Texas Wine and True Crime
We review Texas wines and discuss Texas true crime.
Texas Wine and True Crime
Haunted Sips: Celebrating Texas Wine, True Crime, and Ghostly Tales
What connects an exquisite Estate Merlot with the ghostly tales of Texas? Join us as we toast to four glorious years of Texas Wine and True Crime, celebrating with our listeners and supporters who've made our journey unforgettable. We're thrilled to announce our upcoming live show in Fredericksburg at Longhorn Cellars, where you can join us for a unique wine tasting paired with riveting true crime stories. As we sip on this delightful Merlot, we also reminisce about our memorable collaborations and share exciting events lined up for the rest of the year. Our hearts are full of gratitude for the venues and individuals who've been with us every step of the way.
Embark on a spine-chilling exploration of Texas's haunted history, from the Lady of the Lake's chilling whispers at White Rock Lake to the ghostly halls of Yorktown Memorial Hospital. Jefferson, Texas, reveals its haunted secrets, even giving famed horror writer Stephen King a shiver. Discover surprising ties between the Thornton family's legacy in Dallas and the troubling trends in Highland Park's justice system. From judicial roles to unsettling leniency, we unravel how these connections echo through Dallas's political corridors, offering a compelling narrative that intertwines the supernatural with the shadows of history.
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www.texaswineandtruecrime.com
Welcome all of you wine and true crime lovers. I'm Brandi and I am Chris and this is Texas Wine and True Crime. Thank you for being here, friends, for this week's episode, our anniversary episode.
Speaker 2:It is. It is Four years coming up.
Speaker 1:Four years.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Today, on Halloween, we are celebrating four years of the show. Yay, we need that like applause, Like the little applause button.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we need that applause Like the little applause button.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we need that Applause drop. Wow, I don't want to bore everyone with all the awesome recaps of the last four years, but I feel very grateful and I feel very thankful to have had some inspiring people on this show who are living with real life.
Speaker 2:And our listeners, who support us as well.
Speaker 1:And our listeners who support us, and the victims who've come on and the families of those that are still seeking justice. I can't give a big enough thank you Because if it wasn't for all of them, it would just be us and we're married so we can do that anytime. But for this show it takes a village and they are our village. So if you've been on this show, listen to our show, have any part of the show big, big for.
Speaker 1:so for your support and and being here for us yes, thank you everybody who's been along with us for the ride yes, um, we've got lots more food and wine to have, chris, I'm going into our new I don't want to say new season, but our, our year pretty much starts at our anniversary year. So happy anniversary, chris happy anniversary, thanks for uh, our anniversary year. So happy anniversary Chris, Happy anniversary Brandi.
Speaker 2:Thanks for just going on this crazy journey with me.
Speaker 1:Certainly. Thanks for having me All right. So we've got a few announcements before we kind of tell them what's on tap for tonight. We've got a special anniversary episode for you, so we're going to mention that in just a second. But we are headed to Fredericksburg.
Speaker 2:We're headed to Fredericksburg tomorrow Our little wine country.
Speaker 1:We're headed to wine country and we're going to enjoy a little bit of wine tasting in Mason on Friday.
Speaker 2:First visit there too.
Speaker 1:First visit there. We're very excited to visit our friends at Robert Clay, so can't wait to see you. And then, saturday, we're going to be visiting a couple of other wineries. But before we visit them, we are going to be doing a live show at Longhorn Cellars Saturday morning at 10.
Speaker 2:And tickets are still available.
Speaker 1:Yes, tickets are still available. Grab you some tickets, come and see us. If you're in Austin. It's a short drive away. I think we have a couple of people coming from Austin, but there's still tickets available. You can go into our socials or you can search Longhorn Cellars or it's on their pages too, chris. So, yeah, grab some tickets and come see us this weekend, and I want to give another big thank you. Actually, before I do that, let's talk about the wine we're having tonight, because it's our show anniversary and we are celebrating with Longhorn Cellars wine tonight, and we are sipping on Estate Merlot Now because of all of the very rich foods that we've been indulging in this past week, and then we're going to Fredericksburg to an amazing dinner tomorrow night. We decided not to cook with this one. We are sipping and enjoying our anniversary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just drinking tonight, yes.
