Texas Wine and True Crime
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Texas Wine and True Crime
Mason County Courthouse Arson: A Texas Town Under Siege
A courthouse engulfed in flames. A community watching helplessly as history burns. And one man's terrifying 24-hour crime spree that changed Mason County, Texas forever.
District Attorney Tonya Ahlschwede and Assistant DA Havana Schmidt take us deep inside one of rural Texas's most complex criminal investigations - the 2021 Mason County courthouse arson. What began as a house fire quickly escalated into something far more sinister when Nicholas Miller deliberately torched the historic courthouse while first responders were distracted battling the initial blaze.
"We all sat around the square with everybody else in town and watched it burn," recalls Schmidt, who witnessed the courthouse fire before later joining the prosecution team that would bring Miller to justice. The prosecutors meticulously reconstruct the night's events, revealing how one calculated arson transformed into an extended crime spree involving armed robbery, vehicle theft, and culminating in a dramatic 60-mile high-speed chase broadcast live on Facebook.
The investigation required extraordinary coordination between local law enforcement, Texas Rangers, and forensic experts to piece together evidence from multiple crime scenes spanning several counties. With over 200 exhibits presented during trial, prosecutors faced the daunting challenge of connecting all elements of Miller's rampage while demonstrating his clear premeditation through recovered text messages and online posts.
This conversation offers rare prosecutor insights into a case that struck at the heart of a small community where "we all know each other, grow up together." Despite Miller's attempt to disrupt the justice system by literally burning it down, Mason County's resilience shines through - the courthouse has been rebuilt, and as Ahlschwede proudly notes, "the justice system is still intact, despite somebody trying to burn down the courthouse."
Have you experienced how close-knit communities respond to tragedy? Share your thoughts and subscribe for more true crime stories that reveal the complex human dynamics behind headline-making cases.
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Thanks everyone for coming out today. I hope you've gone to the wine festival over there. If not, please go enjoy it, and thank you If you are just arriving. We are Texas Wine and True Crime. We are a podcast married couple from Dallas.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily in that order.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely not in that order.
Speaker 2:Chicken for me came before the egg, right the chicken. Are you sure the egg may have came before the chicken?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure yeah, the egg may go. Oh, you're no worries no worries okay, so, um, I would like you both to introduce yourselves, if you would like. So we have tanya with us, so tanya yeah, I'm tanya, all sweet.
Speaker 3:I'm the district attorney here in mason and I'm the 452nd district attorney and we cover five counties awesome, that would be edwards kimball, m Mason, menard and McCullough. So we go from the Colorado River all the way down to nearly the border of Texas.
Speaker 1:So you travel around and try cases.
Speaker 3:We are a traveling office.
Speaker 1:Are you really? Oh, you need to come on our show. You're kind of fast. That's fascinating for me and you are, yeah, so think of my name. Yeah, y'all can pass it around so my name's Havana Schmidt.
Speaker 4:I'm from Mason, tanya's also from Mason too, and I'm an assistant district attorney, so I work for Tanya, but my counties that I primarily cover are Edwards and Kimball which are further down south, prosecution.
Speaker 1:Any cases you're currently working on that we should know about.
Speaker 3:So we're always working on cases and preparing for trial. So we try, try, try, lots of cases. We just finished trying a case in Kimball County. It was a human smuggling case where someone was killed and the defendant was sentenced to 99 years.
Speaker 1:Well, good.
Speaker 3:We've got more of those coming, so pretty much our outlook is trial, trial, trial.
Speaker 1:Wow, keeps you busy, I'm sure, right. Okay, so we're here to talk about one case specifically, and that is the Mason County Courthouse arson case. Now, have you both been on this case since day one? When did you get involved and why is this case important? Well, let me back up. Is this the second fire? That's?
Speaker 3:happened at the courthouse. This is the second arson of the mason county courthouse okay, yes, and the.
Speaker 1:Does anyone do you know why? The first time this happened?
