Fort Worth Outlaw Country | Signal 51 Chronicles Case 6 Ep 1

Speaker 1: This is the Signal 51 Chronicles. Fort Worth, the outlaw country. Outlaw country. I'm John Henry with my compadre and cohost Jake White, retired sergeant of the Fort Worth Police Department. That means he's collecting this huge pension right now as a retired Massive. Police department, an officer of the Ford Police Department. We join you from an undisclosed location in Fort Worth, Texas. Likely, officially the eleventh largest city in Texas, the fastest growing city, big city in The US Of A, but there's hardly any doubt that we're probably the tenth largest city. We came in at number 11 last time last year and we were like 1,200 behind. I think it was Jacksonville. Well, you know, hell 1,200 gets gets off planes at DFW never come back. So never go back. So we're we gotta be the tenth tenth largest city. I think so. Lots of lots of humanity here. Lots of crime. Lots to talk about. On the other side of us is Ashley, our superstar producer from Hood County, the very excitable Hood County. Lots going on there. There are lots of emotions in Hood County.

Speaker 2: They're happening. Friends happening. It's funny though because you said Jacksonville and that's where that's where that when the last episode we talked about when I got arrested.

Speaker 1: That's what happened. Wow. Yeah. We made the dreaded mistake of asking Ashley if, she had ever had a run-in with the law.

Speaker 2: Now I hang out with cops. Happens sometimes. Yeah. Jake's old friends.

Speaker 3: And I made the,

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's that led to an

Speaker 3: even Unfortunate discovery of led

Speaker 1: with to an even the law. To an even worse discussion. Ashley, let's let's ask you this. Oh, no. What would be the worst place you think to hide a body?

Speaker 2: In your home.

Speaker 1: In your own home?

Speaker 2: Probably. Yeah. Probably.

Speaker 1: Buried underneath the

Speaker 2: No. It's just out in the open. It's the worst place. Out like Just put it in that chair right there.

Speaker 3: Decomposing in a chair.

Speaker 1: What was that movie? Weekend at Bernie's or whatever. Yeah. Well, we've lost our minds. Jake, where where was the worst place you've ever hidden a body? Or a grassropper. Or where where would would you would you hide a I

Speaker 3: I What about when body? Mean

Speaker 2: Like a dumpster would be the place.

Speaker 3: You know, they had just several years ago. The dumpster fire over here in West Fort Worth. Yeah. Yeah. I think there was multiple bodies in that one. Might have been. Yeah. They probably should have they cut the thing on fire or heat the suspect in that case did.

Speaker 2: I feel like the worst place to hide the hide a body is somewhere where your name's on the ownership title

Speaker 1: Yes.

Speaker 2: Or the rental agreement or

Speaker 1: Yeah. Any any association you might have with that piece of property and they find a body on it

Speaker 2: The storage unit.

Speaker 1: Is not a good a store yeah. Not a good thing for you.

Speaker 2: No. Anywhere that you own that's your names on it is a bad place.

Speaker 1: You might be completely innocent, but you're gonna suffer. You're gonna have to go through a whole lot to Lot of explaining to do. To convince the authorities that you had nothing to do with this. Now, we were talking earlier. I know ever since our friend Jake White here retired from the Fort Worth Police Department, he has become very bougie.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Got that juicer.

Speaker 1: Yes. I know if something happened to that juicer, they he just got a juicer.

Speaker 3: You're Do you think there are

Speaker 1: any cops in the forties and fifties that had juicers?

Speaker 3: You're confusing what I bought. I did not buy, like, some industry industrial grade juicer. I explained this.

Speaker 2: This is on the lemon juicer?

Speaker 3: Yes. That's all that it does have like a mechanical, some feature where you plug it in.

Speaker 1: Are you making or what are you making with that? Are you making

Speaker 3: I'm not making anything with I didn't buy it.

Speaker 2: What's your wife? What's your wife making?

Speaker 3: I have no idea. I just saw the box. I this is on the heels of the lemon water. No no Discussion.

Speaker 1: You're not draining cucumbers of their lives in this thing?

Speaker 2: I went through a juicing phase.

Speaker 3: Now we this did. The reason this does come on a trip to New York. We went to a deli. We had it. It's a deli in New York. It's not like

Speaker 1: Oh, I've been to a deli in New York. Damn sandwich would cost you $40.

