Untitled

THE
GREAT
TEXAS
MURDER
TRIALS
ALSO BY DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service

The Carlos Contract
THE
GREAT
TEXAS
MURDER
TRIALS
A COMPELLING ACCOUNT
OF THE SENSATIONAL
T. CULLEN DAVIS CASE
• • •
DAVID ATLEE PHILLIPS
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC. NEW YORK

Copyright © 1979 by David Atlee Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022
Collier Macmillan Canada, Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-12413
First Printing 1979
Printed in the United States of America

Fort Worth multimillionaire T. Cullen Davis has been brought
to trial twice on criminal charges involving murder. He has
steadfastly maintained that he is innocent of all accusations
made against him, and the state of Texas has failed twice to con-
vince a jury of his guilt. The first trial, for the murder of his step-
daughter, Andrea Wilborn, lasted five months and ended in a
verdict of acquittal. His second trial was for soliciting the
murder of the judge who had presided at his divorce trial. After
twelve weeks of testimony from almost one hundred witnesses,
the jurors stalemated and the judge declared a mistrial. The
prosecutors say they will try Mr. Davis again, but no immediate
plans have been announced.
In relating the bizarre history of the two trials, I have found it
helpful to use a character whom I have named ''Judge Matthew
Willard.'' Though in a sense a fictional character, he is based on
a real person, who, though knowledgeable of the law, is not a
judge.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1X
PROLOGUE 3
1 THE OLD JUDGE 7
2 CULLEN IN THE CROSS-BAR HOTEL 20
3 THE OLD JUDGE AND THE JOURNALIST 34

4 STINKY'S EMPIRE, CULLEN AND PRISCILLA 44
5 THE OLD JUDGE 70
6 THE AMARILLO TRIAL 75
7 THE OLD JUDGE 112
8 THE LULL BETWEEN 116
9 THE OLD JUDGE 140

10 THE WIRED CANARY 141
11 THE OLD JUDGE AND THE JOURNALIST 189
12 CULLEN II-THE HOUSTON TRIAL 198
13 THE OLD JUDGE 266
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The T. Cullen Davis case has been the biggest story covered
by the Fort Worth Star- Telegram in its seventy-three-year history. I
relied on the newspaper's flies from mid-1976 to early 1979 in
documenting portions of this book. Frequently, the Star- Telegram
material and the reporters who prepared it are recognized in the
text, but not always, especially in quotations from the reporting
on the Amarillo and Houston trials written by Evan Moore, Jim
Jones, and Glen Guzzo.
The most frequently quoted newsman is Glen Guzzo, who
was assigned to the Davis beat for more than thirty months and
performed in a manner which merits national recognition. I am
also indebted to Star- Telegram reporter John Makeig and to the
able staff of the newspaper's reference library. Carl Freund of
the Fort Worth bureau of the Dallas Morning News and Bill Hix of
KXAS-TV, Fort Worth, also provided valuable assistance.
Reference sources on Texas crime and Southwest lore includ-
ed In Old Fort Worth by Mack Williams, the Tomlinson Lone Star
Book of Texas Records, and the excellent How Fort Worth Became the
Texasmost City by Leonard Sanders.
And I am grateful to many individuals who agreed to be inter-
viewed in Texas, nearly all of whom requested anonymity.
THE
GREAT
TEXAS
MURDER
TRIALS
PROLOGUE
The precise sequence of events and the circumstances of that

bloody Sunday night/Monday morning were subsequently the
subject of spirited and sometimes acrimonious debate but one
conclusion was indisputable: A man dressed in black wearing a
woman's wig shot and killed two people and wounded two
others. The first to die was a young girl and the second victim, a
thirty-year-old man who stood eighty-one inches. The murder
weapon was a . 38 revolver partially concealed in a plastic gar-
bage bag.
It was before midnight in August of 1976 when the mayhem
commenced in Fort Worth; thirty minutes later the gory chores
were done. The murderer must have perspired profusely. The
temperature had topped the 100-degree mark during the day
and there had been no cooling breezes in the evening off the
scrub-and-brush plains around the Texas city. The last of the
revelers at the adjoining Colonial Country Club had gone home;
it was quiet except for an occasional forlorn clank from the near-
by T & P Railroad freight yards. A slice of moon was not bright
enough to cast shadows. The aroma of mimosa drifted from the
cluster of trees surrounding the mansion.
The killer may have driven up the hill to the palatial residence
by either of two roads or he could have approached on foot.
From any direction he would have had to drive or trudge up a
steep incline. The mansion grounds were 140 in-town acres of
garden, lawn, and open field below the hilltop manor. The ar-
3
THE GREAT TEXAS MURDER TRIALS
chitect had characterized this edifice as ''a rambling-type home

of contemporary design with a Southwest regional flavor .... ''
Most agreed that it was an impressive building, but others
believed it looked more like a fortress than a home. One de-
scribed the architecture as "art deco mausoleum." Texans ad-
mire the immense, but the ostentatious homestead wasn't the
sort of place where people lived. Before the killings it was referred
to by friends of the occupants as "the Davis place." Afterwards
it was called "the murder mansion."
It was assumed the luxurious house was a gift of love. T.
Cullen Davis, one of the wealthiest men in America, proffered it
to his new bride Priscilla when they wed in 1968, her third and
his second marriage. Cullen promised Priscilla she would have a
dream house-"just as she wanted it built," he said at the time.
Priscilla's dream came true in 1972 after two years of construc-
tion. The cost of the land and building was six million dollars. In
Fort Worth society the dowagers clucked and remarked that the
rich abode was ... well ... tacky. And the mansion's furnishings
were described by many, including those who had never seen
them, as flashy. Others disagreed, finding the mansion striking
and its interior sumptuous, if perhaps a touch gaudy.
Priscilla was gaudy. She was blonde and curvaceous, pro-
vocative and audacious. She shocked and titillated Fort Worth
by appearing in scanty attire at the nearby Colonial Country
Club and the exclusive Petroleum Club downtown. Her blouses
and hot-pants were creaseless-tight on her full, lush body. Her
decolletage plunged so deeply at times that, as one awed spec-
tator put it, "On a clear day you could see her knockers from
Dallas.''
Priscilla relished the notoriety. She gave the back of her hand
to Fort Worth society whenever she could. Her favorite pendant
was two words spelled out in diamonds on gold: ''Rich Bitch.''
But, within a matter of a few years, the marriage between
Cullen Davis and his princess from across the tracks soured and
went terribly awry. They separated in 1974. A bitter divorce
4
PROLOGUE
proceeding ensued. She lived in the mansion with one of her

three children by previous marriages. She rejected Cullen's set-
tlement offers as parsimonious after her lawyers told her that the
profits from Cullen's worldwide business enterprises were $52
million in 197 5. The judge presiding over the squabble, Joe Eid-
son, enjoined Cullen from visiting the mansion or approaching
Priscilla. Soon there was a new resident, a six-foot nine-inch ex-
basketball player named Stan Farr; he was referred to, delicate-
ly, as Priscilla's "live-in companion." There were allusions to
the size of the stud-athlete's main attraction. The mansion
became an arena for memorable parties.
The mansion was an ideal place to entertain. The indoor pool.
The collection of expensive art. The tall cabinets filled with jade,
a fabulous chess set, an antique snuff box from the Manheim
Galleries, the popcorn wagon from Hammacher Schlemmer, the
crystal butterfly from Steuben. All sorts of conversation pieces.
Everybody in Fort Worth talked about the $400,000 Renoir
hanging on the wall of a bathroom. The parties spawned persis-
tent rumors of wild evenings spiced with dope and orgies.
Perhaps Priscilla needed parties. Being alone with her
eighteen-year-old daughter Dee in a mansion with 19,000
square feet of floor space was hardly titillating; Priscilla worried
about intruders. Her jewelry alone was tempting loot: The
platinum and diamond bracelet; the yellow gold, diamond, and
emerald necklace; the diamond and platinum pendant; and all
the other baubles and trinkets were of immense value. Booze
and music and merriment made the mansion livable; being
alone there was scary. Before the murders Priscilla talked with a
man who was expanding the electronic alarm system which pro-
tected the mansion. "When I'm alone in this place at night,"
she confided, "it's so big that it gets creepy and spooky."
There was a particular reason for a celebration in early
August 1976. Judge Eidson had ruled that Cullen must increase
his temporary alimony payments to Priscilla from $3500 month-
ly to $5000 and give Priscilla over $42,000 for attorney's fees and
5
other expenses related to the divorce. Cullen was advised of the

injunction on August 2, eight hours before the murders.
Priscilla was absent when the man dressed in black entered
the mansion, but her younger daughter Andrea was there.
Usually she lived with her father and brother, but she was a
visitor on this night. Andrea was alone. Her body was found
later, sprawled on the concrete floor of a basement storeroom.
Had Andrea lived to her next birthday she would have become a
teenager.
Shortly after midnight Priscilla and Stan Farr returned to the
mansion. The killer was still inside the house when they entered.
Perhaps he was standing near the large composite portrait of
Cullen and Priscilla painted in happier times, Cullen in a som-
bre pose, Priscilla smiling and showing an expanse of bare thigh.
The man in black shot Priscilla. The bullet entered her chest be-
tween her extravagant breasts, then perforated her liver before
emergtng.
As Priscilla staggered in shock, the gunman turned on Stan
Farr. He felled the giant with four bullets.
Priscilla escaped the mansion, perhaps because the murderer
had to reload his hot revolver. Clutching her abdomen, she ran
down the hill a thousand yards to the home of a neighbor.
The killer coolly lurked at the scene. Young Gus Gavrel, Jr.,
escorted his eighteen-year-old girlfriend, Beverly Bass, to the
mansion where she was to spend the night with Priscilla's elder
daughter Dee. It was 12:30 A.M. Dee had not yet arrived, but the
murderer waited. And he shot Gus from a distance of three feet.
The steel-jacketed bullet nicked the lower part of Gus's spinal
cord. Beverly screamed and ran out of the mansion, pursued by
the man in black. She eluded him in the darkness.
The police, summoned by Priscilla's neighbors, were by then
on the way. They found the wounded Gus in a pool of
blood ... and Andrea and the basketball player. After verifying
that the latter two were dead, they sought the perpetrator.
The murderer had fled.
6
·1·
THE OLD JUDGE
Judge Matthew Willard had already shaved, fed the dog, and
read a passage from the Bible before he turned on the early
morning news at six o'clock and heard about the shooting spree
at Cullen Davis's place on Mockingbird Lane. When the news
account was completed he snapped off the radio and spoke to his
dog.
"Did you hear that, Oliver?" The black Labrador had been
dozing at the Judge's feet and looked up at the sound of his
name. "That Priscilla woman is Cullen Davis's fancy wife
who's been in the newspaper so much. You remember
Cullen ... that slender, baby-faced boy who lived down the street
until just a few years ago. His brother William lives there now."
The Judge shook his head in disbelief. ''Son of a bitch! What
kind of person is it that can kill a twelve-year-old girl?"
He pushed himself from his black leather chair and strode
from the room and through the hall to fetch the Fort Worth Star-
Telegram. Normally, the newspaper waited until after breakfast,
but now the Judge was eager to read the details of the
astonishing development at the Davis mansion. He opened the
paper anxiously.
''Goddamn it!'' The blasphemy was directed to the newspa-
per. There was nothing on the front page about the murders.
The banner headline, Monday morning, August 3, 1976,
read: COLORADO FLASH FLOOD KILLS 60. The only
photograph on the page was a silly one of a man smiling inanely
7
while hugging a huge block of ice to cool himself in Sunday's

hundred-plus heat.
The Judge delivered his opinion of the man. "Horse's ass."
He flipped through the pages of the first section of the paper,
then through the local news. Nothing about the shootings. He
paused at the sports section because of the eye-catching
photograph of a nude young man dancing in a field among
dozens ofwomen. He read the caption: ''Montreal (AP)Ayoung
man ran into the center of the Olympic Stadium at the closing ceremony
Sunday night, stnpped off his clothes, and cavorted naked with 500 garbed
women who were part of the ceremony.'' The Judge chuckled.
The Judge looked west. Through the trees he could see the old
Davis place, now occupied by William. The sprawling English
manor house was opposite the fifteenth tee of the Rivercrest
Country Club; the Judge had passed it almost every morning for
the past twenty years during his regular morning hike around
the course. Before they moved into that monstrous house on
Mockingbird Lane, Cullen Davis and Priscilla had lived there.
They had inherited the place from Cullen's father, Ken Davis,
Sr.
The Judge looked at the Star- Telegram again, then slammed it
against his thigh. "Goddamn it!" he repeated. What kind of
newspaper is it that doesn't have an important story like the
murders at the Davis mansion? If Amon Carter were still alive
and heading that paper there would have been some ass kicking.
Amon would have .... The Judge reflected. Of course. All that
carnage had occurred too late last night, or too early this morn-
ing, to get in the paper before it went to press. l-Ie would have to
wait for the afternoon edition.
The Judge returned to the house, went into the kitchen, and
turned on the burners under the kettle, for his tea, and the small
pot, for his soft-boiled eggs.
The Judge stepped from the kitchen to the adjacent studio-
office-library where he had slept and worked since the death of
his wife eighteen years ago. For all practical purposes, the rest of
8
THE OLD JUDGE
the house might as well have been sealed off; the Judge seldom
ventured into the other downstairs rooms or the bedrooms
upstairs. The commodious room he now preferred had been an
addition to the original fifty-year-old brick house. When the
Judge had been elected to the state Supreme Court he had need-
ed a place to keep his books and to work whenever he was able to
return to Fort Worth from Austin. Then, after his wife died, he
brought down the four-poster bed and confined his activities to
that area.
In addition to the bed there was the Judge's leather chair
where he liked to sit in the evening with his single drink of the
day, a small sofa for visitors, a roll top desk which had been in his
father's office in the family dry-goods store on Main Street, a
second, stand-up desk where he read the ponderous law books,
and a podium on which rested a massive King James version of
the Bible.
There were two paintings, both valuable, side by side on one
wall. The frrst was a Remington-a cowboy plunging from his
crophorse onto a steer-which the Judge had won in a poker
game in Lubbock when the rancher who owned it placed undue
faith in four kings while the Judge held a bobtailed flush. The
other painting was a formal portrait of the Judge's triple-great
grandfather done by a student of Charles Wilson Peale. The jux-
taposition of the aristocratic Eastern gentleman and the Western
scene was not incongruous. Fort Worth has always been called
"the city where the West begins," and if this is true it is also
where the East ends.
There was a large picture window. It framed a view which the
Judge thoroughly enjoyed, especially when he watched the sun
sink in the clear air following a summer storm, his single drink of
the day in hand.
The other walls were solid books: history, biography,
Southwest lore, and the law. The Judge didn't read fiction; he
figured he owned two thousand books but only one novel, and
that by Owen Wister and printed in 1889. The Judge liked to
9
read books, but sometimes he was content simply to hold them.

When he acquired a new volume-the purchase always an
agonizing decision because it meant the displacement of one
already on the shelves-he opened the pages a few at a time, first
in front, then in the back, and ran his thumbnail down the page
near the spine. His father had taught him that, to lengthen the
life of the binding. The truth of the matter was that the Judge
loved his books, particularly Blackstone's Commentaries and those
of the British barrister's American counterpart Kent, more than
anything or anyone. Certainly the Judge had been devoted to his
wife and was lonely for a while after her death. But, my, she had
been a talker. And the Judge was genuinely fond of his compan-
ion Oliver, and liked to talk to him. Oliver's formal name should
have been Oliver IV, because he was the fourth Labrador
retriever the Judge had named in memory of the greatest justice
of them all.
But the books and what he discovered in them concerned the
most important thing in the Judge's life. The Judge was deeply
in love with the law.
All in all, the Judge believed himself a fortunate man. He
knew he was honest. Charitable. He was devout; he had given
up church-going years ago, but read the Bible each day. And he
was convinced he had been a damned good lawyer and a damned
great trial judge.
But the Judge did recognize in himself two weaknesses and
one eccentricity. The latter was that he carried on one-sided con-
versations with Oliver, but that didn't bother him too much. He
long ago ceased worrying about what people thought of that.
But the two weaknesses did worry him: foul language and
bourbon.
Since the Judge considered himself a man of rectitude he had
a guilty conscience about using expletives, but he enjoyed them
so he couldn't break the habit, though he never used the ugly
four-letter words that referred to sexual activity. The Judge had
reached a compromise with his conscience in the way he
10
THE OLD JUDGE
employed curse words-he always put the emphasis on another

word. Sometimes the stress would be on the adjective-as in "a
randy bastard" or "horse shit." Sometimes the emphasis would
be on a noun or pronoun-as in "Goddamn him." One of his
favorite expressions was ''in a pig's ass.''
The other sin was the bourbon. That single drink of the day.
When he had been practicing and while on the bench, the Judge
had often remarked that he had only one drink a day and that
was true. It was still true. That hadn't changed. But the glass
had. In the beginning it was a tumbler. The Judge switched to a
regular highball glass. Then he found a taller one. Then he
changed to one of the same height but of greater circumference.
Finally he settled on just the right one-an excessively large
iced-tea mug he found in a novelty shop. It held, over ice, almost
a pint.
So, each day, enjoying the bourbon even while at odds with
his conscience, the old Judge sat in his chair and looked out his
window and sipped his single drink.
After his breakfast of tea, two soft-boiled eggs, and milk on
bran (the menu never varied), the Judge took Oliver's leash
from the closet. The Labrador pranced with anticipation at the
signal that the daily excursion around the perimeter of the golf
course was to begin.
In previous years the Judge usually had the sidewalks and
fairways to himself except for a few early golfers or insomniacs.
No more. The area was crowded with joggers. What a pack of
idiots they were. The Judge simply didn't understand what they
were up to-there's nothing better than a brisk walk, but why
run your ass off? It couldn't be more obvious that the joggers
weren't enjoying themselves. When they ran past, their faces
were invariably contorted with fatigue and anguish. What
assholes!
Despite their twisted countenances the Rivercrest joggers
always managed a smile of recognition when they ran near the
Judge. Even those who had never met him were aware of his
11
reputation as a legal giant in the Southwest. And, at the age of

eighty-two, he was a remarkably virile and handsome figure. He
stood almost six feet and his body was trim. He kept his back
erect. He always wore a white shirt and a dark tie, even on hot
days like this one, and a town-size Stetson hat. His white hair
was long enough to flow below the hat, and his hirsute eyebrows
and hawklike nose gave him a fierce, Old West look.
The Judge and his dog walked along near the stately houses.
They paused frequently while Oliver sniffed for insects in the
grass or pawed at a gopher's burrow. The Judge was patient; he
enjoyed gazing at the estates of his neighbors, pondering each
inhabitant's foibles and virtues. There was one common
denominator among them: great wealth. First, of course, the oil
people. Then the landowners; some of them had oil also.
Bankers, lawyers, professional people, a few doctors. Then there
was a large group of inheritors. Some of them had never worked
a day in their lives. They just inherited.
Of course, some of them, like the Davis boys, were inheritors
who worked and expanded already sizeable fortunes. (When the
Judge used the word "boy" he often referred to men in their for-
ties and fifties.) Whether they worked or not, some of the in-
heritors found it difficult to handle the problems they inherited
along with the money.
"Oliver, come here." The dog heeled. The Judge pointed to
a large, rambling home. "See that place, Oliver? The man who
built that house had more money than you have fleas. He was a
barber in Kilgore. Everybody was digging wells. He had a little-
bitty yard behind his barbershop. Just big enough for one der-
rick. That's all he needed, Oliver."
At the tee on the sixth hole the Judge paused to drink from the
water cooler. He ftlled his cupped hands so the dog could lap
water.
''Now look at that place, Oliver.'' The judge gestured toward
an opulent home just across Rivercrest Drive. "Moncrief. I
wouldn't be surprised at all if Monty wasn't one of the ten
12
THE OLD JUDGE
richest men in Texas. Once he summoned his two sons just

before Christmas to give them a special little gift. A million
dollars. Each. But Monty was not just family-generous. He
must have paid for half that new All Saints' Hospital out of his
own pocket.''
The Judge crossed the street. The house next to the Moncrief
place had been the home of Gaylord Chizum. Lawyer. Then the
Judge and the dog continued at a leisurely pace, enjoying the
trees and birds.
They had come to the Batts place. The Judge squinted at the
spacious dwelling. "There was violence in this house, Oliver."
The Judge was sombre. ''Bob Batts shot and killed his wife
there. Bob was a lawyer. They didn't get along. He wanted a
divorce, but she was R.C. and wouldn't go along. She was a
strange woman; some folks thought she should have been in an
asylum. They owned a ranch a couple of hours from town and
one night she telephoned Bob from the ranch because she was
suspicious he was entertaining a woman at their house in town.
She wouldn't believe him when he told her he was playing poker
with friends. They had a hell of a fight on the phone until Bob
hung up on her. He was boiling mad. Didn't win a hand after
that. Nobody should play poker when they're not thinking
straight.''
The Judge leaned down and unsnapped Oliver's leash. He
picked up a stick and threw it; he waited until the retriever had
returned with the stick before continuing.
''Bob and his friends were just starting to play the last round
when Bob's teenage boy came in. He was scared. He had seen
someone hiding in the shrubbery in the backyard. There had
been several cases of breaking and entering around the
neighborhood, so Bob thought there was a prowler on his
premises.
''Bob took a deer rifle off the rack in his den and loaded it.
Then he went to the back of the house, flipped on the floodlight
that illuminated his yard, opened the door, and raised his rifle.
13
His guests saw him shoot. One time. Then Bob turned toward
his friends with a stunned look on his face.''
The Judge exhaled slowly.
"It was his wife. They found her dead in the bushes, barefoot.
Later, a witness said he saw her take off her shoes and go around
behind the house. She had driven down from the ranch to check
on Bob, to be sure he wasn't entertaining a woman. Took off the
shoes so she could tiptoe around without being heard. Bob said
he didn't recognize his wife, just saw a dark figure in the bushes
holding what he thought were two guns. So he shot first. In self-
defense, he said.
"Now you listen to me, Oliver." The judge shook the stick at
the dog. "Don't you ever forget that story. Because it
demonstrates the complexity of the law. Bob Batts was a clever
lawyer with a thorough awareness of the rules of evidence. He
had wanted to shed his wife for years. Suddenly he found himself
with someone in the sights of his rifle. Was it an accident? Or was
it murder? I reiterate, Oliver, the law is complex! Is murder
premeditated if the premeditation lasts only a split second?
Usually not. But what if that instant decision is taken in the
wake of one arrived at long before to murder should the oppor-
tunity safely arise? And murder has to be proved by that golden
maxim-b9ond a reasonable doubt. And, how often can others
know, or, to be more accurate, guess beyond a reasonable doubt
what was going on in another person's mind?''
The Judge pulled at pursed lips, reflecting, and then resumed
his walk. After passing one house he stopped again at the next, a
square, white-brick abode of Moorish design: 805 Rivercrest
Drive.
That place belonged to Ed Phillips. Fine young lawyer. Died
when he was in his late thirties. Played golf in the rain and
caught pneumonia. Didn't have penicillin then, in 1928. Young
as he was, Ed had his own law firm, with a batch of partners.
Chizum, from that house we passed back aways, and David
Trammel, who lived not far from him. Ed left a wife and four
14
THE OLD JUDGE
sons. The Depression came and they were the poorest rich peo-
ple in Fort Worth. But she went to work and was able to educate
them. Two became lawyers; they practice in Fort Worth now. A
third boy wrote a book about Rivercrest and he shook the
skeletons in every closet around this golf course. Holy shit, it did
cause a scandal! He left town and he's been writing ever since.
The fourth Phillips son was named for David Trammel. The
Judge knew him better than the other boys because as a lad the
boy made extra spending money cutting the grass and clipping
the hedges in his yard. He ran around the neighborhood with
Ken Davis, Jr., Cullen's older brother. He left Fort Worth
about '39, but through the years sometimes dropped by to chat
with the Judge during visits to Fort Worth. Never had much to
say about what he was doing, though. Apparently he had
become some sort of spy. •
The excursion continued until the Judge resumed his conver-
sation with Oliver at another of the sumptuous homes.
"Do you know what kind of violence occurred here, Oliver?"
The Judge paused. ''Patricide! The Parker family. J. Lloyd
Parker shot and killed his father in the kitchen of that house. For
a long time J. Lloyd had been living on a grand scale on money
that his mother gave him-I'm not sure he ever worked a day in
his life. Then his mother and father were in an automobile acci-
dent. The father was driving; he survived but the mother died.
Now they say that J. Lloyd blamed his father for his mother's
death. In any event, J. Lloyd wasn't able to get as much money
from the old man as he had before. The resentment festered.
They had an argument and J. Lloyd shot his father. Right in
that kitchen, Oliver. J. Lloyd had plenty of money then, and
spent a lot of it on lawyers. He spent some time in the Rusk
Psychiatric Hospital, but tried every way his lawyers could think
of to stay out of jail. It was ten years before he exhausted his ap-
peals, and spent a few years in prison. He's free now. He
•judge Willard refers to the author, who retired from the CIA in 1975.
15
doesn't do anything, I understand. He just likes to drive around

town in his Cadillac. He buys one each year when the new
models come out, and just drives around town."
A few moments after the Judge and his dog had resumed their
walk a pretty jogger, a young girl in a T -shirt and running
shorts, approached them. She smiled at the Judge, and he
touched the brim of his Stetson.
The dog and his master turned the corner at the Polk place.
Young George had gone off to be a journalist. Did well, until he
got killed. They found him floating in a bay in Greece, his hands
tied behind his back and his body full of holes. Still see his name
in the newspapers once a year because of some journalism award
named for him.
The smell of honeysuckle hung in the hot morning air as the
Judge turned into a cul-de-sac and gestured toward a large
home. "Amon Carter. He was born out in Wise County
in-and this is absolutely true, Oliver-a log cabin. Moved into
Bowie and discovered that the train which stopped in town
didn't have a dining car. So Amon sold box lunches, mostly
chicken sandwiches, and when there was no chicken the
passengers didn't know the difference when they got rabbit
instead.
''Amon Carter founded the Fort Worth Star- Telegram. A power-
ful influence in the Southwest, read by every cattleman and dirt
farmer for five hundred miles around. Then Amon went into the
oil business and made a bundle from that. He was generous with
his money. Left Fort Worth that Amon Carter Museum, which
has the finest collections of Remingtons and Russells in the
world." The Judge's Remington, according to his will, would
hang there some day.
When the Judge turned the corner returning to the golf course
he lingered, as he always did, at the estate where the Waggoner
girl lived. Her husband liked animals and kept a thoroughbred
horse behind the high wall. Used to keep a longhorn steer, noble
animal, as well, but the Judge hadn't seen any recently. The
16
THE OLD JUDGE
Waggoner girl was Dan's great granddaughter. Dan Waggoner

owned oil and land. His ranch was five hundred thousand acres!
When he died there was a squabble about his estate. Twenty-six
lawyers fighting it out. Young Bucky Waggoner got most of it.
Forty-five million dollars. There was a picture of Bucky in the
newspaper. It showed Bucky sitting with his legs crossed. There
was a hole in his shoe. Undoubtedly, with that forty-five million,
Bucky was able to get his shoe fiXed.
How much money was there around this golf course? A
billion? Two ?
The Judge crossed the street and walked down the broad four-
teenth fairway. He was becoming tired. He and Oliver had
almost completed the cirle around the golf course; the judge had
once clocked the distance at close to four miles.
He rested, sitting on the cool concrete bench in the tee house
on the fifteenth hole, a short par three. It was almost eight
o'clock, and the temperature must have climbed to eighty
degrees.
Only a few feet from where the Judge sat there was a bronze
plaque on a stone base in the grass. It was two feet by one and
featured a sculpted bas-relief portrait of a man. There was an in-
scription: "In Memory of john B. Collier III." When the Judge
had first seen that plaque he considered it curious. Had Collier
dropped dead at that spot? Then he read the inscription further.
Yes, Collier had died, but elsewhere. Finally: ''He Scored a
Hole-in-one Here on #15June 14, 1969."
Thejudge still thought it curious.
Oliver barked, then streaked to a high fence not far from
where the Judge sat. The judge turned to see what had attracted
the dog's attention. It was the camel on the Lowe place. What a
big ass house that is, the judge mused, gazing beyond the camel
to the manor. Ralph Lowe made a lot of money in his time, but
had some bad luck, too. He owned a horse that ran in the Ken-
tucky Derby. In the home stretch the horse was ahead of the
field, looking like a sure winner. But then Willie Shoemaker
17
made some sort of mistake. Thought the race was over and
pulled on the reins. So Ralph Lowe lost the Kentucky Derby.
Now, how did the camel come to be there? Ah, yes, the Judge
remembered-a pair of camels was the his-and-her Christmas
gift at Neiman-Marcus a few years back.
The Judge turned and looked across the narrow street at the
Davis place.
Ken Davis came to Texas eighty-three years ago from Penn-
sylvania. He bought into a little oil-supply equipment outfit,
took over, and expanded it into a worldwide industrial empire.
He was a short, pugnacious bantam. Everyone called him
Stinky. He lived in that house across from the fifteenth tee with
his wife and three sons, Ken, Jr., William, and Cullen. When
he died he left them a family business valued at three hundred
million dollars.
The Judge remembered that Stinky doted on the three boys.
But that didn't deter Stinky from being hard-nosed when it came
to educating them about money. Frequently he would interrupt
when Cullen was playing with his friends. He would walk up to
Cullen and demand: ''How much money do you have in your
pocket, Cullen?"
Cullen would respond. Maybe thirty-six cents.
Then Stinky would insist that Cullen clean out his pockets and
they would count the coins. If Cullen had been accurate in
assaying his wealth, Stinky would allow him to return the money
to his pocket, perhaps with a bonus.
But if Cullen had not remembered the precise amount, Stinky
took the money away from Cullen.
"Don't ever forget this," Stinky would admonish Cullen
when he confiscated the boy's pocket change. "A man who
doesn't know how much he's worth doesn't deserve to keep the
money he has.''
The Judge stood and stretched. He gazed again at the Davis
place. When Stinky died in 1968, Cullen and Priscilla moved in-
18
THE OLD JUDGE
to the house, and when they went to the bigger place on Mock-
ingbird Lane, William moved in.
'"Do you know how Cullen came to inherit this mansion,
Oliver?" The dog was attentive. "The story is that Stinky's will
specified that his house was to go to the son who married first. I
haven't seen any evidence to support that story. But one thing I do
know. The day Stinky died Cullen and that flamboyant blonde
Priscilla were married in that house. That same day.''
The judge pulled at his pursed lips. He shook his head, slow-
ly, from side to side.
"Come on, Oliver. Time to go home."
When the old Judge arrived at his house the telephone was
ringing. It was some time before the Judge understood who was
calling from the state of Maryland; it was that youngest Phillips
boy, the one who used to take care of the Judge's yard after
school and usually visited the judge when he was in Fort Worth.
He had heard on the radio about the murders and that Cullen
was being sought by the police. He wanted to know if the judge
had more details. The Judge told him what he could and said
certainly, he would be glad to have him visit again when next he
was in Fort Worth.
After he hung the phone in its cradle the Judge turned on his
radio. The announcer reported that the big house on Mock-
ingbird Lane had a new name: Murder Mansion.
19
·2·
CULLEN IN
THE CROSS-BAR HOTEL
By the time the first reporters and photographers arrived at

the mansion Priscilla Davis had been rushed to the Peter Smith
Hospital. On the way she told the ambulance attendant that her
estranged husband Cullen had "put on a black wig and started
shooting all my kids.'' A police officer at the hospital told a
reporter that he understood Farr had been shot by Cullen.
Beverly Bass was asked if she was certain the man dressed in
black was Cullen; she was sure, Beverly said, because "I've
known him for years.''
The police began to look for Cullen Davis and took steps to
protect those who might be in jeopardy. Tarrant County District
Judge Joe H. Eidson* was awakened at 2 A.M. and advised that
police guards had been dispatched to his home. Judge Eidson
had presided for almost two years over the turbulent divorce
proceeding involving Cullen and Priscilla. Her attorneys,
Ronald Aultman and Jerry Loftin, also soon had police protec-
tion at their homes.
It was a very open secret in Fort Worth that Cullen was living
with an attractive, blonde divorcee, Karen Master, in her home
in the Edgecliff Village section of town. He had moved in with
her shortly after his separation from Priscilla two years before.
The police surrounded the Master residence. Patrolman H.
L. Ford went next door and dialed Karen Master's number. He
• Pronounced "Edson."
20
CULLEN IN THE CROSS-BAR HOTEL
spoke with Cullen. He instructed Cullen to come out. Cullen

asked if it would be all right if he took the time to dress and Ford
said yes, but to be sure that his hands were visible at all times
when he did come out.
At 4:30 A.M. Cullen Davis walked quietly out of Karen
Master's home. Ford advised Cullen of his rights and escorted
him to the back seat of a patrol car.
The multimillionaire industrialist was on his way to the city
jail, sometimes referred to in Fort Worth as the Cross-Bar
Hotel.
Shortly after Cullen's arrival at the Fort Worth jail Detective
Claude R. Davis (no relationship) talked with Karen Master in
the homicide office, and later with Cullen. In a notarized state-
ment the police officer recounted that Karen had told him she
had taken a sleeping pill about 10 P.M. the previous evening. She
said she did not see Cullen again until about 4 A.M. when the
telephone rang with police on the line asking Cullen to
surrender.
In the same statement Detective Davis claimed that he had
talked with Cullen for about forty-five minutes. The detective
reminded Cullen that an oral statement could not be used
against him in court. But the police officer did want Cullen to
tell him why two people had to die and why two others were
shot. "I asked Cullen Davis point blank, 'Why?' and Cullen
replied, 'There are some things that a person does not need a
reason for.' ''
Detective Davis's statement was not admissible in criminal
proceedings because the conversation occurred before Cullen
posted bond. The statement was not mentioned during Cullen's
subsequent criminal trials, nor would it become public for more
than two and a half years.
While the events at the Davis mansion at 4200 Mockingbird

Lane had developed too late to be in the morning edition of the
Star- Telegram, the news spread rapidly through the telephone
21
gossip mill. A morning exchange of society intelligence is a ritual

among the wives and widows in the affluent sections of Fort
Worth. The right side of the tracks is the western area of town,
the most prestigious enclaves located in the vicinity of the River-
crest Country Club and the exclusive Westover Hills and in the
newer but only slightly less desirable neighborhoods of Ridgelea
and Colonial Country Club. The telephone is an essential in
these golden ghettos. In some cases the listings in the three-inch
telephone book (the most recent cover depicts surf on a beach
although Fort Worth is 300 miles from the nearest wave in the
Gulf of Mexico) include numbers for an office, the residence, the
guest house, and the servants' quarters. Most homes have two
or more numbers and several extensions throughout the house.
Almost everyone in society uses a recent innovation offered by
the telephone company. It is a beeper attachment which allows
one talking to know if another call is coming in; that person can
be instructed to hold while the original conversation is com-
pleted. Many of the telephone numbers are unlisted. But they
are almost always available in another register in which few
among Fort Worth's elite wish to remain anonymous: The Social
Directory.
The plastic buttons on the telephones generally begin to light
up around 9 A.M. when Fort Worth wives are alone after their
husbands depart for downtown offices. The sun had scarcely ap-
peared over the horizon on the morning of August 3 when the
telephone wires became conduits of hot, delicious gossip: Have
you heard?
The life-styles of Cullen Davis and his colorful wife Priscilla
had generated a variety of mouth-watering anecdotes since
Cullen had married Priscilla on the day his father Stinky died.
Some were true, most exaggerated, others patently false, and a
few downright ugly and mean.
Priscilla, you know, had her breasts injected with silicone. Her monthly
beautician's bill ran over $3000. She never went to the shop, a beautician
came to the mansion every morning just to comb her hair. Everyone knows
she lived with that R ufner man after she split up with Cullen
22
and before that basketball player moved in with her. Some of the stories
about those parties at the mansion you simply wouldn't believe.
The earliest version of Priscilla's flight from the mansion after
the shooting was that she was nude or at best scarcely clothed.
That was disputed:
What saved her life was that her jeans were so tight that they kept her
from bleeding to death.
The men listened to the latest radio reports while they drove.
Soon their business lines were buzzing in offices in the Fort
Worth National and Continental Bank buildings.
Cullen did have afiery temper, you know. I was there that night he came
out of that debutante bash and went to the parking lot for his Mark IV. He
got tired of waiting for the attendant to bring the car, so he grabbed his own
keys from the board, then threw the board with everybody else's car keys
down into the mud.
She certainly is a piece, I can promise you that (meaningful pause,
the intimation of firsthand knowledge of Priscilla's charms).
They say that Cullen inherited a big collection of pornography from
Stinky along with the Rivercrest house.
And, do you believe the story that Cullen really got his rocks off by taking
strangers to the mansion and watching while they screwed Priscilla?
The revelations in radio reports had been shocking and sensa-

tional, but skimpy. The headlines in the afternoon edition of the
Star-Telegram-DAVIS JAILED AFTER SLAYING-was
more satisfying.
There were two photographs on the front page. In the
featured one, a grim but composed Cullen, his cheek against a
closed fist, sat in the back seat of the patrol car which was to
whisk him to the county jail. The second was a snapshot of
Priscilla and Stan Farr which had been taken at a Colonial
Country Club golf tournament in 1975. She seemed diminutive
alongside the basketball player who towered over her; her head
only reached his chest. Priscilla was wearing brief shorts and a
bikini top. She wore three ornamental necklaces; the first circled
her neck, the second dropped to the beginning of her cleavage,
23
and the third plunged into the chasm between her almost bare
breasts.
On the second page there was an aerial scene of the murder
mansion and a portrait of Angela Dee Davis, Priscilla's
daughter from her marriage to Jasper Baker. Dee was the
adopted daughter not only of Cullen but of Jack Wilborn, Jr.,
Priscilla's second husband and father of her son John and her
daughter Andrea.
The sixth page, too, offered two photographs: the first of
policemen searching the garage area for the murder weapon, the
second of a policeman turning his back on a white marble
neoclassical statue of a woman which was located 100 yards from
the mansion.
The seventh page was devoted entirely to photography. The
broken glass in the dining-room window. The kitchen area of the
manse, where a "trail of blood" had been found. Stan Farr's
body being loaded into an ambulance, his normally large feet
grotesquely enlarged because of the camera angle. Policemen
crouching behind a car, guns drawn, outside Karen Master's
house, as they waited for Cullen to emerge. A remarkably at-
tractive Karen with a white scarf around her hair. Karen's
garage with Cullen's car in it, as police searched for weapons.
Then, back at the mansion, Beverly Bass in the sanctuary of the
automobile of a private security guard she had flagged down
after escaping from the wigged killer; her face still showing panic
in the flashbulb's glare. Finally, a view of the rear of the man-
sion as investigators combed the area.
Priscilla was not aware that Andrea was dead until she had
undergone surgery and was taken off the critical list.
The readers of the Star- Telegram waited anxiously for the next
day's morning edition. When it arrived there was a large
photograph of Priscilla, attractive, smiling, almost demure in a
party frock, as she stood before a huge painting of Cullen,
dressed in a conservative business suit, and of herself. The sec-
24
ond picture was of twelve-year-old Andrea's father, Jack

Wilborn, Jr., after he arrived at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport
from an interrupted Colorado vacation. Wilborn was a grittily
handsome man, with long hair and the face a casting director
would seek for the role of a cowboy-actor-poet. Wilborn had
been approached by a reporter when he stepped off the plane; he
had broken into tears when asked the frrst question.
The lead story carried Glen Guzzo's by-line, the first of
almost daily accounts he was to write on the sensational case
over the next two and a half years; the second story was by Dan
Frazier. There were others by Star- Telegram reporters John
Makeig, Jim Street, and Jon McConal. The entire first page of
the second section of the paper was devoted to feature stories in-
volving the principals. Stan Farr had once been the manager of
the Rhinestone Cowboy Saloon, and a mourner there, between
drinks of bourbon and Coke in a pint fruit jar, lamented the loss
of his friend, saying Stan had been a "good ole boy." A friend
who had dined at the Swiss House with Priscilla and Stan the
night before said that Priscilla had been "in a real good mood"
before she left the restaurant for the Rangoon Racquet Club and
had had one for the road before returning to the mansion. An-
drea's presence at the mansion was explained: She was alone in
the mansion when the murders occurred, having just returned
from Houston where she had been visiting her grandmother.
A friend recalled the narrow swath Cullen had cut in Fort
Worth social circles and mentioned that Cullen had escorted
Suzy Knickerbocker, the glamorous syndicated columnist, to a
local charity ball in 1975. For all his wealth and social prom-
inence, Cullen was a quiet man in public, dressed conservative-
ly, and worked diligently in a series of executive posts in the
family enterprises. "Really," one friend of Cullen's put it, "an
ordinary guy.''
The police had completed a search of Cullen's white and blue
Cadillac parked in Karen Master's garage. They found two
snub-nosed revolvers in a Styrofoam chest in the trunk of the
25
car, a small automatic pistol in a cardboard box also in the

trunk, and another handgun in a cardboard box under the
driver's seat. In a closet in Karen's house they found a fifth
weapon.
Cullen was charged with murder on August 4. Judge Byron

Matthews set the bond at $80,000. There was an outcry. What
was to keep Cullen from jumping in his private Lear jet and fly-
ing away? The judge defended the bond as adequate, opining,
''He'll probably never hurt anybody again. He was just
drunk .... The police told me he was quite drunk and they say
when he gets drunk, he gets mad." Matthews's assertion was
immediately challenged by Patrolman Ford and the squad which
had apprehended Cullen at Karen Master's house. They had said
no such thing, and Cullen had been sober when arrested. The judge
backed down, saying that "someone" had told him that. The
bond remained unchanged.
Cullen paid the $80,000 and checked out of the Cross-Bar
Hotel. He hired a Dallas attorney, Phil Burleson. The same day
Gus Gavrel, listed in critical condition after surgery and facing
permanent, partial paralysis from the injury to his spinal cord,
sued Cullen in the Seventeenth District Court for three million
dollars in damages.
On August 5 the Star- Telegram revealed a chink in the family
empire which had been presided over by the Davis sons since
Stinky's demise in 1968. The youngest brother, William,
claimed that he had been forced out of the family business by his
older brothers, Ken, Jr., and Cullen. The suit had been filed
two years earlier but was still in its early stages and had been
held secret up to this point. Cullen was the primary target in
William's legal feud: "T. Cullen Davis feels compelled to
engage in a continuous series of [multimillion-dollar] expen-
ditures based on his emotional needs rather than any exercise of
business judgement.'' Cited as an example of impulse spending
were ''a number of business ventures [made] without any ade-
26
quate examination into their affairs and the construction of a

multimillion-dollar home.'' The suit further maintained that
Cullen had accumulated $16 million in personal debts by late
1974 and more than $150 million in business debts through
mismanagement.
On August 5, Andrea was buried. In the eulogy it was said
that she fell victim to ''an adult world of confused and distorted
values."
On August 7 an attorney representing the surviving family of
Priscilla's lover Stan Farr filed suit against Cullen. The same
day District Attorney Tim Curry carried his murder charge to
the grand jury.
For two weeks gossip proliferated while readers of the Star-
Telegram waited to hear a golden slipper drop: Priscilla's version
of what had occurred at the murder mansion.
In the August 24 issue of the Star- Telegram the Cullen Davis af-
fair was still front-page news, but second-best to a slaying which
had occurred that day: MAN KILLED WOMAN TELLER
THEN HIMSELF told the story of a ''crime of passion'' which
unfolded in the Continental National Bank. A man with a gun
entered the lobby not to rob but to confront an ex-girlfriend. He
disposed of the young woman teller with three shots and with a
fourth, himself.
Fort Worth heard for the first time Priscilla's version of what
had happened in the murder mansion three weeks previously
when she testified before a grand jury from her wheelchair.
She said that she and Stan Farr had returned to the mansion
at 12:30 A.M. on Monday morning after dining out with friends.
Stan went directly upstairs to the bedroom. Priscilla noticed that
the door to the cellar was open. She approached and saw a
bloody handprint on the door, then more blood on the wall ....
"'I screamed, 'Stan come here! Stan come here!' Only much
louder. Then Cullen stepped out from the direction of the
washroom ....
27
''He was dressed all in black and he had a black wig ... like a
woman's wig that was curly on the ends. He had both his hands
together and there was a black or dark-colored plastic bag
around them.
"He stepped out and said, 'Hi!' Then he shot me .... I
grabbed where I had been shot. I screamed. I said I had been
shot. I said, 'Cullen shot me. Stan, go back!' I could hear Stan
coming.''
Priscilla then told the grand jury that Cullen had run past her
to the door and tried to tug it open but couldn't. Farr must have
been holding it.
"Then Cullen fired the gun (through the door] and I heard
Stan cry out. It was like 'Uhhh.' Cullen stood there and he
opened the door and Stan came out and grabbed him. They
were wrestling around when Stan turned his back to me. I heard
a shot, then Stan jerked back. He turned around and fell down
and was just kind of looking at me and breathing in a very raspy
voice. And Cullen stood at his feet and shot him twice more.
Then Stan just kind of laid his head down and died.''
Then Priscilla described a scene in which Cullen grasped
Farr's ankles and dragged his body into the kitchen. When her
husband was out of view she staggered to her feet and escaped
through a patio door to the lawn.
''I knew the door made noise when I opened it. I knew Cullen
was after me. I ran down the walkway and turned and saw him.
I said, 'Cullen, I love you. I've never loved anyone else!' He
grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me back the way I
had exited. All he kept saying was, 'Come on, come on!' ''
She pleaded with Cullen to release her, that he was hurting
her. Then Cullen abruptly dropped her and returned to the
kitchen; she was on the ground just outside the patio door.
"I reached down and jerked off my shoes and jumped up. I
wrapped my skirt around me real tight and ran.''
Priscilla hid from her husband in garden shrubbery. Peering
through the bushes she observed Cullen leave the house and
walk down the path, searching for her. He was no longer wear-
28
ing the wig, Priscilla said. He went past her into the darkness.
Then: "I heard a female voice saying, 'Who is it?' It sounded
like Dee. I heard her saying, 'Who is it? Who are you?' I could
tell the voices were going away around toward the garage, the
back door.''
At that point, Priscilla testified, she crawled out from the
shrubbery and began to run. She had only just started when she
heard a shot, a woman screaming, and then more shots.
Priscilla ran as fast as she could, holding her hands to her
body, over the lawn and down the hill to the vast field which sur-
rounds the mansion. Finally she reached the edge of the property
and sought refuge at one of a row of homes adjacent to the man-
sion grounds. She pounded on the door, Priscilla said, but the
occupants of the house refused to let her inside. But they did call
an ambulance.
The next day Gus Gavrel, Jr., twenty-one, known as
"Bubba," testified at the separate but related bond hearing,
which was being conducted simultaneously with the grand jury
session. As Priscilla had been, he was in a wheelchair. He said
that he had been with his girlfriend, Beverly Bass, at the
Rangoon Racquet Club. Beverly was a friend of Dee, Priscilla's
daughter, and Gus had driven her to the mansion, where she
planned to spend the night with Dee. Gus said he heard a
woman screaming when he stopped the car. That, and his subse-
quent testimony, coincided with and corroborated Priscilla's
declarations.
"I heard screaming and yelling ... a woman's voice. She was
yelling 'I love you!' Then a man's voice: 'Come on. Come on.'
I saw a man dragging a woman back toward the house. I started
walking toward the garage, and, as soon as I did, he came
around by the gate. I asked him what he was doing, what he
wanted. He just said, 'Come on, let's go inside.'"
He and Beverly followed the man, Gus said.
''And as soon as he got down by the lights Beverly told me it
was Cullen. And, as soon as she said that, he shot me."
Gus continued. Once Cullen had shot him, Cullen ran past
29
him searching for Beverly. Gus attempted to stand and walk. He

could not. He managed to crawl to the grass lawn near a door to
the house before he realized that he was partially paralyzed. He
could hear footsteps; Cullen was returning to the mansion.
Cullen approached a window near the locked door and shot
three times through the window glass, then broke out the re-
maining shards so that he could squirm through the opening.
Then, Gus said, Cullen came out of the door after a few minutes
and walked down the pathway and away into the night.
''After he left, I crawled up and crawled through the window
[into] and [through] the breakfast room. I tried to use the phone
but it didn't work."
Gus Gavrel then blacked out.
Priscilla Davis was the sole witness for the prosecution in the
grand jury inquiry and one of several during the bond hearings.
Called back for a second day of testimony for the latter, Priscilla
characterized Cullen as a man with a quick temper, capable of
violent acts. She recalled two episodes from her life with Cullen
before their legal separation in 1974.
In the spring of 1972, Priscilla said, she and Cullen had spent
an evening in a hotel in Palm Springs, California. In the lounge
Cullen had danced in what Priscilla called a provocative manner
with another woman.
"He had his hand on her backside, her rear end." Later in
their room, ''I jumped him about it ... and he hit me with his
fists."
Priscilla also claimed that a year before the Palm Springs inci-
dent Cullen had beaten her daughter Dee in the Rivercrest
house, before they moved to the mansion on Mockingbird Lane.
One night when preparing for bed she heard sou.nds from
downstairs. When she descended to investigate, "Cullen and
Dee were at the back door. Her nose was bleeding. I came down
and I had a little yellow kitten in my arms. He came at me and
grabbed the cat, then threw it down on the floor, and picked it
up and threw it down again. It just lay there."
30
Phil Burleson objected when Priscilla told the story, but the
judge overruled the objection.
During reexamination Priscilla claimed that Cullen had
broken her nose twice, her collarbone once, and Dee's nose
once. She also testified that Dee had left home about four years
previously because Cullen had beaten her up. She said that she
and Cullen had been visited by a social worker who asked Cullen
what changes he would make if Dee returned. Cullen replied,
according to Priscilla, that he would beat Dee severely should
that occur.
"Has he even so much as said 'I'm sorry'?" she was asked.
"No, sir," Priscilla responded.
Burleson asked Priscilla if she could remember the name of
the social worker. No. And Dee did return home, crying, and
Cullen did not beat her up.
Assistant District Attorney Joe Shannon had further questions
for Priscilla after she testified that she had visited Cullen at the
Ramada Inn suite where he had lived temporarily after the
separation.
''Did you have something to eat there?''
"Yes," she said.
''Drinks?''
"Yes."
"Did ya'll have sex?"
"Yes," Priscilla replied. "I had hoped that he'd show some
sign of wanting to change.''
Burleson asked if they had slept together in the Ramada Inn
before or after Cullen had agreed to purchase a new luxury
automobile for her.
Priscilla couldn't remember.
But she did have an answer of sorts. ''The last time I was
there and talked to him, I looked under his bed and saw a lot of
pornography-''
Burleson interrupted, protesting that Priscilla was not being
responsive to his question.
Priscilla confirmed that her twelve-year-old daughter was
31
alone in the mansion the night of the murders. Dee had picked
Andrea up that day when Andrea returned from attending a Bi-
ble school in Houston. Because her father, Jack Wilborn, was in
Colorado, Andrea stayed with Priscilla. When Priscilla and Stan
Farr left, she said, Andrea ''came to the back door with us and I
watched her activ~te the security door locks.''
Other witnesses established that two bullets had been re-

moved from Stan Farr' s body, and that perhaps two more
passed through the six-foot nine-inch frame of the former ICU
basketball star. There was no bullet in Andrea's corpse, but a
witness from the Fort Worth Police Department's crime scene
search team said that he found a slug on the basement floor near
Andrea. All the bullets were from the same revolver; none was
from any of the guns found in Cullen's car. Burleson asked the
policeman what other evidence he had discovered. Joe Shannon
objected, complaining to the judge that Burleson was "trying to
rummage through our entire fue'' of evidence. The judge
agreed; he sustained the objection.
Cullen's brother Ken testified for the defense. He said that he
had first learned of the events at the Mockingbird Lane mansion
when he received an early morning telephone call from Jim
Hale, then general manager of the Star- Telegram, on August 3.
Ken, in turn, had telephoned Cullen about 4:00A.M. at Karen
Master's home, before the police had arrived there. Karen
answered, passed the phone to Cullen.
Cullen: "I was in bed."
Ken: "Have you been there all night?"
Cullen: "Most of the night."
Ken asked Cullen if he had heard about the shootings.
Cullen: "No, who was shot?"
Ken: ''A man by the name of Stan Farrand a little girl were
killed, and Priscilla was shot.''
Then Ken advised Cullen the police were looking for him.
There was no response to this.
32
Cullen closed the conversation: "Well, I guess I'll go back to

bed."
The Star- Telegram reported that it had learned from ''sources''
that Cullen, after being released on bond the day of his arrest,
stayed for three nights in a clinic which specialized in psychiatric
treatment.
On August 16, Priscilla's daughter Dee was driving in an

automobile with her boyfriend in Azle, a small town near Fort
Worth. There was a single-car accident. Rescue workers spent
forty-five minutes removing the young man from the wreckage;
he was dead on arrival at the hospital. Dee was thrown from the
car, suffered a broken nose and lacerations.
On August 20, Cullen was arrested on two counts of capital
murder-which can bring a death penalty-as he was about to
climb in his private jet at Meacham Field. The pilot was aboard
and the plane ready to take off. Later, several witnesses were to
testify that he was not attempting to flee, but the question re-
mained in doubt. A bond hearing was scheduled.
On August 26 the suit filed against Cullen by his brother
William was settled out of court. Henceforth William would be
excluded from any management responsibilities; in effect,
Cullen and Ken, Jr., had taken over the vast conglomerate
created by their father Stinky. For his pain William was to
receive ample balm: $100 million.
At the end of the month District Judge Tom Cave ordered
that Cullen remain in jail without bond until his trial, which was
scheduled for October.
On September 22, 1976, Cullen celebrated his forty-third
birthday. It was the first, but not the last birthday he would
spend in the Cross-Bar Hotel.
It was not what Old Stinky had envisioned for his son.
33
·3·
THE OLD JUDGE AND
THE JOURNALIST
The journalist had arrived in Fort Worth the evening before

and had telephoned Judge Willard. The Judge had said he
would be happy to see the visitor and had suggested that the
journalist come in the morning. They could take a walk on the
golf course. "I'll expect you," the Judge had said, "at 6: 15
A.M."
There had been a pause at the other end of the line.
"It won't be too cold this late in February," the Judge had
said.
''Fine,'' the journalist finally replied. ''I' II be there at 6: 15. ''
After a cup of tea the next morning at the Judge's house-the
journalist asked for coffee, but there was none-the Judge took
Oliver's leash from the closet and the two men and the dog went
out for their walk along the golf course. The Judge remembered
and commented on the time, forty years before, when the jour-
nalist had taken care of the Judge's lawn.
"Now, what have you really been up to all these years, young
man?''
The journalist, age fifty-four, explained that he had been a
writer and newspaperman, and then had served in the CIA until
early 1975. Now he was a writer again.
"What in the world," the Judge asked, "ever made you
become a spy?"
The journalist explained that he had been a manager of spies,
then turned the topic of conversation to the surprising events at
34
THE OLD JUDGE AND THE JOURNALIST
the mansion on Mockingbird Lane. He said he was trying to