Speaker 3:so the first fire, I believe, according to our local historian, scott zesh, who does all this research for us and keeps us in the know, was in 1877. And the rumor, or the history, is that it burned because there was some record cover-up having to do with some cattle theft and this thing called the Hoodoo War in Mason. But I'm not the expert on that, scott Zesch is, so y'all should get him on next.
Speaker 2:I was going to say we'll be discussing, we're closing out with the Hoodoo Wars today that was what I had noticed in reading about that as well too, that I was like, okay, this is not the first time this happened, obviously. And so that's why a lot of the records are actually lost from the Hoodoo War, from that arson.
Speaker 3:Right, I know that the clerk here who is retiring has an arrest warrant for Johnny Ringo, so she still has that original document. She keeps that document from back in that time.
Speaker 2:We'll be talking about Mr Ringo as well. Wow, one of the more fascinating characters of the who Do War.
Speaker 1:What is his name? Mr who Schlesinger. What's his name?
Speaker 3:Scott Zesch Zesch. Okay, chris, you're welcome, scott Zesch, if you're listening.
Speaker 1:He's written several books on making. We are filming this and we are going to be putting clips out. So smile ladies. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I have to Some of the articles I was reading too. I'm going to have to look and see if that was one of the names, because I was looking at a book as well too. I wonder if he's the same gentleman who had.
Speaker 1:What year did this happen? So not that long ago, because he was just tried and convicted in sentencing 2021. Okay, so much recent than I thought. So 2021, and this we have, nicholas Miller, and he's charged with two counts. Now make sure I have this right Two counts of arson, felony possession of a firearm, burglary of a building and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Speaker 3:Yes, so the case of the arson of the courthouse is much more complicated than just the courthouse burning. So there were actually a number of crime scenes and we can take you through those crime scenes Please do.
Speaker 3:You know, everybody focused on and the world and the state focused on the courthouse that burned and it was terrible, and people in Mason sat around and watched their courthouse burn to the ground, including Havana, who was not yet a lawyer working for me, burned to the ground, including Havana, who was not yet a lawyer working for me.
Speaker 3:So, you know, it was really cool that she got to come on board and participate and really helped us in the trial of the case. But, you know, the first thing that happened on February, the 4th of 2021, was there was a house fire here in town, and so we are a very small community the local fire department went over. That means that you know, these guys are volunteer firefighters. They're real out of bed and they go to fight the house fire, and so there was a house on fire and that's what their focus was on. And so during the trial, the testimony was that you know, these guys are over there at the house fire and firefighters are coming in to volunteer for their duties and what they learn is that there was someone in that house.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And the circumstances. Once they got to the scene they immediately alert law enforcement and things start coming together rather rapidly. But that house was on fire and that house belonged to Jamil and Anna Jefferson, and Nick is related to Jamil and Anna Okay. So while the fire department is focusing on that, then the second crime scene kicks off and I'm going to turn it over to Vanna.
Speaker 1:Okay, before we jump into that. So he lights the house on fire with them as still in it.
Speaker 4:Yeah so Michael is that correct. Michael Jefferson was in the bathroom at the time that the house was set on fire.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:And the dog Razor he's a little pit bull actually alerted him to something being wrong and he ran out of the house and so on the 911 call you can hear him coughing and hacking. So he actually called in and reported that the house had burned and so, like Tanya said, all of our local fire department was already at this house arson trying to save the house and then the courthouse caught on fire shortly after that. So the alert started to go off in the courthouse itself, which alerted the dispatcher, who was in the jail across the street, and they hear this kind of like automated alarm that there's been a fire in the courthouse and the dispatcher looks out the window and sees that there's flames coming out of the courthouse. And after that, I mean all of the other local fire departments from the surrounding area were called in and so now the resources were split and it was incredibly chaotic. I was there I actually happened to be in town with some friends that weekend because I was in between terms for law school.
Speaker 4:And so my friend Racy had come over for dinner and she called me and let me know that there was a house on fire, because it's a small town. So we all the word got around really fast that, oh man, there's, you know, a structure fire on Rank Street. And then a little bit later she sent me a Snapchat of the courthouse on fire and we all went and sat around the square with everybody else in town and watched it burn and at that time nobody really knew what had happened or why, it was on fire.
