Fort Worth, TX

By MIKE LEE
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH — A proposed smoking ban is back on the table.

Smoking would be banned in public places — including restaurants, most bars and entrances to public buildings — throughout Fort Worth under a proposal the City Council is set to consider in August.

A council-appointed committee had recommended the ban, with exceptions for restaurants and bars with outdoor patios, private clubs and sexually oriented businesses. But the process was suspended while the Legislature took up a bill that would have banned smoking in public places statewide. (more…)

By MELODY McDONALD
Star-Telegram staff writer

FORT WORTH - Vol Thompson was just 14 when a man collecting cans found his mother’s body hidden under some wood in east Fort Worth.

For years, he and his baby brother, Joshua, have known in their hearts who killed her.

And last week, more than 17 years after their mother’s death, prosecutors proved it.

Bobby Earl Woods — Joshua Thompson’s father — was sentenced to 50 years in prison Monday for the June 1990 murder of 29-year-old Jane Thompson.

“I think my mom would be extremely proud of me and my brother,” said Vol Thompson, who spoke on behalf of the family. “We vowed to each other that we would see this to the end. We knew it was going to be an uphill journey.”

Jane Thompson, a registered nurse who had just graduated from college, was last seen alive June 5, 1990, riding in a car Woods was driving. Joshua, then 2, was with them.

Later that night, Woods called Thompson’s mother to report that she was missing. (more…)

BY BILL MILLER AND DIANE SMITH
Star-Telegram Staff Writers

FORT WORTH — A teacher whose car contained a handgun and a suspicious substance while parked at South Hills High School, is being investigated by police and school officials, according to reports.

The items were discovered Tuesday morning by a private canine service that is contracted by Fort Worth schools to detect contraband on campuses, Fort Worth Police Lt. Dean Sullivan said.

The teacher said she didn’t know how the items got into her car and that a relative who borrowed it may have put them there, Sullivan said.

Police have not released the teacher’s name because no arrests have been made. Meanwhile, they are checking into her story, Sullivan said.

“The teacher is being treated as a suspect,” he said, “but she has been cooperative through the course of this investigation so far.”

Sullivan said the substance would be tested to determine if it is marijuana. It was a “small quantity,” he said, which would normally bring a misdemeanor charge. (more…)

BY BILL MILLER
WMILLER@STAR-TELEGRAM.COM

Temporary custody of a 9-month-old girl who survived being hanged by the neck last month inside her family’s home in Hudson Oaks has been given to a paternal aunt, a child welfare official said.

The arrangement was approved earlier today for Evelyn Frayre by a Tarrant County family court judge, said Marissa Gonzales, spokeswoman for Child Protective Services.

Gonzales noted, however, that CPS is ultimately responsible for the child until a permanent custody ruling is made. She added that the child’s maternal aunts and her father will also have visitation rights.

(more…)

By ANDREW CHAVEZ
achavez@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH — The grandfather of a 16-year-old Fort Worth boy who died when his car went off a freeway bridge early Saturday morning said his grandson had been in some trouble recently but was turning himself around.

“He had gotten in some trouble, but he was through with all of that,” said Ken Hornbeck, Jeffrey Bayliff’s grandfather. “His girlfriend said before he left that he was just going to do his thing and do what’s right.”

Bayliff, 16, a student at Fort Worth Can! Academy, was driving home from his girlfriend’s residence in North Richland Hills, his grandfather said, when he drove off a bridge at the Interstate 35W and Interstate 20 interchange and landed on eastbound I-20.

(more…)