Luggage By Kroger: A True Crime Memoir by Gary Taylor

to follow, inspired to new ambitions by my
experience getting an old man out of prison.

    Unfortunately, however, I would
soon become more widely known for something else. Just once now, I
would enjoy walking into a bar and hearing someone say, "Yeah,
you're the guy who was nominated for the Pulitzer on that
Winchester story." Instead, I usually only hear, "Yeah, you're guy
who got messed up with that Mehaffey bitch."

    TWELVE
    Late 1970s

    Early in 1977 I
received the assignment most responsible for placing me
professionally on a collision course with Catherine Mehaffey.
That's when The Post made me its criminal courthouse beat reporter, a job I had
wanted since first arriving in Houston. Although the issues and
basic elements were the same as I had seen covering courts in
Flint, the system in Houston magnified the challenge and the
adventure the way shopping in an urban mall would dwarf a trip to
the neighborhood convenience store.

    On its most basic level the
physical demands of the beat were daunting. Just as in Flint, I was
responsible for reporting all the important criminal court action
in the county. While Flint's Genesee County was small enough to
conduct its business in one building among six judges, Houston's
Harris County system operated in multiple buildings with at least
thirty separate judges dispensing justice every day. That system
had just been expanded to reflect Houston's oilpatch-boomtown
atmosphere and the crimes that entailed. Besides the regularly
appointed and elected judges, the county also employed a number of
part-time, or what it called "visiting judges," to handle
additional cases and keep the treadmill rolling. As a result, it
was nearly impossible to monitor all the courts like some
omniscient chronicler of current history. Some days I would pass a
room that had served as a broom closet just one week before only to
find inside some retired judge from West Texas sitting as a visitor
while a prosecutor, defense attorney, and a defendant haggled over
a plea bargain. In addition to the courtrooms, I also had to
monitor general activities of the district attorney's office, grand
jury proceedings, and the defense attorneys who moved through the
building while also tracking broader, big picture issues of crime
and punishment.

    In that era, one of the biggest
issues on my plate involved the death penalty which had just been
reinstated by the US Supreme Court after a ten-year hiatus. The
Texas Legislature had moved quickly to fashion a new capital
punishment statute designed to meet the parameters established by
the high court and put Texas back on the execution hit parade.
Those high court parameters had established crucial elements for
bringing capital charges and selecting juries. Prosecutors in the
past had enjoyed great leeway seeking death as punishment for
crimes as far ranging as rape to murder in the heat of passion
without premeditation. But the new rules required accusations of
more substantial transgressions. They limited capital crimes to
murders committed in the course of another felony, such as the
armed robber who kills the store clerk or the rapist who leaves his
victim dead. Also included were murders done for hire or the murder
of a peace officer in the line of duty. Despite those limitations,
Houston, in those days, became fertile ground for capital crimes,
and the Harris County District Attorney's office quickly
established itself as the nation's most aggressive grim
reaper.

    Although Texas would not resume
executions until 1982, I caught the first wave of the tsunami
caseload in the late 1970s as Harris County began holding trials to
line them up for the gallows. I considered it my duty to try and
attend as much of every capital case as possible on my watch, but
sometimes that proved impossible. One week, for example, Harris
County had five different capital trials under way simultaneously.
I ran from courtroom to courtroom trying to keep up. Most of these
cases needed only a