Speaker 4:And then later on overnight I guess is when it started to come together that possibly Nick Miller was the one who did it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so did he set the original house fire to kill the people in there? Did that come out in trial? What was the purpose of? Why did he start the spree?
Speaker 3:Well, there are many unknown questions about why defendants and Nick.
Speaker 1:Miller why?
Speaker 3:he did what he did, so we don't really know. He didn't testify. He did make a statement and that statement has been made public and available. But you know, nick started the house on fire knowing that Jamil, who was his relative, was in the hospital because Nick had been in the hospital caretaking of Jamil during the time period that Jamil had been in the hospital. Jamil's health was failing, he had lots of health problems and you know it wasn't a situation where he was going to get to come home anytime soon. So Nick had actually been in San Antonio involved in the health care of Jamil, and so he knew that Jamil and Anna were not at home when he decided to light the house on fire and he knew that Michael was in the house when he did light the house on fire.
Speaker 3:So we don't know exactly what his intentions were, but that's the facts that we uncovered and Michael testified at the trial and it was hard for Michael to talk about all of the things, because this is a family situation Now.
Speaker 1:Were they all originally from here? Was that family from? Yes, okay, so people knew Nicholas Miller.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, so we all know each other in our small town. Jamil was older than me probably six years older than me in high school, and Nick was much younger than me probably six or eight years younger than me, and so we all kind of know each other, grow up together. We're all part of the same community and we all take care of each other.
Speaker 2:And nobody doesn't. Yeah, did he set fire to the courthouse, thinking that if there's not a courthouse, he can't be tried for lighting the house on fire, or something like that?
Speaker 3:My opinion is Nick had a family law dispute ongoing from another county not even from this county.
Speaker 3:Nick had a pending burglary of a habitation so he went into somebody's home here in Mason. He had a pending court case with us and he'd been in court even though COVID was ongoing and we still were having some hearings in the courthouse and he had been at hearings. He was supposed to be at a hearing like the next day after the fire, I believe, and so you know he knew what was going on in the courthouse because he had been in the courthouse going to court every month. So you know he knew what was going on and the family law case was ongoing, and so you know there are a lot of motivations maybe for what he did.
Speaker 2:None of it was justified, but it caused a lot of chaos. I guess the family law cases perhaps were not going in his favor, I suspect.
Speaker 3:His family law cases I don't believe were going in his favor and you know he appeared in court in I believe it was Lampasas and so those cases were ongoing and I think you know it was just a lot of things going on. But certainly Michael was a very innocent party in all of this and he is very lucky to be alive and, with a good response from our fire department, our EMS and everyone else and everyone else, michael is able to tell his story and live his life and we're very proud of him.
Speaker 1:So what else happened that night? When the vehicle comes in. So now he's lit the house on fire. Now was the courthouse the second. Yes, Okay, so the courthouse was second.
Speaker 3:So the house is on fire, then the firefighters are notified that the courthouse is on fire, so some of them are leaving that scene to go to the other scene. And during the interim time the dispatcher and there's usually one dispatcher on one deputy on at a time here the dispatcher is made aware that you know, there are a tremendous number of 911 calls coming in at this point because people are reporting that the bank is on fire, because people are reporting that the bank is on fire, that people are reporting that the church is on fire, people are reporting the square is on fire. So all of these calls are coming in for one dispatcher, so another dispatcher goes in to help her, and one of the calls that came in was from Mr Rico of Rico's Cafe, and Mr Rico reported that he had been robbed and so law enforcement has to respond to that scene as well. And then what happens? Havana, do you want to take it up after?
Speaker 1:that one, okay. So when all this is happening, do people in town know this by now? Are people just getting phone calls from each other and going? Can you believe this is happening? And then everybody congregates and watches the courthouse burn down? The volunteer firefighters are there, enough of them? Are they calling people in to come and help other men that can, possibly? Did you get a phone call to come and help? Okay, you know what I mean, though, but there's chaos. There's chaos in a small town. People are calling each other. People are saying they're getting robbed. There's different phones calling.
