Texas Archives - Page 6 of 7 - StoryCorps

Graciela Kavulla and Timothy Kavulla

Graciela Kavulla tells her husband, Timothy, about her grandmother, who was a midwife.

Barbara Cooper and Jody Houston

Barbara Cooper (left) and her mother, Jody Houston, talk about Barbara living with a rare genetic condition called progeria, which speeds up her body’s aging process. While most people with progeria do not live past 13, at the time of their interview, Barbara was 31 years old.

Originally aired December 5, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Joe Spano Jr. and Joe Spano Sr.

Brooklyn born Joe Spano and his son Joe Jr. talk about their family owned Italian restaurant in Abeline, Texas, which serves dishes Joe Sr. grew up watching his mother and grandmother prepare.

Originally aired August 22, 2008 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Jaime Breed and James Lacy

James Lacy tells his daughter Jamie Breed about his father, Jim, who ran a general store in Comanche County, Texas, that prospered until the Great Depression hit and he was no longer able to pay his creditors.

Originally aired July 4, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Myra Dean and Gary Jamison

Myra Dean tells her friend Gary Jamison about her son, Rich Stark, 9, who was killed by a reckless driver while watching a sunset close to their home.

Rich_3
Originally aired May 30, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Photo courtesy of Myra Dean.

Iriel Franklin and Antoinette Franklin

Iriel Franklin (left) and her aunt Antoinette Franklin (right) discuss being forced to relocate to Houston, Texas, following Hurricane Katrina. For Antoinette one of her most difficult moments came when she saw her mother and aunt—her family’s matriarchs—have emotional breakdowns. For Iriel the panic of not being able to locate other members of her family was hardest.

Originally aired August 24, 2007, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Roberta Keys Torn and Susan Young

Roberta Keys Torn talks with her daughter about the night she and her three sisters were born. Her parents were expecting one child, not the four who together weighed 16 pounds. The quadruplets became a local sensation, putting on displays at the state fair and singing and playing instruments for money.

Originally aired March 30, 2007, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Rick Kincaid and Danny Ray Terry

Rick Kincaid talks with his friend Danny Ray Terry about Rick’s work as a bounty hunter. Rick remembers one of the funnier hunts he conducted as well as one of his most difficult — a case that caused Rick to end his bounty-hunting career for good.

Originally aired July 7, 2006, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Parents at an Execution

On March 12th, 2003, Texas is scheduled to execute its 300th inmate since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1982: Delma Banks, Jr., who was convicted of murdering Richard Wayne Whitehead, a 16-year-old high school student.
Banks has been on death row for 22 years, his execution postponed thirteen times. Banks was 21 at the time of the murder and has always professed his innocence. When given the opportunity to plead guilty in exchange for a seven-year sentence, he refused, saying he could not confess to a crime he did not commit. His trial lasted two and a half days. The state’s main witness has since recanted his testimony, citing police coercion. Banks’s sentence was overturned by the U.S. District Court, then reinstated by a Court of Appeals.

Two weeks before the scheduled execution, the Whitehead and Banks families reflected on the past 22 years and what they might feel after the waiting was over.

Recorded in Texarkana. Premiered March 11, 2003, on All Things Considered.

An essay about Richard Whitehead, written by his parents


Richard Wayne Whitehead
16 Years Old
July 2, 1963 to April 11, 1980


Wayne, our first child, was a sweet, naive, typical teenager who loved life. In his naiveté, he saw no meanness or evil in others. He always saw only their goodness. Upon his death, he left a loving family of two brothers (Darren and Jason), his parents (Jackie and Larry Whitehead), grandparents, great-grandparents, as well as numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Like his brothers who are also avid bowlers, at six years of age, Wayne started bowling in a youth bowling league. He quickly developed a passion for bowling and bowled on into high school. Throughout their bowling years, Wayne and his brother Darren won numerous local and state awards and were Arkansas State Doubles Champions. In his junior year at Texas High School (Texarkana, TX), Wayne applied for and won the first scholarship awarded by the Texarkana Junior Bowling Association based on his bowling achievements and scholastic record. As a tribute to him upon his death, this scholarship was renamed, “The Wayne Whitehead Memorial Scholarship” and is awarded yearly to a deserving junior or senior high school bowler.

Not long before his death, Wayne had gotten a car and was so very proud of it. This car, a 1969 Ford Mustang, was his pride and joy. It needed some “fixing up,” but that made it even more special to him. His plans were to customize it to his liking, with his dad’s help, and have fun in the process. However, his plans for his car were never realized. He left our house on a Friday night to attend a high school dance. After the dance, he went to the bowling center. There he ran into Delma Banks, Jr. He worked with Banks at the Bonanza Steak House. The weather was rainy and messy, and Wayne gave Banks a ride home. After dropping a friend off at her house, they went to a local park. It was at this park that Banks murdered our son. He shot him in the back of the head and in his shoulder. Then, just to make sure, he shot him point blank between the eyes. This cold blooded murderer left our sweet boy in that park, took his car, and drove it to Dallas, TX, where he abandoned it on a Dallas street. The car was never found. Later, during the trial, Banks told a friend in Dallas that he “did a white boy just for the hell of it.”

Banks was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death twenty years ago. He has been on death row at Huntsville, TX, all that time. He has filed appeal after appeal, after appeal, and has the NAACP fighting for him. In August 2000, the Federal courts granted him a new punishment phase, setting aside his death sentence. Now, Wayne’s family will go through all the torment of another trial with all the painful memories resurfacing. This case even attracted national attention because of the presidential election and George Bush being a candidate.

In all this chaos, Wayne, the innocent victim, has all but been forgotten. To his family, he was a living, breathing, sweet, sweet boy before he met Delma Banks, Jr. To us he always will be just that. All we have left now are memories of Wayne, some that are nightmares and others that are oh, so sweet. That’s what Banks left us – just memories. Wayne was cheated out of so much at the hands of another person, and twenty years later his family still does not have closure and peace.

Delma Banks, Jr. was scheduled to be executed on March 2003, but he was given a stay by the Supreme Court. He is still on death row.

This documentary comes from Sound Portraits Productions, a mission-driven independent production company that was created by Dave Isay in 1994. Sound Portraits was the predecessor to StoryCorps and was dedicated to telling stories that brought neglected American voices to a national audience.

Witness to an Execution

Witness to an Execution tells the stories of the men and women involved with the execution of death row inmates at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Narrated by Warden Jim Willett, who oversees all Texas executions, Witness to an Execution documents, in minute-by-minute detail, the process of carrying out an execution by lethal injection. Most of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees interviewed have witnessed over one hundred inmates be put to death. One-third of all executions in the US have taken place in Texas, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

The voices in Witness to an Execution tell a rare story. Major Kenneth Dean, a member of the “tie-down” team, describes the act of walking an inmate from his cell to the death chamber. Jim Brazzil, a death house chaplain who has witnessed 114 executions, remembers inmates’ last words to him. Former corrections officer Fred Allen discusses his own mental breakdown, caused, he says, by participating in one too many executions.

Witness to an Execution won a Peabody Award in 2000.

Recorded in Huntsville, TX. Premiered October 20, 2000, on All Things Considered.

This documentary comes from Sound Portraits Productions, a mission-driven independent production company that was created by Dave Isay in 1994. Sound Portraits was the predecessor to StoryCorps and was dedicated to telling stories that brought neglected American voices to a national audience.