didn’t want his reputation ruined by massacre and killing all of us. He would go out in some sort of a blaze of glory and it would be successful. Carrasco had said he wanted his story told . . . whatever ending it may have. So, yes, he did start talking about a book”.3 Father O’Brien remembered that Carrasco told him he had written a book on his life while he was in the Bexar County jail. Some of the hostages felt this project was to be his obituary; that he was preparing to die. Even Estelle thought of the biography as being Carrasco’s legacy. How did eleven totally innocent men and women—of whom Carrasco had said just moments ago he wanted “to kill”—slip so quickly from his twisted mind? The book idea came to light when Montemayor told Carrasco, “A national magazine got in touch with me about exclusive rights to a book. Fred, I could check into that because there is a lot of money in that. And, I want you to go ahead and let me do this. And you set it up how you want it, the monetary situation and all of that.” The lawyer explained how he would take Carrasco’s information on tape in the presence of witnesses so it would recorded exactly. He would also cover “what you’re going to pay me for my services when I do that concerning the royalties and what’s going to go to you and to your family.”4 Carrasco was quick to insist, “No, nothing for me. I don’t want anything.” When the attorney reminded him that it was “for your family,” he agreed “that’s the main thing.” Anticipating that answer, Montemayor acknowledged, “I’ve got that arranged already and I think it’s a real good thing, Fred.”5 Carrasco did want “a book, or a movie; something about the whole mess of my life. This is what I would like to be for the little kids, right? For their education. What would you advise 222

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me to do?”6 As always with a good lawyer, Montemayor expected the question and had an answer ready. He said, “I want you to tell me on tape that you give me that right, Fred, so that I can go ahead because the way the situation is now, Fred, if you’re not around, there’d be no way that anybody could get anything now. I think you should write it down exactly that you give me that exclusive right, and then it’ll be on tape, Cuate, and then, whatever happens, happens.” Carrasco told the lawyer, “I don’t know a whole lot about this business. So, why don’t you make up a contract and send it to me?”7 The lawyer agreed. Carrasco had heard that Aline House once had a book of her poems published. Enlisting her aid, along with Novella Pollard and Father O’Brien, he had them read over the contract Montemayor drew up. Judy Standley, once a legal secretary, was also drafted into amending the contract after the four read over Montemayor’s hand-printed contract. That contract follows: The Date The Place

7/29/74 Texas Department of Corrections Huntsville, Texas

My Name

Fred Carrasco

I am talking to Ruben Montemayor, my attorney. I wish to certify that my name is Federico Gomez Carrasco. I am an inmate at the Texas Department of Corrections, and I wish to make this declaration so that my wish concerning the story of my life be negotiated for publication by my attorney Ruben Montemayor. I wish to appoint my attorney Ruben Montemayor as my agent and authorize him to negotiate the publication of any books, articles, and whatever is necessary to publish the story of my life or any part of it. My attorney, Ruben Montemayor, has my authority to negotiate the exclusive rights for articles on any kind of periodicals or any kind of publication. 223

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(He) has the exclusive rights to negotiate on any book royalties contracted for at no less than 15 per cent royalties on any book on a share and share alike basis between the contracting parties, the estate of Federico Gomez Carrasco and the agent, Ruben Montemayor . . .8 The document went on for another page-and-a-half. Standley typed the contract, and proving she had not lost her sense of humor, she joked, “My typewriter was so nervous it kept spelling wrong.”9 According to Father O’Brien, the author-agent dealings were not always the smoothest. The priest asked the convict if he fully understood what the contract said, especially about splitting income and paying commissions. Standley noted there were no “paperback” rights included and when Carrasco asked her to write in such a phrase, according to O’Brien, she jokingly told her captor, “we probably saved you a quarter of a million dollars.”10 The money did not seem to make much difference to Carrasco, further fueling speculation he did not believe he was ever going to get to read the book or see the movie. O’Brien added, “Carrasco and Montemayor got into a big argument over the movie rights.” and what percentages of income would be paid to whom. Carrasco sloughed it off, saying “He’s just a lawyer and you know how lawyers are.” 11 The episode served as a welcome diversion for the hostages. It was early evening when Aline House decided to put a plan into effect. She said she knew some of her fellow-hostages’ minds were “going and they’re not going to last”. She felt, as Linda Woodman put it, “responsible for her people.”12 House thought about faking a heart attack. Everyone knew she had high blood pressure problems. It might be risky because Glenn Johnson had done the same thing the first night of the siege. “I guess,” she wrote, “I talked myself into a nervous state or something. My hands actually did go numb and I was just feeling numb clear up to my elbows and down to my feet.” She forced herself into “a state of depression and actually began to feel physical effects.” Also, she “didn’t even take time to comb my hair or put on any makeup, since this was part of my plan to get out.”13 224

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Woodman and Pollard noticed her condition when they heard her moan and saw her complexion had gone as white as her hair. Linda said she looked “pasty” and felt “clammy” and “looked like death.” Novella started rubbing the slumping woman’s wrists and hands as Aline groaned, fell back, and went limp. Pollard sent Steve Robertson to get Carrasco, who was on the phone with lawyers Gillespie and Montemayor. Gillespie said they were talking about “a rehearing for Carrasco before a new judge in San Antonio that was going to cost between five thousand and ten thousand,” in legal fees. They were also discussing, said Gillespie, “final arrangements for me to take care of Carrasco’s youngest child and educate him and care for him as my own if he dies trying to get out of prison. He said that, if he’s killed, he wants his body to be cremated.”14 Gillespie related that Carrasco seemed to be “thinking heavily” about the possibility of dying. When Robertson interrupted that conversation, Carrasco told the lawyers the news. Gillespie’s nervous reaction was, “Is there a woman there with a bad pump?”15 Carrasco went over to the prone librarian

Two inmates wheel Aline House out of the education complex after she suffered an apparent heart attack on Day Six of the siege. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice) 225

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and knelt down by her right shoulder. He picked up her hand and said, “Mrs. House. How are you doing?” She weakly answered, “I tried to see it all the way through but I can’t.”16 Carrasco knew she was taking blood-pressure medication because he inspected all the clothes, cosmetics, and medicines that were sent to the hostages. He told her to hold on. He telephoned the warden’s office and he started “negotiating” with Montemayor. Carrasco wanted oxygen, a hypodermic needle, and nitroglycerin pills sent up. The counselor advised him this could not be done, and that a doctor could not come up there. “The doctor is afraid that you’re going to keep him there. She’s had past history of heart attack. But if she’s in really bad shape, send her to the hospital.”17 The lawyer added, “You know, escape is one thing but if this woman dies up there she’s under your control. You’re going to be responsible. It’s a heart attack but they’re going to see it as a clear murder.”18 Montemayor made his case and Carrasco told him to send up some inmates with a stretcher. While this was going on, Father O’Brien felt he allowed a golden opportunity to end the siege slip right through his fingers. The way he told it, “When Mrs. House was having her heart attack and Carrasco bent over her, I could have grabbed his gun that was sticking out of his pocket. I was close enough to do it,” he said, “but it was too awkward. I couldn’t move because of the handcuffs.”19 He did not get a second chance, and wracked with frustration and, he later said, “That was by far my worst moment of the whole eleven days.” Meanwhile, House’s plan was working, but she was not out of the woods yet. “I sort of squinted my eyes and looked up,” she said, “and Rudy also was standing right over my head with this gun right between my eyes. I thought, ‘my God, I’m not going to make it anyway.’” Fred turned around and saw him, she said, “and he shoved Rudy back.” Then he called Heard and Branch to help lift her awkwardly up and over the barricade and to the door where she was met by the inmates with a stretcher and a gurney. Always the lady, House’s primary concern was that she “was going to fall off that skinny stretcher as it and the gurney bounced wildly all the way down the ramp and I’d just have to lay there like a lump. If it hadn’t have been so serious, it would have 226

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been funny,” she said.20 The ruse was continued when she reached the prison hospital where Dr. Gray ordered her taken immediately to the emergency room at Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Suspecting something was not quite right, Estelle ordered a twenty-four-hour guard stationed outside her hospital room and no visitors—especially the press—were allowed. Aline House had faked her getaway and no one knew it. Estelle’s suspicions about her condition were confirmed following a battery of EKG and other medical tests; but House remained, with her consent, cloistered in the hospital until the following Saturday evening. Estelle did tell House’s family she had not suffered a heart attack, but he felt it necessary she remain in the ICU to keep Carrasco from learning through the media that the illness was fabricated. The authorities knew Carrasco might vent his anger on the remaining helpless hostages. As it was, Cuevas was already running around the library screaming at the hostages, “Nobody else get sick. Nobody else leave. Everybody will die.”21 Montemayor bolstered the scam when he told Carrasco, “The old lady is still alive. The doctor said if she hadn’t left, if she’d waited five or ten minutes more, she wouldn’t have made it. It’s still touch and go.”22 Aline House received the following message from the other hostages, “Dear Aline,” it read. “Fred has asked that we write and tell you how very sorry he is that you’re stricken with your heart as a result of the pressure you were under while being his hostage. He says that some day in the future he hopes you can find it in your heart to forgive him. We all pray for your recovery and hope that you will not brood for us. We are still negotiating and praying for a swift release. With all our love.”23 It was signed by the remaining ten free-world hostages, by the three inmate hostages, by Rudy Dominguez, and Ignacio Cuevas printed his name. With a flourish worthy of John Hancock, it also bore the signature Federico Gomez Carrasco. The next day, House was able to tell authorities about what was really going on in the library. She disclosed the truth about Ron Robinson’s condition, about what she thought were bombs being made, 227

All the hostages, civilian and inmate, plus the hostage-takers sign a note of condolence for Aline House. Note Von Beseda asking “Jim and all—pray for us.” (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University)

228

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and how the hostages were moved about constantly so that TDC would never really know where they were at any given time. House’s flight to freedom did, however, give Montemayor one more opportunity to play to Carrasco’s vanity. The killer told the lawyer, “You know that I’m sorry about . . . what’s her name?” The lawyer jumped right in with, “God damn. Fred, I’m going to tell you, everybody, the whole public knows that you feel for these people. As a friend, I wish to God you wouldn’t go through with this. I feel in my heart, Fred, in my heart, that if it were up to you, these people wouldn’t die. You’re not that kind of a man.”24 Unrelenting in his quest to get Carrasco to give up the idea of escape, the lawyer searched for the right words that would make an impact on the recalcitrant listener. Estelle had described Montemayor as “a dramatist”.25 It was the toughest summation he had made since his graduation from law school. He felt he was making his case before a jury of one. At the end, he was totally drained. Yet, there was a feeling Carrasco was enjoying these entreaties from Montemayor. He represented the TDC, and it was as if everyone was begging for his restraint. Carrasco seemed to lap it up as he sat and listened to Montemayor say these flattering things over and over. It was a risky game the lawyer was playing. On the one hand, he was trying to keep Carrasco calm, to keep him from exploding into a most disastrous, inhumane act of mass murder. On the other hand, too much flattery, too much adulation, could give the killer a sense that he could do anything—and get away with it. The lawyer’s attempts to butter up the hostage-takers was not limited to Carrasco. He also worked on Ignacio Cuevas. In an early Monday morning conversation , Montemayor told him gratuitously, “You’ve left a really positive impression with these people on the outside. And I wanted to relate that to you personally.” Grandly, Cuevas replied, “I’m at your service.” Montemayor added, “There’s also a newspaper here that speaks very highly of you and we’ll send it along.”26 With Carrasco’s media blitz shut down after the weekend, the families of the hostages and the press were unaware of the day’s events—other than Escamilla’s breakout. With the work week started, 229

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the number of family members gathered in the TDC Administration Building was considerably lower as some of the relatives from out of town had to get back home and resume their lives. But, even though Estelle steadfastly declined to meet with the hostages’ family members, they were still on his mind. He issued a statement saying, “These family members have borne up under the cruelest form of blackmail known to mankind. Their unparalleled courage and presence of mind and the support of their loved ones has been an inspiration to every moral citizen in the country.”27 In some cases, these assurances fell on deaf family ears according to Bob Wiatt. “Some relatives were rather insistent. ‘By God,’ they demanded, ‘What the heck are you doing? All you have to do is let these people out.’ They thought,” said the FBI agent, “we could have handled it just by letting Carrasco go. They were really screaming. ‘All you have to do is let them go!’ That, of course, we could not do.”28 Nor could the authorities defend their tactics and strategy because by so doing, their battle plans would have been revealed to their enemy. Meanwhile, Cuevas came up with an alternative plan. He said to Montemayor, “I’m going to tell you how they can kill us. Let us have like about six months to enjoy ourselves outside and I assure them that they’ll get us. Why don’t they use that strategy? Why don’t the Americans use their intelligence? Why do they want to waste four, or ten lives, for three numbers—sad numbers—here in prison? We’ll go to England, Cuba, we’ll go to Mexico, wherever. Understand? Give us six months as time off for good behavior and then you come get us—if you can.”29 Montemayor did have trouble understanding the logic to the plan. Cuevas’ point here was somewhat of an echo of what Carrasco said earlier in a interview with Ron Fulton of KILT Radio, Houston, “If I was in power, I would release the people because I wouldn’t want innocent people getting killed. And then, I would cut all of my resources loose and try and kill the people—I mean the criminals.”30 Steve Robertson said, “I believe they should have let them go. They caught them once. I don’t see why they couldn’t catch them again. I mean, I wouldn’t want to second-guess Mr. Estelle. He had a decision to make. I guess he did what he thought was right. I’m not entitled to 230

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say that he did the right thing or the wrong thing. But I believe he should have let them go.”31 Guard Bobby Heard also got into the act. “Estelle? This is Heard,” he said later, weeping to the director, “I’m listening to this bullshit on this press conference you had and you don’t know what the condition is up here. All this man wants is out of the country. Now, I don’t know what y’all have talked about but please let him leave the country. He knows he’s gonna be a wanted man. After he releases everybody, then you can chase him, you know? But, for God’s sake, get us outta here. I don’t wanna die.”32 Was it any wonder Montemayor—who had been routed out of his sleep at five-thirty that Monday morning when Henry Escamilla took his dive through the library’s plate glass doors—was now at this late hour “ready to call it a night.” He related that he felt “really screwed up, really tired. Hell, I’ve been here for days.” He had good reason to be tired. And it always seemed as if there was one more complaint for Montemayor to listen to. On one occasion when he merely asked how Cuevas felt, the reply was, “Oh, I feel fantastic!” He then surged forward with a one-sided rant that lasted for forty minutes.33 Another part of Montemayor’s weariness was caused by knowing he had to be extremely careful not to say anything to further rile the trio in the library. All in all, it was one of the many times during the eleven days that the lawyer scratched his head and wondered why he had ever volunteered to be a part of this. Meanwhile, up the street and a few blocks away the day ended with a lady librarian resting comfortably in a guarded room in Huntsville Memorial Hospital.

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Chapter Twenty July 30, 1974 • Day Seven

“Meet my demands or prepare for war.” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

In Huntsville, Texas, the morning sun rose at 5:38 a.m. on Tuesday, July 30, 1974—the Seventh Day in Hell for the hostages inside the Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections. Satan himself was cracking the thermostat as the mercury bolted into triple-digit range in no time. What had been a neat library, with row upon row of bookshelves and a clean floor, was now a quite different scene since the takeover. Tables had been overturned. The contents of supply boxes, filing cabinets, and desk drawers had been dumped on the floor. Thousands of library cards littered the floor alongside broken pieces of acoustical ceiling tiles. The book shelves were mostly empty, a variety of disposable coffee and drinking cups, and condiment squeeze bottles had been strewn about on table tops. There were empty fast food boxes; a jar of instant tea, soft drink cans, streamers of binding and duct tape, and paper plates, all scattered on just about every surface. Of the library Judy Standley said, “This place is getting to be a pig-pen. I haven’t had a bath in nearly 232

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a week. And the air is pretty bad.”1 In the early days of the siege, there was a conscientious effort to gather trash and garbage and send it out to an inmate dispatched from a cellblock by the warden. But as the days dragged into a week, the once fastidious housekeeper-hostages slipped slowly into an I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude. There was one table that was, however, cleared—atop it sat a chair, and under that chair sat the “bomb.” In addition to the normal complement of books, magazines, and newspapers, the library also housed a supply of materials for arts and crafts. It was with these materials that Ignacio (“Nacho”) Cuevas worked on his primitive Mexican Indian art. And where there is art work, there often is paint-thinner and turpentine. The hostage-takers had poured some paint-thinner and turpentine in an empty plastic one-gallon duplicating fluid bottle. They ducted-tape several of these together, hooked up some menacing-looking electrical wire to a space heater, and added some gun powder extracted from a few of their bullets to the mix. They had built a bomb. Or at least what looked like a bomb to the teachers and librarians.

The usually neat-as-a-pin prison library is a total shambles as the hostagetakers threw everything about in their efforts to fortify the complex from an expected attack by the authorities. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 233

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Using plastic containers of turpentine, duplicating fluids, and other library chemicals, “bombs” were made to threaten the authorities with imminent death for the hostages and the attack teams. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

Cuevas even went so far as to tell the hostages how he made the explosive charge. After hearing how he made the bombs by putting gun powder in a pipe, Aline House said, “We were convinced that they had bombs.” Father O’Brien remarked that he was sitting over a gallon jug wrapped in masking tape which he “figured was a slow burning fluid (that) was supposed to be ignited if a concession wasn’t granted. Martin Quiroz made the bomb . . . and put it under me. He was sort of a Mr. Fixit man up there.” The priest went on to say, “I think they were combustible fluids. When I had to sit on that I noticed Quiroz was hiding a fire extinguisher. I felt relieved when I saw the fire extinguisher because that told me they weren’t afraid of it blowing up—just igniting. Also, at least they intended to put the fire out if it started.” Once again, the priest’s wit did not fail him. While hovering over the flammable mixture under his chair, he was asked what he wanted to eat. With twinkle in his eye, he answered, “How about some barbequed ribs?”2

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Ann Fleming was not joking when she told her husband Herman the hostiles had three bombs ready. “They had one up at the front with the two men that was sitting at the window. And they had one where the other hostages were. And then they had a third one to use on what he calls, ‘the tobacco-chewing guards.’ We buried our heads so we should not have to face it.” She also told her husband that Carrasco “has said all along that he’s going to kill himself and us too if he didn’t get what he wanted.”3 Novella Pollard also got to sit in front of the double door entryway, right where she could be seen by the ever-watchful authorities down below and across the yard on the roof of the prison hospital. Beseda, with undisguised venom in her voice, described that scene to Director Estelle. “Mrs. Pollard is sitting in the door. The bomb is right behind her. Now, honest to God,” she said, her voice rising in anger, “everyone thought you were a man, and little by little, we can see how you are shrinking.” Once again, Estelle was feeling that “‘right’ sometimes gets beat around the head and shoulders but ultimately it’s going to prevail.” Beseda went on, “You spent so much time trying to get Murdock cleared that you haven’t had time to worry about us. Now,” she said as her tears started again, “are you going to be a man or are you not? Do you want to see Novella blown up right here?” She demanded, “What are you going to do?” as she sobbed uncontrollably. Estelle could only answer, “Mrs. Beseda, Fred’s attorney is going to call him in just a few minutes.”4 Carrasco called Montemayor and again demanded bulletproof vests.5 “Look, I’ll tell you something,” he threatened. “Within about an hour, I’m going to give a demonstration so they’ll know they’re not negotiating with a fuckin’ fool. After that, I’ll show them I have two bombs. One is for the people, and that will eliminate them instantly. There’s going to be two people who will be sitting above where one is now. They will be torched and they will go up in flames. The other bomb is for the troopers that try to get in.” Carrasco warned, “In the morning we’ll start to really put the screws on and if they don’t do what we ask tomorrow, then I’m going to let the people talk to their family members for the last time. 235

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They’ll have to give me the vests. I’ve already wasted the whole fucking day. Tomorrow I’ll put the bomb under the people and I’ll shoot it so it’ll fucking blow them to kingdom come.”6 Montemayor begged, “Let me talk with these people, man. And tell them what you told me. Is there any way I can talk you out of this?” With a deep exhaust of what sounded like his last breath, Montemayor again pleaded, “Por favor, Fred, don’t do anything stupid, man.” Carrasco then said, “The bomb is already set there. So, they shouldn’t be morons. They better give me the vests,” he threatened, “because if they don’t, then that little bomb, with one shot, is going to fuckin’ explode and that person is gone. So, I’ll wait for your call.” He hung up abruptly. Moments later, Montemayor called back and told his client, “They know you got the bomb. But they want you to release the hostages and they’ll give you the vests and also, they’ll drop everything on your wife.” His client’s response was an emphatic, “No, no, no, no! Let’s put it this way, they can’t put conditions on me. What am I left with? With my finger in my nose? They don’t put conditions on me. Even if they gave my wife the death penalty and they told me that with that condition they would strike the death penalty, I wouldn’t do it. They won’t put conditions on me.” His exasperation growing with the continued stalemate, the lawyer now was shouting at his client. “Think about it, Fred. Think about it. Don’t do anything, please, Fred. After all, you have all the time.”7 They promised to reestablish contact the next morning at eight o’clock with Carrasco giving his word that he would do nothing rash during the night. Warden Husbands did not believe they had a bomb. “What the hell would they be doing with a damn bomb in there?”8 What they were doing was scaring the hell out of the hostages. The authorities also wondered why Carrasco felt he had to resort to bombs. If he wanted to kill a hostage just to make a point, he surely had enough guns and ammunition to do that without going to all the trouble of making a bomb. Some thought it might only be psychological warfare aimed more at the hostages than at TDC.