Speaker 3: Well, everything goes up there. Yes. It was good, but they had one. They had A juicer. And provided a sample.

Speaker 1: And missus White saw it, got a sample.

Speaker 3: Might have been my daughter. I think they we all got a sample.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm treating you.

Speaker 2: What kind of juice was it?

Speaker 3: I have no idea. I wasn't paying attention to any of this.

Speaker 2: He just took a shot or something. He doesn't know what it was.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And that spurred the idea of, well, this is good.

Speaker 1: We need one of these.

Speaker 3: I'm sure it'll

Speaker 1: We can get recipes.

Speaker 3: It will sit in the pantry for the next Exactly. Years and likely get used once or twice, it'll sit there for the next eight years until we throw it away.

Speaker 1: So how did you decide which juicer you needed?

Speaker 3: I I again, I just saw the thing at the house. I didn't have any role in the purchase. I have no desire to juice, if you will.

Speaker 1: Not that kind of juice. Yeah. I mean, now the HGH juice, you know, or whatever.

Speaker 3: No, I would do that.

Speaker 1: Exactly. As long as as long as I consume it. I don't wanna be putting any needles. I only let medical professionals do all that stuff. All right,

Speaker 3: get back on track.

Speaker 1: Let's go

Speaker 3: to the blotter.

Speaker 2: Never.

Speaker 1: Go to the University of Wisconsin of Eau Claire.

Speaker 3: Eau Claire, okay. Not the traditional spelling of Eau Claire up there. It's not. Urban down here.

Speaker 1: Around noon, one day recently, an officer of, I believe the university police, responded to a report of the smell of Wade, Mary Awana. Okay. Coming from a dorm room. The officer confirmed the report with those who made the complaint and received the names of the dorm residents before proceeding to their floor. So we've got a narc on

Speaker 3: our hands here. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: I smell something, it's right there, and their names are. Oh

Speaker 3: my god, yes.

Speaker 1: The officer enough went up that way and he noticed that the entire floor smelled of marijuana and he could identify that it was coming indeed from that room. Hearing voices inside, the officer knocked at the door until they noticed, or the officer noticed a student staring at them who identified himself as a resident of the room. The student acknowledged that yes, they used marijuana and had smoked that day. Though not recently, it was like three hours ago. A second officer arrived, student opened the door. The officers observed smoke filling the room and again questioned if the student had smoked in the room recently. The student denied smoking in the room recently, but admitted that when he'd gone for a walk not long ago, they brought out the Latin lettuce. Okay. As my man Fred Sanford would call it.

Speaker 3: The Latin lettuce? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1: The officers received consent from the student to enter the room, although the student did not consent to a search. The student handed over a few items such as a small black case containing what the officer suspected was marijuana, a partially smoked blunt, and some sort of vape pen. This is a student newspaper reporting this. Thanks to the student's cooperation, the officers opened the student to a diversion program and the student filled out the paperwork. God willing, he will the student will get past his addiction to Oh, get me started. The marijuana. You've you've dealt with kids and drugs over the court, not your own, but over in your job.

Speaker 3: That's different now. I mean, I I mean, they get if a diversion program is on the table, then I say don't even make it illegal. It's weed. They're in college.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Who cares? You think that happens often? Smoking weed in college?

Speaker 3: No. Probably not that much. I don't think so. I doubt it. Who cares? Like I said, I mean, if a diversion program is an option, why make it illegal?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Right.

Speaker 3: It's like, well, it's kind of illegal. We're gonna send you to not like a real punishment, but it's this fake punishment. It's like all the other I mean, you you're you're older than me, but not don't mean that. Older, but it's like what was the dare thing back in the day? Remember that? Just say no, Nancy then Nancy Reagan's Just Say No? Mhmm. How'd that work out? I mean, it did It alerted everybody to just don't get caught. That's all it did. I don't know. I mean,

Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if the diversion program was a juicer. Maybe you should do some juicing instead of-

Speaker 3: Yeah, they teach them how to juice.

Speaker 1: Instead of smoking marijuana. You be careful of that stuff. What alright.

Speaker 3: That's what they say, John Henry. That's what they say.

