April 14, 2025 • 37 mins
A courthouse engulfed in flames. A community watching helplessly as history burns. And one man's terrifying 24-hour crime spree that changed Mason County, Texas forever.
District Attorney Tonya Ahlschwede and Assistant DA Havana Schmidt take us deep inside one of rural Texas's most complex criminal investigations - the 2021 Mason County courthouse arson. What began as a house fire quickly escalated into something far more sinister when Nicholas Miller deliberately torched the historic courthouse while first responders were distracted battling the initial blaze.
"We all sat around the square with everybody else in town and watched it burn," recalls Schmidt, who witnessed the courthouse fire before later joining the prosecution team that would bring Miller to justice. The prosecutors meticulously reconstruct the night's events, revealing how one calculated arson transformed into an extended crime spree involving armed robbery, vehicle theft, and culminating in a dramatic 60-mile high-speed chase broadcast live on Facebook.
The investigation required extraordinary coordination between local law enforcement, Texas Rangers, and forensic experts to piece together evidence from multiple crime scenes spanning several counties. With over 200 exhibits presented during trial, prosecutors faced the daunting challenge of connecting all elements of Miller's rampage while demonstrating his clear premeditation through recovered text messages and online posts.
This conversation offers rare prosecutor insights into a case that struck at the heart of a small community where "we all know each other, grow up together." Despite Miller's attempt to disrupt the justice system by literally burning it down, Mason County's resilience shines through - the courthouse has been rebuilt, and as Ahlschwede proudly notes, "the justice system is still intact, despite somebody trying to burn down the courthouse."
Have you experienced how close-knit communities respond to tragedy? Share your thoughts and subscribe for more true crime stories that reveal the complex human dynamics behind headline-making cases.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thanks everyone for coming out today.
I hope you've gone to the winefestival over there.
If not, please go enjoy it, andthank you If you are just
arriving.
We are Texas Wine and TrueCrime.
We are a podcast married couplefrom Dallas.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Not necessarily in that order.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, definitely not in that order.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Chicken for me came before the egg, right the
chicken.
Are you sure the egg may havecame before the chicken?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm not sure yeah, the egg may go.
Oh, you're no worries noworries okay, so, um, I would
like you both to introduceyourselves, if you would like.
So we have tanya with us, sotanya yeah, I'm tanya, all sweet
.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm the district attorney here in mason and I'm
the 452nd district attorney andwe cover five counties awesome,
that would be edwards kimball, mMason, menard and McCullough.
So we go from the ColoradoRiver all the way down to nearly
the border of Texas.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So you travel around and try cases.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We are a traveling office.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Are you really?
Oh, you need to come on ourshow.
You're kind of fast.
That's fascinating for me andyou are, yeah, so think of my
name.
Yeah, y'all can pass it aroundso my name's Havana Schmidt.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm from Mason, tanya's also from Mason too, and
I'm an assistant districtattorney, so I work for Tanya,
but my counties that I primarilycover are Edwards and Kimball
which are further down south,prosecution.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Any cases you're currently working on that we
should know about.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So we're always working on cases and preparing
for trial.
So we try, try, try, lots ofcases.
We just finished trying a casein Kimball County.
It was a human smuggling casewhere someone was killed and the
defendant was sentenced to 99years.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, good.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We've got more of those coming, so pretty much our
outlook is trial, trial, trial.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Wow, keeps you busy, I'm sure, right.
Okay, so we're here to talkabout one case specifically, and
that is the Mason CountyCourthouse arson case.
Now, have you both been on thiscase since day one?
When did you get involved andwhy is this case important?
Well, let me back up.
Is this the second fire?
(02:27):
That's?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
happened at the courthouse.
This is the second arson of themason county courthouse okay,
yes, and the.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Does anyone do you know why?
The first time this happened?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
so the first fire, I believe, according to our local
historian, scott zesh, who doesall this research for us and
keeps us in the know, was in1877.
And the rumor, or the history,is that it burned because there
was some record cover-up havingto do with some cattle theft and
(02:56):
this thing called the HoodooWar in Mason.