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Once again, Estelle faced another frightening dilemma. Does he order a charge against the convicts in the library—hoping to save some of the hostages but knowing full well that he was going to lose some—or does he again try to wait out Carrasco? This happened with every previous ultimatum and deadline Carrasco threatened. The delaying tactic had served Estelle well—so far. His dilemma this time was magnified by Carrasco’s eight o’clock Wednesday morning deadline to comply with this latest demand for bulletproof vests. “Meet my demands or prepare for war,” he had declared.9 The deadly countdown started. TDC Public Affairs Director Ron Taylor told the media that Carrasco said he had “a bomb for the hostages at the door, one for all the rest of the hostages, and one for whoever tries to come through the door.” Always a master of understatement, Taylor ended with, “We have just had a very trying two hours.” So too did the hostages. As Ron Robinson remembered those trying times, “Carrasco was never, under any circumstances, going to surrender. He would die first. And no one had any way of knowing how many of us would die with him.”10 As for the bombs, Estelle decided to call Carrasco’s bluff. Once again, Carrasco permitted the hostages to make telephone calls to their families. Robinson talked to his wife about how their two kids were holding up, and Jeanne told him “I know it’s hard to say not to worry but just keep your faith and keep your chin up.” Sounding far more relaxed than before, Bobby Heard talked to his wife, Judy, and the two bantered back and forth about him “smoking up a storm.” She told him, “You sound good.” He asked about a visiting relative with whom, he said, “I’m gonna have a chug-a-lug contest with him when I get out.” He closed with, “Oh, well, I’ll be home soon. We’ll all have a party.” The good-natured Judy shot back, “Your house or mine?” and they both laughed.11 Heard’s spirits were a lot higher on this day. Judy Standley talked with her son and he raved about how “the churches all brought in lots of chow and we just had a real good time” in the Administrative Building. When he asked her if she was taking her vitamins, she responded, “I’m not taking vitamins. I’m taking 237

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Valium. It’s dope, to make you relax.” She even joked about keeping her handcuffs “as a souvenir when this was all over.” But, she had reservations. “My wrists are black and blue from the handcuffs. I’ll never buy another bracelet.” She told her mother, Lillie Crockett, “If I get out I want to go bed and sleep for a long time.”12 And when her mother told her that “the London (British) Broadcasting Company’s here,” she responded, “You’re kidding! My goodness!” She told Miss Lillie she was going to try to get in touch with CBS Television newsman Dan Rather who, she remembered, began his career in journalism in 1950 as a reporter in Huntsville.13 Pollard talked with her family about various family members, how her son Robert was cooking great lasagna, and having someone take her car to the repair shop. Ever the practical one, she also reminded her daughter Kathy that “tomorrow is payday.”14 One of the more amusing calls was one made—or rather, attempted—by teacher Jack Branch. Several times he tried to get through to his family at home. Every time the line was busy. Exasperated, he announced he was giving up for the evening. When one of the hostages voiced surprise that the Branch family line would be so tied up when everyone must have known he would be trying to get through, Branch came to his family’s defense. “Oh no,” he said with a trace of a smile on his face. “It’s just my teenage son talking to all his girlfriends.”15 As hard as the civilian hostages generally had it throughout the siege, they were not alone in their anxieties and fears. Those tortures were shared by members of their families. Lillie Crockett, Judy Standley’s widowed mother, had her own demons of apprehension. “The strain has been so great,” Crockett said, “because we don’t know from one minute to the next how they are. It’s just hour after hour, day and night. When the negotiations close at ten o’clock we watch the news and I don’t get back there to my bed before one o’clock and when I get there, I can’t sleep wondering ‘What condition is Judy in?’”16 Carrasco’s multi-faceted public relations campaign continued unabated and it was enhanced by the never-ending “them vs. us” 238

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manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome. Now it was being expressed by Ann Fleming in a conversation with her husband. “As I’ve tried to tell the reporters, Fred couldn’t have been any nicer to us. We had a real good barbecue he insisted on ordering. You would have enjoyed it, Herman. And the only time,” she continued, “that we’ve had any problems at all is, of course, when TDC does something that aggravates him. He has not allowed us to be hit, he has not allowed us to be insulted, and he’s been polite to us. Anything we ask to do, like go to the bathroom, or have tea or do anything like that, we’re permitted to do it. And he’s made the other people here treat us like that, too. We know,” Ms. Fleming continued, “that as long as Fred is in charge and is allowed to look after us, we won’t suffer.”17 When Herman Fleming agreed with that assessment, she said, “Well, that’s why I’d like for you to speak to him,” and introducing Herman to Fred and Fred to Herman, Ann handed her telephone over to Carrasco so the husbands could chat. “Fred,” the gregarious spouse said, “this is Herman, the other part of Ann.” Carrasco confirmed that he had offered to let Ann go to her mother’s funeral if Estelle would just give him the bulletproof vests. “Yeah,” Herman replied, “I was real put out when I read it. All you wanted was the bulletproof vests. This I didn’t understand. I don’t know why he didn’t do that.”18 Carrasco said, “I’ll tell you, Mr. Fleming, that a lot of people call me a mad-dog killer. They put all kinds of names on me. But, I try to be as human as possible.” A grateful Mr. Fleming replied, “I appreciate what you have done in taking care of my wife up there because I love her a great deal.” Carrasco went on to build his case against the authorities. “And I will tell you that the administration has tried to provoke me by putting out a warrant for arrest of my wife. They are antagonizing me. They want me to kill somebody so they can start their play. That’s what they want me to do.” Herman quickly came back, “That’s not what I want you to do, because I love my wife and that’s why I felt so secure that you would take care of Ann. If she had to be in this situation, I was pleased that she had to be with you.” Herman closed with, “I just don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.”19 239

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It was “them vs. us” again with the Flemings and Carrasco being “us.” Carrasco had completely duped almost all the hostages and families alike—about what a fine, upstanding, honorable man he was. In another conversation between Von Beseda and her husband, Buster, the chat turned to the demand for bulletproof vests. “We had wanted to call Mr. Estelle this morning,” she said, “and we have offered no ammunition or guns, if they will give us the vests.” Buster was quick to pick up on the use of we. “Now when you say ‘us,’ who is us?” he asked. “Do you mean Fred and the group, you’re all included?” She stammered, “that’s from the, uh, bunch of us up here,” and she quickly changed the subject. Von insisted Buster make sure Carrasco’s demands were forwarded to TDC. Among the demands she referenced was “we’re going to have to have getaway cars or . . . I don’t know what Fred has in mind.” When her husband seemed puzzled about that, she turned to the ringleader for confirmation. Carrasco’s answer left her confused so she turned her phone over to her captor who had been listening on another line. With a bright laugh, her husband said, “Well, I feel like I know you and if we had a chance, we could sit down and talk. Do you want me in my request to include anything about that getaway?” Sounding like a man without any plan whatsoever, Carrasco replied, “Well, uh, if you wish.”20 Carrasco then took off on a tangent previously unmentioned. “You have to consider about two, three weeks ago Estelle did make a statement that here, inside the prison, was as safe or maybe even safer than out on the street. But, we have to consider that it was his negligence of security that caused this. So now the man is responsible because he wasn’t that smart enough. As far as I’m concerned, I saw this opportunity or his weakness and I took advantage of it.”21 While all this was going on, the authorities continued to receive support from civilian sources near and far. After the authorities’ involvement such as the previous Friday with the C-4 explosive charges, Estelle said, “another company—one of those hi-tech companies with video equipment, cameras, and optical equipment—provided everything we needed to set up observation and recording of activity 240

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from the hospital over across the yard and into that ramp area. They even provided things like super-high-powered binoculars and telescopes. It was amazing.”22 That kind of support was also extended to the hostages. For example, Ms. Davis’ son Bill told her about “how much support we’re getting from the people around here. Mr. Jackson (a local heating/cooling dealer) sent over an air-conditioner today, an even bigger one. And they installed it right away and that house is just as cool as you can believe.”23 It was late in the day when Carrasco engaged Montemayor in another dialogue. By the time he had finished, it sounded like he had given up, coming to grips with the fact he was in a no-win situation and he wanted to get some affairs in order. It started with a question about his adversaries. He asked, “What kind of mind do these people have?” The exasperated lawyer could only answer, “I don’t know, man. I can tell you, this has been an experience for me, Fred, that I’ll have with me the rest of my life.” Carrasco persisted. “Hey, tell me, do you think these people are capable of laying it out straight?” With a slight laugh, Montemayor replied, “You know, you’re putting me in a ridiculous situation. You’re putting me on the spot. I hope there’s not another Fred Carrasco for many, many years. To tell you the truth, Fred,” he said with a slight laugh, “You’re mixed up in a fuckin’ mess.”24 Carrasco, with his strange, high-pitched laugh, said, “I thought they were men, but they’re not. They could at least behave like men. But I want you to take care of one thing for me, OK? Naturally, I’m talking about my family. Of course, my wife is going to be frightened, and all of that. So you can pick up my body, right? I want to be burned.” Montemayor knew he was referring to being cremated. He replied, “Man, it’s really tough for me. You understand that, right? I came here to see if I might be able to save your life, like what happened at the jail there in San Antonio. You know, we’ve been through a lot of court battles; we’ve been through a lot of fights inside. So, the thing is man, it’s not easy for me to be in this position.” Not ready to cash in just yet, Carrasco said, “I understand, Counsel, but, my blood still flows, you understand? 241

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And that baby? Right, I’ll die so that he can live, like they say.” Montemayor asked what Carrasco wanted his son to be. “Whatever he wants to be. I have ideas, right, but whatever he prefers; the career that he wants, whatever he chooses. And naturally, since you (will have) gotten in contact with my wife, you tell her that I died as a man. And that I died with honor. With her and my babies on my mind. And that she knows for sure that she was the only woman that I came to respect. And that I loved with all my heart.” The lawyer uttered a barely audible, “OK”.25 Another bizarre request came from the library before the day ended. Carrasco called down to the warden’s office saying he wanted a hacksaw and blades, and a bolt-cutter to alter the three bulletproof helmets. He said the helmets did not fit well. This was, not surprisingly, a lie, as he also told his lawyer “there’s a door that’s closed and locked with chains and that’s what I need the bolt-cutter for.”26 These new requirements came from a suggestion of Steve Robertson’s that they produce their own bullet-proof vests. Steve, in rummaging around in the attic storage area, found some baseball equipment. He thought of using a catcher’s chest protector as the basis for a “suit of armor” reinforced with pieces of steel beams and braces from the attic inside the protector and wrapping sheet metal duct work around it. “If we can come up with our own, we will not have to negotiate with TDC anymore,” he said.27 Because they had no idea why Carrasco wanted this equipment, the Think Tank was not about to accede to this latest demand. “We were adamant,” said Bob Wiatt. “This was a tool that could be used for an escape and we were not going to give it to them.”28 After TDC’s refusal, Robertson had another idea: Line the chest protectors with some of those thick law books from the Writ Room. Would not that make them bulletproof? To test that theory, Rudy Dominguez placed a book upright and fired at it. The bullet made it halfway through. But the homemade flak jacket did not work because it weighed too much and another Robertson brain-storm was rejected. The hostages then received a bit of relief that enabled them to get a good night’s sleep. As the inmate hostages were performing their usual 242

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late-night chore of handcuffing the females, Linda Woodman remembered “they just bent down and whispered, ‘don’t worry about the bombs. They’re just fakes.’”29 The next time the mercurial Carrasco got on the phone, he ordered two dozen roses sent to Aline House. Meanwhile, the homemade bulletproof vest failure gave Steve Robertson the germ of yet another idea.

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Chapter Twenty-one July 31, 1974 • Day Eight

“I’m the executioner.” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

Week One of the Eleven Days in Hell would end at one o’clock as this eighth day and second week of horror began for the hostages. Federico Carrasco was contacted on Wednesday morning five minutes after his eight o’clock deadline for complying with the demand for bulletproof vests. He was called about what Ruben Montemayor called the “final offer” that Director Estelle had handed him at seven-fifteen that morning. According to Ron Taylor, Carrasco “appeared to be sleepy or groggy”1 and he made no mention of his previous threat to blow up his hostages. The only thing he seemed to be interested in was ordering breakfast—pastry, donuts, cupcakes, orange juice, prune juice, jelly, toast and, of course, the daily newspapers. Contact between the library and the warden’s office resumed at nine o’clock. The hostages requested clean clothes, a deck of cards, a portable radio, batteries, trash bags, ice, a jar of instant tea, lemon, sugar, coffee creamer, and coffee cups. Taylor, based 244

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on conversations with the hostages, reported a general tone of calmness inside the library. The next contact from Carrasco came at 1:00 p.m. He was not through with his efforts to influence the media. This time, he enlisted Novella Pollard’s willing daughter, Kathy. Sometimes on his own, sometimes in concert with the hostages, and especially Pollard, Carrasco constructed written messages he wanted relayed to the media. Pollard would then repeat those messages to her daughter, in a very crisp, distinct, and direct manner. She had Kathy read the messages back, word-for-word, so there would be no mistaking Carrasco’s words. Novella said to Kathy, “Now, I want you to call a news conference. You are to do it come hell or high water.”2 Pollard then dictated two statements. The first was a reiteration of Estelle’s “final offer” granting the vests in exchange for the hostages and assurance that Carrasco could “surrender under supervision or under your conditions with TV coverage all over the world.” Next, Novella dictated Carrasco’s seething response, “In regard to your

Novella Pollard’s eighteen-year-old daughter Kathy holds one of her press conferences on behalf of the captured hostages, on Thursday, August 1. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

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Estelle agrees to provide the armored truck but only after Carrasco releases the nine remaining hostages. (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University)

proposal, not only do I find them childish, but humiliating.” Her voice rose in concert with Carrasco’s anger. “Any man with a prudent mind would realize that such a proposal is jeopardizing the lives of the civilian hostages and at this moment the lives of the inmate hostages. As far as your proposal concerning the vests, I can do without the vests. Concerning the false and unscrupulous indictments against my wife, I leave entirely up to your discretion. Regarding the third demand of the world-wide TV coverage, that is fine.”3 Carrasco had some “final demands” of his own. “The only things I am asking for is transportation plus four hostages that I demanded since negotiations were started between us. And as my final threat, should these two demands not be met, a bomb with devastating power will be set off near Mr. Heard and Mr. Branch. And the other bomb will be placed and ready to detonate close to the remaining hostages. And the

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third bomb will be used on your chewing-tobacco troopers. I remain a man of my word.” That done, Novella told Kathy, “Now. I want you to call a news conference. I don’t care if you have to kick and scream and holler.” She repeated her instructions to read both statements and, she added with Carrasco’s coaching, “You can add that the three females that are going as hostages if they will let us are ready, waiting with Father O’Brien.”4 The press conference, arranged primarily by Joe Sweeney, Carrasco’s old confrere at WOAI-TV in San Antonio, came off without a hitch. Elated over its success, Carrasco decided he would do it again using the same format. He would repeat Estelle’s written offer to make sure the media was getting the same message he was, and then release his official written response. Pollard read Estelle’s official statement, typed on TDC letterhead, to her daughter. In it Estelle had said Carrasco’s “new and final demand of transportation plus four hostages is acceptable after the release of all of the rest of the hostages.” Then she read Carrasco’s response, typed by Judy Standley and sent to the director through Ruben Montemayor. It read, “In answer to number five of your last communication, the nine remaining hostages, three of whom will be inmate hostages, will act as shields for Federico Carrasco, Ignacio Cuevas, Rodolfo Dominguez, and the four volunteer hostages. Once the seven are in the vehicle, the nine hostages will be allowed to move to a safer place.”5 Standley said, “Fred doesn’t like writing letters; he’d rather talk on the phone. He said ‘when I write letters I write love letters and I’m not courting Mr. Estelle.’ So, we sent one letter over there that had a heart on it with an arrow drawn through it.”6 Love letters not withstanding, this time there was a slight snag in the proceedings because, as Kathy Pollard reported to Fred Carrasco, “It’s pouring down rain out there so it’ll be a little while before we’ll be able to do this.” Handing the phone back to Pollard, Carrasco said, “Ok. Here’s your mommy.”7 The rain let up and the messages were delivered, pleasing Carrasco as well as Pollard. “We’ve decided that you’re a celebrity,” she told her 247

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daughter. “You did very good, Princess.”8 Kathy Pollard was pleased, and so too were the media members because the news conference gave them something to report. It also made some good visuals for the cameramen. The Texas Department of Corrections was not pleased. What Kathy Pollard was doing was giving voice to Federico Carrasco, a voice that was often at odds with the facts. Carrasco repeated his offer to exchange the hostages for TDC officials, a procedure already unanimously rejected by the TDC Board. This time he had a new twist. “Have the five come that I’m asking for and everybody can go. First of all, the director should come and two of the women will leave. And we’ll go from there.”9 Montemayor was enthusiastic over this offer— even though he knew it was going nowhere. At least it was something to talk about, something to negotiate. When he begged Carrasco, “don’t hurt anybody,” the convict replied, “That’s up to them. They came to the verdict and I’m just the hangman. They give the death sentence and I’m the executioner.”10 Carrasco now demanded new clothes. “These damn clothes,” he bellowed, “are just about getting up and walking on their own. We need new clothes. You know the order we (originally) put in. Have them send another order—new suits, socks, underwear and everything.” Always agreeable, the lawyer put in the new order and signed off saying, “don’t hurt anybody.”11 After talking directly to Carrasco early Wednesday morning, Kathy Pollard reiterated his fanciful claim TDC officials would receive the same treatment as the hostages they would replace. It did not take much to know that definitely would not be the case. But the young lady’s sympathetic interpretation of the killer’s intent made it sound reassuring thereby gaining even more sympathy in the public eye for the feelings of some hostages. Von Beseda echoed Carrasco’s concerns about “oneway” communications. “Every letter that we have sent to Kathy has been sent to TDC thirty-to-forty-five minutes earlier than we have sent it to Kathy, because TDC was releasing no news at all. And we thought our families needed to know and that the other people in the community and so forth, needed to know.”12 248

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Some did not take kindly to Kathy Pollard’s role as their spokesperson. As Ann Fleming put it, “I felt like she should shut up. I didn’t think she was helping the situation any. That’s the way my husband felt too. We didn’t feel like she had the right to speak for the group any more than anybody else.”13 According to Father O’Brien, Kathy Pollard was doing little more than “raising hell outside.”14 TDC correctional officer James Willett said, “Many of us prison guards wished Ms. Pollard’s daughter would shut her mouth and let Mr. Estelle do his job.”15 Kathy Pollard said one of the reporters—who has “been needling me right along”—told her he had been told “by some of the families of the hostages that they had resented me doing this.” The ever-direct Warden Husbands said, “Mrs. Pollard’s daughter was eating us alive.”16 More diplomatically, spokesman Ron Taylor would only say while prison officials sympathized with families of the hostages, “Miss Pollard’s press conferences were making their negotiations more difficult” because of their obvious bias toward Carrasco’s point of view.17 Estelle did not seem overly concerned about her media exchanges, wherein she often admonished TDC for not providing, among other things, precise information—admonishments that could undermine the administration’s efforts to resolve the crisis. “No,” he said, “we knew from whence our help cometh, from the governor’s office on down through the state government. They understood where we drew the line and they were in full support of that.”18 As Taylor had said, the press conferences were making negotiations more difficult. One week earlier, when the hostages were first taken, the Director of the Texas Department of Corrections had asked himself why had there been no demand for transportation? It was not until this day that he got his answer. For the first time, Fred Carrasco mentioned a vehicle for his escape, via Kathy Pollard in her press conference. Not only did this final demand answer Estelle’s question of ‘why not’, it also confirmed another of the authorities’ theories. Whatever plans Carrasco had started with, they were completely different now. It was impossible for anyone to imagine if Carrasco had a well-thought-out escape plan, it certainly would not have been one that would take more than a week 249

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to consider a transportation mode. Speculation in the Think Tank was Carrasco’s wife Rosa, who was supposed to execute that part of his plan for him, did not. What Carrasco wanted was an armored truck. More than that, he wanted one equipped with a mobile two-way radio telephone, a portable commode, shower curtain, toilet paper, air freshener and clothes for everyone. Once again, however, TDC played word games with the killer. “He said he wanted that armored car,” Warden Husbands recalled. “We said, ‘sure, you can have it.’ We didn’t say we were going to turn him loose. We just said he could have it.”19 If such a plan worked once before with a useless television set, why not try it again? This time, it ended up as a major failing on Carrasco’s part because without assurance he could drive out, his plan was doomed. For all parties involved, the situation was getting more desperate. The hostages increasingly saw themselves in a no-win predicament. If TDC mounted a frontal assault, they would all probably be dead before the first trooper got through the library door. If TDC did not accede to Carrasco’s demands, they could be blown to smithereens by his makeshift explosives. Even the possibility TDC might be able to break through the library’s back wall and attack the fortress gave the hostages dire thoughts. “We knew,” said Father O’Brien, “they were putting plastic explosives or dynamite on the outside back wall. We could hear the tapping. And I thought right away that if they blow the wall, sometimes we were lying against it. And whoever was hand-cuffed in the doorway would have been blown out in the prison yard because all the force of the blast would have gone through that front door.” Another matter of concern for the hostages was all the glass in the partitions dividing the library and adjoining classroom which would turn into deadly flying shards from the concussion such explosive device would cause. It became more and more obvious the last best hope the hostages had was to get out of the confines of the fortress and into the Upper Yard. As Jim Estelle expressed it, “God almighty, anything was better (for the hostages) than being holed up” in the library. As the padre put it, “it was just a question of mathematics. What’s the best way to save the most people?”20 250

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The best way to save the most people turned out to be the “Trojan Horse,” the “Trojan Taco,” the “Taco Bell,” the Piñata, or the “shield”— all of which the escape vehicle was called by various parties involved. Most simply described, it was six-feet high, six-feet long, and three-feet wide. According to Father O’Brien, “It weighed about seven-hundred pounds.”21 It was a cumbersome covered box on plastic casters providing a shield protecting the three hostage-takers and their four captives all huddled inside. By all accounts, its creator was Stephen Ray Robertson. “It was my idea to make the shield. I never listened to decent people like those hostages before. I got kind of attached to them. I was doing everything I could to help them.”22 Work started in the library when Carrasco bought into the idea only grudgingly. The desperate hostages—looking for any way out of what they were now sure would be their slaughterhouse—used logic, common sense, cajolery, and flattery to convince Carrasco that Robertson’s scheme could work. Robertson and Martin Quiroz were the prime builders of the Trojan Taco with Florencio Vera and some civilian hostages assisting. They spent the next two days constructing the box. First, they took two of the half-dozen rolling chalkboards in the education complex and stood them parallel to each other, about three feet apart. Attached horizontally to the back end of the chalkboards were three-foot cross-pieces taken from wooden boards stripped from book shelves in the complex. At one end of the chalkboards, a sheet of easily removable peg board was attached providing a doorway. Holes were cut in the boards to provide gun ports. The width of the box was dictated by library’s door opening to the ramp and its length determined by its maneuverability around the rightangle turns going down the six-foot-wide ramp. There would be only inches of clearance. The top of the shield and the lower one-third of the chalkboards were open. To prevent exposure of the inhabitants’ legs, the construction crew attached cardboard. Thus, those inside the shield were completely covered. Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominguez—with their steel helmets—felt they were covered from attack from above. But, with only a thin board, some wooden slats and peg boards, they were not bulletproof. That is where the law books came in again. When 251

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Robertson tried to make a flak jacket out of a baseball catcher’s chest protector covered with three-inch-thick law books, it proved too heavy for one man to lug around. But, put those law books on wheels and the weight problem is solved. Using yards and yards of book-binding tape, in abundant supply in the library, they wrapped the shield in law books two layers thick. In library encyclopedia, hostages found pictures of Mexican heroes such as Emiliano Zapata and Santa Anna. It pleased Carrasco when they were pasted on the sides of the shield. According to Ann Fleming, “Von Beseda and Judy Standley took a great interest in it. They enjoyed the decorating. They put all the banners on the Trojan Horse. Robertson, Linda, and Von and Judy did most of the work. I don’t remember Novella doing a lot of the physical work. I don’t remember doing a whole lot of physical work and I don’t remember Bert (Bertha Davis) doing a lot of physical work.” When asked if the male hostages’ participated, referring to Bobby Heard she said, “Oh my Lord, no. Heard tried to stay out of it as much as he possibly could. No, he stayed in the background as much as he could. I can hardly remember his being there.”23 Searching through the encyclopedia, the hostages found pictures of the Mexican national banner and scenes of Mexico which they cut out and pasted on the shield. Using crayons, they drew maps of Mexico and pasted them on. The hostages even made a contest out of it— whoever drew the neatest map would get to draw another. Adding to the party-like atmosphere was the fact that this was Ignacio Cuevas’ forty-third birthday. As Father O’Brien described the scene, “It was like a Maypole dance when they were making the shield. Those who were not going to get inside knew this was their way out. They were singing and they were partying. That turned me off,” he moaned. “Some of the women catered to Carrasco—and I say deliberately. I couldn’t do that. When they were building the box, I couldn’t participate in that. It was a coffin.”24 But in defense of the hostages, the activity with its implied promise of resolution, gave them a vent, a release after days and days of tension and fear. At last they were doing something they felt could help them win their release for this hellhole. Tomorrow they were going to get out. Most of the hostages sincerely believed that. 252

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Ron Robinson was optimistic, telling his wife “things look better tonight than they have at any time since we’ve been in here. There was some serious discussions this afternoon and there doesn’t seem to be any major point of disagreement now between what the men want and what TDC is willing to give.”25 Meanwhile, the jocularity went on as the day ended with the construction crew happily partying into the early hours. Not even the roar of a magnum .38 caliber test shot fired into the law books—it only went halfway through—diminished the festive affair.