decide if a book might be written about the escapade. If it came
to that, he hoped the Judge would give him his thoughts on the
murders and on the trial which was scheduled soon in Fort
Worth.
"Seems to me," the Judge said, "you should start by poking
around in the history of crime and punishment in Texas.''
"Judge Roy Bean and the law west of the Pecos?"
"Don't believe all those stories," the Judge said, "although
some of 'em are pretty good tales. I like the one about the time
Judge Bean was presiding over the case of a man accused of kill-
ing a Chinese laundryman. Bean moved from behind his bar
and sat in his armchair. That meant court was in session. He
thumbed through the book which constituted his entire law
library- The Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 1879. After a while
Judge Bean announced, 'Ain't nothing in the statutes of the
state of Texas sez it's against the law to kill a Chinaman. Case
dismissed.'''
The Judge unleashed Oliver so the dog could run free.
"Now don't believe that story, young man. Most everything
ever written on Judge Roy Bean was mythical to the extreme.
Only story I really ever found credible was about him refusing a
gift from Lillie Langtry. She was pleased when she learned that
Bean had named his town and his saloon after her, and she of-
fered to erect a drinking fountain in the town. Bean turned her
down, because water was the one thing people never drank in
those days.''
The journalist smiled and rubbed his arms briskly. He found
it to be quite cold.
"Now if you want some authentic legal history," the Judge
said, "you can begin right here in Fort Worth. There was an
outstanding attorney named Captain Joseph Christopher Ter-
rell here in the early days. He had a law office at First and Main
streets for fifty years until he died in 1907. Terrell carried a
weapon on his person. In fact, a pocket pistol in early Fort
35
Worth was a part of almost every gentleman's attire and essen-

tial to th~ practice of law. Now, I remember one story .... ''
The Judge paused, grimaced as a jogger panted past, and
then resumed.
"No, that wasn't Terrell. I'm thinking of District Judge
'Three-Legged' Williamson down in Houston. He was on the
bench once when a lawyer stated a point of law and mentioned a
case to back it up. 'Give the court the book and the page where
the case might be found,' Three-Legged said. The lawyer had
had enough of the judge. He pulled a bowie knife and said, 'This
is the page,' and drew a pistol and said, pointing the gun at the
judge, 'and this is the law.' 'Your law is no good,' the judge
said. Then he pulled his own six-shooter and aimed it at the
lawyer's nose. 'The proper authority is Colt on revolvers.' And
that lawyer fled right out of the court.''
The journalist guided the Judge's reminiscences back to the
Fort Worth lawyer.
"While Captain Terrell was practicing law in Fort Worth,"
the Judge said, "ordinary human life was held very cheaply.
Justice could not travel on leaden feet. There were two crimes
which were serious above all others and never condoned: the
theft of horses or cattle and the act of disturbing a religious
service.''
"More serious than murder?" the journalist questioned.
"Yup," the Judge replied. "One lawman explained it once
by saying that in Texas there were more folks around that need-
ed kill in' than there were horses that needed stealin'. ''
Then the Judge recounted the story of one of Captain
Terrell's exceptional cases where a man beat the rap of disturb-
ing a church meeting. Terrell's client had gotten all tanked up
with cheap whiskey and fired his guns through the top of a tent
where a band of the faithful were praying. He got away but his
conscience began to bother him. He went to Terrell, confessed
the awful thing he had done, and asked what to do. Terrell told
his client that from the legal point of view there was no hope, no
36
one was ever acquitted for that crime. Your only chance, Terrell
counseled, is to about-face with your sin and join that church.
"You reckon?" the dismayed offender queried. When Terrell
said he did so reckon, the contrite culprit took the vows in the
very church group he had shot up. And the Fort Worth marshal
took no cognizance of the offense, the grand jury failed to indict,
and Terrell lost his fee. And that man, true to his vows, was
devout from that time on.
The journalist took advantage of the remark about the early
Fort Worth grand jury to steer the Judge's discussion back to the
present. He asked the Judge about the capital murder and at-
tempted murder indictments against Cullen.
The Judge stopped the walk, pointing to a mansion near the
fifth green. "I guess you remember Monty and his boys. Monty
Moncrief is a very rich and generous man. His boys are rich,
too, I've been told."
Yes, the journalist said, he remembered Moncrief and his
sons, and it was true that they were quite wealthy. One of Mon-
ty's grandsons, in fact, had the middle name of Oil-literally.
The Judge hadn't known that, although he did know that a
daughter of one of the wealthy families across the links had the
middle name of Zillion.
The Judge eventually explained that capital murder was
defined as murder carried out during the commission of another
felony and must be tried by ajury. Cullen, if convicted, could be
executed for those offenses. The attempted murder charges were
for the unsuccessful attempts to slay Priscilla and Gus Gavrel.
Those two indictments and the capital murder charge for the
death of Stan Farr were being held in abeyance. The second
felony was Cullen's trespassing on the mansion grounds after
the divorce judge had enjoined him against approaching the
property. District Attorney Tim Curry had elected to pursue, at
least for the time being, only the single indictment for the capital
murder of Andrea, the twelve-year-old girl.
When the Judge and the journalist arrived at the old Batts
37
place, the Judge related the story of the death of Bob Batts's wife
in that house. The Judge added that a journalist should
remember the incident and consider the complexity of the law in
a case such as Cullen's. And the responsibility a jury had in
determining-beyond a reasonable doubt-what went on in any
man's head, and precisely why, when, and how a man might or
might not have perpetrated murder.
Just around the corner the two men stopped at 805 Rivercrest,
the white house where the journalist had lived as a child and
where his father had died. The Judge had not known, until the
journalist recounted the circumstances, that Edwin Phillips had
collapsed on the golf course directly in front of his own
residence, on the third green. The journalist's mother had sold
the house in the early '40s. A number of people had lived there
since, including John Held, Jr., once famous for his cartoons of
short-skirted flappers and their greased-hair beaus.
As they continued down the shady street the journalist
remarked that T. Cullen Davis was a very wealthy man who
could afford the most expensive lawyers and perhaps could
muster more money for his defense than Tarrant County could
for his prosecution. Given those circumstances, how likely was it
that Cullen would be found guilty? And, if he was, what were
the chances of his spending some years in the penitentiary in
Huntsville or dying in the electric chair there?
''Not the electric chair,'' the Judge corrected the journalist.
"That's changed since you lived here in Texas. Now lethal in-
jection is the form of execution. I was reading something about it
in the Star- Telegram not long ago.''
The Judge pointed to a large house. "That's the old Fender
place. You must have known young Howard.''
Yes, the journalist had known Howard Fender. He had heard
that Howard had become the district attorney in Fort Worth.
"Was," the Judge said, "before Tim Curry. Now he's a
judge. But the item I read in the paper was about when Howard
was the district attorney and had a case where he won a death-
38
sentence conviction. The defendant's lawyer protested that

under the new lethal injection law his client could be subjected to
cruel and inhuman punishment. The law was broad on the point
of who had the authority to decide what injection. What was to
keep the prison director from injecting a man with antifreeze or
battery acid? A valid point. Oklahoma has the same law, but up
there they give the condemned man a euphoria-inducing
sedative before the injection so that he expires in a state of joy.
Anyway, nobody's been executed in Huntsville since that law
came into effect.''
The Judge delivered a history lesson on the Huntsville
penitentiary. Back in 1871 the Texas state legislature passed a
law which permitted the prison to be leased out to an en-
trepreneur who paid the state $3 a month for each convict placed
there; he made his profit by hiring out the inmates as workers.
That didn't really work out, and the operation of Huntsville
returned to the state. Since that time, when convicts have
worked, it has been on a farm or in a chain gang. In the early
days the longest sentences went to horse thieves and cattle
rustlers. Back in the '80s one Texas court sentenced a man to
five years for cattle theft and the following day another man to
four months for murder. In 1887 a nine-year-old boy was
sentenced to and served most of nine years for homicide, and a
girl guilty of infanticide began her three-year term when she was
only eleven. The most notorious inmate was John Wesley Har-
din, son of a Methodist minister from Bonham-that's Sam
Rayburn's hometown near Fort Worth; he killed twenty people,
in prison and out. And there was an unfortunate military
prisoner named Turner. That soldier was sentenced to three
years after being found guilty of "worthlessness." That's a pret-
ty vague charge, the Judge admitted, and the escutcheon of
Texas justice is not any brighter because of it, but Turner did
serve his time. Finally the Judge mentioned the Huntsville siege,
just back in 197 4, when four people died in ten days-the
· longest prison siege in U.S. history.
39
The two men rested near the Parker place. The Judge told the
story of the murder in the kitchen there. The journalist
remembered the details, having known J. Lloyd Parker during
their school days.
The Judge had more stories to tell of famous criminals who
had frequented the Fort Worth area. Belle Starr, the outlaw
queen, and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow all operated in
Tarrant County. And, ranging around the state, the Judge
described the dreadful massacre in Austin, just ten years ago,
when a student killed his wife and mother, then climbed the
tower at the University of Texas and sniped away until there
were sixteen more dead and thirty-one wounded. The sniper
was gunned down, finally, by police. And, just three years ago,
twenty-seven young men and boys were found in shallow graves
around Houston, where they had been buried after a thirty-
three-year-old electrician had homosexually abused them.
Then the Judge, his face grim, mentioned that most tragic
crime in Texas history, in Dallas, in Dealey Plaza, thirteen years
before.
After the Judge stopped to look, as he always did, at the fine
range horse inside the fence at the Waggoner girl's place, he told
the journalist that old W. T. Waggoner had once sold a part of
his land on the golf course to A. P. Barrett because Barrett
wanted to have a place large enough for a private landing strip.
The journalist said that he could recall the planes flying in and
out of that estate. •
The journalist remarked that the families who lived around
Rivercrest had a great deal of money.
The Judge confirmed the observation. At first the money
came from land and the crops and cattle on it. Then more
money was made when that land was spoiled for grazing by oil
• The First State Bank of Rio Vista, Texas, is the only bank in the world with fly-in
service, having a landing strip for wealthy fliers.
40
seeping up through the surface. "Take old W. T., for

instance," the Judge said. "When that happened to old Pappy
Waggoner he's supposed to have said, 'Damn it, cattle can't
drink that stuff.' And that quagmire in his pasture turned out to
be the Electra field-named for his daughter-which became
one of the great deposits of oil ever found in this country. ''
At the end of their hike, the Judge and the journalist were
standing at the fifteenth tee, facing the Davis residence. Oliver
barked at the camel on the nearby Lowe lawn.
The journalist still had not received an answer to the question
he had put to the Judge half an hour before: Would Cullen be
convicted? And, if so, might he be executed or sentenced to a
long prison term?
"I don't know," the Judge said. He pushed his Stetson back
on his head and pulled at his lips. "I just don't know enough
about what actually happened that night. The question of
motive is vital, of course. It obviously wasn't robbery. Cullen
certainly had as good a motive as anyone. Maybe jealousy of
Priscilla's giant lover. Or, more likely, the fear that Priscilla was
going to get away with his money and his property. But I don't
really know, and no one can until they have more facts in hand.''
The Judge stooped to snap Oliver's leash onto the dog's col-
lar.
"It's a question of evidence, son. Evidence. Now a while back I
was standing right at this spot mulling over the story that most
people in this town believe-that Cullen married Priscilla the
day his father died because Stinky's will deeded the house to the
first son married after his death. That story has been told so
much it's accepted as fact. But, when it gets right down to it,
I've never seen any evidence that it's true."
The Judge regarded the journalist. ''Son, what kind ofbook is
it you plan to write about Cullen?''
"I'm not sure I'll be able to sell the idea to my publisher," the
journalist said. "But I'm thinking of something that would
41
separate facts from fiction so the reader could make up his own
mind. Maybe I can put some distance between rumors and what
really happened.''
"You have your work cut out for you!" the judge exclaimed.
"You have a shit pot full of work. There'll be rumors and
speculation and all sorts of wild stories and the people who will
tell them to you may honestly believe they have found the truth,
but most of what you hear will be myth. Don't forget, son, the
tendency in this great state to exaggerate, to blow everything up
until it's the best and especially the biggest. Remember the story
about the man who came to Fort Worth from the East and
stayed overnight in a millionaire's mansion. The Texans showed
him through the place; it was the biggest house, with the biggest
yard, the biggest everything! That night the visitor walked in his
sleep and plunged right into the swimming pool. He came up
out of the water sputtering, 'Don't flush it! Don't flush it!'''
The journalist chuckled.
"Keep that story in mind," the old Judge admonished, "or
you'll find yourself drowning in the biggest goddamned pool of
hyperbole you've ever sunk in!''
The journalist looked at the Davis mansion. He told the judge
he remembered being in the house many times with the Lan-
dreth girl when he was growing up and before Stinky bought the
place in 1943. And, later, there was a hazy memory of Stinky,
and he clearly recalled Ken, Jr., with whom he had attended
classes at Arlington Heights High School. But Cullen had been
much younger; only the vaguest recollection of him remained.
The journalist asked the Judge what he knew about Cullen.
"Why, I scarcely know the boy," thejudge answered. "Just
saw him running up and down the street when he was a
youngster, and driving in and out of Rivercrest in his Cadillac
when he and Priscilla lived in the house for four years.
"Not knowing much about him," the Judge said, "I really
shouldn't comment on his character. But I must say there's one
thing about Cullen that puts me off. That T. Cullen Davis
42
business. What's wrong with Thomas? Somehow it's always

seemed to me that a man who insists on a first initial in order to
be known by an uncommon second name, or for any other
reason, always generates a lot of suspicion with respect to basics
of human ... uh ... beingness, if there is such a word. I suppose that
kind of judgment is not ... very scientific, but I do feel that way.''
The Judge looked at the journalist. "Did you ever know anyone
who called themselves by a first initial?''
The journalist thought for a moment. "Only one," he said.
"A man I used to work with. E. Howard Hunt."
The Judge's eyes twinkled. "Well, then. Do I recollect cor-
rectly that he later worked at the White House? With a man
called G. Gordon Liddy?"
The journalist smiled and nodded.
"Well, if you're going to write the story of Cullen Davis,
you'd better start with Stinky. There, I can help you. Any father
has an influence on his son's life. I would say that Stinky's in-
fluence on Cullen was profound. Come along to the house now,
and we'll have some lunch. You can have a drink if you want,
but I won't. I only have one drink a day, and I save that for the
evening.''
The Judge and the journalist and the dog turned back and
began the trek along the golf course toward the Judge's home.
As they walked the Judge began to tell the journalist what he
knew of Stinky Davis.
43
·4·
STINKY'S EMPIRE,
CULLEN AND PRISCILLA
In the beginning it was the Mid-Continent Supply Company,

which wasn't really very much when Kenneth W. Davis took it
over soon after the Great Depression. It was quite something,
however, when the old man died in 1968. It was KenDavis In-
dustries International, Inc.-Kiii, the logo read-one of the
world's most profitable privately owned conglomerates. Except
for some of the shares in one segment of the giant complex, it
was a family business. Ken Davis, Sr., left his three sons an in-
dustrial estate which was valued at more than a quarter of a
billion dollars. That was just what he had in mind all along.
Davis was born in 1895 near Johnstown, Pennsylvania. As a
young man he played semiprofessional baseball in Pittsburgh.
During World War I he was an officer and pilot in the U.S. Ar-
my Air Service, and taught others to fly as an instructor. After
the war he worked in Pennsylvania as an aircraft salesman, in
real estate, and, briefly, in a steel mill.
Davis went to Texas in the mid-twenties and married a Fort
Worth girl, Alice Bound. The couple moved to Arkansas where
he became a roustabout in the oil fields and a clerk in a supply
store. He learned about digging for oil and hawking the equip-
ment needed to process it. After several years the Davises
returned to Fort Worth and, with a stake accumulated in back-
breaking labor on the derricks, Davis bought into Mid-
Continent Supply Company. The company was dedicated to
providing whatever paraphernalia was required by anyone in
44
STINKY'S EMPIRE, CULLEN AND PRISCILLA
the oil business. Davis soon owned the business lock, stock, and
oil barrels. He heeded Andrew Carnegie's advice and put all his
eggs in that one basket-and watched that basket carefully. He
and Alice lived in a modest brick house in the western section of
Fort Worth. They were only a dozen blocks but still many years
from Rivercrest. Davis toiled long hours to expand his business
and Ms. Davis quietly bore three sons: Ken, Jr., Cullen, and
finally the baby William.
Early on Davis acquired a nickname: Stinky. The sobriquet
suggested the need for Life Buoy soap, but actually referred in-
stead to the hard-nosed manner in which Stinky conducted his
business and to the mean streak which he sometimes revealed in
the office and at home. There were rumors of skulduggery in the
acquisition of Mid-Continent-did he force his partners out with
illegal tactics and didn't someone jump out of a window?-but if
that were true any evidence of it vanished as time went by. Once
his venture prospered Stinky was not accused of dishonesty, but
many believed his shortcuts skirted the borderline of executive
morality. Few of his associates or customers thought highly of
Stinky as a person, but most respected his business acumen and
accepted his normal pugnacity and occasionally erratic
behavior.
When the boys were young they were sometimes embarrassed
by their father's brusque manner and belligerent confrontations
with their friends. Stinky's feisty demeanor became even more
intimidating when he had been drinking. In his middle age, that
was frequently. Usually he held his liquor well, but sometimes
he would break up a teenage party by coming home roaring
drunk-' 'Out! Everybody go home!'' -and once one of his sons
was red-faced when he saw Stinky, gloriously tanked at the helm
of a boat, ram into and demolish a dock at Eagle Mountain
Lake.
When Ken, Jr., and Cullen were in elementary school,
neighborhood friends purchased a Model-T truck. After it had
been decorated crudely in flamboyant hues it became the joy of
45
the kids on the block. Though fun, the truck was seldom func-
tional and broke down one day in front of the Davises' red brick
house. The boys, attempting to repair the dilapidated truck,
were soon making a racket that brought Stinky rushing out of
the house with demands for quiet. William was napping and
mustn't be awakened! Then Stinky noticed the disreputable
heap. "Get it out! Get that thing away from here!" The boys
protested that the truck would not start, no matter how much
they cranked. Stinky ran at the vehicle, literally attacking it. His
assault against the upright windshield was so ferocious that the
glass shattered. But Stinky succeeded in pushing the offending
jalopy away from his property without injury.
The next morning Stinky was furious when he found all four
tires on his own automobile deflated. He suspected-quite ac-
curately-that the culprits were the owners of the Model-T he
had abused the previous evening. He knocked on neighborhood
doors and roared his suspicion. One father convinced Stinky his
own son was not involved, and Stinky advised the man to keep
his boy away from ''those goddamned hoodlums'' who were
responsible. When he did encounter the father of one of the
guilty parties, Stinky threatened to send a bill for the wrecker he
had hired to put even more distance between his property and
that mechanical derelict. Stinky never did send the bill, but
neither did he pay for the broken windshield on the Model-T*
So the neighborhood gang learned to be cautious in dealing
with the quick-tempered Stinky. He didn't exactly terrorize
them, but it became obvious that it wasn't worth the effort to
cross or displease him. On Halloween nights ther.e were no soap
marks on the windows at the Davis house, nor were eggs splat-
tered on the door. Certainly none of the boys dared contemplate
Stinky's front porch as the locale for one of the neat Halloween
stunts-defecating in a paper sack, igniting the sack on the
stoop, ringing the doorbell, and then from the bushes watching
• The vehicle was purchased, subsequently, by the author and several friends, for $15.
46
the occupant open his door, see the burning bag, and stomp on it
vigorously to put out the flames.
As the oil industry expanded Stinky's enterprises boomed.
Soon he owned a number of companies which tended to spawn
new ones. Cummins Sales and Service, Great Western Drilling,
and, by the time Cullen was of high school age, Stratoflex, all of
which quickly established satellite organizations around the
world. The Davis family moved out of the small house into
another larger and more comfortable, along the road which
would lead eventually to Rivercrest.
During this period, Stinky began to invest in real estate in and
near Fort Worth. One tract Stinky acquired was a huge parcel of
181 acres in the city, 140 acres of which later was the site of the
murder mansion. On one edge of the huge field a wooden fence
separated it from an adjacent home. Riding along the fence on
his horse one day, Stinky was enraged to see that the occupant of
the home had dumped a pile of grass clippings over the fence on-
to Stinky's land. Stinky promptly spurred his horse around the
corner, dismounted, knocked on the door, and, when the door
opened, told the offender to get his goddamned grass clippings
off Davis property.
The piece of real estate which Stinky guarded so zealously
became extremely valuable and others coveted it. The property
was alongside the links of the Colonial Country Club. The posh
golf establishment had been the initiative of Marvin Leonard, a
wealthy Fort Worth merchant. Leonard approached Stinky with
the proposal that he sell a parcel of the acreage to Colonial for an
additional nine holes. Stinky said no. Leonard persisted in his
effort. In the end the two men had a bitter personal confronta-
tion-and Stinky bellowed that he would not sell. Furthermore,
he threatened to have written into his will a stipulation that
Leonard would never get his hands on the land, even after Stinky
was dead.
Stinky also purchased a large plot of lakefront ground at Eagle
Mountain Lake, twenty miles northwest of Fort Worth and
47
rapidly developing into a recreational area for the city's wealthy.

Once again Stinky was riding about inspecting his domain when
he surprised a group of young men enjoying themselves at a pic-
nic. He charged them on his white horse, much in the manner of
a rancher in days of yore scattering a band of marauding In-
dians. ''Get out! Get out! This is private property!'' After the
boys explained they were friends of Ken and Cullen, Stinky
reconsidered and grudgingly toned down his demands
to: "Well, just hurry then."
Some years later, one of the young men who had been at the
picnic asked Stinky if he would sell him a small plot of the
lakeshore property. Stinky glared at him and barked, ''I never
sell anything."
Stinky was at least impartial: he intimidated his sons as well
as their friends. He was a strict disciplinarian and insisted his
boys learn to respect money and know the value of it-although
in later years he no longer confiscated their pocket change if they
could not accurately remember how many coins they had.
Those who knew or were even briefly associated with Ms.

Davis recall her as an exceptionally pleasant woman. Alice col-
lected snuffboxes, enjoyed the theater, and served on the board
of the local opera group. She supported the Fort Worth
Children's Museum. She spent much of her time in good works,
often performing menial tasks such as sweeping out the office of
a local charity which assisted families in temporary straits after a
fire or a fainily tragedy. Everyone thought Alice was an ex-
ceedingly charitable and charming woman and marveled that
she managed to survive a marriage to such a domineering
tyrant. She was stoic when Stinky embarrassed her. Once the
two of them were with a group of Fort Worth art patrons. Stinky
described his own extensive collection of paintings and Alice's
interest in it. It was suggested that Alice be nominated as a
board member of the local art association. Stinky was
suspicious. Perhaps he saw the proposal as a gambit to get at his
own collection. He discouraged the proposal by saying, in
48
Alice's presence, "the old bitch will never get her hands on any
of my paintings."
There was one family art project that Alice felt so strongly
about that she was prepared to defy her husband. In 1964,
Stinky purchased a lot in Greenwood Memorial Park as the site
for a family tomb. He bought the largest lot ever acquired in the
cemetery, paying $40,000 for the ground. The mausoleum of
Carnelian Minnesota granite cost $45,000. There was to be a
stained-glass window. Stinky selected a design which featured,
among other details, an oil well. Alice protested. She wanted
something of a religious nature.
Dominating Alice's life as he did that of their sons, Stinky in-
sisted on approving any item of clothing Alice purchased. In
Fort Worth she usually shopped at Wally Williams, a women's
specialty store. She would select a dress and have it fitted with
pins in the tucks and hems. Then Alice would take the dress
home, returning for the final alterations only after Stinky had
approved her choice.
Stinky often told the story of a shopping expedition to the tony
Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas. He escorted his wife into the
emporium and directed her to select any frocks, shoes, or ac-
cessories she wanted. As she did, he inspected each item. Some
he would toss back. If he approved of the selection, he would
throw it on a growing pile of apparel on the counter. He shouted
instructions at the salesclerk in such an imperious voice that a
crowd gathered. Finally Stinky asked the clerk to estimate the
cost of the entire pile. The clerk's reckoning came to about
$4000. Too much, Stinky declared. "I'll tell you what," Stinky
bellowed, "I'll give you $3000 for the whole pile-cold cash.
Take it or leave it!" According to Stinky's version, this offer was
discussed with the management and accepted. Neiman-Marcus
regulars to whom Stinky boasted of the episode were skeptical.
But then, with Stinky, you never could be sure ....
Alice Davis, in addition to being pleasant, must have been
extraordinarily patient. She endured Stinky's temper tantrums
and moods, and survived countless embarrassing incidents when
49
he was drinking. Stinky consumed prodigious amounts of bour-

bon. It was difficult to believe that such a small man could sur-
round so much whiskey and, usually, hold it so well.
Stinky was five feet five inches tall. He compensated for his
pint-sized physique by keeping his body in excellent condition
and taking some form of exercise daily, maintaining his weight
at 145 pounds. He was usually tanned from shirtless rides on his
white horse. He was a feisty, pugnacious little man; no one
called him Shorty. He often sought and achieved-if he and the
town talk were to be believed-extramarital sexual fulfillment.
''He is a randy banty'' was one description to which he did not
seem to object. • Neither was he displeased, at that time, when
addressed as Stinky.
During his prime, Stinky's sexual prowess and maneuvers
became legendary. Stinky gave and received at the office. At a
time when most in-house business publications were dull, not
the Mid-Continent employees' magazine-which Stinky in-
sisted be spiced up with double entendres and Petty-girl draw-
ings. Copies were passed hand to hand by Fort Worthians with
no interest whatsoever in oil field equipment. When an attrac-
tive woman sought employment at Mid-Continent, it was
understood she might expect an advance from the boss during
her first days on her job. If a husband worked there, he had to be
prepared to witness mutely Stinky patting his wife on the fanny
from time to time.
Fort Worth chuckled when a man with an uncommonly at-
tractive blonde wife began to do very well at Mid-Continent,
despite the fact that he had little aptitude and less qualification
for the work. For a period the fellow received regular promo-
tions. Then Stinky and the blonde had a parting of the ways.
The husband was fired forthwith.
Another story was told of one of Stinky's employees, the hus-
band of a blonde wife with whom Stinky had a relationship
known and tolerated by the husband. Once the man was trying
•Banty, in the Southwest, is a variation ofbantam.
50
to sell his house and was asked many legal questions he couldn't
answer. He finally hung his head and admitted that the house
really belonged to Stinky.
Stinky was aggressive in his amorous pursuits, but not always
successful. On one occasion, it was said, he suddenly grasped a
shapely secretary in his office, lifted her from her feet, and, in an
obviously lascivious gesture, pulled her body against his. She
cooled Stinky's ardor, however, by reaching into her desk, grab-
bing a letter opener, and jabbing Stinky in the ass until he
released her.
Another such story concerns a tall, attractive blonde woman
with whom Stinky was in daily contact, but not the kind he
wished. At six feet she towered over him but, nonetheless,
Stinky decided he just had to climb that mountain of pulchritude
and so began his assault. Each morning he brought a single red
rose to the office and deposited it in a vase on the woman's desk.
He continued the stratagem over a period of weeks, each morn-
ing delivering a dew-fresh rose. Finally the time came when he
realized that this campaign was not going to succeed. On the
final morning he arrived with a plastic rose, jammed it into the
vase, and tacitly conceded defeat with, ''That'll just have to do
from now on.''
The ultimate put-down came when Stinky, in his cups, made
a demarche to a charming lady high in Fort Worth society. He
asked this married woman to go on a date with him, and she
refused. Stinky persisted.
"Don't you know I have a nickname? People call me Sexy
Davis."
"Oh," came the retort, "I always thought they called you
Stinky.''
It was about this time that Stinky let it be known that he no
longer wished to be identified by his nickname.
In 1943, Stinky purchased the Landreth place on Rivercrest

Road. It had been a long trek from the oil fields of Arkansas and
the early days as a store manager at Mid-Continent. Between
51
drinking bouts and sex excursions he had managed to expand

and consolidate his empire. Further, it was said that after his in-
itial foray into the oil prospecting business Stinky's wells alone
produced 12,000 barrels a day.
The English manor house on Rivercrest was evidence that
Stinky had accumulated a fortune and achieved.social status, in
that order. There were constant demands for charitable con-
tributions. Stinky was reluctant; he was saving the money for his
boys. His neighbors, Amon Carter and a regional Coca-Cola
distributor, were more successful than most in persuading
Stinky to fork over for good causes. A floor at All Saints'
Hospital was partially financed by Davis largesse. But
Carter-known as "Mr. Fort Worth"-persisted in his efforts
as a fund raiser, chastising Stinky for shirking his civic respon-
sibilities. Stinky had the duty, Carter insisted, of taking care of
Fort Worth.
"Amon, Fort Worth is yours," Stinky said. "I'll take care of
the rest of the world.''
Stinky had indeed conquered that portion of the world which
was engaged in the extraction and distribution of petroleum.
KenDavis Industries International, Inc., had become a giant
conglomerate. Its promotional brochure listed more than eighty
corporations, companies, and subsidiaries around the globe. In
Canada, Britain, and the European countries. Turkey, Moroc-
co, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Bolivia. There were exotic titles
indicating the extent of Stinky's foreign endeavors: Artie Terex,
Ltd., Midco Caribe Company, Nigeria Drilling Company,
Ltd., and Loftland Brothers North Sea. Stinky and his sons had
learned only limited Spanish, but their resident managers had to
do business in two dozen languages.
Despite the exigencies of becoming rich and powerful, Stinky
found time for occasional relaxation. At times he napped briefly
in a hammock at the Eagle Mountain Lake home. Shirtless, to
absorb maximum sun, he took his powerboat out on the lake.
He was adept with a billiard cue. He played horseshoes and once
52
won the tournament of a Fort Worth business executives' club.

He explained his victory: He tossed the first horseshoe with his
eyes closed and had the good fortune to score a ringer. "That,"
Stinky explained, "usually has the desired effect on your oppo-
nent.'' A man who knew Stinky well described the claim as
horse manure. "Stinky never closed his eyes," he said, "except
to sleep, and that was usually with one eye open for a good
deal.''
Most of his waking hours Stinky devoted to keeping both eyes
open to watch the business and to prepare his boys to take it
over. He did not appreciate interference, even from well-
meaning business associates. One of his executives once gave
young William the money he needed to pay for repairs after his
car had been wrecked. Stinky found out about it and com-
plained. "I don't like it. I'm raising those boys the way I want
to, and I want them to respect money."
According to the Davis family physician, Stinky rarely saw his
boys at home, but the office was another matter. "The three
sons were three very busy young men," the doctor said, and
Stinky "saw the three sons when he would go to the office."
While Stinky groomed the boys for their future he insisted they
observe firsthand how business was conducted. Often he com-
pleted a business transaction only after summoning the three
sons into his office to witness the final negotiations. During these
training sessions Cullen, Ken, Jr., and William learned of
Stinky's pride. He once contemplated a business arrangement
with a Texas steel tycoon who matched him in the pride depart-
ment. The two men never got around to actually discussing the
matter as neither of them was willing to wait for the other to
come on the telephone line. "Please put Mr. Davis on," one
secretary would say, but Stinky's secretary knew better than to
do that. The game of one-upmanship continued indirectly
through the two secretaries until the prospect of collaboration
expired.
The boys learned that their father did not tolerate anything
53
less than an hermetically sealed contract. Once, during a con-

ference scheduled to culminate a long period of negotiation on a
service contract, Stinky flipped through several pages of fine
type until he spotted an inconsistency. "What's this?" Stinky
demanded. The businessman who had prepared the proposal
studied the item and then admitted that it was an error. A
mistake had been made. "I don't have time to fool around with
mistakes,'' Stinky said, tossing the papers and the contract
away.
Stinky's aggressive and unorthodox business habits frequently
provoked those he dealt with to sue or threaten to sue. "Line
up," Stinky would say, "with the other claimants."
Although Stinky liked to keep the business a family one, he
did allow outside participation to a limited degree. A very
limited degree. In one magnanimous gesture Stinky decreed that
Mid-Continent employees could buy stock in the company-up
to a total of0.5 percent. In 1948, Stinky established Stratoflex, a
venture which diversified his empire beyond oil-related equip-
ment and production. Stratoflex was geared to and grew with
the space age, and few aircraft or space vehicles could lift off the
ground anywhere without at least a few fuel lines and tube fit-
tings from Stratoflex companies. The business world was sur-
prised when Stinky announced that a small part of the shares of
the company would be sold to the public. One analyst was
quoted as viewing the development as suspicious: "The old
man wanted to take the stock public to see if he could sell it for
more than it was worth." As late as 1978-ten years after
Stinky's demise-the Star- Telegram said, "It is not even clear
why Stratoflex was ever public.'' And Texas Business reported,
"Nobody seems to know why Stratoflex went public to a small
degree.'' The true explanation of why Stratoflex sold some stock
is a valid commercial one: United States government contracts
are more likely to be awarded to a company with some public
ownership than to one which is privately owned.
Stinky suffered a stroke in 1966 at the age of seventy-one; he
54
was to be a semi-invalid for two years. He had four heart attacks

and his right leg became partially lame. His physician later
described him as a tough little man with a "neck beaten about
from oil field incidents and falls from horses .... He had pains. He
had a good deal of pain in his neck, and he had pains in both
shoulders. But he never took an aspirin or anything.'' He was
dismayed that his once-stylish handwriting had become shaky
and illegible; he tried to regain his aptitude by writing out the
alphabet over and over again in a notebook. • His pride was such
that he would not enter his office. He was driven there to read
his mail and go over business papers in his limousine while his
secretary took notes.
In February 1967, Alice Davis died of an apparent heart at-
tack at the age of sixty-six. In the extensive archives of the Star-
Telegram her obituary is the only clipping which records for
posterity that Alice existed. It reports that she was the wife of
Kenneth W. Davis, Sr., was a native of Fort Worth, and sup-
ported the opera association and the Children's Museum. The
remainder of the death notice is about Stinky.
Stinky must have approached the end of his own life with a
certain satisfaction. The boys were ready to take over the
business, having learned to be managers in a variety of executive
positions. His private physician said Stinky "expected his sons
to carry on his enterprise. He had determined, from the time
those boys were quite small, how he was going to raise them.''
Stinky, age seventy-three, died fifteen minutes after a heart
attack at 3:55P.M. on August 29, 1968. The funeral service, two
days later, at the First Presbyterian Church was followed by
burial in Greenwood Memorial Park. Stinky was interred in the
burnt-orange granite mausoleum where Alice already rested.
The tomb of Marvin Leonard was on the adjoining lot.
(Leonard was the man with whom Stinky had such an
• His handwriting was never the same after the stroke. The signature on his wiU, sign·
ed in 1954, is virile and flowing. On a codicil, signed in 1967, it is childlike and palsied.
55
acrimonious dispute over the Mockingbird Lane property which

Leonard had hoped to acquire to expand the Colonial Country
Club golf course.) Also nearby, amid the tombstones and sar-
cophagi of less affluent citizens, was the mausoleum of the
wealthy and prominent Tandy family. Just around the corner of
the cemetery lane was Amon Carter's mausoleum.
The grandest mausoleum in Greenwood is easily identified:
"The Family of Kenneth W. Davis." There are two inscriptions
carved in the granite. The first reads: "Man's Greatest Hap-
piness Comes From The Joy He Gives To Others." The second
is: "That Which We Create From God's Bounty Will Be Our
Living Legacy.''
The epitaphs are a wonderment to those who· knew the stingy
Stinky, the patriarch-tyrant, the businessman with a legendary
mean streak. Did Alice choose the two inscriptions?
Alice won at least one argument with her husband. There are
no oil wells in the stained-glass window in Stinky's mausoleum.
The window depicts the Good Samaritan.
After Cullen and Priscilla were married in a Methodist church
the night of the afternoon Stinky died, the couple had a brief
honeymoon. Then Cullen was ready to assume his role. He was
anxious to go to work and see that the family enterprise
prospered.
''He was intense about it,'' a Mid-Continent executive said of
Cullen, ''with a spring wound up inside. I figure his Dad wound
it up."
In his passage from youth to social and business recognition as

an inheritor of a vast fortune, Cullen left few discernible
footsteps. He delivered the old Fort Worth Herald (which was later
absorbed by the Star- Telegram) in the neighborhood when he was
a boy. His high school years were uneventful; in the Arlington
Heights High School yearbook for Cullen's senior year his class
photograph appears, but otherwise he is not mentioned as par-
ticipating in school activities. He was careful but not stingy in
56
making small loans to school pals. When attending Texas

A & M he extracted a fee from classmates he drove to and from
the college. He graduated with an engineering degree and
served a stint in the navy.
Cullen grew into a slender, small man with a sweet
countenance that. women remembered. Unlike many wealthy
Texans, he had no interest in politics. He moved in and out of
society circles quietly, and the leisure time he spent in pool halls
and clapboard dives spawned few anecdotes. The upper-crust
crowd in Rivercrest was hardly aware Cullen existed until he
gained notoriety by escorting Priscilla to annual galas.
One acquaintance remembered Cullen as being as ''in-
teresting as a paperweight. '' In a city where informality is
tolerated and even encouraged, Cullen often wore dark suits,
and a shirt and tie. His suits were sometimes so dark it was dif-
ficult to say whether they were navy blue or black. In 1972 one
man voted Cullen the best-dressed man of 1962.
Despite the fact that his houses on Rivercrest Road and later
on Mockingbird Lane both bordered on golf courses, Cullen was
not seen on the links. He played some tennis. He was, unques-
tionably, a proficient skier-according to semiprofessionals who
went to Colorado with him-and, with all those pool tables at his
disposal, became a good pool player. A plaque in the Petroleum
Club commemorates Cullen's victories as the club's snooker
champion in 1971 and 1973 (snooker is played on a table with
small pockets and requires the finesse of billiards). He liked to
play chess. But most of his energy and time was devoted to
business. The financial record proved Cullen talented in that
area.
People recalled Cullen's first marriage, which had ended
several years earlier. He and Sandra Masters had lived in a
home in Edgecliff. Sandra was small, well-proportioned, and
somewhat like Priscilla, except that her hair was jet black. Occa-
sionally her dress was interestingly see-through. She bore two
sons. The Edged iff house had a pool table in the basement. In
57
the divorce settlement Sandra received- the house, its fur-

nishings, an automobile, and an undetermined financial settle-
ment. The rumors around town were that she elected to leave
Cullen because he had physically mistreated her when drinking
and she couldn't take any more. One version of the breakup is
that Sandra was so fed up that she secretly took karate lessons
and, when next Cullen abused her, chopped him to the floor
before walking out of the marriage.
Then, after they met on a tennis court, Cullen married
Priscilla.
As Ms. Davis, Priscilla became a member of Fort Worth
society. Not a part of it, since she was not welcomed in that
hermetic society because of her dubious background and
pyrotechnic life-style. But when she married Cullen she became
a member of the clubs where the quality folks congregated, and
nobody could bar her from entering the golden portals of the
Rivercrest Club, up the winding street from the Davis residence,
and the Colonial Country Club, site of a prestigious, nationally
televised, annual golf tournament. The Shady Oaks Country
Club was out on the edge of town, while the Ridgelea Country
Club had been developed on a vast tract of land alongside the
Lake Como area, a black residential quarter where Fort Worth's
wealthy families obtained maids and waiters. She also fre-
quented the Petroleum Club, where businessmen and their
wives lunched, and the Boat Club on Eagle Mountain Lake.
And, as Cullen's wife, she attended the yearly party of the
Steeplechase Club, which presented a bevy of debutantes each
year.
Some say this was when Priscilla made her own debut into her
Harlow era. She emulated the screen vamp by going into a
white-on-white period. There was a white Lincoln Continental
Mark IV and a white motorcycle which Priscilla gunned up and
down Rivercrest, wearing a white jumper and white boots, her
white-blonde hair blown back in the wind. And she wore a white
mink coat and white boots. One society woman-an exception
58
in that she liked Priscilla-commented that it was ''really sort of

pitiful."
Cullen and Priscilla, as dues-paying members, attended the
pretentious extravaganzas sponsored by the various clubs, and
they were always ready to buy expensive tickets to charity balls.
There was a hush at Priscilla's entrances when she wore one of
her shockingly brief outfits, often one which provoked soft
whistles of admiration from the men and purse-lipped indigna-
tion from the women. Priscilla didn't wear clothes, she wore
costumes, usually scanty. "I wouldn't be surprised to see her
next time," one observer commented, "in the guise of a sugar
cookie, wearing nothing but a raisin in her navel." Another
woman said, "Fort Worth has its own Carol Doda now," com-
paring Priscilla with a San Francisco entertainer renowned at
the time for the immensity of her siliconed breasts.
The busty, bouncy Priscilla and her husband Cullen were
seldom invited into the homes of the rich or socially prestigious*
for private parties or intimate dinners. More often they were
seen in public places, perhaps after dinner at the convivial Car-
riage House or the Merrimac Restaurant down by the Trinity
River, and later, at less desirable establishments. Sometimes
they frequented dives where the walls were flyspecked and the
urinals stank. In these proletarian bistros they would cavort with
Priscilla's friends from her less· affluent days before she married
Cullen. Some were friends of Cullen-shiftless men who drifted
from one job to another when they worked, which was seldom,
or spent their days shooting pool and drinking Lone Star beer or
Coke and bourbon when they were unemployed, which was
often.
One of the drifters they met by chance was Charles David Mc-
Crory, whom Cullen challenged to a pool game one evening at a
scabrous dive on Camp Bowie Boulevard called the Pink
• The two categories, despite considerable overlap, are not necessarily synonymous in
Fort Worth.
59
Elephant. McCrory, age thirty-eight, had come to Fort Worth

from Cisco, Texas, after dropping out of the tenth grade. A
sometime carpenter and construction worker, he had failed con-
sistently at each job or business endeavor he ever attempted.
The one he had enjoyed the most was operating a karate studio
under a franchise granted him by the owner of several such
establishments, Pat Burleson (a distant relative of Phil Burleson,
the Dallas attorney who worked for Cullen). After a while that
endeavor failed too, and McCrory was unemployed when he
met Cullen. Cullen liked McCrory. He was a good storyteller,
even if it was said that most of his yarns were fabrications.
Priscilla and McCrory's wife Judy became friends and the two
women would sip beer or wine at the bar and feed coins into the
jukebox while Cullen and Charles David shot a few games of
rotation or eight ball.
While the Pink Elephant stayed open as late as almost any
place in Fort Worth, it did eventually close and was not open at
all on Sundays. Cullen was irritated one evening when he was
told there was time for only one more rack. So McCrory pur-
chased the Pink Elephant-with Cullen's money, it was
said-so that they could shoot pool whenever they pleased.
Although Cullen and Priscilla spent much of their time in

social seclusion sedately watching television or going to the
movies, there were two public incidents that generated some
waves and attendant notoriety. The first gave Fort Worthians
valid reason to comment that Cullen had inherited Stinky's
volatile temper.
In 1973 there was a downpour during the Steeplechase Club
debutante ball at the Shady Oaks Country Club. When the or-
chestra played its final refrain Cullen and Priscilla joined a
group crowding the front entrance of the club. Priscilla, outfitted
in an audacious garment that framed more than it cloaked, chat-
ted amiably with the men in formal dress and the women in long
dresses. She had enjoyed a gala evening.
60
But Cullen's mood was not good. He had been waiting impa-
tiently for the parking lot attendant who would fetch Priscilla's
white Continental Mark IV. The parking lot crew had to slosh
through water to find automobiles, and, when they located
them, drive to where the owners waited. Cullen decided he
would wait no longer. He persuaded an acquaintance who had
already retrieved his own car to drive him to the Continental.
Once there, Cullen realized he had no keys: they were still
hanging on the club's wooden rack where they had been placed
earlier. Cullen slushed back to the club. He could not find his
keys on the board. Exasperated, Cullen wrenched the board
from where it was ftxed and threw it down into the quagmire.
Cullen's customary sweet countenance was distorted with fury
as he hissed to those who had observed him: "If I can't find my
keys, nobody else will find theirs either!''
Priscilla began to assist others searching in the mud for their
own keys. Cullen cursed and instructed his wife coldly to ''get in
this car this minute," and they drove off in the automobile of
another couple, leaving the Continental in the parking lot for the
night. Others, whose keys had been trampled in the muck,
resorted to the same expedient or called a taxi.
The other much-commented-upon episode occurred two years
later at a Ridgelea Country Club golf tournament. There were
free movies in the parking lot. Cullen parked a large van among
the automobiles there and invited acquaintances inside to view
some pornographic films. A dozen men and women who had
abandoned the links could squeeze into the improvised theater.
There was a program of steamy selections, but the favorite was
Deep Throat, which had not been screened in Fort Worth's
X -rated movie houses yet. This incident revived stories about
Stinky Davis's sexual promiscuity and his porn collection, and
invited comparison between Stinky and Cullen in that
department.
During the six years of their high-flying marriage, Cullen and
Priscilla were often in the air. They flew to Aspen or Acapulco
61
with Charles David and Judy McCrory in their Lear jet. Or, to
New York where Priscilla would raid the exclusive stores for new
outfits and expensive gimcracks for the mansion on Mock-
ingbird Lane. "I had numerous charge accounts," Priscilla
said, ''all over the world.''
On one occasion in 1972, Cullen and Priscilla winged to New
York on an art expedition to buy paintings for the walls of their
massive new mansion, which was in the final stages of comple-
tion. They hired an art expert from Fort Worth to go with them.
During the flight in Cullen's Lear jet one passenger said that she
had heard that Washington, D.C., was a lovely city, but that she
had never seen it. Let's see it now, Cullen suggested, and he in-
structed the pilot to change course in order to fly over the na-
tional capital. Once there Cullen told the pilot to dive low so
they could have a good look. They flew directly over the White
House in violation of stringent FAA regulations and then re-
sumed their journey to New York. At LaGuardia's terminal for
private aircraft, spectators in the lobby were astonished at the
spectacle of Priscilla striding through the gate to a waiting
limousine. In honor of TCU, she was wearing the school
colors: white boots, purple hot-pants, a white ermine shoulder
wrap-and purple sunglasses.
Priscilla changed to an only slightly more conservative oufit
before she and Cullen entered an art gallery on Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan. Cullen selected the pieces to decorate the mansion
back on Mockingbird Lane. In that particular gallery Cullen
purchased almost $40,000 worth of lithographs, paintings, and
bronzes. There were additional purchases in other galleries, of
course. After all, it was a big house.
Indeed, the mansion was so inhospitable and cavernous that
once they moved into it, Priscilla usually confined herself to her
three favorite rooms: the kitchen, her bedroom suite, and her
bathroom. She decorated these rooms in bright colors to match
the vivid Mexican blouses she often wore. The main feature of
the master suite was a tremendous fur-covered bed. Stuffed
62
animals and potted plants were sprinkled everywhere, as were a

profusion of recording and projection machines. The bathroom
was hot pink with a sauna-type tub bordered by green plants.
While she bathed, Priscilla listened to country-western
music-Willie Nelson and Jimmy Gatling records and
tapes-and sipped orange or cherry Kool-Aid from a crystal
goblet. In the mansion's stables she doted on a white mare
named Freedom. She also pampered a dozen pets at a time, two
or three properly named dogs, and any stray hound or cat that
wandered onto the property.
Cullen and Priscilla continued to make grand entrances at
gala benefits and the annual parties at the clubs. Cullen would
wear a conservative suit, as always, or a modern tuxedo for for-
mal affairs, and she, another of her sexy costumes. Priscilla
drank very little, usually lingering over a glass of wine or a beer.
She smoked one cigarette after another, always Eve, the pack
with the pretty colors. ''Cullen and his Barbie Doll,'' some
began to call the couple.
"I can't understand it," one woman observed to another dur-
ing a fund-raising ball when Cullen sat quietly with narrowed
eyes as a group of men flirted with Priscilla and gawked at her
exposed cleavage. ''It must be humiliating for Cullen, all those
men drooling over her.''
"I don't think so," another answered. "I think Cullen enjoys
it."
Whether it was because of the stags' lust for Priscilla or for
other reasons, the marriage began to deteriorate. There were
public squabbles when Cullen would turn on Priscilla and bark
at her to shut up, she didn't know what she was talking about.
And there were rumors, especially when Cullen or Priscilla
would be seen with blackened eyes, that the husband and wife
had violent physical brawls. One story had it that the pilots of
the private jet made an unscheduled landing returning from a
Colorado ski trip because Cullen and Priscilla were assaulting
each other in the plane's cabin. And there were more rumors
63
that Cullen was spending much of his time away from the man-
sion, seeking other female companionship. But no one really
identified the catalyst, if there was one, in the breakup of the
marriage. Priscilla later told a friend that she realized she was in
trouble with Cullen for the frrst time when they were talking
about the rift between him and his brother William, and Priscilla
suggested that maybe Cullen and Ken were being unfair to
William. Cullen's reply, according to the secondhand version,
was ''business is business.''
In July of 1974, Cullen and Priscilla were legally separated.
Priscilla used her Master Charge card to cash a check for S1500,
and hired a divorce lawyer.
Cullen resided for a while in temporary quarters at the

Ramada Inn• and then moved into Karen Master's home. He
was seen driving around town and at the Petroleum Club at
lunchtime. He and Karen visited the Boat Club at Eagle Moun-
tain Lake. He shot some pool, went regularly to Dallas Cowboy
football games, and, apparently, enjoyed a placid existence, at
least until vexing developments in the divorce proceedings with
Priscilla began to plague him. One alleviating factor in the
divorce, Cullen told acquaintances, was that he had had the
foresight to have Priscilla sign a prenuptial agreement limiting
the money she might obtain from his business interests.
Priscilla was seen around town, too, but her life was not as
sedate as Cullen's. After encountering friends at her favorite
hangouts she would invite them to the mansion to watch televi-
sion on the big screen and to have something to eat, often
burgers or barbecue. Sometimes her guests were from the north
side of town, and they wore black leather jackets and had tattoos
on their biceps. Some were sufficiently involved in the Fort
• The Ramada Inn in Fort Worth is the only motel in Texas with a small cemetery,
containing about a dozen graves, in the middle of its parking lot. Another Fort Worth
motel provides guests with stalls for their horses.
64
Worth drug scene that narcotics agents began to investigate

Priscilla's guests. There were persistent rumors of wild parties at
he mansion. It was whispered for a while that a man named W.
T. Rufner, with a shady past, had become Priscilla's lover.
Then Stan Farr apparently replaced him, and Priscilla and the
basketball player were seen together constantly. They shared the
master bedroom at the mansion and everyone knew about that.
Cullen knew about it, too.
The divorce proceedings were complicated by Cullen's enor-
mous wealth and the premarital agreement, but otherwise the
issues were simple. There was no haranguing to be expected
about children, as Cullen and Priscilla had none between them.
Both parties wanted the divorce, and there were no religious
taboos to complicate matters. Priscilla asked at first for the man-
sion and its furnishings, the Continental Mark IV, and money.
Cullen wanted the mansion, too, and knew there would be
alimony. It was a question of how much.
District Judge Joe Eidson presided over the prolonged bicker-
ing. He was forced on many occasions to make rulings which
would, by their nature, have to favor either Cullen or Priscilla.
On both sides the lawyers had lengthy-and extremely
lucrative-briefs to prepare.
Joe Eidson decided early on to set the temporary support
payments to Priscilla at $3500 a month. In the beginning this
mollified Priscilla, but her demands skyrocketed when an
estimate of the worth of the KenDavis industrial empire revealed
that it had more than tripled in value since Priscilla and Cullen
had wed in 1968.
At the end of August 1976, Cullen and Priscilla learned of
Eidson's decision that the monthly payments were to be in-
creased to $5000. It was a victory for Priscilla and she was in
good spirits when she and Stan Farr went to the Swiss House for
dinner and then to the Rangoon Racquet Club for a glass of
wine before returning to the mansion after midnight to find the
man dressed in black and wearing a wig.
65
That decision, of course, was a setback for Cullen. In addition

to the increased payments, Judge Eidson had postponed, yet
another time, the divorce trial which had already been pending
for almost two years. Priscilla's lawyers had requested the exten-
sion. She was having problems with her breasts following plastic
surgery for silicone implants.
During the last part of 1976 and the first half of 1977, Cullen
was involved in a judicial three-ring circus. The trial in which
Cullen would be judged for murder had been set for October 11
by Judge Cave, but was not to take place for some months.
Cullen's team of lawyers moved to have their client released on
bond and his trial conducted under conditions favorable to their
client.
Cullen celebrated his forty-third birthday on September 22 in
the Tarrant County jail. A week later an appeals hearing on
Judge Cave's denial of bond began in Austin, the state capital.
Judge Cave postponed the October trial until late February of
1977. There was a motion for a change of venue, based on the
argument by Cullen's lawyers that there had been too much
publicity in Fort Worth to permit Cullen to have a fair trial. In
the meantime, Judge Eidson set the final hearing on the divorce
case for January 17. In November there were hearings in Judge
Cave's court on more than a hundred defense motions plus a
writ of habeas corpus for Cullen.
During December additional motions were fued in federal
court by the defense lawyers, and pretrial hearings were con-
ducted. There was bickering about the validity of the premarital
agreement in which Priscilla, according to Cullen's lawyers,
signed away her rights to much of Cullen's wealth. Priscilla in-
sisted the document was a fraud.
On the last day of 1976 a multimillion-dollar settlement was
reached in the case between Cullen and his brother William.
One hundred million was the sum bruited as the settlement
figure.
The defense attorneys accelerated their efforts to obtain bond
66
so that Cullen could be a free man while awaiting and enduring

the February trial. With the assistance of Sam Dash, the former
Watergate prosecutor, they went as far as they could: U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell refused to hear the case in
Washington, as didJustice Thurgood Marshall two days later.
On February 15, 1977 the grand jury in Fort Worth returned
capital murder and attempted murder indictments against
Cullen. That would guarantee a good show. Cullen was un-
doubtedly the richest man in America ever to be indicted on
murder charges. Would he be the richest man ever to die by
lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville?
The trial began in Fort Worth on February 22 and continued
for nineteen days and then came to an abrupt halt.
Judge Cave ruled a mistrial. He had learned that a woman
juror, allowed to visit a dying father in Chicago, reportedly was
making telephone calls back to Fort Worth to assure her friends
that Cullen was guilty, and, that she could not understand why
so much money was being spent on the lengthy trial when it
would be easy to simply turn Davis over to the sequestered
jurors and ''let us hang him.''
Despite her denial of the accusation, the judge himself now
filed a motion for a change of venue, and, in early May, selected
Amarillo as the site of the new trial. It was to commence in June
1977.
For most people who knew him, it was preposterous to believe

that Cullen could be responsible for the murders at the
mansion: I just can't believe Cullen would do such a thing! Where
would he ever get the idea?
During those days when everyone was debating Cullen's guilt
or innocence, there were some who recalled a party on June 11,
just ten weeks before the murders on Mockingbird Lane.
Members of the Arlington Heights High School class of '51 had
gathered for a reunion. It was great to see old friends and to hear
a speech by one of their very own who had made it in the world.
Thomas Thompson had been the editor of the Yellow Jacket,
67
the school newspaper. He'd wanted to be a writer since the time

as a youngster he was given a toy printing press for Christmas.
Later, he had worked for the Houston Post, and, eventually, he
went to New York where he worked for Life magazine for a
dozen years. Then he decided to write his first book, the story of
two cardiovascular surgeons, Michael DeBakey and Denton
Cooley. Then, Thompson found himself out of a job when Life
folded, so he started a second book, based on a Houston murder
story which had come to his attention while doing the research
on Hearts.
Everyone at the reunion was pleased that Tommy had flown
in from Houston for the evening. Why, the only other really
famous person to come out of their class was a girl who had
become a notorious high-class hooker (and she passed around
cards during the reunion). But Tommy had written a hook and
was about to publish another. It was the story of a Houston
woman who had died under mysterious circumstances. Her hus-
band had been indicted for the murder, and there had been a
trial. The defendant got off when his lawyer reportedly was
clever enough to engineer a mistrial. Fortunately for him, he
had the money it took to hire that master of the courtroom,
Houston attorney Richard Haynes.
Thompson said his new book, entitled Blood and Money, would
be out shortly.
Everyone was fascinated. One of those who gathered around
Tommy Thompson was Thomas Cullen Davis, class of '51.
Fort Worth's citizenry was momentarily dejected when they

learned their big show was going on the road. But never mind.
There was a great cast: the wealthy Cullen and Priscilla, known
as the X-rated Sandra Dee. And now you could be sure the facts
would come out about what Priscilla had been up to at the man-
sion after she and Cullen had separated. Cullen's lawyer would
see to that.
Cullen had hired a new chief honcho for his legal team.
Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, often known simply as Race.
68
Why, he was the courtroom genius who was giving Percy

Foreman, Edward Bennett Williams, and F. Lee Bailey such a
run for their money. He was almost as famous as they were, at
least in Texas. Everyone had heard the story about that case
when Haynes drove a spike through his hand in the courtroom.
That was to prove his motorcycle gang clients didn't really hurt
that girl very much when they crucified her, nailed her to a tree.
In June 1977, Glen Guzzo learned he would be covering the
trial in Amarillo for the Star- Telegram. Glen was a young reporter
who edited a small paper in Detroit for the syndicate which had
just recently purchased the Star- Telegram; they had sent him to
Fort Worth when they bought the paper from Amon Carter's
family. Glen heard estimates that the Amarillo trial might last
longer than most usually brief Texas murder trials. Perhaps two
months. Glen decided to plan on being in Amarillo as long as
three months.
Glen had no way of knowing that his beat was to be the
longest, most expensive murder trial in the history of Texas.
69
. 5.
THE OLD JUDGE
The journalist visited Fort Worth again in mid-June 1977. He

telephoned Judge Willard and, declining an invitation to accom-
pany the old man on his early morning hike around the golf
course, went to his home the following afternoon. The two men
talked for some time until the Judge, observing through the pic-
ture window that the sun was dipping toward the horizon, an-
nounced that it was time for a drink. The journalist was taken
aback when he saw the size of the Judge's mug; his own was a
normal-sized highball glass. The journalist finished the last of
his bourbon long before the Judge significantly reduced the level
of his excessively large potion ofJack Daniels and water.
"Have another drink, son," the Judge invited. "I'll just
make do with this one.''
The journalist asked the Judge for his opinion ofJudge Cave's
decision to declare a mistrial in Fort Worth and to designate
Amarillo as the site for a new trial.
The Judge said he certainly agreed with Cave on the change
in venue because of the publicity about Cullen's predicament
which would make a fair trial in Fort Worth unlikely. And there
was no question in the Judge's mind that Cave had ruled cor-
rectly in declaring a mistrial after a woman juror had so blatant-
ly flouted the rules of juror conduct when visiting Chicago.
Texas is the only state in the country, the Judge said, which does
not have an alternate-juror provision in criminal cases; only
when a juror must be dismissed because of an unexpected
70
THE OLD JUDGE
physical disability may the remaining eleven jurors reach a deci-

sion. That law needs changing, the Judge insisted.
The journalist asked the Judge for his evaluation of District
Attorney Tim Curry's decision to prosecute Cullen only on the
murder indictment for killing Andrea, when no eyewitnesses
could testify to that tragic event? Why not the charges which
alleged that Cullen had murdered Stan Farr, or that he had
wounded Priscilla and Gus Gavrel?
The Judge speculated that Curry believed the jurors would be
shocked at the thought that anyone could slay a twelve-year-old
girl and would be anxious to condemn the perpetrator. But the
more important rationale, the Judge was convinced, was that
Curry was aware of the propensity of Texas juries-especially in
a Bible-toting community like Amarillo-to sympathize with a
man who shoots an unfaithful wife or her lover. In the old days
the doctrine of "hot pursuit" prevailed in such cases. And
sometimes juries exonerated irate husbands who murdered their
wives or those who had defiled them long after the trail was cool.
In Cullen's case the Amarillo jury would probably suggest a pro-
bated sentence if they found him guilty of attacking Priscilla and
killing Stan Farr, or pin a medal on Cullen by declaring him in-
nocent. A wily defense attorney like Richard Haynes would be
able to evoke in the jury a sneaking nostalgia for the old days in
the Southwest when a man was expected to philander, but a wife
did so at her own risk.
"Who is Richard Haynes?" the journalist asked.
''Before arriving at that identification,'' the Judge said, ''you
have to ask 'Who is Percy Foreman?' Because Haynes grew up
in Foreman's shadow down in Houston and has been sprinting
for the past twenty years to overtake Foreman as the most
famous trial lawyer in Texas." The Judge reflected. "I'm not
sure all lawyers would characterize that ambition as lofty. But
Foreman is a very successful lawyer.''
"Was Foreman the man who defended] ames Earl Ray?"
"Yes, in the matter of the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King.
71
Foreman's been practicing for fifty years. Do you recall the Can-
dace Mossier case in '66? She was a Houston socialite of flam-
boyant aspect, much like Priscilla Davis. Her nephew and lover
was accused of killing her multimillionaire husband by stabbing
him to death. But Foreman managed to convince the jury that
the dead man, despite the thirty-seven knife wounds in his body,
was the real villain and the nephew went free. Richard Haynes
has adopted and refined Foreman's technique of discrediting
any opposition witness, dead or alive, to such an extent that
juries forget who is really in the dock.''
''Is Haynes a really great lawyer?''
The Judge thought for a moment, then replied, "He wins
cases.''
Richard Haynes's first case as a young lawyer was defending
a man charged with the illegal sale of liquor. Haynes became an
authority on the subject of intoxication, and subsequently suc-
cessfully defended more than 150 drunk-driving cases. His fame
spread as he became known as a trial lawyer who could stupefy
and confound juries with dramatic courtroom tactics. Once he
was unable to subpoena a witness he felt vital to the defense, so
he cross-examined an empty witness chair with such fervor that
he won his case.
"But don't believe all you hear about Haynes," the Judge
warned. ''Everyone believes he once won a case by driving a
spike through his hand in the courtroom. That is horse shit.
Haynes himself has denied the story countless times. He did
want to convince the jury that a girl whom a motorcycle gang
had disciplined by nailing her to a tree was not really hurt all
that bad. He came up with the idea of having a doctor inject a
local anesthetic into his own hand so he could nail himself to the
defense table during his closing argument. But he didn't really
do that-didn't turn out to be necessary-although I don't doubt
he would have, had it been vital. What really got that gang off
was his closing argument to the jury. And he's a master at
that."
72
THE OLD JUDGE
"Why is he known as Racehorse?"

