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Homicide in River Oaks


MaybeACoordinator

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It's been a while since a juicy one has come out of River Oaks...

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"Houston police say a woman in River Oaks was letting a man stay with her when things got violent late Wednesday night, leading to a deadly shooting.

The woman is claiming self-defense and that she was forced to open fire on the man.

The shooting call came in from the 1900 block of Larchmont at about 11 p.m.

The woman told police she was letting a friend stay with her for a few days, but then she asked him to leave. That’s when things turned violent, she alleges. The man came back to the home and tried to force his way back in.

The woman says the man pushed her around and assaulted her, so she shot him, fearing for her life.

The man was struck in the chest and died in the doorway of the home.

The woman continues to be questioned.

Currently, no names have been released.

 

Not saying she pulled the trigger, but the home belongs to the irrevocable trust of one Ashley Sikes, 47, heiress to an oil and ranching fortune. A former neighbor's daughter-in-law told me Sikes drove her father-in-law crazy with neglect of the house and the weird comings and goings of shady looking people at all hours, so much so she had to end up tuning him out when the subject would come up.

There's a hell of a backstory involving her half-brother, John David Hawn, Jr Back in 1982, he ran out in the parking lot of the Austin Hyatt with a pistol and starting shooting randomly at cars with before blowing his brains out. Per the autopsy he was high on coke, meth, and weed, and per an investigation, the gun belonged to a DPS trooper. Said trooper and another were with Hawn at the Hyatt at the time -- Hawn was a confidential informant, and the impression I get is these DPS dudes liked to party. (Both of them resigned almost immediately; not sure if they were prosecuted.)

A few months before, Hawn had sold a family ranch to Houston Munson, a former DA for a four-county area around Gonzales and the scion of a still powerful family in that area. The ranch Hawn sold to Munson had belonged to Munson's father before Hawn's father bought it from him under duress decades before.

The surviving Hawns sued Munson for conning their addicted, mentally ill 30-year-old son out of the ranch -- they claimed that Hawn looked up to Munson as a father figure, only for that surrogate dad to chisel him out of a sweet ranch. The judge didn't buy it;  Munson avenged his dad. 

Anyway, back to this shooting: here is most of the only other account out there:

Quote

According to HPD, the woman who shot the man told officers he had been acting aggressive over the past couple of days. She had been letting him stay with her in the home.

She said she told him to leave and not come back Wednesday night, but around 11 p.m. he returned, and she said he tried to force his way in. She described the man as extremely aggressive and extremely agitated.

Police say she shot the man once as he was standing in her doorway.

"Kind of halfway in, halfway out," Lt. R. Willkens said. "Right at the doorway."

"Was he staying here? Spending the night here?" an ABC13 photographer asked.

"She was trying to help him. Her claim was she was trying to help him out just for a few days. He was a friend of a friend. Nothing more than that," Willkens said.

The woman was detained at the home and was questioned by homicide detectives. It is unclear if she was arrested or if she'll be charged.

Investigators are still working to get to the bottom of what really happened.

Twitter chatter from last night had it that the unnamed victim  was shot in the back.

Another report said "chest" and a third said "torso."

Sikes was arrested in December 2017 for a hit-and-run. She smashed into some dude's car on San Felipe got out to inspect damage, and then hauled ass when he said he was calling the cops. She was in a rental car for some reason, per the slam-dunk investigation -- the dude she hit got her picture and her plates. Anyway, you know what they say -- never try to outrun a DWI. Except when you do -- she was able to write a check for $2500 and avoid even a conviction for hit and run. 

 

 

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46 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Anyway, you know what they say -- never try to outrun a DWI. Except when you do -- she was able to write a check for $2500 and avoid even a conviction for hit and run. 

 

 

Actually I've heard a lawyer say that as long as someone is not injured (not easy to ascertain if there is a 2 car accident), it's better to get home ASAP and not answer the door to the police. Better to deal with the charge of leaving the scene of an accident as opposed to facing DWI charges.

Of course the real advice is to not get behind the wheel in the first place.

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Just now, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Actually I've heard a lawyer say that as long as someone is not injured (not easy to ascertain if there is a 2 car accident), it's better to get home ASAP and not answer the door to the police. Better to deal with the charge of leaving the scene of an accident as opposed to facing DWI charges.

Of course the real advice is to not get behind the wheel in the first place.

Didn’t they change the law on that after Starfucker?

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1 minute ago, conVINCEd said:

Didn’t they change the law on that after Starfucker?

No idea but fair point that my knowledge is dated.

I'm not saying it's morally right but it could be legally advantageous to avoid a BAC test as long as you're not continuing to break the law. If I found myself in a position of running into a street light one block from my house at 3am, I would most likely not wait for a cop to come by but rather I would quickly get home. Even if I had to walk home and abandon my car.

However If I hit someone, I would render aid.

Once again, the right move is to not get behind the wheel in the first place. I can't say I always followed that advice but I do now.