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Chapter Twenty-two August 1, 1974 • Day Nine

“I demand that an armored truck be waiting.” —Fred Carrasco, hostage-taker

In eight days, newly-installed President Gerald R. Ford would say, “The long nightmare is over.” That may have been true for many of the people of the United States of America following the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. But for the ten civilian hostages in the library at the Walls Unit of the State Prison at Huntsville, Texas, their long nightmare was far from over. Construction of the rickety shield—that would supposedly protect them on their way out of the library, down the winding ramp, and to the armored truck that would transport them and their three captors to a destination that could only be guessed at—proceeded unabated. The rhythm grew even more frenetic as the participants, numbed by a lack of sleep from their all-night endeavors and goaded by their self-imposed prospects of freedom, abandoned their fears and hammered away at the Trojan Taco. Carrasco, obviously pleased with the results of the previous day’s negotiation methodology, tried the ploy once more. He directed Novella Pollard to have 254

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daughter Kathy hold another series of press conferences to circumvent what he thought was TDC’s efforts to keep the negotiations out of the media. With negotiations now reaching a critical stage, Estelle ordered a news blackout because of previous violations of confidentiality. The news media was not pleased. As the director said, “I didn’t want any possibility of their reporting news or interpreting statements from staff compromising whatever plans we had for receiving the hostages as they came out.” He promised the press, “If it goes to an unreasonable length of time, I will—subsequent to resolution of this situation—give you a journal account, hour-by-hour, of what took place during this blackout. But, I can’t compromise or risk compromise of what might take place in the next several hours.”1

Carrasco’s sarcastically responds to Estelle’s offer and again notes that he is holding “four aces and the joker.” (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University) 255

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Most of the media accepted the embargo and its reason. Some, according to Estelle, did not. “There were a couple of media people from Kansas City who began to raise a little hell and said, ‘If you don’t tell us what’s going on, by God, we’ll make some news.’ I told Ron Taylor to go over there with these two Texas Rangers—I picked two of the physically biggest Rangers I could find, six-foot-four inches tall and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds—and explain to those two people what the game rules are. And if they have any doubt about their ability to play by our rules, these Rangers are going to effect their arrest and charge them with trespass. And they’ll be locked in the Walker County jail until this thing is over.”2 The media pair got the message. A Texas Department of Corrections inter-office communications note coming from the director referred to Carrasco’s earlier demand for an armored truck. “Before accepting or rejecting your proposal, we need to know more about your conditions regarding the transportation.”3 A reply from Carrasco was quick in coming. “First of all, six of the civilian hostages and three inmate hostages as well as the four volunteer hostages will be utilized as shields for myself and my companions. Once down the ramp, I demand that an armored truck be waiting for me as well as my companions and four hostages.”4 Although the negotiating parties were only one hundred yards apart, their communications were extremely diplomatic. Estelle sent his response, “Your demand for an armored truck equipped with a regular short-wave radio and a regular telephone installed in it is acceptable after the release of all of the hostages.”5 As is sometimes the case in diplomatic negotiations, the gloves can come off and they did when Carrasco cynically responded to Estelle’s latest communiqué, “You have caught me by surprise with your generosity of committing suicide by stating that you will meet my demand for an armored truck, but only after I release all hostages. What you are insinuating is just a reflection of your narrow mindedness. I have made it very plain that the hostages, all except four of them, will be released immediately after boarding the armored truck. The safety of the hostages is the reason for the telephone. The hostages will be in constant contact with you. Now you are the one that seems to be playing 256

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a game of poker with the lives of these people. And, if you are a poker player at all, you know as well as I do that I have the four aces and the joker. I await your answer.”6 If there was one thing Estelle was throughout the entire siege, it was the epitome of patience. He knew Carrasco and Dominguez were sarcastically referring to him as the feminine “Estelita”.7 Keeping cool in spite of such insults, he calmly wrote back, “With the utmost reluctance and gravest concern for the four hostages you propose to keep, we will accept your proposal for the armored truck fully equipped, plus four hostages, after the safe return of the nine remaining hostages.”8 “Let me be more explicit,” Carrasco wrote back, “I realize that once I, my companions, and four hostages are in the armored truck, my position is no different than it was in the library. You can take a few minutes to interview the released hostages to be assured of the wellbeing of those in the armored truck with me. We will begin by having the four remaining hostages communicate with you by the phone from the armored truck. After you are assured of their well-being, we will proceed to the prison gate and be on our way.”9 Estelle’s stall program again came into play. It took almost the entire ninth day of the siege to finish that bit of give and take—despite the fact it ended up as a major break in the haggling. Were he a vengeful man, Estelle could have easily sneered, “No way.” in answer to Carrasco’s final comment about being “on our way.” Instead, he turned to the resourceful Red McKaskle and told him to “find me an armored truck.” It turned out to be a relatively easy assignment for a man with McKaskle’s network. Warden Husbands said the Assistant Director simply “called an old boy he knew who had one of those courier services. They gave us a truck.”10 The courier service was the Purolator Courier Co. As part of TDC’s stall tactics, Carrasco was advised that it might take some time to get such a vehicle on scene in Huntsville. Carrasco was willing to wait. Carrasco had some thoughts about the delays. “Do you know what their mistake was?” he asked Montemayor. Without waiting for an answer, he gave one, “That those morons gave me time. That was their mistake. I’m the one who used psychology on those idiots. And I say 257

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that now because now I’m ready for anything and everything. If they had used their heads, if they’d put pressure on me from the start, it would have been a whole different thing. When they put charges on my wife, they threw themselves off a fucking cliff. They’re such a bunch of moron assholes,” he said with a laugh that Montemayor echoed. “Mother-fuckers! I thought these people had more intelligence than that. It’s not like I’m egotistical or anything, counsel, but I would have resolved this problem by now—easily.”11 In the midst of it all, Estelle needed to take a short break. Since it was his daughter Linda’s birthday, he took her shopping, and he was not looking for his usual music fare—Jimmy Rogers, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubbs, “Walk Across Texas,” Broadway show music, and Frank Sinatra. “We went shopping for her birthday present in a record shop. There was a Latino LP and the cover of it caught my attention. It was Tres Hombres. That was one of the things I bought her.” As he later said, “Without a sense of humor in a situation like that, you’d be dead in the water.”12 With the transportation issue out of the way, Standley still sat at the typewriter. The next item sent to the authorities was a list of who would go with Carrasco and who would be set free. The first typed message, signed by Von Beseda, Novella Pollard, and Judy Standley, read, “We have volunteered to be the ones to accompany Carrasco and his companions. We are aware that this is the only way out of this building and we feel our chances for survival lie in this plan and this plan only. It is our hope that you will approve this plan for the safety of all concerned, and soon.”13 Attached was a message from Father O’Brien saying, “I agree to continue my position as hostage for the safety of the majority of those presently held hostage.”14 In an effort to authenticate the hostages’ wishes, Carrasco had them telephone Kathy Pollard and confirm their above statement. Standley said, “I’m going with your mother and I want to go.” Beseda followed. “I volunteered the first or second day, whenever it was. I told Buster several days ago that I had volunteered and so it’s true.” 258

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Terse as usual, Father O’Brien merely said, “This is my statement.” And Novella Pollard ended it, saying. “Now, you have all four of us. You’ve talked to all four and if they (the media) question you about it, you can tell them very truthfully you talked to them. There was no gun held at our heads.”15 In case there was any doubt regarding the intentions of the remaining hostages, another written message soon followed signed by all, “The following hostages agree that there is a greater degree of safety in numbers. We plead for you to accept us as shields for Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominquez [sic] as well as the four volunteers. We will be completely safe and as soon as the seven have boarded the truck, we will be free to go home. This is the only way this business can be ended.”16 Feeling quite satisfied that he was in control of the situation, the man believed the perpetrator of dozens of gangland-style murders, sat down to compose a series of letters to the female Windham School hostages praising them for having borne up so well under such trying conditions. Typical was one he wrote to Ms. Davis, “From my infancy I was taught to have respect for females. But with all sincerity I assure you that if my family had perceived that I was to have the honor of knowing Mrs. Davis personally they would have seen that it would not have been necessary because she has demonstrated to me the female that has conducted herself as a female. Well, then the male has to give the respect that is merited and she merits much more respect than I as a human can give to her.”17 After nine days, Federico Carrasco was actually beginning to believe he had the upper hand. The Trojan Taco was coming along nicely. The armored truck was promised—with conditions. The hostages had signed off. Without having killed a single person, Carrasco was just a step away from his road to freedom. While Carrasco was dictating his correspondence, Linda Woodman was talking to a light bulb and secreting a razor blade. “I just knew,” the librarian said with a broad and somewhat embarrassed grin, “TDC was trying to listen to us. I decided that they put a listening device in 259

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the educational facility’s outside lights. At the door where we were sitting on guard duty, you could kind of lean back and you’d be outside.” Demonstrating her position, she continued, “I would just kind of talk to the lights; tell them what was happening and where we were and what was going on. They were just lights on the building. But in my mind, I could just see TDC using a fishing pole and hooking a deal up there.” As for the razor blades, an item used in the library for cutting the heavy book-binding tapes, Woodman was not taking any chances. Uncertain of the “bombs” Martin Quiroz was making, when she realized the hostage-takers wanted one inside the Piñata, she said, “My next thing was to try to find a way to cut those wires. I found a single-edge razor blade and decided that I would just tape that to my blouse so I could go in and cut the (bomb) wires. I was all ready.”18 Later, when she had reason to believe that she might be searched, she secreted the blade in a book she earlier could not concentrate enough on to read, Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace. Always one to look for the silver lining, she also had another moment of huge concern. While taking one of her sponge baths in the sink in the restroom, the telephone rang. “Whenever the phone rings we just have a fit. Our stomachs turn over and everything else.” The hostages never knew if the call was going to set Carrasco off. When she heard the phone ring, she thought “well if we have to make a run for it, I may be the first streaker to get out of here.” The thought brought her an enormous chuckle. “And how embarrassing,” she went on. “I knew the news cameras were going to be out there and they have closed circuit television over there in the hospital. And I thought, my word, ‘Nationwide, here she comes!’ It’s show time. But you kind of bathe in a hurry so if any excitement should take place, you’ll be ready for it.”19 Optimism on the part of the Windham School hostages continued to grow, as evidenced in telephone conversations with their families. “Tomorrow” would be their day of deliverance—at least for those who were going to be on the outside of the shield as it came down the ramp.20 Ann Fleming told her husband “everything seems to be working out really wonderful and tell Brother Brown and everybody from the church 260

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to keep praying for us.” Woodman was buoyant—as much as one can be in such a situation. She said, “everyone is quite excited and kind of on edge too. We’ve had a very busy day but we’re doing very well.” Carrasco had also written her one of those letters. It was in Spanish but he did interpret it. “He said,” Woodman remembered, “he could write better in Spanish. . . . Oh well, we’re hopeful that tomorrow will be an interesting departure from here. I understand that they’ll have some news cameras out to watch so you’ll all get to see it. We’re hopeful all goes very smoothly. The ones who are going with him, of course, they have their degree of anxiety too. They know the danger.”20 One of those going with him was Judy Standley and even she was optimistic. She told her daughter, “Well, we’ll be moving out as soon as they bring the truck in, I guess.” When asked what she would be wearing for her trip, the mother replied with a laugh, “the same old dirty rag I’ve got on. I guess it’ll all be over tomorrow. Fred said he wouldn’t keep us more than, he thought, twenty-four hours before he puts us on a plane sending us back. We don’t know for sure where we’ll be but I’m sure we’ll be all right.” Elaborating on her preparation, she said with a laugh, “the three of us packed in one suitcase and if we need anything, Fred will buy it. I hope I’ll be out in time for church Sunday. Well, I’m going to take a little trip tomorrow.” Her son Ty asked her to “send us a postcard.” Asked what the first thing she wanted when she got back, she said with much emphasis, “A bath!”21 Even Carrasco was predicting good news. In another conversation with Herman Fleming, he was told by the hostage’s husband, “I sure was hoping Ann would be home for supper tonight. I had a salad all fixed for her.” That gave Carrasco a big laugh as he said, “Yes, and I believe that this should be over by tomorrow at the latest.”22 Carrasco then called the warden’s office. He ordered ribeye steaks, filets, baked potatoes, and salads for everyone in the library. But there was little that could bring Ron Robinson out of his doldrums. When his wife Jeanne told him they were still saving a place for him at the family dinner table, he grumbled, “Well, I would like to think that one of these days I’m going to be there to fill it. I wish,” 261

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continuing his litany, “Estelle could change places with any one of us. We’ve dealt enough with (TDC’s) people to know that they may yet come up with some silly reason not to let us go. They broke off negotiations this afternoon and they’re going to begin again in the morning. I don’t know what kind of a game they think they’re playing and it’s just getting more and more and more and more harder to take.” After being told that she needed to make his car payment and “the house payment. It’s overdue,” Jeanne asked him if he had his Bible. He did. She told him their daughter Sheryle “found a scripture she thought fits you very well. It’s Psalm 61.” She said “this is what it’s all about. I want you to read it and I want you to know that your little girl knows what’s going on.”23 Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer! From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.24

The day dragged on to its end. All in all, compared to the previous eight days this was a fairly good one. The hostages at last had hope. Even with the bright prospects for tomorrow, they still had to live with today. And that was not exactly easy. The hostages and their captors (eighteen people at one point) were mostly confined to the library section of the educational complex, an area measuring about twenty-two feet by fifty-five feet—just over twelve-hundred square feet. The difficulties in living in such cramped quarters were horrendous. They had to share that limited space that was made even smaller by disarray and disorder, push aside trash on the table tops to find room to eat, sleep on the floor and worry constantly about stepping on someone or being stepped on, use the severely limited toilet facilities while handcuffed to another hostage, listen to the radio (will it be the news? The symphony? Country-Western? Rock and Roll?). And all the time worrying whether you were going to get shot by your captors or your rescuers, whether you were going to be blown to smithereens by a home-made bomb, and your imminent demise. 262

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Far and away, however, the biggest tension-breaker almost totally across the board for the Windham School hostages was their faith, their religious beliefs. Woodman said, “I guess I’ve always been a very firm believer. Naturally, you immediately start your prayers when something like this is going on. And I was helped by some other people there too, such as Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Davis. And then, of course, Father O’Brien was a good help.”25 Ann Fleming felt “our time had come. But, you know, three of us had a real good talk this morning about the Bible. And then, we have the book Peace with God by Billy Graham. So, three of us sat together and talked for a long time. And we know how hard it is on Mr. Estelle and the other men that are trying to make the decisions about what to do. So we hope that He’ll give them wisdom to make the best decision.”26 Bert Davis found peace in reading A Man Called Peter. Steve Robertson earlier noted the women were not “afraid to die.” Judy Standley was not. To her son Ty she said, “I’m resigned to it. It’s in God’s hands now. So, we’ll hang on.” Her son assured her, “We’ll be here when you walk out.” She told him ruefully, “That’s encouraging and I hope I get to see all those people again sometime. But, if I don’t….” Ty interrupted her, “You will.”27 And this was the second day of August. This was southeast Texas. This was after a torrential downpour. It was hot and it was steamy. Yet, unknown to anyone either in the library or among the authorities, that act of God accelerated the process that would finally bring the siege to its brutal end.

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Chapter Twenty-three August 2, 1974 • Day Ten

“If he’d only send out Linda Woodman.” —TDC Director, Jim Estelle, Jr.

During the preceding days of the siege, there were innumerable moments of panic for the hostages, but for Linda Woodman, the start of the tenth day was far more terrifying than anything she had been subjected to. And it had absolutely nothing to do with Fred Carrasco, Rudy Dominguez nor Ignacio Cuevas. This panic attack was brought on by an act of God. On this Friday morning the librarian was on guard duty at the broken door. It was about five o’clock, and she was speaking with inmate hostage Florencio Vera as Ignacio Cuevas hovered nearby. Vera was, as usual, high on pain-killing drugs due to his recent surgery, and he asked Woodman to marry him when this was all over. Stunned but not wanting to alienate another inmate, Woodman told him, “Oh, no. You’re too young.” Vera was upset, saying her rejection was because he “was a Mexican.” He boasted about having thirty hours of college credit and asked, “If I went to college, would you like me better?” 264

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Linda assured him it was only because he “was just a kid.” 1 The conversation faded, but her tension continued. Without warning, a thunderstorm crashed down from the skies over the Walls Unit. A deluge of rain drenched the area as huge bolts of lightning ripped through the heavens, brilliantly lighting the prison yard below her. And if there was one thing in her life that scared Woodman, it was lightning. She almost panicked. “Oh, that was so frightening,” she shuddered. “I was sitting in the doorway and I was getting wet and there was thunder and lightning and—honest to Pete— it was just amazing. It was dark and when that lightning hit, it just came right by me. It was amazing. Just, boom! You could smell that acrid smoke and it was everywhere.” 2 What made it so much worse was her lifelong phobia of being near metal during an electrical storm. “I can remember as a young person with my hair rolled up and I would take every pin out of my hair if it was lightning a lot. And I thought, ‘if this isn’t the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever been in?’ There I am with three pairs of handcuffs chaining me to the file cabinet plus I’m sitting on a metal chair that’s on a metal file cabinet that’s on another metal file cabinet. And I am just sitting there,” she said. The crashing thunder woke the deep-sleeping Carrasco and he, along with Rudy Dominguez joined Cuevas with guns drawn. Oddly enough, it was the panicked librarian who had to calm down the desperados. “It was kind of funny,” she recalled. “Where I had been thoroughly frightened, now I was trying to tell them, ‘It’s only a storm’ because they thought the TDC was coming up.” She laughed again. “It’s only a storm,” she repeated as she pointed across the prison yard. “Look over at the hospital. The lights are out over there, too.”3 Everyone soon calmed down until they saw the smoke seeping from the breaker box. A nearby lightning strike knocked out much of the power throughout the prison and short-circuited a relay fuse in the library. Everybody was coughing and choking from the smoke. There was no electrical power in the three-story building (although the rest of the prison complex quickly was operating on emergency generators). There were no lights and no air-conditioning for hostages and captors. 265

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On Estelle’s order, it was not to be restored for some time. The only illumination in the library came from the emergency-powered outside lights that shown down on the prison yard. The only air—what little there was of it—came through the broken glass doors. The captives were hot, sweaty and touchy. Woodman remembered, “We were testy with ourselves as much as with the bad guys.” After a while, Carrasco angrily demanded power and airconditioning be turned back on. According to Bob Wiatt, “We could have renewed that service within an hour or so but we elected not to.” Estelle buffaloed Carrasco, trying to exasperate him by saying, “We’re without power, too. We’d love to get the power on but the whole city’s out.”4 With limited sight lines from the library, Carrasco did not know the rest of the prison and the city was back on. So he accepted the director’s deception. Negotiations resumed at 9:00 a.m. where yesterday’s ended—with a formal note to Carrasco from Estelle. “It would appear,” the note read, “that we should explore another possible solution. With the safety and welfare of all the hostages in mind we cannot in good conscience go any further. Since you reject this, we would be pleased to hear other proposals from you.”5 It took some time for Carrasco to formulate an answer because he was starting to feel the effects of the stifling build up of oppressive heat the day’s one-hundred-plus degree temperature was bringing into the muggy library. The unbearable conditions affected the Windham School hostages far more than their captors and they too started getting more edgy and angry. When Von Beseda put a telephone call through to the warden’s office complaining about the heat, Montemayor told her he would relay the message. Not knowing who had answered the phone, she said, “The hell you will. Who are you?” she demanded. Montemayor replied, “I’m the lawyer, ma’am. I’m the mediator.” Embarrassed, Beseda said, “I’m sorry. I thought you were a TDC man.” The lawyer went on to explain that Estelle was meeting with other Think Tank members to “see if this thing can be resolved by a favorable solution.” 266

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Beseda’s reaction was, “If it’s not favorable, would you do me a favor? Would you wring every one of their necks? Make them suffer, one by one. I think God will forgive you.”6 The captives’ tempers were rising with the temperature. The heat became unbearable and Estelle finally ordered electrical service restored to the facility. “We had to consider the condition of our people because they were suffering up there,” he said. 7 The effects of sauna-like conditions, however, drove “the guns” and those under their guns almost to distraction and forced Carrasco to make some moves he was not quite prepared to make. Carrasco was now returning to his doubts about escape possibilities and his gloom rivaled that of his hostages. It was dawning on him Estelle was not going to concede anything more. Carrasco again threatened to blow up hostages if his demands were not met. On the telephone, he tried to explain to Montemayor how he and his companions would exit the library in the Trojan Taco; how they would need to only keep four hostages, and how they would release the other nine when they got to the armored car in the prison yard. The more Carrasco tried to explain his shield and his plans, the more confused Montemayor became. The lawyer tried to interpret and relay the plans to the assembled authorities, but this only increased the confusion. According to Warden Husbands, “I don’t think we knew all that much. We knew a little bit from what we could get from the spike mike but we didn’t really know what he was going to do and how he was going to do it.”8 As Bob Wiatt recalled, “We knew they were building something and we wondered what the hell it was.”9 Husbands reported the heat was building even more on Carrasco. Newspaper deliveries were cut off because, as Estelle said, “we didn’t want any plans we might have reported in the papers.”10 According to the warden, “When they ordered lunch, we sent sack lunches up—the same as the inmates were eating that day. This made Carrasco very angry. He didn’t talk for two or three hours and finally he made some demands about food.”11 For the sake of the hostages, TDC acquiesced. Pushing the envelop in the true negotiating manner of give-but-get, 267