But I'm not the expert on that,scott Zesch is, so y'all should
get him on next.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I was going to say we'll be discussing, we're
closing out with the Hoodoo Warstoday that was what I had
noticed in reading about that aswell too, that I was like, okay
, this is not the first timethis happened, obviously.
And so that's why a lot of therecords are actually lost from
the Hoodoo War, from that arson.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Right, I know that the clerk here who is retiring
has an arrest warrant for JohnnyRingo, so she still has that
original document.
She keeps that document fromback in that time.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
We'll be talking about Mr Ringo as well.
Wow, one of the morefascinating characters of the
who Do War.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
What is his name?
Mr who Schlesinger.
What's his name?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Scott Zesch Zesch.
Okay, chris, you're welcome,scott Zesch, if you're listening
.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
He's written several books on making.
We are filming this and we aregoing to be putting clips out.
So smile ladies.
No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, because I have to Some of the articles I was
reading too.
I'm going to have to look andsee if that was one of the names
, because I was looking at abook as well too.
I wonder if he's the samegentleman who had.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What year did this happen?
So not that long ago, becausehe was just tried and convicted
in sentencing 2021.
Okay, so much recent than Ithought.
So 2021, and this we have,nicholas Miller, and he's
charged with two counts.
Now make sure I have this rightTwo counts of arson, felony
possession of a firearm,burglary of a building and
unauthorized use of a motorvehicle.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yes, so the case of the arson of the courthouse is
much more complicated than justthe courthouse burning.
So there were actually a numberof crime scenes and we can take
you through those crime scenesPlease do.
You know, everybody focused onand the world and the state
focused on the courthouse thatburned and it was terrible, and
people in Mason sat around andwatched their courthouse burn to
(04:46):
the ground, including Havana,who was not yet a lawyer working
for me, burned to the ground,including Havana, who was not
yet a lawyer working for me.
So, you know, it was really coolthat she got to come on board
and participate and reallyhelped us in the trial of the
case.
But, you know, the first thingthat happened on February, the
4th of 2021, was there was ahouse fire here in town, and so
(05:07):
we are a very small communitythe local fire department went
over.
That means that you know, theseguys are volunteer firefighters
.
They're real out of bed andthey go to fight the house fire,
and so there was a house onfire and that's what their focus
was on.
And so during the trial, thetestimony was that you know,
these guys are over there at thehouse fire and firefighters are
(05:29):
coming in to volunteer fortheir duties and what they learn
is that there was someone inthat house.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And the circumstances .
Once they got to the scene theyimmediately alert law
enforcement and things startcoming together rather rapidly.
But that house was on fire andthat house belonged to Jamil and
Anna Jefferson, and Nick isrelated to Jamil and Anna Okay.
So while the fire department isfocusing on that, then the
(06:01):
second crime scene kicks off andI'm going to turn it over to
Vanna.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, before we jump into that.
So he lights the house on firewith them as still in it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah so Michael is that correct.
Michael Jefferson was in thebathroom at the time that the
house was set on fire.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
And the dog Razor he's a little pit bull actually
alerted him to something beingwrong and he ran out of the
house and so on the 911 call youcan hear him coughing and
hacking.
So he actually called in andreported that the house had
burned and so, like Tanya said,all of our local fire department
was already at this house arsontrying to save the house and
(06:37):
then the courthouse caught onfire shortly after that.
So the alert started to go offin the courthouse itself, which
alerted the dispatcher, who wasin the jail across the street,
and they hear this kind of likeautomated alarm that there's
been a fire in the courthouseand the dispatcher looks out the
window and sees that there'sflames coming out of the
(06:57):
courthouse.
And after that, I mean all ofthe other local fire departments
from the surrounding area werecalled in and so now the
resources were split and it wasincredibly chaotic.
I was there I actually happenedto be in town with some friends
that weekend because I was inbetween terms for law school.
And so my friend Racy had comeover for dinner and she called
(07:20):
me and let me know that therewas a house on fire, because
it's a small town.
So we all the word got aroundreally fast that, oh man,
there's, you know, a structurefire on Rank Street.
And then a little bit later shesent me a Snapchat of the
courthouse on fire and we allwent and sat around the square
(07:40):
with everybody else in town andwatched it burn and at that time
nobody really knew what hadhappened or why, it was on fire.
