Bill Davidson

Bill Davidson, 43, of Edna died Tuesday, April 14, 1992, in a Victoria hospital.

He was born May 1, 1948, at Fort Hood to W. A. Davidson of Temple and the late Aimee Gibbs Davidson. Mr. Davidson had been employed as a Texas Department of Public Safety highway patrolman since June 26, 1973, and was a member of the First Baptist Church.

Mr. Davidson was a veteran of the Vietnam War and served in the U. S. Army. He was active in little league and a former Edna City Council member.

Survivors: wife, Linda Cousins Davidson; daughter, Kimberly Davidson; son, Trey Davidson; father, W. A. Davidson of Temple; and brothers, Gale Davidson and Harold Cosper, both of Temple, Neal Cosper of Mesquite, Sidney Cosper and H. C. Cosper, both of Killeen, and Andrew Cosper of Eagle, Colo.

Preceded in death by brother, Billy Jack Cosper.

Services: 3 p. m. Thursday at Northside Baptist Church, the Rev. Joe Webb officiating. Burial will follow in Memory Gardens Cemetery in Edna, Rosewood Funeral Chapels, 573-4546, Victoria.

The body will lie in state at the funeral home until noon Thursday, at which time it will be taken to the church for visitation until the time of services.

Pallbearers: DPS troopers Barry Wind, Curtis Walker, John T. Janica, Kenneth Whitehead, David Johnson, Pedro Whitehead, David Johnson, Pedro Masiel, Don Plunkett and W. Wayne Wallace.

Honorary pallbearers: all members of the Department of Public Safety.

Victoria Advocate, April 16, 1992
 

Man Held in Shooting of Edna DPS Trooper
By Ann Rundle

A Houston man was arrested late Saturday for attempted capital murder in the shooting of a Department of Public Safety trooper in Jackson County.

Bill Davidson, 43, of Edna, an 18-year veteran with the DPS, was in critical condition at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria late Saturday after being shot in the neck at around 8:30 p. m. after making a routine traffic stop in the southbound land of U. S. Highway 59 about 17 miles north of Victoria, said DPS Sgt. Gary Mueller.

Davidson arrived at Citizens at 8:50 p. m. and was taken to surgery at 10:45 p. m., said Bill Jones, a hospital spokesman. Hospital Administrator David Brown described Davidson’s condition as critical but “encouraging.”

“We are believing he was stopping a vehicle for a traffic violation at the weigh station, and we are believing as he approached the vehicle, the suspect leaned out of the vehicle and fired a weapon and struck the trooper,” Mueller said.

Mueller did not know what type of weapon that was used in the shooting.

After the shooting, the suspect apparently headed into Victoria, where he later was apprehended.

“A vehicle fled the scene and one of our officers picked up the vehicle and followed it into the city limits where it lost control,” said Capt. Bill Pratka with the Victoria Police Department. “An arrest was made subsequent to the crash.”

The vehicle, reportedly a dark-colored sport utility truck with a broken headlight possibly stolen in Port Lavaca, apparently crashed in the front yard of a home in the 2900 block of Cedar Street.

The suspect, believed to be in his early 20s, ran from the vehicle.

He was later apprehended outside an apartment complex in the 2900 block of Ben Wilson Street across from the University of Houston-Victoria and Victoria College campuses after eluding DPS, Victoria County Sheriff’s Department and Victoria Police offices for about 20 minutes.

The suspect was expected to be charged late Saturday with attempted capital murder and returned to Jackson County, Pratka said.

Mueller said the DPS is working with the Texas Rangers in the case. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and Edna Police Department assisted in the incident.

Victoria Advocate, April 12, 1992
 

Suspect Arraigned in DPS Shooting
Trooper Remains in Critical Condition
By Marsha Moulder

Bond was set at $1 million for the 18-year-old Houston suspect in the Saturday shooting of a veteran Department of Public Safety trooper in Jackson County.

Ronald Ray Howard was arraigned at 1:43 a. m. Sunday by Victoria County Justice of the Peace Randy Vivian, Precinct 4, and taken to Victoria County Jail.

Bill Davidson, 43, of Edna, who was cited by the DPS for heroism in 1985, was in critical but stable condition Sunday night at Citizens Medical Center. He underwent surgery late Saturday night after having been shot in the neck around 8:30 p. m.

Once Howard is returned to Jackson County, he will be formally charged with attempted capital murder, according to Vivian.

The justice of the peace said Jackson County District Attorney Bobby Bell recommended the $1 million bond. “Considering the magnitude of the crime, I didn’t have a problem with that,” Vivian said. “This is one of my troopers. He files a lot of cases in my court. It’s not an easy one to not get emotional about. But we have to do what’s fair for the defendant and what’s fair for the public.”