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the Think Tank tried another tactic. It suggested Carrasco send a hostage out to explain what he really was talking about regarding the shield itself, his need for the other nine hostages, and what his plans were for coming out of the library. Jumping at any waft of fresh air blowing his way, Carrasco said “as a show of good faith” he would let one of the hostages out the following afternoon, Saturday, at 4:00 p.m.12 That appeared to close negotiations for the day as the weary, yet permanently patient Montemayor needed a break. After Carrasco’s “show of good faith,” the lawyer begged his client’s permission to fly back to his office in San Antonio to conduct some business that had been neglected for the past ten days.13 His employees there needed to be paid. Several papers had to be signed. He needed some clean clothes. He needed a good night’s sleep—in his own bed. He promised to be back at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Carrasco reluctantly told him to go ahead, and hung up. The situation inspired Novella Pollard and Linda Woodman to jump on Carrasco’s good faith offer. They flat out did not want to wait another twenty-four hours. “Why don’t you send someone out now (to) explain the cart, Fred?” they argued. As Father O’Brien put it, “We worked on his vanity. We told him somebody has to go out and let the world-wide news know what you’ve constructed up here and talk about the great Fred Carrasco.”14 Ron Robinson wrote that Woodman told Carrasco, “This event is going to go down in history and make you famous. You’ll be going out in a blaze of glory.”15 Carrasco seemed to like that idea. He obviously did not understand the implications. In the Think Tank they were genuinely puzzled over what Carrasco was talking about. According to Steve Robertson, “Mr. Estelle didn’t know nothing about the shield and Carrasco couldn’t explain to Mr. Estelle hisself. Someone had to make Mr. Estelle understand why (Carrasco) couldn’t release all the hostages because he needed everybody to push the cart down the ramp.” 16 Compounding the confusion, the hostages felt that when Carrasco talked about the shield the authorities thought he meant to use the 268

“IF HE’D ONLY SEND OUT LINDA WOODMAN.”

hostages to physically shield the captors, when actually that was the Trojan Taco’s job. As both sides pondered the possibilities, Pollard suggested Carrasco let Woodman go out with the message because “she’s the most levelheaded and emotionally controlled” of the group “and she can tell the story without breaking down.”17 Someone from the library had to go out and do the talking. Having one of the civilian hostages describe the venture would convince authorities that the story was being told without a gun to the head of the story-teller. Carrasco was still hesitant. Pollard and Woodman made a trip ostensibly to the restroom and passed the table where Carrasco and Dominguez were seated. They decided to make one more pitch for the someone plan. This time they added how terribly low hostage morale was sinking. Every day since the start of the siege, the hostages believed their day of deliverance was near. “We thought,” Woodman said, “today is it. And then, maybe the next day. Tomorrow they’re going to talk some more. Maybe it won’t be today. It might be tomorrow.”18 This day, they deeply felt, was the one they had been waiting so anxiously for. The negotiations were making progress. Estelle was conceding. Carrasco was conceding. Things were looking up as they rode the roller-coaster of hope and despair. Will they or won’t they? Is it today or is it tomorrow? Are we getting out today? Tomorrow? Or are we never getting out. As Judy Standley told her son Mark, “Everybody’s depressed and giving up hope. It’s been a bad day for all of us.” To all five of her children—Ty, Dru, Mark, Pam, and Stuart Standley—she said, “Life is but a preparation for death. It is not how you die but how you live.”19 Dejectedly, Von Beseda told Carrasco, “I’m so tired of this. Why don’t you just go ahead and shoot us and get it over with.”20 Bobby Heard had totally given up. Sobbing to the point where he could hardly talk, he told his wife, “I been told to call you to tell you goodbye.” Trying hard to fight back her own tears, Judy told him, “No, Bobby. Come on. Bobby, listen to me, baby. Hang in there just a little bit longer, Bobby, please. Bobby.” 21 The prospect of another twenty-four-hour delay was crushing. But finally, Carrasco seemed tentatively amenable to the plan. He said he 269

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would have to talk to his companions and, according to Pollard, “the three sat there and discussed it. We didn’t know then whether they were going to do it or not.”22 Carrasco came back and grudgingly told them to select their someone. Elated by this positive turn of events, the hostages gathered around. Pollard quickly reiterated her nomination of Woodman as the messenger because of the continued death threats made against her by Dominguez and Cuevas. With one exception, all the hostages seconded Pollard’s nomination. The lone dissenter was Ron Robinson. He had another idea. As Woodman recalled, he told Pollard, “Let a man go out. He can explain it better than a woman.” According to Linda, Novella was irritated over this possible fly-in-the-ointment, and “had words” with Robinson, telling sharply and in no uncertain terms that “it didn’t take a man to ‘explain it better.’ Anybody can describe the shield. Just—hush up!’”23 Pollard informed Carrasco that Woodman would be the someone to go out. Still, Carrasco had second thoughts. Then, Novella said, “Linda

Hostage Linda Woodman makes a mad dash to freedom after she was released by Carrasco so she could explain his exit plans to the authorities. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 270

“IF HE’D ONLY SEND OUT LINDA WOODMAN.”

started again on him. She said, ‘I know I can do it. I can explain to them why you need nine people left outside.’”24 At that point, Dominguez uttered what Woodman said was the longest “speech” she ever hear him make during the entire siege. “Miss Woodman,” he asked almost plaintively, “if we send you, will you help us?”25 Her answer was brief and to the point. “I’ll help us all if I can.” Dominguez then mumbled something in Spanish to Carrasco and, according to Pollard, “Fred said to Linda, ‘Hit the road’ or something like that. And she hit it.”26 First though, Carrasco had Woodman call the warden’s office to speak with Montemayor. The lawyer was sitting there with Estelle, the Ranger captains, and Bob Wiatt. As they pondered the possibility that Carrasco might free one of the hostages, the director remembered “distinctly saying, ‘If he’d only send out Linda Woodman.’ And no more had the words come out of my mouth, but what the phone rang again.”27 It was an excited Linda Woodman asking the lawyer, “Could you delay your departure just a little bit and let me come over to talk?”28 Stunned, all he could say was, “Ok”—even without clearing it with Estelle. Facing the prospect of freedom, even though temporary, Woodman had some inner reservations. “I really don’t know exactly how I felt,” she said. “I can’t say I felt relieved or ‘lucky me, I’m getting out.’ I actually felt that he was sending me out as a messenger and I was to come back and relay the answer to them. I left my purse, everything. I just went out—as is. I don’t think I felt anything at that moment. Later, I may have felt fortunate but then I felt guilty, terribly guilty, that I was not there, doing my part.”29 Once again, vanity almost brought down the pillars. In what she called a “dumb” move, she told Carrasco, “I have to run into the bathroom and change my shoes.” While the puzzled Carrasco pondered the meaning of this unexpected delay, Woodman ran into the bathroom and changed into her rubber-soled shoes she had left there. When she came back out, she rushed to the barricade and climbed up on it to get to the doorway. Immediately, Carrasco stopped her. “Miss Woodman…,” he asked ominously. 271

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At that moment she thought, “he’s got me this far, now he’s just pulling my leg. He’s not going to let me go.” She turned around and apprehensively asked “What?” He said, “We’ll open the door for you.” It was chained and padlocked. She said, “Oh no. That’s all right. I’ll just jump” through the opening. Still dubious, she turned to Dominguez and asked, “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?” Reverting to form, he merely grunted, “No.” 30 Linda Woodman flew down the ramp leading from the Huntsville prison library to the sanctity of Warden Husbands’ office. “Hoping I don’t get shot as I go,” she got to the bottom, turned left, and sped over to the prison’s administration area. Waiting for her was a cheering throng of prison employees. “It was,” she said, “probably the most humbling experience I’ve ever had in my life. To see all of these men who have been working on this day and night and they’re all cheering. They’re all just cheering.” She “just couldn’t believe it.” She started to cry. And then her vanity caught up with her. “I had not,” she said with a huge chuckle, “had a chance to wash my hair in this whole time I’d been there and they’re hugging me and I’m thinking how tacky I look and ‘Oh, my hair isn’t clean.’ And they’re looking at me like, ‘you idiot woman!’”31 Among those greeting her were Estelle and Husbands who told her, “We have to get you over to the hospital and get you checked out.”32 She said, “No.” She just wanted a Coke and a cigarette “and I’m ready to go. I got too much to talk about.” They hustled her up to a second-floor office where a gaggle of interrogators waited. The questions came fast from Estelle, Husbands, TDC Assistant Directors Jack Kyle and Don Kirkpatrick, FBI agent Bob Wiatt, and Ranger Captain Rogers. She recalled “the first thing that went wrong was Kirkpatrick. He started asking me a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo.” She laughed “at the ridiculousness of it all.”33 Estelle suggested those questions could come later because “we had other things to talk about.” Those things were the shield, how it was made, who was going to be in it, and other details 272

“IF HE’D ONLY SEND OUT LINDA WOODMAN.”

of the escape plan. The more she talked, the more she explained, the more they understood. She said construction of the Trojan Taco was pretty much finished that afternoon. Carrasco decided to have a dress rehearsal. In the first go-round, he placed six hostages plus himself and his two companions inside the shield. There was no room inside the box for anybody to move and that plan was quickly abandoned. The next dry run went back to the original script with three convicts and four hostages in the box. Father O’Brien was stationed at the rear end facing outward. His role was to act as a “brakeman” as the contraption went down the inclined ramp, to keep it from rolling out of control. Each of the three inmates stood behind a female hostage, all six of them facing the front of the shield, away from the padre. Cuevas would be at the very front with Novella Pollard. Carrasco would be in the middle with Von Beseda. And then came Dominguez with Judy Standley. That would be the final configuration, Woodman reported. “I had the feeling,” she said later, “that most of us were going to live. We were probably going to be injured. I knew that there was going to be shooting outside but I thought before the officers get them, the bad guys were going to get us. It was just the odds of three men desperate with guns, you know, and someone’s bound to get hurt.”34 Woodman was asked if she thought Carrasco would leave the building without the other hostages if he had the vests? Her answer was a firm no. “I don’t believe he’ll leave that building without the hostages with him. We tried to tell him this morning, y’all would have absolutely no assurance that he wouldn’t kill hostages up there. And that’s why you are insisting on the release of the nine. And also the fact that if y’all thought that we were just going to be surrounding him as a shield, that it would be too easy to kill us and that’s why you had to be told about this thing he’s made.” She said Carrasco was not afraid of sniper fire because “no one’s going to shoot with the television cameras on and the women falling dead or something like that.” To better identify potential targets, the officers wanted to know how the hostages might be dressed when they came out. She told them the hostage-takers would be in free-world suits, the inmate hostages would be wearing their 273

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whites, and civilians in street clothes. She also said, “They have two bombs taped to each side the shield. They’re gadgets, kind of. Things taped together with little fuses.” She was uncertain if they were real or just more fakes. Wiatt asked if she thought Carrasco would “go out like a man, fighting (and) shoot the four hostages and himself because this, to him, is like dying like a man?” Linda said grimly, “I think it’s almost like ending his story.” As to where Carrasco was going, she said “I have no idea. But Cuevas is going to Cuba, some time or other. That’s all he talks about—going to Cuba. And our message from all of the hostages is we’re so hopeful that y’all can go along with Carrasco’s deal. And if not, think up something real brainy and get it over with.” Husbands pushed further. “Linda, let me ask you a question. Is every one of the people there as confident as you are about that Taco plan?” Linda said yes. “You all,” he asked, “have discussed it and really rolled it around?” Firmly she answered, “This is the only way we can figure it’ll work because he won’t leave this place without hostages.”35 The debriefing went extremely well, according to Husbands. “She was so good,” he said. “All we had to do was to take it down or let her talk into one of those little (recording) machines. She knew what we needed and wanted.” When the several hours of questioning ended, Woodman said, “Well, I have to go back over there.”36 Stunned, Husbands said, “Not on your life are you going back over there.” And she naively said, “Well, I ought to call them and let them know because they’re going to be—like ‘waiting up for me.’”37 She was not allowed to return. Via an elaborate subterfuge designed to keep the media away, she was transported in an un-marked car to her home in Conroe. Her first objective when she got there was to have her hair washed. After the interrogation, Husbands said, “We had a staff meeting. The alternatives that we had were discussed, with everyone leaving at 10:00 p.m. The objective was to get a good night’s sleep and then come up with some idea of a proper way to conclude this episode.”38 Bob 274

“IF HE’D ONLY SEND OUT LINDA WOODMAN.”

Wiatt and Jack Kyle adjourned to Estelle’s house and questioned each other, “They’re coming out in this thing. What are we going to do?” After “a drink or so,” Wiatt thought back to when the FBI was “involved in riot training and I was a certified instructor. In case of any disturbances, fire hoses were part of our equipment at that time. So that’s when I thought, you know, they’re coming down the ramp. They’re going to be on an incline. So, let’s hit them with a couple of high-pressure hoses from the Huntsville Fire Department.” The 250psi-water, which Husbands later said “would peel the bark off a tree,” would knock the shield over. In the ensuing shock, Wiatt explained, “We could jump in and physically subdue them.” Kyle concurred and offered additional strategies. Wiatt, Kyle, and Estelle decided to “hit them with the hoses.”39 Then they went off to get, hopefully, a good night’s sleep.

275

Chapter Twenty-four August 3, 1974 • Day Eleven

“I’ll see y’all soon.” —Judy Standley, hostage

Of the original fifteen civilian and inmate hostages, twelve remained on Saturday, the third day of August. After Glennon Johnson’s departure following a medical emergency, Father Joseph O’Brien had become the only true volunteer hostage. Inmate hostage Henry Escamilla had broken through the glass doors on the sixth day of the siege and Aline House was next to leave, after her heart attack hoax. Linda Woodman was now safe in her Conroe home. Still held by Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominguez were Von Beseda, Jack Branch, Bert Davis, Ann Fleming, Novella Pollard, Ron Robinson, Judy Standley, prison guard Bobby Heard, Father O’Brien, and inmate hostages Martin Quiroz, Steve Robertson and Florencio Vera. Before this brutal day would end for the twelve hostages and three killers, their numbers would be cut down radically. In the library, all the civilians slept rather fitfully, drained by their physical and mental exhaustion, and when they were roused shortly after sunrise they had a breakfast of eggs, ham, toast, coffee, and 276

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juice. Carrasco slept late as usual. Attorney Ruben Montemayor was in San Antonio and not expected to return until mid-afternoon, and contact between the library and the warden’s office would not resume until then. So, it was not until noon that the activity began that day. Carrasco was immediately incensed when he read newspaper accounts of Woodman’s release and her statement that Ron Robinson had not been shot, a fact the drug lord knew TDC already had to have known following House’s and Escamilla’s departure from the library. The hostages were ordered to start clearing obstacles from in front of the library’s doorway so the “Trojan Taco,” would make it through. The day’s activities for the law enforcement officers had begun about five hours before. The “good night’s sleep” ordered by Warden Husbands did not come for Director Estelle, Assistant Directors Jack Kyle and Red McKaskle, Ranger Captains Pete Rogers and G. W. Burks, FBI agent Bob Wiatt, nor the warden himself. They were apprehensive and anxious, feeling the crisis was nearing an end. Even before daybreak they had begun playing “what if.” They knew Carrasco and the hostages

Carrasco’s note saying that the hostages accompanying him would be “treated with all due respect and will be released and unharmed….” (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University) 277

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were coming out, that those three and four of their captives would be in the shield. The other eight hostages would be tied to its perimeter. They knew they could not allow Carrasco entry into the armored truck. “What if” they put explosives or tracking devices in the truck? “What if” they watered down the gasoline? But, “what if” Carrasco sent someone down to inspect the vehicle? “So,” said Estelle, “it’s going to be full of gas, have a good battery, doors all open. But, he ain’t going nowhere.”1 According to Wiatt, they did not want “a moving hostage situation. It’s really worse than having a stationary one,” he said. “You don’t know where the guy’s going, are there other people involved, other venues involved, what are the unexpected circumstances? You don’t want a moving hostage deal.”2 And finally, they knew two other things for sure. One, law enforcement would not initiate any gunfire. Two, Carrasco and his companions were not going to get out of The Walls. There was no “what if” about that. Those in the Think Tank decided that the Wiatt-Kyle fire hose plan had the best possibilities. According to Husbands, “This was agreed on as being the safest and most logical tactic possible, and it was felt that it was our best chance to save all the hostages.”3 Linda Woodman, still wanting to visit her hairdresser, was instead helicoptered back to Huntsville and her interrogation by Wiatt, Husbands, and Rogers resumed. She told them about a possible alternative plan Carrasco had discussed. If they did not use the shield to exit the library, Carrasco planned to hold one female hostage next to himself, surround and shield the two of them with three other hostages and walk as a group down the ramp and into the armored car. Cuevas and then Dominguez would then do likewise. That plan would, of course, negate the high-pressure hose action. When Husbands asked her which plan the hostages would prefer, she answered firmly, “I don’t think they care. I really don’t. The important thing to the hostages is, get out of that building. They just want this over.”4 Throughout the Walls Unit, the nineteen-hundred-plus inmates and one hundred or so TDC staff members grew weary and resentful of the siege. According to Correctional Officer James Willett, “We were all tired 278

“I’LL SEE Y’ALL SOON.”

of this crap and ready to get it over with. We were sick of waiting. Sick of serving inmates their meals in the housing quarters. Sick of having to eat our meals in sultry heat. Sick of twelve-hour shifts. Tired of the heat. Tired of no days off.” For Willett and most of the rest of those standing by, the feeling was, “You name it, we were sick of it.” And because they were “out of the loop,” some were buying into Carrasco’s sympathy ploy. They were “griping because Mr. Estelle and Warden Husbands were letting this thing drag on and on and doing nothing to get it over with.”5 At one o’clock, Carrasco allowed his captives to make their final telephone calls to their family as they waited for Montemayor to return and for the armored truck to show up. Ann Fleming talked with her husband and confirmed that “four o’clock is the strategic time, when the lawyer gets back in town.” She and her husband talked about Woodman’s freedom and Ann’s just-arrived first TDC paycheck—$1,149 gross and $894 net. With a laugh, she told Herman, “I just hope my insurance is paid up.” With a number of “love you’s” and “bye-bye’s,” their last call from the library ended. Von Beseda told her husband, Buster, that she was “going on vacation.” She could not say how long she would be gone nor where she was going but, through her intermittent tears, she expected to “back in a couple of days.” Of the siege, he said, “It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren about.” She was more worried about getting the window of the armored car open when she was driving—as it was expected she would—so she could signal for a left turn. Her son, Robert, told her “We’re with you, and praying, and we’ll see you soon.” Judy Standley talked to her daughter, Dru, and told her “we’re so glad to be getting out of this place” and she hoped she “might be home by midnight Sunday.” Judy joked about running the armored car through the take-out window at a drive-thru restaurant. When asked what she would be wearing so the family could identify her if they saw the departure on TV, she cheerily said, “I’ll be the slick chick with the 279

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curly hair.” Reverend Carroll Pickett came to the phone and told her, “My Boss said He’s going to take care of you.” Judy told them, “I’ll see y’all soon.” Novella Pollard told her daughter Kathy that Carrasco said she would be getting back “within twenty-four hours.” And she joked she would get back someway, “even if we have to hitch-hike.” That brought a giggle from Kathy, who said, “Can you see three little old ladies out there hitch-hiking?” Novella interjected, “With Father O’Brien!”6 These conversations were typical of those made by the hostages as they waited restlessly. As Aline House recorded, “Nearly all of the hostages had either sent out written or oral messages concerning wills, burial instructions, etc., for there had always been the feeling that possibly no one would survive the ordeal.”7 Even the usually upbeat

Carrasco’s note to Montemayor listing the amounts of money he “borrowed” from the hostages. (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University) 280

“I’LL SEE Y’ALL SOON.”