Speaker 2:It's almost like chaos. On purpose, though, because, like you say, you wonder like did he light the house on fire to exhaust? Like knowing that you would be dividing the firefighters. They wouldn't be able to fully extinguish the flame in time for the courthouse itself.
Speaker 3:It gets worse on the firefighters.
Speaker 1:Oh, it does Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:So while all of this is going on, I think people were focused on the courthouse, so a lot of this we put together the next day, the next week and the next month and the next year. We had to put all of this information together, so it was an investigation that spanned a lot of time and so once you know those things are coming in.
Speaker 4:the next place that he went was Well, so he was driving a Chevy Tracker that belonged to Jamil, and so he had gone from the house fire to the courthouse.
Speaker 4:And then he was actually seen by some other local people. They couldn't identify Nick Miller but they saw a vehicle driving off the courthouse lawn because there is an access point. So he had driven onto the courthouse lawn, driven that vehicle around and we had some security camera footage from the New Way convenience store which was across kind of catty corner from the courthouse. So we had identified the Chevy Tracker and he drove that Chevy Tracker to the Lowe's grocery store and actually used a gun to shoot out the glass at the grocery store to break in. And then he went to where the safe used to be because he had actually been charged with robbing what was then the Super S, breaking in and stealing money out of the safe when they didn't lock it up back in the early 2000s. So he had returned to a scene of an old crime of his to try to get some money, didn't really find anything and left the Lowe's grocery store. And that's the point.
Speaker 4:We think that he went to Mr Rico's because he was looking fora different vehicle to drive, because the Chevy tracker wasn't in very good shape and at this point he wanted to get out of town. So he drove to Mr Rico's, which is on the north side of town, and Mr Rico was taking trash out from closing up his restaurant right and Nick Miller came over to him with a gun and thought maybe he had money or something in that bag. So he took the bag and went through it with his gun and Mr Rico ran inside and called 911. But he also was able to identify what he said was a blazer right and he was able to get.
Speaker 4:Beige was the color right that Mr Rico said it was like a tan tracker, so he was pretty close on identifying the vehicle.
Speaker 4:And then after that, because Nick is still looking for a vehicle to drive, he actually drives all the way out to Dos Rios, which is, I guess, south of town. Right, I'm not very good with cardinal directions, but he goes out to Dos Rios, which is like an RV park, because he had done work with Jamil out there, because Jamil was a plumber and he knew that there was a work truck out there that he had used before and thought that the keys might be out there. Because Jamil was a plumber and he knew that there was a work truck out there that he had used before and thought that the keys might be out there. So he went out and talked to a woman named Jessica Avant, whose mother is a manager out there, to see if he could get the keys to that truck, and by that time he had gotten a pretty bad flat on the tracker. Jessica didn't have access to the keys and so he left and it just kind of kept going from there was he on drugs?
Speaker 1:do y'all know? Um, we don't know one way or another I mean that sounds like a crack, so he drives back to town from dos rios goes the kingdom automotive where he steals a truck yeah, okay, so steals a truck from the kingdom automotive and that truck ends up at the volunteer fire department at Pawnee talk.
Speaker 3:And based on our forensic tracking of all of this, we also know that after he went to kingdom automotive, stole a truck, he probably went all the way to Brady, texas, came back to Pawnee talk and he went to the fire department at Pawnee Talk and guess where all the firefighters were? They were at the courthouse fighting the courthouse fire. So they left their vehicles, got up in the middle of the night this is like probably 2 am or so and are fighting the fire and he goes to the fire department and he takes one truck and gives it a little ride. Doesn't like that one, so he goes and gets in another truck. And so, havana, you want to tell them about, randy.
Speaker 1:Holloway's truck.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So Randy Holloway drove a big souped-up Ford, dually Okay, and all these firefighters. So Pawnee Talk is kind of like a small little community on the I guess it's what Llano County and San Sabat like that direction in Mason, and so there is a little volunteer fire department out there and all the firefighters were obviously in town and they left their trucks there. And they commonly left their trucks there at that time I don't think it happens as much anymore but they left their trucks out there with the keys in them so that if someone needed to move their truck that was at the station they could move their truck.
