Posted on 10/30/2005 11:52:43 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
Three hurricane evacuees were charged with capital murder Saturday in the strangulation of Betty Blair, a 77-year-old church leader, mother of three daughters and the widow of former Pasadena school board President Robert "Bob" Blair.
Jimmy Hoang Le, 18, Stephanie Jacobo, 18, both from the Beaumont area, and Roosevelt Smith Jr., 43, of Louisiana, were charged with murdering Blair during a robbery at her Pasadena home Friday.
An active member of St. Pius V Catholic Church, Blair had been helping the three by paying them to do odd jobs and yard work on her property.
"It appears that those that she tried to help were the ones that murdered her," said Pasadena Police Department spokesman Vance Mitchell. The three lived together in an apartment in the 900 block of Randall in Pasadena, Mitchell said.
They were arrested Friday night at the toll booth at Beltway 8 and Westheimer, driving Blair's tan 2000 Buick, in which some of her belongings were found. Jacobo's 10-month-old son also was in the car, and is now with "appropriate relatives," said Gwen Carter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Family and Protective Services.
The car was located through OnStar, an onboard electronic tracking system.
Police said Blair's body was found by the youngest of her three daughters, Melissa Bishop.
Next-door neighbor Lestley Rowell heard "very loud screams" coming from the home. He helped Blair's daughter and called Pasadena police, said his wife, Doris Rowell.
"We are just devastated by this," Rowell said. "My husband is not feeling very well today."
Rowell said her husband had "a bad feeling" earlier in the week when he saw one of the men working in the yard. "He said he was going to talk to Miss Betty about being more careful," Rowell said.
'Very sweet, giving person' The three suspects were the second group of evacuees Blair had helped after Hurricane Katrina, said her neighbor and fellow parishioner Mary Titus.
Since the death of her husband — who served on the Pasadena Independent School District board for 12 years — in the spring, Blair had become "even more involved" in church activities, Titus said.
"Betty was just a very sweet, giving person," Titus said. "She had told me she was just starting to get over Bob's death — he passed away last April, or May. They did a lot of stuff together. She was very active in the church and very active in the community."
Titus, who said she had lived directly across the street from the Blairs for the last 18 years, said they were "wonderful neighbors." Just after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in late August, Blair took three women from New Orleans into her home in the Parkview Estates subdivision, which was named the 2005 "Neighborhood of the Year" in Pasadena.
"They were very nice people — a grandmother, a mother and a daughter — who went to church with Betty every Sunday," Titus said.
"They apparently got back on their feet within a month and moved on."
The pastor of St. Pius V Catholic Church in Pasadena, the Rev. Hubert Kealy, said, "My heart was broken" upon learning of Blair's death.
"Betty Blair was a well-known, prominent member of this parish. She and her husband, Bob, God rest them both, were very active in most everything," Kealy said. The parish of St. Pius V was "the center of their life," Kealy said.
Involved in the aid In addition to serving as chairman of the church's Communion ministers, Blair had been a teacher at St. Pius V and had edited the parish's last two directories.
"She was well-liked and respected by former students and the people she worked with at the present," Kealy said.
Learning of her death, he said, "I was absolutely stunned, I was breathless. The first thing I remember being able to do, when I recovered my emotional breath, was to say a prayer for her eternal peace."
"How someone abuses kindness, or how someone is led astray, we can't second-guess that. All I can do is to do what I know the Lord wants," Kealy said.
Another parish priest, the Rev. Oscar Castro, went immediately to Blair's home to administer last rites, Kealy said.
"Everyone in the parish that I have talked to is just stunned. It's unbelievable," he said.
Blair's daughters are in "shock and disbelief," he said, adding that his own feelings were of "anger and disappointment."
The most difficult thing to do now, Kealy said, "is to remind ourselves that we ask Lord's grace that we find forgiveness. ...
"I am not there yet, in asking for that grace."
Kealy said that Blair was very involved in the parish's Social Services Ministry, which had "really geared up" after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and Hurricane Rita hit East Texas.
That parish office offers a food pantry and small amounts of cash to people who are down on their luck, or who have been through disasters.
After Hurricane Katrina, there were 32 children from the Louisiana area enrolled in St. Pius V's grade school. That number has dropped to 11 children who are likely to remain in the Pasadena area, Kealy said.
The priest said someone had asked him whether the parish office's doors will remain open to those in need.
"Come Monday," he said, "I am sure we will be."
You won't read about this on any liberal board, that's for sure. No reason to make those poor victims (i.e. the perps) suffer more than they already have.
Three hurricane evacuees were charged with capital murder Saturday in the strangulation of Betty Blair, a 77-year-old church leader, mother of three daughters and the widow of former Pasadena school board President Robert "Bob" Blair.
----Sickening. That poor woman.
I'm so glad they are 18.
At least there is a chance of the death penalty.
Nailed it. That's why I'm opposed to the death penalty.
Keep your eyes on them and don't let anything of value lying around. Use only bonded contractors. You may get the homeless guy or illegal cheaper, but remember that you get what you pay for!
Guess which one will get the death penalty.
Guess which one will get a prison sentence.
Guess which one will get off lightly.
Astute observation. Let's watch and see.
Bad news for them. Murdering an old woman in the county that sends more people to death row than any other in Texas.
Several families in my parish took in Katrina evacuees. I said it was dangerous, foolish thing to do and this terrible story just confirms that. If you want to help give money, volunteer in a shelter but don't take strangers into your home.
The woman might get off with a life sentence but neither male suspect has a good chance of escaping death row.
Besides, to me she looks like a Subic Bay tart, and a thug to boot. "Hitting it" would be the last thing on my mind as far as what I would like to see done to that b-tch.
Bump!
OMG.
Words fail me.
The car was located through OnStar, an onboard electronic tracking system.
Chock one up for the benefits of "privacy invading technology" ;)
And if not, they have 60 long years to look forward to with Big bubba...Hope they dont like to sit...
They ought to be - all three of them - tied to posts and die by garrote for their complete betrayal of another human being culminating in their robbery of Mrs. Blair's life.
No jail. No warehousing of their worthless carcasses for the next fifty or sixty years. Let them pay for the life they took with their own lives forfeiture.
She actually looks a lot like Jimmy - look at the eyes and the nose. I bet she's his sister or a relative and Jacobo was a name acquired from a marriage.
I agree with you.
Harris County (Houston) will not forgive this one.
God rest this poor lady's soul and comfort her family.
FEMA has prohibited at least one Sheriff [and probably all the others as well] from doing criminal background checks on the evacuees.
Certainly we all want to help these people; but, please, be very careful not to endanger your own safety in the process.
Draw the line at inviting someone unknown to you [or to someone you trust] into your home. Your first obligation is to your own safety and the safety of your families.
Find another way to help ... through your church, or through the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Southern Baptists, or some other organized group.
Is it, perhaps, the county that has more murderers to send to death row, as well?
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