Speaker 1: So recently, I came across this book, Fort Worth from World War II to 1960 by Mr. Harold Rich, author who has done, two other previous books, related to the same type of topic material, Fort Worth to a Certain Point. World War one. He did one from World War one to World War two, I believe, and did one before then on the late nineteen hundreds or I'm sorry, late nineteenth century. Good stuff. Mister Harold Rich has an actual actually interesting story. Graduated from Paschal High School. Went off to work. And then was a kind of a late comer to to college. Went to u went to I had to look it up, I think he went to UTA. No, no, he went to TCU. Went to TCU, got a history degree and then went back to work, and then later on got a master's in history, and then in the aughts he got a PhD in history. So he's been doing history things for a long time. So I found something interesting in here, Jake. Okay.

Speaker 3: Crime related?

Speaker 1: It is crime related. Okay. The 10 most undesirable hoodlums in Fort Worth in 1960.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 1: Published by the Star Telegram. And in fact, the honorable J. Edgar Hoover, you've heard of him.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Speaker 1: Sent a letter of commendation to the Star Telegram for publishing this list.

Speaker 3: A letter of authenticity or something?

Speaker 1: Something like that. So the 10 most undesirable hoodlums in fourth nineteen sixty. Number 10, Raymond C. Cameron. Record of burglary and narcotics charges. Virgil F. Tidwell Jr, forger and burglar. Zachariah Milligan, served prison time for assault and the Billy W. Miracle, awaiting trial on robbery of a supermarket. He was arrested in Las Vegas for robbery and attempted murder in February 1961. Jesse Kimbrough, out on bond for the murder of Charles Hurley and the robbery of a supermarket. Danny Macomb, former tavern owner on the Jasper Highway, a suspect in the murder of a gentleman named George Keene. Mister McCombs also out on Bond in 1960 for a kidnapping in Illinois. Billy Joe Ellis, wanted on burglary charges. And then number 10, you and I know this guy. We were figuratively introduced to him a few years ago. Garrett Ramsey.

Speaker 3: Garrett Ramsey.

Speaker 1: Kingpin of Fort Worth Prostitution and wanted for the murder of Royce Heard. Yep.

Speaker 3: I'm glad we're talking about this one.

Speaker 1: So that brings us to Fort Worth outlaw country. And let's briefly talk about Garrett Ramsey and Royce Leon Heard, who was shot and killed in June 1960. Garrett Ramsey was initially charged with the murder. But according to Garrett Ramsey, a man arrived at Sandgate Street House in Southeast Fort Worth and pulled a gun on Garrett Ramsey, Apparently as part of a hit attempt against Mr. Ramsey. Now during the confrontation, another person kicked in the back door and a gunshot was fired in the kitchen. Ramsey said the man who entered the house, later identified as Heard, was shot in the head during the chaos. Ramsey claimed the shooting was part of a failed attempt to kill him and that had been mistaken for him by the gunman. After the shooting, Ramsey said he placed the wounded Heard in the trunk of his car, drove to a rural area in Village Creek outside Kennadale, and left him in a ditch where Heard died. Police later found the body after Ramsey directed him to the location. Ramsey along with another guy named Bobby Lott was arrested and charged with Heard's murder. Despite the charges, the case against Ramsey was weak. Polygraph tests reportedly indicated he had not fired the fatal shot and prosecutors acknowledged tying him to the murder was extremely thin. Ultimately, murder charges against Ramsey and Lot were dropped, although authorities still believed Ramsey had knowledge of the crime and involvement in events surrounding the killing. So we'll get back into Garrett Ramsey here after a while. But, you know, one of the hottest topics in those days in the forties, fifties, and in the sixties was Jaxxer Highway. It was the successor

Speaker 3: to Hell's Half Acre. And the predecessor of West 7th.

Speaker 1: And the predecessor West 7th, according to this guy. He got a point.

Speaker 3: Well, there has been a lot of people murdered down there.

Speaker 1: Yeah. A lot of wild stuff going on down at West 7th right now. So Jacksboro Highway in the forties and fifties was, was essentially the city's main vice and nightlife district. It was a stretch of road from Northside Drive to, I guess, Lake Worth, lined with clubs, casinos, bars, gambling halls, and drew crowds from across North Texas. The road is part of State Highway 199, and it ran Northwest towards the town of Jacksboro, hence its name. Over time, it developed into a concentrated entertainment strip known for heavy drinking, gambling, and yes, organized crime activity. The district grew partly because of geography. The highway connected Fort Worth with many dry counties like Jack. So oilfield workers up in the Northwest and ranchers drove into the city to drink and gamble. At the same time, thousands of workers from nearby Carswell, probably wasn't Carswell then, Air Force Plant 4, something of that nature, Ford Army Field Airfield, had money to spend and sought entertainment after shifts. Because parts of the highway were initially outside four city limits, clubs and gambling operations operated with less police oversight. And whatever police were out there to oversee Would accept a handout from time to time.

