KWTX | DNA To Be Retested In Case Of Death Row Inmate

KWTX | DNA To Be Retested In Case Of Death Row Inmate

OK, this is creeping me out more than somewhat. Louis Castro Perez was convicted of the 1998 murders of Frances Michelle Fulwiller, Cinda Rae Barz, and Barz's 9-year-old daughter Staci Mitchell. Frances Fulwiller is the daughter of Francelle Bettinger, a friend of mine who I'd lost touch with after getting married in 1992. I don't follow local news much, so I didn't pay much attention to the news of the murder or the trial until they interviewed Francelle after the verdict and sentence -- that televised interview was the first time I'd seen Francelle in years.

It's creepy to have some sort of connection to an infamous crime like this one. I have connections to two other famed murder cases in Austin. My bicycle commute home from my evening job took me past the site of the Yogurt Shop Murders on December 6, 1991 -- but I didn't see anything out of the way that night. Several years later (1993? 1994?), my wife called me at work to tell me that there had been a murder next door to our house. This latter victim had been a teenage boy stalked by an older man, a former family acquaintance, who followed the boy and his grandmother to her home next to ours (the boy was with his grandmother in hopes of keeping him away from the stalker). The murderer hanged himself in jail a year or so later.

I guess it just shows what a small town Austin is (or at any rate used to be), but it's still a bit creepy.