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The plot thickens. Castle doctrine does not apply as it appears this "acquaintance of an acquaintance" was actually her boyfriend.

Tl;dr, the shooting took place inside the house so it is not on camera, but now we have the element of race + River Oaks.

I looked into his background and he almost certainly had it coming -- one domestic violence conviction, another arrest for same that he was able to beat because the complainant disappeared, and a third he wiggled out of by....fucking going to an anger management class. That was his third arrest, including one with a choking enhancement, and in that last one, he threatened to murder his GF and her son. 

I don't know how these prosecutors can look at the patterns in these case files and think an anger management class is sufficient for a grown-ass man on his (at least) third DV arrest. Most of these guys just keep getting worse until they kill somebody, or whole families. 

 

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4 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Shooter identified as Ashley Sikes. Her family are part-owners of the Spurs. 

Public records show Sikes' mother is Julianna Holt, who was the Chairwoman of the San Antonio Spurs from 2016-2019. Her son, Peter J. Holt, who is the current Chairman of the Spurs organization, then succeeded Julianna.

The Holt family is also well known in business circles. They own Holt Cat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the U.S.

Neither the Spurs organization nor Holt Cat would comment on the incident in Houston.

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8 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

Public records show Sikes' mother is Julianna Holt, who was the Chairwoman of the San Antonio Spurs from 2016-2019. Her son, Peter J. Holt, who is the current Chairman of the Spurs organization, then succeeded Julianna.

The Holt family is also well known in business circles. They own Holt Cat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the U.S.

Neither the Spurs organization nor Holt Cat would comment on the incident in Houston.

From what I can tell, mama had a fling with Ashley's dad Marty Sikes that lasted about as long as it took for Ashley to be born and then Julianna dumped him...He was just a generic Wichita Falls good ol' boy whose crowning achievement was becoming ag commissioner of two counties...She's been a black sheep ever since. I didn't know she had all those arrests in SA as Bexar County records are not easy to navigate online. I'd bet she might have more in or around Gonzales County or Wichita Falls. They have ranches in both those areas. 

I found the victim on Facebook: he went by Jay Gobert, but his friends called him "Freak Nasty." He was a popular dude but I kind of sense that nobody's really surprised this happened to him. 

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3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

She hired Dick DeGuerin. She’s getting off. Same lawyer who represented Tom DeLay, David Koresh, Robert Durst, 

 

yeah, the holt pocket book is deep

 

#csb - one of my cousin's helped mange their ranch game. old man holt would call up my cousin and talk the ranch game. Holt would send a group to hunt and give my cousin a call, telling him about who's coming down and who should shoot what. my cousin always said he was the nicest man ever, always asked how he was doing, how my aunt / uncle were doing, weather.

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12 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

Public records show Sikes' mother is Julianna Holt, who was the Chairwoman of the San Antonio Spurs from 2016-2019. Her son, Peter J. Holt, who is the current Chairman of the Spurs organization, then succeeded Julianna.

The Holt family is also well known in business circles. They own Holt Cat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the U.S.

Neither the Spurs organization nor Holt Cat would comment on the incident in Houston.

Had no idea Holt was a Texas outfit.

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1 minute ago, Atxracer said:

Not big enough unless she comes with a ship, jet and is ok with an open marriage.  

I dunno.  I can disappear for long periods on a few thousand acres. Although a nice yacht would go a long way in disappearing during the summer.  

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Is that a mug shot of Ashley?

By the way, Sikes is a big name in Wichita Falls.  The one and only mall is Sikes, originally developed in the early '70's.  He may have been a good ol' boy, but he was probably a rich good ol' boy.  Maybe not Surly 1% rich, but you know...

Edited by CycleTex87
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39 minutes ago, Atxracer said:

Not big enough unless she comes with a ship, jet and is ok with an open marriage.  

Can't speak to the open marriage or class of jet but I think you're covered on the water.

Met a guy who worked on boats for the Holt's a few years back. 

They're well boated.

 

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15 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

She hired Dick DeGuerin. She’s getting off. Same lawyer who represented Tom DeLay, David Koresh, Robert Durst, 

DeGuerin is cashing an easy check here. Her family will pay him a shit-ton and she will walk, and believe it or not, she should, because that dude she smoked was a total scumbag. DeGuerin wouldn't take this case right now if he didn't think it was dirt off his shoulder because he's consumed defending Durst in LA right now. And also because, you know, Dick kind of believes in justice, how he sees it. 

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7 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

DeGuerin is cashing an easy check here. Her family will pay him a shit-ton and she will walk, and believe it or not, she should, because that dude she smoked was a total scumbag. DeGuerin wouldn't take this case right now if he didn't think it was dirt off his shoulder because he's consumed defending Durst in LA right now. And also because, you know, Dick kind of believes in justice, how he sees it. 

And cash. 

Mainly the cash

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