Speaker 3: They were on the take? Is that what you're So

Speaker 1: by the early 1950s, the highway had become notorious, lined with venues such as the Fort Deuces, the Black Cat, Coconut Grove, the Rocket Club, and the Skyliner Club. And the area attracted all sorts of people from wealthy socialites and TCU students to professional gamblers like Benny Binion, by the way, and gangsters, of course. Violent rivalries between crime figures competing to control gambling and other illegal activities helped give Jasper Highway its reputation as Fort Worth's highway to hell. And where you see gangsters and illicit activity and whatever else, what do you find spikes in violent crime? It's not unique to this part of the world or any other, of course. And I know one being your bonnet, Jake White, is recently reasons for violent crime include offenders being released on little to no bond amounts.

Speaker 3: There is that. They they also had one, and I believe this this was very recent. Have you ever heard of a jail being closed only just unless it was certain offenses?

Speaker 1: Oh, not well, no, not until where did see that?

Speaker 3: Well, up until the new chief came into town, was pretty common for the jail in Fort Worth to be closed.

Speaker 1: This county jail or the city? The city jail.

Speaker 3: The city jail. Oh, officers respond to, let's say a shoplifting call, right? Yeah. Somebody steals $800 worth of stuff from whatever retailer. They would get on there and like, well, jail's closed. Sorry. We can't take them.

Speaker 1: Too many people is over overcrowded

Speaker 3: or Overcrowded. There was some there was some issue that was obviously I don't wanna say easy to fix, but got fixed from what I hear overnight to where now they're not dealing with that. So what happens when these guys or girls were encountered law enforcement, should have gone to jail, and then they didn't, right? Was there other offenses that happened afterwards?

Speaker 1: Could 100%.

Speaker 3: Yeah, probably so. So that wasn't that's a little bit of a side note, but Guys are survivalists. Interesting. Yeah. The the the little to no bond amounts. We know, we did one oh, just a little short one. That guy that recently got arrested in Lake Worth of all places. He's in his late 30s, 37 now. Oh. And so in his adult lifetime, so from in Texas 17 to now, he'd been arrested for in excess of 20 times, 30 times, with the vast majority of them being drug offenses.

Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.

Speaker 3: What's the point?

Speaker 1: What is the point?

Speaker 3: Exact I mean, honestly. Really hammered him there.

Speaker 1: Is it? Yeah. I mean, what intervention has that done?

Speaker 3: They probably should have put him in a diversion program or something. I'm sure that would have helped.

Speaker 1: So the late 1980s here, the crack cocaine epidemic spurred the nickname Myrta Worth. I'm sure we weren't the only ones, I know we weren't the only ones dealing with spikes in murder through the crack cocaine trade. So this idea of gangs feuding over drugs and whatever underworld activity they are involved is a petri dish for violence and more and even greater disorder. Ideally, the police and community can quell the unrest, but the past can teach us something about our present and give us a glimpse into the future. A multilayered story of the criminal underworld of the '19 and for the 1950s with more plot lines than a city has potholes.

Speaker 3: Can have more potholes than this city has.

Speaker 1: Provides us valuable lessons.

Speaker 3: Lunar landing, JH, the lunar landing. Just drive on any streets in the road. That's what he says. Inside the loop in Fort Worth.

Speaker 1: I'm not saying anything.

Speaker 3: But akin to driving on the surface of the moon. It has to be. It has to be. It can't be any worse. So sorry. I had to I just laughed when I saw that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. So the story of the nineteen fifties. The story of the nineteen fifties, it all started with the wounding of an innocent 14 year old girl caught in the worst place at the worst time trying to get her dog out of the middle of gunfire between rival gangs in an East Fort Worth neighborhood. The hours leading up to 03:30PM on Thursday, 08/21/1958 had been quite pleasant for a late day late summer day in New York up New York in Fort Worth.

Speaker 3: Oh, where are we going?