The shooting is believed to have occurred after Davidson made a routine traffic stop in the southbound lane of U. S. Highway 59 about 17 miles north of Victoria.

“The only way we can learn any differently is when Bill can tell us,” Gerald Bryant, DPS public information officer, said Sunday.

Bryant said it is believed that Davidson had stopped Howard for having a headlight out on his vehicle, a dark-colored sport utility truck reported stolen April 9 in Port Lavaca.

It has been determined that Davidson was shot with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, Bryant said.

It is believed that Davidson was shot the moment he walked up to the vehicle.

DPS spokesman Mike Cox in Austin, told the Associated Press that the radio dispatcher didn’t hear any more from Davidson after making the stop.

“Then suddenly another voice came over the trooper’s radio saying, “Hello, hello,’” Cox told AP. “The person said he was calling from a DPS unit and that an officer had been shot.

The call came from a motorist who had driven up on the scene. The dispatcher alerted the Victoria Police Department that the stolen vehicle was believed headed south into Victoria.

After reaching Victoria, the suspect apparently lost control of his vehicle and it crashed in the front yard of a home in the 2900 block of Cedar Street.

After fleeing the vehicle, the suspect was later apprehended outside an apartment complex in the 2900 block of Ben Wilson Street across from the University of Houston and Victoria College campuses after eluding DPS, Victoria County Sheriff’s Department and Victoria Police officers for about 20 minutes.

Howard will likely be moved to the Jackson County Jail today or Tuesday, according to Vivian.

Davidson, now an 18-year-veteran of the DPS, was cited for heroism for talking a “mentally deranged” 16-year-old boy into disarming himself after the boy had held his grandmother hostage in her Edna residence.

Davidson was presented the director’s citation, a rare honor for DPS personnel. He received the citation “in recognition of his professional actions during a crisis situation that resulted in probable saving of human life.”

The boy—armed with a shotgun and 24 shells—had threatened to kill anyone who attempted to enter the house. After arranging for the grandmother to leave the house unharmed, Davidson talked with the youth through the slightly opened front door of the house. The trooper talked the youth into dropping his weapon and putting his hands up. Davidson entered the house through the front door and grabbed the youth, whose shotgun was lying nearby.

Victoria Advocate, April 13, 1992
 

Wounded DPS Trooper Dies

A state trooper wounded in the neck died Tuesday night in the hospital where he had been taken after Saturday night’s shooting, the Department of Public Safety said.

Bill Davidson, 43, died at 9:56 p. m. at Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, said DPS spokesman Mike Cox in Austin.

Jackson County officials had said they would upgrade the charges against the suspect in the shooting, Ronald Ray Howard, with capital murder if Davidson died.

The announcement of Davidson’s death came as officials prepared to test a handgun believed used in the shooting of the trooper, who had stopped a stolen car on U. S. Highway 59 at 8:20 p. m.

A 9mm pistol was sent to the Department of Public Safety lab in Austin for comparison with a shell casing found near the scene of Davidson’s shooting, said Jackson County District Attorney Bobby Bell.

“They’ll compare the markings on the shell with the gun, and we’ll see if it looks like the shell came from the gun,” Bell said.

Bell said the slug from the assailant’s bullet was lodged in Davidson’s left lung.

Howard, an 18-year-old unemployed cook from Houston, was in custody Tuesday night at the Jackson County Jail charged with attempted capital murder. He was arrested in Victoria less than an hour after the shooting. He bond has been set at $1 million.

DPS Spokesman Mike Cox said Davidson was shot less than one minute after he pulled over a truck believed to have been driven by Howard. The vehicle had been reported stolen in Calhoun County on Thursday.

“He stopped the vehicle at 8:21. He followed routine DPS procedure—radioed in the license plate number and a description of the vehicle that he stopped,” Cox said. “At 8:22, our communications operator broadcast by code that the vehicle was reported stolen.

“Thirteen seconds later, a passerby got on the radio and told the communications operator—the dispatcher—that a trooper had been shot.”

“We do not know that he even knew that the vehicle was stolen. We believe he was shot at the moment he walked up to the vehicle,” he said. “He was shot once in the neck.”

Victoria police officers arrested Howard after he crashed the truck he was driving and fled on foot in the 2900 block of Cedar Street. According to an arrest report, he had a gun in one hand, but dropped it just before his arrest.

Davidson, a native of Fort Hood, joined the DPS in 1973 and was assigned to the office in Edna, Cox said.

He received eight commendations during his career with the DPS, including a Director’s Citation for his work in a 1985 hostage situation. He negotiated the release of a young gunman’s grandmother and grabbed the 16-year-old as he emerged from the house with a shotgun, Cox said.