"From his football days, they tell me. He had the habit of
galloping back and forth across the gridiron but consistently fail-
ing to go forward. His coach asked what he thought he was, a
racehorse?''
"What tactics will Racehorse Haynes use in Amarillo?" the
journalist wanted to know.
The Judge predicted that Cullen's lawyer would begin by
spending a great deal of Cullen's money on the jury selection.
Then, if Cullen has a creditable explanation of where he was and
what he was doing at the time of the murders on Mockingbird
Lane, he will put Cullen on the stand. Failing that, he will at-
tempt to locate an alibi witness, someone who will swear he or
she was with Cullen at the time. And, the one thing you can be
sure of, Haynes will do everything he can to portray Priscilla as
the great whore of Babylon.
''It should make for interesting testimony,'' the journalist
suggested.
The Judge agreed. "And that should be grist for that book
you have in mind. Just what sort of story are you thinking of
coming up with, young man?"
''A Texas Gothic, I suppose,'' the journalist said. ''The story
of what happens when someone has too much money and
doesn't know how to handle it. A sort ofRivercrest tragedy.''
''A tragedy?'' The Judge sipped what was left of his drink.
"I'm not so sure of that. You might consult your Aristotle. I
believe it was in his Poetics that he said that to have tragedy you
must begin with a cast of noble figures. I'm not sure that term
aptly describes Cullen and his wife Priscilla.''
The journalist explored his thesis further. He told the Judge
that when walking with him around the golf course he had con-
sidered the enormous wealth represented by the families of in-
heritors who lived in Rivercrest. The question involved was in-
teresting. Families like Cullen's had forged their great wealth in
the fires of early frontiers. Was it possible that the energy and
73
knack for survival necessary to withstand the raw wilderness

became twisted into a criminal dilemma when second and third
generations emulated their grandparents? When the first settlers
in Texas carved out their positions of wealth and power it was
sometimes necessary to be antisocial to protect land, cattle, a
ranch house, or to guard a well in the days when certain people
tried to steal oil when they couldn't find it themselves. Did the
sons of those men find it difficult to conform to the regulations of
a peaceful society when their boundaries were ennui and coun-
try clubs?
The Judge thought about the journalist's exposition. Then he
said, "That sounds overwhelmingly sociological to me. Maybe,
son, you'll find you're writing about a simple case of murder
that's unusual and complicated because Cullen happens to be a
very rich man. When all of this happened almost a year ago, I
saw the development in relatively simple terms as far as the
wealth and prestige of this part of town is concerned. It was
shocking, but not catastrophic-sort of like we had found a very
large turd floating in the Rivercrest swimming pool. ''
The Judge drained the last of his bourbon and smacked his
lips delicately.
''Whatever the explanation may be,'' the Judge assured the
journalist, "you can be sure that Cullen's trial in Amarillo will
be a spectacle. "
74
·6·
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
The pretrial hearings and jury selection began in Amarillo on

June 27, 1977.
Richard ''Racehorse'' Haynes and his defense team, billeted
in the Hilton Hotel, had been working for some time. Phil
Burleson and Mike Gibson, the two Dallas lawyers who had
originally defended Cullen, were to participate in the trial in
those rare interludes-and they would prove to be extremely
rare-when Haynes was not on his feet. Steve Sumner, a former
semipro baseball player, commanded the defense's investigative
task force. During the various civil suits and the aborted trial in
Fort Worth, Sumner had employed five full-time private in-
vestigators and a half dozen part-time spies to infiltrate Fort
Worth's underworld. Haynes had contracted, at one time or
another, a number of legal experts.
Richard Haynes was born and spent his childhood in San An-
tonio, Texas, 200 miles west of Houston. His father was a con-
struction worker and the family never had much money.
Richard went to Houston to study law. Twice his schooling was
interrupted for service in two branches of the military. He was
decorated for saving two fellow marines at lwo Jima, and
jumped as an army paratrooper. He graduated from a little-
known law school in Houston and went directly into private
practice. He set about becoming as famous as Percy Foreman.
Haynes's reputation as a wily courtroom tactician with a flair
75
for the dramatic spread. In Amarillo, Glen Guzzo of the Star-

Telegram interviewed Haynes, and the public was intrigued to
read of the attorney's flamboyant life-style. Haynes owned three
silver automobiles: an Excalibur, a Dusenberg, and a new
Porsche, all of which he drove above the speed limit. He flew his
own Cessna and liked skydiving. He sailed on the Gulf of Mex-
ico on his sloop. He owned eight racing motorcycles. Once he
and a colleague were in a small Texas town with their motor-
cycles and created a problem for the management of the motel
where they were staying. "One night we had a drop or two of
Scotch and we did rev up the engines and smashed a hole in the
wall. We bought the wall."
Haynes explained his penchant for epeed and risk. "God's
saving me to save someone else. Or else he would have killed me
by now. He's had a lot of chances with me racing on motorcycles
and jumping out of airplanes .... You know, I'm a speed freak
and when I die, it'll be at a high rate of speed, I hope." Haynes
had already decided on his epitaph: ''I can see it now,'' he said,
"across the tip of my tombstone. 'His fees were outrageous, but
he did a good job.'"
His legal fees were substantial and increased along with his
fame. Haynes said that when asked by the Hearst family to de-
fend Patricia in her bank robbery trial, he quoted a fee higher
than that given to F. Lee Bailey, who was given $125,000 and
book rights. Once a Houston law student asked Haynes if many
clients had retained him a second time. "No," Haynes
answered, "I usually take them for all they're worth the first
time around.''
When the Amarillo trial was underway Racehorse Haynes
was known regionally, and was beginning to be recognized na-
tionally. On a national television program he was asked if he
considered himself the best criminal attorney in Texas. "It's my
belief that I am," Haynes admitted. He paused. Then he com-
mented, "I wonder why you restrict it to Texas?" The flip com-
ment to tv journalist Dan Rather reverberated nationally. It
76
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
followed Haynes's account of the 1971 case when he had suc-

cessfully defended two Houston policemen accused of stomping
a black prisoner to death. Haynes managed to have the trial
heard in a nearby town known for its conservatism and then
devoted his energy to selecting just the right jury. "I knew we
had that case won when we seated the last bigot on the jury.''*
The battery of expensive legal talent from Houston, Dallas,

and Fort Worth was augmented in Amarillo by local expertise.
Six weeks before the jury selection began, Haynes hired Dee
Miller, a former Amarillo district attorney, as a consultant.
Miller was never to miss a day of testimony during the lengthy
trial. For this silent performance he was to receive the highest
legal fee of his career.
Dee Miller's law partner was hired as the architect of the first
phase of Haynes's defense strategy. Hugh Miller-no kin of
Dee-was a prominent attorney who had been at one time a
judge in Potter County. Almost 200 prospective jurors were
screened before the final dozen were selected. In capital murder
cases in Texas, potential jurors are scrutinized one by one, and
the process is vital. Miller used Steve Sumner's investigators as
well as local-hire footpads of his own acquaintance. Ray Hud-
son, Karen Master's father, joined the team; he had lived and
worked in Amarillo and had many contacts in town. Karen
herself arrived three and a half weeks before the trial to circulate
among friends from her early school days there.
The first occupant of the jury box was selected within two
days. It would be three weeks before the final juror was
approved.
Amarillo, with a population of less than 300,000, was a small
enough town to allow thorough investigation of each prospective
• Later Haynes said he was being facetious. During Cullen's Houston trial a jour-
nalist asked Haynes if the published anecdotes about him were essentially correct. He
did not dispute the quotations but put them in perspective: "You must understand,"
Haynes said with a smile, "that some of those statements were made drink in hand, at
poolside."
77
juror. Miller compiled histories. Neighbors, friends, former

teachers, mailmen, and barbers, were asked to fill out question-
naires. Defense secretaries learned to operate a computer to
store and retrieve biographical information. Photographs of
their homes went into jury-prospect files. Hugh Miller's task
was accomplished on August 17. The result, according to one
observer, was that Haynes came up with "a near perfect, hand-
pickedjury'' of nine men and three women.
Presiding over the trial was Judge George E. Dowlen, known
by some in Amarillo as "the Cowboy Judge." Dowlen was
Boston-educated and a forty-three-year-old bachelor with a
reputation for having a lively sense of humor. When he first sat
at the bench in the small, fifty-two-seat courtroom, Dowlen in-
serted a toothpick in his mouth. During the months of delibera-
tion the judge seldom removed the toothpick and its
replacements.
Ten days before the jury was selected, Haynes had filed a new
request for bond before Judge Dowlen. It seemed a futile exer-
cise as bond for Cullen had been denied several times previous-
ly, most recently by Judge Cave in Fort Worth. Tim Curry and
his prosecution team-assistant district attorneys Joe Shannon,
Tolly Wilson, and Marvin Collins-were dismayed whenJudge
Dowlen ordered Cullen released on a $1 million bond which
Cullen paid with a certified check. The prosecutors read the ac-
tion as an ominous signal of Dowlen's perception of the case.
Cave and the other judges who had denied bond for Cullen had
said, in effect, that they believed it possible, even probable, that
a jury would find him guilty. Judge Dowlen's decision, the pro-
secutors believed, revealed that he was not so sure. But Judge
Cave in Fort Worth remained the ultimate authority and Judge
Dowlen's decision, while allowing Cullen temporary freedom,
was subject to Cave's review.
The prosecutors were further dismayed when Judge Dowlen
announced his intention to permit unlimited reexamination.
This would allow Haynes time and latitude to range far afield in
78
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
questioning witnesses. Tim Curry and his team sensed, ac-

curately as it turned out, Dowlen would tolerate considerable
scope in testimony about sex and drugs. Curry wanted to con-
centrate on the issue of the dead girl Andrea and the identity of
the man in black who shot her. Haynes, from the beginning,
wanted to overwhelm the jury with lurid word pictures of the
Fort Worth drug culture and Priscilla's role in it. In short,
Curry would be trying Cullen, and Racehorse, Priscilla.
The first prosecution witness was Judge Joe Eidson from Fort
Worth. The Fort Worth prosecutors intended to convince the
Amarillo jury that Cullen's primary motive for the shooting
spree was his frustration after almost two years of divorce pro-
ceedings. The specific which triggered the murders, they would
contend, was Joe Eidson's ruling that the divorce trial again be
postponed and that Priscilla's temporary support payments be
increased.
Free after more than a year in the Cross-Bar Hotels in Fort
Worth and Amarillo, Cullen checked into the Hilton, and when
Priscilla arrived to testify they spent the night under the same
general roof. After two days of deliberation in Fort Worth,
Judge Cave revoked the bond. Cullen got his $1 million back
and returned to the Cross-Bar. Perhaps it was just as well. As
one of his attorneys put it, "His character was probably better in
jail.''
A reporter for the Amarillo Globe News spotted Priscilla carry-
ing a Bible in the corridors of the Hilton. When they read the
story, Amarillo readers bristled. Who did she think she was
kidding?
By the time Priscilla appeared at the Potter County court-
house on August 22, the town of Amarillo was solidly pro-
Cullen, anti-Priscilla.
Priscilla would have been demure in the witness chair if it had

not been for platinum hair dipping provocatively over one eye.
Her attire was modest. A beige dress, high at neck and below the
79
knee at the hem. She wore a gold bracelet, and on a chain, a

simple gold cross. Some surmised that the ensemble had passed
muster by Tim Curry, if not in fact selected by the district
attorney.
Curry disposed of one piece of business immediately:
Priscilla's relationship with Stan Farr. He knew that if he didn't,
Haynes would. Curry asked Priscilla where and when she met
the basketball player. She said that Farr had approached her at
the rodeo in February two years before, and they had begun see-
ing each other regularly in March.
''At my home,'' Priscilla responded when Curry asked where
Farr lived at the time of the murders.
When Priscilla's first day on the stand-devoted to her ver-
sion of the night of August 2-was finished, Haynes was asked
why his reexamination of Priscilla was so tepid. "In the early
rounds," the Houston lawyer said, "I just like to horse around
and see how the other guy reacts. Then I get to the heavy stuff.''
The second round and the heavy stuff began promptly the
next morning. Those who had waited through the seemingly in-
terminable jury selection and the tedious pretrial hearings were
not disappointed. Racehorse Haynes delighted them with an ex-
ample of his courtroom audacity.
Haynes produced a photograph he wished to place in
evidence. It had been enlarged until it was the size of a travel
poster. In vibrant color, it depicted two persons: first Priscilla,
in a low-cut halter and blue slacks, smiling at the camera; then
W. T. Rufner, the electrician with a record of narcotics viola-
tions, with his arms loosely around Priscilla. Rufner was grin-
ning and his head was tilted against hers. He was nude except
for a single red and white Christmas stocking which he wore on
his penis.
The prosecutors bolted out of their chairs objecting to the
ribald photograph. They protested that it was not relevant to the
charge that a young girl had been slain. In a benchside huddle
Judge Dowlen ruled in Haynes's favor: the piquant pose was
80
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
not to be seen by the jury but was admissible as evidence. He did

admonish the gleefully contrite Haynes and ordered that
henceforth the photograph must be mounted on an opaque card-
board backing.
In fact, the photograph had been transposed to thin, translu-
cent paper. When he had first displayed it Haynes had held the
print in such a manner that light from the fluorescent ceiling fix-
tures in the courtroom shone through the paper. The jury had a
good look.
Asked about the circumstances in which the photograph was
taken, Priscilla said she couldn't recall them. Later Haynes
questioned Priscilla's vague recollection.
"Have you ever seen W. T. Rufner in a social atmosphere,"
Haynes asked, ''when he was running around without his
clothes on?"
"I don't recall that I have."
Haynes persisted. "You have never seen W. T. Rufner naked
as a jaybird with his you-know-what in a sock? You do not
recognize the man in the photograph as W. T. Rufner?"
"Well, I recognize the face." Priscilla paused, as if trying her
best to remember. "I don't recognize the sock."
There were giggles in the courtroom. One delighted spectator
whispered to a friend, "Leave it to old Race to come up with a
peter heater.'' The reference was to a quaint knitted garment of
phallic dimension available in some Texas novelty shops.
The first exchange about the candy-striped sock occurred in
the jury's presence, the second when the jury was absent. Judge
Dowlen then, and on many occasions throughout the lengthy
trial, dismissed the jury for various reasons while questioning of
witnesses continued. Usually the testimony unheard by the jury
concerned matters the judge believed might become relevant
later, especially if Cullen were convicted and his case taken to
the appeals court. Haynes and his team, and Curry and his col-
leagues often engaged in heated debate about what the jury
should or should not hear or see.
81
Priscilla did tell the jury that Rufner had stayed for several
weeks at the mansion. He had been ill, she explained, and it was
more convenient to have Rufner there than to make frequent
visits to his place. When she did visit him it was at the houseboat
where Rufner lived on Possum Kingdom Lake, not far from
Fort Worth.
Haynes attempted to introduce into evidence two additional
photographs. They were blurred, as though an amateur
photographer had snapped the images with unsteady hands.
They were described as ''sex scenes in a lake.'' The jury was not
permitted to peek at the watery frolics. This time Judge Dowlen
ruled, to the relief of the prosecution, that the photographs were
inadmissible.
During the period when Rufner resided at the mansion,
Priscilla said, he stayed in her bedroom.
"Was Rufner a violent man?"
Not very, Priscilla responded. She did not hesitate to
elaborate. Once he tossed a potted plant into the bathtub while
she was in it. Another time he disembowled a large teddy bear
she had given him as a birthday present, scattering the animal's
kapok entrails about the master bedroom suite. Then there was
the night Priscilla, Rufner, and some friends were at the Old
San Francisco Saloon: She argued with Rufner and he stormed
out of the bar. When Priscilla and her companions went out they
found the tires of her Lincoln Continental slashed. She and her
friends returned to the mansion to find Rufner waiting for them;
Andrea had let him in. Rufner became obnoxious and a stocky
oil lease peddler named Jerry Thomas, who sometimes walked
the streets of Fort Worth in his karate costume, began to
"pulverize" Rufner. Priscilla stopped the fight (but not, accord-
ing to Thomas, who had a dislocated little finger after the melee,
until Thomas "beat the shit" out of Rufner). Priscilla denied
other acts of violence on Rufner's part.
If Andrea had not opened the door for Rufner, could he have
entered anyway? Did Rufner have a key to the mansion? A
number of people had keys, Priscilla testified. There was a cou-
82
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
pie who lived there two or three months after Cullen departed.
Delbert McClinton, the country and western singer, had stayed
there occasionally with his wife. Then there was a second couple
who had keys, at least temporarily. A man named Larry
Michael Myers had been a house guest for several weeks, but
Myers, a convicted felon, had not been entrusted with a key.
Then Stan Farr, of course.
But Priscilla insisted that while her guests had keys, only she
and her daughter Dee had the master key to the intricate elec-
tronic security system which, when activated, rendered other
keys useless.
When the trial adjourned that day Haynes had established
that Priscilla had lived in the mansion with a motley crew in
part-time residence and that Rufner and Farr had been
Priscilla's lovers.
Rufner was identified as having been convicted in 197 4 for
possession of LSD and pethidine with intent to deliver. He had
received a suspended sentence.
Racehorse Haynes was satisfied that the second day's
testimony had been more interesting than the first.
The next day the subject was drugs. Haynes was so relentless
in pursuing the topic that Tim Curry became furious: "We
thought we came up here to try a murder case, not a morals
case,'' he fumed. But the judge permitted Haynes to dwell on
Priscilla's dependence on drugs.
The jury listened when Priscilla admitted her frequent use of
Percodan, a painkiller. She said that she had first used thenar-
cotic after breaking an ankle during a ski spill in Aspen and had
been unaware that it was addictive. It had not been so in her
case, in any event.
''Are you saying you are not addicted to the use of
Percodan?" Haynes asked.
Priscilla retreated. "No, sir, I don't mean to mislead the
jury.,
"You are addicted to Percodan, aren't you?"
83
"Yes, sir," Priscilla admitted, "there's a possibility."

''Don't you know it to be a fact?''
Priscilla then made a further admission which was to be
headline stuff.
"It's highly possible."
"How many Percodans," Haynes wanted to know, "were
you taking a day?"
"Due to my gunshot wound," Priscilla said, "I was taking far
more than 100 a week.''
''Were you taking more than 200 a week?''
"That may be closer to it," Priscilla said. "I was having to
take four every couple of hours.''
The jury heard the damaging admissions. When they were
out of the courtroom they did not hear Priscilla deny that she
had used LSD, cocaine, or heroin, as Haynes had intimated.
She conceded that she had tested marijuana as a teenager, but
had not used it since. Priscilla insisted that she did not en-
courage or condone the use of narcotics in the mansion on
Mockingbird Lane.
Steve Sumner's investigators had obtained copies of Priscilla's
bank statements. Priscilla was questioned about large
withdrawals during the September and August before the
murders and provided answers that explained her need for cash.
Haynes, probing for a withdrawal which might have been used
for some sinister purpose, went back as far as April. Why, he
demanded, did she withdraw $2500 on a single day?
Priscilla had a simple answer: to pay for a "mini-facelift."
The surgeon, Dr. Valentin Gracia, wanted cash. "He doesn't
take checks," Priscilla explained. "You pay, even if you have
insurance, before the surgery. He takes cash or money
orders .... ''
The court did not convene on Friday, August 26. Amarillo
celebrated LBJ's birthday.
Priscilla chatted with reporters over the weekend. ''I'm not
saying I'm Miss Goodie Twoshoes .... " But she went on to pro-
84
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
test that she was not the wanton Cullen's lawyers had painted
her to be.
Cullen, too, spoke to the press, as he did throughout the
Amarillo trial. He supported Priscilla on the narcotics issue, say-
ing that he had never been aware she had used hard drugs. But
his opinion of her overall testimony under oath was not equally
charitable.
"I don't believe she's telling the truth." Cullen paused. "I
wouldn't be surprised if God punished her,'' he added.
During Priscilla's second week in the witness chair both the

defense and the prosecution scored points.
Priscilla recounted an emotional telephone confrontation be-
tween Cullen and her daughter Andrea while Davis was still liv-
ing at the mansion. Her version was that Cullen had insisted
Andrea return to the mansion for a visit. He cursed the child,
and when Andrea said she wouldn't leave her father, Jack
Wilborn, even temporarily, Cullen threatened her. From that
time on, Priscilla told the jury, Andrea was afraid of Cullen and
refused to visit the mansion until his departure.
The matter of the keys to the mansion came up again.
Although Priscilla had previously said that only she and Dee had
the vital key to the security system, now she remembered a
telephone conversation during which Cullen had said he re-
tained a master key. Another key remained in the possession of
the man who had installed the system, another was held by a
man who worked at Cullen's office, and a third by the mansion
housekeeper.
Tim Curry led Priscilla into the subject of Cullen's
marksmanship and his possession of handguns.
"Was he a good shot or a bad shot?" Curry asked.
"A very good shot," Priscilla said. She had observed his
target practice at the property on Eagle Mountain Lake.
''How many handguns did he own?''
Priscilla could not remember the precise inventory of Cullen's
85
arsenal. ''I don't know. He had several .... '' She did recall one
that he kept under his bed, another in a closet, one that rested on
a shelf in his dressing area at the mansion ... and two more in his
Cadillac.
Two grisly photographs were entered as medical evidence.
One was a close-up of the cavity in Priscilla's back left by the
bullet which had exited there; the other was a graphic image of
the incision in Priscilla's body made at the time of surgery,
which ran from her chest to below her navel.
Haynes informed the jury of another murder which had oc-
curred shortly before August 2. An ex-convict named Horace
Copeland had been mortally wounded while attempting to break
into a Fort Worth apartment. Haynes's investigators had
discovered that he was an acquaintance of Stan Farr. Would he
have a motive for killing Farr? Priscilla said she knew nothing
about Copeland or his demise.
Once again Haynes introduced the subject of sex. He asked
Priscilla about the recording and photographic paraphernalia in
the mansion which rumor had often described as being used to
capture sexual escapades for instant replay. What about the
camera mounted on the television console in the bedroom?
"Was that camera to take movie film?" Haynes asked.
"No, sir."
''Still photos?''
"No, sir," Priscilla replied. "It was a closed-circuit camera."
Haynes wanted to be sure that the Amarillo jurors were aware
of the unique necklace which Priscilla sometimes wore in Fort
Worth. He asked Priscilla what the words on the pendant were.
"It was a name given to me by Judy McCrory and Carmen
Thomas," Priscilla said. "It spells out 'Rich Bitch.'"
Priscilla was asked about treasures which she and Cullen had
collected for the mansion. She described the jade pagoda which
Cullen had purchased for $350,000. The white, onionskin Ming
dynasty vase. A replica of the Taj Mahal crafted in India of solid
86
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
gold and diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires. The chess board

of black and white jade with pieces sculpted in white and yellow
gold. "I think," Priscilla said, "that he had paid $85,000 for
that.'' She spoke of other treasures and the array of art which
adorned the mansion.
Haynes exploited Priscilla's testimony in the first of a series of
vitriolic denunciations.
Haynes told the jury, ''The motive for fabricating a story
against Cullen Davis was this woman's personal greed and
desire to obtain the fortune of Davis.'' He went on to aver that
Priscilla had been destitute when she entered the marriage, had
spent ten to twenty thousand dollars a month while it lasted, and
left Cullen laden with ''jewels, furs, and treasures.''
Curry attempted to counteract the accusation by convincing
the jury that Cullen, not Priscilla, had been the profligate
responsible for the wildly expensive mansion furnishings. He
reminded Priscilla of an art-buying trip in New York.
"Do you recall a purchase that started with you and your hus-
band in a taxi cab?"
"Well," Priscilla corrected the district attorney, "it was a
rent [sic] car."
''What was the nature of the purchase?''
"It was one of many," Priscilla said. "We were on our way to
the plane and Cullen spotted a painting in a gallery. So he told
the pilot and the copilot who were [sic] driving the car to stop.
Cullen went down the row of paintings and he thoroughly en-
joyed them all, and he could fill his house with them.''
''Did he make more than one purchase?''
"He bought the store out," Priscilla replied matter-of-factly.
"And what was the value of those purchases?"
"Approximately $102,000," Priscilla recalled. "For 115
paintings and bronzes.''
"Did you ever spend any amount of money, whether it be $10
or $20,000 per month, that your husband didn't know about?"
87
"No, sir."
As Priscilla's second week of testimony ended she and Curry
caught Haynes napping; Curry's exchange with his witness was
so rapid that the Houston lawyer was unable to contain it.
Curry, abruptly: "On August 2, 1976, who shot you?"
Haynes sprang from his seat, objecting. The judge sustained
the objection, as repetitious of previous testimony-but too late,
as Priscilla picked up the cue with a firm, "Cullen Davis."
Curry plowed ahead. "On August 2, 1976, Mrs. Davis, who
shot Stan Farr?
Haynes bounced out of his seat again, but again too late.
''Cullen Davis!'' Priscilla answered emphatically.
Haynes didn't bother to voice the second objection.
"That's all the questions I have," Curry told the court,
pleased with the climax of the second week of testimony from his
key witness.
During the week there had been a brief, amusing interruption
of the proceedings. A young college football player entered the
courtroom and stood among the spectators. Priscilla did a
theatrically deft double take, and laughed. Cullen, turning from
his chair to look back, was amused. The man was wearing a
T-shirt upon which had been stenciled in dark blue
letters: "Sock It To 'Em, W.T."
The attorneys on both sides grinned. The bailiff escorted the
student out. Later the student returned in a plain shirt to watch
the trial. His mother, queried by reporters, said that she had
seen the shirt and presumed it had something to do with her
son's football team.
When the trial continued on Monday morning, September 5,

Priscilla began her third week as a witness.
She again denied Haynes's allegations that she had, in the
midst of her divorce proceedings with Andrea's father, Jack
Wilborn, lured him into sexual encounters. That was not the
way it happened, Priscilla insisted. Wilborn had been the of-
88
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
fender, forcing his attentions on her, as she had testified

previously. Haynes suggested she was not being truthful.
"The fact is," Haynes said, "you lied."
"No, sir. I told the truth."
Haynes was skeptical. "Mr. Wilborn came over and raped
you?"
"Yes."
"You did not report it to the police?" Haynes asked.
"No."
"And when it happened again, the very next day?"
"Yes, sir." Priscilla said that after the second assault she did
advise the authorities, "on the advice of my attorney." She con-
firmed that her lawyer at the time had been Tolly Wilson of
Curry's legal team.
One day's proceedings were adjourned early to allow Priscilla
to regain her composure. She had glimpsed an extremely grisly
photograph of the slain Andrea. The photograph had been left,
apparently inadvertently, on a courtroom table, and she had
broken into tears.
Throughout her testimony Priscilla never wavered on the
essentials of her version of the August 2 murders and the cir-
cumstances surrounding them. It was Cullen who shot her. He
had mistreated Andrea to the point that the twelve-year-old was
frightened to be with her stepfather. She had not presided over
sexual orgies or drug experiments in the mansion. And, despite
Haynes's repeated insinuations, she insisted that Stan Farr had
known about her precarious financial position, and that she had
not lavished money on him.
Priscilla was allowed to step down on Tuesday, September 6.
She had been in Amarillo for over two weeks and had been in the
witness chair for eleven of those days.
The prosecution put a Fort Worth ambulance attendant on
the stand. He said that it required four attendants to lift Stan
Farr's heavy body into the ambulance. The medic also testified
that Gus Gavrel had two small bags of marijuana on his person
89
when he was transported to the hospital. Gavrel would later

deny this.
During testimony concerning Priscilla's addiction to painkill-
ing narcotics Racehorse Haynes had suggested that her account
of the night of August 2 was flawed, her memory warped by
drugs. Tim Curry produced the doctor who attended Priscilla
when she arrived at the hospital after being wounded at the
mansion. Haynes and the physician sparred in medical jargon,
much of which was incomprehensible to the jury. As in previous
cases, Haynes impressed the jurors with his encyclopedic
knowledge of technical details. The doctor maintained that he
had examined Priscilla thoroughly. Her pupils were not dilated,
nor were there other signs of drug abuse, light or heavy.
Gus Gavrel testified. While his story differed with that of the
ambulance driver concerning marijuana possession, it cor-
roborated Priscilla's version in every other detail, and he iden-
tified Cullen as the murderer.
On September 13 the trial was suspended for three days.
Juror L. B. Pendleton had to have a wisdom tooth extracted.
Newspaper reports announced that the nurse who had attend-
ed Priscilla when she was recuperating had filed suit for slander
against her for $2.5 million.
The jury was growing impatient. Judge Dowlen approved
their petition to work on Saturdays.
A police officer from Fort Worth testified that the mansion
was swarming with police, ambulance attendants, reporters,
and photographers early in the morning after the murders. Two
friends of Priscilla and Cullen had also been there: Charles
David McCrory and Pat Burleson, the karate studio owner.
The nine-foot-high door through which Stan Farr had been
shot had been transported from Fort Worth, and was Jugged into
the courtroom. The jury saw the bullet hole, but the judge ruled
inadmissible some undescribed graffiti written on the door. The
jury learned the precise cause of Farr's death-bullet through
his larynx. He had suffocated in vomit.
Beverly Bass was called. She repeated her version of the
90
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
events at the mansion and her unequivocal eyewitness claim that

Cullen had been the murderer.
Haynes did not dwell on this, but revealed that his in-
vestigators had come up with an episode from Beverly's past
which the courtroom tactician slowly unfolded to the jury in tan-
talizing stages. Beverly had a "personal problem" which
Priscilla had helped her resolve. A check had been written for
$600. The money was for Beverly, and had never been repaid.
The ''personal problem'' was of a medical nature. Beverly had
concealed the "personal problem" in a civil disposition the year
before.
Beverly broke into tears. She admitted that Haynes was
right: Priscilla had financed an abortion, and Beverly had at-
tempted to keep it secret.
Then Fort Worth police department technicians were sum-
moned and testified that there had been no fingerprints of im-
port found at the mansion. The bloody handprint on the door
which Priscilla had seen before the killer attacked her was
smeared and unidentifiable. The bullets were accounted for, and
the wig and shreds of the plastic bag were found upstairs. The
murderer had obviously roamed about the mansion.
Three eyewitnesses had survived the shooting, and it had
been the defense's intention to discredit them all. Priscilla had
been portrayed to the staid, conservative Amarillo jury as a slut,
Gus Gavrel as a pothead, and Beverly Bass as a girl who was
obligated to Priscilla for her financing of an abortion.
Things were looking better for Haynes in what many had said
was an airtight case against Cullen Davis. This had resulted
from his reexamination of prosecution witnesses. Haynes's own
witnesses were yet to appear.
Could Haynes present a witness able to provide his client with
an alibi, someone who would testify that Cullen could not
possibly have been at the scene of the murder? Or would Cullen
himselfbe forced to take the stand?
On September 22, Cullen had a cake for dessert with lunch.
91
Frosted letters spelled out "Happy Birthday Dad." Cullen

celebrated his forty-fourth birthday-his second in jail-with his
two sons, Cullen, Jr., fourteen, and Brian, eleven. They had
flown in from Dallas where they lived with their mother. Cullen
maintained his composure, but the reunion evoked tears from
the boys.
Haynes caught an early flight for Houston the same day to be
with his son at a football game. His boy had grown into a sturdy
linebacker for undefeated Kincaid High. Haynes explained to
his colleagues that a friend of his had died recently, and Haynes
had been a surrogate dad at a father-son game with that man's
boy. He had vowed not to be absent when Kincaid played its
father-son game.
Priscilla, before returning to Fort Worth, had a wry response
when asked what she thought about the damaging testimony
Haynes was eliciting from her own friends. "If they're my
friends, why are they up there testifying?"
During a recess Priscilla protested to a journalist. Why, she
wanted to know, did the newspapers always play up the fact that
she had lower-class guests at the mansion? They never men-
tioned that she also had entertained the Boy Scouts, the
Bluebirds, had been the hostess at a political rally for a Mexican-
American candidate, and opened her house for various civic
gatherings. She explained why she invited visitors from the
wrong side of the tracks. She had grown up dirt poor and
understood what deprivation meant. ''I have those people at the
mansion," Priscilla said, "because I'm trying to rehabilitate
them.''
Soon afterwards, some journalists began referring to the man-
sion as the Mockingbird Halfway House.
In the evenings and on weekends in Amarillo the media peo-
ple and the out-of-town lawyers congregated at Rhett Butler's
restaurant and bar. Charles David McCrory, hovering anxious-
ly around the trial, was often seen at the restaurant.
In a prediction which would later turn out to be excessively
92
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
opt1m1St1c, one of Cullen's lawyers said, "I think McCrory's

painted himself out of the picture."
Pretrial hearings, jury selection, and testimony from dozens
of witnesses had stretched the trial into four months. Tradi-
tionally Texas murder trials were brief. The weary jurors asked
how much longer they would be sequestered, and out-of-town
journalists wondered when they would see their families again.
When would it end?
"Don't worry," Judge Dowlen promised, "we'll be done
before Christmas." Then the judge reflected. "But then I'm the
guy who said we would be done by bird season.'' Bird hunting
season starts each year in Texas on September 21. "Deer
season, which opens November 12," Glen Guzzo wrote in a
dispatch to the Star- Telegram, ''is now in jeopardy. ''
Joe Shannon was even more pessimistic when he came up
with a suggested slogan for Tim Curry's political campaign for
the following spring: "Don't change DA's in the middle of a
trial.''
There were some diversions, including another involving
T-shirts. W. T. Rufner was not going to be upstaged by an
Amarillo kid, the young football player who had previously
capitalized on Rufner's claim to fame, the celebrated green and
red sock. Rufner appeared in the courthouse wearing aT-shirt
entitled "W. T. Rufner Socks It To 'Em." In a paper sack he
carried a supply of extras which he attempted to peddle for $100.
Rufner approached Haynes in the hall, said he had something
for him, and reached into a paper sack. Haynes had a momen-
tary vision of Jack Ruby in a Dallas police station. But Rufner
was only offering him a sample T-shirt.
Cullen began his second year of confinement with apparent
equanimity. During breaks in the trial proceedings he was ap-
proached in the hall by supporters and well-wishers. The legen-
dary poker player, T. A. "Amarillo Slim" Preston, paid a
courtesy call. Young women, legal groupies, asked for Cullen's
autograph. He gave press interviews and posed for photographs,
93
the picture of propriety in his blue and gray conservatively

tailored suits, solid color shirts, and sombre ties.
''He is treated with the deference of a statesman here,'' Glen
Guzzo wrote. "He is calm. Always. And he is regarded as a
gentleman. Always cool."
The defense legal squad had employed a public relations man
to enhance Cullen's image in Fort Worth. Phil Burleson was
asked why he was not in Amarillo. "Cullen is our P.R. man
now,'' Burleson replied.
Cullen obviously had good relations with his jailors. He was
treated well in Amarillo, usually accommodated in a comfort-
able cell with a color television, despite an overcrowded jail
where other prisoners doubled and tripled up in smaller
quarters. Another prisoner in the jail was raped by nine cell
mates during this period. Cullen's meals were catered, delivered
from the Hilton or Rhett Butler's. During court recesses, Cullen
wandered about the halls greeting the multitudes.
Once Cullen was in the Potter County jail's booking office.
The telephone rang. Cullen looked about and found that he was
alone. He answered the telephone.
Cullen: "Jail."
Outside voice: "Who is this?"
Cullen: "Cullen Davis."
Outside voice, in amazement: ''Oh, my God, have ya'll
taken over?"
Cullen's loosely supervised excursions were curtailed by
Judge Dowlen after the prosecution complained that Cullen had
been seen chatting with the mother of one of the jurors.
Although the jury was sequestered, visits from family members
were allowed. The judge admonished Cullen. But Cullen con-
tinued to enjoy special privileges and spoke frequently with
reporters.
During one interview Cullen set the record straight concern-
ing how he felt about the mansion. He told Evan Moore (who
was covering the trial along with Glen Guzzo for the Star-
94
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
Telegram) that the Davis property at 4200 Mockingbird Lane was

his place, not Priscilla's. "Priscilla's characterization of the
house as being a dream home I built for her is typical
untruth .... ! did not build the home as a dream house for her. I
built it as a culmination of an idea I had many years before I met
her .... The idea of locating the home where I did had been in the
back of my mind for twenty years.''
Priscilla was furious when she read the interview, saying that
the mansion had been a joint project. She did conclude,
however, that Cullen ''obviously built this house as a monument
to himself.''
Cullen talked with Glen Guzzo in late October. He gave Glen
an exclusive story-for the first time he would reveal his
whereabouts on the night of August 2 of the previous year. Early
in the evening, Cullen said, he went to dinner. Alone. Then he
had gone to a movie. Alone. He didn't answer Guzzo's ques-
tions about which restaurant, what film. Cullen said he went
home to Karen Master's place after the movie. He had called
their mutual friend, Jim Mabe, between midnight and a quarter
after. Mabe had said, "Hell, it's still early; come on over and
watch tv.'' Cullen had declined and crawled into bed with the
sleeping Karen.
The jury was not to hear Cullen's explanation. Everyone else
read either the headlines on the front page of the Star- Telegram
the next morning, or the reprint of the story which was picked up
in Amarillo and throughout the state.
The parade of prosecution witnesses had filed by the jury.

Haynes called his first witness for the defense on Wednesday,
October26.
Tommy Jourden had been a patient in the two-bed hospital
room in Fort Worth when Gus Gavrel was wheeled in after
surgery. Jourden testified that Gus had said he didn't know who
had shot him. Jourden also claimed he had suggested to Gus that
he could reap a rich harvest by suing Cullen Davis, and that Gus
95
had done so the same day, asking for $3 million.

But after the defense's questions the prosecution read into the
record a litany of petty episodes fromJourden's past. The prose-
cution had been ready for Jourden.
If Tommy Jourden had been anticipated by the prosecutors,
Tim Curry and Joe Shannon were not prepared for Haynes's
second witness, or at least for the magnitude of her testimony.
Karen Master wore a stylish gray dress with a row of bows and a
choke collar. Her blonde hair was expertly coiffed. She was
decorative-"stunning," one newspaper reporter wrote-with-
out losing the appearance of decorum that would place her a
rung up on the social ladder from the flashier Priscilla. Karen
looked and acted a lady.
Haynes guided Karen through a series of introductory ques-
tions. She said that she had met Cullen three years before, about
three months after he had separated from Priscilla. They had
been friends for a year before he moved into her home. Since
then, Cullen had provided financial support for her and her two
sons, both injured as a result of an automobile accident.
Asked about August 2 of the previous year, Karen said it had
begun like any other day. Cullen had gone to work between 7:30
and 8 in the morning. She did not hear from him all day, but his
secretary called to say he would not be home for dinner. Karen
said she took some sleeping pills and went to bed.
"When," Haynes asked, "was the first time you were aware
that Cullen Davis was home?"
"I awoke very briefly at 12:40 A.M." She explained that she
remembered seeing the time on her digital bedside clock.
Joe Shannon and Tim Curry exchanged glances. Shannon
was frustrated because he could not mention to the jury that
Detective Davis, in a notarized statement, had stated that Karen
had told him after the murders that she had slept from 10 P.M.
until 4 the next morning-and had not seen Cullen during that
period.
96
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
"Was Davis there?" Haynes asked.

"Yes."
''Where was he?''
''On the other side of the king-size bed,'' Karen said.
"Did you get up?"
"No, I didn't."
Haynes asked when Karen fell asleep again.
She replied that she had gone back to sleep very shortly
thereafter.
''Was he asleep?''
"Yes."
"How was he dressed?"
"He had his shorts on," Karen recalled, "and he did not
have anything on his top.''
Haynes had a final question.
"Are you in love with him?"
"Yes, I am," Karen said. She turned to the jury and smiled.
While the prosecutors had once entertained the queasy notion
that Karen might provide an alibi for Cullen at the time of the
murders, Karen's grand jury testimony had led them to believe
she would not.
Karen was calm when Joe Shannon began to question her.
Frequently she turned and smiled at the jury. Shannon asked
her if she had been coached by Haynes.
"No," Karen answered. "This is the first time I've had a
chance to see the jury. They're very interesting people."
Shannon asked Karen to ponder her grand jury testimony of
August 12, 1976, ten days after the massacre on Mockingbird
Lane. Her memory was hazy. Shannon refreshed it: She had
failed to mention to the grand jury that she was in bed with
Cullen. There were gasps in the courtroom.
Nor, Shannon said, did she mention that vital fact to Detec-
tive C. R. Davis (no relation to Cullen), the officer who had in-
terrogated her on the morning Cullen had been arrested at her
97
home. Karen conceded the omission.

"Your boyfriend, the man you hoped to marry"-Shannon's
voice was heavy with incredulity-'' had just been arrested for
murder, and you did not tell Detective Davis that he was at home
in bed with you?"
"No, I didn't," Karen said.
''And, didn't you tell the grand jury on August 12 that you
had told them everything that could possibly shed light on the
subject?"
"Yes," Karen admitted. "I told them that."
Shannon asked if she had called the detective later in the day;
or the next; or the next; or if she had ever contacted him again.
She answered no to each of the four queries.
Then Shannon read into the record a quotation from Karen's
grand jury testimony: "Well, of course Cullen prefaced our
conversation with the fact that his attorneys had told him not to
talk about the case, and though he said that, I went on and asked
him what time he had gotten home, and he said it was a little
before 11 P.M."
The excerpt was not as meaningful to the jury as to the spec-
tators in the courtroom. They had read Glen Guzzo's story
about Cullen's alibi: Cullen, one week before, had told Guzzo
that he had returned to Karen's home that night fifteen minutes
after midnight.
Joe Shannon pressed Karen to explain why she had not men-
tioned to the grand jury or to Detective Davis that she had been
in bed with Cullen at the time of the murders.
"At the time, it had no relevance," Karen said. "It didn't
seem significant.''
The next defense witness was one of Priscilla's friends. W. T.

Rufner was ready, even anxious to testify despite speculation
that he would invoke the Fifth Amendment if called. The night
before, Rufner had been asked what he planned to do in
98
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
preparation for his testimony. "rm going to drink a lot of beer

tonight," he said. If he did, presumably the brew was Bud,
because the next morning in the courtroom he was an apparition
in his "Sock It To 'Em" T-shirt, a black cowboy hat, and a red
raincoat emblazoned with an advertisement for Budweiser beer.
He did say he had brought along a change of clothes in case the
judge insisted on a different costume. When he did finally take
the stand Rufner was wearing a suit; whether this was done out
of a sense of propriety or because Judge Dowlen insisted was not
recorded. But Rufner's predilection for beer was recorded for
posterity when he was described as ''a man who measures time
in six-packs.''
Racehorse Haynes had suggested to the court that W. T.
Rufner was a man who had the motive and means to kill Stan
Farr. Rufner claimed he had never met the ex-basketball player
and had only seen him twice, both times at a distance. Haynes
moved on to Rufner's relationship with Priscilla. Rufner said
they had met at a Christmas party in 197 4. The following March
he had joined Priscilla in Boston where she was visiting Charles
David and Judy McCrory. Haynes wanted details of that New
England encounter.
"While in Boston, Massachusetts," Haynes queried, "were
you paired up together?"
Rufner was confused at Haynes's technique of asking a
number of indirect questions before eliciting the final answer he
wanted.
"I don't know what you mean by paired up together,"
Rufner responded, apparently genuinely perplexed. "We
weren't tied up together. ''
"You weren't tied up. You did keep close quarters, though?"
"I had a place to sleep," Rufner said. "She had a place to
sleep.''
"There was not mutuality? You didn't share the same couch,
so to speak?"
99
"Yes." Rufner finally understood. "We shared."

