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.

The state bill failed, and the Fort Worth council could vote on the local ordinance as soon as Aug. 21.

“What I want is at least any area where I could take my children or grandchildren,” said Councilman Chuck Silcox, who asked for the ban after receiving complaints from residents.

The Texas Restaurant Association is bracing for a wave of smoking bans now that the state effort has failed.

“The only thing we can do now is make sure that what passes is the least damaging to our businesses as possible,” said Glen Garey, general counsel for the restaurant association. “I would anticipate a very busy summer.”

The association has acknowledged that smoking bans are popular, and it had pushed for the statewide bill because the bill would have created a level playing field among restaurants in different cities, Garey said.

The association is concerned that local ordinances treat bars and restaurants equally, Garey said. Many restaurants make a lot of their profits off alcohol sales, and they could lose patrons if the ban doesn’t include bars, he said.

The council is expected to hold a workshop on the issue July 17.
Mike Lee, 817-390-7539
mikelee@star-telegram.com

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.

When relatives later asked Joshua what happened, he replied, “Daddy hit Mama,” police have said.

The family called police and, on June 7, 1990, Woods told investigators he dropped Thompson off at a check cashing business on East Seminary Drive and went to get gas. When he returned, she was gone, Woods said.

Two days later, her body was found in the 8100 block of Sartain Drive.

For 15 years, Vol and Joshua Thompson, who were raised by their grandparents, went on with their lives, both becoming notable athletes at Dunbar High School.

Still, their mother’s death was never far from their thoughts.

Vol Thompson said the entire family has always believed that Woods was responsible, but police never made an arrest.

“We knew it was him,” Vol Thompson said. “There was no doubt about it. My brother’s story never changed.”

Then, in 2005, Vol Thompson was reading a list of unsolved homicides on the Fort Worth Police Department’s Web site and noticed that his mother’s name was missing. He called his younger brother and told him that he was going to try and have the case reopened in hopes of getting Woods arrested.

“That was his dad, of course,” Vol Thompson said. “But he said I had his support, 100 percent. I called the police station.”

Thompson talked to Detective Manny Reyes, who investigates cold cases. Reyes reviewed the case and promised to look into it.

Reyes talked to witnesses, including Woods’ nephew, who said Woods confessed that he had hit Jane Thompson on the head with a shotgun.Woods, now 47, was arrested in February 2006 and gave officials a different story about what happened, telling police, among other things, that he had dropped Jane Thompson off at a fashion boutique.

“He gave a statement that was dramatically different than what he had earlier given to police,” said Assistant District Attorney Kevin Rousseau, who prosecuted Woods with Rainey Webb. Jurors deliberated about five hours Friday before convicting Woods of murder.

During the punishment phase of the trial, jurors were told that Woods was sentenced to 10 years deferred adjudication in 1991 for robbing two convenience stores in the days before Jane Thompson’s death. They also heard that he was a crack addict who had been abusive to another former girlfriend, once breaking her collarbone, Rousseau said.

Jurors deliberated about two hours Monday before assessing the 50-year prison term.

Vol Thompson, who ran track and graduated from Texas Southern University, is now 31 and married with a young son. He works in the data department for Sprint Nextel and is writing a book about his mother.

Joshua Thompson is 19 and earned an academic scholarship to attend Texas A&M University, where he plays strong safety and cornerback.

After sentencing, several family members addressed Woods in court, telling him how Jane Thompson’s murder altered their lives.

When it was Joshua Thompson’s turn, witnesses said he demanded that his father look at him.

“He said, ‘Would you please look at me,’” Vol Thompson recalled. “‘Bobby, would you please look at me.’”

When Woods raised his head, Joshua said only nine words before returning to his seat — words that brought many in the courtroom to tears:

“He said, ‘I want you to know that I forgive you.’”
Melody McDonald, 817-390-7386
mjmcdonald@star-telegram.com

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.

But, he said the high school, located at 6100 McCart Ave., is a drug-free and gun-free zone where such violations can be upgraded to felony charges.