Davidson was the 69^th DPS officer to die in the line of duty since January 1932, Cox said. He was the fourth peace officer to be killed in the line of duty this year in Texas.

Survivors include his wife, Linda Sue Cousins Davidson, and two children, Kimberly, 21, and Trey, 18.

A trust fund for Davidson has been established at Victoria Bank & Trust Co. Donations to the Trooper Davidson Trust Fund can be made at any Victoria Bank & Trust office, said VB&T marketing officer Susan Prukop.

Victoria Advocate, April 15, 1992
 

David Lee Braunholz
Former Edna Man Dies of Injuries

Richmond—Fort Bend County Deputy Sheriff David Lee Braunholz, 26, of Richmond, and formerly of Edna, died Monday morning in a Houston hospital from injuries he sustained early Sunday in a one-vehicle accident.

A law enforcement honor guard will stand beside the coffin while his body lies in state from 2 – 9 p. m. Tuesday at Garmany-Cardin Funeral Home in Rosenberg.

Funeral services will be held at 10 a. m. Wednesday at First Baptist Church in Rosenberg with the Rev. Russell Moon officiating. Burial will follow in Memory Gardens Cemetery in Edna.

A spokesman for the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Department said Braunholz had dropped off prisoners at the county jail shortly before the 1:30 a. m. accident Sunday.

The deputy was critically injured when his eastbound patrol car skidded on a curve in the 4200 block of Ransom Road 2.5 miles southeast of Richmond.

Braunholz was flown by Life Flight Ambulance to a Houston hospital.

He was born April 12, 1963 in Freeport. A former Marine lance corporal, he had been with the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Department since November 1988.

Surviving are his wife, Judy Beth Braunholz of Richmond; his parents, James E. and Patricia A. Braunholz of Edna; grandmother, Freda Braunholz of Edna; a son, Bobby Lee Braunholz of Richmond; a sister, Donna L. Atkinson of West Columbia; and two brothers, Stephen C. Braunholz and Robert A. Braunholz, both of Edna.

Pallbearers will be Steve Felts, Mike Leal, Allen Rivers, Eric Bryant, Raymond Russells and Brad Wichard.

If desired, memorial contributions may be made to Life Flight in care of Herman Hospital in Houston, the Fort Bend County Police Academy or to a charity of the donor’s choice.

Victoria Advocate, April 10 & 11, 1990
 

Hugh L. White of Edna Shot; Nickel Dies
Alleged Ambush Slayer of Jackson County Sheriff Shoots Self.
Dies in Hospital Here
Victoria Sheriff Relates Slaying at Nickel Tavern

Bulletin

Louis Nickel, who shot Sheriff Hugh L. White of Jackson County to death at his tavern near El Toro, Jackson County, early Monday night, and then fired a charge of buckshot into his own body, died at the DeTar Memorial Hospital at 3:10 o’clock this afternoon.

Louis Nickel, 32, Jackson County tavern keeper and convicted cattle thief, was near the point of death at the DeTar Memorial hospital here this afternoon and Hugh L. White, 52, sheriff of Jackson County, lay dead as the result of an ambush slaying at Nickel’s tavern near El Toro, Jackson County, early Monday night.

Nickel’s condition is desperate, and his chances of surviving are slim, the attending physician declared. He is reported to have shot himself in the chest, above and to the side of his heart, after he shot to death Sheriff White with a single barrel .12 gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot.

Deputy sheriffs are watching over Nickel to prevent him from getting out of bed or again attempting to commit suicide. Feeling among the citizens of Edna is reported running high following the cowardly ambush slaying.

Meanwhile, funeral services for Sheriff White were held at Edna this afternoon at 3 o’clock, with interment in the Edna Cemetery. Many Victorians were present for the last rites.

Sheriff R. A. Rogan of Victoria County, who is heading the investigation, said that Sheriff White was called to Nickel’s tavern a short distance off the Victoria-Edna highway around 6 or 7 o’clock last night to investigate a disturbance that was said to have been caused by Nickel. White was accompanied to the place by Earl Gates of Edna.

The sheriff got out of his automobile near the Nickel tavern and went inside, where he questioned Mrs. Nickel as to her husband’s whereabouts, Mr. Rogan said. When informed she had not seen him for twenty or thirty minutes. Sheriff White walked out a rear door of the tavern toward the Nickel living quarters a short distance to the rear of the tavern. As he stepped out the door, a charge of buckshot struck him full in the face, it was said.

The charge came from a clump of grapevines some twenty feet away where Nickel [White] is reported to have discovered Nickel an instant before the shot, he is said to have raised his arm to his face in an effort to ward off the charge.