Haynes asked a number of questions which were intended to
convey to the jury that Priscilla had lavished money on Rufner,
using charge accounts for which Cullen was ultimately responsi-
ble. Rufner admitted that Priscilla often used her charge plates
to pay for gifts for him.
"And that included clothes?" Haynes asked.
"Yes."
"Shoes, boots?"
"Yes."
''Jewelry?''
"Yes."
Rufner's access to the mansion was established. As an electri-
cian he had admired the complicated electrical circuitry which
controlled the mansion's security system and the sensors which
could detect intruders; he had escorted other electricians
through the house to explain the system. And, yes, he knew the
system sufficiently well to thwart it if he had wanted to do so.
Rufner commented that life in the mansion, despite the lux-
uries and festive atmosphere, was a mixed blessing. ''There was
mornings when it was total harmony,'' he mused, and ''there
was mornings when it was total hell." He decamped after four
months, Rufner said, because he felt more comfortable at his
own place with his dogs and his mother.
When asked to describe his personal use of narcotics or the
drug experiences of others who lived in the mansion, Rufner
pleaded the Fifth Amendment nine times after nine questions.
By the time Haynes announced that he had no further ques-
tions, the wily attorney had established that Rufner had begun
his sexual liaison with Priscilla four months before she had filed
for a divorce from Cullen. Priscilla had testified otherwise.
Despite his new business of selling "Sock It To 'Em"
T-shirts, Rufner said he knew nothing about the famous
photograph; he did not recall wearing a sock anywhere on his
body other than his feet.
100
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
Joe Shannon's reexamination reminded the jury that the

murder weapon had never been recovered.
"You were afraid for your life," Shannon asked Rufner, "in
late 1976 and early 1977?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you feel you were being made a patsy 1n the whole
deal?"
"Yes, sir."
''And were you afraid that one of these days you would wake
up dead?" Shannon went on.
"Yes, sir."
''Had you heard that there was money on the street,'' Shan-
non continued, "and there were people who would assist in
making you a patsy in this double homicide?''
"Yes, sir."
"Did you hear," the prosecutor concluded, "that dead men
tell no tales?"
W. T. Rufner welcomed the question since it called for a dif-
ferent response. ''I know that for a fact.''
If the previous witnesses had held the attention of the court-

room at the end of the first week of November, Haynes pro-
duced a witness who enthralled the jurors; they sat forward on
their chairs while he described a party at the mansion. His ac-
count provided a titillating panorama of life with Priscilla in her
pleasure dome on Mockingbird Lane.
Malcolm "Danny" McDaniel testified that he had attended a
birthday party at the mansion two months after Cullen had
moved out. Priscilla and W. T. Rufner had been joint hosts.
The celebration was in honor of Priscilla's house guest, Sandy
Guthrie Myers (who was to be convicted a month later on drug
charges).
There were maybe 70 to 100 guests, McDaniel said. You
could get anything you wanted from the plentiful supply of
stimulants-marijuana, cocaine, pills, and capsules. He himself
101
had selected, first, a ''white cross.'' McDaniel enlightened the

jury by describing the amphetamine as something good to ''get
the system going." Later, when he wanted to sleep for a while,
he took LSD. Worked real good.
McDaniel said he watched guests splashing in the indoor
pool. Some of them were wearing bathing suits. He went
upstairs. When he peeked into Priscilla's bedroom suite he saw a
number of people, nude, in the bed. "I was embarrassed,"
McDaniel said.
At one point he saw Priscilla remove some jewelry from her
upstairs safe.
''Did you see Priscilla Davis take anything out of the safe
other than jewelry?'' Haynes asked.
Yes, it was answered. A little plastic sack. A white
substance-coke. Priscilla tossed it to Rufner, who was sprawled
on a bed, wearing a necklace from which a small spoon hung.
He watched while Priscilla and Rufner sniffed the cocaine ... and
later LSD.
The picture of debauchery that McDaniel painted would
prove to be devastating.
It rankled Joe Shannon that the rules of evidence prevented
him, on reexamination, from pointing out why McDaniel could
testify with impunity about his own role in the bacchanalia: The
witness undoubtedly had been made aware that the sensational
festivities he described had occurred more than three years
before, and so would cause him no problems because of Texas's
three-year statute of limitations on drug offenses. The party had
also been celebrated before McDaniel's own conviction on ag-
gravated robbery charges; consequently, his testimony did not
violate his ten-year probated sentence.
McDaniel was followed to the stand by a young woman,
Becky Ferguson, who said that she had been present at a Willie
Nelson Fourth of July picnic in 1974 when Priscilla had been
among those sampling a wide choice of narcotics.
102
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
The witness giggled when shown the photographs which

previously had been described as "love scenes in a lake." Yes,
the water nymph was Priscilla, and the satyr, W. T. Rufner.
The next day, a working Saturday for the court now, the
witness was Sandy Myers, the house guest who had been feted at
the party McDaniel described so vividly. Her husband, Michael
Myers, was not in Amarillo as he had by now become an inmate
of the Huntsville penitentiary, convicted of robbery.
Much of Mrs. Myers's testimony was taken while the jury
was out, when Judge Dowlen ruled it hearsay evidence. She said
she had heard W. T. Rufner threaten Stan Farr after Farr had
replaced him as Priscilla's favorite: "I'll get that tall son of a
bitch and I'll get that cunt. '' The jury returned to their box,
however, to hear Myers relate that she ran into Priscilla by
chance in a doctor's waiting room five days before Stan Farr had
been shot. On that occasion, she told the jury, Priscilla had
predicted, "Something heavy is coming down."
A young witness identified herself as a member of Dee's
graduating class at Arlington Heights High School. The 440
seniors had been unable to find a place for their June graduation
party and Priscilla had offered the mansion grounds and paid for
the barbecue and kegs of beer. The local rock band, the
Cahoots, had provided the music. There was a lot of smoking,
the witness said, resulting in a "haze" over the revelry.
With the possibility that W. T. Rufner could have been the
murderer on August 2 implanted in the jurors' minds, Haynes
moved on to surface a second suspect.
Valerie Marazzi Faulkner was a bartender at the Rhinestone
Cowboy. She said she had seen drugs used there and that Stan
Farr had often been as much as $200 short when the bill for the
night was toted up. She connected Farr with Horace Copeland,
the burglar who died with a bullet in his head. Ronnie Brad-
shaw, who operated the Rhinestone Cowboy with Farr, testified
that Stan had feared Copeland might harm him and requested
103
that Bradshaw return a pistol Farr had loaned him. Bradshaw

said that everyone liked Stan-he was called the Jolly Green
Giant-and added that Stan had expressed apprehension that a
jealous Cullen Davis might seek revenge.
The jurors were confused, but Haynes insisted these details
were relevant. The assertion that Stan Farr was afraid of
Copeland was corroborated by a new witness, Charles Baldwin.
A few weeks before, Baldwin had turned over to the police a gun
he said belonged to Copeland; he suggested that it might be the
August 2 murder weapon; ballistics tests disproved this.
A private investigator from Fort Worth, Sylvia Meek, testified
that she had been approached by Priscilla Davis in July before
the August murders. Priscilla wanted assistance in hiring a full-
time bodyguard. The female private eye could not say whom
Priscilla might have been afraid of.
Then there was a surprise witness. Kimberly Lewis, nineteen,
said she had been Stan Farr's secret lover for five months before
the murders and while the jolly Green Giant had been Priscilla's
live-in companion. During one clandestine tryst, Kimberly said,
Farr had been nervous and was carrying a gun. He had de-
scribed Priscilla as "his investment."
As the trial drew to a close, lines began to form early in the

morning. Spectators knew the courtroom would be filled once
the bailiff opened the doors. Young law students anxious to
observe Haynes in action, legal groupies who pursued the
lawyer and Cullen during recesses to obtain an autograph, a
handshake, or a kiss. The reporters, photographers, sketch art-
ists, and wire-service men. And the curious. Everyone wanted to
be on hand for the final testimony and the verdict.
Despite Judge Dowlen's admonition that Cullen should be
more closely supervised, he continued to mingle with the spec-
tators during the day, and he gave impromptu press conferences
when the court adjourned. Many reporters thought that Cullen
104
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
was demonstrating an unusual preoccupation with sex. One un-

published story had it that Cullen told a group of women
onlookers he was anticipating the end of the trial and his
freedom because, when that occurred, he was going to screw all
of them "up and down." The newspapers reported that Cullen
was seen wearing a wristwatch, the hands of which were
elongated nude females and the dial inscribed ''Time To
F--.''
On Thursday evening, November 10, Haynes gave jour-
nalists the signal that his parade of witnesses was nearing a halt.
He described the testimony they would hear the next morning.
"It's going to be dynamite. We're going out with a bang."
Haynes indeed detonated explosive testimony the next morn-
ing. Arthur Ulewayne Polk took the stand.
"I always collect in person," the nurseryman told the jury.
He had made a number of fruitless visits to the mansion to col-
lect money he said Priscilla owed him for 677 plants he had
delivered for the mansion's interior and gardens. He went to the
mansion during the day on August 2. Inside the house he talked
with Priscilla on the internal telephone. She had brushed him off
again and he resolved on the spot to return and recover the
greenery that very night. Polk unlatched a door so that he would
have access after dark. He loaded his motorcycle onto his pickup
truck. He parked the truck several blocks from 4200 Mock-
ingbird Lane and proceeded to the edge of the property on his
cycle. Then he dismounted and prepared to make his bugger-
mugger foray.
He looked, Polk said, at his digital watch. It was 11:11 P.M.
Four aces. Lucky. A time a poker player could remember.
Just as he was about to trespass onto the mansion's grounds
Polk saw another figure. At first Polk thought it was a hobo.
Then the figure passed close enough for Polk to see him. Or-
dinary build. Short, curly hair. "He had big eyes; you could see
the white all around the pupils.''
105
Polk said he followed the man up the hill to the mansion. He

saw him approach the swimming pool area. "Then he put
something on his head," Polk testified. "At first I thought it was
a stocking.''
The lights of the swimming pool were on. Polk could see the
man's face.
Haynes asked the inevitable question.
''Was the man you saw in the swimming pool area Cullen
Davis?"
"Definitely not!" Arthur Ulewayne Polk said.
''Had you seen the man before?''
"No."
"Have you seen him since?" Haynes was standing near the
chair where Cullen sat.
"No."
"Could you recognize him again," Haynes asked, "if you
saw him?"
"Of course."
Polk said that he abandoned his plan to recover surreptitiously
his unpaid-for plants, fearing he might be spotted. He went
home. When he read the next morning of the murders he decid-
ed to remain silent. But he finally spoke out in October of 1977,
while the Amarillo trial was in progress. He told a friend, his
mother, and a business associate. The last recommended that
Polk confide in a lawyer. The attorney-who had lost a close
election to Tim Curry for the district attorney's job in
1974-sent Polk to the defense lawyers.
An agitatedjoe Shannon confronted the witness.
''How much money have you been paid to deliver this cock-
and-bull story?"
"Not a red penny," Polk answered calmly.
Shannon pointed out in caustic terms that it was highly
unusual for a man who had been an interloper on the mansion
grounds in August 1976 to wait more than a year before surfac-
ing his story. Polk replied that he had not followed developments
106
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
in the case closely and had not read many of the newspaper ac-
counts about the murders.
The assistant district attorney asked the nurseryman to ex-
plain his lack of interest in the biggest crime story in the history
of Fort Worth, one in which he now claimed to be involved.
"I wanted to forget about it," Polk said.
"You are aware," Shannon asked, "of accusations that Mr.
W. T. Rufner may have committed these crimes?"
"Yes."
''And you are aware of accusations that Mr. Horace
Copeland may have committed these crimes?"
''Yes.''
"Isn't it a fact, Mr. Arthur Ulewayne Polk, that when Mr.
W. T. Rufner wouldn't float and when Mr. Horace Copeland
wouldn't float-''
Haynes's objection, sustained, cut Shannon off.
Shannon said further rebuttal would wait until closing
arguments.
"What can you rebut?" Shannon wondered later. "Are we
supposed to find somebody who said he was out there too?''
Tolly Wilson expressed his fear that Polk's testimony might
defeat the prosecution's case.
"It's not the deciding factor," Haynes said. "The fact is the
prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.''
Again, Joe Shannon and Tim Curry regretted that the jury
would not learn more about the background of the witness-in
this case that Arthur Ulewayne Polk was convicted in 1969 of
armed robbery and, in 1968, indicted for arson.
But the prosecution did come up with a rebuttal witness who,
while not out on the mansion's grounds on August 2, had been
there before. Arthur Ulewayne Polk's estranged wife had
worked with her husband in the nursery business and been with
him on one occasion when he had tried to collect his bill from
Priscilla.
Mrs. Polk told the jury that two months before the murders
107
Arthur had fallen off a boat into the water. He was wearing that
digital watch and, she testified, it had not worked properly for
five months after that. If Arthur had read 11: 11 P.M. on his
watch, it was probably wrong.
Because Judge Dowlen ruled inadmissible a conversation be-
tween a husband and wife, the jury did not hear Ms. Polk re-
count a conversation which she said had taken place several days
before the murders. Arthur had been upset when Priscilla re-
neged on the bill and told his wife that he had sneaked onto the
mansion grounds to recover his plants the night before. He had
approached the swimming pool area, but approaching cars
made him decide to abandon his effort. If this testimony was ac-
curate, it would explain how Arthur was familiar enough with
the nighttime surroundings of the mansion to describe them
convincingly.
Racehorse Haynes's final witness was Dr. Robert Miller, a
pharmacologist and professor, identified as an expert on opiates.
He testified that drugs such as Percodan could cause the user to
experience illusions, and perhaps fabricate versions of events
which never took place. It was quite possible, the doctor said,
that such a person could live in two worlds, a socialite in one and
a denizen of the underworld in another. The witness said such
people were "the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so to speak, of the
drug dependency field.''
Haynes had a final question.
"Could you have a Mrs. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde?"
"I would agree to that," the drug expert said. "Yes."
The defense rested.
The testimony concluded on November 14 after 12 weeks, 700

items placed in evidence, and 67 witnesses. The trial had lasted
from late June until mid-November. Judge Dowlen had ar-
ranged for the final session, when the defense and prosecution
would present their closing arguments, to be held in another,
more commodious courtroom which could seat 200 spectators.
108
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
The opposing lawyers were to be allowed a maximum of two and

a half hours each.
Joe Shannon led off for the prosecution on Wednesday,
November 16. In an emotional two-hour plea to the jury (which
attorneys on both sides were later to characterize as brilliant) he
described the "carnage" at the murder mansion on August 2 of
the previous year. He repeatedly reminded the jury that they
were not seated to pass judgment on the character of Priscilla
Davis or the drug-culture scene in Fort Worth. Their duty was
to decide if the man in the dock-Cullen listened im-
passively-was guilty of murdering a twelve-year-old girl. Shan-
non, and Tolly Wilson following him, described Cullen as a man
accustomed to getting his own way and who had the means and
motive for attacking Priscilla-''the source of all his problems.''
Cullen was as expressionless and calm as he had been
throughout the trial.
Racehorse Haynes rose to address the jury. For an hour and a
half he spoke with the fervor of an evangelist, pointing out that
not one item of evidence pointed directly to his client. He
pointed the finger of guilt at Priscilla. She moved, he said, "in a
world of scuzzies, scalawags, rogues, and brigands." He felt
sorry for Beverly Bass and Gus Gavrel, who had been blinded
and trapped into a conspiracy directed by Priscilla. ''They were
drawn like a moth to a flame by a queen bee.''
It was over. Cullen had never taken the stand.
On Thursday, November 17, the judge gave his instructions
to the jury. They returned to the courtroom after four hours and
twelve minutes of deliberation. The verdict, written on a piece of
paper, was handed to Judge Dowlen.
For the first time Cullen was shaken. His face was drained
white. He trembled.
''Not guilty,'' read Judge Dowlen.
Cullen's first quoted reaction was, "I'm glad it's over." And,
from Priscilla, ''He'll have to answer to God and that's One that
can't be bought."
109
A photographer snapped a photograph of Cullen smooching

with Karen, with a jubilant Haynes in the background.
Cullen did not immediately return to Fort Worth from

Amarillo because he had social obligations to fulfill. He was host
at a round of victory parties, Karen at his side. The first was a
celebration at Rhett Butler's the night of the acquittal. Four of
the jurors were there, and the food and drink were plentiful. A
little later another guest dropped in, and he stayed until
late: Judge George Dowlen.
A female bailiff who had been working during the trial kissed
Racehorse Haynes. The triumphant lawyer grinned and said,
"I think this is illegal." The bailiff said, "Oh, it's all over. We
don't have to worry about being legal anymore." It was a good
party. Gary Cartwright, a writer for Texas Monthly, later wrote of
the celebration:
"There was hugging, kissing, laughing, crying, toasting, and
a good word to say about nearly everyone. With the obvious ex-
ception of the prosecutorial team, the whole cast turned
out-judge, jury, bailiffs, press, Cullen's bodyguards, even a
few select groupies. To express his appreciation, Cullen picked
up the $650 tab. In the glaring lights of cameras, Cullen and
Haynes did the kind of number you would expect from a couple
of rookies who had just combined on the winning touchdown.
They danced around each other talking jive, slapping palms,
and bumping asses."
Before the trial, Cartwright had written about the murders at
the mansion in Texas Monthly, and he was obviously sympathetic
to Priscilla; he hadn't changed his mind. He quoted Haynes
from a television broadcast just after the verdict.
'' ... then, in an incredible display that I'm sure he later regret-
ted, Racehorse went before the live cameras and talked about
Priscilla. In an evangelical crescendo, he proclaimed: 'She is
the most shameless, brazen hussy in all humanity. She is ... a
liar. She is a snake, unworthy of belief under oath. ' ''
110
THE AMARILLO TRIAL
Then Cartwright described a question put to Cullen by a

wire-service reporter who had covered the trial.
"One night after the acquittal, AP writer Mike Cochran
asked out ofthe blue, 'By the way, Cullen, what movie did you
see that night?' There was a long, bone-chilling silence. Then
Cullen answered, 'That will have to wait for the next trial.'"
111
THE OLD JUDGE
"Circus maximus!" The old Judge leveled an accusing finger in

the general direction of Amarillo. ''A god damned circus
maximus!''
The Judge was agitated. He strode back and forth before the
picture window in his living quarters. After a few paces he would
slam one fist into the palm of his other hand and repeat his ex-
hortation to the journalist-'' Circus maximus! ''-before turning
on his heel. Finally the Judge slumped into his chair and rubbed
his face wearily.
The Judge repeated to the journalist his dismay about the
events which had occurred in Judge Dowlen's courtroom during
the long weeks of testimony. The parade of dubious witnesses.
The process which seemed to be riveted to Priscilla and the sor-
did company she kept in the mansion rather than addressing the
issue of who killed Andrea. And, the post-trial social episode in-
volving Judge Dowlen which disturbed the Judge. "There was
no reason in the world Judge Dowlen shouldn't want to relax
after the trial, and to drop in at Rhett Butler's for a drink. But I
do find fault in his not dropping out when he saw Racehorse
Haynes and Cullen and all that gang.''
The Judge was sufficiently concerned, he told the journalist,
that he had complained to the Texas State Commission on
Judicial Conduct down in Austin.
"Cullen's trials aren't over," the journalist remarked.
"There are still the indictments for the death of Stan Farr, and
112
THE OLD JUDGE
the attempted murder charges in the cases of Priscilla and Gus

Gavrel. ''
"I'm not so sure," the judge retorted. "That decision will be
up to Tim Curry. I wouldn't be a hit surprised if Curry decides
not to prosecute the remaining cases.''
"Why?"
''A number of reasons,'' the Judge said. ''The Amarillo ex-
penses must have seriously depleted the district attorney's
budget. There's other work to do; crime detection and punish-
ment must go on. But the principal reason Curry may decide not
to further prosecute Cullen is that it might be illegal. The doc-
trine of collateral estoppel. Sort of a second cousin to double
jeopardy. That poses problems in trying Cullen for crimes
related to one of which he has been acquitted. I cite the U.S.
Supreme Court case of Ashe v. Swenson, which laid the founda-
tion for collateral estoppel. In the early '70s, in Florida, a gun-
man robbed a group of men who were playing poker. He was
tried for robbing one of the poker players and acquitted. Then a
second poker player sued, and the case went to Washington. The
doctrine that resulted holds that the gunman, acquitted of rob-
bing any of the poker players, could not be tried for stealing from
the others-because there was only one robbery, not five or six
separate ones.''
The journalist still did not understand how that related to
Cullen's situation.
"It can be argued," the judge said, "that all the shootings at
the mansion that night were part of the same incident, and thus
collateral estoppel applies. Richard Haynes would protest fur-
ther prosecution on that ground. One the other hand, Tim
Curry, could argue that Gus Gavrel' s wound was suffered in a
separate incident. According to the testimony, Gavrel wasn't
even at the mansion when the first shootings occurred. Tim
Curry might have done better to charge Cullen only in Gavrel 's
case and to settle for the prospect of something less than a death
sentence. Whatever the merits of that speculation, Curry must
113
decide what to do now. He might well figure that further prose-

cution would be fruitless.''
The journalist remarked that the tone of the Judge's com-
ments indicated he was convinced that Cullen had been guilty.
"As a man not in possession of all the facts," the Judge said,
''I should not presume guilt or innocence. I appreciate the
reasons that jury could not arrive at a conclusion which was
beyond a reasonable doubt. But in my own mind it disturbs me
mightily that Davis was acquitted without appearing on the
stand. That bothers the shit out of me. The principle that a
defendant does not have to testify comes out of English law and
was based on a respect for civil rights. That's sound and rational
when it applies to political persecution. I'm not so sure it's good
law when it applies to criminal prosecution. Why shouldn't a
defendant take the stand in the face of a criminal charge?"
The jury must have weighed Cullen's absence from the
witness chair, the journalist remarked.
"Undoubtedly," the Judge said. "But don't forget that they
were never reminded of the fact. If Shannon or the other prose-
cutors had even intimated to the jury that Cullen was not defend-
ing himself the judge would have correctly declared a mistrial, or
an appeals court could have deemed it reversible error. But it
bothers me that Cullen didn't testify in his own defense. It's
been my experience that a lawyer for an innocent client can't
keep that client from the witness chair. An innocent man will tell
his lawyers to go to hell and he will insist on jumping into that
chair. He wants to stare into the jurors' eyes and proclaim his in-
nocence.''
There will always be speculation, the journalist surmised, that
with all his money Cullen might have paid handsomely for those
ex-convict witnesses who had so many sordid things to say about
Priscilla.
The judge nodded.
And, the journalist went on, there may be susp1c10n that
Cullen was able to buy Judge Dowlen.
114
THE OLD JUDGE
"What's that?" The old Judge was shocked. "Don't you

entertain that notion for one minute! I've known all sorts of
judges, son. I've known incompetent ones. Sleazy judges.
Drunk judges, and senile ones so palsied they should have been
put to pasture. And certainly I've known prejudiced judges who
have dealt unfairly with blacks and reds and Mexicans. But I've
never known a dishonest judge.''
The journalist raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Oh, I know they exist," the Judge conceded. "I've read
about them, and others have told me about them. But I repeat,
son, I have never known a dishonest judge! That is an important
observation. ''
The journalist rose from his chair. He told the Judge that he
was going to New York soon and would seek a contract to write a
book about Cullen's trial. At the door the journalist reminded
the Judge that he had not answered directly when asked if he
thought Cullen was guilty.
''Knowing whether Cullen is innocent or guilty,'' the Judge
said, "would only resolve another murder case. The thing that
matters, son, is the integrity of the law, the conduct of the pro-
cess. That's what matters! Disraeli defined justice as truth in ac-
tion. And I'm still trying to locate the truth in action during that
circus maximus out in Amarillo.''
115
·8·
THE LULL BETWEEN
During the weeks following the trial Star- Telegram readers in

Fort Worth waited apxiously for each edition as it came off the
press with the details of Cullen's acquittal.
Racehorse Haynes was advised of Priscilla's statement that
God couldn't be bought. "If God finds out that Priscilla is even
remotely interested in Him," Haynes retorted. "He will strike
her down in a minute.''
Other defense attorneys commented. Hugh Russell, who had
so expertly managed the investigation which preceded jury selec-
tion, said, "If Cullen was a poor man, he would have been con-
victed." Mike Gibson made a statement inferring that Judge
Dowlen had sympathized with Haynes: "I think Cave [who had
presided over the aborted Fort Worth trial] had his fill of ol'
Haynes, where Dowlen never got enough of Haynes.'' Steve
Sumner was candid: "A lot of people may have seen this as a
chance to get back at [Priscilla]. And to be honest we exploited
that." Sumner also expressed his concern about Cullen's future
safety. "There are so many nuts," he said, "it wouldn't sur-
prise me one bit if there are attempts on his life.''
District Attorney Tim Curry and his assistant Joe Shannon
reiterated their belief that the trial had placed in judgment
Priscilla's morals and the Fort Worth drug culture, and not the
issue of the death of Andrea Wilborn. Both said they could
understand, however, why the jury might have been reluctant to
find Cullen guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Tolly Wilson
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THE LULL BETWEEN
made a statement to a reporter about the wig cast aside by the

murderer which conjured up speculation about a kinky side of
Cullen's background. "I think if we went into other times he's
worn women's wigs," Wilson said, "it would make very in-
teresting testimony.''
Judge Cave refused to comment, adding, "I'm a judge."
Judge Matthews, who had stirred a controversy by releasing
Cullen on only $80,000 bond after his arrest, felt vindicated: "I
knew from the beginning he was just not guilty.''
The majority of Fort Worth policemen polled on the Amarillo
acquittal disagreed with it, believing Cullen culpable.
When a reporter approached Stan Farr's mother to tell her of
the verdict she burst into tears and couldn't make a coherent
statement. Gus Gavrel's parents, at their leather-cleaning
business on Camp Bowie Boulevard, would not comment. An-
drea's father was bitter. "I just want the world to know what a
heartless, cruel person he is .... " Wilborn expressed his fear that
Cullen would ''run around loose. ''
Cullen told Glen Guzzo, who was again the conduit for a
startling statement, that he "probably" knew the killer's name,
but would not reveal that identity to anyone.
Within a matter of days after the trial, the Star- Telegram con-
ducted a telephone poll asking readers whether they believed the
jury in Amarillo had been right or wrong. The special phone
lines burned with two thousand calls in the first five hours. Four-
teen hundred forty-eight citizens agreed with the Amarillo jury;
about five hundred believed they had been wrong. The three-to-
one majority opinion among callers persisted until the poll
closed after six thousand votes. Some citizens berated the
newspaper, saying the poll was shabby journalism. One of them
was a Fort Worth woman named Oswald, who complained: "I
question the right of the Star- Telegram in requiring the public's
opinion, since a verdict was reached according to our Constitu-
tion by a ...jury. I consider again the exploitation of another
human being's rights. Cullen Davis had a trial. Why continue
117
the exploitation?" Ms. Oswald's son, Lee Harvey, had grown

up in Fort Worth.
Following the Amarillo trial there was a meeting of the Texas

State Commission on Judicial Conduct in Austin. Judge Dowlen
was not subpoenaed, but he was "invited" to come down to the
capital. The commission wanted to ask the judge some questions
in response, it was said, to pressure from a number of Texas at-
torneys who evaluated Dowlen's performance and found it to be
low on the scale on which justice is expected to be weighed.
Judge Dowlen was candid. "I made a mistake," he told the
commission, "by even being with that group for one minute."
He was referring to the festive crowd at Rhett Butler's which
had celebrated Cullen's acquittal. The commission concluded
that no sanctions were in order as it appeared that Dowlen just
happened to be in the building. ''The party following the trial
was regrettable,'' the commission reported, ''but it appeared to
the commission that the judge was a victim of circumstance. ''
Media accounts of the party, the commission added, were ex-
aggerated and, a committee spokesman pointed out, Judge
Dowlen paid his own expenses for his travel to Austin from
Amarillo.
The Potter County sheriff was temporarily suspended from of-
fice and a petition filed to remove him permanently for "gross
ignorance of his official duties" in permitting Cullen to roam
about the premises during the trial and for providing liquor to
the sequestered jurors. When Tarrant County received the Pot-
ter County bill for the whiskey, payment was refused.
Glen Guzzo anticipated the end of his coverage of the murder
mansion trial and his five long months in Amarillo. • But there
was a final chore. He interviewed a number of new sources
about the trial and most of the jurors who had made the decision
• Guzzo's Slllr-Ttltgram colleague in Amarillo, Evan Moore, retired from journalism
two weeks before the trial ended to become a cowboy in Happy, Texas.
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THE LULL BETWEEN
in Amarillo. His report was a twelve-page special supplement in

the Star- Telegram.
Guzzo wrote that the jury had decided (a) that the murderer
might well have been intending to kill Stan Farr, (b) that
Priscilla was a slut whose testimony was dubious, and (c) that
there were discrepancies in testimony about vehicular traffic
around the mansion on the night of the murder ... all of which
created doubts in the minds of the jurors.
If the killer had gone to the mansion to kill Farr, he could have
been Cullen-or W. T. Rufner-or the deceased Horace
Copeland.
Most jurors believed that Gus Gavrel told the truth about the
events of the night of August 2; they did, however, feel that he
was not truthful when he said he had recognized Cullen, and
had not been in possession of marijuana.
The jurors did believe Beverly Bass. Contrary to the expecta-
tions of the defense and the fears of the prosecution, the jury did
not seriously entertain Arthur Ulewayne Polk's wild story. They
simply could not put credence in his assertions that he concealed
his information for so long. It hardly mattered, the jurors later
said, for the majority of them had made up their minds before
Polk went into the witness chair.
What did affect the jury's conclusion that Cullen was not
guilty-they did not, they repeated afterward, say he was in-
nocent-had to do with the movement of automobiles onto and
around the mansion grounds on the night of the murders.
The prosecutors had presented evidence that Cullen had
driven his Cadillac to the downtown parking lot used by Mid-
Continent, switched to a pickup truck, and driven away in it, to
return sometime after 11 P.M. to recover the Cadillac. Believing
this to be indisputable, the prosecutors did not make any special
effort to explain why witnesses might have mentioned other
vehicles. Two witnesses, who had no reason to be biased, men-
tioned that ''late model'' automobiles had been spotted on the
119
grounds before the murders. The jury found this nocturnal traf-
fic on the drive up from Mockingbird Lane to be confusing, and
it suggested the possibility that someone driving something other
than a truck might have been the killer. The jurors never learned
that shortcut traffic across the 140 acres of the grounds was not
unusual. At that time the main gate near the Colonial Country
Club was seldom closed, despite a sign which read: "Private
Property-Do Not Enter." It was the habit of some who lived in
the neighborhood to go through the Mockingbird Lane gate and
take a second road across the grounds to another gate on Hulen
Avenue, a wide thoroughfare which bordered the grounds on the
west. The shortcut saved several minutes for those who knew
about it.
On their first ballot the jurors had voted ten for acquittal and
two for guilty. The two who initially branded Cullen guilty were
highly regarded by their fellow jurors. The first was a quiet,
Bible-reading postman, who had been elected foreman. The
second was an FAA radar technician, the only other member of
the jury to have been nominated as foreman. The postman and
the radar man changed their votes in deference to the will of the
majority.
One juror told Guzzo why he voted for Cullen's freedom. "I
figured he was no angel if he was tied up with Priscilla. I'm sure
that at one time or the other he didn't have the best morals in the
world. But I don'tjudge a man on that account-until you get to
the level of Priscilla. The way she lived, that don't cut it. I get
down on liars and dopers. You can't trust many dopers."
Glen Guzzo's analysis of the Amarillo trial contained a
prediction which was prophetic to a degree the reporter could
not have imagined at the time he wrote it: ''The mystery will
extend to future episodes .... ''
Cullen and Karen returned to Fort Worth after the round of

victory parties in Amarillo. Cullen drove directly from the air-
port to his office and, later, to a welcome-home gathering of his
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THE LULL BETWEEN
acquaintances. The guests pumped his hand and slapped his

back. He was received as a conquering hero or a famous movie
star. "It was chilling," one observer said. "Some of those peo-
ple thought Cullen was guilty as hell, but that didn't keep them
from shaking his hand and telling him what a great guy he was.''
The chairman of the board and the president of the Fort
Worth National Bank sent Cullen a huge floral arrangement
with the salutation "Hooray!" The bankers had reason to
cheer: the interest on Cullen's extensive loans at the bank could
more conveniently be paid from Cullen's office than from the
prison in Huntsville.
Cullen and Karen flew to Aspen for a skiing vacation. Cullen
had made the reservations for the holiday season months before.
When they returned to Fort Worth they were confronted with
another legal squabble, which also was to be adjudicated by
Judge Joe Eidson. Karen's former husband, Walter Master,
had been granted temporary custody of their two boys while she
and Cullen were on the Colorado ski slopes. The question of
which parent should have permanent custody was unresolved.
Now Walter Master wanted custody because of Karen's
"adulteress relationship" with Cullen. In the court papers filed
by Master he accused Karen of neglecting the children, leaving
them with baby sitters while she enjoyed the good life with
Cullen. He asked for custody and support payments.
''Unfortunately neither party has shown what I would believe
to be desirable qualities on the parts of parents,'' Judge Eidson
said, but he awarded custody to Karen.
A number of people in Fort Worth commented on the demure
ladylike impression Karen Master had left on jurors during her
Amarillo testimony and the sedate role she had assumed in Fort
Worth after the trial. Now she was active in good works and
dressed attractively but conservatively. Some remembered an
August 1975 item in the Star-Telegram about Cullen's inviting
friends to an ''electronically equipped'' van where a ''sports
film'' was shown as entertainment. The star of that film had
121
been Linda Lovelace, and Karen had been one of the viewers. A
photograph taken about that time revealed a Karen who
resembled Priscilla, with long blonde hair and a tight sweater.
Then, in 1976, just before the murders on Mockingbird Lane,
Karen had accompanied Cullen to a class reunion of Arlington
Heights High School, and Karen had worn a white gown with a
plunging neckline.
One observer drew an analogy between Karen and Priscilla.
"Both were high school dropouts, both were blondes, both prod-
ucts of surgical sculptings, both friendly while suspicious, both
knew how to get into it with a guy who has millions-and both,
I'm sure, can be extraordinarily mean if necessary.''
Cullen and Karen sent a Christmas greeting to their friends, a
long poem written for them by a friend, Cathie Carroll. The
blue foldout card was decorated with a dozen family and
religious sketches. It was signed by Cullen, Karen, and the two
sons of each. Cullen, Jr., and Brian Davis, and Trey and
Chesley Master.
The long poem was entitled "Something Special." The first
seven stanzas read:
We started to send out "pre-made" cards
With a verse whose meaning stood so tall.
But the card, we quickly realized,
Just couldn't really say it all.
"When we count our blessings at Christmastime,
We think of friends like you.''
It's lovely, yes; and yet this year
It's not enough-it just won't do!
And since we have a "private poet"-
A friend to whom a "gift" was given,
We humbly bare our hearts to her,
And, this "Something Special" has been written:
It's been a nightmare-all of it.
So many problems, toils and cares-
And now we're facing Christmastime
With a load we feel too great to bear.
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THE LULL BETWEEN
Some 16 months ago a friend,

Whom we'd seen little thru the years,
Told us to read Psalms 56-
Assured us we were in her prayers.
So many times we've marvelled at
The trust that David had in God.
We've seen ourselves in his same shoes:
Yet sleeplessness and fear withstood.
We've cried 'til we could cry no more-
God promised He would save each tear.
Our enemies have seemed so great-
Yet they've been made the truth to hear.
There were twelve more stanzas.
The Fort Worth Social Directory had gone to press during the
Amarillo trial; when it appeared, Cullen's name had been
dropped from the exclusive list, presumably because the editors
feared listing a convicted felon in the sacrosanct pages.
Cullen returned to his work at Mid-Continent and, to a
limited degree, to Fort Worth social circles. There was a
photograph in the Star- Telegram of Cullen and Karen at the home
of Charles and Anne Tandy shortly after the Amarillo trial, but
that inclusion was misleading. The reception was to thank those
who had contributed to a local charity, and the act of giving had
entitled Cullen to a ticket for the party.
There was another photograph of Cullen and Karen at the
Tandys' in May 1978, and that was meaningful. It was Charles
Tandy's birthday party, and the invitation had been personal,
which meant that Cullen had his foot back in society's door, that
he and Karen were once again acceptable. It was predicted that
Cullen's name would reappear in the Social Directory. Tandy was
one of the richest men in Texas. In diversifying his family's
leather business, Tandy had acquired nine electronic supply
shops in Boston in 1963 which he expanded into a chain of 6500
domestic Radio Shack stores and 480 outlets overseas. Tandy
was reputed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars by 1978,
and his $850,000 salary made him the highest paid executive in
123
Texas. His wife Anne was from one of Fort Worth's oldest
families and extremely wealthy in her own right.
So, along with watching tv, going to the movies, and shooting
some pool, Cullen was occasionally seen in Fort Worth's
restaurants and bistros. Karen was usually with him. They were
an attractive couple. "What a sweet smile," one woman said to
another after meeting Cullen. And even the most discriminating
had to admit that Karen was dressed fashionably. Karen per-
suaded her friend to write another poem for her, this time
dedicated to Cullen:
That crisp October day we met
I knew you'd be a special man.
I guess because I'd waited
For a lifetime to hold your hand.
Perhaps Karen's ghost-laureate lacked the essential elements

of greatness as a poet. Cullen himself had not been known for
literary talent, and there was little indication that his repartee
was scintillating as he reentered society. A columnist in the Star-
Telegram reported that Cullen was introduced to a young lady at
a private party shortly after his acquittal. Someone said to the
woman, "I want you to meet Cullen Davis."
"My God," exclaimed the woman, raising the back of her
hand to her brow, "what do you say to Cullen Davis?"
"You could start," Cullen said, "by saying hello."
Cullen reiterated his previous declaration that he considered
the mansion on Mockingbird Lane his property and that he in-
tended to marry Karen and to move into the big house. Asked
about Priscilla, Cullen snapped, "She's a guest." And he would
remind the listener of the prenuptial agreement Priscilla had
signed.
Judge Eidson had ruled that Cullen was not to trespass on
mansion property, but did permit him one visit to inspect the
house and its furnishings in the company of his lawyers. Accord-
ing to one story, Cullen opened the downstairs safe to inventory
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THE LULL BETWEEN
the contents. There were only two items in the vault. Two
photographs, two faces staring out of the safe at Cullen: Andrea
and Stan Farr.
Priscilla had become a semirecluse in the mansion. Guards
kept watch around the clock, and she seldom ventured out ex-
cept for visits to her lawyers or to the beauty parlor at Neiman-
Marcus. Dee and Beverly Bass were off at Texas Tech U niversi-
ty, and Priscilla's most constant companion was a man named
Rich Sauer, a real estate salesman, who had been Stan Farr's
best friend. Priscilla did frequently entertain visitors, and they
returned to the mundane world to relate stories of life inside the
mansiOn.
One visitor had asked Priscilla about the Fort Worth percep-
tion of her as a usually underdressed and overexposed hussy who
shocked society. Hadn't the Star- Telegram photographer fixed her
public image for all time with his picture of her with Stan Farr at
the Colonial National Invitational Tournament in 1975?
''There are about sixteen trillion younger, prettier girls than
me," Priscilla said. "But I'm the only one anybody remembers
wearing a croptop. I don't see what I did that so many other girls
didn't do." Priscilla conceded that her attire had often been
flamboyant. "It got to be a game," she said. "I never thought
people would hate me for it. ''
A journalist from the Houston Post interviewed Priscilla in the
mansion. Standing at the side of the indoor swimming pool
Priscilla mentioned that she seldom used the pool. ''Bleach
blondes and chlorine don't mix," she explained. There was
another room in the mansion that Priscilla did not often
utilize: the game room, with an electronic football game, a
bean-bag chair in the shape of a fielder's glove, and Cullen's
three pool tables.
In the main hall the renowned chess set rested under the
painting of Cullen and Priscilla. Not far from the winding,
polished stairway was Cullen's library. On a desk was a
mounted drawing of a noose, and under it an inscription:
125
Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be

Hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his
Mind wonderfully.
SAMUELjOHNSON, 1709-1784
Downstairs Priscilla preferred the brightly decorated kitchen,

and upstairs her bedroom and dressing quarters. The bedroom
was populated with stuffed animals, and the dressing room and
bath were gardens of potted plants. (Priscilla had finally paid
Arthur Ulewayne Polk for his plants, despite the fact that she
believed the nurseryman had overcharged her atrociously.) In
the bathroom a glistening chandelier hung over the whirlpool,
sunken marble tub. There was a bidet, uncommon in Fort
Worth.
In the bedroom there was a fireplace and a deep white carpet.
The cover on the motor-adjustable oversized bed was, it was
revealed, silver fox. The oversized video screen above the three-
machine television console loomed over the bed. There were
photographs of Stan Farr and, on a table, a copy of Rod
McK uen' s The Gentle Giant. In a vast, mirrored closet were two
of Stan's giant-sized suits, a pair of his jeans, and his extra-
length golf clubs. Also in the closet was Andrea's suitcase, still
unpacked from the night she returned to the mansion from the
Bible school in Houston.
Because Priscilla grew up in Houston, she was asked about
her youth. She had lived with her two brothers in the Galena
Park area of Houston in a modest, green, ranch-style house on
Benson Street. Priscilla's father had been a geologist and rodeo
rider, and he had a fire in his heel. "He just kind of wandered
off.... " Priscilla's mother had been, perhaps, overprotective,
but she saw to it that the children were introduced to dance and
music. Priscilla took ballet lessons and was disappointed when
she failed to make the grade as a cheerleader. Her body
burgeoned and boys ogled her; her schoolbook photographs
show her as a handsome girl with black hair. Priscilla dropped
out of the eleventh grade. At sixteen she married Jasper Baker,
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THE LULL BETWEEN
an ex-marine. He threw his hat in the door a few times during

the two years the marriage lasted. After it dissolved, Priscilla
worked in the service department of Montgomery Ward's store.
Then, "I went to lunch one day and never returned." When she
was eighteen she married Jack Wilborn, age forty, a visiting
used-car salesman, who introduced Priscilla to a more affluent
life in Fort Worth. One day she was playing tennis at Ridgelea
Country Club, and Cullen and his then wife Sandra were play-
ing nearby. Cullen and Sandra were arguing. Priscilla and her
partner challenged the feuding couple to a game of doubles.
Mterwards, Priscilla and Cullen met secretly and became
lovers. The day after they returned from a clandestine New
Year's trip to Acapulco, they shared a room at the Green Oaks
Inn. Jack Wilborn and Sandra Davis and private detectives
stormed into the room to photograph Cullen and Priscilla
together. The two divorces followed, and Cullen and Priscilla
married the day Stinky died.
One prominent Fort Worth woman said she wasn't sure
whether or not Cullen was guilty, but as for Priscilla, "Well,
anyway, she deserved it.'' A few staunch friends stood by
Priscilla in the aftermath of the Amarillo trial when two out of
three persons in Fort Worth believed that Cullen was innocent of
the charges for which he had been tried. Judy McCrory, soon to
remarry after her divorce from Charles David McCrory, was
steadfast. Others came to the mansion for long evenings of
watching tv on the big screen. Some of them were roughnecks
befriended by Priscilla before the Amarillo trial.
Another Fort Worth woman became a friend of Priscilla. She
hadn't known Cullen: "I wouldn't know Cullen if he kissed
me.'' She found life in the mansion to be much more placid than
she had expected. After all those rumors about wild parties she
was prepared to witness some sybaritic residue of frolic in the
huge house. But, she said, ''The only thing I ever saw on the big
television screen was 'Roots,' ' ' and all the camera and record-
ing equipment wasn't even working. Priscilla was usually
127
dressed in jeans and a Mexican shirt, and she drank Kool-Aid

more often than beer or wine. Sometimes Priscilla wore her hair
in braids, knotted with tiny pink bows, and her only jewelry was
the massive diamond ring given to her by Cullen.
What about Cullen, Priscilla was asked. Do you sometimes
feel like you'd like to kill him?
"Sure," Priscilla responded. "I'd like to put a gun to his head
and ask, just before I pulled the trigger, ' Why?'''
"What about the rumors about you? What about all the guys
who tell everyone in town they've screwed you?"
''I'd like to get them on the stand,'' Priscilla retorted dryly.
Priscilla was justified in perceiving the rumors as unfair and
one-sided. Since the beginning the newspapers had referred to
Stan Farr as Priscilla's lover. Never did they describe Karen
Master as Cullen's lover. And an ugly rumor about Priscilla's
having been a call girl continued to float, despite the lack of
evidence. An even uglier rumor that Dee had been Old Stinky's
child persisted, again without basis. There were never any
rumors that Karen might be Stinky's child-even after it was
reported in the Star- Telegram that Karen's mother had been an
employee of Stinky's at Mid-Continent when she was pregnant
with Karen.
No one had ever denied that Priscilla was a voluptuous
woman. Priscilla was still proud of her body. Once when a
woman visiting the mansion speculated that her figure must
have been sculpted by Dr. Valentin Gracia, the plastic surgeon,
Priscilla protested. The mini-facelift, the improved nose, and the
implants in her breasts, yes, but no tummy or bottom lifts.
Priscilla stripped in her hot pink bathroom to prove her point,
challenging the guest to inspect her body for scars.
Even so, Priscilla's facial beauty was fading. She had re-
mained serenely beautiful, if pale and drawn, when she testified
from her wheelchair. But the effects of her wounds and the
recurring complications from the breast surgery and from a
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THE LULL BETWEEN
duodenal ulcer began to take their toll. She increased the patina
of makeup to cover the lines. One unkind man was quoted in a
Texas magazine as saying that ''Priscilla had the look of a
woman who has spent too much time in bowling alleys.''
In addition to beauty, Priscilla lost another prized possession.
In one of the rare excursions she made outside the mansion she
went to a party at a friend's home. Her "Rich Bitch" pendant of
gold and diamonds was in her purse, and someone stole the
necklace and her credit cards during the party.
John Makeig, a young Star- Telegram courthouse writer, was

one of the reporters who covered the murders on Mockingbird
Lane in 1976. Later, Makeig reviewed all of Fort Worth's
murder cases for that year.
Makeig wrote, '' 1976, as one detective jokingly puts it, was a
'vinage year' in Fort Worth for murder.
"The year's crop began at 1:45 A.M., Jan. 1, with a knifing at
a bar during a squabble over a woman and it ended at 4:45A.M.,
Dec. 31 with a stabbing murder during a drunken argument
over a girl's old handwritten poetry.
"It included the notorious Cullen Davis mansion murders,
the accidental shooting of a woman at her 'going-away' party,
and a vicious kidnapping-killing that landed two heroin addicts
on Death Row.
''A Star- Telegram analysis of homicide and court records for
1976 ... shows that 65 people died here of shootings, stabbings,
and beatings.
''It shows that the police responded to the 65 killings by 'ar-
resting' 66 persons and 'clearing' 96 percent of the year's
homicides.
''And it shows that 20 of the 66 persons were sentenced to
serve time in prison, mostly for terms of5, 10, and 15 years.
''Of the 20, two got death sentences and only five got prison
sentences of25 years or more ....
129
''To get a fuller perspective on who commits murders here

and how they are handled by the courts, one must look into
specific cases.
"For example:
"--Clifford Chance Rubell, 30, had been harassing a
28-year-old woman for four years. A month before his Nov. 4,
1976, death, she had shot him in the shoulder as he was using a
plank to cave· in her front door. A half-hour before he died, he
called her from a bar to say Nov. 4 would be her last day.''
''Consequently, she got her . 22 pistol and shot him through a
screen door as he arrived.
"The result: Grand jurors no-billed [decided there was no
case] her 14 days later.
"--Harlin Glen Mayes, 28, had what turned out to be a
fatal habit of becoming obscene and belligerent when drinking.
On the night of Oct. 1, 1976, he made the error of becoming
drunkenly obnoxious in the home of a 50-year-old welder named
Lee Roy Howard, who got into a fight with Mayes and stabbed
Mayes six times with a handy ice pick.
"'He kept shouting all kinds of nasty stuff... in front of my
wife,' Howard told police. 'I told him to cool off and go to bed. '
''The result: Howard pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaugh-
ter and was placed on probation for 10 years.
"--Sammy Lee Chopp, Jr., 25, got into a bad argument
March 28, 1976, with his common-law wife, Billie Ruth
Johnson, 24. She was mad because he'd been staying out late
drinking. A furor developed and she shot him with a . 22 pistol.
A police report says after shooting him once, she stood over the
body and shot him again.
"The outcome: She was charged with murder but pleaded
guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was given a nine-year
prison sentence.
''--John Petty, 74, was getting a divorce from his wife,
Ruth Petty, 54, on Sept. 27 when they got into an
argument .... A police report says he shot the woman, who was
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THE LULL BETWEEN
on crutches, with a .22 pistol. When officers arrived at the scene,

the report says, Petty walked up and announced: 'I shot my
wife.'
"The result: Petty pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of
voluntary manslaughter and was placed on probation for 10
years.
"--Joe Green Carter was very drunk-triple the Texas
standard for intoxication-on the night of Sept. 24 when he went
to the Jack-in-the-Box on West Berry. He was drinking in the
parking lot and became irate with a security guard. Air Force
S. Sgt. Leslie Lee Brice, 28, told him to stop acting outrageous-
ly. He began taunting Brice, who was armed and frightened.
Finally, to protect himself, Brice drew his pistol.
"'Joe, I've known you for a long time,' Brice told him. 'I
don't want you to do this. Back off.'
"'Shoot me,' Carter said, charging forward and getting
killed.
''The outcome: Brice ... stood trial for murder and was found
not guilty ....
''--Felix Alexander Ramirez, 26, had just returned to Fort
Worth from Mexico with $2000 worth of illegal pills and been
selling them on the South Side. On Jan. 3, according to one ver-
sion of his death, Ramirez was murdered in the Enchanted
Flame Club on Evans Avenue when he tried to stop a fight be-
tween two other people. Another version had it that someone
was irate because he was dealing bad-quality dope. Whatever,
he was shot to death.
"The police quickly rounded up a handful of suspects, in-
cluding one man who had just finished serving two years of a
five-year sentence for murder, but never got enough evidence to
charge anyone.
''The result: It was only one of three similar crimes that went
unsolved in 1976.
"--Jerry Ray Renfro, 29, was a door-to-door salesman who
stopped at a truck stop on NE 28th on July 20. While there, he
131
met some attractive women who offered him a chance at cheap

sex. He left with an ex-convict named Betty Haire and she took
him to an apartment in the Riverside Village apartment com-
plex. When they fmished a sex act Dwight Lamar Sanders, 21,
entered and a short while later Renfro died of stab wounds.
''The police fmally arrested Ms. Haire and Sanders for the
brutal killing and, typically, they blamed each other for what
had happened.
"The outcome: Betty Haire agreed to testify against Sanders
and murder charges against her were dropped. Sanders pleaded
guilty to murder and was given a 50-year sentence-the fourth
highest sentence handed down for a 1976 murder.
''--Willie McCullough, Jr., 48, was at the Happy City Bar
on Aug. 14, 1976, drinking and flashing money around, attract-
ing attention. Three young women, acting at the behest of a
29-year-old convicted thief, decided to relieve McCullough of his
money by promises of sex or whatever was necessary. So they
lured him out to a vacant lot where the thief shot McCullough in
the head.
"The outcome: The thief was identified and arrested, but
charges ultimately were dismissed by prosecutors, who said they
had only 'accomplice testimony' to use in court ....
''Other homicides included several killings that grew out of
child custody and visitation rights fusses, a homosexual murder,
the killing of a 16-year-old who kept going into a woman's apart-
ment and trying on her underwear, and a man who earned the
Carnegie Hero Fund Medal for dying while preventing the
murder of a man he liked.
''But mostly, the 65 deaths become a gray blur of feuding
relatives and hostile neighbors, bad drunks and men who went
around picking fights, naive children playing with shotguns and
young thugs looking for older people to 'roll.'
''And in all but a few cases, it could be argued that the victims
provoked the disputes which led to their deaths.
''It is certain, however, that 52 of the 65 murders were com-
132
THE LULL BETWEEN
mitted with pistols. (Six others were done with knives, one with
an ice pick, and three with shotguns; three people were also
beaten to death.)''
Makeig added to his survey, ''Only two defendants were ac-
quitted of murder charges-Brice for killing Joe Green Carter
and Cullen Davis for the alleged murder of 12-year-old Andrea
Wilborn .... ''
Five months after the Amarillo trial, in the spring of 1978,

Tim Curry had said nothing for the record about the status of
the remaining three indictments against Cullen: Farr's murder
and the woundings of Priscilla and Gus Gavrel. It was not an
easy decision for Curry. Even his own staff in the district at-
torney's office had conflicting opinions as to whether Cullen
should be tried for the three offenses. One prosecutor said, color-
fully mixing his metaphors, ''If Davis is guilty, he should be
punished for it. But something went wrong with the system in
Amarillo, and if that system doesn't work and if the state has
fired its best shot and missed, then I think they ought to throw in
the towel." A Fort Worth judge not involved in the case said,
"Just as a practical matter, it's a dead horse. But I'm glad I
don't have to make the decision.''
In addition to the upcoming divorce case, Cullen's trial docket
was loaded with another tribulation: Priscilla's attorneys filed
two additional civil suits charging Cullen with the murder of An-
drea and Priscilla's own wounding. Priscilla asked for "far in
excess of $10,000'' in each suit.
By midsummer of 1978, Jack Wilborn had been besieged by
three heart attacks and undergone open-heart surgery. Beverly
Bass, age twenty, complained she was depressed and felt forty.
Gus Gavrel, on crutches, was despondent because of the slow
progress of recovery from the bullet the doctors had elected to let
remain in his spine. He said he sometimes went to a ball game,
but usually just sat around the house. The divorce proceedings
were in their fourth year. Judge Eidson established a new trial
133
date for mid-August. Karen Master, anticipating that event,

had something to say about Priscilla: ''Everybody we know ex-
pects her to come up with more of her deviousness and lies. But I
don't think a jury here is going to believe her any more than the
jury in Amarillo did.''
In early August, Priscilla's lawyers, in a formal hearing, con-
fronted Cullen with approximately 2000 questions they needed
answered in order to prepare for the divorce trial. Cullen's legal
team-Racehorse Haynes was still in command-presented a
251-page deposition to Judge Eidson, who allowed Priscilla's
lawyers to question Cullen. Finally, the remote, inscrutable
multimillionaire was on the stand. Although Cullen refused to
say anything about his activities on the night of August 2, 1976,
he did provide information about his personal and corporate
wealth.
Cullen was asked about total sales for KenDavis Industries
during 1977. "One billion, twenty-nine million dollars, plus
change" was the response. During the ten-year period after
Cullen and his brothers had inherited the family enterprise, the
net income after taxes had been something between S175 million
and $200 million. Profits in 1976 had been good: $60 million
after taxes. Earnings declined in 1977 to $38 million. (Priscilla's
lawyers were suspicious. Were Cullen and Ken draining profits
to reduce the amount of settlement money available to Priscilla?)
Prospects were brighter for 1978; in the first six months of the
year profits had been $25 million. Now there were 101 com-
panies and subsidiaries in, or affiliated with, Kiii.
Stinky's boys had watched and nurtured the financial eggs in
the Davis family basket. Since Stinky's death KenDavis In-
dustries' assets had grown by $652 million to a current value of
$800 million.
How much of that did Cullen own, personally? The tycoon
couldn't be precise, but did say he held 47.5 percent of the Mid-
Continent stock, and sizeable blocks of Great Western Drilling
and the other major corporations.
134
THE LULL BETWEEN
The subject turned to Cullen's relations with Priscilla. What

did he have to say about her allegations that he had physically
abused her?
It was true, Cullen replied, that '' ... he had struck Priscilla
on possibly three occasions.''
''Did you once break her collarbone?''
"I don't know whether I did or not," Cullen said. "She says I
did and maybe I did. But I don't know whether I did or not.''
Cullen acknowledged the incident in California in 197 4 about
which Priscilla had testified. He said he ''threw her down on the
bed and she fell on the floor." Another time, he added, in the
mansion's pool room, "I put her down on the floor and twisted
her arm until she told me what I wanted to know.''
Concerning his stepdaughter Dee, Cullen said he had occa-
sionally found it necessary to administer discipline. In the early
'70s he had used "either a board or a belt" on Dee's bare bot-
tom. Was she rather severely beaten? "On the rear end, yes,"
Cullen said, adding that no medical attention had been
necessary. He confirmed he had slapped Dee in the Rivercrest
house and, then, killed a kitten. He denied ever striking the
younger Andrea and could not remember if he had spanked her.
Yes, Cullen said, he had invited friends to see Deep Throat in
his van during a golf tournament.
He was asked about any sexual relations with women other
than Priscilla during the 1968-1978 decade. Cullen responded,
"I think they all came after the separation." He harked back to
the days before his marriage to Priscilla and confirmed that
someone had broken into a motel room they shared and attempt-
ed to photograph them.
Cullen testified that he had never smoked marijuana nor
snorted cocaine and had attended only one party where other
guests had, and that was limited to marijuana.
Cullen's medical record was unveiled. He had undergone ma-
jor surgery for a spinal fusion, an operation which often
alleviates a disc problem in the lower back; he had also had a
135
hernia operation and a vasectomy. There had also been cosmetic

eye surgery.
While the Star- Telegram had reported that Cullen stayed at the
Schick Hospital, which specializes in psychiatric treatment, after
the murders at the mansion, it had not previously been known
that Cullen had consulted other therapists. Cullen testified that
he had visited Fort Worth psychiatrist Blaine McLaughlin on
''one or more'' occasions.
"What was the nature of your visit?"
''I'll be darned if I know," Cullen responded.
Cullen toted up his financial expenses since he had moved into
Karen Master's home three years previously. He had paid all
household bills and doled out $3000 to $5000 a month in
allowance to Karen. He had bestowed a number of gifts on her
including jewelry and fur coats, one a natural muskrat valued at
between $5000 and $10,000. He had also given Karen a Cadillac
and two dogs, and had paid medical bills for a porcelain cap for
one of her teeth and for undisclosed cosmetic surgery. •
There had been wild speculation about the legal costs Cullen
had incurred during his various trials and hearings. On this
matter Racehorse Haynes refused to comment, but during the
pretrial divorce hearings Cullen said the Houston lawyer's
Amarillo fee had been a quarter of a million dollars. Phil
Burleson, the Dallas attorney, had received $1.25 million, from
which his firm paid other lawyers and investigators' expenses.
Karen's father, Ray Hudson, had been paid $45,000 for the
period he worked for Cullen in Amarillo, and Cullen still owed
• As the result of a 1971 automobile accident in which her two sons were severely in·
jured Karen suffered head injuries and lacerations. This operation may have been in
relation to those injuries. Purely cosmetic surgery, however, is common among those in
Fort Worth who can afford it. Eye tucks, mini and major facelifts and breast enhance·
ment can be obtained by consulting one of the fourteen plastic surgeons listed in the
yellow pages of the Fort Worth telephone book. During medical testimony in Amarillo it
was revealed that the bullet which passed between Priscilla's breasts was deflected in its
trajectory. This stimulated speculation and amusing anecdotes to the effect that
Priscilla's silicone implants saved her life. Professional pathological opinion, however,
discounts this.
136
THE LULL BETWEEN
$300,000 to $400,000 in legal fees to his several attorneys.