Speaker 4:So he got access to those vehicles and a lot of those folks I mean, we're country people out here, so everybody has guns in their trucks, right? So he gathered up guns from multiple vehicles into Randy Holloway's Ford Dually and then took that to his next destination, which was Horseshoe Bay.
Speaker 1:Really Mm-hmm. Chris has been wanting to take me there. I've never been to Horseshoe Bay, but Chris has.
Speaker 2:I've spent a lot of time in Horseshoe Bay in the past.
Speaker 1:I've heard good things about the spas, so I think I'm going to go. Okay, so how long was this crime spree? Did y'all determine how long this actually took him to do all of this?
Speaker 4:Yes, the house fire started after 9 o'clock and then the courthouse was burned down shortly. Then the courthouse was burned down shortly. It was around 10 o'clock at night, I guess, when all this stuff kicked off, and by the time it ended it was the middle of the day the next day, uh was the end of the criminal episode.
Speaker 4:Okay keep going. Yeah, so he drove from pontytalk to horseshoe bay, um, and then he went on to blanco where his uncle beverly lived, who was Jamil's brother. Uncle Beverly is a very nice man. He's married to a lady named Betty Fudge and he gets to, I guess, uncle Beverly's house around 6 o'clock in the morning because Uncle Bev was getting up to go to work right.
Speaker 4:And Nick had lived there with them off and on over the years and by this time the word had gone out that the that Jamil's house had burned, the courthouse had burned, everything was all over Facebook, everybody had been talking about it. And so Bev knew that the courthouse and the house had burned and asked Nick if he had set the fires, because he said Nick was kind of in a state when he talked to him and his testimony at trial was that Nick told him that he set the fires that night. And so Uncle Bev actually reports it to law enforcement because he tried to get Nick to turn himself in and he didn't want to at this point. So he took off and Uncle Bev called law enforcement to report what had happened, figuring that somebody would probably be looking for Nick at this point.
Speaker 1:Now does it keep going. It keeps going. Okay, Keep going From.
Speaker 3:Blanco, Nick goes to um, towards Georgetown, and we were able to forensically track that as well. And he actually stopped probably in Round Rock and brought some, bought some drugs in Round Rock and kept going to Georgetown and by then there's a bellow out. Be on the lookout for his vehicle, Not his vehicle, Randy Holloway's truck.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, he still has that, so he drove that through.
Speaker 3:He's in a giant F-350, probably dually big truck, so police officer gets behind him so discreet.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that's rather easy to spot.
Speaker 1:Such a discreet vehicle Go on.
Speaker 3:Police officer gets behind him in Georgetown. Nick sees that he's behind him, he takes off and all of this is on video. And so he takes off in Georgetown, gets on the interstate and heads to Waco. So we have a pursuit with many, many vehicles on the roadway. Many, many law enforcement lots of black and whites from the Texas Department of Public Safety, helicopters, news crews and traffic on the interstate until basically and that's when Nick put it on Facebook Live. So there's a Facebook Live video of him doing all of this.
Speaker 1:He went live during all of this.
Speaker 3:Facebook Live. I did not know that so we have in-car camera footage, we have body cam footage, we have law enforcement footage, and so we actually, at the trial, showed some of Nick's, we showed all of his Facebook Live and we showed some of the officers that were pursuing him their advantage.
Speaker 1:You could see them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we could see the whole thing. Oh my gosh. Eventually, after he has been spiked the vehicle has been spiked by law enforcement trying to get him to not kill somebody else on interstate, or them or himself.
Speaker 1:How long did the pursuit last? I mean, was it a high-speed pursuit? It was 60 miles 60 miles Wow. My God yeah.
Speaker 4:He was going over. Sorry, yeah. So the pursuit went on for 60 miles because the Georgetown PD officer got behind him and pursued him up until the rest of the law enforcement took over, which was mostly Texas Department of Public Safety, and he was going at speeds over 90 miles an hour in that.