O’Brien admitted, “I knew it was going to be a shootout,” Father O’Brien said. “I knew we were not going to get to the truck. By this time, I was resigned. To me, it was over. I was dead.”8 As the siege neared its climax and Estelle’s team reaffirmed the probability of a shoot-out, Montemayor, who had returned early from San Antonio, dictated a letter to TDC stating, “I will continue to serve you and my client as negotiator and negotiator only. I bow out of any decision making an assault and any questions concerning any decisions affecting the fate of these people.”9 Negotiations between Estelle and Carrasco resumed. The director was still trying to get some of the hostages released before making the armored truck available. Carrasco countered by again threatening that “the bomb is set for the rest of the people.” He continued, “No negotiations until I see the truck.”10 Hopeful, Carrasco sent another note to the warden’s office, this time listing the placement of the hostages inside and outside the Trojan Taco. He said Beseda, Pollard, Standley, and O’Brien would be inside and the remaining eight would be on the outside. Figuring a maximum of eighteen inches of space for each couple and O’Brien, there was not a lot of room for maneuverability within the six-foot long shield. At 3:30 p.m. Estelle, with his team’s agreement, finally conceded that further negotiations were pointless and he sent the following message to Carrasco, “Plan was explained by Mrs. Woodman and we are reasonably certain of return of the eight hostages. Go ahead with your plans to move to the truck with your shield and all the hostages. No variations to this procedure should be made by either party.”11 At that point, cheers rang out in the library. The hostages screamed, “We won! We won!”12 Carrasco joined in the celebration. They had won. They were getting out. Even “the guns” were laughing with joy. Montemayor told Carrasco he had “won the Cold War—psychological warfare.”13 Martin Quiroz, in his broken English said, “Everybody hug each other, said goodbye to hostages that were (going) with him. We all felt nice, you know.”14 At 6:20 p.m., Carrasco sent out another note, this time to the hostages’ families who had reassembled in the TDC administration building. The 281

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note turned out to be frightfully and horribly wrong. Still professing his atheism, he wrote, “I swear that the hostages that will accompany me on this unfortunate trip will be treated with all due respect and will be released and unharmed.”15 At 6:00 p.m. the Purolator armored truck had been driven, hidden inside a semi-trailer, right past the media’s noses through the Wall’s East Gate where it was off-loaded. Ninety minutes later, it was driven into the Upper Yard. Huntsville Police Chief Gail Burch—who had been consulted and agreed with the high-pressure hose concept—was contacted and the pre-arranged code, “flower shop,” was broadcast over all emergency frequencies indicating final action was starting.16 National Guard bomb squad officers and helicopters with brilliantly illuminating search lights were put on standby. Brigades of city and county police officers were dispatched to encircle the prison. Huntsville Fire Department chief Jack King was phoned. Hours earlier, city firemen had begun laying twothousand feet of high-pressure hose from a pumper in the street, over the prison’s west wall (behind the library), through the building’s secondfloor dining room, and to a doorway that opened onto the ramp. The Huntsville Memorial Hospital’s emergency plans were stepped-up even higher. TDC’s public information officer Ron Taylor, reinforcing a news blackout, hurriedly told media members to turn off all their locally-bought walkie-talkies.17 He neglected to tell them theirs were on the same frequency as Carrasco’s. A thirteen-man assault team was assembled under Ranger captain Rogers’ command. Along with Rogers, Burks and Wiatt, they surreptitiously made their way through a rear door of the second-floor dining room under the library and then to the front entrance to wait as an interception unit. Another dozen officers snaked their way to the foot of the ramp and behind it to wait unseen for the shield to come down and, if necessary, prevent its occupants from getting into the armored truck. Six more TDC officers were also sent into the dining hall where they, not city firemen, manned the high-pressure hoses.18 For those assigned to the dining hall, they soon felt the repercussions of a decision made by Warden Husbands ten days earlier. 282

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At Carrasco’s demand he had shut the hall down, in the middle of a meal service and all the food had been left right where it sat. That food remained there for ten days in the unrelenting Texas heat. The officers in the dining hall were now standing in complete silence in the middle of that stench. Fearful of making any sound that would tip off Carrasco, they had to stand almost statue-still. They could not smoke. They could not talk above a whisper. They could hardly breathe. Wiatt said, “It was well over one-hundred degrees, and combined with the stink, it made the room unbearable.”19 Two officers passed out. Rogers, Burks, and Wiatt and all the other officers stood in that reeking garbage pit for three hours. Just before the hostages and their captors got ready to exit the library, Carrasco “passed the hat.” It was not voluntary. He told the civilian hostages he wanted whatever money they had on them, including their coins for phone calls. In the case of Aline House, the collection plate yielded a bonanza. When House had left the library claiming a heart attack, she had not thought to take her purse. In it was approximately fifteen-hundred dollars, which she had just withdrawn from her bank account, and which she planned to use on vacation starting Saturday, July 27, 1974. Carrasco dictated a letter to Montemayor saying he had “found it absolutely necessary to recover the money some of these hostages have in their belongings. The names of the hostages and the amount of money confiscated will be listed below.”20 Everyone’s name, along with the amount taken, was listed—ranging from House’s fifteenhundred dollars to Father O’Brien’s five. The total was $2,085. Carrasco instructed his lawyer to reimburse the donors with monies coming from profits of Carrasco autobiography, which Montemayor had said would have his client “set for life.”21 Carrasco then, with Estelle’s permission, sent Quiroz down the ramp to inspect the armored truck. Using walkie-talkies and speaking in Spanish, Carrasco told the inmate to “watch for anything that was new or that seemed like somebody had been working on some part, been scratching on it or something like that.” He was told to look for wires attached to bombs, to climb under the vehicle and into its open back 283

Carrasco’s note to Estelle outlining the order in which the hostages would be placed inside and outside the “Trojan Taco.” (Courtesy Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University)

doors. Carrasco told him “to test the air conditions and to smell if no gas was coming out and if they were working good.”22 Wiatt said “Carrasco’s biggest concern was that we would have some kind of debilitating gas or something that could be activated and put them all out. We didn’t have anything in there because we knew we weren’t going to let them get into the truck.”23 Quiroz checked the radios, the tires, the telephone. He was told to test drive it around the yard and then drive it to the foot of the ramp and leave it there with the motor running. Estelle and Husbands were now concerned that Quiroz would drive behind the library building and see the dynamite planted there more than a week before. If Carrasco knew about that, he just might call off the operation. But the driver did 284

“I’LL SEE Y’ALL SOON.”

Inmate hostage Martin Quiroz, walkie-talkie in hand, inspects a Purolator truck in which Carrasco, et al, expected to make their getaway while holding four civilian hostages. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

not go in that direction. When he came back to the library, he said Carrasco handed him a “bomb” that he gingerly carried down to the truck. He also “took some clothes down there too, hostages’ clothes, the ones they were taking with them, in bags.”24 At about nine o’clock, with summer darkness finally descending, preparations for leaving the library began. Father O’Brien led the hostages in a final prayer. As joyful as the hostages were about leaving the library, they were nervous, knowing they were a long way from freedom. Pollard and the Father smoked cigarettes and Pollard secreted her lighter in her jacket pocket so she could burn any rope if they were tied inside the shield. O’Brien had three razor blades stashed away. She whispered to the priest, “Are we to do anything?” He told her, “Let’s play it straight” for now.25 They had talked about toppling the shield themselves and rolling free when it tipped over. That plan was abandoned when they were handcuffed as they got in. 285

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As they were getting ready to leave, Carrasco asked the priest how he thought he would be remembered. O’Brien answered, “You’ll die— hiding behind the skirts of women and the robes of a priest.”26 The killer shrugged, again rationalizing it would be the State that did any killing because it denied him his freedom. He then, according to Novella Pollard, turned to Dominguez and Cuevas and told them to shoot the hostages “if any problems started.”27 Husbands also heard that comment via the spike mike. They had found a volleyball net in the library, twisted it into a rope, and wrapped it around the outside of the shield just above waist-high. The ever-helpful Quiroz assisted Cuevas in handcuffing the other seven hostages to the net, anchoring himself last. Carrasco, Dominguez, and Cuevas with their human shields—Beseda, O’Brien, Pollard, and Standley—then entered the Trojan Taco. The priest went in first facing to the rear and was handcuffed to the cart. Each of hostage-takers— wearing his own bulky thirty-pound steel helmet—held a female hostage in front of him with his left arm looped over the woman’s left shoulder and his left wrist handcuffed to her right wrist. Cuevas handed Pollard a flashlight that she “never did figure out what I was supposed to do with.” The two of them entered next and went to the front of the cart. Just before she got in the shield, Quiroz “came and told me ‘there is no bomb on that cart whatsoever, don’t you worry about it.’”28 As it turned out, her short captor was not tall enough maintain his hold on the taller Pollard. She said, “I moved further and further away from him.”29 Carrasco with Beseda was next, and Standley with Dominguez was last. Carrasco had handed his wristwatch to an inmate hostage as a keepsake. Cuevas told Pollard he had some of his primitive art work being held by friends in Houston and he asked her to see that it was auctioned off. Then Carrasco, Cuevas, and Dominguez pressed the pistols in their right hand against each woman’s body. At 9:27p.m., with Heard and Quiroz leading the way on the outside, the fifteen people— seven inside the shield in total blackness, and eight cuffed to its outside—left the library and started down the ramp.

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Chapter Twenty-five “It’s over.” —TDC Public Affairs Director, Ron Taylor

Other than the horrible, deafening screech of the cart’s overburdened plastic wheels, everything went well through the first three right-angle turns, except for some confusion when Quiroz gave steering directions in Spanish. There was a lot of shuffling and jostling inside the box and Dominguez’ oversized helmet almost knocked Judy Standley out as it bobbled back and forth. No one had much of anything to say. Those on the outside, especially the women, were fearful of being crushed between the concrete ramp’s side walls and the quarter-ton contraption as it rattled clumsily through the turns. “We all had to move together and take it slow and easy and we got hung up a couple of times,” Heard reported.1 The buggy, as the guard called it, got hung up again as it negotiated the last turn of the four-turn ramp. At 9:35 p.m., waiting back at the third turn inside the second-floor dining room’s south door was Rogers’ attack team. Inside the north door was the high-pressure hose team. The plan was for the officers to rush the shield and with the help of the three high287

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Eight hostages on the outside of the “buggy” maneuver it down the ramp while Carrasco, his two henchmen and four civilian hostages are inside. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

pressure hoses, topple it. In the resulting melee, they would disarm the desperados and save the hostages. Estelle took up a position on a small balcony on the third floor of the Walls’ Administration Building overlooking the Upper Yard, from where he could look right at the ramp. He was, he said, “in walkie-talkie contact with Rogers. But,” he continued, “Pete being Pete, once the fire-fight started, he laid that damn radio down. He wanted two hands. So, I was out of contact. I could hear and see—but I couldn’t directly influence anything.”2 As the captives struggled to shove the box off its hang-up, Jack Branch looked toward the doors where he saw the officers, wearing olive green-colored, camouflage ceramic body armor, and combat helmets. “I said ‘boy, we are saved now.’ I never was glad to see somebody in my life.”3 Ranger Captains Rogers and Burks, FBI agent Wiatt, and Winston Padgett, a Department of Public Safety intelligence agent, burst through the dining hall door only inches away from the shield and yelled, “Drop your guns! Hold it right there!” 4 288

“IT’S OVER.”

Fire hoses under 250-psi hit the “Taco” in an attempt to knock it over and save the hostages. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

The order was given to, “Hit it with the hoses!” Three 250-psi gushers slammed a torrent of water into the Trojan Taco. The noise was deafening, and the water poured down the ramp. The officers yelled at the outside hostages, “Get down!”5 As soon as the first water blast hit the shield, Pollard said she heard “a lot of cursing from the men outside, language that I had never heard before” and she thought “we were on fire and TDC was putting it out.” O’Brien thought he heard “firecrackers” inside the box. Pollard heard “some popping noises.” Those noises were four soft-lead, hollow-point bullets, three from Dominguez’s weapon that were pumped into Judy Standley’s back, and one from Carrasco, fired into Von Beseda’s heart. Another bullet blasted through Father O’Brien left arm, splintered the bone, and entered his chest, lodging fragments near his heart. Cuevas then passed out and fell to the ground, dragging Pollard down with him. DPS agent Padgett turned to Rogers and shouted, “It’s gone bad. They’re shooting the hostages.”6 289

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The gunfire brought to mind Carrasco’s earlier words, “to shoot (the hostages) if any problems started.” Was this what “the man of honor” meant when he promised the hostages’ families that their loved-ones would be “treated with all due respect and will be released unharmed”? Unexpectedly, the water pressure dropped by one-third as one of the hoses ruptured. A voice was heard over police radio saying, “Get that pressure up, goddamn it, get some pressure up!”7 Frantic efforts were made to fix the damage but the idea of knocking over the shield with water power was now doubtful. In the lull, another hail of gunfire came from inside the box through the gun ports—this time directed at the officers. Wiatt took two direct hits to the chest that lifted him right off his feet. Only his flak jacket saved his life as he was knocked flat on his back. “I blacked out. I couldn’t move. I was totally paralyzed,” for about five minutes, he said.8 Other shots from the gun ports took Rogers and Burks down but they too were wearing bulletproof vests. Fellow officers dragged the downed men back inside the door where they quickly recovered and rejoined the battle. By now, gunfire was raging both out of and into the boxes’ lawbook armor. Dozens of shots were fired by both sides. The officers could see no one inside the cart and could only direct their fire at the gun ports. TDC Lieutenant Willard N. Stewart, one of Wiatt’s SWAT trainees, and the other officers who had been at the base of the ramp, bolted up its north side and into the library to make sure no gunmen were hiding there. Branch said, “When the water hoses hit the Horse, everybody was yelling, screaming, hollering, and I could hear some shots from the inside. And I could see blood coming out from underneath, from inside.”9 The blood that drained the life out of Von Beseda and Judy Standley was mixing with the water and running pink down the ramp. The outside hostages were in a panic as they tried to drop to the cement and get out of the line of fire. With bullets whizzing in both directions, Stewart came down from the library and saw the hostages’ desperate straits. “Worried because I might get shot,” he still dashed to the shield.10 The officer cut the net-rope holding the hostages and freed them. Some 290

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of them, in panic, started back up the ramp toward the library. Bobby Heard jumped over the wall and “bounced like a rubber ball,” said the warden. He was almost hit by fire from nearby officers. Husbands told them to hold their fire. “And then,” Husbands recalled, the panicked guard “grabbed me by the wrist and I took him up to my office. The next morning, my wrist was black and blue, he had squeezed me so tight.”11 Meanwhile, Quiroz fell on top of Vera and Robinson, and Branch tried to protect Ann Fleming. Robinson and Fleming then ran down the ramp where they too joined the warden and Heard. The firemen outside the prison got the hoses going again and when the blasts hit the box for the second time, Carrasco—true to his suicidal promise—put a bullet in his brain. Padgett later said “the side of his head was blown away.”12 The shooting from inside the box now stopped. Still unable to knock it over with water pressure, Ranger Sergeant Krumnow and several officers found an aluminum ladder in the dining hall and using it as a battering ram, they toppled the shield. The bodies of all seven of its occupants now spilled out onto the concrete. Carrasco was dead. Judy Standley was dead. Von Beseda was mortally wounded. Novella Pollard was conscious and sprawled on top of Cuevas, who was still unconscious. He wore his helmet and his gun was underneath him. Father O’Brien, seriously wounded, had fallen on top of Dominguez. The six-foot-six-inch Padgett and Rogers were the first to reach the pile of bodies. When Pollard waved her arm for help, Rogers mistakenly yelled in Cuevas’s direction, “You son-of-a-bitch, if you move that hand again, you’re dead.” 13 Rogers bent over to help free Pollard. Even though the priest was near death, he felt “Dominguez under me with a gun in my back. I looked up and I saw Bob Wiatt and I also saw Winston Padgett. As they got close, I rolled over and hollered, ‘Shoot! He’s got a gun!’”14 Padgett, now standing astride the two, put a bullet in Dominguez’ head. Then the officer fired a second round. When asked why, he just said, “He moved.”15 When Wiatt saw Dominguez move, he also “cracked one off and got him in the neck.”16 An autopsy report confirmed two bullets to the head and one to the neck.17 As the veteran FBI agent looked around at the scene, “It looked like a slaughterhouse with parts of bone and 291

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TDC personnel carry the seriously wounded Father Joseph O’Brien (center) on a stretcher to the prison hospital. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

flesh splattered all over,” he said.18 “It was something you can never erase from your memory of horrors.” Ranger captain Burks called it “a sickening sight.”19 It was 9:50 p.m. The last shots of the siege had been fired. By this time, helicopters with floodlights hovered overhead brilliantly lighting up the scene. The shield was a drenched tangle of law books, library tape, wood slats, and chalkboards. Warden Husbands ordered it destroyed. “I know I was wrong,” the veteran lawman said, “to get rid of that . . .” but he was fearful it would become a shrine to the killers. “So,” he continued, “the very minute that it was all over with and I knew we had everybody and everythin’ was all under control, I told (assistant warden) Wesley Warner to load that god-damned piñata up and get it outta here and burn it up.”20 Police officers gathered up the would-be escapees’ guns and more than two-hundred live rounds of their ammunition. Ambulances roared 292

Officers start to strip the body of Federico Carrasco (center) in search of hidden weapons. The killer’s partially blown-away head lies at the feet of dead cohort Rudolfo Dominguez. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

Dominguez lies dead on the ramp after being dispatched by Winston Padgett, a Department of Public Safety intelligence agent, and FBI agent Robert E. Wiatt. (Photo courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt) 293

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The drenched, rickety “Trojan Taco” is a crumbling mess before it was taken away and destroyed on Warden Husbands’ orders. (Photos courtesy of Robert E. Wiatt)

through the prison gates and stretcher bearers came in hope of saving the wounded hostages. Prison personnel quickly stripped the bodies of Carrasco and Dominguez, searching for concealed weapons or bombs. The library was screened for booby traps. Father O’Brien, Von Beseda, Judy Standley, and Novella Pollard were rushed across the Upper Yard to the prison hospital. It was too late for Judy and Von, and Novella identified them so the doctors “would know which one was which.”21 294

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When the priest was brought into the prison hospital, the doctor said, “He’ll never make it. Get him to Huntsville Memorial.” Doctors there said, “This guy’s chest looks like a junkyard,” with about thirteen pieces of lead imbedded.22 But he successfully underwent major surgery. Pollard was checked out and released. Quiroz took a flesh wound to the arm and the other seven outside hostages suffered no injuries other than scrapes. The inmate hostages were strip-searched and returned to lockup. It was carnage and, “Frankly,” said Warden Husbands, “I didn’t think we could ever come out of that thing losing just two people. I figured they would have gotten everybody in there.”23 The remaining survivors were all brought to the warden’s office before being released to their joyous families. At 10:07 p.m. TDC information director Ron Taylor told the press corps, “It’s over.” He deferred all questions until 11:00 P.M. when TDC Director Jim Estelle held a press conference and read a statement. “This is one of the meanest days that anyone ever spent in public service,” he said. He went on to tell of the day’s events and their timetable. “No officer,” he said, “fired a shot until after they had been fired upon. Several officers received fire upon their body armor and were driven back.” He said under the circumstances, the results of the shootout were “the very best we could have hoped for considering the people that held our people hostages.” He said: “Mrs. Standley was killed within the shield. “Mrs. Beseda was killed within the shield.” At this point, Estelle’s voice broke momentarily. The director then noted that Father O’Brien was “in fair condition” and said all the other civilian hostages were “all right.” Choking back his anger at senselessness of Von and Judy’s murders, he said simply, “Inmate Carrasco is dead. “Inmate Dominguez is dead. “And inmate Cuevas suffered no injury.” 24 What the director did not say was that one officer, horrified by the bloody sight of the murdered women, wanted to dispatch Cuevas and had to be restrained by a fellow officer from committing murder. A bitter Ron Robinson had even told Warden Husbands to “kill them all!” 25 295

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Estelle reiterated his position throughout the siege, “At no time was there any thought given to the granting of illegal freedom to any captor. This has been eleven days of pure terror for the hostages and their families. Every employee, man, and woman, who worked for the recovery of these hostages extends their most sincere condolences and shares the grief with the families of the lost ones.”26 The haunting echoes of some words live on. “If we got out of this alive, in five years we were going to have a reunion. “ —Yvonne Beseda. “We’re with you and praying and we’ll see you soon.”—Robert Beseda. “I’ll see y’all soon.”—Judy Standley. “I swear that the hostages that will accompany me on this unfortunate trip will be treated with all due respect and will be released and unharmed.…” – Federico Gomez Carrasco. The eleven days of pure terror—the eleven days in Hell—ended for some. For Carrasco, Dominguez, and ultimately Cuevas, it just began to never end.

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Epilogue

On August 3, 1999, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the final day of the siege, the educational complex at the Walls Unit was renamed the Beseda-Standley Building. It had been extensively remodeled, with exits from both the north and south ends, and fire escapes added. Fitting commemorative ceremonies were held along with some tearful reunions by the surviving principals of the tragic siege. With but one exception, all the existing civilian hostages returned to work in the prison system. Librarian Linda Woodman switched careers and became a women’s prison warden in the Texas Department of Corrections system. A TDC prison was named after her in honor of her exemplary work, as was one for Director W. J. Estelle, Jr. None of the four inmate hostages was charged with aiding and abetting, as much as Father O’Brien would have preferred. To do so would have brought the wrath of many of the surviving hostages such as Novella Pollard and TDC did not need that potentially bad publicity. And as Warden Husbands said, “We couldn’t do anything about it because they had the claim that Carrasco made them do it.”1 Pollard, after reiterating her sympathetic views on the inmate hostages’ captivity, also supported TDC officials saying, “I wish the events had never happened but I hold no malice toward any of the officials who made the decisions to prevent Carrasco’s escape.” 2 Father O’Brien said, “It was handled as well as it could be humanly handled.”3 In one of his last conversations with Attorney Ruben Montemayor, Fred Carrasco had said, “I can guarantee you that if I die, I die with honor.”4 Committing suicide by blowing your brains out after ruthlessly

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murdering a defenseless, handcuffed, forty-six-year-old mother and teacher is hardly what one would call dying with honor. The big mystery—how the guns and ammunition got into Fred Carrasco’s hands—was finally solved. An outside trusty, inmate Lawrence James Hall, was lured into the plan by Benito Alonzo, one of Carrasco’s operatives from San Antonio who knew Hall through another inmate. According to Hall’s signed confession, he was first brought into the plot almost casually. Trusty’s were often used to carry contraband into prisons. Hall, a houseboy for TDC Assistant Director Alton Akins, was recruited by Alonzo in the late spring of 1974 to smuggle controlled substances to other inmates. He was paid about five dollars per delivery. Using toy balloons stuffed with marijuana and other drugs, he hid them in his shoes, and walked blithely past the familiar prison guards who casually patted him down as he came and went.5 Having run those “errands” for Carrasco’s operatives, he was then set up for bigger deliveries. Alonzo told him to smuggle pistols and ammunition to a Carrasco confederate inside prison. Hall balked at such a risky operation but Alonzo threatened to disclose his previous deliveries. Hall could do as told and get paid two-thousand dollars, or refuse. His past activities would be revealed and he would be put in isolation. Worst of all, he would lose his trusty job. According to Warden Husbands, when Hall refused to go along, he was told “we’ll kill your people in San Antonio.” That too will get your attention and compliance. Carrasco’s reputation as a mass killer preceded him even behind prison bars, Warden Husbands said.6 The boldness and daring of the smuggling operation was masterful. Using various ruses, Alonzo would telephone the Akins’ home to find out when the inmate would be alone there. On those occasions, Alonzo brazenly drove right up into the Akins’ driveway and delivered the goods to Hall. On his last drop-off, he left Hall with a box containing two .357 magnum pistols, one .38 revolver and a couple of hundred rounds of suitable ammunition. Getting that cache into the prison was a devilishly creative maneuver. 298

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Houseboys, as part of their official chores, often brought food from the prison commissary to TDC officials’ home. With only the briefest explanations to the familiar guards at the gates, they would often be waived in with hardly any questions asked and minimal pat-downs. On one trip to the Akins’ home, Hall brought—not unusually—a onegallon tin of peaches in syrup. When there alone, Hall carefully slid the label off the can and cut it in half with a hacksaw. He drained the peaches and syrup, washed out and dried the two halves of the can and stuffed the ammunition (already wrapped in tinfoil and in a plastic bag) into the can, filling the excess space with newspaper. He fitted the two halves back together, wrapped them with freezer tape, and slid the label back on, covering the repair job. He then took the package back to the gate and when the guard asked him about the peaches, he said the Akins had been sent something they did not want. “While the guard was shaking me down,” Hall confessed, “I held my hands up in the air with the can of peaches in one. The guard then told me to come on in.”7 And he delivered the can to another inmate inside the Walls. Getting the guns in was even more brazen. Hall brought a five-pound packaged ham from the commissary to the Akins’ home. The streetsmart con slit the roast almost in two, placed the .38 pistol in the middle and pressed the top half back on the gun, leaving an indentation. He cut the meat out of the ham in the depression shape, and put the gun in the scooped-out area. He closed the ham tightly and wrapped it with butcher paper. He let the meat sit out in the summer heat until it went bad. He then rewrapped the ham and went to the East Gate where, Hall wrote, “I laid the ham down on the bench and ‘the boss’ shook me down. He didn’t say anything about the ham because I had written on the paper that was wrapped around the ham, ‘ham roast, 5 lbs.’ I told ‘the boss’ the ham was no good and ‘the boss’ told me, ‘Aw hell, we probably all got it for lunch.’ And then I came through.”8 Hall next had to bring in the two .357s. He placed them together— butt to barrel—to make a square and wrapped them in butcher paper. They looked like a standard piece of wrapped meat. He put that package on the bottom of a pasteboard box and, Hall confessed, “I put two or three other packages of meat on top of that. I had taken this meat out of 299

