Officer logs show why aid came too late in slayings
Records in slaying of four conflict with claim that deputies were too busy
By CINDY HORSWELL
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
March 14, 2010, 7:28AM
Four months ago, San Jacinto Sheriff's Capt. Carl Jones offered a simple reason why his deputies couldn't respond to a mother's plea for help with her mentally ill son who was having bizarre hallucinations. His deputies were too busy with high-priority calls.
“We were busier than a cat covered in Meow Mix,” Jones stated then.
Gloria Bills, a 71-year-old widow, would be among those killed by the time a deputy was finally dispatched to the family's home near Coldspring on Nov. 7, seven hours after her first desperate phone call to the sheriff's department.
Oliver “Bubba” Bills Jr. shot and killed his mother, his girlfriend, Shara Torres, 27, and her 4-year-old child before shooting and killing himself.
But dispatch records and audio recordings recently released to the Houston Chronicle conflict with how the sheriff's department initially portrayed its handling of the incident. The records disclose that Jones prohibited his deputies from making a welfare check at the home.
The logs also raise questions as to whether the four deputies on duty that Saturday were as busy as Jones had contended.
Records show Gloria Bills called for help at 1:45 p.m. — four hours before a wreck that deputies worked on U.S. 59. The logs do not list deputies being dispatched to any other major crime scenes during those four hours, other than one deputy assigned to a harassment call.
In the initial recorded request for a deputy, Gloria Bills firmly declared, “I need some help, and I need it now.”
She stressed she had heart trouble and was unable to corral Bubba Bills, who she believed needed to be transported to a mental facility.
Her 42-year-old son was hearing voices, she stated, and hallucinating about things being implanted in his head, the entrance to hell lying under his bed and people in the trees trying to kill him.
Told to seek a warrant
While sometimes suicidal, she said, he had not hurt anybody but was showing signs of aggression.
At 1:51 p.m., the dispatcher promised to send a deputy for a welfare check to assess the situation.
“So far he's not (been violent),” Gloria Bills acknowledged. “But in his condition if he gets angry. I'm not sure what he would do.”
The dispatcher then contacted Jones for advice on how to handle the call. In the recorded conversation, the dispatcher stated his intention to have a deputy make a welfare check.
To which, Jones responded, “Ohhh, no! We don't want to do that!”
Jones objected to sending an officer because: “All you going to do is wind up creating a issue … that may hurt us in the long run.”
The dispatcher then informed Gloria Bills that a deputy won't be coming, and advised her to ask a judge on Monday for a mental health warrant to transport her son.
Jones declined to comment on the recorded conversation because the department faces a possible lawsuit from Torres' family.
San Jacinto Sheriff James Walters, who conducted an internal investigation, said none of his employees was disciplined. He said he could not release his report because of the possible lawsuit.
“Nobody knows how terrible we feel. Our dispatchers and officers made a judgment call and have to live with it,” he said, noting that none of the calls about Bubba Bills were to 911, and that dispatchers called several times to check on the Bills' family.
Bubba was ‘freaking out'
After Jones stopped the welfare check, records show that a family friend, Mark Campbell, placed three calls to urge deputies to go out there. The calls came a few minutes after the major wreck occurred on U.S. 59 about 6 p.m.
Campbell reported Bubba Bills was “scaring his girlfriend to death” by growing more aggressive — kicking over barbecue grills and throwing things.
The dispatcher then called Torres, who said Bubba Bills was “freaking out” and that she feared for her daughter because he had guns.
For the second time, a dispatcher promised to send a deputy
Thirty minutes later, a mental health representative from the Burke Center's hotline called the dispatcher to make yet another plea for a welfare check. The dispatcher again replied that deputies were “swamped” but one would be out “soon.”
An hour later at 7:22 p.m., a dispatcher called to check on Torres. The wreck had just been cleared, and deputies would spend another 20 minutes working on a reported “assault in progress,” but no other major crime would be listed during that time.
At this point, Bubba Bills' mental state had deteriorated. He was outside talking to himself and saying “he's fixing to take all Jesus' children to heaven,” records showed.
Torres told the dispatcher that this remark, combined with his other hallucinations, terrified her: “In his right mind, he would never hurt me … but the way he's looking at me … Looks like he's going to hurt me. I've never seen him look like that. Never.”
Similar call a year before
For a third time, a dispatcher said a deputy was on his way, but one did not arrive for more than two hours.
During this interlude, a Liberty County 911 dispatcher called San Jacinto's dispatch to make sure an officer was on his way.
Torres' sister, Rachael Clark, had alerted Liberty County that she had been talking to Torres on the telephone and then suddenly heard her say, “Oh, no! Not my baby!”
A deputy would not pull up at the small white wooden house on Outlaw Lane until about 9 p.m., and then found only bodies.
Records show dispatchers had to search for about an hour and a half before finding the short dirt road on a map. Walters said dispatchers were confused by another road with the same name.
A year earlier, deputies needed only 10 minutes to respond to a similar call for help from the Bills' family that ended with Bubba Bills being transported to a mental facility in Spring, records showed.
Surviving members of the Bills and Torres families, incensed by the delayed response, believe they've been stonewalled.
“We've been kept in the dark,” said Bubba Bill's daughter, Cassie Daniels. “It's made me feel like the sheriff's department has something to hide.”
mailto:cindy.horswell@chron.com
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