The Texas 7: A True Story of Murder and a Daring Escape

Gary C. King

Apr 2001 · Macmillan + ORM

About this eBook

"You haven't heard the last of us yet..."

These were chilling words on a note left behind by seven armed and dangerous inmates who escaped from the John Connally prison in South Texas on December 13, 2000. Their promise has apparently been fulfilled. The inmates, now known as the Connally Seven, are suspected of having first robbed a Radio Shack in Houston, and then, days later, on Christmas Eve, of having fatally shot and runover a young police officer during an assault on a Dallas sporting-goods store. For six frantic weeks, a massive manhunt with a significant reward had only turned up dead ends...until a tip came in from someone who had seen the gang on Fox-TVs "America's Most Wanted." Authorities arrested four of the seven prisoners, including suspected ringleader George Rivas, in Woodland Park, Colorado, and a fifth inmate shot himself during police negotiations.

Immediately intensifying the search for the last two heavily armed and dangerous prisoners, police and FBI closed in on them at a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs just two days following the previous arrest. After five hours and a telephone interview with a TV news station in which they expressed their feeling that the breakout was a statement against Texas's judicial system, the two inmates surrendered themselves, putting an end to a long and frightening episode.

The Texas 7 goes behind the scenes to give you a detailed, fascinating account of the events leading up to and after their brazen prison escape--and the exciting chase that ultimately led to their capture.

Ratings and reviews

True Crime has always been my favorite when it comes to reading. I do not remember ever hearing about The Texas 7 and found the information given very interesting. It was really great to get a feel of each man and his background. It was interesting to see how their mind work and the reasoning behind why they did what they did. I can understand no hope of getting out of prison but I cannot feel for them. They choose to do what they did and why they thought they should be able to get out early is beyond me. Do not break the law or do the terrible things they did and they wouldn’t have to worry about it. Mr. Bennett as always was wonderful I love his character voices. He puts delightful emotions into his audio even with books of this nature. I had no trouble picturing the scenes the author wrote as the narrator bought it to life almost like a movie. You can tell he put a lot of thought into how he would deal with issues and how the audio would play out. There is no repeating of wording, no volume change, if any breaks were taken I could not tell. It was a very clean and clear audio that I got lost in from the danger that felt almost like a movie. I thought his performance great and really added a lot to this audio. I was hooked from the first page as the author gave a very interesting account of these men’s lives. The law was always one step behind until the day they were arrested. Funny how things work out if they had awaited one more day or even an hour they would not have caught the whole gang or maybe none of them at least not that day. The way these 7 minds worked I found surprising, I don’t understand how they thought they could live a normal life just by changing their names. But then again they did stay on the run without people working out who they were for a long time. The authors writing kept me very entertained, I thought he gave a lot of thought to the information he gave us giving a full account that was very interesting.

About the author

For the last twenty years, Gary C. King has been one of America's foremost crime writers. Over 400 of his stories have appeared in crime magazines across the United States, Canada, and England, including True Detective, Official Detective, Inside Detective, Front Page Detective, and Master Detective. His books Web of Deceit, Driven to Kill (which was nominated for an Anthony Award in the Best True Crime Book category at Bouchercon 25) and Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer were chosen as a featured selection of the True Crime Book Club. He is also the author of Blind Rage, Savage Vengeance, co-written with Don Lasseter, An Early Grave, Angels of Death, and Murder in Hollywood. A full-time writer, Mr. King is an active member of The Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife and two daughters.