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the deep-freezer the day before and put it in a little box out in the back yard (of the Akins) home so it would smell. I then took the box with the meat in it to the East Gate and I walked in and set the box on the ground and ‘the boss’ searched me and he asked me if I had more bad meat and I said ‘Yes sir….’ The officer at the gate smelled the meat and said, ‘it sure does stink.’ The guard even fingered one of the packages of meat, noting it was soft.”9 In prison jargon, it has been said, when an inmate breaks the rules, an officer likely is not doing his job. During the early stages of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s post-siege investigation into how the weapons got into the prison, the jittery Hall stole Akins’ car but was arrested shortly thereafter in San Antonio. Faced with confessions from Alonzo’s arrest, the inmate also confessed. Already serving a life sentence as a six-time loser, Hall was sentenced again in 1984 to life for his role in the murders of 1974. He died in prison on April 6, 1993 at the age of fifty-seven. At 12:18 on the morning of Thursday, May 23, 1991—seventeen years and three trials after the murders of Von Beseda and Judy Standley— Ignacio Cuevas was put to death by lethal injection at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Jack Pursley, in whose metal shop the bulletproof helmets were fabricated for Carrasco and his companions, officiated now as Warden. In all three trials, which cost the state of Texas a halfmillion dollars, Cuevas was convicted of Capital Murder but the first two verdicts were thrown out due to problems with jury selection procedures.10 “I’ve got a lot of scars about it” said the now retired Jim Estelle. “Seventeen years is too long for justice to be done.”11 Carrasco’s takeover happened because of failures in executing procedures that were designed to prevent just such a thing. As Warden Husbands said, “There’s so many different ways that (the guns and ammunition) could come in. There’s so many trucks and trailers. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that a man couldn’t get some stuff in there. The guards are supposed to check every truck, they’re supposed to get down under them and check underneath, and all that kind of stuff. But they don’t do it. You can’t make them do it. They just won’t 300

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do it.”12 The procedures failed because prison guards became lax, shakedowns became routine, and they did not always strip-search familiarfaced trustees coming through the gates. When asked why the system failed in Carrasco’s case, Husbands also cited “the fear that he had among the Mexicans. It was only Mexicans that knew anything about (the siege, or) we’d have probably known about it. But, he had such power over the Mexicans that it couldn’t come out.” There were still other problems in the prison’s administration. The warden said, “I had a few officers over the years that were bad—just like everybody else did. I’ve had a few of them that would bring some dope in, and I even had one that sold a pistol one time.”13 Another reason for failure was easy access of internal information. Carrasco might have known of the touring grand jury. He supposedly knew when TDC leadership such as Estelle, McKaskle, Murdock, and O’Brien would be off scene. Tempting information like that should have been more restricted. Prison communication is most important when it comes from the opposite direction—from the inmates to the administration. As prison officials have told this writer, what inmates want most is for somebody to listen to them; the listeners do not have to act on what they hear, they just have to listen. Post-siege, a walk-through metal detector was installed at the main entrance to the Walls Unit. It was “window dressing” and later removed. Also, an effective non-inmate sign-in procedure was instituted so authorities would always know what civilian non-employees were inside the prison—which they did not know on July 24, 1974. Stripsearches of trustees were immediately mandated. Prior to the takeover, said currently retired Warden James Willett and then a Correctional Officer, “an attitude prevailed such as, ‘Hey, this guy works for Captain So-and-so. He’s been in and out of here for twenty years. He’s been an outside trusty for ten. We shook him down twice a day and he’s never had nothing on him and today, I just don’t feel like shaking him down again.’ In other words, things get loose—as they always do in any kind of a rote workplace.” TDC also instituted a system of having at least a sergeant at all gates where workout parties exited and entered during busy periods.14 301

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“The most important positive post-siege development,” Estelle said, “was that we proved the efficacy of inter-departmental cooperation. During the siege, we had local, state, and federal agencies all working together seeking a common goal, the safety of the hostages. Prior to Carrasco, we never had that in Texas.”15 Basically speaking, however, few substantial changes in procedures were made as a result of the hostage takeover. The failures that led to Carrasco’s actions were failures in implementation of established procedures and not the procedures themselves. In a Master’s Thesis presented to Sam Houston State University in 1976, author David R. Flores wrote about the shootout in San Antonio on July 18, 1973 that landed Federico Gomez Carrasco in the Walls Unit at Huntsville. Mr. Flores vividly described that capture by the San Antonio police officers who later voiced the opinion that “we should have killed Carrasco when we had the chance.”16 Many of those with whom this writer has subsequently talked in researching this book, along with this writer, sincerely wish they had.

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Notes

Chapter One 1. Texas Rangers, “Report on Attempted Escape, Huntsville, Texas, July 24-August 3, 1974. Houston, 1974. 2. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 1. 3. Ibid. 4. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 5. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives & Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 56. 6. Ibid. 7. Huntsville Item, May 29, 1983, 1. 8. Houston Post, “Carrasco threatens hostages with bomb; demands 3 vests,” July 31, 1974, 1. 9. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 20. 10. Houston Chronicle, “‘Won’t Give in To Carrasco’ Says Prison official,” July 25, 1974, 1. 11. Ibid. 12. House, Carrasco, 1. 13. Carrasco tapes, 57. 14. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 15. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 16. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 17. Ibid. 18 Austin American-Statesman, August 6, 1974. 19. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 12, 2000. 20. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001.

303

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

Chapter Two 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives & Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 3. 2. Ibid, 75. 3. Ibid, 53. 4. Temple Daily Telegram, July 7, 1974. 5. Robert E. Wiatt, presentation (FBI Seminar, Victoria, TX, October 8, 1974). 6. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 7. Ibid. 8. Steve Roach, interview with author, January 16, 2001. 9. Wayne Scott, interview with author, November 14, 2000. 10. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 11. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 12. Ben Proctor, Just One Riot (Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991), 107. 13. Daniel V. McKaskle, interview with author, April 18, 2002. 14. James Willet, interview with author, August, 2003. 15. Ibid. 16. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 17. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2001. 18. Carrasco tapes, 24. 19. Bruce Thaler, interview with author, December 15, 2000. 20. McKaskle, interview, April 18, 2002. 21. Wilson McKinney, Fred Carrasco: The Heroin Merchant (Austin: Heidelberg Publishers, Inc., 1975), 1. 22. Tommy Miller, “Carrasco’s Conflict With the Law Began 15 Years Ago With a Fight,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974, 4. 23. Proctor, Just One Riot, 106. 24. Marylyn Schwartz, Dallas Morning News, August 7, 1974, 8A.

Chapter Three 1. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 2. Charlene Warnken, “Prison chaplain, former Houstonian, ‘Keeps Cool,’” Houston Post, July 26, 1974. 3. Bob Chiles, “ Dedication leads chaplain to volunteer as hostage,” Dallas Times Herald, n.d. 4. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid.

304

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

7. Bruce Thaler, interview with author, December 15, 2000. 8. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 9. Tom McGowan, “Some Would Never Survive,” San Antonio Light, September 4, 1974, 1. 10. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 1. 14. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 15. Ibid. 16. Husbands, “Escape” , 1. 17. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 18. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 1. 19. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 20. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113 audio 57. 21. Ibid. 22. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 1. 23. Carrasco tapes, 75. 24. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 25. Huntsville Item, “City confident,” July 24, 1974, 1. 26. Ibid. 27. George Lewis, interview with author, June 23, 2002.

Chapter Four 1. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 1. 2. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 3. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 11. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 1. 12. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001.

305

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

13. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 14. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 15. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 16. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 17. Ibid. 18. Robert Mitchell, interview with author, January 15, 2001. 19. Steve Roach, interview with author, January 16, 2001. 20. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 21. Ibid. 22. Carrasco tape, 61. 23. San Antonio Express, “Carrasco Vows Escape Today,” July 27, 1974, 3. 24. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 34. 25. Ibid, 79. 26. Ibid, 70. 27. Ibid, 65. 28. Ibid, 79. 29. Ibid, 61. 30. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000.

Chapter Five 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 60. 2. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 3. 3. Carrasco tapes, 79. 4. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 5. Ibid. 6. Carrasco tapes, 53. 7. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 8. Carrasco tapes, 60. 9. Ibid, 75. 10. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 11. Carrasco tapes, 75. 12. Houston Post, “2 Women set example in ordeal at prison,” July 26, 1974. 13. Dallas Morning News, July 26, 1974, 3E. 14. Carrasco tapes, 16.

306

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

15. King Waters, “Won’t Give in To Carrasco, Says Prison Official,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974, 1 16. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 17. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 18. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 19. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 20. Ibid. 21. Carrasco tapes, 83.

Chapter Six 1. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 5. 2. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 3. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 4. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 5. King Waters, “Won’t Give in To Carrasco, Says Prison Official,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974, 1. 6. Husbands, “Escape Attempt”, 5. 7. Ibid. 8. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 9. King Waters, Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974, 1. 10. Husbands, “Escape Attempt”, 11. 11. San Antonio Light, July 25, 1974, 1. 12. O‘Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 13. Bruce Thaler, interview with author, December 5, 2000. 14. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 15. O‘Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 16. Ben M. Crouch and James W. Marquart, An Appeal to Justice—Litigated Reform of Texas Prisons (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), 52. 17. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 18. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 19. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 20. Daniel Warnken, interview with author, April 18, 2002. 21. Charlene Warnken, “Prison chaplain denies guns came in his mail,” Houston Post, August 8, 1974, 1 22. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 81. 23. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001.

307

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

24. Carrasco tapes, 72. 25. Ibid, 57. 26. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 1. 27. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 28. Ibid. 29. Husbands, “Escape Attempt”, 6. 30. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 31. Carrasco tapes, 83. 32. Ibid.

Chapter Seven 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 83. 2. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 3. David Lindsey, “Negotiation games starts at 10 a.m.,” Huntsville Item, July 26, 1974, 1. 4. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 5. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 5. 6. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 7. House, Carrasco, 5. 8. Tom McGowan, “Some Would Never Survive,” San Antonio Light, September 4, 1974, 1. 9. Carrasco tapes, 83. 10. Ibid. 11. Walker, Donald, “Texas State Prison at Huntsville.” The Handbook of Texas Online. www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online. 12. San Antonio Express, July 28, 1974, 1-A. 13. Marylyn Schwartz, Dallas Morning News, August 7, 1974, 8A. 14. Ibid. 15. Texas Department of Corrections, “Procedures Used in Evaluating the Psychological Makeup and Interpersonal Relationship of Carrasco, Dominguez, and Cuevas” August 1974. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Carrasco tapes, 60.

308

NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHT

22. Wilson McKinney, Fred Carrasco: The Heroin Merchant (Austin: Heidelberg Publishers, Inc., 1975), 15. 23. Tommy Miller, “Carrasco’s Conflict With the Law Began 15 Years Ago With a Fight,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974. 24. Ibid. 25. Carrasco tapes, 8. 26. Holland, Reed and John Moore, Texas Monthly, “The Laredo-San Antonio Heroin Wars,” August, 1973. 27. David Ramon Flores, “A Descriptive Study of Corruption in a Southwest Texas Law Enforcement Agency” (thesis, Sam Houston State University, August 1976), 13. 28. Houston Post, “Carrasco’s ‘legend’ growing,” July 26, 1974. 29. Ibid. 30. Miller, “Carrasco’s Conflict,” Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974, 1. 31. Flores, “Study”, 23. 32. Houston Chronicle, July 25, 1974. 33. Bruce Thaler, interview with author, December 5, 2000. 34. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 35. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 36. Thaler, interview, December 5, 2000. 37. Houston Chronicle, May 24, 1991. 38. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 39. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 40. George Flynn, “Convict unpredictable psychiatrist believes,” Houston Post, July 30, 1974, 3-A. 41. Houston Chronicle, May 24, 1991. 42. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 43. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 44. Flynn, “Convict unpredictable,” Houston Post, July 30, 1974, 3-A.

Chapter Eight 1. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 6. 2. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 3. Ibid. 4. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 8. 5. Husbands, “Escape”, 7. 6. Anthony Branch, (video presentation, Texas Prisons Historical Association, October 2000).

309

NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHT

7. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 53. 8. Houston Chronicle, March 21, 1975 4,1. 9. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 3. 10. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 11. Robinson, Prison Hostage, 3. 12. Carrasco tapes, 53. 13. House, Carrasco, 9. 14. Ibid. 15. Carrasco tapes, 53. 16. Robinson, Prison Hostage, 4. 17. Husbands, “Escape Attempt”, 8. 18. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 19. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 20. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 21. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 22. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 23. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 24. Ibid. 25. San Antonio Express, “Carrasco Talkative on Phone,” July 26, 1974, 1. 26. Carrasco tapes, 61. 27. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 28. San Antonio Light, July 8, 1974. 29. Tom McGowan, “Some Would Never Survive,” San Antonio Light, September 4, 1974, 1. 30. San Antonio Express, “Carrasco’s wife, Rosa, Key Figure,” July 27, 1974, 3-A. 31. Houston Post, “Suspense at Huntsville; Lawyer Believes Mrs. Carrasco hiding, waiting,” July 28, 1974, 1-D. 32. San Antonio Express, July 26, 1974, 1. 33. San Antonio Light, July 25, 1974, 1. 34. Ibid. 35. Jim Martin, Dallas Morning News, n.d. 36. Carrasco tapes, 1. 37. San Antonio Express, July 31, 2-A. 38. San Antonio Light, July 25, 1974, 1. 39. Dallas Times Herald, July 26, 1974. 40. Ibid.

310

NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE

41. San Antonio Express, “Carrasco Talkative on Phone,” July 26, 1974. 42. Newsweek, August 12, 1974, 32. 43. McKinney, Fred Carrasco, 266. 44. Trigiani, Kathleen. “Societal Stockholm Syndrome.” http:// web2.iadfw.net/ktrig246/out_of_cave/sss.html. Accessed March 1, 2001. 45. Daniel V. McKaskle, interview with author, April 18, 2002. 46. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 47. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 48. Ben Proctor, Just One Riot (Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991), 120. 49. Huntsville Item, “TDC action ‘false truths,’” July 28, 1974. 50. Carrasco tapes, 60. 51. Ibid, 5. 52. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 53. Robinson, 67. 54. Carrasco tapes, 60. 55. Ibid. 56. Robinson, 66. 57. Ibid, 61.

Chapter Nine 1. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 2. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 3. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 4. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 5. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 24. 6. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 22. 7. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 8. Ibid. 9. Carrasco tapes, 84. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid, 75. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid, 84 14. Ibid, 75. 15. Ibid, 84. 16. King Waters and Larry Cooper, “Prison Head Says Talks With Carrasco on Upturn,” Houston Chronicle, July 26, 1974, 1.

311

NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN

17. Ibid. 18. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 19. Carrasco tapes, 12. 20. Ibid, 65. 21. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 22. Carrasco tapes, 65. 23. Ibid, 61. 24. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 25. Taylor, R. D., and G. Monroe, A Time to Forget…Remembered (Huntsville, TX: Texas Department of Corrections, 1975). 26. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 27. Ibid. 28. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 29. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 30. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 31. Ibid. 32. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 33. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 34. San Antonio Express, July 26, 1974, 1. 35. Carrasco tapes, 79. 36. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 37. Carrasco tapes, 65. 38. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 39. Ibid, July 31, 1974, 3. 40. Carrasco tapes, 65. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. Dallas Morning News, August 8, 1974, 41A. 46. Ibid, July 26, 1974, 1. 47. Ibid, July 28, 1974, 20A.

Chapter Ten 1. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 2. King Waters and Larry Cooper, “Prison Head Says Talks With Carrasco on Upturn,” Houston Chronicle, July 26, 1974, 1. 3. Sacramento Bee, “Prison Seizure End is Expected,” July 26, 1974. 4. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 5. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000.

312

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWELVE

6. Ibid. 7. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 65. 8. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 9. Carrasco tapes, 65. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 14. Carrasco tapes, 65. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid, 7. 17. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 18. Carrasco tapes, 65. 19. Ibid, 40.

Chapter Eleven 1. King Waters and Larry Cooper, “Prison Head Says Talks With Carrasco on Upturn,” Houston Chronicle, July 26, 1974, 1. 2. http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Vanderbilt University Television News Archive. 3. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 4. Ibid. 5. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 72. 6. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 7. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 10. 8. Dallas Morning News, July 26, 1974, 1A. 9. House, Carrasco, 17. 10. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 11. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 12. Carrasco tapes, 75.

Chapter Twelve 1. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 2. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 12.

313

NOTES TO CHAPTER THIRTEEN

3. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 79. 4. Ibid, 88. 5. Ibid. 6. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 7. Carrasco tapes, 46. 8. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 9. Carrasco tapes, 75. 10. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 11. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 12. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 13. Betty Lynn Styles, interview with author, January 20, 2001. 14. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 15. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 16. Ibid. 17. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 18. Carrasco tapes, 8. 19. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 20. Daniel V. McKaskle, interview with author, April 18, 2002. 21. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 22. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 23. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000.

Chapter Thirteen 1. Ben Proctor, Just One Riot (Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991), 117. 2. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 3. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 4. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 5. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 11. 6. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 7. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 8. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 9. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 10. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 11. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 12. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 13. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 75. 314

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

14. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 49. 15. Proctor, Just One Riot, 115. 16. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 17. Carrasco tapes, 56. 18. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 19. Daniel V. McKaskle, interview with author, April 18, 2002. 20. Alan Bailey, San Antonio Express, July 27, 1974, 1A. 21. Jim Barlow, interview with author, January 31, 2002. 22. http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Vanderbilt University Television News Archive. 23. Barlow, interview, June 31, 2002. 24. Cal Thomas, interview with author, January 11, 2001. 25. George Lewis, interview with author, June 23, 2002. 26. Ibid. 27. Thomas, interview, June 11, 2001. 28. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 29. Carrasco tapes, 15. 30. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 31. Phil Hevener, “I Just Hope It’s Over Soon,” Houston Post, July 26, 1974, 1. 32. Huntsville Item, “Cuevas could be ‘savior’ to all hostages,” July 28, 1974. 33. Ibid. 34. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 35. Huntsville Item, “Cuevas,” July 28, 1974.

Chapter Fourteen 1. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 9. 2. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 3. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 4. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 5. Ben Proctor, Just One Riot (Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991), 116. 6. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 79. 7. Ibid, 24. 8. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 9. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 10. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 315

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

11. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 12. Carrasco tapes, 79. 13. Houston Chronicle, “Carrasco Says He Doesn’t Want to Harm Innocnet Hostages,” July 27, 1974, 1. 14. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 15. Gloria Delgado, “Carrasco Vows Escape Today,” San Antonio Express, July 27, 1974, 1A. 16. Carrasco tapes, 88. 17. San Antonio Express, “Woman Appeals For Help,” July 27, 1974. 1A. 18. Carrasco tapes, 36. 19. Ibid, 38. 20. Ibid, 79. 21. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 22. Carrasco tapes, 47. 23. Ibid, 79. 24. Ibid, 80. 25. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 26. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 45. 27. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 54. 28. San Antonio Express, “She’s First with News,” August 2, 1974, 1. 29. Carrasco tapes, 12. 30. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 31. Carrasco tapes, 7. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid, 12. 34. Ibid, 88. 35. Ibid, 38. 36. Ibid, 88. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 40. Carrasco tapes, 53. 41. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 42. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001.

Chapter Fifteen 1. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 37. 2. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001.

316

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

3. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 75. 4. Ibid, 53. 5. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 6. Carrasco tapes, 53. 7. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 8. Huntsville Item, March 19, 1976, 1. 9. Fleming, interview, December 3, 2001. 10. Ibid. 11. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 12. Jay Dorman, “Helplessness touches those who wait,” Houston Post, July 28, 1974, 1. 13. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 14. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 15. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 16. Ibid. 17. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 18. Ibid. 19. Carrasco tapes, 62. 20. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 21. Carrasco tapes, 24. 22. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 23. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 24. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 25. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 26. Carrasco tapes, 2. 27. Ibid, 86. 28. James Sterba, “‘I’m Ready for Anything’ Texas Inmate Says,” New York Times, July 28, 1974, 42. 29. House, Carrasco, 16. 30. Ibid, 17. 31. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 32. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 33. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 34. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 35. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 36. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 37. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 38. Carrasco tapes, 73.

317

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIXTEEN

39. Ibid, 47. 40. Husbands, interview, May 23, 2000. 41. House, Carrasco, 43. 42. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 51. 43. Jerry Deal, “Cons Shot Way Out of the Walls: ‘Rags’ Cost $500,” San Antonio Express, July 29, 1974, 3-A. 44. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 45. Wilson McKinney. Fred Carrasco: The Heroin Merchant (Austin: Heidelberg Publishers, Inc., 1975), 268. 46. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 47. Fleming, interview, December 2, 2001. 48. House, Carrasco, 46. 49. Carrasco tapes, 58. 50. Ibid.

Chapter Sixteen 1. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 135. 2. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 68. 3. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 4. House, Carrasco, 40. 5. Carrasco tapes, 60. 6. Jim Barlow, interview with author, January 31, 2002. 7. Cal Thomas, interview with author, January 11, 2001. 8. Carrasco tapes, 53. 9. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 10. Huntsville Item, “Branch is now No. 1,” July 29, 1974, 1. 11. Thomas, interview, January 11, 2001. 12. George Lewis, interview with author, June 23, 2002. 13. Huntsville Item, “3 ‘willing to die’ say no surrender,” July 28, 1975. 14. Carrasco tapes, 2. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid, 7. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid, 2.

318

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIXTEEN

21. Ibid, 5. 22. Ibid, 62. 23. Ibid, 9. 24. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 25. Carrasco tapes, 24. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid, 7. 29. Ibid.; 5. 30. Ibid, 9. 31. Ibid, 5. 32. Ibid, 39. 33. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 34. Carrasco tapes, 86. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid, 5. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid, 5. 41. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 67. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Carrasco tapes, 16. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 18. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid, 24. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid, 62. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid, 66. 54. Ibid. 55. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 56. George Flynn, “Carrasco says he’s plotted break . . . ,” Houston Post, July 28, 1974, 1-D. 57. Carrasco tapes, 8. 58. Ibid, 24. 59. Fleming, interview, December 3, 2001. 319

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Chapter Seventeen 1. http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Vanderbilt University Television News Archive. 2. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 19. 3. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 4. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 5. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 6. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 7. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 46. 8. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 9. Carrasco tapes, 7. 10. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 71. 11. Carrasco tapes, 38. 12. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 13. Carrasco tapes, 16. 14. Ibid, 12. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid, 7. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. O’Brien, interview, October 22, 2001. 21. Carrasco tapes, 5. 22. Ibid, 12. 23. Ibid, 5. 24. Ibid, 12 25. Ibid, 30. 26. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 27. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University. 28. Ibid. 29. Carrasco tapes, 26. 30. Ibid., 25. 31. Estelle Papers. 32. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 33. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 34. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000.