Speaker 1:really big truck. That's a long time, I mean, are pursuits usually that long?
Speaker 4:Well, there wasn't a way to stop this truck, so they had spiked him right, so they lay out spike strips to try to disable the vehicle.
Speaker 4:But the truck has six tires, so he would get one tire, would bust, but he just kept going on it and eventually, by the time he was actually stopped, it's because, I guess, two of the wheels on the back back he had ridden it all the way down to the axle, pretty much um. So that's ultimately why he stopped, because the vehicle was finally disabled, but it took multiple attempts for them to get him to that point was this on tv?
Speaker 1:was it being? Was like?
Speaker 2:facebook live right, even better. Well, besides facebook, that's his facebook live. There were some, was it being it?
Speaker 1:was on Facebook Live, brandon, even better. Well, besides Facebook, that's his Facebook Live.
Speaker 3:There were some news crews from Austin that covered it.
Speaker 1:That's what I was wondering, like Georgetown and all that over there.
Speaker 3:Okay, so, yeah, it stopped traffic on the interstate. They shut down the interstate for him to go through just to try to keep people off the roadway. And you know, on the video people don't pull over, they're in the pursuit, not knowing that they need to get out of the way.
Speaker 4:So you know it was a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 3:And at the end, because the vehicle was in such bad shape and Randy Holloway's face when he saw the pictures during the trial. You know that was not good. He never recovered all that. He was out because insurance didn't pay what was owed on the truck.
Speaker 2:He didn't have the gap insurance.
Speaker 3:His truck was his manner of supporting his business, which was a construction kind of business. So he lost a lot. So this thing affected a lot of lives. Nick on his Facebook Live puts his hands a lot of lives, um. Nick on his Facebook live puts his hands up out of the moonroof of the truck and, you know, eventually does um allow himself to be taken into custody. And in the truck were guns and Havana. How many guns were there?
Speaker 4:Uh, he had seven guns in the vehicle and at least one of them was an AR that was loaded with the safety off on the console, so you can read into that what you will, but these weapons belonged to the owner of the vehicle.
Speaker 4:Some of them were Randy's guns. Some of them were other firefighters' guns. Some of them we couldn't even identify who one of the guns belonged to because we think it person. It was a local person that he had taken that gun out of his truck before he even left, but did he ever shoot one of them.
Speaker 1:No, Hmm, interesting right, well, he did shoot out the glass at the Lowe's.
Speaker 2:How did he have the knowledge, though, of knowing about the keys being left in the truck, like all the people's cars at the fire station, I guess. Is that like maybe? A common knowledge in the area, because that's just like of all the luck to pull up there.
Speaker 3:Well, people in our small towns are very trusting. They know that when firefighters roll out if somebody needs to get in the truck to move the truck because they need a water truck to be moved, you know, that's kind of common practice and I'm sure that they may have rethought all of that after this criminal episode. But you know, that's the thing about. Everybody was focused, like I said, on the courthouse, but there was a whole lot of other moving parts to this case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my gosh, talk about all the people affected, like you said, with just every single one of these crimes and things that he did. So let's talk about the trial. So he's arrested, he puts his hands out of the roof and says, okay, he's taken into custody. Question about the Facebook Lives Was it more of like an entertainment? He wanted people to know he was doing this. He just was very open and nondiscreet about what he was actually doing. Was it sort of a manifesto? Was he saying things?
Speaker 3:I would say it was definitely a manifesto, okay, and manifesto is an interesting word that you use, because we're also able to get a manifesto off of his text messages.
Speaker 4:Oh, in his manifesto.
Speaker 3:there was intent that was formed prior to all of the courthouse arson and any acts towards Michael, so that manifesto was recovered and introduced in evidence at his trial.
Speaker 1:Good, which should be. So, yeah, okay, let's talk about the trial. So he's arrested, goes to trial. You're trying this case. How long did it take to piece all of this together, once you had video and evidence and how many? So it was here, right, the trial took place here. Did they move it out of county when?