The service’s dog became excited upon approaching a car in the parking lot of the school in southwest Fort Worth.

A dog handler looked inside a window and noticed the back end of a handgun poking out of one of the car seats, Sullivan said. Police were summoned.

A teacher walked up and asked about the commotion around her car, Sullivan said.

“Officers got her permission to search the car and they found a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with 10 live rounds in the magazine,” Sullivan said. “In addition to this weapon, officers also found a small quantity of substance believed to be marijuana.”

Sullivan said the teacher “denied any knowledge of the gun and drugs.”

“She said a relative borrowed the car,” Sullivan said, “and was surprised by the contraband found in the vehicle.”

The school district is conducting an internal investigation and the teacher has been placed on administrative leave, said Barbara Griffith, spokeswoman for Fort Worth schools.

”We do know that our employee was not the only one with access to the car,” Griffith said.

”We are investigating the situation and appropriate action will be taken,” she added. “The employee is cooperating in every way.”

The teacher is not assigned South Hills during the school year, but she was at that campus as a summer assignment, Griffith said.

All schools in the Fort Worth school district are drug and gun free zones, which means those items are not allowed on or near a campus, said Michael Menchaca, the district’s director of Office of Professional Standards which conducts internal investigations.

Menchaca declined to say whether the teacher was tested for drugs as part of the investigation because that would delve into a personnel issue which is not publicized.

He said, however, that the district can ask employees to be tested in some cases.

”As a practice, the district may request drug screening when there is probable cause,” Menchaca said.

Additionally, employees who drive under a commercial license can be subject to random drug testing by the district and are tested as a prerequisite for employment.
Bill Miller, 817-390-7684

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.

“Right now the department still maintains custody of the child, but we’re sharing it with” the paternal aunt, Gonzales said.

She also explained that the child can stay with her maternal aunts on alternating weekends, and her father, Gregorio Frayre Rodriguez, can have supervised visitation for one hour each week.

“It was something everybody agreed to,” Gonzales said of the agreement. “We really wanted to balance the contact with the families, if possible.”

Gonzales said it can take as long as a year to get to a permanent custody order, “but we try to get a permanent arrangement as quickly as possible.”

Evelyn was found May 29 hanging with her mother and three sisters from clothing attached to a clothes rack made from 2-by-3 lumber, law enforcement officers said. The baby survived and was treated and released from a Fort Worth hospital.

Family and friends said the mother, Gilberta “Berta” Estrada, 25, struggled to support her children. The mother had also been in a custody dispute with the father of the children, officials said.
Bill Miller, 817-390-7684

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.

Police received a call about the accident about 4 a.m. Saturday morning and Bayliff was pronounced dead about three hours later at John Peter Smith Hospital.

Initial reports indicated Bayliff was driving west on Interstate 20 to southbound Interstate 35W, said Sgt. Rodney Bangs, the supervisor of the traffic investigation unit.

But Hornbeck said a witness told him his grandson was driving south on Interstate 35W and headed to eastbound Interstate 20.

Bangs said Bayliff was ejected from the car after it struck the ground, meaning he likely was not wearing a seat belt. The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office determined that Bayliff died due to blunt force trauma as a result of the ejection.

Officers haven’t determined whether speed was a factor in the accident because they haven’t yet determined which ramp he drove off.

“If he actually went over the guard rail he would’ve in all likelihood been traveling too fast,” Bangs said.

Hornbeck said the medical examiner’s office determined drugs or alcohol were not a factor.

Funeral arrangements: 10 a.m. Wednesday, Moore Funeral Home, Arlington.
Andrew Chavez, 817-390-7359

What: The Encore Lounge
When: November 29, 2006 to December 27, 2007
Where: Four Day Weekend Theater 312 Houston St., 817-226-4329
More: Check out Ray Sharp on the grand piano every Thursday night in Sundance Square. Features guest soloists from in and around the D/FW metroplex.