Cullen's total legal tab to date, he estimated, was about $2
million. Fort Worth had learned more about Cullen than was
previously known when he was forced to answer questions can-
didly in Judge Eidson's court.
Little had been heard from William Davis, Cullen's younger
brother, since the report that his suit against Cullen and Ken,
Jr., had been settled out of court. Details of that transaction
came to light in a sixty-page deposition and testimony by the
youngest Davis at the hearings. William said that his position as
a corporate equal to Cullen and Ken, Jr., in the Davis enter-
prises deteriorated long before the 1976 settlement. William had
been stripped of his "directorships and officerships" at a
meeting of the board of directors in 1971. William claimed he
had been "squeezed out" of power.
''And how was that done, sir?'' the question was read.
''I was voted off the board by the majority of the
stockholders.''
William referred to stockholders Cullen and Ken, Jr., who
owned nearly two-thirds of the KenDavis Industries at that
time. William had not voted as he was not present at the meeting
of the board.
By the beginning of August 1978 it was generally believed that

District Attorney Tim Curry was not contemplating further
trials for Cullen based on the charges of killing Stan Farrand
wounding Priscilla and Gus Gavrel. By Texas law he would
have to pursue the charges if Cullen requested "a speedy trial,"
but Cullen did not exercise that option. AndJudge Eidson had
ruled that the events of the night of August 2, 1976, the night of
the murders at the mansion, were not to be discussed during the
divorce trial.
In any event, the divorce trial would begin on August 10, and
it promised to be a great show. Anticipation of the exciting event
enlivened the conversation at the late-summer cocktail parties
137
and dinners in Rivercrest and Westover Hills, and in Ridgelea

and the Tanglewood area near the Colonial Country Club. The
impending trial even aroused almost as much speculation as the
Dallas Cowboys' standing in the National Football League.
The lines had been drawn by the opposing forces. Cullen
made public statements branding Priscilla an adulteress.
Priscilla's lawyers and Racehorse Haynes and his stable of
assistants were reaching the boiling point in their relations with
each other, bickering and shouting during the pretrial en-
counters.
Cullen was a Davis and everybody knew Stinky's son
wouldn't want to give up property. It was obvious that Cullen
wanted his mansion. Priscilla, it was learned, was willing to let
him have it, but on her terms. She wanted selected items among
the furnishings. She wanted the white Lincoln Continental
Mark IV with the red carpeting inside. She wanted all her per-
sonal effects, including Freedom, the white mare. She wanted
six months to arrange her affairs before vacating the mansion.
And, she wanted $20 million. Cullen had offered $5000 a
month for twenty years, a total of$1.2 million.
What happened next took everyone by surprise. Priscilla's
lawyers wanted yet another postponement. During the pretrial
hearings they had accumulated such a pile of documents about
Cullen's financial status they needed time to study it. They
wanted to ascertain if Cullen and Ken were concealing profits.
Judge Eidson granted the extension. The divorce trial
scheduled for August 10 was rescheduled for September 18.
So, during the month of August 1978 there was not much go-
ing on in Fort Worth. The big event would be the preseason
game at Texas Stadium when the Dallas Cowboys played the
Houston Oilers on the third weekend of the month. Everybody
would be out for the game, the more affluent fans in their
"skyboxes." Most of the private observation lounges had two
television sets-one to watch the instant replay of the game un-
folding on the field, the other to keep abreast of games being
138
THE LULL BETWEEN
played elsewhere. Cullen and Karen would be in Cullen's

skybox, with its thick carpet, satin brocade walls, and mirrored
ceiling and bar.
So the social persiflage was mostly football chatter, except for
the exchange of gossip which hadn't really abated since the
murders on Mockingbird Lane two years before. Juicy gossip
about Stan Farr and Priscilla, and her new companion, Rich
Sauer, circulated, as did rumors about Stinky, and about Karen
and Cullen.
Star- Telegram reporter Glen Guzzo, after two years covering
the Cullen Davis beat, was ill during the third weekend of
August 1978. That Sunday while recuperating in his apartment
he recalled a midnight conversation he had had two summers
before with his boss, the managing editor of the morning edi-
tion. "Things are just too quiet for this town," the editor had
commented. Then he made a prediction: "I have a feeling a big
story is about to break-and I'll bet it will be on the police
beat."
Guzzo's editor had been prescient in 1976. But now, two
years later, it appeared the Cullen Davis story was fading away.
139
·9·
THE OLD JUDGE
The old Judge stood near his mailbox and read the letter he
had just opened. It was from Maryland. The closing paragraphs
read:
... and the publishers have decided that, on balance, they believe the
book is not worth the candle. After so many months without any signal
that Cullen will be prosecuted on the remaining murder indictments
the story is losing some of its reader appeal. The divorce case and the
various civil suits still pending will be of much interest in Fort Worth,
but they will not catch national attention. Consequently, I am busy
writing an espionage novel.
Thanks again for giving me so much time in our long discussions
about Cullen's case ....
The letter was signed by the journalist.
The Judge thrust the letter into his pocket. He turned to the
dog sitting obediently at his feet.
"Come along, Oliver. I have a bone of immense proportions
I've been saving for you.''
140
·10·
THE WIRED CANARY
On Monday, following the third Sunday of August 1978 there

were double-bannered headlines in the morning Star- Telegram:
CULLEN DAVIS BACK IN JAIL
PLOT TO KILL JUDGE CHARGED
Pistol, $25,000 seized in arrest
''Millionaire Cullen Davis was in Tarrant County jail without
bond Sunday night, charged with soliciting the murder for hire
of Tarrant County District Judge Joe H. Eidson, the judge
presiding over the divorce case involving Davis and his es-
tranged wife Priscilla.
''Davis-who last year was acquitted after the longest and one
of the most spectacular murder trials in Texas history-was ar-
rested Sunday after a police informant, wired for sound, showed
Davis a counterfeit photo ofJudge Eidson's 'body' stuffed into a
car trunk, the Associated Press reported.''
Eidson had posed for the photo at the request of police, the
story continued.
''The AP said it had learned from sources that the informant
also showed Davis the judge's driver's license before collecting
an alleged payoffof$25,000 in $100 bills .... "
The startling story went on to say, ''In addition to the pistol
and money, officers Sunday also found a 'hit list' of persons
presumably to be murdered. Eidson headed the list, which in-
cluded Priscilla Davis, Beverly Bass, Gus Gavrel, and District
141
Judge Tom Cave, who had refused to free Davis on bond after
the shootings at the mansion .... ''
It had all begun when an informant had approached the Fort
Worth FBI bureau on August 17, the previous Thursday. He
told the federal agents that Cullen Davis had contacted him to
arrange the murders of a bunch of people. The FBI wired the in-
formant for sound and monitored a meeting that afternoon be-
tween him and Cullen. What the FBI men heard was enough for
them and local authorities to plan a second encounter between
the informant and Cullen. On Friday the informant was in-
structed to summon Cullen to a meeting at 9 A.M., Sunday, two
days later.
A top secret post was manned at the federal courthouse by
District Attorney Tim Curry, Fort Worth Police Chief A. J.
Brown, and U.S. Attorney John Sweeney. That headquarters
was to supervise the surveillance conducted by police officers,
FBI agents, and Texas Rangers.
Two FBI agents taped a microphone about the size of a pencil
eraser to the informant's left shoulder. A wire led from the
microphone to a small gray recorder which the Bureau men
taped to the informant's back. The FBI agents also stowed a
pocket-sized beacon in the trunk of the informant's automobile.
It was a continuous-signal transmitter which could be monitored
by the police, allowing them to locate the automobile if
surveillance failed.
A total surveillance breakdown was unlikely. When the infor-
mant approached the location of his rendezvous with Cullen, a
van with four FBI men inside was parked nearby. They would
be eyewitnesses to the meeting; they would be able to record the
conversation if the equipment strapped to the informer's body
performed as it should. A camera in the van was set up to
videotape the encounter. There was a communications link be-
tween the van and the command post downtown.
Given the circumstances of the meeting, it was assumed
Cullen would take evasive action to be sure he was not being
142
THE WIRED CANARY
trailed. The lawmen in the several automobiles involved in the

operation would have to stay out of sight.
Cullen and the informant met. They talked briefly. There was
an exchange of material. The informant dropped something in
the trunk of Cullen's automobile, and they parted.
Tim Curry and the officials in the courthouse were advised by
radio of the development and ordered that Cullen be
apprehended.
Policemen and FBI agents in a fix-winged aircraft circling
overhead observed as Cullen drove away from the restaurant
and began to wash his trail. "Washing," in Fort Worth police
jargon, is the process of shaking surveillants by a series of double
turns, U-turns, and other measures. Cullen performed four such
evasive actions but the skyborne policemen kept him in view,
reporting his position by radio to others on the ground.
Cullen parked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and
entered an outside telephone booth. As he was leaving the booth
an unmarked sedan bearing a flashing red light drove up and
three officers with pistols and a shotgun jumped out. "Hold it
there, Cullen!"
Cullen raised an arm as if to conceal his face. Then he sur-
rendered quietly. He was handcuffed and placed in a police car
which was to whisk him once more to the Cross-Bar Hotel.
"He didn't say anything," Police Lieutenant A. M. Patter-
son said. "To me, that was a little unusual. Normally they say,
'Hey, what the hell are you arresting me for?' or something like
that. Cullen didn't say a thing."
Another ~resting officer, Morris Howeth, read Cullen
his rights-for a second time: he had been the arresting officer
when Cullen was detained while attempting to board his
jet-on another Sunday, in another August precisely two years
before.
The authorities released an affidavit signed by the informant.

It was a shocker.
143
My name is Charles David McCrory. I am 40 years old. I live at

3017 Bigham, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas.
Within the last four days, Thomas Cullen Davis had a meeting with
me in person, during which he discussed with me hiring a hit man to
kill the judge presiding in his (Davis') divorce case. I know this judge
to be Judge Joe H. Eidson, a Tarrant County Judge who presides in
domestic and family matters. Davis had already discussed with me the
amount of money necessary to hire such a hit man for this purpose.
During the conversation I had with Davis within the last four days,
he wanted me to get a silencer for a .22 caliber pistol which I had
brought to him (also at his request). I agreed to supply him such a
silencer, and he left the .22 caliber pistol with me. During this meeting
with Davis, Davis was driving a white over blue 197 5 4-door Cadillac,
Texas License NumberCNM-144.
On Sunday, August 20, 1978, I again met with Thomas Cullen
Davis, who was again driving the white over blue 1975 Cadillac men-
tioned above. On this occasion [sic] at around 8:50a.m., I delivered to
Davis (at his request) the .22 caliber pistol described above, with the
homemade silencer attached. I did this in cooperation with the federal
and local authorities to whom I had previously reported this matter. I
placed the . 22 caliber with the silencer attached into the opened trunk
of Davis' Cadillac at Davis' request, and the trunk lid was closed with
the gun inside.
Davis thereafter left our meeting place (at the parking-lot of Coco's
near the intersection of Hulen and Loop 820 in Tarrant County,
Texas) in the 1975 Cadillac. He did not remove the pistol from the
trunk before driving off.
The above statement is true and correct.
The telephone lines crackled in Rivercrest, Ridgelea, Shady

Oaks, and the Tanglewood area near the Colonial Country Club.
Charles McCrory! Charles David McCrory!
Why, he was Cullen's pool-playing buddy, the one he met at the Pink
Elephant-they used Cullen's mon9' to buy the place so they could shoot
whenever they wanted. Priscilla and W. T. Rujner had shacked up with
the McCrorys in Boston, before McCrory and judy were divorced. Judy
had become Priscilla's best friend; she was at the mansion the night they
144
THE WIRED CANARY
heard about the verdict from Aman"llo. McCrory had gone to work for one
of Cullen's companies.
The reaction to Cullen's arrest in Fort Worth ranged from
outrage to grim satisfaction. Kay Davis, Cullen's niece and
Ken's daughter, was an attractive young woman who had
become an executive at KenDavis Industries. ''A goddamned
frameup,'' she snapped. One young man was astonished when
his mother, a cultured Rivercrest matron he had never before
heard swear, announced, ''They finally got the son of a bitch!''
Priscilla's penchant for holding impromptu press conferences
at inopportune times had long vexed her lawyers. This time they
apparently had the volatile Priscilla under control; her reaction
was not available. Speaking for his client, attorney Ronald
Aultman told a reporter, "She is, of course, disturbed about it.
She was disturbed for her own personal safety. She didn't ex-
press any opinion about how this will affect the divorce.'' For his
own part, Aultman added, he would just as soon go ahead and
get it over with. And he saw no reason that Judge Eidson should
turn the case over to another judge.
A somewhat distraught Judge Byron Matthews telephoned
the Star-Telegram. He said he had heard that Cullen was in-
terested in "getting me killed, too." He had been warned by
more than one person that "Cullen cussed me and said we
[Matthews and Judge Cave] were in a conspiracy to keep him in
jail and he was mad about that." Judge Cave, characteristically,
reacted in a low key. While he was aware that Cullen was
unhappy with him, he had not been threatened and had heard
no rumors that he was in jeopardy.
Jack Wilborn said he had received an anonymous telephone
call immediately after Cullen's arrest; the unknown informant
claimed that this wasn't the first time Cullen had tried to ar-
rangeJudge Eidson's demise.
The Star- Telegram received another call that Sunday from a
man who wanted to put something on the record before others
did. Mayor Pro TemJim Bradshaw said that he and his wife had
145
been among a Saturday group which had watched a Dallas

Cowboy football game from the Davis skybox at the stadium.
They had drinks elsewhere after the game, and Cullen and
Karen dropped the Bradshaws at their home about 2 A.M. on
Sunday morning.
"It's just so odd," Bradshaw said. "It's the first time we've
ever been out with them.'' He added that his association with
Cullen had only commenced about three weeks previously,
when Cullen telephoned to say that he had just purchased Jet-
Air, the aircraft sales company. Bradshaw had met Cullen per-
sonally for the first time a couple of days later, and Cullen had
said that he might be interested in buying Bradshaw's auto parts
business.
"I don't know why I called to tell you this," Bradshaw told
the Star- Telegram. "I guess I just wanted somebody to know
when it all came out.''
Some readers believed Bradshaw's telephone call indicated he
suspected that he had been euchred. Karen Master responded to
the speculation that the mayor pro tern of Fort Worth had been
invited to watch the Dallas Cowboy game from Cullen's sky box
as part of an alibi arrangement.
"It's ridiculous," Karen told Dallas reporters, "to suggest
that I would invite the Bradshaws to the game so they could
testify to an alibi for Cullen. They are longtime friends and I
would certainly do nothing to put them in an embarrassing
position.''
Racehorse Haynes was relaxing Sunday afternoon on his
forty-foot sloop when he was called on the marine radio with the
news that Tim Curry had released Charles David McCrory's
statement at a press conference earlier that day. Haynes lost no
time in flying to Fort Worth to reassemble the team which had
defended Cullen in Amarillo-Phil Burleson, Mike Gibson, and
Steve Sumner.
Even so, Haynes knew nothing of Cullen's latest predica-
ment. "Is this the same McCrory who was involved before?" he
146
THE WIRED CANARY
asked at the airport. It was confirmed that McCrory was the ubi-
quitous figure who had been a minor participant in Cullen's
tribulations in recent years.
Haynes reflected. "It's curious," he allowed.
Haynes and his team moved quickly to seek Cullen's freedom
on bond. It was the seventh bond request Cullen's lawyers had
sought, but it was not to be the last. The hearing was set for the
following Tuesday. A visiting judge, Arthur Tipps, was to come
from nearby Wichita Falls to preside. Tim Curry was to ask that
bond be denied under a new state law denying bond to persons
accused of felonies while out on bond for another crime-the
murder of Stan Farr and the wounding of Gus Gavrel and
Priscilla were still to be officially resolved.
And Tim Curry would have another opportunity to install
Cullen as a permanent guest at the big Cross-Bar Hotel in
Huntsville: a solicitation of murder charge, with a second
charge of possession of an illegal weapon-a silencer-could
bring a sentence of ninety-nine years.
On the first day of the bond hearings, Tuesday, August 22,

the courtroom was packed. "You could have sold tickets for
$50," one spectator said. It turned out to be an exciting show for
the nonpaying audience. The first act involved intriguing
testimony by McCrory. The second act was even more
dramatic: The judge permitted the prosecution to play in court
the tape recording of the meeting between McCrory and Cullen
in a motel on the Thursday before Cullen's arrest on Sunday.
The transcript released to the public was bowdlerized, with
"bleeps" screening the obscenities. The conversation began as
McCrory presented Cullen with a gun:
McCrory: I've got a little present for you.
Davis: Well, that's nice.
McCrory: Just what you ordered. They haven't got-
Davis: What the doctor ordered.
147
McCrory: They haven't got the silencer made yet but, uh,
they're working on it.
Davis: When will it be ready?
McCrory: Uh, just a few days. Don't point that at me.
Davis: Huh?
McCrory: Don't point that son of a bitch at me. No, you
have ... uh, the bottom.
Davis: Here?
McCrory: You have to pull this back. Is that sweet?
Davis: All right!
McCrory: That is sweet. Now, do you want the uh, do you
want all this taken off, the numbers?
Davis: Well, can you get 'em ofl?
McCrory: Uh, I don't know whether they get 'em to where
they can take 'em off. If I was you, I would rather have it
with 'em just like it is.
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: Cause that's out of the, out of the factory. Uh,
you don't have to worry about it. They got to do a lot of
work on the front end of it. Take all that off, make a silencer
go on it.
Davis: Huh?
McCrory: They got to do a lot of work on the front end of it to
make a silencer go on it.
Davis: They have to modify this to-
McCrory: Oh, yeah.
Davis: Before that thing will go on there?
The next segment of the tape was to be used to allege that Mc-
Crory had told Cullen that he had rummaged around in the
underworld and arranged for the services of a professional
assassin who worked for Murder Incorporated. McCrory re-
ferred to his imaginary hit man as ''the man'' or ''the shooter.''
McCrory: Yeah. Uh, we got somewhat of a problem. The
man is here to put the judge away. Uh, he is ready, just
148
THE WIRED CANARY
found out that he was a judge and he wants a lot more fuck-
ing money. Uh, I just threw my hands up and said,
!. .. that's the most money you can get. And he said, "Well,
fuck you, that's a judge and it's gonna bring more heat."
Uh, I said, well, the money's, you know, there. But he
wants, uh, the son of a bitch wants $100,000 to uh-
Davis: Bullshit.
McCrory: Well, I told him bullshit, too, Cullen, but god-
damn, there's not anything I can do when it's in the fucking
paper every day. You know, he's on tv, he's in the paper,
uh, what else can I do?
Davis: [unintelligible; possibly, I don't know.]
McCrory: Well, now, Priscilla is a different story. Uh, that's,
you know, he'd rather do Priscilla than the judge. Uh, I
don't know. He says he can do it easy.
Davis: Huh, like hell.
McCrory: Well?
Davis: Priscilla's always got somebody around her; the judge
doesn't.
McCrory: The way ... you know the way we talked about
doing it he doesn't see that to be any problem. That
fucker's busted. This whole goddamned car's a fucking
... did you get to talk to Art?
Art Smith was the president of Air-Jet. It had been through
Cullen's intercession that McCrory had obtained employment
with the aircraft sales firm which Cullen had purchased a short
time before. McCrory was concerned that his frequent absences
from the job would make his boss suspicious.
Davis: Today? No.
McCrory: He's a hot son of a bitch at me.
Davis: [unintelligible]
McCrory: You're gonna have to alibi for me for the last two
days. You're gonna have to just tell him, you know, he was
workin' for me.
149
Davis: Why weren't you there?

McCrory: Well, you know, uh, I had shit that I had to get
done. You can't get this kind of shit done, Cullen, with uh,
havin' to be stuck under his fucking thumb twenty-four
hours a day. It's impossible. Now, wipe that son bitch, take
the clip out and wipe it down. You handled the clip too, so
wipe it down, too. Now, the, uh, does it make any dif-
ference to you what color the silencer is or you just want one
with a fucking silencer, period? ... the brown beret cap to
drop by the judge. Shit man, where do you find one of them
mother fuckers? If you're gonna blame it on the Brown
Berets, where do, where in the fuck do you find one of their
caps? There's not any.
Davis: Beats the shit out of me.
The Brown Berets is a Los Angeles-based organization of
Mexican-American political activists which has twenty-six
chapters in Texas. The local groups have a history of some
violence and subsequent involvement with Fort Worth courts.
Thus a brown beret-the cap is recognized as the insignia of
Brown Beret members-found near a dead Judge Eidson would
cast suspicion on Hispanics Eidson or other Fort Worth judges
might have dealt with harshly in court.
McCrory: Give me a price on Priscilla.
McCrory: He says he'd rather do Priscilla than the judge so if
you give me a price on, you know, Priscilla and I'll just, uh,
lay it in his lap, unless you want to talk to the mother
fucker.
Davis: Who's that?
McCrory: The shooter.
Davis: Well ....
McCrory: I think you'd be making, well fuck, you may not,
he may trust you more than he trusts me.
Davis: Now, you're supposed to be handling that.
150
THE WIRED CANARY
McCrory: Well, I can, fuck, I can understand your point. I

don't. I'm doing the very fucking best I can, Cullen. I have
had my hands tied in a lot of ways trying to do things. I
mean, I have busted my goddamn ass working for Art. I
have really busted my ass, uh.
Davis: You just can't keep being absent.
McCrory: Well, I know that.
Davis: Like that, uh, I can't fade* that, all that, and uh,
nothing happening here either. Nothing's, absolutely
nothing's happening. Go back to the original plan.
McCrory: What do you mean the original plan?
Davis: Uh, get the other one, you know, who we started this
out with.
McCrory: You mean Priscilla?
Davis: No.
McCrory: Oh, Bev?
Davis: Yeah, with-
McCrory: Boy, you gonna bring more fucking heat down on
you, Cullen, you have that son of a bitch killed. I promise
you, you gonna have heat. Well, you know what you're do-
ing. I'm sure you've thought it out. I'll do whatever you
want done, uh. You still want all three of them at once?
Davis: Do it either way, whatever, whatever's there.
McCrory: Well.
Davis: You know what's better.
McCrory: You know what's gonna happen, uh, is that fuck-
ing old man, uh, is gonna, he's gonna grab up his shotgun.
You know the son bitch is nutty as a fruitcake. Well, can
you handle this deal with Art, or what's, you know ... I
think ...
Following the taped insinuation that the "original" plan had
been to kill Beverly Bass and Gus Gavrel, the man McCrory
described as "nutty as a fruitcake" was Gus Gavrel's father.
• To fade, in Texas gambling jargon, is to cover a bet, especially in dice games.
151
Gus Gavrel, Sr., was indeed perceived in Fort Worth as a

strong-minded man who would not hesitate to grab up his
shotgun if seeking revenge. McCrory reiterated his concern
about his supervisor. He then spoke of obtaining narcotics,
which the prosecution later alleged Cullen wanted dropped at
the scene of Gus Gavrel's murder to give investigators the im-
pression the crime was drug-related. Cullen's remarks indicate
that he believed there would not be further prosecution for the
woundings of Priscilla and Gavrel and for Stan Farr' s murder.
The tape continued:
Davis: Art hasn't talked to me, uh.

McCrory: Well, I know but-
McCrory: When I talked to him, you know, the last two days,
uh, I told him that I was traveling for you. I was workin' for
you, do in' stuff for you and uh, that, uh, you told me you
would get in touch with him. He said, well, I was out all
day Wednesday so he probably, uh, he knew that I was
gone all day Wednesday, so-
Davis: You said two days, didn't you?
McCrory: Well, he was gone Wednesday, though. But see, I
was out of pocket, uh, Wednesday and Thursday both. I
mean I told you to begin with, that, you know, I had to
make trips, you know. The only place that I'm gonna be
able to get the goddamned dope, uh, I've gotta go to Mex-
ico and pick it up, uh, if we're going to redo her. Uh ...
you sure that's the one-
Davis: That's the one that makes sense to me right now due
to the ·current circumstances.
McCrory: What happened in that deal?
Davis: Just put off. They wanted it put off, so it's put off.
McCrory: All of a sudden-
Davis: Put off.
McCrory: Does it fuck you with them not lettin' them bring
everything up in trial, just no contest thing or what?
152
THE WIRED CANARY
Davis: Not particularly. Uh, just shorten it.

McCrory: That bitch.
Davis: Although I'm not really sure who got the better end
of the ... that judge's ruling.
McCrory: (laughs) I think they had to fuck theirself [sic] to
fuck you a little bit.
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: Okay.
Davis: I think they got the better end of the deal but I, it really
didn't matter.
McCrory: What if he does all three of those and just goes right
on? This is the reason, that's the reason I told you you may
want to talk to him. He, uh, wants his fucking money and
uh, he wants it immediately and then I don't have the
money to pay him, so-
Davis: Immediately?
McCrory: Just as soon as he gets the job done, he wants to
be paid.
Davis: Well, I will. ... He will be.
McCrory: Okay.
Davis: You just get in touch with me anytime afterwards that
you want to and it'll ...
McCrory: Well it's got to be immediately afterwards, that's
the problem 'cause I don't have the fucking money.
Davis: You just call me and it's, you got it.
McCrory: Okay, how are we gonna do that now, if he moves
tonight or tomorrow night on her, how do we, what do we
do? I mean how are we gonna get money exchanged? You
know how much fucking spying and everything I've done
on her already. I'm, you know, hot as a pistol as far as, I've
got to be out of the picture somewhat when she goes, uh,
down.
Davis: Well, you know when it's going to happen you can
always cover your, get yourself covered real good.
McCrory: Uh, when are you gonna be covered?
Davis: I'm, uh, I'm covered all the time.
153
McCrory: You're staying covered.

Davis: I'm staying covered. I'm not, I'm not taking any
chances. If I wasn't gonna be covered, I was going to let
you know. Anytime that I'm not gonna be, I'm going to let
you know. That's the way we're gonna work that deal, uh.
McCrory: Hey, now we're friends. You're not gonna do
something stupid with this fucking gun are you?
Davis: No, I'm gonna give it back to you right now.
McCrory: Well, I know but I'm talking about with the
silencer and all that shit.
Davis: No.
McCrory: I don't know what the fuck you want with the
silencer myself.
McCrory: Self-protection, my ass.
Davis: [unintelligible] ... I'm protecting myself. ...
McCrory: Yeah, okay, uh, what else ... are you gonna cover
me with Art?
Davis: Well, I will this time, but I can't keep, you know, you
can't just take off a day or two every week. It's not gonna
work.
McCrory: It's not every week but goddamn when it's
just like I told you before, when stuff comes up, uh.
Davis: Well, what did you tell him, exactly?
McCrory: I told him that I had to go out of town for you. I'd
been working-
Davis: Which days was that?
McCrory: That was Wednesday and Thursday.
Davis: Who were you shacked up with?
McCrory: None of your fucking business ... (bleep) ... Uh,
well, this man's good, Cullen, he's uh, supposedly one of
the best, and, uh ...
In the transcript printed in the press the expletives had been

denoted by ''bleep. '' In this instance, however, the bleep
154
THE WIRED CANARY
represented a sequence of dialogue deleted from the transcript.

Mter McCrory told Cullen it was none of his business whom
McCrory had been shacked up with, McCrory continued.
"Hell, I'm entitled to a little pussy too. No, nobody really, huh,
no I, shit, I, I tell you what I haven't had any. I don't even get
any at home, much less any strange pussy.'' Cullen responded:
"Shit." After this digression he returned to the subject of the
methodology of murder:
Davis: Well, you just, uh, whenever you need the money,
well, uh, whatever day that is, you just call.
McCrory: Okay, you definitely want her to go down before
the judge.
Davis: Yeah, I want-
McCrory: Why? I don't understand it.
Davis: Well.
McCrory: I mean I'll go along with whatever you say, but,
uh, what are you gonna do if the son bitch wants to do, you
know, they're awful close together. Uh, if he grabs that
judge up and puts him in his car, knocks him out and puts
him in his car and takes him off, uh, which is what he said
he'd do, uh, there's gonna be a helluva stink but not near as
much as if he left that son bitch bloody and bleeding in his
driveway. Or, walk in the house and have to blow up the
judge and his wife and anybody else that might happen to
be there.
Davis: Well, he's not gonna be wandering in there if there's
anybody else there. He's gonna, he'd know what he's doing
better'n that. Do the judge, then his wife and that'd be it.
McCrory: Yeah, but he ain't gonna leave any witnesses?
Davis: Or if he, or he might catch the judge, uh, coming in
the house or something like that.
McCrory: No, the judge goes out and remember, the judge
goes out and waters his, turns his fucking water off. That's
when he's gonna get him. Uh, but he doesn't want to leave
him there, he wants to hit him, uh.
155
Davis: What good's-

McCrory: Snatch him up and take him off.
Davis: What good's that gonna do?
McCrory: Well, it's, man, there's a lot of difference, a lot
of difference. Not near as much heat. Uh, you know they
can't prove much unless they find a body.
Davis: Well.
McCrory: You know that's what he's gonna do with her. If
it's her by herself.
Davis: Let's plan on gettin' all three of 'em over there.
McCrory: It's a hard son of a bitch, but, uh.
Davis: It's the best way.
McCrory: Oh, I know it is. Shit yeah, but if he does that, Cul-
len, he's got to, I don't know who all, man I have never
been able to figure out all that investigation shit, there's
always a bunch of fucking people at that house.
Davis: Uh.
McCrory: The only time he can do this is the daytime. He's
got to go in there in the daytime, or catch 'em in that, uh,
big motor home.
Davis: M-m-m.
McCrory: Now, he says he ... there's a possibility of blowing
up that motor home with butane ... with all of 'em. Let me
go talk to him and see what he wants to do, uh, and uh, I'll
call you in the morning.
Davis: Okay.
McCrory returned an apparent consideration of alibis, and
how he would signal Cullen so that Cullen would be aware when
the hired killer might strike, and arrange his whereabouts ac-
cordingly.
McCrory: And I'll just tell you, I'll tell you I'm going out of
town and that means, if I say I'm going out of town that
means that uh, he's going to work. Far as any more money,
I'll just tell him you can't do it. You got to do the job first,
right.
156
THE WIRED CANARY
Davis: Got to be on the same-

McCrory: All right, let's get the fuck out of here, I've got
things to do, people to see.
Davis: All right.
McCrory: You're looking better.
Davis: lfl'm-
McCrory: Been getting any sun?
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: Look like it.
Davis: Uh, remember you can, it's all right to tell Brenda that
you're going out of town-my secretary.
McCrory: Well, tomorrow morning, you'll be at home won't
you?
Davis: Uh.
McCrory: Saturday?
Davis; Oh, well yeah, in the morning.
McCrory: Okay, that's what I thought.
Davis: I'm talking about anytime that you have to call my
office-
McCrory: Well, when I call Karen-
Davis: But, not on weekends though.
McCrory: Hey, now are you planning on being shacked up
with any other gal anytime soon?
Davis: No.
McCrory: Like-
Davis: No, if I was I'd-
McGrory: What'd she do, run you off? The girl friend run
your ass off?
Davis: Hell, no. What girl friend? What girl friend?
McCrory: (laughs] Hey, you don't have to worry about me,
I'm not going to tell anybody.
Davis: Talk to you later.
McCrory: All right. Hey, if he works, if he goes to work, uh,
and gets her like tonight or tomorrow night, don't leave me
hanging 'cause that mother fucker will kill me, Cullen.
Davis: I've got it, it's-
157
McCrory: Okay,just don't leave me hanging.

Davis: I won't.
McCrory: All right.
Davis: Go back to plan, plan-
McCrory: Well, now, he may take a bunch of them off, that's
what I want to know.
Davis: Hm?
~fcCrory: He may take a bunch of them off at once. Uh, I
mean he's that kind of person and he may just waste the
shit out of a bunch of 'em and get a bunch of it over with at
once.
Davis: Well.
McCrory: If, all right now, all right.
Davis: That suits the shit out of me.
After telling Cullen that the shooter might get rid of a bunch
of people at one time, McCrory returned to the subject of
Priscilla as a victim.
McCrory: All right, now there is something I need to . . .
come here just a second. There's something I need to ask
you. How much money is he going to get if he gets Priscilla?
I mean you've got, man ... I've got to tell him something,
if you want the bitch dead then you got to tell me how much
it's, you know. I can't, uh ....
McCrory: I mean he says he can do 'em all you know, he says
shh, you know.
Davis: One at a time.
McCrory: I know, but tell me something.
Davis: Uh, I'll have to think on that one.
McCrory mentioned another candidate, Cullen's brother
William, who owned a resort home in New England.
McCrory: What, uh, you know Bill's in Connecticut?
Davis: Huh?
158.
THE WIRED CANARY
McCrory: You know Bill being up in Connecticut and every-

thing, she's not going to get any help from him. ·
Davis: My brother?
McCrory: Yeah, you see all those security guards, all those
security guards uh, that he was paying for are no longer
over there.
Davis: Yeah, I, I, I knew there weren't any around there
anymore.
McCrory: There's one at night.
Davis: Hm?
McCrory: There's one at night.
Davis: Every night?
Davis: Well.
McCrory: Fuck, don't you know, aren't you paying for him?
Davis: Huh?
McCrory: Aren't you paying for him?
Davis: Fortunately, that's one, one I'm not, one thing I'm not
paying for.
McCrory: Okay, well.
Davis: All right, go back to the original plan.
McCrory: Done.
Davis: Talk to you.
McCrory: All right.
It was here, McCrory was to testify, that he and Cullen parted

company. McCrory's final words came after a long pause, while
he watched Cullen drive away. The two words were spoken into
the microphone taped to his body for the benefit of the FBI:
"Mission completed."
Charles David McCrory was known as a romantic loser with a

reputation for telling tall stories and switching allegiances.
Hardly a creditable witness. But the twenty-three-minute tape
had two voices on it, and most of the people who knew Cullen
believed the second was his voice.
159
The day the tape was played, McCrory testified to fill in the
gaps. Cullen, grim, stared intently at his one-time "trusted
friend'' while McCrory recited the damning litany. Karen
Master, immaculately clad, sat not far from Cullen in the
crowded courtroom. McCrory outlined the sequence of events
which began, he said, when Cullen broached the idea that Mc-
Crory investigate Dee Wilborn and Gus Gavrel and ended when
Cullen decided he wanted fifteen people eradicated.
McCrory's marriage to Judy had dissolved but he and Cullen
had remained friends after McCrory remarried. Broke-"lsn't
everybody when they get divorced?''-McCrory and Cullen had
gotten drunk one night and Cullen became aware of his pal's
need of employment. In early June, Cullen telephoned and
asked McCrory to meet him on the parking lot at Coco's
Famous Hamburgers, saying he had a job for McCrory.
Cullen wanted, McCrory testified, to know the source of sup-
ply for drugs used by Beverly Bass and Gus Gavrel, and whether
Gus's father knew about it. He also wanted McCrory to check
out his suspicion that Priscilla's lawyers in the divorce case were
conniving with Judge Eidson. Cullen gave McCrory $5000 to
finance his investigation.
Prosecutor Tolly Wilson interrupted McCrory's testimony to
ask him if he had known the full extent of Cullen's wealth. The
witness said his newest wife had asked Cullen one evening why
he spent so much time in "crackerboard" houses such as the
McCrorys' modest dwelling.
"He replied that if he only talked to other rich people, the
only person he could talk to was Howard Hughes, and he was
dead.''
McCrory and Cullen planned clandestine meetings. The
signal for a meeting would be the use of an alias Cullen had
chosen for McCrory: FrankJohnson.
On June 12, some two and a half months before, Cullen had
arranged for McCrory to become the assistant to Art Smith,
president at Jet-Air. McCrory's attempts to unearth information
160
THE WIRED CANARY
about Beverly, Gus, and Priscilla's attorneys were fruitless.

Then: ''We started talking about the future proceedings against
him," McCrory said. "He wanted to know if I knew anyone
that could get rid of somebody for him, and what it would cost.
. . . He said Bev Bass was the only witness that the jury believed
in Amarillo. "
McCrory said he didn't think Cullen was serious until, later,
Cullen said he had thought about it and "decided to go ahead
and hire someone to kill Bev Bass. And I was to do the hiring.''
A threat from Cullen accompanied the assignment. "If you
cross me this time . . . I'll have you and your wife and your
whole damned family killed, and don't think I won't do it."
Cullen added, "I know some things you don't. She [Beverly]
has to die." Then despite his reservations about McCrory's
trustworthiness, "I have other people who could get it done, but
you're the only one I trust.''
The warm August courtroom was becoming stifling as Mc-
Crory continued his damning testimony. Most of the male spec-
tators and lawyers removed their coats. Cullen did not. He con-
tinued to stare at McCrory. The witness said he and Cullen had
discussed the expense involved in the murder not only of Beverly
Bass but of two other persons Cullen added to his list: Gus
Gavrel, Gus's father, and Judge Eidson. McCrory said,
''[Cullen] felt very, very sure that judge Eidson was going to try
to break him financially. . . . Judge Eidson was in cahoots
with-in bed with, as he said it-Priscilla's attorneys."
A week later, McCrory testified, he met Cullen again at
Coco's Famous Hamburgers and at that time Cullen said he
wanted a total of fifteen people killed. Augmenting his previous
hit list, Cullen ticked off the candidates: Judge Tom Cave,
W. T. Rufner, and his own brother William. "He didn't want
to tell me the names of the rest of them right then,'' McCrory
added. While the tapes had mentioned William, McCrory's
testimony was the first indication that Cullen had discussed the
disposal of his own brother.
161
McCrory dreamed up and henceforth employed the story that

he had been able to contact a hired killer out of a Kansas City
branch of Murder Incorporated. "I told [Cullen] it would cost
so much money that even he couldn't afford it." After remind-
ing McCrory that he would need to know in advance of any ac-
tion so that he would be covered with an alibi, Cullen said, "I'll
spend what it takes."
McCrory's testimony filled out the chronology of a series of
meetings with Cullen throughout the summer of 1978. In June,
McCrory said, Cullen gave him $50,000 in cash to be laundered
in Las Vegas so the bills would be untraceable. McCrory and his
wife had spent five days at the gambling tables of the Nevada
gambling city for that purpose, and the prosecutors presented
two airline tickets as evidence.
In July, McCrory claimed, Cullen had asked him to procure a
.22 pistol with a silencer. At that time and during other en-
counters Cullen also had some suggestions as to how the
murders could be carried out with a minimum risk of disclosure.
In one scenario he suggested that a sugar substitute of the white
powdery kind mixed with cocaine or heroin be left at the spot
where Beverly Bass was to be killed. Or, her body could be cut
up and the pieces scattered so the corpse could never be iden-
tified. Maybe Judge Eidson could be kidnapped while he was
watering his lawn. Then a brown beret and a Mexican-
American driver's license could be left wherever the body was
dumped to make the judge's death appear to be a political
assassination. And perhaps in William's case, a contrived scuba-
diving accident could be arranged while William was enjoying
his favorite sport at his summer home in New England.
By mid-August, Cullen had become disturbed that none of the
murders had actually occurred despite McCrory's assurances
that a hit man was stalking the victims. McCrory testified that
Cullen threatened again "to kill me and have my wife and
children slaughtered.''
On Thursday, August 17, McCrory said, he decided to con-
tact the FBI. The FBI agents decided that the case fell within
162
THE WIRED CANARY
federal jurisdiction-because of the kidnap threats againstJudge

Eidson and William Davis-and they instructed McCrory to ar-
r~nge another meeting with Cullen the next day. On Friday,
McCrory, wired for sound, met Cullen at Coco's. The recording
of that conversation resulted in the tape which had just been
played in the courtroom.
Before the end of that Tuesday's bond-hearing session the
prosecution played a second, brief tape. It was telephone conver-
sation which the FBI had recorded the previous Friday night.
Karen Master, in the courtroom, listened as the ring of the
telephone at her home was followed by a recording of her voice.
"Cullen's here," she had answered. "Hold onjust a moment."
The remainder of the conversation between McCrory and
Cullen involved the couple's plan to attend the Dallas Cowboys-
Houston Oilers football game on Saturday night. The conversa-
tion ended with McCrory saying, "Hang loose and stay
covered."
McCrory was a dubious witness, and his testimony could be
attacked. But how was Haynes going to explain those tapes with
Cullen's voice on them?
What about a defense based on temporary insanity? There
was considerable speculation that Haynes would have no other
option. Cullen dismissed the idea himself when speaking to
reporters before the tapes were played. There would be no in-
sanity plea, he said, and his attorneys did not contemplate a
psychiatric examination. Steve Sumner confirmed, cautiously,
that defense lawyers had no such plans "at this time."
After the devastating tapes had been played, Phil Burleson
reiterated that there was no basis for speculation that Cullen
would plead insanity. "We have found nothing," the Dallas
lawyer said, "to suggest that he is mentally unbalanced."
One observer, not quite so sure, quipped: "If Cullen doesn't
plead insanity now, he's crazy.''
The person, the past history, and the present credibility of

Charles David McCrory now became a matter of importance.
163
The facts which had come to light about McCrory's involve-

ment with Cullen and Priscilla since the murders on Mock-
ingbird Lane in August of 1976 were hazy. His role in the
developments of the next two years was confusing.
In 1976, McCrory and his then wife Judy had dined with
Priscilla Davis and Stan Farr the night before the murders. He
had been at the mansion after the shootings, mingling with
police officers and reporters. He had testified eight months later,
in April of 1977, at pretrial hearings and during Cullen's trial in
Fort Worth before Judge Cave had declared a mistrial.
Six days after the mistrial Richard Haynes requested that
Judge Cave grant Cullen freedom on bond. In support of the
motion, Cullen's defense team presented an "affidavit" pur-
portedly based on statements by McCrory which linked Priscilla
to drug use at the mansion, suggested that Priscilla had tried to
bribe McCrory to support her version of the shootings, and
discredited the testimony of Gus Gavrel, Jr. The "affidavit"
carried no legal weight-it was unsigned.
The same day McCrory disclaimed the statements attributed
to him. He told a Star- Telegram reporter that the "affidavit"
which supposedly reflected his views had been "written, edited,
rewritten, and reedited by Haynes, Cullen, and others.''
One week after repudiating the unsigned "affidavit"
presented to Judge Cave by Richard Haynes, McCrory signed
an affidavit which was legal-this time for the district attorney's
office. McCrory had abruptly switched his allegiance from
Cullen to Priscilla, with the newest affidavit contradicting the
previous one.
Further, McCrory's new prosecution affidavit hinted darkly
that Haynes as well as Cullen's other defense lawyers had tried
to bribe him. At a conclave at the Green Oaks Inn in Fort Worth
just before Haynes presented the original, unsigned "affidavit"
to Judge Cave, Cullen's attorneys had shown him the document
and asked him to sign it. "I told them I would not sign it," Mc-
Crory said, ''because it was not truthful.'' Then he added,
''Mr. Burleson suggested that I have another drink.''
164
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McCrory further swore, in the prosecution's affidavit, that

Haynes had noticed a ring McCrory was wearing, which looked
like a diamond.
''I told Mr. Haynes that evening that I wished the diamond
were real. Mr. Haynes said that he had confidence in me and
that some day it would be real. ''
Whatever the facts concerning the origin and validity of the
first, unsigned "affidavit," Judge Cave reacted strongly to the
manner in which Richard Haynes and Burleson attempted to
use it during the bond hearing after the Fort Worth mistrial. He
cited Haynes and Burleson for contempt of court-a charge
which could have led to fines or, theoretically, jail sentences.
Cave said that the two lawyers "knew at the time [the papers]
were filed that certain of the statements attributed to David Mc-
Crory were false and not true, yet [they] deliberately filed or
allowed it [the affidavit] to be filed with the other papers in the
official records of this case.''
As a part of the official records, the highly damaging allega-
tions about Priscilla's conduct became public knowledge. The
publicity was one of several developments which prompted
Judge Cave to rule that Cullen's subsequent trial be moved to
Amarillo. (The contempt charges against Haynes and Burleson
were not pursued on the grounds that in defending themselves
the lawyers would be forced to reveal information which could
be detrimental in Cullen's various civil cases.)
Despite McCrory's reluctance to verify scandalous stories
about Priscilla, Racehorse Haynes subpoenaed McCrory to
testify for the defense when Cullen's Amarillo trial began in
June of 1977. McCrory appeared in Judge Dowlen's chambers
during pretrial hearings, but invoked the Fifth Amendment
when asked about specific statements. Apparently this diminish-
ed his appeal as a defense witness and McCrory was not called to
the stand during the actual trail. McCrory said, "I think I've
about eliminated myself as a witness.'' And defense lawyer
Mike Gibson had remarked, "I think McCrory's just about
painted himself out of the picture.''
165
But now-one summer later, in August of 1978-McCrory

had painted himself back into the picture. He reappeared
dramatically, a central figure in the bizarre development which
stunned Fort Worth. Charles David McCrory was important
now; he was no longer a shadowy minor character. The drifter
who had failed consistently in business and in his private life
would now play a leading role in a major drama: the determina-
tion of whether or not T. Cullen Davis would become the richest
man in America ever to be tried for murder-twice!
But could McCrory carry off his new role? Could he be
trusted, whether commenting in a legal document or during
testimony under oath? Who would believe Charles David Mc-
Crory?
Some began to believe him on Wednesday, August 23, the
second day of Cullen's bond hearing in Fort Worth, when the
prosecution played a third tape recording. It was an encounter
between McCrory and Cullen which had taken place on Sunday
morning, August 20. Cullen believed a hit man from Kansas
City had been busy murderingjudgejoe Eidson.
The following is a transcript of a taped conversation placed

in evidence Wednesday in the bond hearing for T. Cullen
Davis.
I am a special agent, Joseph B. Gray, with the Federal Bureau

of Investigation, Dallas, Texas. It is August 20, 1978. The
time is 8:12A.M. I have just installed a Nagra tape recorder
on the person of David McCrory, and I have personally in-
spected that recorder previous to its installation and found
it to be in working order.
The introduction by the FBI man was in flat, matter-of-fact

tones. But then the unemotional voice of the federal agent was
followed by the recording of the meeting between McCrory and
Cullen the same Sunday morning at Coco's. The spectators
listening in the courtroom were mesmerized. The dialogue
166
THE WIRED CANARY
between Cullen and McCrory was agitated; the two men kept
interrupting each other; it was exciting real-life talk about
murder and mayhem. The radio from McCrory's car provided a
dramatic musical background for the macabre conversation:
Davis: Just paranoid.
McCrory: Goddamn!
Davis: Come on.
McCrory: I got some ... hey! I got something here. I've got
something here. I don't ... well.
Davis: Goddamn, you just won't let a body sleep, will you?
McCrory: Don't go anywhere. I gotta go. I got problems.
Davis: Dang, you keep-
McCrory: Uh, who do you want to go next? I never have
gotten ahold of him to change any plans. Uh, I've got more
fucking pressure on me right now than you can imagine.
Davis: Okay, what are you going to do with these?
McCrory: I'm going to get rid of the mother fuckers.
Davis: That's good. Glad to hear it.
McCrory: All right, who do you want next?
Davis: Uh, the ones we talked about ... the three-
McCrory: Bev, Bubba, all right.
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: All right. I gotta go.
Davis: Okay, uh ...just a minute.
McCrory: You going to get in the trunk?
Davis: Uh huh.
McCrory: I got something for you to put in the trunk.
Davis: Okay.
McCrory: I'm going to go ahead and get your stuff out.
Davis: Is this the place to do it?
McCrory: Yeah.
Davis: I believe I forgot my glasses.
McCrory: Your glasses?
Davis: My sunglasses.
McCrory: Is that it?
167
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: Wait, wait a second.
Davis: Mm huh.
McCrory: Wait just a second. I'm a scared mother fucker.
I don't mind telling you. When you kill a man like Judge
Eidson ... hey, there is going to be more heat caused than
you can imagine. Hold on, leave the trunk up. Come here.
Davis: Goddamn, pretty.
McCrory: Okay, now you got it, leave-
Davis: You got it. . .look at that mother fucker.
McCrory: All right, but leave it alone.
Davis: I will.
McCrory: Okay, I got to get out of here.
Davis: Bye.
McCrory: Now, you want,. you want Beverly Bass killed
next, quick, right?
Davis: Aaay, uh.
McCrory: Now, I don't want to make another mistake. You
sure?
Davis: Yeah.
McCrory: 'Cause he's going to operate again tonight.
Davis: Oh ... well-
McCrory: Hey, the man is good. He's the best I've ever
seen.
Davis: Just one problem. I haven't got the money lined up.
McCrory: How long will it take?
Davis: I'll try to get it this week. I can get it in two days.
McCrory: I don't know whether I can keep him here two
days or not, Cullen.
Davis: Uh, how far does he have to go? Halfway across the
country?
McCrory: He's out of... he's out of New Orleans ... he says.
Fuck, I don't know. That is just what he told me. All right,
I gotta go.
Davis: You talk to him and ask him how he would-
168
THE WIRED CANARY
McCrory: Thanks for not letting me down.

