Crime Story #1

Warning: The following tale is from my crime reporting days. It's kind of gross. If you're squeamish or easily upset by the evil that man does, don't read any further.

In 1991, I became a crime reporter for a major North Texas newspaper. It's not really a beat that I wanted. I'm not blood thirsty by nature. I started out by filling in for someone else. I grew to like writing about crime. The experience taught me much about human nature and how to write and report quickly and instictively. I became a very good crime reporter. And ultimately, I learned that I couldn't take being a crime reporter for the rest of my life.

The job started off early. I had to be in the office by 5:30 a.m. Back then, the newspaper had both and afternoon and a morning edition. And the deadline for the afternoon paper was 11 a.m. So I had to run the traps at the police department and find out what happened the night before, talk to who I needed to talk to and get something in for the afternoon paper. Most of the time, I'd sit by my desk in the police department, read police reports and listen to the police radio in hopes of finding something to write about.

One morning I heard on the radio that the fire department was at a house fire. And they called out "signal 12". That was code meaning that someone was dead. So I grabbed a brick-like early 1990's cell phone and jumped in my car and headed to East Magnolia Street where the burned house was. This was a street that dead ended into some railroad tracks. All of the homes on this street were old shotgun houses. They're called this because if you fire a shotgun through the front door, it would hit the back door because all of the rooms in the house were in a row.

When I arrived, the firefighters were busy. They'd put out a smoldering fire in the front room of one of the shotgun houses. And I could see that there was a dead man in the front room. He was laying on his back, his body badly burned and it looked like his chest had caved in. I had no idea that fire would do that to someone. It pretty unsettling discovery for that early in the morning.

So I shook that off and started asking all of the people who had gathered around what had happened. One man told me that a 14-year-old boy named Julius had seen the fire and had tried to help save the man. So I found Julius and talked to him. Julius said he was out walking his dog shortly before dawn and saw smoke coming from the house. He said the man was on fire. So he grabbed some pillows off the man's bed and put out the fire on the man's burning body. But the man died anyway he said.

I call my editor and dictate what the boy told me. He loved it. Boy tries valiantly to save man but man succumbs to flames.

After I'd called in the story, all of the firemen left and the homicide cops showed up. That seemed strange. Why would they be there?

Then some aspects about Julius' story started to bother me. But I had to get back to the police station to make some more phone calls on another story.

When I arrived I saw that one of the homicide cops was standing in the lobby of the station. Right next to him was Julius. Here was my chance to ask Julius some more questions. I asked the cop if I could talk to Julius. He says sure.

"So Julius. When you went to the front door of the man's house, was it locked?"

"Yeah, it was locked."

"And when you approached the house, the man was on fire?"

"Yeah, he was."

"So this man went to his front door, unlocked it, let you in while he was on fire?

"Yeah."

The homicide officer told me Julius was being arrested for homicide.

It turns out that the man was 58 years old and was an invalid. Julius had wanted a jar of nickels the man had. The man told him no. So Julius beat him with a wooden stake, stabbed him, and then set his body on fire.

Because of his age, Julius was committed to a juvenile facility where he'd have to stay until he was 21 years old.

Julius would be 28 years old today.