Speaker 1: Thunderstorm was intermixed with light rain and drizzle. By the late afternoon however, unfortunately the precipitation moved on. Bobby Ray Foote and Johnny Green had gotten out that day in the Polytechnic neighborhood. Polytechnic Heights, home to Texas Westland. Is an established neighborhood, was an established neighborhood then by the nineteen fifties. It had been founded in the early eighteen fifties by a pair of families from Tennessee. In 1890, the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Polytechnic College on donated hilltop land. Texas Westland sits right there on the same site. At one time Polytechnic Heights was an incorporated city with a stop on the Fort Worth interurban. Polytechnic Heights itself was a city in every sense of the word, had a post office, fire station, and even the first world amenities like a movie theater, ice cream shop, and more. In the 1920s, Polytechnic was incorporated by the city of Fort Worth. What Foot and Green were up to that day there was no telling, but at 03:30 as Foot drove northbound in the 1,800 block of Arch Street in the Polytechnic neighborhood, a tempest of bullets came storming into the car. A man in the car traveling southbound had forced the car Foot was driving to stop. The man then jumped out and began to fire indiscriminately into Foot's vehicle. Two of those bullets blasted into Bobby Ray Foote's stomach and back. Seriously wounded, Foote attempted to make his way back home but collapsed and died in the front yard of 4101 Avenue L. Foot had been gunned down at age 26, a mere two blocks from his home. Witnesses reported to police that at least 15 gunshots were fired. The assailants, of course, did not hang around to answer questions. They took off. So too did foot's passenger, Johnny Green. Fort Worth police opened a signal 51. This was now a homicide investigation. Detectives Grady Hare and AC Howerton were called to the scene. Those were two guys that were around for a long, detectives that were around for a long time. Hare was known to colleagues as the gentleman's detective who dressed like a banker or undertaker and carried himself with the dignity of a preacher. The astute hair made an immediate connection to this case and it was a shooting the week before. The week prior, 14 year old Carol Ann Pettigrew was in the wrong place. She was seriously injured after being peppered by shotgun pellets in an alley near her home. Young Carol, who was trying to get her dog out of the attack had been an innocent victim caught in the crossfire of gangsters. One of those gangsters was the now deceased Bobby Ray Foote. Foote was in the midst of a feud with a rival gang to control the underworld vice trade in Fort Worth. In news reports, detective Howerton described them as procures and keepers of women for the purpose of prostitution. These guys were peps, as they say. In the shooting that wounded Pettigrew, the young 14 year old girl who was the only one wounded in the incident, Foot and his compadres were the ones who launched the attack. So Jake White, how do you think police would go about making this connection, this determination that Foot's death was related to the shooting a week earlier?

Speaker 3: In short, geography. Geography. Right. So crime, for the most part, always has some kind of geographical connections. Same way back then, same way today. Right? Typically, your criminal is not gonna stray too far from

Speaker 1: home. Mhmm.

Speaker 3: Probably more so now. Right? Transportation's a little easier now. More mobility? More mobility.

Speaker 1: Although no trains. But yes.

Speaker 3: Correct. But for the most part, that I I think that. The other thing is, I mean, these guys made a top 10 list. Right? Or this story as a whole, what we're gonna get to.

Speaker 1: I would imagine these guys were somewhere in a top 30 list. These guys are on it.

Speaker 3: Yeah. They're definitely in the top 30, you would think. Yeah. So violent offenders stand out. Right? I would think in 1958, there's seemingly fewer of them than there are now. So you've got that geographical tie, that East Fort Tie, the Avenue L blocks from his home. Yeah. You have a known violent offender. Okay? So today, for example. So a shooting in Fort Worth Common. Mhmm. I'd say it.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Sure. A lot of them, probably daily, I would say, close to it. I would say so, yeah. I don't think it was like that though in 1958, right? Not near as common as it is today. We're not necessarily shocked when we read the headlines of a-

Speaker 1: Probably fewer guns. I think. But I I don't I I just don't have I don't have proof of that.

Speaker 3: Don't know. You you are.

Speaker 1: I would say you are. In 1958. Correct.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you definitely I think you have that element. You got fewer people. I think society was different too, though. Right? There is a guy Jeffrey Canada is this guy's name, and he writes a book called, don't quote me on the title, I think it's something I'm somewhere along the line, Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, and it talks about the evolution of violence in society. Alright. So it starts off fist fighting and advanced to knives. Now we're at guns. Yeah. Now I don't know what else we could advance to beyond guns, so we've never made it past that part of the title.