Davis: What?
McCrory: I'm trying to do you a good job.
Davis: Well, I'm wondering whether-
McCrory: Uh, I know you were, but I've done everything I
could. I've done everything humanly possible. Uh, but
man, for God's sake, I can't afford to be fucked up now
with jet-Air. I don't care if you got to tell Art, look, uh, uh,
I mean just do whatever is necessary.
Davis: All right, well just don't uh, give me too much
pressure.
McCrory: I'm not going to give you any more pressure than
I have to.
Davis: All right.
McCrory: All right. But call him and uh, straighten it out.
Davis: What's the deal? He hadn't called me.
McCrory: I know, but he's ... he will. I was off... I was out of
pocket. ..
Davis: He didn't fire you, did he?
McCrory: Wednesday and Thursday ... no, but he was talk-
ing like he was going to.
Davis: Well. .. I had told him ... I'll talk to him, but I'll ... I'll
have to tell you what I told him. I told him that, uh, treat
you like he would any other employee.
McCrory: Okay.
Davis: And, so don't give me too much pressure in that
regard. I can't say you are going to be gone a day or two
every week or so.
McCrory: Well, look, fucking murder business is a tough son
of a bitch.
Davis: You better-
McCrory: Now, you got me in this goddamn deal-
Davis: Give me-
McCrory: What?
Davis: Give me a little advance notice.
169
Then was heard on the clearly audible tape-the meeting was

also being photographed by the FBI men in the van-the ex-
change which was to be headlined, discussed, and debated:
McCrory: I got judge Eidson dead for you.
Davis: Good.
McCrory went on to query Cullen:
McCrory: I'll get the rest of them dead for you. You want a
bunch of people dead, right?
Davis: All right.
McCrory: Am I right?
Davis: All right, but!-
McCrory: Then-
Davis: You know I-
McCrory: Help me too, okay?
Davis: I've got to have an alibi ready for Art.
McCrory: Okay.
Davis: When the subject comes up.
McCrory: All right, I'll ...
Davis: So, give me some advance warning.
McCrory: I will. I gotta go.
Davis: Ask him about, does he want to leave and come back,
or do it and then wait three days for the money.
McCrory: He won't wait for money.
Davis: Well-
McCrory: Look, if he kills all three of those people, he's
going to walk.
Davis: Yeah. Well, I don't blame him but I just ... I've got to
get it, so-
McCrory: Okay, you talking about [inaudible] of...
Davis: Better to leave and come back ...
McCrory: You're talking about a [inaudible] ... yeah, you
talking about a lot of money. Figure it up, well, I'll talk to
you about it later. Okay? I, I don't ... got to get to him, right
now. Bye.
170
THE WIRED CANARY
[McCrory closed his car door and was departing]

McCrory: I have got the money. He has got the gun. I
have to drive to the front ... something so he won't get
suspicious right now.
This is Special Agent Joseph B. Gray of the FBI. The time
now is 9:03 A.M., August 20, 1978, and I am about to
remove the Nagra recorder from David McCrory that I in-
stalled earlier today.
The three national evening television news programs appear

simultaneously in Fort Worth at 5:30 in the afternoon and each
carried the T. Cullen Davis saga which almost instantaneously
had become a national, even international, story. World media
had briefly noted Cullen's acquittal in Amarillo but thereafter
the adventures of the Texas tycoon had faded quickly from
prominence. Interest was renewed when the telephone calls and
clandestine meetings with Charles David McCrory were re-
vealed by the FBI recordings. The scenario was more intriguing
than a fictional cops-and-robbers television script. The
newscasts had been on for only a few minutes on Wednesday,
August 23, when the telephone lines in the western section of
Fort Worth began to hum.
He'll stay £n the Cross-Bar Hotel now. Not euen Racehorse Haynes
w£ll he able to conu£nce a jury that those tapes and p£ctures are faked. Yes,
Cullen's go£ng to spend all h£s h£rthdays £n the slammerfrom now on!
Cullen was once again confined to Fort Worth's jail. When
arrested on Sunday he was wearing a pullover shirt and slacks;
now, on Wednesday, he was wearing prison garb. He was
billeted in a five-by-eight cell in the Tarrant County Criminal
Courts Building. The cell was equipped with a bed, lavatory,
and toilet. A mirror hung on one wall and a fluorescent bulb il-
luminated the space. Like all prisoners, the sheriff said, he
would be allowed to bring in a television set.
The stories of Cullen's comfortable accommodations in the
Potter County jail, where he was treated like an honored guest,
171
were recalled, and now the Fort Worth sheriff went to some
lengths to explain that was not to be the case this time.
At noon on Monday, August 21-the day after Cullen's ar-
rest-he lunched on the regular jail fare of fruit drink and bread,
lima beans, mashed potatoes, and chicken-fried steak.* "That's
better than I'm eating," the sheriff groused. He made it clear he
would bend no rules. The sheriff denied Cullen permission to
have catered meals delivered to his cell, as he had in Fort Worth
and in Amarillo. "If I permit things like that, it's a question of
where things are going to end. Some guy may start asking for
quail under glass. Everybody is going to eat the same here."
The sheriff reported that he had talked with Cuiien only once
since his second arrest. "I really didn't talk to him any. I just
said, 'Hello,' and he said, 'Hello.'" The sheriff added, "He
didn't show much expression. He never does openly show any
emotion. He was just like he always was.''
Cuiien was allowed to make telephone calls and to be visited
by his attorneys and business associates. Ironically, the sheriff's
rules would permit Cullen to have visits from his legal spouse,
Priscilla, whom he did not want to see. They would not allow
him to visit with Karen Master.
Karen remained loyal to Cullen. She was permitted to chat
with him during the first day of the bond hearing. She smiled as
Cullen entered the hearing room, which he acknowledged. Dur-
ing a recess she embraced Cullen and spoke to him briefly, try-
ing to encourage him. Later she told a reporter that she was
upset and depressed and, after reading a transcript of one of the
FBI -monitored meetings between Cullen and McCrory, she ad-
mitted that "Race will have a lot to work with." But Karen
recaiied that things had looked dismal before the acquittal in
•Chicken-fried steak is considered tasty but not fashionable in the wealthy sections of
Fort Worth, and is a delicacy in the southwest generally. It is usually beef, but can be
batter and breadcrumb portions of veal or pork. Massey's Restaurant in Fort Worth
boasts in advertisements that it serves the best chicken-fried steak in Tarrant County,
then adds ... "Probably the Universe!" Massey's also features "fries"-bull's testicles.
172
THE WIRED CANARY
Amarillo and promised to stand by Cullen in his newest predica-

ment.
Karen had been a credible witness in Amarillo, despite her
previous failure to mention to the grand jury that Cullen was
sleeping at her side when the murders occurred on Mockingbird
Lane. Her appearance as a lady had gone unchallenged.
Now the public learned more of Karen's life, past and
present.
A Star- Telegram reporter's exclusive interview with Karen was
splashed over the morning edition of the paper and then con-
tinued in the evening paper. There was a reproduction of a
painting featuring portraits of Cullen and Karen and their four
children, Cullen's two sons and Karen's two boys. There were
snaps from Karen's scrapbook: a baby picture at eight months;
on a pony as a child; and wearing a fireman's hat after winning
a trophy as Miss Flame at a firemen's beauty contest when she
was seventeen. A contemporary portrait, at twenty-nine,
demonstrated her ''flawless complexion and a Marilyn Monroe
kind of innocent look.''
Karen's conservative but designer-fashioned wardrobe was
described, and her beautifully coiffed hair. It was short; Karen
explained that it was naturally a light brown but had been
overbleached during a ski trip with Cullen and she had to crop it
when it became brittle. "I was afraid Cullen wouldn't like it
short, but he was lying here on the couch one day, and told me
he liked my hair short because it made me look like Mitzi
Gaynor."
There were other photographs of the good-looking woman
whom the reporter had managed to identify as resembling a film
star twice within the space of three paragraphs. There was a
photograph of Karen conversing in sign language with her deaf
son Chesley, seven years old, and two photographs of Karen and
her second handicapped son Trey, age nine.
"I would like a jury to hear what my son Trey has to say
about Cullen Davis,'' Karen told the interviewer, ''because
173
there isn't a jury in the world that would convict him after that.
He is the only father image my two have ever had-and if
Chesley could only talk. They worship the ground that Cullen
Davis walks on. Cullen has the patience of Job with Chesley."
The exclusive interview recounted that before Karen was born
her mother had worked for and known Stinky Davis. She was a
secretary for Mid-Continent Supply when she was pregnant
with Karen, who was born in Fort Worth in 1943. When she was
eight her father, Ray Hudson, and her mother separated. Karen
and her mother lived with Karen's grandparents after Hudson
moved west. Karen attended local high schools and sold shoes
after school at Thorn MeAn's. Offered a full-time position at the
shoe store, she worked days and attended night high school until
she graduated. During one period Karen held three jobs: days at
the shoe store, lunch hours at a boutique, and at a department
store at night.
Her relationships with her father and stepfather were equally
good. She visited Ray Hudson in Amarillo and at his ranch in
Arizona during her teen years. She called Hudson "Big Daddy"
and her stepfather ''Daddy.''
"Mother got out her old albums and there were photographs
of company picnics," Karen said, "with Cullen when he was fif-
teen or sixteen years old.''
Shortly after her eighteenth birthday Karen married Walter
Master. Their first son Trey was born while his father was
overseas. Three years later Chesley was born.
In 1971 the Masters were returning from Sunday services at
the Assembly of God Church. There was a head-on collision
with another car. Karen was seriously injured, suffering a frac-
tured skull, a broken jaw which caused temporary facial
paralysis, a burst eardrum, and an arm fractured in three
places. She was in the hospital five weeks before she learned of
the severity of her sons' injuries. Trey, age four, would have
brain surgery ten times and be required to wear a shunt-a tube
which relieved pressure on his brain by drawing accumulated
174
THE WIRED CANARY
fluids away from the cranium to his stomach. Chesley, four

months old, was so battered in the accident that he was brain-
injured and became deaf, epileptic, and hyperactive. Seven
years later he was still attending special classes for the multiply
handicapped.
Walter Master and Karen were divorced eighteen months
after the accident.
Karen attended Texas Christian University to learn every-
thing she could about caring for handicapped children. The
schedule of school and part-time work was so demanding that
she compromised by auditing courses at the university when her
father, Ray Hudson, began to provide some financial assistance.
She augmented this income by working as a "Kelly girl" and
occasionally at the First National Bank. Karen taught some
classes at the Speech and Hearing Clinic.
A young woman in the office of a brain surgeon who had
operated on Trey arranged a blind date for Karen with Cullen
Davis in late 197 4, a few months after he had been separated
from Priscilla. Cullen had been dubious, believing at first that
he was being paired up with the sister of his former wife Sandra,
whose name as irony would have it was Karen Masters. That
misconception disposed of, Karen and Cullen began to see each
other frequently.
Karen said that she had no idea who Cullen Davis was when
she first began to go with him. When her mother asked her
about her new beau, Karen told the Star- Telegram reporter, she
replied that "He and his brother have some kind of little parts
business. ''
"Karen, sit down," her mother said. "I have something to
tell you.''
''That was the first time I knew Cullen was a wealthy man,''
Karen averred. ''Now at family get-togethers Mother and
Cullen talk business and old times at Mid-Continent.''
Karen described life with Cullen after he moved into her
home in 197 5. She loved to cook and prepared most of the
175
meals. The family had breakfast together each morning. She

drove in the car pool to the boys' schools, and Cullen went to his
office. During the day Karen was a volunteer worker with the
local chapter of the Texas Association for the Deaf, and she was
elected state president of the organization in 1978. She attended
dance or exercise sessions. She made it a point to be at home at
4:30P.M. to prepare the evening meal so that it would be ready
when Cullen arrived from the office, usually at 6:30 or 7:00P.M.
On Sunday, Karen worshipped at the Trinity Episcopal Church
where Trey was an acolyte. ''The Episcopal church teaches the
love of Christ," Karen said, "and its teachings have met my
needs better than any other-but I have attended other beautiful
churches and taught Sunday School in some of them."
In the evenings Cullen and Karen would "eat and watch
television. Or we go to the movies. Cullen is a great movie buff.
We have seen every movie in town-except the X-rated movies.
Contrary to those stories, he doesn't want to see the X-rated
shows.''
In addition to her increased concern for Cullen after his sec-
ond arrest, Karen expressed another apprehension. "The only
fear I have for my children is that their father will try to take
them away from me again.'' Walter Master had taken the boys
after Cullen's Amarillo trial. They returned to Karen's custody
after a court hearing.
Karen said she found it impossible to believe that Cullen
could be guilty of the allegations in Amarillo and the new
charges against him now. "I believe in his innocence," she said.
"So does everyone else in my family. It's beyond our com-
prehension how this thing can happen. When a man can take on
responsibility for two handicapped children-especially a deaf
child-work with them, and have the patience of Job, it's heart-
breaking to have someone think he would even think of killing a
child-much less be capable of any kind of a crime.''
The newspaper interviews revealed that Karen had never
been inside the mansion on Mockingbird Lane, and that she was
not sure she would want to live there. "I would be foolish to say
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THE WIRED CANARY
that material things don't matter, but Cullen and the boys and I
have a beautiful family life, and I wouldn't trade that for any
material thing. If Cullen decided he wanted to live in that house,
as long as I could take the love shared with the children and
Cullen it would be okay with me.''
Meanwhile, Karen concluded, she was confident she and
Cullen and the children would someday lead a normal life in
Fort Worth.
"I'll keep my mind busy now," Karen said. "I don't intend
to let those deaf children down. ''
Priscilla Davis was asked by a journalist to comment on
Karen Master's remarks about her sons. Priscilla contended that
Karen was "jeopardizing their lives" by living with Cullen, and
intimated that Karen must be aware of that. "She knows the
truth about Cullen and Amarillo," she said. "He got away with
murder. And he thought he could do it again. Cullen Davis
thinks differently from other people. Anytime he does something
and gets away with it, he'll try again.''
Describing her reaction to Cullen's arrest, Priscilla said she
intended to keep a low profile: "I don't want them to say, 'if it
hadn't been for Priscilla.... ' '' But her desire for a low profile
didn't keep Priscilla from reiterating her accusations against
Cullen. She said she felt he had become convinced he could "get
away with murder on a big scale after his attorneys pulled the
wool over the eyes of the jury in Amarillo.'' She added that she
knew he was capable of cold-blooded murder ''since he marched
Andrea down to the basement, looked into the eyes of that little
child, and shot her in cold blood. Anybody capable of that is
capable of anything .... I thought until the end the jury would
see through the garbage thrown up by Cullen's attorneys ... all
that garbage about drugs and sex and everything they used in an
attempt to discredit me and divert attention from the main
issue."
Priscilla admitted that she had been concerned about her per-
sonal safety long before being advised that her name was on
Cullen's hit list. She said that she maintained a security squad at
177
the mansion; William Davis, Cullen's brother, had paid for the
guards at first, and now she did.
Priscilla was asked if she thought Cullen was insane.
"Well, they say there is a very thin line. Has he crossed
over?" Priscilla reflected. "I can't say."
A newsman asked Jack Wilborn for his reaction to the latest
development in the case of the man who had been acquitted for
the murder of Wilborn's daughter Andrea. Wilborn recalled his
frustration at the Amarillo trial. "It was strange to me that, as
many witnesses as they had to testify for him, not one was from
the restaurant or the movie [where Davis claimed he was the
night of the murders]. There was not one single person who cor-
roborated that he was at the restaurant or the movie; not a
customer or employee of either establishment testified that he
was at either place .... The true character of Davis was never
allowed to be established at that trial. . . . His whole history is
one of vindictiveness and the beating of women and children.''
Wilborn expressed surprise that his name was not among
those on Cullen's hit list. He said that Cullen had threatened
eight years previously "to have me fixed so I would never walk
again.''
Wilborn provided his psychological assessment of Cullen's
character. "He is like a child. He wants everything and if
something doesn't go his way, he goes wild .... I think he feels
he is above being trapped. . . . He thinks he can do what he
wants to .... He believes money is the answer to everything. I
have felt all along that all of this has been over money. . . . He
worships money. The first remark he ever made to -me was
'You're not getting any of my money.' ... I think the divorce
situation began getting into his money, [and] that triggered the
whole thing.''
''The divorce situation'' had become involved and messy dur-

ing the four years (since 1974) Cullen and Priscilla had been
separated; Cullen's latest detention made it even more com-
plicated.
178
THE WIRED CANARY
· During the extended haranguing between Cullen's lawyers

and Priscilla's, Judge Eidson had directed each party to for-
mulate and deliver to him the settlement position it believed fair.
Division of property was the issue, with ownership of the man-
sion on Mockingbird Lane a major bone of contention. That
property Cullen insisted on retaining. As for money, Ronald
Aultman, Priscilla's attorney, proposed that Priscilla should
receive alimony of $5000 per month-the temporary support sti-
pend she was then receiving-for twenty years. That would total
$1.2 million over two decades, but Priscilla declared it was not
reasonable. Further, Cullen's long-term offer was based on the
proviso that the payments would continue only so long as
Priscilla was alive. Priscilla and her attorneys saw this stipula-
tion in an ominous light, especially after McCrory's testimony
that Cullen wanted Priscilla dead.
The Texas Family Code calls for a fair and equal distribution
of property in divorce settlements. But the Priscilla-Cullen case
had as an added consideration the premarital agreement
Priscilla signed waiving future benefits from any of Cullen's in-
herited wealth or the profits from KenDavis Industries Interna-
tional. Priscilla continued to insist that the document was a
fraud, perpetrated when Cullen insisted she sign the agreement
without explaining accurately its conditions.
As the top figure on Cullen's hit list, Judge joe Eidson's posi-
tion in the divorce was tenuous. The judge had the sole respon-
sibility of deciding if he should remove himself from the pro-
ceedings. Cullen's attorneys insisted that he do so. Priscilla's
lawyers believed he should remain on the bench.
Could Judge Eidson be impartial despite the fact that Cullen
was presently facing indictment for hiring a murderer to kill
him?
The Star- Telegram reviewed Eidson's four-year record of deci-
sions in the convoluted case. The survey showed that in fact
most of the judge's rulings had favored Cullen. He had released
Cullen from the obligation of paying for Priscilla's nurses while
she recuperated after being wounded at the mansion. Eidson
179
had ruled that Cullen did not have to pay for the security detail
at Priscilla's home. He had agreed that the murders at the man-
sion were not to be mentioned at the divorce trial. Further, he
had permitted Cullen to expend monies destined for Priscilla's
support in the payment of taxes instead; had allowed Cullen to
sell a uranium lease to raise cash; and he had permitted Cullen
to pay additional taxes with money held in escrow pending the
outcome of the divorce. Eidson had denied Priscilla's request
that Cullen's brother Ken be a party to the divorce suit; he had
refused her request to keep secret a deposition made in the case
and, again, had ruled that Cullen could borrow money for cur-
rent expenses. Of the nine rulings, the one prohibiting mention
of the murders on Mockingbird Lane during the divorce trial
was the one which most offended Priscilla's lawyers. As in the
Amarillo trial, they felt, there would be no opportunity to im-
pugn Cullen's character.
Judge Eidson had ruled in favor of Priscilla in ordering Cullen
to increase temporary alimony payments, in agreeing several
times to a delay in the divorce proceedings, and in refusing to
allow Cullen to sell a particular block of stock coveted by
Priscilla. He had also issued a temporary restraining order
which prevented Cullen from visiting the mansion.
Priscilla's lawyers wanted Eidson to stay on, contending that
Cullen's attorneys had the attitude: "We don't have this judge
in our pocket, so let's shop elsewhere." Another observer claim-
ed that Eidson should remain on the bench. "Otherwise, any
man who doesn't like a judge can go out and threaten his life and
get a new judge.''
Cullen's attorneys were insistent that Eidson step down. They
were also adamantly opposed to further delays. Another delay,
said one, "would be an utter disgrace and the severest blow I
can imagine to the integrity of the judicial system in this
country."
Some Fort Worth citizens who thought Cullen guilty believed
Judge Eidson shared some blame-Cullen would not have been
driven to his desperate acts if the divorce proceedings had been
180
THE WIRED CANARY
briefer. Others, whatever their feeling about Cullen's guilt or in-

nocence, did not approve of Eidson's posing for a fake
photograph for the FBI. It was beneath a judge's dignity, they
said, to stoop so low as to crawl into the trunk of a car.
Judge Tom Cave had also been involved with Cullen's misfor-
tunes and had been on Cullen's list. Armor-plate was installed
behind the wood panels of his podium soon after Cullen's arrest.
Henceforth Cave would preside from behind a bulletproof
bench.
In Cullen's cell in the county jail a pipe leaked, dripping

water onto his white prison coveralls. Cullen was then moved
from his isolation cell to quarters shared with another prisoner.
There had been glimpses of Cullen during the bond hearings,
but the public had nothing in the way of a current assessment of
him. An enterprising reporter from the Fort Worth bureau of the
Dallas Morning News mailed a letter to Cullen's cell mate, asking
that he respond to a series of written questions.
"I don't know why I was chosen to share a cell with Cullen,"
the man wrote, "other than perhaps somebody noticed we have
similar educational backgrounds.'' The prisoner was a forty-
one-year-old college graduate with a degree in English; he was
serving a one-year sentence for possession of a forged check.
"We get along very well," Cullen's cell mate wrote. "He is a
quiet, reserved, and intellectual man, and I never once saw him
become upset with anyone .... Cullen is a congenial man, and
not in the least arrogant. I have known people, in the past, who
were well off and let you know it immediately. Cullen is not one
of these. He is very unpretentious and impressed me as a man
who liked to have fun. He laughs a lot ... we laughed a lot
together. ''
The correspondent said that Cullen denied all the charges that
had been made against him.
During the eleven days they spent together the prisoner said he
and Cullen played quiz games about authors, movies, and capi-
tals. "I beat hin1 on the states but he blitzed n1e on foreign
181
capitals." They played chess and checkers some fifty times.

Cullen won nearly every game. "He has a very acute and
perceptive mind, and is an excellent tactician .... He gets along
well with the other inmates and myself as well. He is an avid
Cowboy fan and was disappointed when Los Angeles beat
them.''
Cullen Davis, the imprisoned football fan, waited out August,

for him the cruelest month. It was in August of 1968 that he had
married Priscilla, an act he later described as the worst mistake
of his life. August 1976 he was arrested after the murders in the
mansion. He was languishing in the Potter County jail in
Amarillo in August 1977. And this August, in 1978, found him
again in jail-while Haynes and his legal team were attempting
to persuade visiting Judge Tipps that Cullen should be free dur-
ing his bond hearings and the grand jury deliberations.
In a current August edition of the Fort Worth Star- Telegram
Glen Guzzo reported an intriguing story. Two months before
the shootings at the mansion in 1976, Priscilla had reported to
police that she was missing some personal items after a burglary.
A few days later two young boys playing on the banks of the
nearby Trinity River had found a Colt .45 automatic equipped
with a silencer. The boys turned the gun over to the Tarrant
County sheriff. It had been recently cleaned, inside and out, and
had no fingerprints on it. The sheriff ordered a trace to be run on
the weapon to determine its owner.
While awaiting the results of the trace, the sheriff had been
approached by one Roy Rimmer, Jr. Rimmer had reported a
robbery at his home in 1972. Now, he told the sheriff, he
understood that a weapon similar to the one stolen from his
home four years before had been recovered. A check revealed
that, in an inventory of missing items at the time his house had
been burgled, Rimmer had reported the loss of seven
weapons-but not a .45 automatic with a silencer. "We just
missed it, apparently," Rimmer explained, "in listing all of the
182
THE WIRED CANARY
stuff that was stolen.'' In any event, Rimmer decided the gun in
the sheriff's possession was not his.
Then the results of the sheriff's trace came back: the owner of
the handgun was one Roy Rimmer, Jr. A prisoner in Huntsville
was interrogated. He admitted to the robbery at Rimmer's
home, but denied taking a Colt .45.
Rimmer, it turned out, was a friend of Cullen. During the
Davis divorce hearings he was called to court. The subject of the
illegally equipped handgun found near the mansion arose. On
the advice of his attorney, Rimmer refused to answer questions
about the silencer. But he did tell Priscilla's lawyers that he
owed Cullen several million dollars in business debts.
It was strange-so many rich people with so many guns.*
Cullen's cruel month of August passed, but the beginning of
September was no better for him. On the first day of the
month-after seven days of testimony and eleven witnesses-
Judge Arthur Tipps denied the motion for Cullen's bond.
Cullen turned to Racehorse Haynes and asked, "What's next?"
What was next, a week later, was a grand jury indictment of
Cullen on two felony counts: soliciting the capital murder of
Judge Eidson, and possessing an illegal silencer. The first indict-
ment was in four parts, allowing a trial jury four possible
findings if Cullen should be convicted. The maximum sentence
a jury could hand down was identical for all four options: each
was punishable by life imprisonment or five to ninety-nine years
in prison. The second indictment, that of owning a silencer-
equipped .22 Ruger pistol, could bring two to twenty years, or a
fine of$10,000, or both.
Judge Eidson, certain to be called as a witness in Cullen's
murder trial, stepped down as arbiter in the divorce case.
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183
Retiredjudgejohn Barron was brought in from nearby Bryan,

Texas, to replace Eidson. Barron rescheduled the divorce trial
first for November 6, then later for December 4. A jury would
resolve the matter; in Texas, litigants in divorce contests may re-
quest a jury trial when custody of a minor child is not an issue,
and Cullen wanted a jury. Perhaps he had been persuaded by
now that Texas jurors, properly selected, were inclined to be a
bit less concerned with legal technicalities and less stuffy about
evidence-as well as less strictly accountable for their actions
and decisions-than judges tended to be.
Depositions were still being taken and hearings conducted in
the divorce proceedings. Each new revelation concerning the
squabbles and sexual adventures of Cullen and Priscilla set off a
new round of clucking amongst more staid Fort Worthians.
In a sworn statement, just before Cullen's most recent arrest,
Priscilla contended that her marriage to Cullen had broken up
because he was an adulterer and wife beater. She identified the
women she claimed had been Cullen's lovers, one of whom was
a woman who traded sex for Cullen's badge permitting entry in-
to the Colonial Country Club golf tournament. Priscilla swore
these liaisons had occurred before their separation, and that
Cullen had boasted of them to her.
On the other hand, Priscilla vowed that she had not enjoyed
extramarital sex until after the separation. She admitted that W.
T. Rufner had been her first lover. During the hearing concern-
ing Priscilla's deposition one of Cullen's civil lawyers, Cecil
Muon, put a number of questions to her about nudity with ob-
vious reference to W. T. Rufner and the picturesque photograph
introduced as evidence in Cullen's Amarillo trial.
"Prior to separation," Munn asked, "were you ever in a cir-
cumstance where other men were nude in your presence?"
''Not to my recollection,'' Priscilla said.
''Virtually nude?''
Priscilla asked for clarification: ''Swimsuits?''
"Or Christmas stocking?" Muon prodded.
184
THE WIRED CANARY
"I don't remember that at all," Priscilla said.

"You don't remember what, Mrs. Davis?"
"What you suggested," Priscilla said.
"Obviously," Munn stated, "you're alluding to a photo-
graph of your friend, W. T. Rufner, taken in the nude with the
exception of a Christmas stocking over his genitals, in which you
appeared, are you not?"
The spicy exchange ended when Priscilla's lawyer, Ronald
Aultman, instructed his client to refuse to answer such
questions.
Priscilla had testified earlier about Cullen's vile temper and
the frequency with which he had pummeled her about the face
and shoulders. She expanded her list of complaints. "He beat
me up and broke my nose." She described a lively frolic in the
snow at Aspen when Cullen ''all of a sudden ... just went ham
and busted my lip.'' Then there was the night Cullen was in a
foul mood because the waiter at the Carriage House restaurant
had served the wrong kind of rolls. Once home, the enraged
Cullen had pushed her down a flight of stairs. On another occa-
sion Cullen ''got mad at me and he threw his pudding on me.''
And Priscilla once again described the now famous incident
after the Steeplechase Ball when Cullen couldn't find his keys.
"Cullen took the board and threw it down in the mud and
everything. I was down trying to pick them up." Then Cullen
had cursed her. The parking lot attendant had said, ''You better
go, lady, before he beats you up.''
Priscilla was asked about her past job experience. She said she
had been ''a job counselor for an employment agency'' before
she and Cullen were married. Before that, in Houston, she had
worked in the mail room of the Gulf Oil Corporation and, for a
while, in the Montgomery Ward "servicing department."
"Have you ever rendered a service of any other kind," she
was asked, "at any time for money?"
Priscilla arched an eyebrow. "Basically," she replied, "I've
been a housewife.''
185
The telephone lines buzzed in the golden ghettos of Fort

Worth. Isn't it juicy? People will pay attention to Fort Worth now-did
you see both Time and Newsweek had full-page stories last week? You
can forget Dallas! Cullen and Priscilla are becoming folk figures like
Frankie and Johnny. Have you heard the song they're singing down in
Granbury?•
Priscilla seemed to relish the notoriety from within her sanc-
tuary at 4200 Mockingbird Lane. Cullen wasn't averse to
publicity either. He sent a message, indirectly, to his high school
classmate, Thomas Thompson, author of Blood and Money. He
hoped Thompson would write the first book about T. Cullen
Davis. Thompson did not grasp the opportunity, explaining
later to another writer that he had already written his Texas
Gothic.
There were some in Fort Worth who were seriously concerned
about Cullen's upcoming trial, recognizing it as an event of im-
port. There was spirited discussion about his chances of acquit-
tal or a mistrial, and what either would mean to the large
number of people who had been involved, one way or another,
in Cullen's life. The circulation of the morning and evening Star-
Telegram increased dramatically. Fort Worth's major radio sta-
tion reported on Cullen's situation almost hourly. t
Fort Worth lawyers attempted to anticipate the strategy

Richard Haynes would employ in defending Cullen in his sec-
ond trial. Most assumed that Haynes would claim Cullen was a
victim of a conspiracy, and that Cullen had been framed by
three persons-not an unrealistic assumption considering the
testimony during the bond hearings which revealed that a series
of meetings had recently taken place between Priscilla and Pat
• "Priscilla's Place" was being sung in soft-shoe tempo by a male trio at "4 Doors
Down" in the nearby town of Granbury.
f Most radio stations use music or chimes to signal program breaks. For decades
WBAP used a clanking cowbell-and still does in early morning programs-in
deference to inhabitants who refer affectionately to Fort Worth as "Cow Town."
WBAP compromises neatly to suit musical tastes: Every other hour is devoted to solid
country music.
186
THE WIRED CANARY
Burleson, the karate-studio franchiser. When McCrory had

decided that he must inform the FBI about Cullen's murder-for-
hire plan, he asked Burleson for advice. Burleson had suggested
that McCrory tell his story to an FBI agent who had taken karate
lessons from Burleson and, thereupon, arranged the meeting.
Burleson, as it turned out, was meeting Priscilla frequently dur-
ing this period; he had been at the mansion at the very time
Cullen was being arrested on the latest charge. That was a
suspicious series of circumstances Haynes would certainly
exploit.
Another recent development was considered by the local
lawyers as a plus for the prosecution. Tim Curry announced that
because of the press of official business in the DA' s office, he
would be unable to travel from Fort Worth to act as chief pros-
ecutor at the upcoming trial. But a new assistant prosecutor in
his office would go. Jerry Buckner was the only lawyer in Fort
Worth who had ever won a courtroom battle with Racehorse
Haynes. After Cullen's Amarillo trial and before Cullen's most
recent arrest, Haynes had defended Sylvia Meek, a Fort Worth
private investigator, on the charge that she had shot and killed a
business competitor during a squabble over ownership of a lie
detector. Buckner plea bargained, offering a ten-year probated
sentence. Haynes did not accept that, and the case went to trial.
Sylvia Meek was convicted, and the jury recommended a ten-
year probated sentence. It was the only time during 1978 in Fort
Worth that someone found guilty of murder did not serve time.
Ms. Meek had been one of Haynes's witnesses in Cullen's
Amarillo trial. Although she lost her own case, she was fortunate
to have had a defense lawyer of such renown accept her rela-
tively minor case, and to have avoided prison.
The issue of a fair trial for Cullen arose. The decision was in
the hands of Judge Tipps, the out-of-town judge who had pre-
sided over the bond hearing.
Before Cullen's Amarillo trial, Glen Guzzo, the Star- Telegram
reporter, had been called as a witness during the change of
venue deliberations. Guzzo was called again to testify about the
187
extent of publicity surrounding Cullen's latest situation. ''It's my

opinion ... that you cannot select twelve jurors in Tarrant County
who can be fair and impartial.'' Guzzo said he had talked with
hundreds of Fort Worth residents in recent months and found a
large majority still convinced that Cullen was innocent.
Then, suddenly, the chances of convicting Cullen anywhere
diminished. Jerry Buckner, the only attorney in Fort Worth ever
to have convicted a Haynes client in a Fort Worth courtroom,
abruptly resigned from the district attorney's office to enter
private practice, explaining that an uncle had offered him a
lucrative partnership. Some thought it strange that a young at-
torney should retreat from the scene on the eve of a trial which
could have made him famous.
Judge Tipps pondered the change of venue during the third
week of September; a number of Texas cities were mentioned as
potential trial sites-Austin, Corpus Christi, Abilene, and Lub-
bock. Probably, however, Tipps would select one of the larger
cities because it would have commodious courtrooms and travel
accommodations for visiting lawyers and news people. San An-
tonio, perhaps. Or Houston.
On September 21, Racehorse Haynes and Cullen waited for
Judge Tipps to decree where Cullen's next trial would be held.
''If it's Houston,'' Haynes said, ''I 'II be smirking.'' Haynes
was alluding to the irony of the possible selection of that city
where he lived and worked and had many friends in legal circles,
both on and off the bench.
Moments later Judge Tipps announced that he had selected
Houston.
Glen Guzzo anticipated a long beat out of town covering what
had now become known among members of the press as Cu1len
II. Glen called Houston for a telephone interview with Wallace
C. Moore, the Harris County district judge whom Tipps had
appointed to preside at the trial.
Judge Moore admitted that he knew little about Cu1len's case,
but he did describe himself as a close personal friend of Race-
horse Haynes.
188
·11·
THE OLD JUDGE AND
THE JOURNALIST
"So now,, the old Judge said, "your publishers find the
T. Cullen Davis book to be worth the candle?"
The journalist and the Judge were at the halfway mark in an
early morning hike around the Rivercrest golf course. The jour-
nalist was in Fort Worth gathering additional material about the
Davis family. He had joined the Judge several times for the
morning rounds.
"How's the book coming, son?" The Judge bent down with
cupped hands at the drinking fountain at the sixth tee while his
dog lapped water from them.
"It's not easy," the journalist said, "to resist the temptation
of turning a book about Cullen into one about Fort Worth."
Returning home after three decades, the journalist was only
beginning to appreciate what kind of town Fort Worth was and
is now. The affiuent mini-culture represented by the huge man-
sions bordering the golf links was worth a book in itself. It would
be intriguing to identify and describe the elusive line which
divided the old from the new and the East from the West. The
Amon Carter Museum with its fine Remingtons, for instance,
next to the Kimbell Art Museum with its superb collection of
European masterpieces.
The Judge agreed. "Now certainly this hat," he said,
touching the brim of his Stetson, "is a symbol of the West. Do
you know where Stetson hats were first manufactured, son?"
The journalist didn't know.
"In Philadelphia," the Judge said. Then he commented on
189
old wealth and new riches in the local society. ''Fort Worth is
really a small town and, where it matters, a closed corporation in
social terms. If you want to get lost in a big city where social
mobility prevails, move over to Dallas or down to Houston.
Around here, son, money can get you so far and no further-at
least until it has been sanctified by several generations of respon-
sible, if not reasonably genteel, conduct on the part of the fami-
ly. There aren't many places like Fort Worth left to provide peo-
ple with an understanding of this type of vanishing society. And,
since they built that big airport between here and Dallas, Fort
Worth as we knew it may not be around that much longer.
Maybe its time passed long ago and we just didn't know it. But
imagine living in a'' -the Judge mouthed the offensive word
with distaste- ''Metroplex!''
The journalist told the Judge of a problem: he was finding
that most people who knew or were associated with Cullen re-
fused to talk about him. They were reticent because, in his judg-
ment, they were frightened. He told the judge about entering a
commercial photography shop in Fort Worth with a copy of the
1951 Arlington Heights High School yearbook. He asked that
Cullen's class picture be reproduced. The clerk looked down and
saw the name Cullen Davis under the boy's photograph. The
clerk closed the yearbook, gave it back to the journalist, and
moved his head from side to side negatively. The clerk said
nothing; he just kept shaking his head. He didn't want to be on
Cullen's list.
The judge chuckled.
People who had known Priscilla talked freely about her.
Those who agreed to an interview about Cullen requested
anonymity and asked that nothing appear in the book which
could be traced back to them.
The Judge's chuckles turned into hearty laughter. He put his
hand on the journalist's shoulder. ''Son, you have a problem
you're not aware of in interviewing people. The word is getting
around town that you're not really writing a book.''
The journalist didn't understand.
190
"People are saying you can't be writing a book, because you

don't take notes when they talk to you.''
"That's true," the journalist said. "That comes from my in-
telligence experience, when I found that taking notes inhibited
people I was questioning. Then, and now, I've always jotted
down notes after an interview. If I'm not writing a book, what
does everyone think I'm doing?''
"That is what amuses me," the Judge said. "They think
you're an investigator working for Racehorse Haynes!"
The journalist was genuinely surprised and expressed skep-
ticism, but the Judge insisted it was true.
''Well, Mr. Investigator,'' the Judge asked, as they continued
their walk, ''what have you learned?''
The journalist said he had learned that the Judge had been cor-
rect when he theorized that Stinky Davis had had a profound ef-
fect on his sons, especially in training them to appreciate money
and to keep a firm grasp on property. Curiously, however, Stinky
told his sons little of his Pennsylvania past. When Stinky died the
medical information about his death was recorded by the physi-
cian, but his family background, according to the death cer-
tificate, was provided by Cullen. In the space requesting his
mother's maiden name, the notation was ''Unknown.''
"Is it true," the Judge asked, "that Cullen married Priscilla
the day his father died because the first son to marry after
Stinky's death was to inherit the house?"
The story was not true. Cullen and Priscilla had applied for
their marriage license two days before Stinky's heart attack.
Stinky's will divided his money and property equally between
his three sons. It was true that Cullen and Priscilla were married
on the day of Stinky's death. He died a few minutes before four
in the afternoon, and they went on with evening wedding plans
because everything had been arranged. The journalist shrugged.
Perhaps that was understandable.
"Understandable perhaps," the Judge grunted. "But it does
seem to me to be . . . " the Judge paused, seeking the word.
Then he finished: ''undignified.
191
"What about all those stories about Priscilla?" the Judge

asked.
The journalist said he had heard countless anecdotes about
Priscilla which portrayed her as a prostitute, as Stinky's
mistress, or as the organizer of orgies at the mansion on Mock-
ingbird Lane. Beyond what had already come to light during the
Amarillo trial, evidence of the allegations did not exist. Many
Fort Worth men intimated, and a few boasted, that they had
bedded Priscilla, but not cited place, date, or circumstance.
Priscilla's sexual history fell short of promiscuity. She didn't
pretend to be Rebecca, nor that the mansion was Sunnybrook
Farm, but she slept with one man at a time. Mter Cullen it had
been W.T. Rufner, then Stan Farr. Now she was seen only with
Rich Sauer. In the main, people remembered Priscilla kindly.
Everyone the journalist had talked to who really knew
her-including those who disapproved of her life-style-sort of
liked Priscilla.
"Not counting the murder business in 1976, does either
Priscilla or Cullen have a criminal record?" the Judge asked.
"Priscilla was booked once," the journalist said, "for shop-
lifting. That was in 1961, when she was twenty years old. She
was accused of taking a dress and a white jeweled sweater from a
store on Camp Bowie.''
"What about Cullen and wigs?" the Judge asked. "Tolly
Wilson made some murky reference to that after the Amarillo
trial.,,
''Wilson was probably referring to the time when Cullen wore
a wig during an impromptu public appearance at the Albatross
Club. And, then, at a party-here in the Rivercrest
house-Cullen put on a wig and did a belly dance. But most
men wear a wig, for one reason or another, more than once. So
that's not really a valid connection. And I haven't found
anything to indicate that Cullen is kinky, or that he ever
associated with deviates.''
"Mental illness?"
''Cullen's certainly impetuous,'' the journalist said. ''Several
192
people claim he bought his private jet because he became furious

after losing his luggage on a commercial flight. He has a reputa-
tion for abusing women. But mentally disturbed . . . ?" The
journalist paused. "If he's guilty as charged I suppose that only
some mental quirk can explain what he has done. Maybe he has
a Nixon-like complex which allows him to convince himself that
he has the right to thwart his enemies. Perhaps Cullen described
himself on the tape when he said to McCrory, 'Just
paranoid.' ''
"What about that story you told me before," the Judge said,
"about Cullen listening to some writer talk about his book-and
Racehorse Haynes getting a murderer off-just before the
shootings at the Mockingbird Lane place?''
"That connection is tenuous, too," the journalist said. "I
talked to several people who were at that high school reunion,
and they remembered Tommy Thompson describing the
murder case in detail, and talking about Racehorse Haynes.
They speculated that Cullen got the idea he could get away with
murder then.''
"Well?"
"Then I talked to someone else who was there. He said that
the details of the Houston trial were not mentioned, nor was the
name of Racehorse Haynes. The man who told me should
know-Tommy Thompson."
"Do you believe Cullen is guilty?" theJudge asked.
The journalist said he wanted to reserve judgment on that.
"In your book, son," the Judge said, "it appears to me you
have the obligation to let your readers know what you believe. If
you think Cullen is crazy, you should say so. If you think he's
guilty-no matter how the verdict goes in Houston-you should
say that, too."
The Judge fell into silence as they continued their walk. He
slowed the pace of his stride and pulled thoughtfully at his
pursed lips. The two men and the dog turned the comer of the
road which lead to the Davis Rivercrest mansion where William
now lived.
193
The journalist broke the silence. "Judge, I've made an infor-

mal survey among people who know something about Cullen's
case. The consensus is that Cullen has a fifty-fifty chance of be-
ing acquitted. I find that hard to believe, given the evidence on
the tapes.''
"It's quite possible that he will be acquitted," the Judge said.
''Or, that there will be a mistrial or a hung jury.''
''But even Racehorse Haynes will find it impossible to explain
those tapes,'' the journalist said.
"In 1973," the Judge recalled, "there was a similar case
right here in Tarrant County. The county commissioner then
was George Richardson; people called him Skeet. Skeet was ap-
proached by three men. It was alleged that the trio attempted to
bribe Skeet so he would vote their way on a lucrative contract for
some voting machines the county was about to buy. Skeet went
to the district attorney. A microphone was concealed on his per-
son, and at the next meeting between Skeet and the three men
the conversation was recorded. There was a trial, and the tape
was the prosecution's main evidence. But the lawyer claimed
that the talk on the tape meant nothing, that his client had been
framed, that he was not a conspirator at all. All three of those
men were acquitted, son." The Judge sighed; he seemed weary.
''Despite that incriminating evidence those men went free.''
The Judge looked at the journalist.
''Do you know who that lawyer was, son?''
"I can guess," the journalist said.
"That's right," theJudge said. "Richard Racehorse Haynes,
up to Fort Worth from Houston.
"During Cullen's trial in Houston," the Judge explained,
''Haynes will have to decide early on if he should claim the tapes
were fabricated or tinkered with in some way. Before doing that
he'll have to consider the reputation of the men who made the
tapes. Despite everything that's been revealed in recent years
about FBI abuses, the Bureau is highly regarded in this part of
the country. Those efficient-looking men in dark suits and white
shirts make credible witnesses in Texas. Jurors might be per-
194
suaded that the district attorney's office or the local police are in-
volved in skulduggery. But not the FBI and the Texas Rangers.
When Texans think of a Ranger, son, they visualize Gary
Cooper. They remember the story of a Ranger who stepped off a
train to quell a riot in a small town. The townspeople were upset
when only one Ranger arrived to dampen the behavior of so
many, but the Ranger said, "They's only one riot, ain't they?"
So, the Judge concluded, Racehorse Haynes would probably
refrain from challenging the authenticity of the tapes, but rather
would attack what is said on them.
''Entrapment?''
"Can't," the judge said. "Entrapment is arguable only when
the defendant pleads guilty, and that's not likely in Cullen's
case. Haynes may focus on conspiracy, and claim that Cullen
was framed by Priscilla, McCrory, and that Burleson fellow.''
Then Haynes will face a major decision: whether or not
Cullen should testify. If the tapes can be explained, the jury will
expect Cullen to do the explaining.
The men approached the end of their walk.
"A moment ago," the judge said, "you spoke of people being
afraid. Look at that!" The Judge pointed down the street to the
Davis place.
Work crews were erecting a tremendous fence around the
grounds of the mansion where William Davis lived. Tall, spiked
metal sections were being mounted on stone bases. A bulldozer
was scooping a driveway for a new entrance to the house; it was
two hundred yards further from the front door than the old en-
trance across the street from the tee on the fifteenth hole.
"The golfers are concerned," the Judge said. "They fear
William will electrify that fence and they won't be able to
retrieve golf balls hooked out of bounds onto his property.''
The Judge did not smile.
"I've heard that fence was dismantled from some royal
estate," the Judge continued, "and brought over here from
Europe. What with that immense entrance gate and the statues
of lions on each side of it, I'd estimate it must have cost William
195
a hundred thousand dollars, or more. And now there are guards

around this house all the time. William was frightened enough
after the shootings in '76-they say he rounded up his family
and took them up to the attic and sat there with a shotgun across
his knees until police came to take them all to a judge's house.
He must be thoroughly frightened now that he's reportedly on
Cullen's alledged hit list.''
The two men sat on the stone bench in the tee house and
watched the fence going up at the mansion.
"That's one hell of a fence," thejournalist commented. "But
I wonder if there is any meaningful difference between it and the
barrier a poor man would erect to hide behind?''
"What's that, son?"
"Judge, when you and I discussed Cullen's case before the
Amarillo trial you chided me about seeing it in sociological
terms. Perhaps you were right; perhaps the only real difference
between his plight and that of others standing accused of the
same thing is his wealth. Maybe Cullen's is just another murder
case written off to bad taste since he's rich. If he were poor, we'd
blame it on a bad environment."
"Just another murder case?" The Judge drew back; he was
astonished. "Do you really mean that? Do you really think that?"
The Judge was agitated. His lips began to tremble.
"But, Judge .... "The journalist spoke carefully. "You said
yourself that it looked like a simple case of murder to you.''
"Goddamn it!" The Judge was almost shouting. "That was
Amarillo! The case being tried was about a man who I think went
on a rampage and slaughtered people because something
snapped inside him. It could be argued that there was no
premeditation in that carnage. But Cullen's Houston trial will
determine something entirely different-ominously different.
Don't you comprehend that someone has launched an assault
against our system of criminal jurisprudence? That the law is
threatened!''
The Judge stopped long enough to catch his breath. Then he
spoke less stridently, but fervently.
196
"One of two things has happened," the judge said, "depend-

ing on whether Cullen is guilty or innocent of this latest charge.
If Cullen is guilty, it must mean that he was either testing or
flouting the system because he is convinced he can use money
and power to do whatever he wants. It would mean that one
man has-with premeditation-taken us all on and challenged
the law because he thinks he's above it. If this society"-the
Judge flung his hand in the general direction of the golf
course-'' can produce a man who believes that and blatantly
proceeds to prove it, we are in trouble.''
Then the Judge shook an admonishing fmger at the journalist.
"The other possibility is that Cullen is innocent. If he is
guiltless do you realize what that means? It means the threat is
even more ominous-because it follows that the system launched
a calculated assault against a citizen. If Cullen is truly innocent,
then we can only deduce that the district attorney's office, the
FBI, the police, the Texas Rangers, all were engaged in a
deliberate and monstrous conspiracy to put an innocent man
behind bars. What got into them to do such a thing? Where does
that leave our respect for the administration of justice? Its im-
partiality? Think a moment, son, of the implications of what
happened here in Fort Worth if Cullen is not guilty.''
The journalist pondered the impassioned argument as they
returned to the Judge's home. At the gate the journalist bid him
good-bye, explaining he had to pack for a flight to Houston.
197
·12·
CULLEN II-
THE HOUSTON TRIAL
The airline passenger was met at the Houston airport by a

friend. "Welcome," went the greeting, "to the land of bilk and
money.''
Houston is America's fifth most populous city and the fastest
growing area in the United States. It is located on 520 square
miles of bleak landscape near the second largest port in America.
Some residents call it the big swamp. The burgeoning city has
modern skyscrapers, new and old oil wealth, and innumerable
lawyers. Four of the nation's top ten law firms operate in the
city.
On September 22, 1978, T. Cullen Davis celebrated his forty-
fifth birthday-his third in custody-in two cities and on the
highway between them. Judge Cave had ordered that the
prisoner be transferred from Fort Worth to Houston
"forthwith." Texas law requires that prosecutors bring a
criminal defendant to trial within sixty days of arrest, or that
they grant freedom under bond. Delays in criminal trials occur
only when defense lawyers request an extension.
Two sheriff's deputies removed Cullen from the Tarrant
County jail shortly before 8:00A.M. for the 263-mile automobile
trip from Fort Worth to Houston. There Cullen was confined in
one of five cells reserved for inmates involved in sensational or
well-publicized crimes. He changed from a light gray suit to jail
attire: white pants, a white shirt with the identification "Harris
County Jail,'' and plastic slippers to replace his wing-tipped
198
CULLEN II-THE HOUSTON TRIAL
shoes. Asked what he thought of his new quarters, Cullen

replied, "Peachy," adding that in the Houston jail ice cream
was sometimes available. But everything was not peaches and
cream in Houston's Cross-Bar Hotel, where guests are awak-
ened each morning at 3:30. In Amarillo, Cullen had been al-
lowed to mingle with spectators and journalists during court
recesses. In Houston, Judge Moore decreed that this nationally
famous prisoner would not be permitted to meet and talk with
media representatives. He would be granted unlimited access to
his lawyers and lengthy conferences with his brother Ken and
other executives of KenDavis Industries. Judge Moore allowed
Cullen a thirty-minute visit each Saturday with Karen Master
and permitted her to deliver a clean suit each day of the trial.
The Houston trial-Cullen 11-was scheduled to begin on
Monday, October 9. His confinement in the Harris County jail
prevented Cullen from going to a Saturday night Fort Worth
gala he had attended many times in the past. The annual
Steeplechase Ball was a great success. Charles Tandy, the
wealthy owner of Radio Shacks, gave the orchestra leader a
handful of $100 bills for an extra hour's music. Tandy died the
next afternoon of a heart attack while napping at his home. He
was buried on Monday, the day Cullen's trial began, in the
Tandy mausoleum in Greenwood Memorial Park near the even
grander mausoleum where Cullen's father and mother already
rested. Dozens of floral wreaths surrounded Tandy's bier; the
card on one of them read, "From Cullen and Karen."
Karen followed Cullen to Houston and, except during brief
trips back to Fort Worth, sat outside the courtroom (as a pros-
pective witness she would be allowed inside only to testify) on a
wooden bench. Cullen spoke of the future he anticipated with
Karen, declaring for the first time his intention to marry her. "I
just would like everyone to know," Cullen said, "that I would
do anything for Karen, because I love her and her family. And
the feeling is reciprocated. She is the best companion I have ever
had.''
199
Karen added her comment, saying that she and Cullen had
first discussed marriage during a ski trip to Aspen. "Cullen
knew I was not going to be the type of person who would live
with somebody unmarried for the rest of my life.'' No actual ar-
rangements had been made, Karen said, "because it's all so
tenuous.''
Judge Wallace C. Moore would preside over pretrial hearings
and jury selection. Judge Moore announced emphatically that
the entire process, including witnesses' testimony before the
jury, would not be lengthy. "This case won't go on for two or
three months," the judge declared. "I understand several peo-
ple have made careers out of this case; I do not intend to be one
of them.''
One man who was on the verge of making a career of Cullen's
case was skeptical. Glen Guzzo of the Fort Worth Star- Telegram
had heard such optimistic estimates before. Judge Cave in Fort
Worth had presided over nine months of legal wrangling before
the mistrial there. Guzzo had been in Amarillo when Judge
Dowlen's prediction of a two-month trial fell three months short
of the mark. Not only was Guzzo cynical about Judge Moore's
estimate of the trial's duration, he accused Moore in print of
naivete when the judge said he did not intend to sequester the
Houston jury-he had never done so in previous cases. The
judge seemed to be assuming that media representatives in
Houston would confine their reporting to day-by-day court pro-
ceedings. Guzzo believed the daily newspapers and television
accounts written by him and others would, on the contrary,
recap lurid events of the past.
Perhaps, Guzzo supposed, Judge Moore did not realize how
bright a spotlight would be cast on him and the trial in Houston.
Glen Guzzo was to cover the proceedings for the morning Star-
Telegram and his colleague, Jim Jones, the afternoon edition. • In
• The two men were an affable pair, quite different in appearance. Guzzo was slender
and dark with a mod haircut over his ears. Jones was a huge man with flowing blond
hair. He might have been a preacher; his usual beat was, in fact, religion.
200
addition there were reporters, photographers, and sketch artists

from other Texas newspapers and commentators and camera-
men for several television stations. Mike Cochran, who had
covered the Amarillo trial for Associated Press, was in Houston,
as was the UPI correspondent. Syndicated stories had been ap-
pearing throughout the country. On the day the trial began, the
New York Times reappeared after a long strike and featured a
story about Cullen II (a story in which reporter William K.
Stevens described Cullen as a "conglomerateur").
Judge Moore probably suspected that his performance would
be scrutinized, especially after the brouhaha which followed the
Amarillo trial, and the speculation by some that Judge Dowlen
had been unprofessionally permissive there. Had there been any
doubt of this in Judge Moore's mind, it was resolved in pretrial
hearings in Houston. During an informal meeting with at-
torneys involved in the case, the judge remarked-"off the
cuff,'' he said later-on the question f whether or not Culen
should be released under bond during the trial. "I don't care
whether he gets out of jail or not. He's not going to run off and I
doubt that while his trial is going on he's going to pose a threat
to the community.''
Judge Moore's assumption was hardly compatible with the
prosecution's contention that Cullen was precisely such a threat
to society. Almost everyone in Texas read what the judge had
said in the next edition of their newspapers. Moore's phone
buzzed with calls from journalists asking about his comment.
"It's getting to the point," the judge said, "where I'm going to
be afraid to say 'good morning.' " But Moore was not afraid to
make his clarification unequivocal: ''I have no intention of set-
ting a bond. I inherited him in custody and he's going to stay in
custody.''
Judge Moore had received from Fort Worth Cullen's indict-
ment: "The GrandJurors of the State ofTexas," it read, "duly
elected, tried, empaneled, sworn, and charged to inquire of of-
fenses committed in Tarrant County, in the State of Texas,
201
upon their oaths do present in and to the Criminal District No.3

of said County that Thomas Cullen Davis hereinafter called
Defendant, in the County of Tarrant and State aforesaid, on or
about the 18th day of August, 1978, did
then and there intentionally and knowingly with intent to induce David
McCrory to engage in specific conduct that, under the circumstances
surrounding the conduct of David McCrory as the defendant believed
them to be, would constitute such capital murder and make the said
David McCrory a party to the commission of such capital murder, and
such specific conduct was as follows: to wit: the said defendant did re-
quest, command and attempt to induce the said David McCrory to
employ another to cause the death of an individual, to wit: Joe H. Eid-
son, for remuneration and the promise of r~uneration, to wit:
money; ...
The indictment continued with three other variations of in-
dictment-alternatives for the jury to consider-in legal
language, including conspiracy to commit capital murder.
The document which Judge Moore would use as his authority
in trying Cullen was signed by the Fort Worth district attorney,
just under the closing line: "AGAINST THE PEACE AND
DIGNITY OF THE STATE.''
When the pretrial hearings began on Monday, October 9,

Haynes was ready to work in a familiar courtroom.
Racehorse Haynes's national renown was solid when Cullen's
Houston trial began. He was profiled in the Wall Street Journal.
''Haynes is one of the most successful and expensive defense at-
torneys in America. At fifty, his dashing courtroom style and
impressive track record against long odds have already classed
him with champion defense lawyers such as Percy Foreman, F.
Lee Bailey, and Edward Bennett Williams. And in a branch of
the profession that rests heavily on notoriety, Mr. Haynes has
recently pulled ahead of his famous colleagues, and is believed
by many to be America's premiere criminal defender."
Another Texas lawyer grudgingly conceded, "He's good,
202
he's very good. But on account of him, there are a couple of

dozen people walking free in Texas who wouldn't blink before
blowing someone's head off. He's a menace to society.''
Haynes had a retort: "I sleep fine at night. It isn't my job to
be judge and jury, but to do the best I can on behalf of the citizen
accused.'' Haynes seldom referred in the courtroom to those he
defended as clients-usually they were "the citizen accused."
Haynes described what Cullen would have called the behind-
the-eight-ball positions of most of the citizens accused he de-
fended: "My clients admit they pulled the trigger, plunged the
knife, swung the club. I have to show why, because sometimes
the pulling, plunging, or swinging is justified. When all else
fails, I just ask the jury for mercy. They usually oblige me.''
Shortly before the Houston trial began Haynes revealed his
courtroom strategy during a New York meeting of the American
Bar Association. "Say you sue me because you say my dog bit
you. Well, now this is my defense: My dog doesn't bite. And
second ... my dog was tied up that night. And third, I don't
believe you really got bit, and fourth'' -he grinned slyly-'' I
don't have a dog."
If Haynes's flair for the dramatic was impressive in Amarillo,
it was at Cullen II that Haynes was subjected to the scrutiny
accorded one accustomed to the limelight.
Pete Axthelm of Newsweek traveled to Houston to write about
Haynes. Axthelm usually covers the sports beat, and he saw
Haynes in ring rather than turf terms: "In court, Haynes is less
a racehorse than a master boxer-now a long-range jabber, now
a relentless body puncher, always a ring general in command of
his special arena ... whatever the verdict [in Houston] it will
follow a show of gutter-fighting investigation and high-minded
skepticism by a master of both arts: the veteran at the defense
table, the current champion of the big trial heavyweights.''
Physically, Richard Haynes-standing five feet eight inches
in his anteater-skin boots-was a trim welterweight. He wore
pinstripe suits on a sturdy, prizefighter's body. ''The tailor gets
203
a piece of material," Haynes once said, "wraps it around a

refrigerator, cuts it, and sends it to me.'' In fact, his clothes were
stylishly cut and he was well-groomed; there was never an errant
strand in his dark gray-at-the-temples hair. He used half-moon
glasses to read with and as a stage prop to gesticulate with when
addressing the jury. His heavy, gold wristwatch was matched by
a massive gold band. He constantly clutched a huge
meerschaum; once lighted, the pipe became a machine creating
billows of smoke which hovered over the defense table.
Cullen was the only nonsmoker at the defense table. He must
have felt reassured by the team of defense lawyers who added to
the cloud of smoke with their filter-tipped cigarettes. They were
talented and prosperous attorneys. They dressed immaculately;
their hair was modishly styled and they exuded an air of con-
fidence. Like Haynes, each wore a badge of office: a tremendous
gold timepiece banded with heavy gold. They were the Amarillo
team intact. There were three Dallas lawyers on the defense
team: elegant Phil Burleson, who had defended Jack Ruby;
Mike Gibson, who had assisted Dr. Denton Cooley in surgery
before turning to law; and the athletically handsome Steve
Sumner, who had given up baseball to head Haynes's investiga-
tion squad. Haynes and his defense lawyers looked like what
they were-the best stable of criminal defenders money could
buy in Texas.
Haynes kept a touch of humility tucked away from sight. A
reminder written on a piece of paper in his wallet read,
"Remember the plowhorse has accomplished a lot more than
the Racehorse.''
Yet the real plowhorse at Cullen II sat across the room at the
prosecutors' table. Tolly Wilson and his assistant district at-
torneys provided a strong contrast to the slick defense team.
Wilson was a rumpled man with white hair and the countenance
of a grumpy Santa Claus's helper. His style in the courtroom
was competent but without flair. When exasperated by
Haynes's pyrotechnics, he would throw up his hands in the mid-
204
die of an argument and abandon his attempt to communicate

with thejury.
Wilson was assisted by three Fort Worth colleagues. Marvin
Collins was a stolid, heavyset man. Assistant prosecutor Paul
Gartner, at five feet four inches, was the smallest of a number of
men of small stature in the courtroom. Despite the familiar kid-
ding he was subjected to because of his size, the twenty-six-year-
old Gartner was respected in Tarrant County as a research ex-
pert. On loan from the Harris County district attorney's office,
Terry Wilson (no relation to Tolly) provided local expertise to
the visiting prosecution team.
The only Fort Worth prosecutor in the same sartorial league
with the spiffJ.ly dressed defense team was Jack Strickland. The
thirty-five-year-old attorney wore vested suits in court. A last-
minute replacement for Jerry Buckner, the Fort Worth lawyer
who had once bested Haynes in court, Strickland had a reputa-
tion as a criminal lawyer who could build his case step by step.
He had asked Fort Worth jurors to assess the death penalty in
five murder cases, and they had returned the ultimate sentence
in each. Strickland also differed from his colleagues in de-
meanor. His thin, ascetic face, under a mop of curly hair, had a
constantly bemused expression suggesting a choirboy cunning.
Strickland, the most articulate member of the prosecution
team, was a frequent source of quotes for the journalists in
Houston. He spoke his mind and spoke it well. At the beginning
of the trial he remarked, ''If Cullen Davis gets off this time he
can do anything he wants. He can shoot me between the eyes on
national television and he won't even be arrested. That scares
me. Not because I'm worried about getting shot, but because of
what it means for a man to be above the law.''
"I'm used to 'Pete,' " presiding Judge Wallace C. Moore
said. "It's hard to grow up in a small town with a name like
Wallace." Moore was born in Majestic, a hamlet in Alabama.
He left the University of Florida to become a flyer in World War
II. He stowed a lucky penny in his boot during thirty-five com-
205
bat missions over Italy and again while flying a hundred mis-
sions in Korea. Glen Guzzo attempted in an interview to
characterize the judge in a wartime role he refused to accept.
"I've finally been elevated to the status of Snoopy and the Red
Baron," Moore complained. "I know some real war heroes and
they're laughing at me. I just want to be a judge," he added.
After sixteen years on the bench the fifty-five-year-old district
judge was about to hear the most momentous case of his career.
After the intense press reaction to his off-hand remark about
Cullen's being free on bond he realized that his conduct on the
bench would be closely observed-especially by those aware he
was a friend of Racehorse Haynes. Moore already had a well-
established reputation as a no-nonsense judge; now it was to be
seen if he could or would keep Haynes bridled and expedite the
trial as he had promised.
Judge Moore began his task with a Benson & Hedges menthol
cigarette between his fingers. He was seldom to be without one
as the trial progressed.*
The pretrial hearings-Priscilla, McCrory, and Pat Burleson
were called as witnesses-extended through the second week of
October 1978. Haynes exercised the defense option of re-
questing a delay of one week, to permit his technical experts to
examine the FBI tapes of conversations between Cullen and
McCrory. The most recent motion for bond for Cullen was still
under consideration. At the end of the week the bond was
denied, and Judge Moore granted Haynes's request for a second
week's delay. He scheduled the first day of jury selection for the
following Monday, October 30.
During the fortnight between pretrial hearings and jury selec-

tion, Cullen made skiing reservations at Aspen for the
Christmas holidays-a gesture of characteristic optimism. For
• British members of a BBC crew filming a documentary on Cullen's trial were
astonished to observe Judge Moore smoking and wearing a business suit on the bench
(many Texas judges do wear judicial robes and prohibit smoking in their courts).
206
her part, Karen had rented an apartment in Houston and was

busy acting as Cullen's secretary, answering the increasing
volume of mail he received at the Harris County jail.
"Cullen, keep that sweet smile," wrote one female supporter.
"Don't ever lose a positive thought and you will win .... Soon
you will be a free man again .... My heart grieves each day for
you .... Pray to God for help."
Karen replied to fifty letters a week. ''A lot of the letters are
about the same,'' she said, ''all wishing Cullen good luck and
saying they are behind him.'' One letter was from a woman in
trouble. "I have been informed," the woman wrote, "a warrant
has been issued for my arrest. They say I shot my stepdaughter
once in the stomach. She was expecting a baby last Sunday.
Since I'm on the run and in hiding, I cannot go into details."
The fugitive asked Cullen to help her locate a lawyer. Many of
the letters were pleas for money. Karen declined politely on
white and blue stationery with the letterhead ''Karen and
Cullen'' printed in blue.
In Fort Worth, Priscilla's fortunes vacillated. The slander suit
filed against her during the Amarillo trial by a former nurse who
was dismissed on the grounds of courtroom testimony privilege.
Then Priscilla's two divorce lawyers estimated their legal fees
would eventually total $2 million-but it was Cullen who was
expected to pay the fees.
Then it was reported that Priscilla's beloved white mare
Freedom either was stolen or strayed from the steel-beamed
stable at the mansion. The horse was found, however, within a.
few days. Police recovered the animal in Fort Worth's Lake
Como area. A young boy had swapped the horse for a bicycle.
Some in Fort Worth had expressed their disappointment that
District Attorney Tim Curry had elected to remain in Fort
Worth while delegating Tolly Wilson as chief prosecutor in
Cullen's trial in Houston. Developments in Fort Worth sup-
ported Curry's assertion that there was much work to do in Tar-
rant County. In early November a major sting operation in the
207
Dallas-Fort Worth area resulted in multiple arrests and, later,