320

NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

35. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 36. San Antonio Express, July 31, 1974, 2A. 37. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 38. Carrasco tapes, 7. 39. Ibid, 2. 40. Ibid, 75. 41. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 42. Carrasco tapes, 75. 43. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 44. Ibid. 45. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 46. Carrasco tapes, 5. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 50. Carrasco tapes, 33. 51. Ibid, 79. 52. Ibid, 5. 53. Robinson, Prison Hostage, 24. 54. Carrasco tapes, 5. 55. Ibid, 53. 56. House, Carrasco, 57. 57. Ibid, 58. 58. Carrasco tapes, 56. 59. Ibid, 62.

Chapter Eighteen 1. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 2. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 75. 3. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 79. 4. Ibid, 80. 5. Carrasco tapes, 78. 6. Ibid, 16. 7. Ibid, 14. 8. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 9. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 10. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001.

321

NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

11. Carrasco tapes, 79. 12. Fleming, interview, December 3, 2001. 13. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 14. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 15. Carrasco tapes, 56. 16. O’Brien, interview, February, 22, 2001. 17. Ibid. 18. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 19. James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 20. Carrasco tapes, 1. 21. Ibid. 22. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 23. Huntsville Item, “Wife is Key to Carrasco,” July 31, 1974, 3. 24. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 9. 25. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 26. Carrasco tapes, 61. 27. Robinson, Prison Hostage, 82. 28. Carrasco tapes, 53. 29. Ibid, 59. 30. Ibid, 1. 31. Ibid, 65. 32. Ibid, 1. 33. Ibid, 15. 34. Ibid, 1. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ben Proctor, Just One Riot (Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991), 126. 38. Huntsville Item, “Hostages in toughest situation ever,” July 31, 1974, 3. 39. Proctor, Just One Riot, 126. 40. Carrasco tapes, 53. 41. Ibid, 13. 42. Ibid, 1. 43. Ibid, 16. 44. Ibid, 1 45. Ibid. 46. Robinson, Prison Hostage, 85. 47. Carrasco tapes, 75. 48. Ibid, 61. 322

NOTES TO CHAPTER NINETEEN

Chapter Nineteen 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 15. 2. Ibid, 11. 3. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 4. Carrasco tapes, 73. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid, 1. 7. Ibid, 73. 8. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 9. Ignacio Carrasco tapes, 16. 10. Cuevas trial transcript, line 4420. 11. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 12. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 13. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 62. 14. Sam Fletcher, “Carrasco wants attorney to care for young son,” Houston Post, July 31, 1974, 2-1. 15. Carrasco tapes, 1. 16. House, Carrasco, 64. 17. Carrasco tapes. 18. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 19. O’Brien. 20. Carrasco tapes, 53. 21. House, Carrasco, 135. 22. Carrasco tapes, 18. 23. Estelle Papers. 24. Carrasco tapes, 15. 25. Ibid, 28. 26. Ibid, 73. 27. Huntsville Item, “No firepower for library,” July 29, 1974, 1. 28. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 29. Carrasco tapes, 18. 30. Ibid, 24. 31. Ibid, 79. 32. Ibid, 15. 33. Ibid, 68.

323

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY

Chapter Twenty 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 16. 2. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 3. Carrasco tapes, 36. 4. Ibid, 23. 5. Ibid, 18. 6. Ibid, 28. 7. Ibid. 8. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 9. Huntsville Item, “Inmates threaten war; Carrasco sleeps past early bomb deadline,” July 31, 1974, 1. 10. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 106. 11. Carrasco tapes, 21. 12. Ibid, 25. 13. Negra, Diane, “Dan Rather, U. S. Broadcast Journalist.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/ archives/etv/R/htmlR/ratherdan/ratherdan.htm. 14. Carrasco tapes, 21. 15. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 16. Houston Post, “Mother feared for slain daughter’s life,” August 4, 1974, 3A. 17. Carrasco tapes, 16. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid, 26. 21. Ibid. 22. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 23. Carrasco tapes, 16. 24. Carrasco tapes, 15. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid, 31 27. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 68. 28. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 29. Carrasco tapes, 46.

324

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Chapter Twenty-one 1. Huntsville Item, “Inmates threaten war; Carrasco sleeps past early bomb deadline,” July 31, 1974, 1. 2. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 33. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid, 38 7. Ibid, 33. 8. Ibid, 36. 9. Ibid, 31. 10. Ibid, 18. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid, 38. 13. Ann Fleming, interview with author, December 3, 2001. 14. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 15. James Willett, interview with author, August 2003. 16. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 17. Dallas Morning News, July 31, 1974. 18. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 19. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 20. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 21. Ibid. 22. Carrasco tapes, 79. 23. Fleming, interview, December 3, 2001. 24. O’Brien, February 22, 2001. 25. Carrasco tapes, 36.

Chapter Twenty-two 1. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 2. Ibid. 3. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 37.

325

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

7. Ibid, 40. 8. Estelle Papers. 9. Ibid. 10. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 11. Carrasco tapes, 34. 12. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 13. Estelle Papers. 14. Carrasco tapes, 38. 15. Ibid. 16. Estelle Papers. 17. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 107. 18. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 19. Ibid. 20. Carrasco tapes, 38. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid, 41. 24. Psalm 61:1-3 (New Revised Standard Version). 25. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 26. Carrasco tapes, 36. 27. Ibid, 5.

Chapter Twenty-three 1. Linda Woodman, interview with author, November 27, 2000. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 5. Ward James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 6. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 45. 7. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 8. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 9. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 10. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 11. Husbands, interview, May 6, 2001. 12. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 9. 13. Carrasco tapes, 16.

326

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

14. Ibid, 61. 15. Ronald W. Robinson, Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 101. 16. Carrasco tapes, 79. 17. Conroe Daily Courier, August 11, 1974, 1. 18. Carrasco tapes, 46. 19. Kathy Fain, Houston Chronicle, May 24, 1991. 20. Carrasco tapes, 46. 21. Ibid, 44. 22. Ibid, 75. 23. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 24. Carrasco tapes, 75. 25 Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 26. Carrasco tapes, 75. 27. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 28 Carrasco tapes, 45. 29. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 33. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 34. Ibid. 35. Carrasco tapes, 46. 36. Husbands, interview, May 6, 2001. 37. Woodman, interview, November 27, 2000. 38. Husbands, interview, May 6, 2001. 39. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000.

Chapter Twenty-four 1. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 2. Robert E. Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 3. Howell H. Husbands, “Escape Attempt of Inmates” (report, Texas Department of Corrections, n.d.), 18. 4. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 48. 5. James Willet, interview with author, November 11, 2003. 6. Carrasco tapes, 51. 7. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 78. 8. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001.

327

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

9. James Estelle, Jr., Papers, Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University, College Station. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Estelle, interview, October 17, 2000. 13. Carrasco tapes, 40. 14. Ibid, 70. 15. Estelle Papers. 16. Houston Post, “Huntsville fire chief thinks hoses saved hostages’ lives,” August 7, 1974, 1A. 17. Wilson McKinney. Fred Carrasco: The Heroin Merchant (Austin: Texas, Heidelberg Publishers, Inc., 1975), 280. 18. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 19. Ibid. 20. Estelle Papers. 21. Carrasco tapes, 40. 22. Ibid, 70. 23. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 24. Carrasco tapes, 70. 25. Ibid, 75. 26. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 27. McKinney, Fred Carrasco, 280 28. Carrasco tapes, 75. 29. Huntsville Item, May 23, 1991, 1.

Chapter Twenty-five 1. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 60. 2. Ward James Estelle, Jr., interview with author, October 17, 2000. 3. Carrasco tapes, 56. 4. Joseph O’Brien, interview with author, February 22, 2001. 5. Huntsville Item, March 21, 1975, 1. 6. Ibid. 7. Joe Taylor, Dallas Times Herald, August 4, 1974, 23A 8. Houston Post, March 26, 1975. 9. Anthony Branch, (video presentation, Texas Prisons Historical Association, October 2000). 10. Aline House, The Carrasco Tragedy (Waco: Texian Press, 1975), 140. 11. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001.

328

NOTES TO EPILOGUE

12. Houston Post. March 26, 1975 13. Huntsville Item, March 21, 1975, 1. 14. Houston Chronicle, March 26, 1975. 15. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 16. Robert Wiatt, interview with author, May 23, 2000. 17. Texas Rangers, “Report on Attempted Escape, Huntsville, Texas, July 24-August 3, 1974. Houston, 1974. 18. Wiatt, interview, May 23, 2000. 19. Dallas Morning News, August 5, 1974, 1. 20. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 21. Carrasco tapes, 75. 22. O’Brien, interview, February 22, 2001. 23. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 24. Huntsville Item, “Estelle calls ending one of the meanest in service of public,” August 4, 1974, 9A. 25. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 26. Dallas Times Herald.

Epilogue 1. Howell H. Husbands, interview with author, March 6, 2001. 2. Houston Post, “Mrs. Pollard vouches for 4 inmates,” August 6, 1974, 2. 3. Fred King, Houston Post, July 29, 1984, 22A. 4. Carrasco tapes, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113, audio 40. 5. Texas Rangers, “Report on Attempted Escape, Huntsville, Texas, July 24-August 3, 1974. Houston, 1974. 6. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 7. Rangers Report. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Kathy Fain, Houston Chronicle, May 24, 1991. 11. Kathy Fain, Houston Chronicle, May 22, 1991. 12. Husbands, interview, March 6, 2001. 13. Ibid. 14. James Willett, interview with author, November 11, 2003. 15. Ward James Estelle, Jr., telephone conversation with author, November 11, 2003.

329

NOTES TO EPILOGUE

16. David Ramon Flores, “A Descriptive Study of Corruption in a Southwest Texas Law Enforcement Agency.” Master thesis, Sam Houston State University, 1976.

330

Bibliography

Archival Sources: Branch, Anthony “Jack,” hostage. Video presentation, Texas Prisons Historical Association, 2000. Carrasco tapes. Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Archives and Information Services Division. Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1999/113. Cuevas, Ignacio, trial transcript. Houston. Estelle Papers. Fourteen Boxes. Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University. Flores, David Ramon. “A Descriptive Study of Corruption in a Southwest Texas Law Enforcement Agency.” Master’s thesis, Sam Houston State University, 1976. Husbands, H. H., Warden, Walls Unit, “Escape Attempt of Inmates.” Report, undated, Texas Department of Correction. Texas Department of Corrections. “Procedures Used in Evaluating the Psychological Makeup and Interpersonal Relationship of Carrasco, Dominguez, and Cuevas.” August 1974. Estelle Papers. Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University. Texas Rangers, “Report on Attempted Escape, Huntsville, Texas, July 24August 3, 1974.” Houston.

Interviews: Barlow, Jim, Associated Press news service. Interview by author. Houston, TX, 31 January 2002. Estelle, W. James, Jr., director, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Sacramento, CA, 17 October 2000. Fleming, Ann, hostage. Interview by author. Huntsville, TX, 3 December 2001. Husbands, Howell H., warden, Walls Unit, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Sugarland, TX, 6 March 2001.

331

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lewis, George, NBC-TV reporter. Interview by author. Burbank, CA, 23 June 2002. McKaskle, Daniel V., assistant director, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Houston, TX, 18 April 2002. Mitchell, Robert, captain, Texas Rangers. Interview by author. Waco, TX, 15 January 2001. O’Brien, Father Joseph J., hostage. Interview by author. Port Isabel, TX, 22 February 2001. Roach, Steve, inmate, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Huntsville, TX, 16 January 2001. Scott, Wayne, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Interview by author. Huntsville, TX, 14 November 2000. Styles, Betty Lynn, wife of Texas Ranger, Wesley Styles. Interview by author. Seymour, TX, 20 January 2001. Thaler, M. B., correctional officer, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Huntsville, TX, 15 December 2000. Thomas, Cal, KPRC-TV. Interview by author. Washington, DC, 11 January 2001. Wiatt, Robert E., FBI agent. Interview by author. College Station, TX, 23 May 2000. Willett, James, correctional officer, Texas Department of Corrections. Interview by author. Huntsville, TX, 23 May 2000. Woodman, Linda, hostage. Interview by author. Gatesville, TX, 27 November 2000.

Newspapers: Austin American-Statesman, 6 August 1974. Conroe (TX) Daily Courier, 11 August 1974. Dallas Times Herald, 28 July—14 August 1974. Dallas Morning News, 26 July—8 August 1974. Houston Chronicle, 25 July 1974—24 May 1991. Houston Post, 26 July 1974—26 March 1975. Huntsville (TX) Item, 24 July 1974—23 May 1991. New York Times, 27 July—28 July 1974. Sacramento Bee, 26 July 1974. San Antonio Light, 25 July—8 September 1974. San Antonio Express, 26 July—31 July 1974. Temple (TX) Daily Telegram, 7 July 1974.

332

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Published Sources: Crouch, Ben M., and James W. Marquart. An Appeal to Justice: Litigated Reform of Texas Prisons. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Holland, Reed and John Moore. “The Laredo-San Antonio Heroin Wars.” Texas Monthly, August 1973. House, Aline. The Carrasco Tragedy. Waco: Texian Press, 1975. McKinney, Wilson. Fred Carrasco: The Heroin Merchant. Austin: Heidelberg Publishers, Inc., 1975. Negra, Diane. “Dan Rather, U. S. Broadcast Journalist.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/ R/htmlR/ratherdan/ratherdan.htm. Proctor, Ben. Just One Riot. Austin: Eakin Publications, 1991. Robinson, Ronald W. Prison Hostage: the Siege of the Walls Prison in Huntsville. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Taylor, R. D., and G. Monroe. A Time to Forget . . . Remembered. Huntsville, TX: Texas Department of Corrections, 1975. Trigiani, Kathleen. “Societal Stockholm Syndrome.” http:// web2.iadfw.net/ktrig246/out_of_cave/sss.html. Accessed March 1, 2001. Television News Archive Vanderbilt University. http:// tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Walker, Donald. “Texas State Prison at Huntsville.” The Handbook of Texas Online. www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online.

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Index

Abel, Rudolph, 25 Abrazo, 184 Aguilar, Ben, 48, 173, 208–09, 213 aiding and abetting, 41, 42, 297 Akins, Alton, 17, 18, 38, 130, 298, 299; knucklehead, 38, 130 All Points Bulletin (APB), 79, 104, 179 Alonzo, Benito, 298, 300 alternative scenario, 75, 129, 145 “Amazing Grace,” 125 American Broadcasting Company (ABC), 67, 116, 139 Ammunition, .357 caliber, 3, 7, 30, 73, 135, 165, 208, 298–99; .38 caliber, 7, 17–18, 70, 95, 111, 217, 253, 298, 299 Anthony, St. (hotel), 10 assault teams, 118, 132, 158, 164, 166, 282 Associated Press (AP), 103, 138, 139, 173 atheist, 27, 195 armored truck (car), 246; Carrasco’s demand for, 250, 256–57; possible explosives for, 278; concerns over, 279; negotiations for, 281; arrival of, 282; inspection of, 283; 285

Army Air Corps, 37, 127 Attica, 1 Austin-American Statesman, 11, 112, 152, 153, 179 Austin, city of, 92, 94, 95, 132, 139, 152, 178 Austin, state capitol, 39, 96, 97, 99, 100 Austin, Louis, 199 “Ballad of Fred Carrasco, The,” 24 Ballinger, Texas, 186 Barlow, Jim, 103, 138, 139, 173 Beseda, Yvonne, 3, 5, 7, 47; speaks to negotiators, 96, 111–12, 124, 154–56, 175, 235, 266–67; volunteers, 121, 258; speaks to press, 147, 149, 186, 248; handcuff incident, 158; speaks to family, 180–81, 219, 240, 279; exchange offer, 197; as a shield, 202; at risk at night, 211–12; decorates Trojan Horse, 252; plea to Carrasco, 269; in the Trojan Horse, 273, 281, 286; Carrasco fires upon, 289–90; wounded, 291; death of, 294– 96; honored, 297 Beseda, R. L., 47, 137, 181, 197, 219, 240, 258, 279

335

INDEX

Beseda, Robert, 279, 296 Bexar County, jail, 24, 80; grand jury, 81; 146, 191, 222 Blanton, William, 117 Blue Bell Creamery, 162 body armor/shields, 113; 164, 166, 221, 242, 288, 290, 295 bolt-cutter, 242 bombs, 157–59, 184, 227, 233, 234, 235–37, 243, 246–47, 260, 262, 274, 281–83, 285–86, 294 bond, 23, 219 booby traps, 294 Branch, Betty, 43, 47, 154 Branch, Anthony J., Jr., 5, 15–16, 44, 44, 217, 238, 276; speaks to family, 47, 154; as honor guard, 57, 124; regarding lights out, 74; regarding Robinson, 84; fear, 136; speaks to press, 173– 74; card games, 190; threatened, 205–06, 214–16, 246; regarding Escamilla breakout, 208; escape plan, 211; end of siege, 288, 290, 291 Brenham, Texas, 162 Briscoe, Dolph, 91–100, 106–08, 116, 119, 150, 177 Briscoe, Janey, 177 Brooks Bros., 139 Buchin, Jim, 61–62 Buck Rogers, 131 bulletproof vests, 53, 81, 110, 115, 122, 160, 165, 184, 221, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 273, 290 Burch, Gail, 282 Burks, G. W., 39, 48, 48, 77, 105, 126, 132, 197, 199, 277, 282–83, 289, 292

336

C-4 explosives, 133, 134, 134, 135, 240 Camp Polk, Louisiana, 101 card games, Old Maid, 190; Poker, 160, 187, 257; Solitaire, 190; Whist, 190 Carlson, Norman, 105 Carrasco, Emiliano, 79, 86. Carrasco, Federico G., 3–4, 4, 7–8, 11, 16, 18–20, 22–24, 25–30, 32– 36, 38–62, 293; psychological study, 64–65; early years, 66–67; 70–72, 74–81, 83–84, 86–90, 94– 100, 102–03, 105–120, 122–130, 132–36, 141–56, 158–163; bulletproof helmets, 164–68, 169–79, 182, 184–202, 204–06, 208–211; warrant for Rosa, 212– 17; autobiography, 218–220, 221–25; negotiations, 226–27, 229–230, 235–44, 245–49, 256– 58, 281–82; good faith offer, 250–56, 259–61, 264–71; final shootout, 273–74, 276–80, 283– 86, 288–91; 294–98, 300–02 Carrasco, Jose A., 67 Carrasco, Leticia A., 86 Carrasco, Rosario (nee Leyva), 25, 54, 68, 78–80, 86, 125–26, 128, 179, 192; warrant, 212–17; 219, 221, 250 Carrasco (Leyva), Lorraine, 86 Carrel, 157–58 Castaño, Roy, 67, 191 Castro, Fidel, 26, 77, 178, 184, 185 Castillon, Frank, 67 Chancellor, John, 116, 139 Chapel of Hope, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 39, 56, 63, 117, 136, 138 Charter Arms, .38 caliber, 95

INDEX

Chauvin, Barry, 26 Christian, 98, 148 Classification Department, 23, 116 Clements Unit, 197 Coleman, Dorothy, 11, 37 collection plate, 189, 283 Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 116, 139, 140, 152, 174, 190, 238 Command Post, 49, 126, 129, 130, 131, 133, 143, 165, 196, 198 communications failure, 301 Conroe, Texas, 12, 82, 127, 177, 182, 274, 276 contingency letter, 198 contraband, 54, 56, 198 convict sense, 55 Copenhagen (tobacco), 20 Correctional Officers (CO’s), 4, 8, 19, 21, 31, 35, 43, 44, 134, 173, 249, 279, 301 Counter Intelligence Agency (CIA), 25 Coup d’etat, 128 Covell, Dwight, 56 cremation, 225, 241 Cricketeers, 169 Critchfield, Donald, 152. Crockett, Lillie, 197, 238 Cronkite, Walter, 116, 139 Cross, Richard, 79 Cotton Bowl, 28 Cuevas, Ignacio, 6, 29, 31, 39–40, 53, 58, 60–61, 65, 71, 73, 75, 81, 86, 91, 94, 96, 108, 111, 118, 123, 124 151–156; 180, 188–89, 192, 200–02, 205, 207–08, 210–12, 217, 218, 227, 229–31, 234, 276, 278, 286, 289, 291, 295; art work, 7, 233; psychological

study, 66; early years, 69–70; cheer leading, 95, 118, 217; as “savior”, 141–41; possible scenario, 145, growing nervous, 146; handcuff incident, 156–59; two-way radio, 165; clothes, 169–70; seven minute threat, 171–72; end of siege, 296, 300 Cuevas, Juanita, 85–86, 171 Dallas, city of, 39, 54, 90, 139, 175, 192 Dallas Morning News, 152 Davidson, Darryl, 152 Davis, Bertha M., 4–5; 97, 98, 121, 48, 154, 180, 185, 202, 204, 241, 52, 259, 263, 276 Davis, Brett, 204–05 Davis, Carol, 204 Davis, Scott, 204 Davis, Bill, 241 de la Garza, Enrique (Henry), 149, 152, 177, 192, 193, 200 Delgado, Gloria, 147 Demerol, 156 Denton, Texas, 13 Department of Defense, U. S., 132 Department of Justice, U. S., 54, 78, 132 Dial, Maury, 175, 176, 177, 185, 186 Dominguez, Rodolfo S., Jr., 5, 6, 7, 29–31, 45, 53, 57, 58, 60, 61, 111, 173, 186, 189, 192, 201, 205, 207– 11, 217–218, 228, 243, 247, 251, 257, 264–65, 269, 270–73, 276, 278, psychological study, 65–66; early years, 68–69; 69, 70, 71; “shooting” Robinson, 73–75; threatens hostages, 82, 98, 108,

337

INDEX

124–25, 172; demands newspapers, 86; monitors calls, 88–90; egotism, 123; sand bags incident, 135–36; regarding media reports, 141; possible scenario, 145–46; mental state, 156–60; helmets, 168; clothing, 168–70; end of siege, 286, 287, 289, 291, 293, 293–296 Dominguez, Teresa (nee Hernandez), 69 Dorrell, Anna, 12 dress rehearsal, 273 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), 54. 78 Eastman, Jane, 126 Edwards, Gary, 103 Edwards, James, III, 182, 183 El Paso, Texas, 64, 70 El Reno, Oklahoma, federal reformatory, 23 Ellis Unit (TDC), 116 Escamilla, Dora, 89 Escamilla, Enrique (Henry), 40, 89, 148, 190, 207–10, 229, 231, 276, 277 escape plans, (Carrasco) 46, 64, 79, 89, 120, 126, 144, 155, 209, 240, 249, 267, 268, 270, 281, 285; (hostages) 210, 211, 227 Escobedo, Gilbert, 67, 191 Estelita, 257 Estelle, Linda, 258 Estelle, Marilyn J., 137, 198 Estelle, Ward James, Jr., 28, 48, 119, 173, 250, 297; learns of siege, 10–11; regarding safety of TDC, 16; background, 20–21;