And then later on overnight Iguess is when it started to come
together that possibly NickMiller was the one who did it.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, so did he set the original house fire to kill
the people in there?
Did that come out in trial?
What was the purpose of?
Why did he start the spree?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well, there are many unknown questions about why
defendants and Nick.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Miller why?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
he did what he did, so we don't really know.
He didn't testify.
He did make a statement andthat statement has been made
public and available.
But you know, nick started thehouse on fire knowing that Jamil
, who was his relative, was inthe hospital because Nick had
been in the hospital caretakingof Jamil during the time period
(08:29):
that Jamil had been in thehospital.
Jamil's health was failing, hehad lots of health problems and
you know it wasn't a situationwhere he was going to get to
come home anytime soon.
So Nick had actually been inSan Antonio involved in the
health care of Jamil, and so heknew that Jamil and Anna were
not at home when he decided tolight the house on fire and he
(08:52):
knew that Michael was in thehouse when he did light the
house on fire.
So we don't know exactly whathis intentions were, but that's
the facts that we uncovered andMichael testified at the trial
and it was hard for Michael totalk about all of the things,
because this is a familysituation Now.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Were they all originally from here?
Was that family from?
Yes, okay, so people knewNicholas Miller.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yes, okay, so we all know each other in our small
town.
Jamil was older than meprobably six years older than me
in high school, and Nick wasmuch younger than me probably
six or eight years younger thanme, and so we all kind of know
each other, grow up together.
We're all part of the samecommunity and we all take care
(09:40):
of each other.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And nobody doesn't.
Yeah, did he set fire to thecourthouse, thinking that if
there's not a courthouse, hecan't be tried for lighting the
house on fire, or something likethat?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
My opinion is Nick had a family law dispute ongoing
from another county not evenfrom this county.
Nick had a pending burglary of ahabitation so he went into
somebody's home here in Mason.
He had a pending court casewith us and he'd been in court
even though COVID was ongoingand we still were having some
(10:15):
hearings in the courthouse andhe had been at hearings.
He was supposed to be at ahearing like the next day after
the fire, I believe, and so youknow he knew what was going on
in the courthouse because he hadbeen in the courthouse going to
court every month.
So you know he knew what wasgoing on and the family law case
was ongoing, and so you knowthere are a lot of motivations
(10:43):
maybe for what he did.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
None of it was justified, but it caused a lot
of chaos.
I guess the family law casesperhaps were not going in his
favor, I suspect.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
His family law cases I don't believe were going in
his favor and you know heappeared in court in I believe
it was Lampasas and so thosecases were ongoing and I think
you know it was just a lot ofthings going on.
But certainly Michael was avery innocent party in all of
this and he is very lucky to bealive and, with a good response
from our fire department, ourEMS and everyone else and
(11:10):
everyone else, michael is ableto tell his story and live his
life and we're very proud of him.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what else happened that night?
When the vehicle comes in.
So now he's lit the house onfire.
Now was the courthouse thesecond.
Yes, Okay, so the courthousewas second.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
So the house is on fire, then the firefighters are
notified that the courthouse ison fire, so some of them are
leaving that scene to go to theother scene.
And during the interim time thedispatcher and there's usually
one dispatcher on one deputy onat a time here the dispatcher is
made aware that you know, thereare a tremendous number of 911
(11:48):
calls coming in at this pointbecause people are reporting
that the bank is on fire,because people are reporting
that the bank is on fire, thatpeople are reporting that the
church is on fire, people arereporting the square is on fire.
So all of these calls arecoming in for one dispatcher, so
another dispatcher goes in tohelp her, and one of the calls
that came in was from Mr Rico ofRico's Cafe, and Mr Rico
(12:10):
reported that he had been robbedand so law enforcement has to
respond to that scene as well.
And then what happens?
Havana, do you want to take itup after?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
that one, okay.
So when all this is happening,do people in town know this by
now?
Are people just getting phonecalls from each other and going?
Can you believe this ishappening?
And then everybody congregatesand watches the courthouse burn
down?
The volunteer firefighters arethere, enough of them?
(12:43):
Are they calling people in tocome and help other men that can
, possibly?
Did you get a phone call tocome and help?