Curry's office uncovered a large illegal betting ring. His col-
leagues across the state apparently thought highly of Curry,
despite his absence from Houston. On November 16, an El Paso
convention of members of the Texas District and County At-
torneys Associaton elected Curry their new president.
Then two days before Cullen's trial was to resume Carl
Freund, of the Fort Worth bureau of the Dallas Morning News,
reported new details from Cullen's medical records which had
become public in connection with Gus Gavrel's civil suit against
Cullen. Released on bond after the August 1976 shootings,
Cullen had entered a clinic which specialized in psychiatric
treatment. According to the notes of the psychiatrist who saw
him then, Cullen was calm and cooperative, but had appeared
bored and restless with signs of depression. There was one terse
entry on the clinic record. Some interpreted it as a reference to
Cullen's obsession about his property on Mockingbird Lane.
The psychiatrist's observation read: "House is passion."
The first panel of fifty prospective jurors was summoned to

Judge Moore's court on Monday, October 30. Because Cullen
had faced the spectre of a death sentence in Amarillo, potential
jurors had been questioned individually on the issue of capital
punishment and the process had consumed eight weeks. In
Houston, where the trial would not be for capital murder, the
selection would be easier and quicker, with prospective jurors
questioned in groups. The prosecution and the defense were per-
mitted to maintain ten peremptory challenges not to be revealed
or utilized until the panel of fifty had been reduced to thirty-two;
the twelve survivors would constitute the jury.
Each prospective juror filled out a personal history question-
naire. Most who eventually did not qualify were dismissed
because they admitted they were already convinced of Cullen's
guilt or because of physical or financial hardship which would
ensue in the wake of a long trial. One woman was excused
because of an allergy to smoke in the courtroom.
208
CULLEN 11-THE HOUSTON TRIAL
Each potential juror was asked if he or she knew any of scores

of persons connected with the trial. All said they knew two men
on the list provided to them-Racehorse Haynes and T. Cullen
Davis.
During the jury selection process one juror was intrigued
while watching Paul Gartner "taking his little notes." The juror
asked Haynes how old Gartner was. ~'Thirteen or fourteen,"
Haynes replied with a grin.
Another woman provided a light moment during the other-
wise tedious jury selection by commenting that her son had
decided not to become a lawyer with the explanation: "Mother,
I've talked to several lawyers; all of them are crooked, and I
don't want to be one."
After the laughter in the courtroom died down Racehorse
Haynes, his eyes twinkling, related the ancient description of a
lawyer's epitaph: "Here lies a lawyer and an honest man." A
bystander provided the punch line for Haynes: ''Glory be, two
persons in the same grave."
On Thursday the initial panel of fifty prospects had been ex-
hausted and another group of twenty was summoned.
The final jury was seated on Friday. There were seven men
and five women. There were no blacks. There were no
Hispanics. •
The State presented its first witness, FBI Special Agent Ron
Jannings, on Monday, November 6.
Jannings testified he had been the FBI man contacted by
Charles David McCrory. That initial encounter came about
because J annings had taken karate lessons in one of Pat
Burleson's studios in Fort Worth, and Burleson had directed
McCrory to him. The witness described how he and other FBI
men had wired McCrory for sound in preparation for his two
meetings with Cullen-first on August 18 and then on August
• Houston has one and a half million inhabitants. The city's blacks and Hispanics
total about forty-five percent of the population.
209
20, before Cullen was arrested and charged with soliciting the
murder of Judge Joe Eidson. Jannings identified the Polaroid
photograph taken after the judge had agreed to tuck himself into
the trunk of his car wearing a stained and torn T -shirt. It was
used by McCrory to prove to Cullen that he had had Eidson
killed.
Even so, before the day was over Racehorse Haynes had
scored more points from the prosecution witness than Tolly
Wilson had. In his reexamination he introduced the name of one
David Binion, who Haynes said had visited Priscilla in Fort
Worth. He intimated that Binion was a professional assassin
Priscilla wanted to hire to eliminate Cullen. J annings refused to
reply when asked if Binion had any connection with the FBI.
Using the prosecution's witness as his medium, Haynes stated
that Cullen had been the victim of an extortion threat just before
Christmas in 1977, after his acquittal in Amarillo. Jannings con-
firmed that Cullen had reported the threat to the FBI and agents
had been assigned to the case. The episode involved a letter
mailed to Cullen at Karen Master's home demanding $10,000
to quash an attempt on his life. FBI efforts to apprehend the ex-
tortionist had failed despite the fact that the FBI had installed a
recording device on Karen's telephone.
FBI agent J annings was again in the witness chair when the
trial resumed on Tuesday. He stated that McCrory had told him
about the shopping list of persons Cullen wanted killed. Priscilla
topped the list. The witness said that his notes were unclear, and
he could not be sure if the price for Cullen's wife was $200,000
or $500,000. Others on the list, at $80,000 each, were Judges
Joe Eidson and Tom Cave. A tag of $25,000 each was placed on
the lives of Beverly Bass, Gus Gavrel, Jr., Gavrel's father, and
W. T. Rufner. No price had been mentioned,Jannings said, for
the murder of Cullen's younger brother Bill. Additionally, the
FBI man said that the list was to include Dee, Priscilla's eldest
daughter, a Fort Worth businessman named A. J. Pascal, and
an unidentified Mexican friend of Pascal. Pascal was identified
210
as the subject of a civil suit flied by Cullen, who contended

Pascal owed him a large sum of money.
Meanwhile, in the early days of the trial, David Binion read
in the newspapers that Cullen's lawyers had left the jury with the
impression he (Binion) had been contracted by Priscilla to
murder Cullen. Binion sought out newsmen covering the trial
and denied the allegation. He had once visited Priscilla in the
mansion, he said, and departed in a quandary without knowing
why she had asked him to come. But Priscilla had not, Binion in-
sisted, asked him to murder anyone. Binion admitted that he
had been a volunteer informant for the FBI on several occasions
in Fort Worth and had pretended to be an underworld type in
the city's night spots. But he really wasn't, he protested, and he
accused Racehorse Haynes of using his name to throw up a
smoke screen.
"There's not a damn thing smoke screen about it," Haynes
retorted. "He admits, even in the newspapers, that he has a
reputation as a hit man and that he's visited Priscilla Davis."
On Wednesday, November 15, a second Fort Worth FBI man
took the stand to testify about the circumstances under which
Charles David McCrory had been wired for sound before two
encounters with Cullen. Special Agent Gerald Hubbell was one
of the four FBI men who hid in the van on the parking lot at
Coco's Famous Hamburgers on the Sunday morning when
Cullen was arrested. He stated that Cullen had peered into the
van suspiciously before meeting McCrory; he had been unable
to see the FBI agents huddled inside because of special curtains
which concealed them. Hubbell described the recording devices
he had strapped to McCrory's body.
On Thursday, Fort Worth District Judge Joe Eidson was
again a witness for the prosecution, as he had been in Amarillo.
At one point Tolly Wilson asked the judge if, prior to the most
recent postponement of the Davis divorce trial, Cullen had made
any attempt to "remove" the judge from the case.
Haynes bounded out of his seat. He objected strongly to the
211
connotation of the word "remove" and moved that Judge

Moore declare a mistrial. Moore denied the motion. It was the
third time Moore had curtly scuttled a dismissal motion by
Haynes. But the episodes were in the trial record should
Haynes, in a later appeal, claim reversible error by his friend
Judge Moore.
As in Amarillo, the prosecution used Judge Eidson as a
witness to impress on the jury the theory that divorce complica-
tions triggered Cullen's murderous forays. Wilson asked the
witness, "Did you ever hear [Cullen] express an opinion as to
your service?''
"Yes."
''When was that?''
"I saw him on a television newscast in Amarillo the day after
his acquittal of a murder charge.''
"What did he say?" Tolly Wilson asked.
''He asked what he thought of the Amarillo judge and he said,
'I liked him,' or, 'He was fine. I didn't like the Fort Worth
judges.' "
Phil Burleson interrogated Judge Eidson in an effort to
counter the prosecution's claim that Cullen wanted Eidson dead
because of his role in the divorce proceedings. He suggested that
Eidson's ruling on temporary monthly payments to Priscilla had
actually been favorable to Cullen, because Priscilla had asked
for $7,500.
"I'd say it was a compromise," Judge Eidson said. "He was
offering $3500 a month and she was asking $7500, and I con-
cluded that $5000 would be proper.''
Judge Eidson described the circumstances which led him to
pose as a corpse for the FBI. When the request was made, Eid-
son said, "Frankly, I was pretty shaken up by the situation." In
a downtown Fort Worth parking garage he climbed into the
trunk of his automobile.
"I removed my coat. I removed my shirt and I removed my
undershirt,'' Eidson said. ''Then the undershirt was placed on
212
my back and I got into the trunk of my car. I laid [sic] down and
some photographs were taken.''
"Was anything done to your undershirt?" Tolly Wilson
asked.
"When I had it off, cigarette burns were made in it."
"Was anything put on it?"
"Yes, ketchup."
George Ridgley, the FBI photographer in the van which had
Cullen under surveillance when he met with Charles David Mc-
Crory, was the final prosecution witness on Friday. He testified
that he had surreptitiously photographed Cullen twenty-two
times when he met McCrory on August 18, and snapped other
pictures on August 20. One of the latter photographs showed
Cullen wearing sunglasses, peering toward McCrory's automo-
bile; another depicted the two men leaning over the open trunk
of a car.
On Monday, November 13, while Judge Moore prepared to

preside over the second week of testimony in Cullen II, a col-
league began jury selection for a murder case in Fort Worth.
Judge Tom Cave, who had moved Cullen I to Amarillo, was
now returning the favor in Fort Worth. He was hearing, behind
his boiler-plate bench, a case which had been transferred from
Amarillo due to excessive publicity. It was another capital
murder case. David Grijalva, twenty-six, was charged with a
1977 robbery of an Amarillo Pizza Hut during which he killed
an employee. He had "somehow or other crushed the head of
the night manager, a woman, in a fashion that could be de-
scribed as gruesome.'' The woman had died from repeated
blows to the head, apparently inflicted with a fifteen-pound roll-
ing pin. Her throat had been slashed and Grijalva, to insure cer-
tain death, crushed her head in the restaurant's pizza dough
m1xer.
Meanwhile in Houston, Judge Moore excused the jury on
Monday while a third FBI agent, Joe Gray, discussed the
213
physical characteristics of the devices used to photograph and

record the meetings between Cullen and McCrory. The ground-
work was being laid for the introduction of the tapes and films
and, ultimately, monitored telephone calls.
On Tuesday, Judge Moore instructed courtroom artists to put
away their sketch pads during the testimony of the next witness.
Charles David McCrory was a ward of U.S. marshals under the
Federal Witness Protection Program. McCrory and his family
had been living under assumed names and had been relocated
after his testimony during Cullen's bond hearing in Fort Worth
three months before. This was the most recent prohibition for
the media; previously there had been the standard rule pro-
hibiting cameras and tape recorders in the courtroom and then,
at the request of defense attorneys, television and press cameras
and recorders were banned entirely from the seventh floor of the
courthouse.
Cullen Davis turned to stare impassively at McCrory as his
chunky former friend entered the courtroom, was sworn, and
took the witness seat. McCrory wore a dark blue suit with a vest.
He spoke in a low voice; Tolly Wilson frequently asked him to
speak up.
McCrory nervously related the circumstances which preceded
the two clandestine meetings with Cullen in Fort Worth. He
elaborated by adding lurid details of what he claimed were sug-
gestions by Cullen on how the bunch of people on Cullen's hit
list could be killed and their bodies disposed of.
During the first meeting on August 18, McCrory testified,
Cullen spoke in low tones and in broken sentences. When they
met a second time, Cullen began by saying "just paranoid" to
explain his inspection of the FBI van. Then Cullen had ex-
plained his inarticulate speech during the previous encounter.
"[Cullen] told me he knew there were people capable of stand-
ing a long way off and reading lips through a telescope . . . and
that explained why he put his hand over his mouth when he
talked .... He instructed me to use great caution.''
214
McCrory repeated the account he had given at the bond hear-

ing in Fort Worth.
"He told me he was going ahead and have Beverly killed, and
'you're going to help me hire someone to do it.' "
Tolly Wilson asked what else Cullen had said.
''He said . . . he would have me and my whole family killed
. . . that he had the money and power to have it done.''
On Wednesday, the August 18 tape was played for the jury.
Although each juror listened through earphones, it was
sometimes difficult to understand because McCrory's automo-
bile air conditioner had been operating during the conversation.
The prosecution had prepared a transcript, and requested that
the jurors be provided with the written dialogue. Racehorse
Haynes and Phil Burleson objected. They protested that allow-
ing a jury to read a transcription would set a precedent for Texas
courts and, Haynes hinted darkly, such a landmark decision on
Judge Moore's part might constitute reversible error. Judge
Moore compromised. He ruled that the jurors could use the
transcript one time, during the initial hearing of the tapes. It was
a pivotal decision in favor of the prosecution.
Then there was more taped evidence. Recordings of three
telephone conversations between Cullen and McCrory were in-
troduced and for them there was no need of a transcript-the ex-
change between the two men was clearly audible. The first call
was from McCrory to Cullen on the afternoon of August 19, the
Friday before the Saturday on which McCrory had promised Joe
Eidson would be killed. McCrory had telephoned Cullen at
Karen's home from the Pilgrim's Inn Motel in Fort Worth; FBI
agents in the motel room with McCrory recorded the con-
versation.
"How come you didn't invite me to that fucking football
game?" McCrory asked Cullen.
"You haven't got time for a ball game," Cullen responded.
McCrory promised Cullen he would let him know how things
had gone either later Saturday night or early the next morning.
215
"Good deal," Cullen said. "You'll be uppermost in my

mind."
Another recording was of a telephone call from McCrory to
Cullen at 2:40A.M., August 20-early Sunday after the Satur-
day night football game at Texas Stadium. McCrory reported
on the weekend chore of the Murder Incorporated hit man he
had dreamed up for Cullen's benefit.
McCrory: Need to, uh, see you. Uh, he's finished with the
job and he's wanting to get out of here so, uh, gotta do it
now.
Cullen: Oh, shit. I haven't-How-How do I know?
McCrory: I got the proof. That's no sweat.
Cullen: Uh, well-
McCrory: Just believe me, uh, I'll show it to you. Don't
worry about it.
Cullen: All that information is down at the office.
Tolly Wilson and his prosecutors were to contend, through .
subsequent testimony, that the "information" Cullen was refer-
ring to was in fact the $25,000 in $100 bills which Cullen passed
to McCrory the next morning.
McCrory: Oh, shit, man. You gonna have to go get it. I'm
not-You know. I can't-1 don't want to talk, but I can't
face, uh-you understand.
Cullen: Well, what's the matter with in the morning?
McCrory: He wants to get gone.
Cullen: Well, you-you can understand, uh-It's not, uh-
McCrory: Hold-Hold on just a second.
Cullen: Yeah.
McCrory pretended to turn away from the telephone and to
speak with another person at his end of the line: "He's got to go
to his office and he can't get in there tonight. It's gonna have to
be in the morning.''
216
McCrory: [To Cullen again] How early? Nine o'clock be all

right?
Cullen: Yeah.
McCrory: Cullen, for God's sake, don't leave me hung on
this.
Cullen: No. That-that-that'll work out just fine, uh.
McCrory's testimony continued through Wednesday and
Thursday, when the jury saw the audio and photographic
evidence presented in a theatrical manner: a motion pic-
ture-complete with opening music, the same refrain from Mc-
Crory's automobile radio that was heard on the tape. The jury
was not allowed to consult transcripts this time, but Judge
Moore permitted McCrory to read from the transcript during
his questioning.
McCrory was asked about Cullen's relationship with his
adopted daughter Dee because defense lawyers had scoffed at
the inclusion of her name on Cullen's hit list. When asked if
Cullen had ever expressed his opinion about Dee, McCrory
said, "Yes, he said that he hated the bitch."
Racehorse Haynes again moved for a mistrial when Judge
Moore advised McCrory that he did not need to include all the
transcript obscenities while reading from it. The motion was
denied, but Moore then instructed McCrory to include the ex-
pletives.
The synchronized presentation of sound and images on five
television sets in the courtroom was impressive. The jury could
hear the rustle of paper while McCrory was testifying that at that
moment he was receiving $25,000 from Cullen.
McCrory: I got judge Eidson dead for you.
Cullen: Good.
McCrory: I'll get the rest of them dead for you. You want a
bunch of people dead. Right?
Cullen: All right.
217
It was devastating evidence. •

On Friday morning Haynes attacked McCrory's credibility as
a witness and planted seeds of doubt that he hoped would bloom
into the suspicion that Cullen, not Judge Eidson, was the victim
of a conspiracy.
Haynes amused the jury and the spectators by coming up with
another of his courtroom ploys: he lugged huge calendars, taller
than he was, into the courtroom. From McCrory Haynes
elicited-and noted dramatically on his several calendars-that
the former had visited the grounds of the murder mansion on the
morning after the shootings in 1976; that he had been in the
company of Pat Burleson, the karate entrepreneur; that Mc-
Crory and his wife had been remiss in declaring and paying in-
come taxes and that he had secret bank accounts.
McCrory was not amused by Haynes's calendars. At one
point he asked, "Was that a question you were mumbling, Mr.
Haynes? I can't hear you too well when you are over there. You
need a bigger calendar. ''
McCrory refused to answer some questions and equivocated
on others when they pertained to members of his family or their
whereabouts. The judge tolerated the evasions on the grounds
that McCrory's relatives might be endangered.
Late Friday there were several clashes between Racehorse
Haynes and Judge Moore. One exchange was about McCrory's
testimony when Haynes insistently returned to a detail which
Moore did not consider important. Finally Moore barked at
Haynes: "We've spent twenty minutes on this and I don't want
you sticking it in his ear all morning.''
The journalists who had been at Amarillo exchanged glances.
• Journalists covering the Davis (rial would often relax with a few drinks after filing
their stories. On one festive evening a young Houston reporter conjured up the scenario
he predicted Haynes would use in Cullen's defense. Haynes would explain the "I got
the judge dead for you'' tape in the following manner: Cullen had hired McCrory to
assist him in a program to provide for the undernourished of the world. A step forward
in that noble nutritional endeavor, Haynes would tell the jury, was when McCrory
reported, "I got the judge fed for you."
218
It was obvious that Judge Moore-despite his friendship with

Haynes-was of tougher mettle than Judge Dowlen. At one
point Moore sustained a prosecution objection before it was
made.
The final day of the second week of testimony in Cullen II was
a frustrating one for Racehorse Haynes. Moore sustained most
of the objections posed by the prosecution. McCrory proved to
be an elusive witness. And the synchronized tapes were obvious-
ly going to be difficult to explain. Haynes was braced by a crowd
of reporters when the day was over. ''If you want to know why
I'm less than my jovial, good-natured self," Haynes said, "I
watched a newscast last night on a tv station I used to respect
. . . '' And Haynes launched into an attack on media coverage of
the trial.
Friday was not a happy anniversary for Cullen: precisely one
year. before he had been acquitted in Amarillo. At that happy
time one of his attorneys had lifted a glass, saying, "I propose a
toast that at this time next year we'll all have another party at
Cullen's rightful abode."
There were no festivities that night in Cullen's cell.
The third week of testimony began on Monday, November

20, with Charles David McCrory still on the stand. Racehorse
Haynes's inquisition of McCrory, and the lengths to which the
defense attorney went to impugn his character, became so de-
tailed and time-consuming that spectators and jurors dozed.
On Tuesday, McCrory admitted that he had retained $5000
from the bundle of $50,000 he said Cullen had given him to
launder in Las Vegas. He considered it a fee for services and
gave it to his son, "so in case Mr. Davis had me killed, my son
would have at least $10,000 to go to college on.''
"Just thinking ahead, were you?" Haynes asked.
McCrory claimed he already had given his son most of the
other $5000 he had been paid by Cullen to investigate Beverly
Bass.
219
At the end of the day Haynes posed the last of several thou-
sand questions he had hammered home to McCrory during the
trial's third week. Tolly Wilson had no further questions-that
would have opened the door for further reexamination by
Haynes.
During the five days McCrory was on the stand, Racehorse
Haynes had managed to reduce the prosecution's main witness
from an argumentative cocksure one to an indecisive, agitated
one. In the fmal hours McCrory found himself answering ''I
don't know" and "I don't remember" to dozens of questions.
"No sane person in the world," Phil Burleson declared,
''would believe Charles David McCrory.''
"I wish he'd been able to remember better," said Jack
Strickland, ''but he corroborated the tapes.'' And Strickland
added that while McCrory's memory was faulty on details, the
defense team still would have to grapple with the problem of the
tapes, which could not be explained away.
Indeed the tapes were a vexing obstacle for the defense
lawyers. They had been played for the jury six times, and would
be played again. During McCrory's testimony, Haynes shied
away from the substance of the tapes. Only twice did he question
McCrory about the tapes, and both queries concerned his suspi-
cion that McCrory had deliberately introduced the subject of sex
into the conversations with Cullen. McCrory explained: "He
and I had been discussing [sic] several times a girl he had been
going with that he didn't want Karen to know about.''
The headline CULLEN GRINNED was the big news of the
day.
An FBI man testified on technical matters on Wednesday,
November 22, and then Judge Moore granted the jurors a four-
day Thanksgiving break. The defense team would need the time
to mull over a major decision which loomed: Should Cullen take
the stand, or should the tapes be left unchallenged?
All in all, Racehorse Haynes was pleased with the way things
had gone in recent days, and he exuded confidence. ''The opera
220
ain't over," he reminded music and football fans, "until the fat
lady sings.''
During the Thanksgiving holiday Cullen visited with his two
sons. His Thanksgiving Vermont turkey was served on a metal
tray with dessert. He sipped Hawaiian Punch.
The trial resumed on Monday, November 27, with FBI

Special Agent Joe Gray testifying as an eyewitness to Cullen's
rendezvous with McCrory on early Sunday morning, August
20. Gray had been inside the white FBI van which Cullen in-
spected before talking with McCrory. Although Cullen could
not see into the van, Gray said that he recognized Cullen.
Judge Moore began to express concern that the trial might ex-
tend through Christmas. He polled jurors to determine if they
wished to work nights or on Saturdays. They elected to arrive at
the courthouse at 8:00A.M., an hour early, and to cut another
hour from their lunch and recess periods.
On Tuesday the prosecutors called two of Cullen's secretaries
to the stand. The testimony Brenda Adcock and Mary Ann
Carter offered was damaging to their employer. Ms. Adcock
said that, following Cullen's instructions, she had stowed a thick
envelope marked "Cullen Davis-Personal and Confidential"
in the office safe at Mid-Continent Supply Company several
days prior to August 20. She had then gone on an Acapulco
vacation. Her colleague, Ms. Carter, was the only other office
employee with the combination to Cullen's safe.
Mary Ann Carter then testified that she was awakened on
Sunday morning, August 20, by an 8:00A.M. call from Cullen.
He was at the office and wanted the combination to the safe. She
told him where he could find a piece of paper with the combina-
tion noted on it and asked that he call again if he had any prob-
lem. Cullen did not call again.
Brenda Adcock, on returning from Acapulco, was the next
person to open the safe. Cullen's thick envelope had been
removed. She further corroborated McCrory's testimony by
221
saying that she recognized McCrory's voice when he had

telephoned Cullen using the name Frank Johnson. As she left
the courtroom Ms. Adcock lingered long enough to pat Cullen
on the shoulder.
On Wednesday prosecutor Jack Strickland-who had fre-
quently expressed his admiration of Racehorse Haynes's color-
ful courtroom technique-had a dramatic scene to present. He
directed that the lights in the courtroom be turned off so that the
jurors could take turns squinting through a night vision scope
with a telephoto lens. It had been discovered in the trunk of
Cullen's automobile after his arrest on August 20. Strickland
referred sarcastically to the contents of the Cadillac's trunk.
"It's the stuff you usually find in a trunk-a ski, a gun with a
silencer, a night vision scope, a fiJ.e folder, and two ominous
cans, one with tennis balls and one with Schweppes tonic
water.''
A Fort Worth investigator revealed that the Ruger pistol with
a silencer which McCrory placed in Cullen's car was inoperable
because an FBI agent had shortened its firing pin. The federal
agents feared Cullen might use it against arresting officers after
its delivery-or to dispose of McCrory. The silencer was
brought into the courtroom and placed in evidence. Ever the one
to avoid describing anything connected with his client in pe-
jorative terms, Haynes called the ominous-looking instrument
''a barrel extender.''
On Thursday a Texas Ranger, John Hogg, testified on the
circumstances of Cullen's August 20 arrest. Hogg said that he
had treated McCrory to a glass of milk in Coco's Famous Ham-
burgers after Cullen had driven away from the meeting. He said
that McCrory had been frightened for his life when Cullen in-
spected the FBI van. "He was visibly shaken," Hogg said.
"Both cheeks were wet with tears. He was driven up
[emotional].''
Later in the day an investigator from the Fort Worth district
attorney's office was on the stand when there was a disturbance
222
in the courtroom. A woman spectator, apparently believing the

witness to be Charles David McCrory, began shouting, "But
he's lying!" She was escorted from the courtroom by the bailiff.
Judge Moore later opined that she should have been detained to
find out if she was ''either intoxicated or not wrapped too tight
[mentally unstable].''
The district attorney's investigator indirectly indicated that
even the prosecution team did not think too highly of McCrory
as a person. "It would be a heck of a note to wind up dead," he
said, "being mistaken for McCrory."
On Friday, December 1, FBI man Larry Tongate described
how he had looked down from an airplane on the morning of
August 20 to see Cullen drive from his office and then take
several evasive actions before meeting McCrory at Coco's
Famous Hamburgers. The plane had circled while the two men
talked, then had tracked Cullen again, alerting mobile
surveillance teams that they could move in on Cullen for the ar-
rest.
The prosecution had presented its case in four weeks of

testimony when the state rested early Monday, December 4.
Judge Moore overruled the routine defense request for an in-
structed verdict, based on the thesis that Tolly Wilson had not
proved his case against Cullen Davis.
Racehorse Haynes was unequivocal in his opening statement
to the jury: ''There was no specific intent of Thomas Cullen
Davis to offend the law in any way and that [sic] in fact Thomas
Cullen Davis was a victim of a conspiracy by and between
Charles David McCrory, Pat Burleson, and others.''
Haynes did not challenge the authenticity of the tapes so
vividly exploited by the prosecution. But he told the jury that
they would find before the trial was over that ''things are not
what they seem to be.''
In his cross-examination of FBI Special Agent Ron J annings,
Haynes had established that Cullen had received an extortion
223
note in late 1977. Haynes told the jury that the threatening letter
had been signed "D.M.R." When advising the FBI, Cullen
had suggested that the most likely suspect was Charles David
McCrory.
Haynes had told the jury that "others" were involved in the
conspiracy to lure Cullen into meetings with McCrory. One of
the "others" Haynes was to accuse was his first witness-
Priscilla.
The prosecution could not call Priscilla to the stand in
Houston, as Texas law stipulates that a witness cannot testify
against a spouse, except in cases where the spouse or a minor
child is the victim. Had Tolly Wilson been able to summon
Priscilla he might well have waived the option, for that would
have given Haynes the opportunity to attack Priscilla's credibili-
ty and, in a rerun of his successful assault on her in Amarillo,
convince the jury that Priscilla was a Mrs. Hyde. Since Priscilla
was in Houston as his witness, Haynes could not attempt to
discredit her.
Priscilla made a grand entrance into the crowded hall outside
the courtroom. She had made so many public appearances that
now she had the aplomb of a film star. Her ice-blonde hair
dipped over one eye. She was dressed in black: a black fox collar
framing two strands of pearls and a gold and diamond cross on a
chain. Reporters clustered about her. Priscilla's thin fingers flut-
tered about her face. She apologized, explaining that a skin ir-
ritation was the reason for the several layers of makeup on her
attractive but drawn face. •
Priscilla spotted the other woman in Cullen's life. Karen
Master was sitting on her customary bench reading a paper-
back. Priscilla raised her hand in a half-salutation. Karen kept
reading.
Before being called into the courtroom Priscilla was asked if
• In August, Priscilla had been in Fort Worth's Harris Hospital to have "some skin
cancer removed, and, the same month, in the All Saints' Hospital for treatment of an
undetermined "severe pain!'
224
she had any qualms about testifying. "I'm used to it now,"

Priscilla said. ''I' 11 just sit here and let them stick pins in me.''
As Priscilla strode down the courtroom aisle to enter the
witness box, Cullen followed her passage with an impassive ex-
pression on his face.
Cullen's wife was on the stand the entire day. In the morning
the courtroom was frigid when the heating system in the Harris
County Criminal Court Building malfunctioned. Unable to at-
tack Priscilla directly, Racehorse Haynes repeatedly attempted
to convey a deprecating image of Priscilla's life-style and
background to the jury. Judge Moore repeatedly sustained pros-
ecution objections that Haynes was impeaching his own witness.
Some of the flavor of Priscilla's life-style did come through.
Yes, the children's bills had been as high as $500 monthly dur-
ing "a busy summer at the country club." The color of the
carpeting in her Lincoln Continental Mark IV? ''Lipstick red,''
Priscilla said.
Haynes introduced into the record and into the minds of the
jurors insinuations concerning Priscilla's relationship with
Charles David McCrory and Pat Burleson, the karate-studio
franchiser. He focused on the period just before and on the day
Cullen had been arrested in Fort Worth on the solicitation-for-
murder charge against Judge Eidson. The facts created doubt
and suspicion. Priscilla said she had not seen or talked with Pat
Burleson during 1978 until August. Then she had gone to his
karate studio in downtown Fort Worth on August 16, the same
day McCrory talked to Burleson about approaching the FBI.
Priscilla confirmed that Burleson had visited her at the mansion
on Mockingbird Lane-just after Burleson had arranged for FBI
man Ron J annings to interview McCrory.
And-Haynes narrowed his eyes and looked at the jury box as
the revelation surfaced-Burleson was again in the mansion on
August 20, early that Sunday morning, at the very time Cullen
was saying to McCrory that it was good that the judge had got
dead!
225
Racehorse Haynes was immensely satisfied as he lighted up

his huge pipe, puffing until a cloud of smoke hovered over the
defense lawyers' table.
The meetings with Burleson, Priscilla insisted, were in regard
to her need for additional guard service at the mansion. Cullen's
wife said her debts had mounted and the cost of paying off-duty
policemen to protect the huge house had become exorbitant.
Burleson was helping her to locate and hire more inexpensive
guards.
The spectators in the court were shivering by the time a recess
was called. Judge Moore announced as he left the bench, "I'll
see if I can get some fire built.''
During the afternoon session most spectators and some of the
lawyers shed their coats in a courtroom so efficiently heated that
it was stifling.
Haynes resurrected his giant calendars to record exactly
where Priscilla was, and how long her meetings with Pat
Burleson lasted, during the crucial period before and after
Cullen's arrest on August 20. The lawyer noted the times on the
plastic-covered calendars with a grease pencil; the jurors
watched the courtroom show attentively.
Then Haynes directed another dramatic interlude. He sum-
moned an unidentified witness. A large, hulking man in a trench
coat entered the courtroom and stood silently before the judge's
bench. He looked like a former professional football player who
had become an actor specializing in hit-man roles in gangster
movies. Then the man, on Haynes's instruction, left the court-
room. He had not spoken, nor had any questions been asked of
him.
Haynes turned to Priscilla. Did she recognize that man? Yes,
she said, she had seen him on television. He was David Binion,
the man Haynes referred to during the first day of testimony as
an underworld character Priscilla had hired to arrange a con-
tract on Cullen's life. Priscilla said that she had never met
Binion.
226
During the remainder of Monday, Racehorse Haynes inter-

rogated Priscilla assiduously, peppering her with spicy ques-
tions. Frequently, Judge Moore interrupted to admonish
Haynes that he must refrain from attacking his own witness.
Jack Strickland passed the time by constructing a paper
airplane.
Cullen smiled once during the day. Haynes had been prod-
ding Priscilla to find out why she had written a certain check for
$500; she couldn't remember. She added: "I'm learning to
mark my checks now.'' That produced a grin on Cullen's face.
Priscilla was scheduled to take the chair on Tuesday at 8:00
A.M., but jurors had to wait until she arrived at 8:30. She ex-
plained that she thought someone was kidding when they said
court would convene at such an early hour.
The tapes of Cullen's two meetings were played again while
Priscilla listened from the witness chair. Tolly Wilson stopped
the tapes at critical points during cross-examination to ask
Priscilla if she had been involved in a conspiracy to trap Cullen
into saying what he did. Each time she denied the allegation.
She also denied even mentioning the name Cullen Davis during
her several meetings with Pat Burleson.
Priscilla was only twenty minutes late on Wednesday, the
third day of her testimony. Allowed to step down later that day,
she chatted with reporters before returning to Fort W-orth~
Priscilla was asked if she knew of any explanation for Cullen's
apparent reluctance to have McCrory's alleged assassin aim at
her rather than Judge Eidson. (Cullen had told McCrory he'd
"have to think on that one.") Yes, Priscilla said, she had an ex-
planation. ''I think Cullen had firsthand information on how
hard I am to kill.''
Pat Burleson followed Priscilla on the witness stand. He
denied any role in a conspiracy against Cullen. He said that
when McCrory had first contacted him on August 16 at a
7-Eleven store in Fort Worth, he had refused to listen to his
friend once the name of Cullen Davis was introduced. "He
227
related to me that he was in a lot of trouble, that the company he

worked for was owned by Cullen Davis and his problem related
to Cullen Davis." Burleson did, however, contact FBI agent
J annings and had counseled McCrory to tell his story to the
federal agent.
Jack Strickland, in a series of adroit questions, established
that McCrory had long considered Burleson a fatherly advisor.
Burleson's calm and steady answers undid some of the harm
Haynes had done to the state's case by dwelling on the
suspicious circumstances of the meetings between Burleson and
Priscilla.
On Thursday the courtroom audience waited expectantly for
Racehorse Haynes's next witness: David Binion, the ominous-
looking character with mysterious FBI ties. Haynes had in-
timated he had been contracted by Priscilla to murder Cullen.
Binion testified-in a heavy, raspy voice which suited his ap-
pearance-that while living in Fort Worth he pretended to be a
hit man although he was actually working as a paid informant
for the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Binion said that
Priscilla had telephoned him, then had invited him to visit her at
the mansion. This was a contradiction of Priscilla's statement
under oath that the only time she had seen Binion was on televi-
sion. And, Binion said, much to the defense's delight, his im-
pression of Priscilla during his visit was that she was ''messed up
on drugs."
But when it got right down to the facts of the meeting in
dispute, the testimony warmed cockles on the prosecution's side
of the courtroom.
Haynes asked the heavyset witness: "Did Priscilla say to you
that 'He will get his' ?''
"No," Binion replied, Priscilla hadn't put it that way.
"What did she say, exactly?"
"I can't say exactly," Binion said. "It was in a religious
sense, a religious manner.''
228
"She didn't call you up there because you were a preacher,

did she?"
"No, sir."
"She didn't call you up there," Haynes continued, "to buy a
used car?"
"No," the secondhand car salesman replied.
"Did she say that Cullen Davis would get killed?"
''No, I already told you that. ''
"Well, what did she say?" Haynes demanded.
''She said God would take care of these things and he (Cullen]
will get what's coming to him."
Binion had something more to say to Racehorse Haynes:
''You and I are taking the conversation in a different light.''
On Friday, December 8, the defense shuttled eleven witnesses
in and out of the witness chair. All were women; all worked for
Cullen. Brenda Adcock, Cullen's secretary, was called back to
the stand, this time by the defense. She testified that Cullen,
prior to his most recent arrest, hired a private investigator to
''sweep'' his office to discover if the office was infested with elec-
tronic bugs. And, she said, Cullen had given instructions to the
men who cleaned the windows in his office that they should
''wash them very carefully.''
Cullen's behavior was characterized, during questioning of
Ms. Adcock by Phil Burleson, as "cautious." Jack Strickland
had another word for it: paranoid.
Then a blonde bombshell detonated in the courtroom. The
last of the secretaries from Cullen's companies was Dorothy
Neeld, a flashily dressed woman with a flamboyant manner.
Ms. Neeld said that she was thirty-seven years old and had five
children ages seventeen through twenty-four. After a messy
divorce she had obtained employment at Jet-Air, Cullen's com-
pany where Charles David McCrory had worked.
On the Tuesday before her Friday appearance in Houston,
Ms. Neeld had contacted defense lawyer Steve Sumner because,
229
she told him, she had ''something on my mind that you might
need to know about."
Racehorse Haynes believed the jury should know about it as
well. On the stand Ms. Neeld testified that three weeks before
the then scheduled August divorce hearing in Fort Worth she
had seen Charles McCrory get into a car with a woman who
looked just like Priscilla Davis. Both Priscilla and McCrory had
previously testified that they had not been together.
"I thought it was strange," Ms. Neeld said, "that Mr. Mc-
Crory would be with Ms. Davis when he was an employee of
Mr. Davis.''
There were two other men in the car, she said. The witness
said she did not know the driver and the front-seat passenger.
Sumner offered Ms. Neeld a stack of photographs, all of men
wearing mustaches. Ms. Neeld selected one. "That's the man
who was the front-seat passenger,'' she said. It was a
photograph of Pat Burleson.
Ms. Neeld wasn't able to identify the driver of the car, but she
did recall that it was a burgundy-colored Lincoln. Ronald
Aultman, one of Priscilla's attorneys in the divorce case, was
furious. He owned a burgundy 1977 Lincoln.
Jack Strickland raised his eyes heavenward. ''A platinum
Ulewayne Polk," he labeled the witness. (He referred to the
nurseryman who had created such a stir in Amarillo with his
last-minute testimony.)
When the court recessed on Friday, December 8, after five
weeks of testimony, Haynes and his stable of defense lawyers
were satisfied with the impression made by their surprise
witness. And, they hinted, the best was yet to come.
On the same Friday, in Fort Worth, another judge made an

announcement which meant that Cullen's trials would not end
in Houston, regardless of the verdict in Judge Moore's court.
District Judge Charles Murray was to hear the five civil suits
230
filed against Cullen as the result of the shootings of August 1976

at the murder mansion.
The first suit to be heard, Judge Murray said, would be that
of Gus Gavrel, Jr., who had increased his claim against Cullen
from three to thirteen million dollars. Gavrel would be a sym-
pathetic witness when he appeared on crutches before a jury.
Racehorse Haynes had petitioned that all five suits be heard
simultaneously, so the issues could be resolved once and for all.
There was not only the case of Gavrel to contend with, but also
two suits filed by Priscilla, one for her own wounding and the
second for Andrea's death; a fourth suit was filed by Jack
Wilborn, also because of his daughter Andrea's death; the fifth
was filed by the relatives of the murdered basketball player, Stan
Farr.
The decision that Gus Gavrel' s complaint would be the first to
be settled was crucial. It was the most likely to go against
Cullen, setting a precedent for the subsequent suits. And a new
Texas law would influence the outcome of Priscilla's civil suits.
(Previously in Texas one spouse could not seek a financial settle-
ment from the other spouse in cases of assault and battery; in-
stead the complaining party had to choose between divorce or a
criminal suit.) Now Priscilla could hope that Cullen would have
to part with some of his millions in the civil as well as the divorce
courts.
Further, in all five suits Cullen could be called to the stand as
a witness, and Judge Murray was highly respected in Fort
Worth as an able, no-nonsense judge. Most important was that
in a Texas civil suit jurors do not have to reach a verdict beyond
a "reasonable doubt," as was true for the criminal trials in
Amarillo and Houston. The verdict could be reached in the civil
suits based on the preponderance of the evidence or testimony.
To put it in different terms, the jury in Amarillo would have had
to decide-as did the jury now in Houston-that the odds were
probably in the ninety-nine percent category that Cullen was
231
culpable. In the civil suits, fifty-one percent credence based on

the available facts would be sufficient to warrant a guilty verdict.
Cullen could not be sent to the Huntsville prison as the result
of any of the five civil suits which would be pending after the ver-
dict in Houston. But, regardless of the Houston verdict, Haynes
would have his work cut out for him to keep Cullen from paying
many millions of dollars in damages to Gus Gavrel, Jr.,
Priscilla, jack Wilborn, and the relatives of Stan Farr.
The sixth week of testimony in Houston began on Monday,

December 11 with the defense calling a Dallas woman to the
stand. Mary Ramsey told the jury that she had seen Priscilla
Davis in Las Vegas in June. Priscilla had testified previously
that she had not been in Las Vegas during 1978. Mary Ramsey
said she was sure that the person she had spotted in Las Vegas
was Priscilla. Ms. Ramsey said that her husband worked for
Mid-Continent Supply Company.
The extortion letter received by Cullen in December 1977,
was read into the record: "I have a contract to see that you don,t
[sic] live to see Xmas. If you don,t [sic] want this contract filled
get 16,000 dollers [sic] in twenty doller [sic] bills together, run a
[sic] ad in the Star- Telegram in the personal section reading
D.M.R. call home and a phone no. Do this right, no cops and I
will see that you live and also tell you who put out the contract
on you.''
FBI Special Agent James Acree said he and another agent had
worked on the case for more than two months but the writer of
the threatening letter was never located. The jury had
understood from earlier assertions by the defense team that
Cullen had advised the FBI, suggesting that D.M.R. was
Charles David McCrory. The two FBI agents were not con-
vinced-they recalled that Karen Master's ex-husband was
suspected-and said that a latent fingerprint on the letter proved
not to belong to McCrory.
One witness that day had sensational information to disclose.
232
Larry Gene Lucas, who described himself as an unemployed

paint contractor and longtime buddy of McCrory, was colorfully
dressed in an iridescent green suit and blue Hawaiian print
shirt. One reporter described him as having a "pool hall de-
meanor.''
Lucas said he had borrowed $10 from McCrory at the
Sylvania Recreational Club in Fort Worth in the early summer
of 1978. McCrory had asked him if he needed to make some
money and Lucas said sure.
"What happened then?" Racehorse Haynes asked.
"He offered me $10,000 to kill Cullen Davis." Then Lucas
said he told McCrory, "You're crazy-the man has more
security than the president. '' Then McCrory said, according to
the witness's account, "Well, you obviously need the money,"
and upped the offer to $20,000.
Lucas said he had declined the offer. Questioned further, he
admitted cheerfully that he was a thief. He had served four years
in Del Rio, Texas, for smuggling marijuana, and two years of a
four-year sentence for a burglary conviction in Missouri. Lucas
stepped down from the witness chair but the court would later
hear more from the ex-convict.
One Tuesday morning a familiar figure added color and a
splash of comedy to the trial: W. T. Rufner, who had gained
fame throughout Texas as the man with an appendage on his ap-
pendage-the red and white Christmas stocking which served as
a fig-leaf in a photograph with Priscilla. During the Amarillo
trial Rufner had been asked how long he had waited on a certain
occasion and, after reflecting, he had replied that the time in-
volved was "about a six-pack."
Now, in Houston, W. T. Rufner was wearing a belt with a
buckle which read "I bring joy to women," a red felt cowboy
hat with a feathered yellow band, and, under an embroidered
western shirt, another of his famous T -shirts. This one had a
drawing ofRufner and a chimpanzee and the message, "Is This
a Courtroom or a Circus?"
233
Rufner explained to the reporters who gathered around out-

side the courtroom that the chimpanzee represented Racehorse
Haynes. "That's what Haynes is doing here," Rufner pro-
nounced. "He's bringing in a bunch of monkeys." Rufner
made it clear that he was referring to the parade of witnesses
who had testified in Cullen's favor. And, referring to Cullen,
Rufner added, ''And he sure has got one [a monkey1 in there
that he's defending.''
The elegant Phil Burleson passed near Rufner' s impromptu
press conference. ''Fink,'' Rufner hissed. He had vivid com-
ments about others on the defense team. He said that Cullen's
lawyers had "suitcases full of money." But, he said, "It looks
like they don't have this man [the judge1in their pocket. ''
Rufner told reporters why Cullen didn't like him. "He didn't
like me staying over at his house and drinking his whiskey. But
that's his problem. He should have stayed at home more."
Rufner, subpoenaed by the defense as a witness, was not per-
mitted to enter the courtroom at any other time. Despite the in-
junction, he made two brief invasions; each time he was tossed
out by the bailiff. Rufner left the building for lunch and pur-
chased $16 worth of beer and egg rolls. When Rufner finally ap-
peared on the witness stand there was an acrid aroma of brew in
the courtroom. Judge Moore smelled something more
ominous-the possibility that Rufner' s bizarre behavior might
give Haynes reason to demand a mistrial. The jury was excused.
Rufner and Haynes were soon bickering. Rufner said there
had been several attempts on his life after the Amarillo trial.
One involved an incident when two men threatened him with
baseball bats. Haynes shot questions at the bearded witness until
he lost his temper. "I could sit here for twenty minutes,"
Rufner said, "and tell you a bunch about people pulling me off
the road and throwing a blast of shit at me, with more than
baseball bats-''
"Wait a minute!" Judge Moore pointed his filter-tipped
cigarette at Rufner. "Let me tell you something. This ain't Fort
234
Worth. This is my show. I trust you appreciate the fact that the
jail is back here." Moore pointed to the door behind his bench
which led to the Harris County jail. "Do it my way, or you're
going out the back door. You're volunteering a lot of information
~d using some profanity and I'm not going to stand for it.''
Judge Moore leveled his gaze on Rufner.
"I'm not going to let you blow seven weeks' work down the
drain because you're teed off at him. '' Moore's V -shaped
eyebrows were vectored on Haynes, then returned to the
witness. "You solve this some other time, some other place, not
on my time. If you do something to blow me out of the tub,
you're going to be safe for six months, anyway.''
No one in the courtroom doubted that Judge Moore meant
Rufner's refuge would be in the Harris County jail.
When Rufner left the courtroom Judge Moore turned to
Racehorse Haynes. "I'm not sure," Moore sighed, "that
Houston is big enough for both of you.''
On Wednesday, W. T. Rufner testified in the presence of the
jury.
"He was a perfect gentleman," Judge Moore said.
When the docile W. T. Rufner departed, he set up shop in a
van on the street outside the courtroom to peddle T -shirts, one
of which read, "What Price Justice?"
Three convicts followed Rufner as witnesses for the defense.
John Thomas Florio, his nephew Salvatore, and Randall Craig
told the court that the Fort Worth district attorney's office had
tried in May to persuade them to participate in a scheme to
frame Cullen. John Florio-wearing dark glasses and a short-
sleeved shirt which revealed tattoos on both arms-pointed to
Tolly Wilson and said he was one of them. They had been prom-
ised a reduced sentence and no prosecution for other offenses,
the trio testified, if they would cooperate with the DA 's office
and deliver perjured testimony against Cullen.
John Florio was serving a sixty-year sentence for robbery at
the time, and Salvatore twenty years for the same crime. Now,
235
in the courtroom, Tolly Wilson asked John Florio when he had

first been convicted. In a New York accent Florio sought
clarification: "As a juvenile or as an adult?" Then Tolly Wilson
recited a list of ten felony convictions on Florio's record during
the past sixteen years. Florio put the statistics in perspective:
"I've only been in prison four times."
On Thursday, Bob Brown, the husband of W. T. Rufner's
former wife, testified that Rufner had confided to him before
Cullen's arrest that ''a man is coming into town to take care of
Cullen." It wasn't going to be clean and fast, Rufner had
added, because they wanted to see the son of a bitch suffer. The
witness was identified as a mechanic who worked for Cullen at
Cummins Sales and Service in Fort Worth.
Late on Thursday, Haynes called Charles David McCrory's
cousin, Garry Lee McCrory, to the stand. Garry Lee was a
machinist at Stratoflex, one of Cullen's corporations. Haynes
was just beginning to get into the subject at hand when Garry
diverged to discuss a pistol silencer he had fashioned on
Stratoflex machinery a short time before.
Jack Strickland jumped to his feet. He waved a copy of the
statutes of the state ofTexas.
Judge Moore quickly excused the jury. Then he rose from the
bench and began to stride out of the courtroom, advising the
surprised witness as he went, "I'm going down the hall to find
you a good lawyer."
Garry McCrory had not been aware, apparently, that
manufacturing a silencer can bring two to twenty years in prison
in Texas, and a fine of $10,000, or both.
In a few moments Judge Moore returned to the courtroom. In
tow he led Rusty Stanley, an astonished Houston attorney
Moore had recruited in the hall. Stanley was dressed in jeans
and a sports shirt. "I want to apologize to your honor," Garry
McCrory's instant lawyer said, "for my dress."
On his new attorney's advice Garry McCrory took the Fifth
236
Amendment when questioned further about silencers he might

have manufactured.
Judge Moore cautioned Racehorse Haynes to warn his
witnesses more carefully about giving testimony related to the
commission of a felony, saying that such advice was a legal
obligation.
"My primary obligation is to my client," Haynes said.
"This is not the first time," Judge Moore said, "we've had a
difference of opinion. ''
The next morning, Friday, Garry Lee McCrory testified that
three men had tried to kill him shortly after he contacted Steve
Sumner of the defense team. Phil Burleson said, "We don't
know whether the events are related or not, but it's sure an in-
teresting coincidence.''
Next, Karen Master, after weeks of waiting on a bench out-
side the courtroom, had a new seat in the witness box at the right
of judge Moore's bench. She wore a turquoise dress. Whenever
she mentioned Cullen she referred to him as "Mr. Davis." Her
testimony was accompanied by frequent smiles at the jury.
Karen said that after she and Cullen had returned from a trip
to New York and Washington in mid-July 1978, Charles David
McCrory had telephoned Cullen at her home on July 13. After
the conversation Cullen had gone out, to return with a thick
brown letter-sized envelope. The envelope contained money,
Karen said; she had peeked inside. She did not count the
money, but Cullen "took it to the office with him the next morn-
ing.'' Defense attorney Steve Sumner told reporters that the
envelope was the same one that Cullen's secretary had previous-
ly testified Cullen had asked her to keep in the office safe.
''Remember that Brenda Adcock testified she received a brown
envelope on July 14," Sumner said. Sumner was not reluctant
to imply that the $25,000 Cullen had given McCrory on August
20 was money that belonged to McCrory-not a payoff forJudge
Eidson's murder.
237
Jack Strickland countered by saying that he found the idea

that Cullen had simply been holding McCrory's money an
unlikely one.
"Cullen didn't mind being called at three in the morning,
didn't mind getting up at seven in the morning, going to the of-
fice, and meeting with McCrory on a parking lot on a Sunday,
huh?" Strickland added, "I guess Cullen was in the money-
delivering business. I guess that's why he needed a gun with a
silencer on it.''
Karen Master was still on the stand when the court recessed
on Friday to end the sixth week of testimony.
It was apparent that the trial would not end before Christmas,
but it was moving toward a dim~. Would Cullen testify?
Would the "fat lady" sing for Hayne~_? Certainly Haynes would
have to explode a bombshell before resting his case.
On Monday, December 18, Karen testified again. Based on

her testimony, and that of other defense witnesses who would
appear before the Christmas break, the defense presented the
following version of Cullen's life and times during the months
immediately preceding his August 20 arrest.
In June, Karen testified, Charles David McCrory had
telephoned her to warn her: ''Karen, I have some information
that I think you should know. I know that Priscilla Davis and
Gus Gavrel, Sr., have a contract on Cullen's life .... " Gavrel,
Sr., was the father of the young man wounded at the mansion
and was on Cullen's alleged hit list.
In July, Cullen had picked up an envelope from McCrory and
taken it to his office.
On August 10 a caller identifying himself as an FBI agent
spoke with Cullen on the telephone. Karen's description of this
event hung tantalizingly incomplete.
And, during the period just before his arrest, Cullen had been
concerned about his safety. He had acquired a bulletproof vest.
The man who supplied the vest corroborated Karen's testimony.
238
Karen listened to the tapes of the meetings between McCrory

and Cullen, and told the jury yes, that was Cullen's voice. The
admission signaled Haynes's intention to produce a star
witness-his client.
Cullen's coming!
The alarm came from Jack Strickland. He had repeatedly
predicted that Cullen would never take the stand, but now he
reversed himself. "It's not what she said," the prosecuting at-
torney remarked in reference to Karen's testimony. ''It's what
she didn 't say.''
Tolly Wilson agreed. He believed that after Karen's iden-
tification of Cullen's voice on the tapes, Cullen's appearance as
a witness was inevitable. "Until she said that," Wilson said, "I
thought they might not call him. Now I think they will have to.''
On Thursday afternoon, December 21, Racehorse Haynes
and his defense team confirmed that T. Cullen Davis would in-
deed testify in his own defense. He would explain the tapes.
Judge Moore wished the jury a Merry Christmas and dis-
missed them for the holiday.
Karen Master canceled skiing reservations in Aspen.
In Fort Worth the people who lived around Rivercrest ex-
changed gifts. Two popular presents were half-gallon jugs of
Chivas Regal and popcorn from Neiman-Marcus in five-gallon
oil cans. On Christmas Day in the Houston jail the richest
prisoner in America received two gifts from the state of Texas: a
pair of socks and a candy cane.
During the holidays those involved in Cullen's trial had the

opportunity to mull over an unrelated but thought-provoking
development that had occurred on December 20. On that day,
in Austin, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the
conviction of Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. Henley had been in-
dicted in Houston in 1973 for his role in the mass slaying of
twenty-seven teenagers involved in a bizarre homosexual sex-
and-torture ring. The trial had been moved to San Antonio,
239
Texas, due to excessive publicity in Houston. The late-1978 split

vote of the Criminal Appeals Court judges was based on the
premise that in San Antonio, too, there had been excessive
publicity. The San Antonio judge had committed reversible
error when he had not entertained a change of venue motion.
Wayne Henley, Jr., had been sentenced to six ninety-nine-
year sentences. Now, five years later, he would have a new trial.
In Fort Worth it was revealed that Cullen Davis needed cash

to pay court costs and the monthly allowances which sustained
Priscilla and Karen. He was about to sell a uranium lease in
New Mexico. Cullen could anticipate $7 million from the sale.
Of that, 93.5 percent would be Cullen's and 6.5 percent would
go to one of Cullen's Fort Worth civil lawyers, Hershel Payne.
T. Cullen Davis had spent several months sitting in court-

rooms since August 1976, but never under oath in a witness
chair. He took the stand on December 27, 1978, when the trial
resumed in Houston after a five-day Christmas break.
Cullen was surprisingly calm. He answered questions in a
clear voice. From time to time he smiled fleetingly at the jurors.
He wore a light blue suit, white shirt, and dark tie as he
presented his version of his meetings with Charles David Mc-
Crory and his explanation of the incriminating statements
recorded by FBI microphones.
It had all begun, Cullen said, early in 1978 when McCrory
began hounding him for a job. McCrory had lost his karate
studio franchise and was broke. Injanuary, McCrory had gone
uninvited to Cullen's office in Fort Worth; Cullen discouraged
McCrory from expecting work with one of his companies. Mc-
Crory continued to telephone but Cullen avoided him.
Cullen reported that Steve Sumner had suggested in early
summer that McCrory might be useful in connection with the
divorce. Judge Eidson had ruled that ''fault before separation''
evidence would be admissible at the trial. Perhaps McCrory
240
could provide information about sexual misconduct by Priscilla

before Cullen had moved out of the mansion on Mockingbird
Lane. McCrory telephoned him on May 1, and Cullen agreed to
see him at the parking lot of Coco's Famous Hamburgers. They
met later in the day and talked.
"What was the subject matter of that conversation?"
Racehorse Haynes asked the citizen accused.
"Well, he said that he was broke and didn't have a job ... he
started crying and wanted to know if I could help him and said
he wanted to know if he could be friends with me.''
"Did you agree to give McCrory a job?" Haynes asked.
"The way I left it with him," Cullen said, "was that there
was a possibility of an opening with a new company we had
bought and that he would call me or I would call him in three
weeks."
Cullen told the jury he had arranged for McCrory to fill a
$20,000-a-year position as a salesman for Jet-Air. The purpose
was not to cover McCrory's activities as an investigator or as
middleman in a murder conspiracy. "I was motivated mainly,"
Cullen averred, ''by the fact he was going to help me with my
divorce, particularly matters related to Priscilla.''
Then Cullen testified that a meeting between him and Mc-
Crory had been recorded by McCrory one week before the
August 18 encounter taped by the FBI. This was the first men-
tion by anyone of such a meeting.
Cullen said he had received a telephone call on August 10
from a man he believed to be James Acree, one of the FBI agents
who had worked unsuccessfully to apprehend the author of the
extortion letter sent to Cullen in late 1977. According to Cullen,
Acree told him: "We believe you are the victim of an extortion
plot by McCrory. I want you to play along. Whatever he sug-
gests, just go do it.''
Cullen met McCrory the next day, August 11. He played
along, as instructed by the FBI. He was (Cullen said) aware that
his conversation was being recorded. McCrory told Cullen
241
killers contracted by Priscilla were stalking him. He assured