Speaker 1:So this estate Merlot has rich, smooth tannins and notes of black cherry and plum. Pairs well with roasted vegetables, duck, lean red meat and turkey. Absolutely delicious, a very bold wine.
Speaker 2:Yes, very easy drinking though.
Speaker 1:Very easy drinking and I like a good estate Merlot, so I'm glad we saved this one for last. And a huge thank you to Longhorn Cellars for being the winery of the month.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, thank you for all the wine you sent and for having us for our show as well. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are our first live show in Fredericksburg, so this is going to be very exciting. So, longhorn Cellars, huge, huge love and thank you to you. I also want to give today is a I guess this is an episode of thanks for me before I jump in but a big, big thank you to Henry's Majestic. We I can't believe, chris. It's been almost a year.
Speaker 1:I know coming up Since we started doing live shows at Henry's. I think we started in February. So the way the rest of the year schedule is going to go Is we're going to be at Henry's this coming up Thursday, november 7th, first Thursday of every month. So come see us November 7th. We're going to have some going into the holiday season and then we've got December 5th, so these two and then we're going to have some going into the holiday season and then we've got December 5th, so these two, and then we're going to take a little break because it gets a little chilly. We're going to take a break January and February and then we will be back at Henry's at March. So come see us this month coming up in November or December. Come and visit us. But, henry's, thank you for just letting us come and talk about true crime and meeting new friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great venue, Really cool outside area, great bar, great restaurant. So, yeah, definitely you can even bring the family.
Speaker 1:You can, yeah, kids run around and play. They don't even pay attention.
Speaker 2:The show, maybe not so much when we're talking about, but just in general. Yeah, it's really cool, really cool vibe there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Henry's, thank you, thank you, thank you, and we'll see you in November and December. All right, chris. So in honor of Halloween, in honor of Henry's, thank you again for letting us have our show there, and also just a huge thank you to the listeners who said you know what? Let's do something kind of spooky, something a little different for our anniversary show. So that's what we're doing. So, we're going to be sharing with you two. It's really one. Well, yeah, it's one case, but two different types.
Speaker 2:Lots of spooky Texas legends and creepy things about Texas where to visit and a pretty crazy story out of Highland Park as well, too.
Speaker 1:That's right, and so we've been sipping here wine, kind of talking about when we did these live. We like the live recordings so much that we actually want to put those out and I think people want to hear us live, so here's kind of what we sound like when we're doing our live show.
Speaker 1:So you're going to be listening to some spooky Texas legends. So let us know, message us if you've ever heard of these. And then the creepy tale out of Highland Park, chris, which you had introduced to me. I had never heard of this case and, my goodness, we have a lot of stuff that's creepy coming out of Highland.
Speaker 2:Park. I was just going to say the same thing Really really creepy, but, um, all right.
Speaker 1:well, we want you to enjoy the episode again. A huge thank you to our listeners. Chris, happy anniversary. Until next time, friends, stay safe, have fun and cheers to next time. Cheers, all right. So we're going to tell a little bit of different stories tonight. We're going to start off a little soft I would say a little soft and we're going to tell you about some spooky places you might want to visit here in Texas, and after that we're going to talk a little bit about the Texas Innocence Project and a few cases that Chris and I are pretty familiar with, two of these that we want to share with you, and then we're going to end with the man that ruined Halloween. So that one's a little bit more. It's a word I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Probably one of the reasons people check their Halloween candy to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's for the late night crowd here, all right. So we're going to start with the Lady of the Lake in White Rock Lake. So this is very interesting because I actually started these folklores. Right, we hear about these folklores, and are they true? Are they not true? Is it just maybe things have happened around the lake?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, as a Dallasite growing up here, this was one story I heard at a very young age, just even going out and visiting White Rock. I think my stepmother probably told us this as children, very young children.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, the Hunt family has a house right off of White Rock Lake. So I remember as a kid going to that area because there was a lot of parties, it was just a very popular area back in the in the eighties and nineties and this story was always a story that they told us. So, lady of the lake and white rock, like if you haven't heard this tale, it's about a girl who, um is seen basically on the side of the water in the road.
