4.19.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts






The killer turned out to be Tucker Strickland, 21, who overpowered deputy Sherri Jones, 54, while she was escorting him through the basement of the Bowie County courthouse for a competency hearing.  Three years later, as his capital murder trial was about to begin, he pled guilty to murder and received a life sentence (parole eligible in 30 years.) Side note: Wise County still escorts its inmates through the basement for court. I was guessing that the New Boston courthouse was just as old, however, it's relatively new having been built in 1985.


  • Bridgeport coaching news from moments ago: 

  • This arrest was last year, but court records show she just received a four year sentence in prison last Thursday. (Cause number CR22658) Background.  

  • Texas gun news: 
    • There was a shooting in Austin yesterday which left three dead -- including a University of North Texas football signee. The suspect  is a former sheriff's investigator who was charged with the sexual assault of a teenager and who resigned from the department last year. (And although it wouldn't have prevented the shooting, a judge has to now take some heat for allowing an ankle monitor to be removed while he was out on bond.) 

    • Four year old killed in accidental shooting in Fort Worth. 
    • Two UNT students shot, but not killed, in the Kappa Sig parking lot over the weekend. 
  • The poll, which was conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, showed that Matthew McConaughey would get 45 percent of registered voters with Abbott coming in at 33 percent. Why couldn't it happen? Trump was elected President of the United States.

  • This caucus, which might as well have been called "The Klan", was abandoned by QAnon subscribing Taylor Greene over the weekend because of pubic blowback. But not before embattled Matt Gaetz said he would join it, and crazy East Texan Louie Gohmert said he was "considering it."  


  • A member of the University of North Texas basketball staff died in a one car wreck on 380 near Decatur early on Friday morning. 

  • He just barely gets to use "I'm just a dumb teenager" card for this stunt, and that probably won't get him very far. He was later arrested.  

  • This Trump Insurrectionist was released by a federal court with a condition that she wear a mask away from her residence. She thought she'd trick it up a bit by wearing a sheer facial covering and flaunted it on social media. The judge has ordered her back to court to explain herself. 




  • This candidate for the Lake Travis ISD school board got arrested after not wearing a mask and "shoved an employee before forcing her way into a dressing room where she proceeded to call the Nordstrom Rack corporate office." I'm not sure which part of her rant is better: That she doesn't have to ID herself after her detention because of the "common law -- you should read up on it!" or that she is a "Christian woman of God" or that she claimed racism.  Video.

  • I'm not sure why a bobcat and a tiger cub found in a San Antonio home last month gave rise to 14 minutes of live coverage on a San Antonio station, but there is now a Wise County connection: The bobcat has ended up at animal sanctuary in Bridgeport.   

  • It's that anniversary date. 


  • We should have a Derek Chauvin verdict this week. I feel pretty good about a conviction, but I'd like to see the instructions to to the jury before firing off an official prediction.