Speaker 3:did it go? The trial took place in Brady McCullough County, which is a neighboring county.
Speaker 1:We drove by it. There's one letter missing for my name and I took a picture and I said almost Brandy, but not quite Right. Right, but okay. So we drove past Brady, it took place in our neighboring community in Brady.
Speaker 3:You know there are standards for when. When you move venue in a case and because the whole community was affected, it would be really hard to get a jury. You're in Mason, so we were able to get a jury picked in Brady, tried the case in Brady the thing to know about. You know it took a while to get to the trial because there was a lot of investigation, a lot of resources expended to corroborate what we pieced together as part of the investigation. And that required our sheriff, who had only been in office for a little over a month he took office in January 2021, and he did a fantastic job of staying on it and making sure that the things that we asked for get followed up on and doing those things.
Speaker 3:But the Texas Rangers were also involved doing those things. But the Texas Rangers were also involved and, most importantly, the fire marshal's office was heavily involved in collecting evidence at both locations of the arsons and the arson of the courthouse. There was all kinds of samples taking, and so you know that evidence had to be sent to labs. We hired a forensic expert to, you know, track the cell phone data and to download the cell phone data. So there was a tremendous amount of evidence in this case that was introduced.
Speaker 4:I can't remember how many exhibits I think testimony went on for a little over four days and we entered over 200 items into evidence.
Speaker 1:Wow, so anybody? So he did not take the stand. Did anybody take the stand in his defense?
Speaker 3:No, the defense didn't have a lot of evidence to present. They just relied on us to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt. And in any arson case there's not an easy such. There's never such an easy thing in an arson case, no matter what people want to believe. You know the thing that Nick did confess to a Texas Ranger to setting the house on fire in town.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And, to his defense attorney's surprise and our surprise, at the beginning of the trial. You know we do what's called an arraignment at the beginning of the trial, where we, the state, stands up. So I stood up and I was reading the indictments and the defendant enters a plea to each one of those cases and, much to everyone's surprise, at that point, when I read the first indictment for the arson of the house, he pled guilty. He pled guilty to all of the charges that we had at trial, except for the arson of the courthouse, charges that we had at trial, except for the arson of the courthouse. So we only had a couple of the vehicles that were stolen and, you know, charged in the unlawful possession of firearm by felon, because he was a convicted felon and we could clearly see him on the surveillance footage from the grocery store.
Speaker 1:So he was a convicted felon.
Speaker 3:Yes, he was. He, as Havana mentioned before, he had gone into the lowes grocery store it wasn't lowes at the time, I don't think it was lowes super s at the time. So he had um, when he was much, you know, younger, he had broken into that store, went in the store and um took the money out of the safe that was in the store. So kind of ironic that he went and tried it again tried it again maybe he'd think too.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's not a federal courthouse, but but the burning down of that building would have been federal charges or something, and maybe trying to avoid the federal charges it's whatever time you have any lick of that time yeah I think in his mind, because he can he confessed to the ranger at the interview following arrest, to the house arson and then, of course, at trial he pled guilty to everything except for the courthouse, I think in his mind, even though the arson of the habitation and the arson of the courthouse from the law's perspective are the same level and degree, subject to the same punishment range. But in his mind the courthouse was the big deal.
Speaker 2:Because at that time was it a designated historical landmark.
Speaker 3:I mean it would have been so under the statute. It was a place of gathering.
Speaker 3:And so we put on evidence about all the gatherings that take place in a courthouse, and so that's one of the things we asked a couple of our legislators to clearly designate that when you burn down a courthouse, it's going to be a first-degree felony slay tours. To clearly designate that when you burn down a courthouse, it's going to be a first degree felony, because that you know, that is something that I'm not aware of any other courthouse being burned in an arson like this in modern history, right that's what you know.
Speaker 3:That's something that I think not a lot of folks think about, but we certainly did when we were preparing this case for trial, and even though you know he pled guilty during the trial, we still had to put on all the circumstances and all the evidence that we had for all of the other cases, and so it took a bit, and it took a team of attorneys, a team of investigators, a team of you know all of the people that got us there, and so it, you know, came together and the jury deliberated for quite a while in the case they did Through all of the evidence oh yeah, there is a lot, you know came together and the jury deliberated for quite a while.