Speaker 2:She's then picked up by a couple usually wet soaking, wet, soaking, wet, soaking, wet. Yes.
Speaker 1:As though she's just exited the lake nearby body of water and she is wet in the road, so she needs a little help finding her way back home. So the last couple. By the way, chris, there was an article and pretty much almost a book written about this in the 1940s, so this is an old folklore. And I'll tell you why at the end of this, because I actually dug up something out of the Dallas Morning News, or maybe it was Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I think they were around before.
Speaker 2:Dallas Morning News. I never knew until even looking at this, this was, I guess, a little bit of True story. True story, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the lady of the lake is sopping wet, standing in the road needing a ride. So this story that this lady named Ann Clark wrote, she wrote about a couple who picked up this girl and this girl tells the couple not only did she tump over in a boat, but she's very specific and says that her sailboat tumped over. So this is what the couple claims. By the way, this will be the third couple to claim that they've seen this lady and have actually picked her up and put her in the car.
Speaker 2:I don't, and this. I think this, um, this tale worked when we were kids, I don't know. This day and age, with cell phones and whatnot, people would probably stamp a photo of the wet lady walking down the street. Would she be there in the picture or not? I don't know. That is true.
Speaker 1:All right. So they pick her up and she gives them the address of where she needs to go. So she tells the couple everyone in the boat is fine, everyone got out safe, I just need to get home. Well, everyone in the boat is fine, everyone got out safe, I just need to get home. Now, I don't know back in the 1920s and 30s, because this is when this actually happened in White Rock, I don't know, I don't know. I feel like people would go and look, make sure everyone's okay. I don't know how she necessarily got away, but that's how the story goes. So they get her in the car and then once they're asking her for directions because you know there's no GPS, back in 1920s and 30s, so they're asking for directions Go by stars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you go by the stars and they turn around Hi friends. And they turn around and she's gone, but there's still like a wet spot sitting in the back seat. Okay, so they decide to go to the address that this woman gives and a man answers the door and they said you know, sir, do you know a young woman that was out at White Rock Lake? She gave us this address, she was telling us how to get here, but then when we turned around, she was gone. So the man is said to have started crying and said that they were the third couple in the last three weeks to show up at his house to tell him this and he had just lost his daughter in a sailing accident at White Rock Lake. Now, what's wild about this is I looked this up and there was actually a drowning in White Rock Lake of a girl 20 years old around the same age that these people claim to see this woman and she died. Her sailboat and her father was in the sailboat with her and she drowned.
Speaker 2:I mean it's wild. For those of you that don't know, you can sail a boat on White Rock. On the back side there's like a huge Huge. Sailing like yeah.
Speaker 1:Sailing club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sailing club and docks, which is something most often people don't know.
Speaker 1:So I need to go back and research when was sailing. So I'm going to assume that White Rock Lake Sailing Club maybe eventually became a club, but I think people have been using sailboats on White Rock Lake a very long time based on this story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they built that lake in late 20s.
Speaker 1:Well, it used to run from the Fair Park Municipal Pool. If anyone knows about Fair Park and having some sort of waterway that people used to swim in that meshed into White Rock Lake, because that's what this article was saying and I'm like. A municipal pool at fair park okay, municipal means city, a city-run pool, but what does that have to do with white rock lake?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna research that, but that's what the article in the paper said well, one thing I could not find either was like what was the latest account of someone picking up the lady?
