Email Author Steve McVicker

1999 Stories by Steve McVicker

• Waldhauser Watch

  published December 30, 1999

  On that October day, Michael Lee Davis initially displayed the sort of quick, big smile seen on most budding business entrepreneurs encountering a... More >>

• Still Open and Shut

  published December 16, 1999

  State authorities recently ended their investigation into the bizarre death six years ago of Paul Beauchamp, a case now more mysterious... More >>

• Serial Killers On-line

  published October 28, 1999

  Andy Kahan sits at his Compaq computer and summons forth the Internet auction house eBay, which boasts of helping "people trade practically... More >>

• Fade to Black

  published October 14, 1999

  It was September 1983, and independent Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell had it going on. From the balcony of Lincoln Center, the lanky,... More >>

• Cell Phones

  published September 30, 1999

  Larry Fitzgerald routinely fields inquiries from media around the world wanting to talk to some of the 140,000 inmates incarcerated by the Texas... More >>

• Waldhauser Surrenders

  published September 30, 1999

  Convicted contract killer Walter Waldhauser Jr., who changed his name to Michael Lee Davis,... More >>

• Approaching Death At The County Morgue

  published August 19, 1999

  When the Harris County Commissioners Court offered Dr. Joye Maureen Carter the job as the area's chief medical examiner just over three years ago,... More >>

• Dangerous Deficits

  published August 19, 1999

  Last week state budget officials revealed that, somehow, $30 million has evaporated from the $1.9 billion earmarked by the Legislature for Texas... More >>

• Widening the Waldhauser Net

  published July 15, 1999

  The investigation into a $15 million insurance fraud, allegedly masterminded by a capital murderer from Houston, has spread to several other... More >>

• Trouble in Mind

  published July 8, 1999

  His face is pasty and pale, a sharp contrast to his greasy coal-black hair. His dark eyes are sunken under a low forehead and thick eyebrows; he... More >>

• Houston Press Story Prompts Indictments

  published July 1, 1999

  Last week, a Dallas County grand jury returned 39 indictments against 32 people in an alleged $2.7 million viatical fraud scheme -- the result of... More >>

• Killer On The Loose

  published June 24, 1999

  The explosion of the battering ram splintering a heavy front door jarred the predawn stillness of a quiet Dallas suburb last Thursday. Seventeen... More >>

• Heartburn Can Be Murder

  published May 27, 1999

  In a wildly embellished wedding announcement that got past Houston Chronicle fact checkers three and a half years ago, Susan and Carmine Basso... More >>

• Dead, Dead, Dead

  published May 6, 1999

  The man in the sport coat didn't look like a revolutionary, but he sounded like one. Standing in the hallway of the Harris County... More >>

• Blasted

  published April 22, 1999

  Sure, Joe Wright was paranoid. By the summer of 1998, he'd been on crystal meth for years, and speed has a way of doing that to a man. But the... More >>

• Queen of the Good Ol' Boys

  published March 25, 1999

  Katherine Scardino usually looks good -- at 54, she can pass for a decade younger -- but today in court the overall effect was particularly... More >>

• City Hall's Dime Debts

  published March 25, 1999

  With a $2.2 billion budget, the city of Houston doesn't stop on a dime. But the Houston Press halted for a quick double take when that... More >>

• More Payne for the IRS

  published March 25, 1999

  Score it Jerry Payne 2, the Internal Revenue Service 0. Last Friday, United States District Judge Vanessa D. Gilmore ordered the IRS to pay... More >>

• Cop vs. Cop

  published February 25, 1999

  Paulino Zavala looked like a scumbag. He had tattoos, sleepy eyes and a got-it-going-on attitude. On the street, real scumbags couldn't tell he... More >>

• Breaking the Blue Code

  published February 25, 1999

  Last month the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled sharply in favor of a cop who claimed that the Houston Police Department made... More >>

• Walter Waldhauser Wired

  published January 21, 1999

  Walter Waldhauser Jr., a.k.a. Michael Lee Davis, is out of business and on a short leash. Although the confessed killer is once again a free man,... More >>

• Status Report

  published January 14, 1999

  Following a vote of a panel of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, confessed murderer Walter Waldhauser Jr., also known as Michael Lee Davis,... More >>

• Up To Date on '98

  published January 7, 1999

  In real life, stories don't end with "happily ever after." They roll forward with no regard for narrative neatness: The prince becomes king; he... More >>