Speaker 1: Yeah. But back in 1950

Speaker 3: there's no way that they were as common, right? You had your your fist fights. Might have had the knife fight introduced, but the gun the gun violence is not like it is now. So the police, like I said, they've got the geographical connection. They've got the violent crime offenders. They're really gonna just start putting those pieces together.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Your usual suspects are your usual suspects. Mhmm.

Speaker 3: This case, I mean, Bobby Ray Foote, you're focusing on his known enemies? And good God, I mean there's Who knows? Tons of them, I'm sure. Or were tons of them back then. So I think that's in short. How they identified him. And Foote,

Speaker 1: as you mentioned, was by then a central figure in the Fort Worth criminal underground.

Speaker 3: He was definitely not a saint. No. The first page of his lengthy rap sheet, especially for a rather short life.

Speaker 1: He was 26 when

Speaker 3: he died, So nine years earlier is when his rap sheet began. Foote, a native of Fort Worth, born in 1932, was sentenced to five years probation on an assault charge in an alleged robbery attempt of a seminary student.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 3: The robbery charge was dismissed, but the the assault charge stuck. Three years later, he again found himself the subject of a criminal investigation, charged as a suspect in a series of burglaries. A County grand jury, however, no build them.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So we had opportunities to get this guy too.

Speaker 3: Mhmm. A month later, foot turns up in my motherland of Missouri. Missouri. Missouri. He was wounded by Missouri State Police after he and two companions fled after being stopped. In the car, which authorities discovered had been stolen, police found liquor swiped from a Sedalia, Missouri liquor store. Foot, his right arm shattered by the rifle fire, pled guilty to auto theft, and was assessed a two year sentence.

Speaker 1: Do you have any ancestors from Sedalia, Missouri?

Speaker 3: No. I don't have any ancestors from Sedalia.

Speaker 1: So Fort Worth has this notorious history of underworld crime figures living here or coming through town. And they came here for generally the same reasons, gambling and prostitution. Bonnie and Clyde's infamous string of bad deeds included the Easter Sunday murder of state trooper HD Murphy and Edward Wheeler in Grapevine. In January 1933, Clyde killed Tarrant County deputy Malcolm Davis in Dallas. Davis, future Tarrant County Sheriff Dusty Rhodes, not that Dusty Rhodes.

Speaker 3: That's where I immediately

Speaker 1: Walter Could Evans be a relative. Could be. Walter Evans, an investigator with the district attorney's office, along with sheriff's deputies from Dallas and a member of the Texas Rangers surrounded a house in West Dallas looking for Odell Shambless, who was wanted in the robbery of Home Bank and Grapevine. The crew of law enforcement went to the house early in the evening. There they found only 17 year old Margie Ferris and two children. So they sat and waited in hiding. Around midnight, a car stopped in front of the house. A man got out armed with a shotgun and pistol. At the officer's command, Ferris opened the door. She was also said to have yelled to Barrow that authorities were at the house. Davis and another deputy posted in the back, ran to the front as the gunman began to flee. As Davis ordered him to stop, the gunman fired point blank with a shotgun, striking Davis in the abdomen. Said Sheriff Red Wright, It was certainly that my deputy was killed by a gunman member of some gang of outlaws. All facts and circumstances bear out that theory. Sheriff Wright had an idea. He believed it could have been Clyde Barrow and Pretty Boy Floyd. Wright had theorized that Clyde had been taken in by the Floyd outfit to fill a vacancy created by the death of Cole Oglesby in Oklahoma several months before. As it turned out, the other gangster with Bonnie and Clyde that night was William Daniel Jones, only 17 himself at that time. The duel outside the house, I'm sorry, the duel outside the White Elephant Saloon between gambler Luke Short and then Fort Worth marshal Jim Courtright is of course legendary. That happened just outside or in Hell's Half Acre. Courtright's legacy is mixed at best. He did some good things as a law enforcement agent, but he got in his share of legal scrapes as well, including wanted for as many as 14 murders in New Mexico, according to a book by noted fourth historian Richard Seltzer. Money matters, quote unquote, were at the heart of this dispute between Court Wright and Luke Short. Court Wright was trying to extort Short at the time of the duel, which actually turned out not to be any duel. Short emptied his pistol on his doomed challenger. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you've heard of them of course, also made a trip through here. And we know that because they took a famous photo here. One of the more infamous cases involved a man named Jeff Daggett, a sad sack of humanity if there ever was one. Jeff Daggett was another troubled soul, a product of an unwanted mixed race pregnancy. His mother was a slave and his father was a son of E. M. Daggett, the so called father of Fort Worth. Wrote Seltzer, our author of Fort Worth history, Jeff Daggett was bad news his whole life. From his unwelcome birth in 1863 to his unfortunate end fifty four years later, and a hail of bullets in the Tarrant County Courthouse. Rejected by his white paternal family, Daggett found a home in the underworld as a gambler and owner of a saloon in Hell's Half Acre that catered to African Americans. Time and again, he was accused of assault and murder, once even going to Huntsville for the murder of Dick Van, another gambler in 1892. Jeff Daggett was killed in 1917 by County Detective Ben Leggett at the Tarrant County Courthouse. Daggett was supposedly going there to file a complaint against Leggett for an incident at a saloon. Leggett and others allegedly heard Daggett say he was there to cause Leggett harm. Those are just a few of the long list of notorious characters who made either a stop in Fort Worth or made Fort Worth their home. Jake, now you've seen your fair share of gangs in a more twenty year career. We hear about them all the time, but what do those gangs look like in Fort Worth today?

