Morris Howeth, 79, figure in Cullen Davis trial, dies

During the 1977 capital murder trial of Cullen Davis, prosecutors had the sneaking suspicion that the defense team knew what was coming.

They had their suite at the Hilton Hotel in Amarillo swept for bugs and double-checked who had access to their rooms.

“One night I told the prosecution team: ‘I don’t know, but it seems like they know what we’re going to do before we do it,’” said former Tarrant County prosecutor Marvin Collins, who later became U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas. “It never occurred to me that it could be a member of our own team.”

The man accused of providing the information, Morris Howeth, died July 9. He always denied the allegations.

In what was then the longest and most expensive murder trial in Texas history, Davis was acquitted in the slaying of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Andrea Wilborn. Two others, including Davis’ estranged wife, were wounded in the 1976 attack at the Davis mansion.

That was the end of that part of the Davis saga until 2001 when Star-Telegram reporter Mike Cochran, who had covered the Davis saga for The Associated Press, heard from Ray Hudson, the father of Davis’ wife, Karen.

Hudson said he had paid bribes to Mr. Howeth, then an investigator for the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, for information during the trial.

“He called me and told me what the deal was,” Cochran said Wednesday. “He told me about Morris Howeth, and eventually I got Cullen to admit it. The whole thing was just bizarre.”

Mr. Howeth, 79, died from complications of bone cancer, said Tiffany Moore, who was raised by Mr. Howeth and his wife, Thulia Ann “Judy” Howeth, from the age of 12. A graveside service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Fort Worth.

“He was a constable, a justice of the peace,” Moore said. “He was a very strong person. He was a man’s man. He always liked cigars. He taught me a lot about life.”

Moore said she knew little about the Cullen Davis saga and that Mr. Howeth never talked about the case with her.

“By the time I came around, he … worked at the retirement home that his wife ran,” Moore said. “I knew him as the maintenance guy. He gave me the space to be who I was.”

In the 2001 Star-Telegram article, Davis initially denied the allegations but later said “the information was skimpy and fairly meaningless.” But Davis acknowledged that the information would sometimes be passed along to his attorneys.

Hudson said he delivered a total of $25,000 in $5,000 monthly increments to Mr. Howeth and relayed Mr. Howeth’s information to Davis almost every day. He was trying to help his daughter, from whom he had been estranged for many years.

“I owed her a great deal,” Hudson said in the 2001 interview. “I still do. I’d like to do anything I could for her.”

It wasn’t the only allegation that Hudson made.

He said he used Davis’ funds to commission courtroom artist Ben Konis of Amarillo to sketch portraits of selected jurors for $300 each. They would then be presented to jurors’ family members as a discreet gift from Davis.

Konis confirmed Hudson’s story in 2001 but said he was paid $100, not $300, for each portrait.

At the time of the revelation, Tim Curry, then the Tarrant County district attorney, suggested that Mr. Howeth take a polygraph test. But with all of the time that had passed, neither Mr. Howeth nor anybody else could be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had passed.

Mr. Howeth agreed to the polygraph but later changed his mind.

“I don’t know that it will serve any good,” Mr. Howeth said in 2001.

He also suggested that the allegations were part of smear campaign against him.

“I think it’s part of the ongoing drama,” he said.

Former District Attorney Joe Shannon, who was also a prosecutor in the trial, said he never saw Mr. Howeth after the allegations surfaced.

“Absolutely not,” Shannon said Wednesday. “I never saw him and didn’t want to speak with him. I had considered him a friend.”

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Morris Howeth, 79, figure in Cullen Davis trial, dies."