Speaker 1:in the case, they did.
Speaker 3:Through all of the evidence.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there is a lot, I guess, to look through. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And some of our jurors, you know, have stayed in touch with us and participate and you know, when we talk about what happened at the courthouse arson we greatly appreciate all of their time, because that's a lot of time out of somebody's life to come listen to that type of testimony and consider all of that evidence. And I think that one of our jurors may end up being an intern in our office, so she switched her major. So you know of all the, of all the horrible things, the courthouse is, you know, rebuilt. It's beautiful and the justice system is still intact, despite somebody trying to burn down the courthouse and burning it down.
Speaker 1:So what did he? How many years did he get?
Speaker 3:So during the middle of the you know, after the trial was over, while the jury was deliberating, there was a discussion had and he wanted to change his election and so he asked for the judge to sentence him. So, instead of the jury sentencing, he asked for the judge to sentence him.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I agreed to do that, and so the judge sentenced him to 75 years.
Speaker 1:Wow, is that a common thing to ask the judge to sentence you instead of a jury? Can somebody request that at any time?
Speaker 3:It's the default is goes to the judge. So somebody can. In Texas, we're one of the only states where somebody can elect whether they go to the judge or the jury for punishment. Okay, and the default is to the judge. And he wanted to go to the judge and you know, judges consider different things than juries. And it takes a lot of time, for it would have taken us another two to three days at least to put on all of the evidence of all of the things that, nick, you know should be held responsible for and considered in punishment.
Speaker 3:So when a judge does it, there's a pre-sentence investigation done which summarizes many things, so that we don't have to be having a jury sit there and listen to all of the information again and I know that jury would have loved to have done it, but I know that they were also exhausted and we talked to them about that. So the defendant picked and the judge sentenced him to 75 years. It was a visiting judge, okay, so it was a. It was a sentence that we felt like justice was served.
Speaker 2:He had restitution to the guy for the truck as well correct, although he may never see that money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think Randy Holloway will ever see that money, but he did, and of all the people, randy Holloway was out quite a bit of money for that. That's true.
Speaker 1:So I had an important question on my head after, when Chris said that oh, I know when is he serving his time.
Speaker 3:So all inmates go to Huntsville first where he's classified and then I don't know where he is after that. I'm going to check and keep track. But you can get on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division website and you can track an inmate. Yeah, I'll be doing that.
Speaker 1:Pit pal. No, not pit pal. I'm always curious because people get moved all over and sent different places.
Speaker 3:They do so.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of fascinated with. Well, because I just did a serial killer, I just interviewed Darlie Root, your sister last month, live and so, yeah, she's one of seven on death row, but I just so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they all, like you said, they go to Huntsville and then, depending on their sentencing, male, female, they're moved in different places, so they have classification and you know they send them where they need to be, in my opinion, and sometimes they move them around, sometimes they don't. I guess it depends on how they act and what's going on with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything else you want to add about this case?
Speaker 3:You know it was. Of all the cases. You know I've been a DA now for gosh how long have I been the DA? For a while now, but I've been a prosecutor for 25 years, and this is one of the most complicated cases that I think any prosecutor's office could ever have, just because of the volume of information and all of the moving parts that had to be put together, and so I'm very proud that we were able to get the case to trial and get the result that we did, and we couldn't have done it without all the support of our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was amazing. Well, thank you for being here and coming today and you thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for what you do and all of these counties and and um, it's people like you that the court system and the justice system, um to us is fair, because you know, um, we, sometimes we cover these cases and I'm sure you've seen these cases and people don't belong in prison if they're innocent. So, um, it takes a lot of due diligence and it takes a lot of research, and it takes a lot of research and it takes a lot of resources and time to investigate these things. So, thank you for everything you both do. Thank you for being here. Thanks, guys. Give them a round of applause, please. Thank you.