“No one reported Jayden as missing. No one was looking for Jayden. Jayden had no advocate other than us. Somebody took a beautiful, inno- cent child and discarded him in the ocean like he was a piece of trash.”
—Bryan Gaines, the supervisory senior resident agent at the FBI office in Texas City. Agent Gaines was talking about 4-year-old Jayden Alexander Lopez, whose body washed ashore in Galveston in October 2017. Investigators had called him Little Jacob because no one had come forward to claim him. He was finally identified in late June after investigators released a photo of the boy’s body. Jayden’s mother and her girlfriend are now in custody.
https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/galveston/news/article/Galveston-police-to-reveal-notable-development-in-13009109.php
“I’m here because I want to follow this through. This individual murdered my brother, and I need to see him go to the Lord. I need to physically see him take his last breath and go to the Lord.”
—Bexar County Criminal District Attorney Nico LaHood, in a Netflix series called I Am a Killer, the second episode of which explores the case against Mauriceo Brown and Kenneth Foster Jr., who were convicted of murdering LaHood’s brother, Michael, in 1996. LaHood was explaining what was going through his head when he attended Brown’s execution in 2006. (Foster’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2007.) https://www.expressnews .com/news/local/politics/article/LaHood-opens-up-about-brother-s-murder-in-13136441.php
“I didn’t really want to just give up immediately. I was raised tougher than that, raised in Texas. We’re born fighters.”
—U.S. cyclist Lawson Craddock, who finished the Tour de France in last place in late July. On the race’s first day, he suffered a bad crash, fracturing his scapula and receiving a gash on his eyebrow that required stitches to close. He continued riding for the next 22 days (over 2,000 miles), often behind the peloton, and finished in 145th place, winning thousands of fans along the way. https://www.npr.org/ 2018/07/30/633936189/lawson-craddocks-amazing-last-place-finish-in-the-tour-de-france
“It took at least six years off my life.”
—Wade Vielock, Bee County resident, relaying the story of how his 6-year-old son found a “substantially sized” (but harmless) indigo snake in the toilet. https://www.texasobserver.org/strangest-state-august-2018/
“Rather than community-based treatment services, we’ve invested in criminal justice-based services. I have to put many of my clients in jail to get them services. That shouldn’t be the case.”
—Elizabeth Henneke, a lawyer and executive director of Lone Star Justice, in a Houston Chronicle newspaper article about the impact of substance abuse on criminal justice and state agencies. https://www.chron.com/news/ politics/texas/article/Lawmakers-get-a-lesson-on-the-drug-problem-in-13139512.php
“In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court votes for Justice Kennedy to retire.”
—Jon English, prosecutor with the Special Prosecution Unit, on Facebook