338

Husband’s endorsement of, 22; first meets Carrasco, 27; regarding TDC hostage policy, 34–35; summoned to Huntsville, 37; regarding “hostiles”, 42; regarding negotiation tactics, 49–50; Murdock charge, 54–55; regarding O’Brien, 61; speaks to press, 62; learns more about hostage-takers, 64–66; Robinson, 76–79, 194; negotiation with Carrasco, 88; governor, 91–92, 109; government problems, 92–94, 132, 135; phone scam, 94–100; Camp Polk helicopters, 101–02; regarding Montemayor, 102–03, 229–31; “cookbook”, 103–04; checklist, 105; stall tactics, 53, 83–84, 106–07, 237, 255–58, 265– 67; negotiations, 108, 110, 111– 13, 123, 124, 131, 133–34, 143– 45, 150, 152, 153–155, 184, 191– 92, 221–22; early days, 116–17, 118; sleep deprivation, 119, 196–98; grand jury, 126; vigilantes, 127; coup d’etat, 128–29; regarding families, 137–38; praise for Husbands, 161–62; women hostages, 163; helmets and radios, 164, 166; media scheme, 171; pleas from hostages, 175–77, 181–82, 184– 85, 235; Rosa’s warrant, 179, 212–16; hostage exchange, 196– 97, 198–200, 248; regarding House, 227; criticism of, 239– 40; final offer, 244–46; shield, 268–69, 274–75, 277–279;

INDEX

Woodman, 271–72; end of siege, 277–279, 283, 288, 295–96; aftermath, 300–02 Estelle, Ward James, Sr., 117 Everts, Connie, 89 Federal Aviation Administration, 102 Federal Narcotics Bureau, 81 Federal Prison System, 105 Ferguson Unit (prison), 12 final offer, 244, 245 First Baptist Church, 189 First Presbyterian Church, 202 flak jackets, 242, 252, 290 flash/bang Devices, 103, 145 Fleming, Ann, 3, 12, 13, 15, 29, 46, 55, 83, 85, 91, 120, 125, 169, 173, 180, 187, 189, 194, 202, 203, 217, 235, 239–40, 249, 252, 260–61, 263, 276, 279, 291; initial takeover, 4–5; background, 13; speaks to family, 48; guard duty, 148; mother’s death, 159– 61; handcuff incident, 158; escape plan, 209–11; speaks to family, 181 Fleming, Frances A., 48, 161 Fleming, Herman, 148, 159, 181, 203, 235; 239–40, 261, 279 Flores, David, 81 Flores, David R., 302 Florez, Raul, 70 “Flower Shop”, 282 Fort Hood, Texas, 101, 110, 113 Fox, Phyllis, 12 Franklin, Peter, 54 Franklow, Mabel, 212 “Free world” clothing, 106 French, Joe, 78

Fulton, Ronald, 184, 185, 187, 230 Gainesville, Texas, 28 Galveston, Texas, 62, 161 Garcès, Joe R., 67, 68, 191 Garcia, David, 68, 191 Garcia, Manuel, 67 Gestapo, 178 getaway transportation, 22, 77, 143–144, 146, 194, 240, 246–47, 250, 256, 258 Glass, Charles, 186–87 Gillespie, James, H., 54, 58, 79, 81, 85, 219, 220, 225 Goldberg, Bernard, 152 Gomez (Carrasco), Mary, 67 good faith offer, 113, 268 Goree Unit (prison), 12, 77 Graham, Billy, 263 Grand Jury, 11, 81, 126, 301 Gray, Ephraim, 63 Gray, Pleasant, 63 Gray, Ralph, 209, 227 Guadalajara, Mexico, 24, 67, 129, 178 Guerrero, Mexico, 159 Guiterrez, Roberto, 152, 190, 191, 192 Guzman, Rene, 68 hacksaw blades, 242, 299 Hailey’s (restaurant), 12 Halcomb, Troy, 56 Hall, Lawrence, J., 298–300 Halliburton Corporation, 135 Hampa, el, 67, 128 handcuffs, 36, 43, 45–46, 57–58, 91, 102, 124, 136, 139, 180, 190, 202, 211, 215, 226, 238, 243, 262, 265, 285, 286, 298; key incident, 158, 205

339

INDEX

hand grenades, 157–58 Hardesty, Robert H., 101 Harris, County of, 37 Harris County Sheriff’s Department, 28 Hart Schaffner & Marks, 53, 168 Heard, Bobby G., 3, 5, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 52, 59–60, 66, 72, 73, 84, 86–87, 98–99, 107, 111, 114, 124, 136–137, 154, 165, 168, 171–72, 177, 181, 185, 204–05, 210–11, 214–17, 226, 231, 237, 246, 252, 269, 276, 286, 287, 291 Heard, Judy, 87, 89, 153, 154, 181, 204, 237, 269 helmets, 54, 81, 102, 106, 113, 118, 122, 123, 133, 164–68, 166, welders of, 166–67; 242, 251, 286–87, 291, 300 Henderson, David, 152 Herring, Wilbert, 80 high-pressure hoses, 275, 282, 288, 289, 289, 290–91 Hill, John, 92 honor guard, 43, 57, 107, 173 Hoover, J. Edgar, 17, 93 hostage/prisoner exchange, 32, 35, 94, 143, 196, 197, 199–200, 245, 248 hostage-taking policy, 34–35, 126, 155 House, Aline V., 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 16, 16, 29–31, 56, 58, 61–62, 74–75, 89, 118, 157–59, 163, 165, 168– 69, 172, 180, 185, 189, 201, 205– 06, 215, 217–18, 223; heart attack; 224–29, 225, 228, 243, 276,–77, 280, 283 House, Bennie, 89 houseboys, 117, 298–99

340

Houston Astros, 204 Houston Chronicle, xiii, 26, 152 Houston, Texas, 16, 17, 28, 32, 36, 37, 89, 92, 93, 102, 103, 116, 127, 132, 135, 138, 139, 140, 152, 173, 182, 184, 195; airport, 201–02; 203, 230, 286 Houston Oilers, 204 Houston Post, 7, 151 Houston Psychiatric Society, 71 human shields, 43, 44, 120, 145, 179, 202, 247, 256, 259, 269, 273, 278, 286 humor, 31, 112, 154, 164, 169, 180, 189, 224, 258 Huntsville, Alabama, 63, 132 Huntsville State Prison (the Walls Unit), 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 13–17, 19– 21, 22, 80, 23, 27, 28, 32, 34, 38, 39, 41, 55, 56, 63, 67, 69, 70, 78, 80, 103, 116–17, 120, 122, 126, 129, 132, 138, 141, 143, 144, 147, 151, 161–164, 189, 199, 212, 223, 232, 254, 257, 265, 272, 278, 288, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302 Huntsville, Texas, 3, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 20–21, 25, 27, 32– 33, 37, 38, 49, 63–64, 92; airport, 101–02; 78, 79, 86, 92, 93, 94, 110, 116, 125, 169, 177, 180, 189, 194, 202, 232, 238 Huntsville Fire Department, 275, 282 Huntsville Item, 32, 141 Huntsville Memorial Hospital, 58, 138, 227, 231, 282, 295 Huntsville Police Department, 39, 283, Husbands, Howell H., 9, 15, 20– 22, 23, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,

INDEX

40, 44, 45, 49, 53, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 72, 73, 76, 77, 81, 85, 95, 122, 123, 126, 127, 133–36, 143–45, 161, 162, 165–68, 173, 197, 199, 200, 209, 213, 233, 236, 249, 250, 257, 267, 272, 274, 275, 277–79, 282, 283, 284, 286, 291, 292, 294, 295, 297, 298, 300, 301 Hutton, Jack, 68, 79 insulin, 156 inter-department cooperation, 302 Jackson, Wayne, 112, 152, 153, 179 Jefe, el, 23 Jell-O, 201 “Jesus, I Love Thee,” 125 John Henrys, 125 Johnson, Glennon D., 5, 31, 44, 57, 57–58, 62, 98, 210, 224, 276 Johnston, Clyde, 47 Julliard School of Music, 97 Just One Riot (Proctor), 20 Kansas City, Missouri, 256 KDWF-TV, 152 Kennedy, John F., 26, 188 KENS-TV, 152, 190 Kentucky Fried Chicken, 115 KHOU-TV, 152, KILT, 184, 186, 230 King, Jack, 282 Kirkpatrick, Don, 53, 56, 64, 119, 272 KITE, 54, 81, 150, 152, 193 Kmart Store, 167 KPRC-TV, 139, 173 Krumnow, John, 39, 291 KSAT, 165 KTRH, 165 KTRK-TV, 182

Kyle, Jack, 77, 127, 272, 275, 277, 278 Lakeland Ledger, 150 last rites, 75, 110 Leavenworth, Kansas, federal penitentiary, 23 lethal injection, 300 Lewis, George, 33, 116, 139, 140, 152, 174, 195, 196 lock-down, 162 London Broadcasting Company (nee British Broadcasting Company), 238 Lower Yard, 37 Lufkin, Texas, 203 M-16 rifles, 106, 115, 123 Macdona, Texas, 79 Mafia, 24, 26, 67, 126 Man Called Peter, A, 263 Manoyo, Eloy E., 26 Marcello, Carlos, 26 McAllen, Texas (detention camp), 25 McKaskle, Daniel V., 20, 27, 48, 55, 77, 82, 89, 129, 135, 137, 152, 200, 219, 257, 277, 301 medevac, 64 media, 1, 33, 36, 48, 146, 150, 162, 171, 172, 192, 200, 203, 227, 237, 248, 274, 282, 295 criticism, 32, 42, 102, 147–49, 184; using, 51, 123, 144, 150, 151, 153, 171, 173–75, 178, 179, 221, 245, 247, 255, 259; hindrance, 138, 140, 141, 255, 256; freedom of, 151 Mennard, Cameron, 90–91 metal detectors, 301

341

INDEX

Mexican-Americans, 65, 78, 127 Miami, Florida, 139 Mickey Mouse, 165 Miller, Ray, 139 Monroe, Gail, 32 Montana State Prison, 20, 21, 104, 213 Montemayor, Ruben, 48, 53, 58– 59, 61, 76–77, 81, 87–88, 102, 105–06, 110, 113, 115, 118, 136, 141, 143–44, 154, 165, 167, 173, 179, 195, 219, 225–27, 229–31, 241–42, 244, 247–48, 257–58, 266, 271, 277, 279, 281, 283, 297; volunteers, 48–52; negotiations with governor, 95–96, 98–99, 106–09; Rosa’s warrant, 212– 18; book negotiations, 221–24; the bombs, 235–36; good faith offer, 267–68 Moore, Louis, 26 Morgan, Dewey, 15 moving hostage situation, 278 Murdock, Andrew J., Jr., 25, 54–56, 83, 162, 217, 218, 219, 256, 322 Murphy, Dennis, 152 Murray, Lane 46, 47, 137 Nashville, Tennessee, 3, 13, 159 narcotics, 23, 24, 67, 78 National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 32, 116, 139–40, 152, 173–74, 188, 195 New Waverly, Texas, 203 New York Times, 139, 174 Newsweek, 139 Notre Dame Cathedral, 167 Noviskie, Bruce, 8, 19, 20, 32 Nixon, Richard, M., 12, 32, 139, 199, 254

342

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 86 Nunn-Bush, 53, 123, 169 Oblate of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), 25, 26 O’Brien, Joseph J., 18, 35, 93, 128, 158, 189, 193, 204, 205, 247, 249, 258, 263, 268, 276, 301; early days, 25–26; Carrasco assigned to, 23, 27–28; as hostage, 34–37, 39–40, 51–52, 60–61; inmate hostages 42, 89, 149; Heard, 45; shield, 46, 202; Murdock 54–57; weapons, 56; regarding hostage-takers, 69–71, 156, 163; Robinson, 75, 83, 169; offer 77; food taster, 86, 123; handcuffs, 91; threatened, 107–09, 136, 142, 217; volunteers, 120; guard duty, 124; helmets, 133; speaks to family, 153, 180; phone calls, 172; regarding Estelle, 177; escape plans, 210–12, 216, 226, 285; Rosa’s warrant, 214; regarding Carrasco’s book, 221–24; bombs and explosives, 234, 250; Trojan Horse, 252, 273; end of siege, 280–81, 283, 285, 286, 289, 291–92, 294–95, 296; aftermath 297, 301 O’Brien, Timothy, 26, 153, 180 OK Corral, Shoot Out at the, 194 Olympics (1972), 140 Ortiz, Manuel, 81 overdose, 156, 217 Overstreet, Thomas, 152 Padgett, Winston, 288, 290–91, 293 Peabody College, 13 Peace with God, 263

INDEX

Pecos, Texas, 70, 85, 171 Pickett, Carroll, 180, 181, 195, 202, 280 pigeons, 31 piñata, 251, 260, 292 pipe bombs, 158 Pocatello, Idaho, 132 Pollard, Kathy, 116, 148; 152, 245, 245, 247–49, press conferences, 255, 258; 180, 238, 280 Pollard, Novella M., 3, 15, 29, 31, 74, 88, 90, 98, 126, 142, 177, 200, 276; initial takeover, 4–5, 7; speaks to Husbands, 29; Carrasco’s plans, 46, 123; speaks to Estelle, 73; Robinson, 74–76, 183, 270; volunteers, 120–21, 202; guard duty, 125, 235; sandbags incident, 135–36; defending inmate-hostages, 148, 192, 200, 208, 297; press conferences, 152, 245, 247–49, 254–55; treatment of hostages, 156, 158, 171, 172, 220, 223; speaks to press, 175–76, 201; speaks to family, 180–81, 280; Escamilla breakout, 207–08; House, 225; Woodman’s release, 268, 270–71; Trojan Horse, 281; end of siege, 285, 286, 289, 291; aftermath, 294, 295, 297 Pollard, Robert, 238 Port Isabel, Texas, xi power failure, 265–67 Powers, Francis G., 26 prison conditions, 22, 80, 174–75 prison grapevine, 32 procedure failures, 1, 300–02 Psalm 23, 217

Psalm 61, 262 public sympathy, 178, 248, 279 Purolator Courier Company, 257, 282, 285 Pursley, Jack, 166, 168, 300 Quiroz, Martin, 40–41, 90, 91, 148, 165–66, 168, 172 190, 208, 211, 217, 234, 257, 260, 276, 281, 283, 285, 285, 286, 287, 291, 295 Rabel, Edward, 116, 174 racial comment, 225, 206–07 Ramon, Don, 67 Rather, Dan, 238 razor blades, 53, 123, 259, 260, 285 Reasoner, Harry, 116, 139 red-necks, 81, 179, 187, 213 Redstone Arsenal, 132 Reese, Lawrence, 152 retaliation, 128 reunion, 180, 296–97 Rice University, 28 Roach, Steve, 14, 18–19 Robertson, Steven R., 40–41, 45, 90, 92, 94, 123, 144, 146, 148, 149, 149, 155, 172, 190, 204, 208, 210, 211, 217, 225, 230; 263, 268, 276; regarding making shields, 242–43, 251–52 Robin Hood, 24, 178 Robinson, Clay, 152 Robinson, Jeanne, 83, 177, 204, 237, 261–62 Robinson, Ronald W., 3, 5, 7, 16, 57, 94, 124, 130, 136, 150, 151, 168, 182, 193, 211, 214, 217, 220, 237, 253, 261, 268, 276, 291, 295; shooting, 73–77, 147, 154, 194, 227, 277; differences 82–85, 95,

343

INDEX

99, 169, 175, 177, 183, 189, 194, 204, 262, 270; defense of Carrasco, 195 Robinson, Sheryle, 3, 262 Rodriguez, Sam, 165 Rogers, Gladys, 127 Rogers, James F., 37, 39, 49, 77, 105, 127, 132, 167, 173, 199, 213, 272, 277, 278, 282–83, 288–91 Rogers, Jimmy, 258 Rogers, Naomi, 12 Rotary Club, 10–11 Ruger, Speed Six, .38 caliber, 3 Ruiz, Agapito, 67, 191 Runnels County, 186 Russian Roulette, 154 Russell, J. F., 135 Ryan, Jack, 71 Sacramento Bee, 150 Sam Houston State University, 8, 12, 13, 43, 82, 160, 302 Santa Anna, Lopez, Antonio de, 252 San Antonio, city of, 10, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 46, 49, 50, 54, 56, 64, 67, 68, 69, 77, 79, 80, 89, 99, 116, 128, 129, 139,146, 150, 152, 185, 190, 191, 213, 218, 225, 241, 247, 268, 298, 302 San Antonio Express, 86, 147 San Antonio Light, 10, 54, 150, 152 Scott, Wayne, 8, 19–20, 162 Sealy, John (hospital), 62, 161 Seconal, 218 Senor, el, 23, 64, 65 sexual molestation, 155–56 Sinatra, Frank, 258 Sinclair, Will, 54, 81, 152, 193–95 Smith, Dan, 186 Smith, David, 19

344

Smith, Howard K., 139 Smith, Martha, 47 Smith, Ron, 152 snipers, 273 snitch, 209 “someone” plan, 268–70 South America, 144 Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, 103, 138 Spann, Jim, 138 Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), 17, 92, 93, 103, 132, 290 Spielberg, Steven, 17 Spike Mike, 130, 142, 208, 267, 286 Standley, Dru, 269, 279 Standley, Julia, 5, 7, 12, 15; 96, 97, 97, 112, 137, 154, 158, 165, 177, 180, 182, 189, 190, 193, 194, 197, 202, 203, 208, 211, 219, 223–24, 232, 237, 238, 247, 252, 258, 261, 263, 269, 273, 276, 279, 281, 286, 287, 289–91, 294, 295, 296, 297, 300 Standley, Mark, 190, 269 Standley, Pam, 180, 269 Standley, Stuart, 154, 180, 269 Standley, Ty, 261, 263, 269 Stanley, Molly, 28, 37, 162 Stewart, Willard, N., 290 Stockholm Syndrome, 82–83, 176, 185, 239 streaker, 260 strip-searches, 295, 301 Sugarland Express, The, 17 Sweeney, Joe, 146, 150, 151, 152, 247, sympathy strike, 163 “Taco Bell,” 251 Thaler, Bruce, 19, 134

INDEX

Taylor, Ron, 32; 48, 49, 55, 102, 103, 115, 118, 137, 146, 150, 152, 173, 200, 237, 244, 249, 256, 282, 295 tear gas, 29, 64, 133, 145 Tejas Motel, el, 22, 68, 116 television set, 36, 103, 250 Temple Daily Telegram, 16 Terre Haute, Indiana, federal penitentiary, 23 Teter, Virgil, 67, 129 Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, 107 Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), 164, 292; Estelle speech, 10; Windham School District, 14; chain of command, 22; goals regarding Carrasco, 27; hostage policy, 34–35, 155; history of, 63; physiological services department, 64–65; hostages criticism of, 83, 171, 175–176, 178, 183, 239, 249; assurances from, 87; monitoring calls, 90, 147; regarding governor, 94–96; reports to media, 99; regarding stall tactics, 118, 153, 177, 250, 257; transportation, 144; negotiations, 160– 61, 229–30, 253, 256; repercussions of siege, 163; costs of siege, 170; regarding Carrasco’s talks to media, 192; hostage exchange, 196–97, 199–200, 248; stress of siege, 277–78; end of siege, 282, 289, aftermath of, 297, 301 Texas Department of Public Service (DPS), 37, 39, 93, 102; intelligence division, 105, 127,

130, 288–89, 293, 300 Texas Legislature, 10, 14, 182 Texas Rangers, 20, 37, 38, 39, 48, 49, 77, 78, 93, 101, 105, 126, 127, 132, 145, 167, 173, 197, 199, 213, 256, 271, 272, 277, 282, 288, 290, 292 Texas Rangers, American League baseball team, 127 Texas State Board of Education, 14 Texas Women’s University, 13 Tex-Mex cuisine, 123 Thanksgiving dinner, 24 “Think Tank,” 48, 49, 50, 66, 70, 82, 93, 102, 103, 104, 106, 115, 118, 133, 162, 212, 242, 243, 250, 266, 268, 278 Thomas, Cal, 139, 140, 173, 174, 175 Thompson, Doris, 12 Time, 139 “Tortilla Flat,” 67 Tres Hombres, 258 Trojan Horse, 251, 252 Trojan Taco, 251, 254, 259, 267, 269, 273, 277, 281, 284, 286, 289, 294 Truman, Harry S., 21 Tubbs, Ernest, 258 United Press International (UPI), 61, 103, 139, 152, 163, 178 University of Texas, 3 Upper Yard, 18, 19, 37, 38, 102, 127, 145, 161, 282, 288, 294 Valdez, Jesse, 140 Valium, 90, 204, 218, 219, 238 value system, 163 Vasquez, Manuel S., 69

345

INDEX

Vera, Consuelo, 89 Vera, Florencio, 40, 89, 90, 148, 150, 156, 190, 208, 211, 212, 251; marriage proposal, 264–65; 276, 291 Viceroys (cigarettes), 26 Victim Precipitated Homicide, 195 Viejo, el, 23, 67 Vietnam, 140, 188 vigilantes, 125, 126, 127 Villanon, Rito, 70 volleyball net, 286, Walker, County of, 16, 38, 39, 212, 256 walkie-talkies, 53, 102, 113, 122, 164, 165, 82, 283, 285, 288 “Walled-off Astoria,” 19 Ward, Dave, 182 Warner, Wesley, 161, 199, 200, 292 Washington, D. C., 12, 93, 102, 132 Watergate, 140 WBAP, 152, 192 Weilbacher, Bill, 80–81, 191 WFAA-TV, 175 “what if” games, 129, 278 White, Darrell, 39 Wiatt, Robert E., 16, 17, 18, 21, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38; 48, 70, 76, 77, 78, 82, 86, 92, 93, 94, 102, 103, 105, 118, 122, 123, 126, 130, 132, 133, 135, 140, 145, 146, 147, 158, 159,

346

166, 166, 167, 173, 188, 196, 199, 230, 242, 266, 267, 271, 272, 274, 275, 277, 278, 282, 283, 284, 288, 290, 291 Willett, James, 19, 21, 31, 249, 279, 301 Wills, Bob, 258 Windham School, 5, 12, 14, 34, 46, 47, 69, 82, 98, 137, 160, 259, 260, 263, 266 “window dressing,” 301 WOAI-TV, 146, 152, 247 Woodman, Linda G., 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 15, 16, 30, 31, 42, 46, 58, 69, 72, 73, 76, 77, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 98, 112, 113, 121, 124, 125, 135, 136, 141, 147, 148, 149, 152, 155, 156, 160, 161, 164, 167, 169, 182, 183, 184, 187, 189, 190, 200, 201, 202, 204, 207, 217, 222, 224, 225, 243, 259, 261, 263, 266, 268, 270, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 297 escape plan, 209–11, 260; phobia, 264–65; release, 269–72; debriefing, 273–74 Writ Room, 15, 243 Yema, Andrew, 152, 163, 178 Zapata, Emiliano, 67, 86, 252 Zindler, Marvin, 182