Cullen he could persuade the would-be killers to become infor-
mants and to provide information about Priscilla which Cullen
could exploit in the divorce trial.
Cullen testified further that the $25,000 he had passed to Mc-
Crory on August 20, just before his arrest, was McCrory's own
money, won at the gambling tables in Las Vegas. This could not
be disputed by the prosecution; an effort to trace the bills had
been fruitless. Cullen said he had been keeping it for McCrory
since July and returned it that Sunday morning at McCrory's
request.
Responding to questions from Haynes, Cullen flatly denied
that he paid McCrory $5000 for investigative work, or that he
had given McCrory $50,000 to be laundered in Las Vegas.
The prosecution had played the August 18 and 20 tapes
repeatedly since the trial had begun. Now Haynes asked that
they be reviewed again. At critical points he stopped the tapes so
that Cullen could explain what he and McCrory had said.
Cullen said he was aware on each occasion that McCrory was
wired for sound.
''This conversation about killing people was some kind of in-
surance,'' Cullen said, ''for his people.'' His people, Cullen ex-
plained, were the killers McCrory said he would be able to turn
into sources of information for Cullen.
Cullen said that just before the August 20 meeting, McCrory
had displayed the recording equipment strapped to his body.
After that, Cullen added, "Whatever he wanted to talk about I
talked about." But, Cullen made clear, he did not mention
dollar figures in the dialogue with McCrory, "because I didn't
want that turned against me .... I never told McCrory I was go-
ing to pay any amount of money to do anything.''
Cullen was asked to explain his recorded statement that "I'm
always covered.'' Cullen said he made it a habit to be around
other people because "I might get caught alone and get killed
242
myself. Or something might happen in Fort Worth I would get

. blamed for.''
Cullen said that he became accustomed to taking extra
precautions: wearing a bulletproof vest, hiring investigators to
check on Priscilla's activities at the mansion, and taking evasive
action in his Cadillac to thwart surveillance. He explained his
circuitous approach to the August 20 meeting with McCrory. ''I
wanted to find out real fast if anybody was following me. I
thought there was a good possibility that McCrory told
somebody I was bringing him $25,000. There's no telling what
could have happened en route.''
The witness insisted that the conversation of August 20, just
before the arrest, was a spiced-up remake of the August 11
meeting with McCrory. "McCrory said I wasn't coming
through enough," Cullen said, explaining that McCrory's
killers would want stronger stuff before switching their
allegiance from Priscilla.
Later during the day Cullen dropped a pebble of information
and a name which caused ripples in Fort Worth. He said that
before his arrest he talked with one of his Fort Worth lawyers,
Hershel Payne, about the $25,000 he had kept for McCrory
from july 13 to August 20, and that he mentioned judge Eidson
and the FBI to him.
Hershel Payne was a respected attorney in Fort Worth.
Was Payne Racehorse Haynes's "fat lady"?
On Thursday, Cullen continued to deny that he intended to
hire a killer to murder Judge Eidson. He said it was all Mc-
Crory's idea.
"I was just going along with him," Cullen said. "I was just
following his cue. I was going along with the FBI, in accordance
with what they wanted me to do. There was no plan to kill
anybody. We were using those tapes he was making as a tool. I
didn't think McCrory could have talked me into that if I hadn't
gotten that call from the man I thought was with the FBI. ''
243
Racehorse Haynes asked Cullen to explain his taped instruc-

tion to McCrory to "go back to the original plan." McCrory
had said the statement meant he should begin getting a bunch of
people dead.
"That's the plan that he was supposed to bring those people
around to me,'' Cullen said, referring to Priscilla's hired killers.
"That's what I was trying to get him to do. I didn't want to cut
any more tapes.''
Richard Haynes asked Cullen about the now-famous ex-
change concerning Judge Eidson, when McCrory said, "I got
Judge Eidson dead for you," and Cullen's reply was "Good."
"Did you believe he was dead?" Haynes asked.
"Of course not," Cullen replied.
"What was the reason for your saying 'Good'?"
''I was just going along with his conversation,'' Cullen
answered in a steady voice. "I had no reason for wanting him
dead.''
Chief prosecutor Tolly Wilson confronted Cullen in cross-
examination. "Did you believe Charles David McCrory
wouldn't turn on you?''
"That's why I wouldn't use my money," Cullen said.
''You did, though, put your whole self in their hands by mak-
ing those tapes?"
"I thought I'd be safe if I didn't consummate a deal or agree
to kill anybody.''
Wilson continued. ''The thought didn't occur to you that they
might take these tapes and blackmail you for the rest of your
life?"
"Yes," Cullen admitted, "that's why I was being a little bit
careful.''
Cullen went on to say he really didn't know who it was on the
telephone who said he was FBI agent James Acree. But he had
thought it sounded like Acree, whom Cullen remembered from
Acree's investigation of the 1977 extortion letter. But now, after
244
hearing the FBI man testify in Houston about the letter, he was
pretty sure it was not Acree's voice.
It was revealed that the telephone number Cullen said he had
called to talk to someone pretending to be an FBI man belonged
to a karate studio owned by Pat Burleson.
Before the court adjourned on Thursday, Haynes posed a
question to Cullen.
''Are you guilty of conspiring with Charles David McCrory
... to cause the death ofDistrictJudgeJoseph Eidson?''
''As God is my witness,'' Cullen said, ''I certainly am not.''
On Friday morning Cullen answered more questions about
his telephone consultation, while he was dealing with McCrory,
with his Fort Worth civil lawyer Hershel Payne. He had asked
Payne whether or not he might find himself in trouble if his
recorded conversations with McCrory were later revealed. He
told the lawyer about the FBI sponsorship of the intrigue and, "I
told Hershel that David was wanting to talk about killing
people." Cullen testified: "I said, 'Can David and I be pros-
ecuted for it?'"
Cullen quoted Payne's reply: "If you don't intend to do it and
you don't consummate the deal, no law is broken in this state.
People talk about killing people all the time with no intention of
doing it. There's no law against it." And Payne cautioned,
"You better be careful you don't do something David will try to
blackmail you with.''
Payne also assured him, Cullen said, that possession of a
silencer was legal if registered with Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms agents. If Payne said that, Tolly Wilson pointed out,
he was wrong. Further, Wilson found it strange that Cullen
should have telephoned Payne rather than consult with one of
his several attorneys who were expert in criminal law. ''Because
Hershel doesn't charge me when I call him," Cullen explained.
A juror became ill and on December 29, Judge Moore ex-
cused the jury until after the new year. There was still work for
245
the judge and the lawyers in court on that Friday, however.

Cullen's attorneys had argued that a recent ruling of the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals dictated that Cullen be freed on
bond-he had been jailed for more than four months-not later
than the next day, Saturday.
Phil Burleson drafted a motion with the expectation Judge
Moore would grant it.
Then the defense lawyers suddenly and inexplicably retracted
the bond motion which, if granted, would have made Cullen a
free man. Phil Burleson said that it had to do with an unspecified
legal point, and neither he nor his colleagues would say more.
Asked what Cullen's reaction had been, Burleson snapped, "He
didn't cry about it; he didn't jump up and down. He accepted
it.'' It was a mysterious development. (The mystery was cleared
up after the trial: Judge Moore had told Burleson he would not
grant Cullen bond.)
When court recessed on Friday, December 29, Cullen went
back to his cell at the Harris County jail.
In Fort Worth another murder trial had finished. David Gri-

jalva, accused of stuffing a woman's head into a pizza dough
machine, was sentenced to death by lethal injection after a
speedy trial.
The ongoing trials ofT. Cullen Davis were headlined daily in
Fort Worth. On Saturday, December 30, 1978, the Star-Telegram
announced that its editors and readers, in separate polls, had
voted for the third straight year that ''the continuing problems
of Cullen Davis" was the top local news story.
One of Cullen's continuing trials was the matter of his divorce
from Priscilla. Judge John Barron, who had come out of retire-
ment to replace Joe Eidson, said, "I don't shoot loaded dice," to
emphasize that he would be fair in hearing the divorce petitions.
His personal attitude would be crucial, as Cullen had changed
his mind and waived a request for a jury in the case. Priscilla's
lawyers voiced concern that Cullen was sloughing off financial
246
assets to his brother Ken, with the intention of retrieving them

after the divorce trial. The judge vowed that this would not oc-
cur. "I can take those assets," he proclaimed, "and I can starve
them to death." He referred to Cullen and Ken. "I can ab-
solutely starve them to death, by injunction, by receivership,
and by lien, before they cheat her out of five cents. I can take
Cullen Davis's stock. I can put it in escrow, and I can enjoin
him from doing a frazzling thing with it.'' Then the judge
moved the divorce trial from january 10 to February 20.
The divorce trial and the five civil suits pending against
Cullen-not to mention three capital murder indictments never
pursued-were discussed animatedly by a group of Fort Worth
cognoscenti: the city's lawyers. Over the New Year's weekend the
talk concentrated on Cullen's testimony in Houston. Most
lawyers were surprised that Cullen had been such a good
witness, poised and articulate on the stand. Some Fort Worth
lawyers faulted Tolly Wilson. They had been stunned at the
brevity of his low-key cross-examination of Cullen. In Amarillo
and in Houston it had been assumed that harsh, tough inter-
rogation would inevitably puncture Cullen's composure, pro-
voking a display of his fiery temper on the stand. If young
Strickland had handled the bulk of that cross-examination, some
said, it would have been a different story.
Tolly Wilson defended his performance. "As far as trying to
get him mad, that's not my cup of tea. If he wants to get mad,
that's all right."
The consensus among Fort Worth attorneys about Cullen's
future shifted abruptly. Before, it had been figured that Cullen's
chances of acquittal were about fifty-fifty. Now the odds im-
proved in Cullen's favor, and it appeared likely that Racehorse
Haynes would pull another rabbit out of a courtroom hat. The
difference lay in Cullen's surprise testimony that he had con-
fided in and sought guidance from Hershel Payne. Payne was
prominent in Fort Worth; he was the chairman of the local zon-
ing commission and highly regarded by his colleagues. If Her-
247
shel Payne were to testify in Cullen's defense the odds would be

different. But before the trial resumed in the new year the odds
tumbled back to fifty-fifty.
Carl Freund, of the Fort Worth bureau of the Dallas Morning
News, sought out Hershel Payne for a comment.
''Cullen never mentioned the FBI or Judge Eidson to me,''
Payne said.
Cullen was still on the witness stand when the trial resumed
on Tuesday, January 2. On the previous Friday he had testified
that he had told Hershel Payne about a discussion with Mc-
Crory which concerned Judge Eidson.
Now Cullen offered some clarification and a retraction. He
had not, he now remembered, mentioned Judge Eidson to
Payne.
"I don't think I said that," Cullen said. "If I did I didn't
mean that." In the Friday testimony Cullen had also said he
told Payne that he was in contact with an FBI agent named
Acree. Now Cullen recanted. "Karen is the only one I told."
Phil Burleson said that Cullen wanted to clarify his testimony
after "he reflected on it" over the New Year's weekend.
Jack Strickland snorted. He suggested that Cullen was chang-
ing his story because he had heard of Hershel Payne's printed
denial in a Dallas newspaper.
Cullen stepped out of the witness chair after four and a half
days of testimony and returned to his place at the defense table.
On Wednesday, Hershel Payne, subpoenaed as a witness by
the defense, took the stand.
The Fort Worth lawyer was uncomfortable. He was Cullen's
friend and was involved in profitable business ventures with
him. He corroborated Cullen's story of asking him about
possessing a silencer, of McCrory's talk about killing people,
and that McCrory had given him money to safeguard.
But Payne said that Cullen had never mentioned a specific
sum of money. Cullen had never, Payne continued, said
248
anything about tape recordings, the FBI, an extortion attempt,

or plots to kill Judge Eidson. Finally, Payne testified, he did not
talk to Cullen at all during the period from August 10 to August
20-and when he did see Cullen the day after his arrest, Cullen
mentioned neither the name Acree nor the FBI. But Payne, who
wasn't representing Cullen in any civil or criminal actions
against him, testified that he didn't consider himself to be giving
any legal opinions.
"Couple that," Tolly Wilson said, "with Cullen's own
testimony that he spent an hour or two in the federal building in
downtown Fort Worth after his arrest and that he never sought
out the FBI agent he says called him."
Jack Strickland confronted Payne.
''Did you feel that in some way you were being set up to pro-
vide an alibi for Cullen Davis?" Strickland asked.
"I don't think my friend of ten or twelve years, Cullen Davis,
would set me up. No, sir.''
"Have you not, in fact, said that you don't want to be
number sixteen on his hit list?"
Haynes leaped out of his chair to object, but Strickland
pressed on.
''You do not think your friend Thomas Cullen Davis would set
you up or manipulate you to provide a cover; but, in fact, has
that thought crossed your mind in the last five or six months?''
Payne was distraught but candid. "I guess it may have
crossed my mind, when I've seen [sic] the sequence of events."
"Have you been able," Strickland asked, "to discern this
pattern of asking you, not a criminal lawyer, about matters
which might appear to be violations of criminal statutes?''
"That needs to be put in context," Payne replied. "I may be
Cullen's closest personal friend. With that in mind, yes, sir."
Hershel Payne stepped down, saying he didn't know if he had
helped his friend Cullen, or hurt him.
Wednesday continued to be a busy day in Judge Moore's
court. James Stephens had testified previously that he had seen
249
McCrory, Priscilla, and Pat Burleson together in Fort Worth

before Cullen's arrest. He claimed he had mentioned this to an
investigator in the Fort Worth district attorney's office, and that
the investigator had cautioned Stephens, after Haynes had
called him as a witness, "not to get involved" in Cullen's case.
He was asked to name the investigator. He refused.
Judge Moore pointed to the door leading to the jail again. Six
months, he promised, if you don't name the man.
Stephens retreated. "I wish somebody hadn't gotten me in-
volved,'' he sighed, and named the investigator.
Haynes summoned to the chair several private investigators
from Fort Worth to establish that they had been hired by Joe
Shannon to investigate the defense team first in Amarillo and
then, most recently, in Houston. One of the men, Jay Hand,
had previously denied that he had been involved in such
surveillance. Joe Shannon had been one of Tim Curry's assis-
tant prosecutors in Amarillo, along with Tolly Wilson, and was
now in private practice. It was ominous, Haynes said. While
Hand had denied participation, three other members of Shan-
non's squad had testified that they-and Hand-had indeed
shadowed the defense lawyers, going to the extreme of rummag-
ing through their trash. It was all very mysterious and in-
teresting, Haynes reiterated.
Judge Moore did not dispute the interest of the development.
But after sending the jury out of the courtroom he asked Haynes
why an investigation that had begun seven weeks after Cullen's
arrest was relevant.
"Who would hire these people?" Haynes asked. "Who would
pay a substantial amount? Why would someone make a heavy
investment of more than $50,000 for an investigation in this
case? Who had the wherewithal to pay the money these people
make?" His questions were fired at the judge in staccato bursts.
Judge Moore reflected, lighted another cigarette. "Who
cares?'' he asked.
250
''I care!'' Haynes retorted.

"/ don't care," Moore replied. "It's not relevant in any
sense. It's a complete waste of time and a fishing expedition."
"Yes," Haynes said, "but there are fish to be caught."
''The whole system is being abused,'' Moore accused. ''You
are fishing in the wrong pond.''
But Judge Moore did allow Haynes to proceed with limited
questioning and, later, some testimony in the presence of the
JUry.
When the trial recessed on Wednesday it had become obvious
that Haynes believed he knew who had sponsored the investiga-
tion of the defense team, and, he hinted broadly, had been the
eminence grise and paymaster behind the conspiracy against
Cullen Davis-his brother William.
On Thursday, Racehorse Haynes began to build his case
against William Davis-in front of the jury when Moore would
permit it, and without their presence when he would not. The
defense team had been attempting to subpoena William Davis
for weeks, but Cullen's elusive younger brother could not be
found.
Haynes called six witnesses to the stand to embellish his
scenario that William Davis was responsible for Cullen's tribula-
tions. Two appeared before the jury, butJudge Moore ruled the
evidence provided was not relevant. Five witnesses involved in
the investigation of the defense team testified that they had un-
covered nothing pertaining to Cullen's case.
Joe Shannon, summoned from Fort Worth, confirmed that
the investigation had been fruitless. Shannon said that he did
not know the identity of his financial sponsor. A Denver lawyer
had hired him to recruit the investigators. "He told me he had a
client, but did not tell me who it was," Shannon said. "He told
me who he was not. " Shannon had asked if William Davis was
the client, and the Denver lawyer had said no.
Haynes used broad strokes to paint William Davis into a pic-
251
ture of conspiracy. There were mysterious shadows to be ex-

plored, especially the murky manner in which joe Shannon was
paid through an unknown corporation by a Colorado lawyer
known to William Davis.
On balance, however, Haynes failed to make a credible case
against the missing William Davis. And Shannon said, "Our in-
vestigation developed nothing. It was a complete cipher.'' Back
in Houston, Shannon had the opportunity to take a parting shot
at his old adversary in Amarillo, Racehorse Haynes. "We were
looking for illegal activities, if in fact they went on, as we
suspected they went on in Amarillo.''
One ofjoe Shannon's investigators, Jay Hand, was a casualty
of that day's testimony. His previous statement that he had not
conducted surveillance of the defense team was shattered by
Shannon's testimony. Hand hastily hired an attorney and took
the Fifth Amendment. Hand also revealed that he had appeared
in judge Moore's court with recording equipment hidden under
his clothing and had taped his testimony.
An employee of a building maintenance firm which cleaned
William Davis's office in Fort Worth testified that he had seen
Charles David McCrory's name in William's desk telephone
directory. He had entered the office one night-not breaking the
law, he claimed, because his firm was expected to work on the
premises-and had photographed the telephone directory page
which had McCrory's name on it. Haynes passed ten Polaroid
pictures to the jury so they could inspect the evidence connecting
McCrory and William.
Thursday wound down with Haynes continuing to conjure up
dramatic if inconclusive visions of William Davis as the master-
mind behind the plot against Cullen. Why was William avoiding
subpoenas?
Some remembered that Haynes had once successfully con-
ducted a cross-examination of an empty witness chair. Would he
now end his case by interrogating a William-less chair?
The word was out. The defense would very probably rest the
252
next day. Who would Haynes's bombshell witness be? Who

would be the fat lady who would sing before the curtain went
down on the opera in the Harris County courtroom?
On Friday, January 5, the defense called its final witnesses in
twenty days of testimony which they hoped would vindicate
Cullen. The final testimony was exploited by Haynes to spin out
his theory that William Davis was being elusive because he was
afraid to talk about his role in a conspiracy to frame Cullen.
Gerald Brannon, the president of several William Davis
enterprises in Fort Worth, testified that he had been in frequent
telephone contact with William before and during the trial. But
the calls were always in-coming, and he did not know where
William was. Jack Strickland tried to let the jury know that one
reason William was in hiding might be fear. He asked Brannon
about security measures being taken at his home. Judge Moore
sustained Haynes's objection, and so the message was not
delivered.
As for the notation of McCrory's telephone number in
William's directory, Brannon said, he had been responsible for
that. He had instructed a secretary to type into a new directory
for William the names and numbers from an old one, long out of
date. And Brannon related an anecdote which revealed how
deep the split between William and his brothers, Cullen and
Ken, had become. Brannon had been an executive for KenDavis
Industries for twenty-three years. Four months after Cullen and
Ken had voted William out of the business in 1976, Brannon
had attended a Christmas party at William's home across from
the fifteenth tee on Rivercrest Road. Two days later Brannon
was fired and, subsequently, went to work for William.
Racehorse Haynes called his final witness-after reserving the
option of summoning William, if he could be located, before the
case went to the jury. Haynes also obtained a promise from
Judge Moore that perhaps a few additional witnesses might be
called.
Spectators in the crowded courtroom were tense as they
253
turned to see Haynes's bombshell. The reporters in their re-

served seats exchanged glances. Now the big story was immi-
nent.
The witness who approached the clerk to take the oath was a
large woman, with the immense bosom of an opera singer. Her
hair was red, and she wore a russet sweater. She sat in the
witness chair and the questioning began.
The reporters took down every word. The sketch artists bent
over their pads.
The witness said her name was Sandra Merriman. But she
added that this was not her real name. She and her husband had
once been under the Federal Witness Protection Program, as
Charles David McCrory now was, and it would be dangerous to
reveal their true identities. She said she had met Charles David
McCrory in Las Vegas when she had worked there in 197 5 as a
cocktail waitress at the Jockey Bar in the Stardust Hotel. She
had chatted with McCrory and explained to him that the Federal
Witness Protection Program was a program whereby the
government would relocate a witness involved in a federal case,
providing monthly financial payments and a new identity.
That was about all the fat lady had to sing about. She knew
nothing about the case being tried.
The reporters in the courtroom were stunned. Was this
Racehorse Haynes's bombshell?
Tolly Wilson was mystified. He asked a newsman: "Is the
defense theory that this whole thing'' -the alleged conspiracy
against Cullen-' 'was done to get McCrory on the federal
witness program?"
The defense rested.
At the end of the day Haynes was surrounded by television
crews as he was about to enter the garage where his car was
parked.
"You've been famous," one tv reporter said, "for your big
bang endings. What happened to the big bang?''
254
''Watch for the nexus,'' Haynes said. ''Keep watching for the
nexus. It's not over yet."
The cameras focused on Tolly Wilson. "Their [the defense
team's] case went down the tubes," the chief prosecutor said,
''when Hershel Payne told the truth.''
On Monday, January 8, Tolly Wilson began to call the state's

rebuttal witnesses. Racehorse Haynes retained the option of
summoning William Davis, if he could locate him, and two
other witnesses.
On Monday night Larry Gene Lucas-who had testified that
McCrory had wanted him to kill Cullen-was arrested by Har-
ris County police. The charge was aggravated perjury. News of
the detention of Haynes's witness was in the morning papers on
Tuesday.
Haynes was furious. He moved for a mistrial; Judge Moore
denied the motion. Haynes asked Tolly Wilson how word of
Lucas's arrest had leaked. Wilson responded that he understood
a reporter had received an anonymous tip.
"The old anonymous tip?" Haynes's voice was heavy with
sarcasm.
"I'm sure you're quite familiar with that," Wilson replied.
"Do you think I placed the anonymous tip?" Haynes shot
back. ''Are you suggesting that I had it done?''
"Yes," Tolly Wilson said.
"Is that the result of some recent illness?" Haynes asked.
"Are you dethroned of your reason, Mr. Haynes?"
Judge Moore stopped the bickering. His irritation at the con-
tinuing delays-even now after both defense and state had
rested their cases-was increasingly apparent. He warned
lawyers on both sides that the time to send the case to the jury
was near. "I'm going to land this monster," Moore said, with
an allusion to his air force service, ''ifit blows all four tires.''
Mary C. Weir appeared as a state rebuttal witness. She said
255
she had lived with Larry Gene Lucas off and on for several
years. She produced a letter written by Lucas from prison which
made it clear he hoped to profit by claiming that McCrory had
offered to sponsor Cullen's demise. She said that from her per-
sonal knowledge she knew Lucas's testimony was false.
Haynes began his reexamination. He questioned the woman
on Tuesday afternoon until court recessed, and began hammer-
ing away at her testimony and credibility when court resumed
the next morning. Once, after saying he had just a couple of
questions more, Haynes peppered the witness with thirty-three
additional queries. She admitted that she was a prostitute, but
the incessant questioning continued until the exhausted witness
stepped down after five hours (during two days) in the chair.
Haynes used one of his remaining witness options to produce
a seventy-year-old woman who vowed that Larry Gene Lucas,
her son, was a fine boy.
David Childers, Priscilla's brother, took the stand to swear
that Priscilla could not have been in Las Vegas at the time Mary
Ramsey had said she had seen her there. Other witnesses pro-
vided testimony that made the claims of the Florio family-the
convicts who had sworn the Fort Worth district attorney's office
had subverted them-seem highly implausible.
Racehorse Haynes had not been able to locate and subpoena
William Davis, but he came up with a bombshell witness, the
kind everyone had expected: a last-minute appearance by a
seemingly impartial observer who would cast serious doubt on
Charles McCrory's already tattered credibility.
Harold Sexton was a former Fort Worth resident who had
recently become a golf instructor in California. He was not an
ex-convict, and he had not worked for Mid-Continent Supply
Company.
Sexton testified that he had met Charles David McCrory in
Fort Worth the previous summer, before Cullen's arrest. They
had something to eat at Samba's restaurant on East Lancaster
Street. McCrory had mentioned that he understood things had
256
not gone well with Sexton, and McCrory "asked me if I would

like to make some money.''
Sexton said he had asked McCrory what was involved.
"We need someone," Sexton said McCrory had answered,
"to place a telephone call to Cullen and to present himself as a
police officer. ''
Sexton said he had declined the offer. Then, a few days ago,
he had read about Cullen's trial in the newspapers and he de-
cided to contact Richard Haynes to volunteer his information.
Within hours after Sexton's testimony Tim Curry's office in
Fort Worth marshaled a squad of witnesses to fly to Houston the
next morning to tell the jury what they knew about the
restaurant where Sexton had seen McCrory. The witnesses-
including a fire chief-were prepared to testify that the Sambo's
on East Lancaster had burned to the ground some time before
the day Sexton said he met McCrory there.
On Friday morning Harold Sexton had second thoughts
about his meeting with McCrory in Fort Worth. He told the jury
he had made a mistake. The encounter was at another Sambo' s
on Division Street. The confusion resulted from the fact that
both Sambo's were located on U.S. Route 80 and both Division
and East Lancaster were a part of that road. "Hell, they all run
together,'' Sexton said.
Tolly Wilson forced Sexton to admit that he knew the area
well and to acknowledge that the two Sambo 's were seven miles
apart in business sections separated by vast undeveloped areas.
Cullen's current case had begun at Coco's and now had
ended, indecisively, at Sambo's.
The tenth week of testimony was over on Friday, January 12.
On Monday, January 15, Judge Moore prepared his instruc-
tion to the jury while the lawyers readied their final arguments.
Racehorse Haynes requested that judge Moore ban any men-
tion of Cullen's financial standing during closing arguments.
Tolly Wilson objected. The judge ruled that the jury could hear
Cullen described as wealthy but not as immensely wealthy.
257
Judge Moore overruled a motion by Haynes that jurors seek a

verdict on only one of the four options posed in his grand jury in-
dictment. Moore said the jury could base their verdict on either
of two charges: solicitation of capital murder (if a defendant '' re-
quests, commands, or attempts to induce another to engage in
specific conduct that . . . would constitute capital murder or
make the other a party to its commission"); or, a criminal con-
spiracy to commit capital murder (if the defendant ''agrees with
one or more persons that they or one or more of them engage in
conduct that would constitute the offense, and he or more of
them performs an overt act in pursuance of the agreement'').
On Tuesday closing arguments began. Each side was limited
to four hours to make its case.
Tolly Wilson began by characterizing Cullen as an arrogant,
calculating, stone-faced man. After describing Cullen's final
meeting with McCrory, Wilson asked the jury, ''Doesn't it tell
you something about the mental process of that man''-Wilson
pointed at Cullen-"who sat [sic] there with the same cold stare
on his face for the last twelve weeks?''
Wilson reminded the jury of McCrory's remark on the tape:
''I gotjudge Eidson dead for you.''
''And from the cheering gallery,'' Wilson shouted emotion-
ally, ''came the reply, 'Good!' ''
The chief prosecutor cautioned the jurors that Racehorse
Haynes's rhetoric could lead them into disagreement from
which a hung jury would result. Haynes, Wilson said, had made
"a deliberate attempt to extend the trial to see if something
would happen . . . so we could not continue with this trial.''
Wilson said Haynes's objective was to confuse the issue of
Cullen's guilt with piecemeal versions of various conspiracies
from different witnesses. Haynes had attempted to create a
situation where at least two jurors ''would be so irritated with
each other that no verdict would be possible." Wilson urged the
jurors to remain united. ''The very prospect of doing this
again," he said, "makes me shudder."
258
Jack Strickland continued the argument. Referring to the

tapes, he told the jury: ''It's like you were in the back seat of that
car, ladies and gentlemen. You can hear them and see them and
you don't have to guess about what is being said. What a dif-
ferent lawsuit this would have been without that videotape. Do
you think the defendant would have admitted saying all that if
he didn't have to? But the defense was stuck with that ....
"You don't have to guess," Strickland went on, "if Cullen
Davis paid Charles David McCrory his blood money, because
you saw him do it. You don't have to guess if Cullen said 'good'
when he was told this man right here'' -Strickland identified
Judge Eidson among the courtroom spectators-"had been
killed. What in God's name can be a reasonable explanation of
that?"
Strickland said the defense strategy had been to lay "rabbit
trails. It was an ABC defense," he said, "Anybody But
Cullen.''
The assistant prosecutor categorized the defense witnesses
who had supported Cullen's version of the tapes: people who
work for Cullen, convicts and ex-convicts, and witnesses with
relevant information ''who didn't tell anybody, and then sud-
denly searched their consciences and came forward." Some of
those witnesses, Strickland added, ''have shown up and come
slithering into this court.''
He ridiculed Cullen's explanation of the tapes. ''What else
could he do? We found out that kill doesn't really mean kill and
dead doesn't mean dead; bloody and bleeding don't mean
bloody and bleeding; waste doesn't mean waste; shooter doesn't
mean shooter; and alibi doesn't mean alibi.''
Strickland gestured toward Racehorse Haynes.
''Mr. Haynes suggests money is what brought the crowds into
the courtroom. That's probably true. Money is always what
brought Mr. Davis to the courtroom. The abuse of money ....
One thing, I submit to you, that Mr. Davis can't buy is the
system.''
259
When the prosecution finished closing arguments the tension

in the courtroom was almost palpable. High drama was in the
offing. All eyes focused on Racehorse Haynes.
As he began his argument Haynes's voice was raspy. He had
developed a cold overnight in the chilling rain which had been
falling on Houston. He stood, removed his half-moon spec-
tacles, and addressed the jury.
First he disposed of Charles David McCrory's char-
acter-''the unctuous, sniveling McCrory.''
It was McCrory, Haynes assured the jury, who orchestrated
the conversations on the tapes. He steered Cullen, led him on,
elicited incriminating statements about murder. McCrory was
the villain who enticed Cullen by promising evidence for his
divorce trial while he conned Cullen.
"He had the ability to con," Haynes said. "He knew he had
something to sell. Is there any question in your mind that David
McCrory is a liar?"
McCrory had been able to con the FBI and its agent Ron Jan-
nings with his wicked scheme. "McCrory has sold the FBI and
he sold Mr. Jannings. He sold Mr. Jannings into letting him call
the shots. . .. Charles David McCrory, the man who sells all
things, now wants to sell this jury.''
Why? For what motive?
Priscilla.
Priscilla was the explanation, Haynes told the jury, for the
conspiracy against the citizen accused. Priscilla had acted
because she feared her upcoming divorce proceeding would
mean the end of her life of luxury in the mansion. "Priscilla
Davis would rather be contesting her share of the community
estate with Cullen Davis convicted of a crime. Priscilla Davis
would rather be contesting her share of the community estate as
a widow!''
Haynes's voice dropped to a dramatic whisper.
"Was she the guiding genius behind it all?"
260
Perhaps there was another malevolent genius involved.

Where was William Davis? Where was the man who had been
Priscilla's ally, who had financed her transportation to and from
the Amarillo trial? Where was the missing witness who had once
paid for security guards at the mansion?
Haynes whirled to the empty witness chair to confront the in-
visible William Davis. "Why are you dodging our subpoena?
Why are you getting daily reports on the trial from your
employees? Why did your employees not want to know where
you were located?''
Haynes defended the veracity of his witnesses, although he
did make the wry admission that Larry Gene Lucas was ''a
man, perhaps, you can say, only a mother would love."
As he approached the peroration of his eloquent two-hour ora-
tion, Haynes stood at the edge of the jury box. Four of the five
women in the jury sat in the front row.
''McCrory was an opportunist,'' Haynes confided to the jury.
"McCrory took advantage of a person."
It was so still in the courtroom that despite his whispers
Haynes could be heard identifying the man McCrory had taken
advantage of. McCrory had taken advantage of Cullen.
''In my experience,'' Haynes said, ''people who are born into
great wealth have an inferior feeling, despite their wealth. And
they wonder if others really like them and why someone likes
them.
"You can see," Haynes continued, "what the money does.
You can see the attention it brings. What it has done for Cullen
Davis is to make him the mark, the mark of David McCrory.
This is the same Charles David McCrory who would ask you to
destroy a life by a verdict of guilty.''
Racehorse Haynes closed with an emotional plea to the
jurors. ''Do no violence,'' he beseeched, ''to your conscience.''
Haynes's eyes glistened with tears. "If you can do that, I have
no quarrel with you, and God speed to you."
261
The sky was clear and the winds chilly in Houston when the
second trial of Cullen Davis ended.
During the first trial in Amarillo the jury had been out just
over four hours before returning a verdict of acquittal.
In Houston, at Cullen II, when the jury delivered its final
report on Friday, January 22, the jurors had been sequestered
since the previous Monday. During that period the jury's buzzer
frequently sounded; the jurors wanted to ask guidance from
Judge Moore, to review evidence that had been presented weeks
before, or to be urged by Moore to arrive at a verdict. During
forty-four hours of deliberation the jurors cast fourteen ballots,
all with the same result-an eight-to-four deadlock. Which way
no one knew, nor could Judge Moore ask.
The cavernous courtroom took on the appearance of a bus sta-
tion filled with stranded passengers. The prohibition against the
presence of witnesses in the courtroom had been lifted and
several waited in the crowd. Judge Joe Eidson and W. T.
Rufner were there. Karen played gin rummy with Cullen to pass
the time. Cullen's brother Ken and two of his children were
there.
Journalists, photographers, and television crews fidgeted as
deadlines passed; Judge Moore had allowed those previously ex-
cluded to witness and fum the trial's end. There was a media
mob including two reporters from the New York Times and others
from the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek and
Time. The AP and UPI correspondents who had been at
Amarillo were still filing stories about Cullen. A third Star-
Telegram reporter and two photographers had flown from Fort
Worth to work with Glen Guzzo and Jim Jones. Three dozen
reporters and cameramen from other Texas newspapers and
radio and television stations waited for the jury to return for the
final time. Soon the courtroom floor was littered with empty cof-
fee cups; no one strayed far in fear of missing the climax of
Cullen's trial.
262
The last signal from the buzzer came late in the afternoon.
The jury began to file in to take their seats.
Cullen waited, stiff in his chair at the defense table. He was
wearing the subtly patterned blue suit he had worn on the first
day of his testimony. Racehorse Haynes was immaculate in his
usual black pinstripe suit; his pipe smoldered in an ashtray. Tol-
ly Wilson wore his brown suit. Judge Moore kept switching his
cigarette from hand to ashtray, but never smoking it.
The jury forewoman said they were hopelessly deadlocked,
the ballots remaining at eight to four.
Judge Moore addressed Cullen, requesting his consent to
declare a mistrial; to do otherwise would have meant that
Haynes could claim double jeopardy in any future trial.
''You have my permission, Your Honor,'' Cullen said. ''And
I want to thank this jury.''
Judge Moore excused the jury as the courtroom clock struck
4:07P.M.
There was no emotion.
Cullen turned to Haynes and thanked him. Then he
whispered to Karen, and the two disappeared through an exit at
the rear, but not before W. T. Rufner overtook Cullen to thrust
aT-shirt into his hands; it read "What Price Justice?"
The media converged on Racehorse Haynes.
Phil Burleson took an envelope from his breast pocket, re-
moved three hundred $100 bills and paid bond for Cullen.
Cullen and Karen emerged from the Harris County jail
release area an hour later, accompanied by relatives and
lawyers. Cullen said, ''I'm glad I'm out.''
Word leaked quickly: The jurors had voted eight to four for
conviction. Three of the jury's five women were among the
jurors who held out for acquittal.
There was a celebration party. Not as rambunctious as the
one in Amarillo, but lively. Haynes proclaimed, ''A classic ex-
ample of the integrity of the American jury-they debated the
263
pros and cons every way and in the end they voted their
consciences. ''
A journalist at the party asked Cullen if he had been uncom-
fortable in the witness chair.
"Well, I thought I was going to be nervous," Cullen replied.
"But I wasn't. I guess I'm a cool cat."
Judge Moore, who was not at the party, was asked how he felt.
He named no names when saying, "The entire system has been
abused by this case. I'm talking about the way the case was
tried. It was just more than a jury can remember.''
Would Moore preside at a retrial?
"Hell, no," snapped judge Moore.
After the celebration party Cullen, Karen, and Racehorse
Haynes and his wife flew to Fort Worth in the Lear jet, first leg
on a ski trip to Aspen.
In Fort Worth a Star- Telegram reporter interviewed thirteen

pedestrians for a quick, informal poll. Nine citizens said they
believed Cullen to be innocent or that the case against him was
too weak to be convincing.
Priscilla, in the mansion, said that the fear was still there, and
that she would continue to live with it. She noted that Andrea
would have been fifteen that day.
Andrea's father, Jack Wilborn, predicted: "He'll have to look
over his shoulder from now on. It may be when he dies a natural
death, but I feel justice will be done.''
District Attorney Tim Curry remained convinced that Cullen
was guilty. ''If Cullen Davis really received a call from a man he
considered an FBI agent," Curry asked, "why didn't he tell
other FBI agents about it when they questioned him after his ar-
rest ten days later? I'll tell you why. They hadn't concocted his
story yet. It was invented later."
Fort Worth is a small town. Tim Curry and Cullen Davis had
known each other as they grew up in the western section of the
city. Tim Curry, too, was a member of the Steeplechase Club.
264
Now Curry would have to decide whether to prosecute Cullen

for the third time. Politically, it might not be wise. District at-
torneys in Tarrant County are elected, not appointed.
A Fort Worth woman began a drive to circulate petitions call-
ing for an end to Tim Curry's prosecution of Cullen. Within
four days she had 6000 signatures from Tarrant County tax-
payers.
The Star- Telegram conducted a formal poll, as it had after the
Amarillo trial. This time the question was simpler. Not was
Cullen guilty, but should Cullen be tried again? Of the several
thousand calls received by the Star- Telegram, fifty-five percent of
the citizens said there should be no retrial. Despite this tally of
popular opinion, the newspaper's editorials called for a retrial.
Curry was aware that people in his own office were saying that
Cullen's trials were Curry's personal Vietnam. ''He keeps send-
ing men and money and nothing comes back.''
"It boils down to whether a man with his money and his
resources should get a free ride," Curry said. "From the point
of time and expense, we have already reached the point of
diminishing returns in our efforts to send this man to prison. But
I don't see that as the issue. We've got to show the public that
you can't put a dollar sign on justice in this state.
"We intend to re-try the case at the earliest possible time,"
Curry added. ''That could be in six months. But that may not
be realistic."
The decision was Tim Curry's. His was the signature on the
grand jury indictment of Cullen-still valid-just under the line
which read, "AGAINST THE PEACE AND DIGNITY OF
THE STATE."
265
·13·
THE OLD JUDGE
Although a late afternoon sun lurked behind January clouds,

only a shallow residue of bourbon remained in the old Judge's
tumbler. He and the journalist had been discussing Cullen's
trial and its inglorious climax.
"It's been an eventful period," the Judge said. "While you
were in Houston, Gene Tunney and Margaret Mead died.
Texas suffered the exquisite pain of inaugurating its first
Republican governor in 150 years. And that incredible develop-
ment down in Guyana.''
''After Amarillo,'' the journalist said, ''you were critical of
Judge Dowlen's performance. What about Judge Moore?"
"I sincerely believe," the Judge opined, "he should have se-
questered that jury. And the trial went on too long. Five hours of
interrogation of that admitted prostitute after the defense rested.
Too goddamned long. There's some new law to be written about
the time a lawyer can spend on cross-examination and
reexamination of a single witness. The truth is lost and obscured
in all those questions." The Judge paused. "In any event, I'm
writing a letter to the Texas State Commission of Judicial Con-
duct in Austin. Those people pay some attention to my
opinion."
"But, Judge, 1-"
"Don't misunderstand me," the Judge said, raising a hand.
"Given the circumstances, Pete Moore did a superb job. He
knew that Racehorse Haynes would exploit any opportunity,
266
THE OLD JUDGE
any ruling he made, to claim a mistrial or, on appeal, reversible

error. No, son,"-the Judge drained the last of his bourbon
-''I'm sending a letter of commendation to Austin.''
The journalist asked the Judge what he thought of the large
number of Fort Worth residents who had signed petitions
demanding that Cullen not be tried again.
"Legal opinion from the crowds?" The Judge grimaced as he
turned his thumbs up, then down. "That's the way they voted
in the Colosseum, son.''
The Judge rose from his chair and began to pace.
''If you had to sum up your reaction to the trial,'' the jour-
nalist asked, "what would it be?"
"My reaction?" The Judge turned. His face was drawn; he
was disturbed. "I'm sad. The whole thing saddens me. I've
never had any children, you know. My only child has been the
law. Now I feel as if my daughter has been raped."
"There's something wrong with the system," the Judge con-
tinued. "Perhaps it's the fault of our society, Texas society: a
place where money still means something in terms of public at-
titudes, buying forgiveness, buying justice. Where money is still
an acceptable substitute for respectability. A society where men
are still expected to be men and women virtuous women-and
ERA be damned. Where you assess blame and forgiveness ac-
cording to that standard, and not by any damned fool laws.
Where second- and third-generation oil heirs are spoiled rotten
and showing it, and unable to adapt to not having their
way-the H. L. Hunts and the Howard Hugheses and the
Cullen Davises. Maybe that Rufner fellow spelled it out on his
T-shirt: 'What Price Justice?' " In many ways Texas is still a
frontier-an oil and gas frontier-and the people here still have
frontier attitudes: You're entitled to get away with anything as
long as you're big enough to get away with it. And by and large
folks go along with it, right or wrong."
"I'm not sure I agree, Judge," the journalist said. "During
the past three months I've scrutinized the society that spawned
267
Cullen Davis. I'm not convinced the blame should be placed

there. Most of the people who live around this golf course,
despite their enormous wealth, are pretty much like other peo-
ple. They live under a bubble of money which magnifies their
faults, but not always their virtues."
"Maybe I don't adhere to that view," the Judge said,
"because if it's valid then the blame has to be laid elsewhere.
And that would mean the problem is with the goddamned
lawyers. Now it appears that Cullen will be tried for murder for
the third time. If he gets off again there's something radically
wrong with the system-and maybe we'd better start correcting
things with the lawyers. I don't care what any of us say. The
purpose of the legal system is to produce justice. In plain
language that means-to me, at least-that the guilty are
punished and the innocent released or protected. And the god-
damned lawyers can talk all they want to about a lawyer's duty to
his client being to get him the best break he can possibly get
under the system, including getting his client off scot-free if he is
actually guilty. But I say his first duty is to justice!" The old
man's voice was rising, his lips were trembling. "And if that
conflicts with justice the lawyer's first duty is to justice-which
ain't the product of skill or manipulation like shooting pool.''
The Judge walked to the bookshelves and touched the volume
ofDisraeli. "Truth in action?" he asked himself.
The judge turned to the journalist.
''Well, son, what about your verdict? Do you know whether or
not Cullen was guilty of those crimes?''
"Yes," the journalist said. "I'm convinced I know the
truth."
''And will you share that knowledge with your readers?''
"No, Judge." The journalist was apologetic. "That's not
really my responsibility, my obligation. I've arranged my
material for the book as objectively as the bizarre case of Cullen
Davis demanded. But my job is to present the facts and let the
reader decide for himself if Cullen is guilty.''
268
THE OLD JUDGE
The Judge smiled mischievously.

"Is it possible, son," the Judge asked, his eyes twinkling,
''that the laws of libel in the state of Texas have something to do
with your equivocal posture?''
The journalist sighed.
"I suppose," theJudge said, "I'll have to be tolerant ofyour
less than noble compromise between duty and the practicable.
But in return I'll ask you to do something for me before you go
back East. I've never seen that big place on Mockingbird Lane.
Will you take me over there?''
The trip by automobile from Rivercrest to the mansion where
Priscilla dwelled was only ten minutes. During the drive the
Judge and the journalist discussed the various myths and in-
triguing theories which would inevitably surround the mansion's
past and present occupants.
One conspiratorial theory would never die. Many people in
Fort Worth were convinced that Priscilla was clever enough,
audacious enough, and had the motive-revenge for the murder
of her daughter Andrea-to have become the sinister master-
mind behind a plot to trap Cullen using Charles David McCrory
as her instrument.
But most people in Fort Worth, the Judge and the journalist
agreed, would be content to wait for the truth to emerge in yet
another trial for Cullen. The question they wanted answered
was a simple one: Was Cullen guilty or innocent of the crimes
charged to him?
The journalist stopped his rented car at the gate at 4200
Mockingbird Lane. Beyond the gate the drive wound up the hill
to the trapezoidal mansion, across the field where Priscilla had
run to seek aid from her neighbors two and a half years before.
"No wonder Fort Worth never catches up with Dallas," the
Judge said. "What an indolent town. Look at that sign! You
would think that someone would take better care of the sign.''
The sign at the entrance gate read, "Do no en er-pr va e
pro erty. ''
269
The two men looked at the mansion for several minutes

without speaking. Finally the Judge said, "You can take me
home now, son. I think I'll break my rule and have another
drink. At my age sleep is precious, and I just may have trouble
sleeping tonight.''
The journalist started to back away from the gate.
"Wait!" The Judge laid his hand on the journalist's arm.
''Just a moment longer.''
The rain clouds on the western horizon had opened momen-
tarily, unveiling an orange disk of setting sun. The rays of
sunlight slanted across the scrub-and-brush plains and painted
the mansion with a twilight glow, the ineluctable between-day-
and-night beauty that transforms bleak prairies into luminous
landscapes. The TCU stadium on the bluff behind the man-
sion-TCU was the school where Stan Farr had played basket-
ball-loomed over the Davis property. The mansion, splashed
with gold, was eerily beautiful. Then the clouds closed, drop-
ping a dark curtain over the scene. The mansion was ugly,
ominous, a proper setting for a murder or two.
"I'm an old man," the Judge said, "and I'm a little drunk.
But somehow I imagine I hear something. I hear the sound of a
child~s laughter-faintly, but I hear it-drifting down from that
mansion.''
The Judge turned.
"There's something that bothers me, son. It bothers me a
great deal.''
The Judge challenged the journalist with his gaze.
"If Cullen didn't kill that twelve-year-old girl," he asked,
"who ditP."
And then, after a long pause, ''And why?''
270

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THE

The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service

MACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC. NEW YORK

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-12413

First Printing 1979

Printed in the United States of America

3 THE OLD JUDGE AND THE JOURNALIST 34

9 THE OLD JUDGE 140

The precise sequence of events and the circumstances of that

chitect had characterized this edifice as ''a rambling-type home

proceeding ensued. She lived in the mansion with one of her

other expenses related to the divorce. Cullen was advised of the

while hugging a huge block of ice to cool himself in Sunday's

read books, but sometimes he was content simply to hold them.

employed curse words-he always put the emphasis on another

reputation as a legal giant in the Southwest. And, at the age of

richest men in Texas. Once he summoned his two sons just

doesn't do anything, I understand. He just likes to drive around

Waggoner girl was Dan's great granddaughter. Dan Waggoner

By the time the first reporters and photographers arrived at

spoke with Cullen. He instructed Cullen to come out. Cullen

While the events at the Davis mansion at 4200 Mockingbird

gossip mill. A morning exchange of society intelligence is a ritual

The revelations in radio reports had been shocking and sensa-

ond picture was of twelve-year-old Andrea's father, Jack

car, a small automatic pistol in a cardboard box also in the

Cullen was charged with murder on August 4. Judge Byron

quate examination into their affairs and the construction of a

him searching for Beverly. Gus attempted to stand and walk. He

Other witnesses established that two bullets had been re-

Cullen closed the conversation: "Well, I guess I'll go back to

On August 16, Priscilla's daughter Dee was driving in an

The journalist had arrived in Fort Worth the evening before

the mansion on Mockingbird Lane. He said he was trying to

Worth was a part of almost every gentleman's attire and essen-

sentence conviction. The defendant's lawyer protested that

seeping up through the surface. "Take old W. T., for

business. What's wrong with Thomas? Somehow it's always

In the beginning it was the Mid-Continent Supply Company,

rapidly developing into a recreational area for the city's wealthy.

Those who knew or were even briefly associated with Ms.

he was drinking. Stinky consumed prodigious amounts of bour-

•Banty, in the Southwest, is a variation ofbantam.

In 1943, Stinky purchased the Landreth place on Rivercrest

drinking bouts and sex excursions he had managed to expand

won the tournament of a Fort Worth business executives' club.

less than an hermetically sealed contract. Once, during a con-

was to be a semi-invalid for two years. He had four heart attacks

acrimonious dispute over the Mockingbird Lane property which

In his passage from youth to social and business recognition as

making small loans to school pals. When attending Texas

the divorce settlement Sandra received- the house, its fur-

in that she liked Priscilla-commented that it was ''really sort of

Elephant. McCrory, age thirty-eight, had come to Fort Worth

Although Cullen and Priscilla spent much of their time in

animals and potted plants were sprinkled everywhere, as were a

Cullen resided for a while in temporary quarters at the

Worth drug scene that narcotics agents began to investigate