Speaker 3: Well, mean, again, a lot changes in even four years. Mean, seem to be much more fractured than what they are now.

Speaker 1: And some of these drugs, obviously, are at the heart of it all. There's prostitution, of course, as well. That doesn't seem like it's as big a deal anymore. Maybe it is, I don't know.

Speaker 3: I don't know if there's as much money in it. I don't I don't

Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably not. Gun running has gotta be another one of those. Right?

Speaker 3: That would that that definitely had a little spike in popularity, if you will, especially in the, you know, kinda like that 2008 to the '15 time frame getting smuggled south into Mexico. Yeah. I think that's died down some. Now they have all those, they've got the Glock switches, which are what, they convert those semi autos into full autos, made out of three d printer. A little bit different though. I mean, like the gang wise. And honestly, I think probably, I wasn't around obviously to see this, but like in the early '90s, late '80s, early '90s when Fort Worth had their crips and bloods and it seemed very, maybe much more organized than it is today. I don't even know. I mean, I guess they exist to a certain degree, but nothing, nothing, nothing like this.

Speaker 1: Lost all their leadership and

Speaker 3: Yeah, there is no leadership.

Speaker 1: Across the years. Yeah. Killed, mostly.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And there, I mean, you know, also, I mean, there's no honor amongst thieves either, right? I mean, you know, the the one thing now and and maybe it was this way back then, but, you know, everybody snitches on everybody at this point too. I mean, so not as much loyalty to the to the gang or to the group. So but back to the Foote case. So in the shooting death of in the shooting death of Foote, called to assist detective Hare and detective Howerton were the Texas Rangers. Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers. The statue we were just discussing. Yeah. The Texas Ranger division is it's the primary investigative branch for Texas Department of Public Safety. They still have the cowboy look to them or the western look to them, if The you white shirts, the khakis. You know, they've got the they've got that look. So preliminary investigative steps revealed we're going back to that shooting the foot. The occupants in the southbound vehicle were not the only shooters. Foote had managed to fire at least one round while or shortly after being shot. Furthermore, investigators located a shotgun under the seat of Foote's vehicle. A little more than one month later or one month after Foote was shot and killed, a Tarrant County grand jury convened and handed up indictments in Foote's death.

Speaker 1: Yes, they did. Yes, they did. And the state of Texas would bring Donald Kenneth Gaunt, Larry Wade Gussolus, and Garrett Milton Ramsey to face charges in the death of Foote. Missing from the grand jury proceedings was Johnny Green, the guy who was riding with him. He had fled Fort Worth for the Bay Area in California. And that's where we will conclude part one of Fort Worth Outlaw Country. Before you leave us, make sure you tell all your friends, your associates, your acquaintances, your work buddies, your drinking buddies, your next door neighbors, write a letter to the president, your congressman, your city council member, your state representative, and tell them to find the signal 51 chronicles. We're on every single platform you could imagine. We touch them all. Touch them all. We're one big Venn diagram. Hit like, subscribe, all that stuff. So we'll see you next time for part two of Fort Worth outlaw country. Later. See you. This

Speaker 3: is a Stolen Water Media production.