Been Driving my yellow Jeep over Hell's Gate Bridge at the Guadalupe River bottom with the sun in my eyes and the windshield fogged while listening to The Swirling Eddies sing "God went Bowling". Love the Saturday morning calming coolness, except it was punctuated by shotguns opening dove season. Mornings are so calm.
The Texas Department of Corrections TDC has a unit near the bridge (The Stevenson Unit - built 1994), but I am not sure who named the bridge.
It's not the famous Hell Gate Bridge in NY, but the area has some notoriety.
Somebody in the August 1973, specifically named Jerry Lane Jurek [this link is via The Victoria Advocate], killed a 10 yo girl (Wendy Adams) there - after kidnapping her from a public swimming pool in Cuero. It is an appalling story, and very sad - I'm sure it stunned the town of Cuero and challenged everyone's view of the bridge. The young girl was a child of a local police officer. She had been seen screaming for help in Jurek's truck as it sped through Cuero, and that was witnessed by several people. He was arrested and tried and found guilty (Feb 1974 - the February 6, 1974 court story was in the paper at the time of the Patty Hearst kidnapping) - He was sentenced to death in the Electric Chair. I believe, based on the Supreme Court decision, that he was executed (but haven't been able to confirm that).
Aspects of the case even made it to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in March 30, 1976 --- Decided: July 2, 1976. It made it to The US Supreme Court in 1976 with Justice Stevens and the US Supreme Court even remembering it in April 2008. This case was important enough to be referred to by the NY Times in 2008.
The Bridge was already named Hell's Gate before the murder- as Atty Gen John L. Hill noted in his memoirs related to this case.
This case was one of several landmark cases which reinstated the death penalty in Texas, and reversed a previous decision - after an 18 year hiatus - (in which The previous US Supreme Court had found the death penalty to be "cruel and unusual punishment")- based on the 8th Amendment.
The verdict of Jurek v. Texas confirmed that the death penalty could be invoked without the disruption of an individual's Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The most important consequence of this pertained to the amount of evidence presented to a jury. It was recognized that there was a significant difference between the death penalty and all other punishments--and therefore "a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in determining whether the death sentence is appropriately imposed in a particular case." This case maintained that the jury must be made aware of all relevant information concerning the defendant whose life is on the line; therefore all mitigating circumstances must be considered in capital-sentencing cases.
from -------http://law.jrank.org/pages/12838/Jurek-v-Texas.html#ixzz0Ra97CKU4
Such an incredible story, stumbled upon by accident.
I ordered some Villar y Villar natural robusto No. 5050 bundled cigars via JR cigars. They are Nicaraguan with a Ecuadoran Sumatra wrapper. They were sturdy and dense, with a pleasant aroma. It lit well, and burned with a thick pleasant smoke. I don't think specifics or a recommendation is appropriate give the historical tie - but I did stumble upon them by chance.
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Jurek is still alive. His sentence was reduced to life in 1982. He is in the Coffield Unit in Anderson County.
ReplyDeleteJurek is no longer at Coffield, he is at the Allred unit.
DeleteThanks for the update, I couldn't find the execution roles from before 1982...it is a sad case and sad resolution, either way.
ReplyDeleteAddendum from the Eugene Register Dec 13th 1988-
ReplyDeletemore updates
"Jurek, whose Texas case blazed the trail for Oregon's death penalty, survived 4 stays of execution while his case was affirmed 3 times by the US Supreme Court. And then the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in a controversial 1981 split decision, granted Jurek a retrial after citing irregularities by police who investigated his crime"
another Addendum from the Eugene Register Dec 13th 1988-
ReplyDelete"Jurek's retrial began early in 1982 - almost nine years after the crime and six years after the initial Supreme Court Affirmation. But the victim's father, on the eve of his scheduled appearance on the witness stand, decided he couldn't relive the ordeal.
The trial was stopped and Jurek agreed to be found guilty of murder on the condition the death penalty would not be sought. He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years in prison and remains at the Coffeild Prison in Tennessee County, Texas."
they got the county wrong...
ReplyDeleteAddendum: via The Toledo Blade May 5, 1976
ReplyDeleteHe had been previously charged (at 19 yo) with the rape of a 10 yo girl, but the the case was dropped because the parents didn't want her to go through the ordeal of testifying.
Jerry Lane JUREK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. J. ESTELLE, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections, Respondent- Appellee.
ReplyDeleteUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
August 11, 1980
623 F.2d 929
link:http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/524572
I found the above 1980 appeal on the case
ReplyDeleteThe original narrow steel Hell's Gate Bridge was built south of the current bridge in [ ] and followed off Cheapside Road then Lover's Lane (gravel) and The Devil's backbone (gravel). The road around the bridge was dwarfed by Pecan trees and Oaks and draped with Spanish Moss. The current bridge was built around the 1960's, and remnants of the road still remain, just past the current bridge.
ReplyDeleteWendy was the daughter of the Police Chief at the time she was killed.
ReplyDeleteShe was picked up from the local pool and then raped and killed. They found her body the next day.
My brother and Wendy had been best friends. We moved away about 6 months before. My brother always felt so guilty and angry because he felt he could have protected her. They were always together. May they both rest in peace.
ReplyDelete