Speaker 1:Or even seeing her right.
Speaker 2:I can say, when I heard it, it happened a lot in the 50s and 60s and maybe early 70s but you didn't really hear much more about it no. We don't cruise White Rock like much, so I guess something we try to go super.
Speaker 1:I had no idea it was a true story, so it is whether it's a folklore and nobody ever saw this girl, but the fact that she actually died in a sailing accident and then was told the people that she fell over in a sailboat kind of weird.
Speaker 2:kind of strange well, and, as we discussed on the way here, ghosts are usually where someone perished yeah that's your true indication that a death did occur, so you can justify the ghost sighting.
Speaker 1:Well, the reason we're not super paranormal people, by the way. So yeah, but is every lady in the lake because of a girl who died in the lake? I don't know. I hear about Lady of the Lakes in different like all the time, right.
Speaker 2:That's sort of like the folklore Well growing up here there's lots of people that probably died at White Rock Lake over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some stuff.
Speaker 2:There's probably a lot more than the Lady of the Lake that people are picking up around there All right, anybody ever hear of Yorktown.
Speaker 1:Texas Never heard of Yorktown.
Speaker 2:Texas. Okay, well, apparently Going down by Austin.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you know where it is, okay, impressed. I did not look it up, so it's a 30,000.
Speaker 2:Did that impress you.
Speaker 1:I was so impressed 30,000 square foot building, just a building made of granite and cement and everything else buildings are made of. But it actually used to be like an ascent asylum, like that's the. You know, I think that was like the correct word back then. But this thing was open until 1986. And then it moved to a town 10 miles away from it and then they rebuilt this. It was very strange and then they ended up closing it six years later. So the girl who was in charge like was like the groundskeeper Between 1986 and 1992, when this thing closed. She said you would walk into this hospital and you would feel like there's nothing else out there. She said it was the weirdest thing. It was almost like being enclosed in a complete, separate universe. All of a sudden it got really cold. There were noises, like cackling noises. So this woman who still lives in Texas talks about this Yorktown Memorial Hospital. So supposedly there were hundreds of people that may have died in in this place, but it just sits.
Speaker 2:It's just the building is still there and just sits 33,000 square feet. There's lots of institutions like this that have closed over the years, where they would just kind of stash people away, and they're all quite creepy. And, mind you, these are all ones you could go visit.
Speaker 1:That's right. We even covered a story about what's the one, not the tarot, remember. There was another one, and a guy who was in the audience said he actually did the plumbing for that building, which is so wild, and he started talking about all the haunted things there. All right, so let's move to Wichita Falls, texas, where I was born, and we're going to talk about Dr White Sanatorium.
Speaker 2:This was a combination institution.
Speaker 1:It was a combination institution.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say more of where people would go and recuperate from tuberculosis back in the 20s and also to, to some degree, a mental institution as well, where they would kind of house people.
Speaker 1:So which is kind of the I don't know. I mean, I think it's efficient and functioning, but then you have a hospital that has surgeons who are doing botch surgeries. So there was a surgeon who said his ghost is actually walking the halls of the sanatorium still, but people again, hundreds of people died. No one ever really talked about it, but they said you can still feel the spirits in the sanatorium, which is still. The building is still in Wichita Falls, texas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Yorktown and this place. I believe both. Should you feel the urge, you can go visit.
Speaker 1:Hey, why not, and pay your money to go?
