‘Dee’ Davis, daughter of 1976 Fort Worth mansion shooting victim, dies in Dallas crash
The sorrow carries on.
Angela Davis, the daughter of a woman who was shot by a man in a black wig at a southwest Fort Worth mansion on a night in August 1976 when two others were killed, died Thursday in a car crash in Dallas County, authorities said.
Davis, known as Dee, was 61.
Slain in one of the city’s most infamous crimes was Andrea Wilborn, the 12-year-old daughter of Dee’s mother, Priscilla. Also killed was Stan Farr, Priscilla Davis’ live-in boyfriend. Priscilla Davis was shot once in the chest and survived, and Gus “Bubba” Gavrel Jr., a chance visitor to the mansion off South Hulen Street, was left paralyzed by a bullet in his spine.
Dee Davis was not at the mansion when the killings occurred.
Priscilla Davis insisted from the outset that the gunman, who wore a black wig, was her estranged husband, Cullen Davis, a multimillionaire who was then one of the richest men in America. A judge had ordered him that morning to increase Priscilla Davis’ support payments to $5,000 per month and to pay her attorney’s fees. Cullen Davis had earlier been barred by a court order from going onto the property.
Cullen Davis was acquitted of the charges. His first capital murder trial in Fort Worth ended in juror misconduct. The second trial was moved to Amarillo and ended in an acquittal. Later, he was also acquitted in a murder-for-hire case alleging a plot to kill the judge in his divorce case.
In civil court, Cullen Davis, who is now 86, agreed to pay a settlement to end a lawsuit over Farr’s death.
Dee Davis was killed Thursday when her Nissan Altima was struck and fell about 30 feet from an interstate ramp onto grass between a highway wall and the service road, authorities said. It landed upside down on its top.
Davis had been involved in a collision about 7:15 p.m. on northbound Interstate 35 near Riverfront Boulevard, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department said.
Deputies saw three people on the service road near Sports Street who were trying to cross the freeway to come to the accident scene. Deputies discovered that one of them, De’Adrian King, 21, had been the driver of a vehicle that had collided with Davis’ car.
King had been in the left lane, lost control of his vehicle and swerved to the right and into the car Davis was driving, the sheriff’s department said. The collision pushed Davis’ Altima into and over the wall.
Davis was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead.
King was arrested on suspicion of fleeing the scene of an accident involving death.
In a brief conversation Saturday, her daughter, also named Priscilla Davis, recalled Dee Davis’ generosity.
“She was loved,” she said.
Dee Davis’ mother died of cancer in February 2001. She was 59.
Gavrel died of pancreatic cancer at 64 in December 2018.
This story was originally published June 27, 2020 at 5:58 PM.
