Basic Information. GAG.

In my notes today, I wrote this: “Received certified letter from Ector County today… gave ‘basic information.’ GAG.”

I haven’t been keeping everyone up-to-date on the details of this debacle, so I will outline it briefly now.

1. I sent Ector County Sheriff’s Office a request to see Carmen’s file.
2. I received no direct response. Instead, I got a copy of a letter that was sent to the Texas Attorney General’s office. In it, Ector County asked for permission to ignore my request due to the fact that Carmen’s case is still open.
3. I then drafted (quite angrily) a letter to the AG’s office in my defense, suggesting that Ector County sat on my letter so that I wouldn’t be able to state my case to the AG. (FYI – Ector County was supposed to reply to my request within 10 days. I believe that they either back-dated their response or held on to my copy of their letter to the AG.) Here’s a snippet of my reply: 

   “I received a letter in the mail today postmarked 4/18/17 from Lt. Rocky Bright, the Custodian of Records at the Ector County Sheriff’s Office. The letter is dated 4/7/17, so I’m hopeful that it was not intentionally mailed to me a week later than it was mailed to the Attorney General, The Honorable Ken Paxton, in hopes of preventing a rebuttal.”

4. The AG replied to Ector County (copying me), saying that they must release basic information to me.
5. Then, nothing happened. Zilch. Nada. Crickets.
6. I sent another letter to the AG. This time, I included a newspaper article that quoted then-Sheriff Mark Donaldson as saying that, “As far as I’m concerned [Carmen’s case] was solved.” I asked what to do – since I had not received anything from Ector County following their order to release basic information to me.
7. I then received yet another copy of a letter. This time, it was a letter from the AG to Ector County, ordering Ector to comply with my request (or to contact them with reasons for noncompliance).
8. Finally, over two months after my original request, I received my basic information today via a certified letter.

After all that, the information must have been good, right? I mean, Ector County fought me to retain it – so it must be pretty awesome stuff.

Nope.

All I got was one sheet of paper with Carmen’s name, the name of the man that found her body, and a couple of addresses. That’s it.

What did I do? I promptly connected to some people in the Texas Rangers group on Facebook. If this is how Ector County is going to be, I think we may need to seek another avenue for getting someone to actively investigate Carmen’s so-called “open” case.

Rangers, here we come.

Say a prayer for me,

K. E.