Okay, you know what I mean,though, but there's chaos.
There's chaos in a small town.
People are calling each other.
People are saying they'regetting robbed.
There's different phonescalling.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
It's almost like chaos.
On purpose, though, because,like you say, you wonder like
did he light the house on fireto exhaust?
Like knowing that you would bedividing the firefighters.
They wouldn't be able to fullyextinguish the flame in time for
the courthouse itself.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
It gets worse on the firefighters.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Oh, it does Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So while all of this is going on, I think people were
focused on the courthouse, so alot of this we put together the
next day, the next week and thenext month and the next year.
We had to put all of thisinformation together, so it was
an investigation that spanned alot of time and so once you know
those things are coming in.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
the next place that he went was Well, so he was
driving a Chevy Tracker thatbelonged to Jamil, and so he had
gone from the house fire to thecourthouse.
And then he was actually seen bysome other local people.
They couldn't identify NickMiller but they saw a vehicle
driving off the courthouse lawnbecause there is an access point
.
So he had driven onto thecourthouse lawn, driven that
vehicle around and we had somesecurity camera footage from the
(14:05):
New Way convenience store whichwas across kind of catty corner
from the courthouse.
So we had identified the ChevyTracker and he drove that Chevy
Tracker to the Lowe's grocerystore and actually used a gun to
shoot out the glass at thegrocery store to break in.
And then he went to where thesafe used to be because he had
actually been charged withrobbing what was then the Super
(14:29):
S, breaking in and stealingmoney out of the safe when they
didn't lock it up back in theearly 2000s.
So he had returned to a sceneof an old crime of his to try to
get some money, didn't reallyfind anything and left the
Lowe's grocery store.
And that's the point.
We think that he went to MrRico's because he was looking
fora different vehicle to drive,because the Chevy tracker
(14:50):
wasn't in very good shape and atthis point he wanted to get out
of town.
So he drove to Mr Rico's, whichis on the north side of town,
and Mr Rico was taking trash outfrom closing up his restaurant
right and Nick Miller came overto him with a gun and thought
maybe he had money or somethingin that bag.
So he took the bag and wentthrough it with his gun and Mr
(15:12):
Rico ran inside and called 911.
But he also was able toidentify what he said was a
blazer right and he was able toget.
Beige was the color right thatMr Rico said it was like a tan
tracker, so he was pretty closeon identifying the vehicle.
And then after that, becauseNick is still looking for a
vehicle to drive, he actuallydrives all the way out to Dos
(15:35):
Rios, which is, I guess, southof town.
Right, I'm not very good withcardinal directions, but he goes
out to Dos Rios, which is likean RV park, because he had done
work with Jamil out there,because Jamil was a plumber and
he knew that there was a worktruck out there that he had used
before and thought that thekeys might be out there.
Because Jamil was a plumber andhe knew that there was a work
truck out there that he had usedbefore and thought that the
keys might be out there.
So he went out and talked to awoman named Jessica Avant, whose
(15:57):
mother is a manager out there,to see if he could get the keys
to that truck, and by that timehe had gotten a pretty bad flat
on the tracker.
Jessica didn't have access tothe keys and so he left and it
just kind of kept going fromthere was he on drugs?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
do y'all know?
Um, we don't know one way oranother I mean that sounds like
a crack, so he drives back totown from dos rios goes the
kingdom automotive where hesteals a truck yeah, okay, so
steals a truck from the kingdomautomotive and that truck ends
up at the volunteer firedepartment at Pawnee talk.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
And based on our forensic tracking of all of this
, we also know that after hewent to kingdom automotive,
stole a truck, he probably wentall the way to Brady, texas,
came back to Pawnee talk and hewent to the fire department at
Pawnee Talk and guess where allthe firefighters were?
They were at the courthousefighting the courthouse fire.
(16:56):
So they left their vehicles,got up in the middle of the
night this is like probably 2 amor so and are fighting the fire
and he goes to the firedepartment and he takes one
truck and gives it a little ride.
Doesn't like that one, so hegoes and gets in another truck.
And so, havana, you want totell them about, randy.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Holloway's truck.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So Randy Holloway drove a big souped-up Ford,
dually Okay, and all thesefirefighters.