Speaker 1:experience the ghostly yes, if you've never done a ghost tour in any town in Texas. You need to. If you need to know where to go, we can tell you Jefferson, texas, at the top of the list. Um, we think there's probably been a murder in every building in downtown jefferson according to the records, that you can't you can't go uh a block without being in a in some sort of haunted building in jefferson yeah, I think that's what makes that place so interesting as well, too, that all the so interesting all the places they say have ghosts, there is a confirmed um a lot of murders, because basically a lot of them happened in the 1800s, where there were duels and whatnot, you know, and if you're really into that, cards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're really into like that paranormal ghost checkout. So Stephen King actually stayed in Jefferson, texas, in a hotel and he was so spooked he actually asked to be moved. He, him and his whole team, left Jefferson and went on the outskirts of the city and that's a true crime and paranormal writer and horror writer. But he was so scared and he actually wrote about Jefferson, texas in one of his books.
Speaker 2:I wonder if he was there for research or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, he was there for research, which is so wild, but he was so spooked that he had to get out of that hotel. All right, so let's talk about Rogan Stadium in San Saba, texas. This is a football stadium. So the Rogan family owned this piece of land, chris, back in the 1800s. Now there was a graveyard. They call this football field still today the graveyard because, well, it's built over a graveyard still today the graveyard because, well, it's built over a graveyard. So the Rogan family donated the land to San Saba ISD and they decided they wanted to build a football field on this land. Well, the problem was is that there were people buried there.
Speaker 2:So they stopped doing burials, what like in 1875? Well, and the people that remained were the families that you know they could not get a hold of to actually move the bodies, because I mean, that happens a lot. They can almost say exhume, but they can, of course, dig up the coffin and move them. However, for the people they could not locate. They ended up being the ultimate sixth man. They stuck around underneath the football field and you hope they represent Santa. I don't know underneath the football field and you hope they represent Santa.
Speaker 1:I don't know, no well, so in 1935 is when the family donated it. So what they did is they tried to find it was like Civil War people that were buried there, families. So they couldn't find all the families. So what they had to do was basically just take out the gravestones and anything and level the land out to build the field. So the bodies who they had no family members to claim them, stayed. So they actually don't know how many bodies are actually still buried under San Saba football fields, but I kind of want to go to a football game there.
Speaker 2:I mean, what is Friday Night Lights there? And if you say people were buried during the Civil War, there's probably unmarked graves as well too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was actually the Sandsawba football coach, I think 10 years ago said that things happen all of the time on that field. They hear things. He said he felt the ground shake, although earthquakes in Texas seem to be more normal than usual, but anyways, he was saying that there were just so many apparitions and he said some football player ended up getting like tackled or felt like somebody grabbed his feet before anybody actually ever touched him. Just wild, wild stuff. So I found that I found the story like super interesting. But hey, what are you going to do, I mean, if you can't clean the body? It's not the first graveyard to have land donated or broken down and then somebody does something with the, with the besides, keep it as a graveyard they made a movie about it where they built houses on top of a burial ground too yeah, what movie is that poltergeist?
Speaker 1:oh, poltergeist, poltergeist. Yeah, sorry all right, don't go to the light and then the last one we want to talk about is the house of horrors in Highland park, Texas. I found this one so wild.
Speaker 2:I was going to say we've done a lot of very unusual tales, a lot of stuff going on in Highland park here recently.
Speaker 1:The last three shows no, the last three shows we've done here have been Highland park cases and it's I don't know. People don't expect this type of thing out of highland park, but this is wild I used to always get pulled over driving through highland park.
Speaker 2:You did, oh yes oh, all right.
Speaker 1:So there was a doctor and his wife who lived in highland park. So, chris, this is back in, I would say, like the late 1930s, 1940s. But they built this ship looking thing outside of their house, strange. I mean, I don't know if they ended up tearing all of this down, they sold the property.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure they did. Yes, I searched and searched because I was kind of fascinated with this ship-like structure that they claim was built in the yard. It's almost like the size of a large yacht, but there were no images yeah whoever purchased the property tore it down, but it was quite a spectacle from my understanding.