The buckshot tore into his face and arm, rendering his arm useless in drawing his pistol. He staggered some fifty feet to his auto and attempted to get inside, Sheriff Rogan reported.

At this point, Gates rushed to the sheriff’s aid and attempted to assist him inside the car. But Nickel rushed up and threatened Gates’ life if he interfered. Gates then ran around on the opposite side of the car, dodged up and down as Nickel attempted to get at him and then raced off as Nickel fired toward him without effect.

Nickel is then reported to have sworn at the mortally wounded sheriff seated in the car, walked over toward him and fired another volley of buckshot into his chest, killing him instantly.

Shorter afterward, Nickel is said to have reloaded the single barrel gun again and fired it into his own chest.

Jack Chester and O. B. Gregory, who were in the tavern, witnessed the shooting, it was said.

“I told you I’d get him, and I did,” Nickel is reported to have mumbled to his wife as he lay on the hospital bed this morning. He has been unable to make a formal statement of the affair.

Nickel was sentenced to two years in prison on a cattle theft charge in District Court here on December 21. The case was appealed and he has been out on bond since. He also faces several other charges of cattle and hog theft.

Sheriff White, well known in Victoria, has served several times as sheriff of Jackson County. He is survived by his widow. Nickel has a wife and several children.

No formal charges have been filed against Nickel pending the outcome of his condition, it was understood.

Victoria Advocate, January 14, 1941
 

Triple Tragedy At Town of Edna
Sheriff Wharton, Deputy Braugh [Brugh] And A Man Named Lander Or Cagle Dead
Prisoner Drew A Pistol And The Shooting Began
After Sheriff Was Mortally Wounded He put Four Bullets Through the Prisoner’s Head.

Edna, Tex., Sept. 13—A triple tragedy was enacted here in Edna.

The dead are:
Sheriff George F. Wharton of Jackson county.
W. T. Lander, alias M. G. Cagle, of Monroe, Ga.
Deputy Sheriff Frank Braugh

Sheriff Wharton and his deputy had arrested Lander on a telephone message from Victoria. He submitted to the arrest apparently and accompanied the two officers to the jail before he showed fight.

At the jail an attempt was made to search the prisoner in order that he might have no means of making an escape. While the search was going on Lander made a sudden movement and got his pistol, beginning to fire immediately.

It is not known which of the two officers was struck first, but both of them had been shot before they began returning the fire.

The sheriff, though mortally wounded, succeeded in shooting Lander four times, through the head death resulting almost instantaneously.

Sheriff Wharton died only a few minutes after Lander fell.

Deputy Sheriff Braugh was taken to his home and lingered until this afternoon at 3 o’clock, when he died.

Lander had been arrested in the train while leaving Victoria, where he was wanted for a clever swindle, having secured credit on a deposit of $9000 worth of worthless paper.

Lander, or Cagle, as he called himself, went to Victoria last Monday, representing himself to be from Philadelphia and anxious to invest in Texas land.

He quickly made the acquaintance of the bankers and business men generally and looked at a number of tracts of land, finally contracting to buy several of them. For these he agreed to pay $500 cash, the remainder to be paid when a satisfactory flow of water was secured from wells to be sunk.

Soon after his arrival there he deposited in the Victoria banks paper amounting to $9000, payable by the Portsmouth, Va., bank.

He then purchased $600 worth of diamonds at a local jewelry store, giving a check against his deposit for the amount. A short time later he also succeeded in cashing a check for $100.

Upon the presentation of the checks the bankers became suspicious and at once telegraphed to Portsmouth, learning that Lander was totally unknown there.

They then confronted Lander with the telegram, but he insisted that there was some mistake. The bankers, however, forced him to turn over the diamonds and the money until he could show his papers to be genuine. This he agreed to do and at once announced he would telegraph his grandfather, J. J. Daws of Philadelphia, and in fact gave a messenger boy the message to send.

Early this morning, however, he left Victoria, finally being traced to Keeran, eight miles from there, where he boarded the 1:45 train for Houston.

A telephone message was at once sent to Sheriff Wharton, who intercepted him here, his arrest and the triple tragedy ensuing.

Among Lander’s effects was found the receipts which were given him for the money and the diamonds the night before at Victoria and upon the back of the receipt was an endorsement saying, “My name is not Cagle, but Lander. If anything happens to me, telegraph my father, J. W. Lander, Monroe, Ga.”

Nine diamonds and a quantity of money was also found upon his person.

One Victoria real estate man is still in Dallas closing a contract for the sale of a tract of land to “Cagle.”

Austin American-Statesman, September 14, 1903