Speaker 1:People would drive and yeah, oh, it was like a sight to see, so they built some like random ship looking thing in the backyard and so this and but they're, they live in Highland Park and again we do these cases in Highland Park and you know it's like is there sort of this sensitivity, because it's a small little place, you're very confined. Um, people like to keep hush hush.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people don't like to, you know, ruffle the feathers there, so they just prefer not to say. Say anything. Um, and I'm not just saying that, that's literally the cases we've covered and the people involved in them will say this about highland park. But once the couple sold the home in 1964, um, they started, chris, getting everything that they left there. So they ended up leaving a lot of their stuff. They sell it in auction. Well, this girl from North Texas comes along and decides to like research and look into this family. Well, what she found out was actually back in 1938, they had been accused of kidnapping their own house worker butler or gardener Gardener, an African-American man?
Speaker 2:Yes, he had disappeared and nobody could find him yes, there was no explanation.
Speaker 1:He didn't live there. Yeah, you're right, he was the gardener. He did not live there, he just tended to the house. So his family, they report him missing. Like they can't find him, they end up finding this guy in their attic. They have him stuffed away in the attic and he the family accused him of stealing what like an emerald and she called it like an unreplaceable China family family heirloom, a ring of some sorts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought Jade, I think Jade. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I thought jade, I think it, or jade, yeah, I was thinking j when I but I think it's emerald.
Speaker 2:They're both greens, I don't know okay.
Speaker 1:So here's what's wild. Um, he was not the first person she accused of this. She accused multiple house workers of stealing her stuff, but she ends up putting him in the attic. They end up finding this guy and then they talk to the maid who was actually with the woman like her, you know, not her maid, but like the caretaker. So she drives her around, she's with her, she takes the bags. She says she was actually with her when she bought this piece of jewelry from, like, a tarot card reader in Dallas for $1.48. So this was not even an heirloom of any sort.
Speaker 1:I mean this is just wild.
Speaker 2:It was owned by a Chinese princess. That was, that's what she said. Yeah, it was owned by a Chinese princess.
Speaker 1:Um, but she ends up um, they end up getting this guy right, so he sues them. He wants $53,800, okay, so this is what 19.
Speaker 2:38?
Speaker 1:38-ish.
Speaker 2:Which that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a lot of money, right? Well, he only gets $500. He ends up only getting $500, and he leaves town very quickly, but this sort of just went like hush-hush. And then, once the family sold this crazy looking property and left some stuff there, people started to research them a little bit and, funny enough, they were actually accused of kidnapping and keeping um some sort of slave type, and basically that's what he said. He was treated like.
Speaker 2:He was kind of treated like yeah, I mean he wasn't made any work. It just was odd that they what he said he was treated like. He was kind of treated like a slave. Yeah, I mean he wasn't made to any work. It just was odd that he was bound. They fed him, I think, a steady diet of cheeseburgers was what. I'd read, which is odd.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just almost, I don't know just a prisoner.
Speaker 1:A prisoner? Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't know, okay, so here's what's interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read this. So he ends up getting only $500, and obviously in the court system. So the girl who researched this family, so the judge presiding Chris over his case against the family, was WL Thornton, the brother to four-term Dallas mayor RL Thornton, the brother to four-term Dallas mayor RL Thornton, who also wasa member and leader of the Ku Klux Klan. I didn't know that. I know who RL Thornton is. I had no idea about any of this, which is sad and wild.
Speaker 2:Well, I have no idea who RL Thornton was until I, oh you didn't you never RL Thornton.
Speaker 1:I didn't know who RL Thornton was until I. Oh, you didn't you never RL Thornton.
Speaker 2:I still see his name everywhere. Well, I mean, I'm sorry, not the brother, rl Thornton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a road, but the whole Crazy.
Speaker 1:I guess it's 1938, dallas, I guess it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2:in the issue, nobody was even prosecuted for doing this.
Speaker 1:No, and why is it that every case in Highland Park we have covered the last three months no one has spent any jail time for anything they've done? I mean, it's absolutely wild. Thank you Bye.