So Pawnee Talk is kind of likea small little community on the
I guess it's what Llano Countyand San Sabat like that
direction in Mason, and so thereis a little volunteer fire
department out there and all thefirefighters were obviously in
(17:41):
town and they left their trucksthere.
And they commonly left theirtrucks there at that time I
don't think it happens as muchanymore but they left their
trucks out there with the keysin them so that if someone
needed to move their truck thatwas at the station they could
move their truck.
So he got access to thosevehicles and a lot of those
folks I mean, we're countrypeople out here, so everybody
(18:02):
has guns in their trucks, right?
So he gathered up guns frommultiple vehicles into Randy
Holloway's Ford Dually and thentook that to his next
destination, which was HorseshoeBay.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Really Mm-hmm.
Chris has been wanting to takeme there.
I've never been to HorseshoeBay, but Chris has.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I've spent a lot of time in Horseshoe Bay in the
past.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I've heard good things about the spas, so I
think I'm going to go.
Okay, so how long was thiscrime spree?
Did y'all determine how longthis actually took him to do all
of this?
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, the house fire started after 9 o'clock and then
the courthouse was burned downshortly.
Then the courthouse was burneddown shortly.
It was around 10 o'clock atnight, I guess, when all this
stuff kicked off, and by thetime it ended it was the middle
of the day the next day, uh wasthe end of the criminal episode.
Okay keep going.
Yeah, so he drove frompontytalk to horseshoe bay, um,
(18:54):
and then he went on to blancowhere his uncle beverly lived,
who was Jamil's brother.
Uncle Beverly is a very niceman.
He's married to a lady namedBetty Fudge and he gets to, I
guess, uncle Beverly's housearound 6 o'clock in the morning
because Uncle Bev was getting upto go to work right.
(19:17):
And Nick had lived there withthem off and on over the years
and by this time the word hadgone out that the that Jamil's
house had burned, the courthousehad burned, everything was all
over Facebook, everybody hadbeen talking about it.
And so Bev knew that thecourthouse and the house had
burned and asked Nick if he hadset the fires, because he said
Nick was kind of in a state whenhe talked to him and his
(19:39):
testimony at trial was that Nicktold him that he set the fires
that night.
And so Uncle Bev actuallyreports it to law enforcement
because he tried to get Nick toturn himself in and he didn't
want to at this point.
So he took off and Uncle Bevcalled law enforcement to report
what had happened, figuringthat somebody would probably be
looking for Nick at this point.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Now does it keep going.
It keeps going.
Okay, Keep going From.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Blanco, Nick goes to um, towards Georgetown, and we
were able to forensically trackthat as well.
And he actually stoppedprobably in Round Rock and
brought some, bought some drugsin Round Rock and kept going to
Georgetown and by then there's abellow out.
Be on the lookout for hisvehicle, Not his vehicle, Randy
(20:24):
Holloway's truck.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Okay, oh, he still has that, so he drove that
through.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
He's in a giant F-350 , probably dually big truck, so
police officer gets behind himso discreet.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I was going to say that's rather easy to spot.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Such a discreet vehicle Go on.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Police officer gets behind him in Georgetown.
Nick sees that he's behind him,he takes off and all of this is
on video.
And so he takes off inGeorgetown, gets on the
interstate and heads to Waco.
So we have a pursuit with many,many vehicles on the roadway.
(21:00):
Many, many law enforcement lotsof black and whites from the
Texas Department of PublicSafety, helicopters, news crews
and traffic on the interstateuntil basically and that's when
Nick put it on Facebook Live.
So there's a Facebook Livevideo of him doing all of this.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
He went live during all of this.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Facebook Live.
I did not know that so we havein-car camera footage, we have
body cam footage, we have lawenforcement footage, and so we
actually, at the trial, showedsome of Nick's, we showed all of
his Facebook Live and we showedsome of the officers that were
pursuing him their advantage.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You could see them.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, so we could see the whole thing.
Oh my gosh.
Eventually, after he has beenspiked the vehicle has been
spiked by law enforcement tryingto get him to not kill somebody
else on interstate, or them orhimself.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
How long did the pursuit last?
I mean, was it a high-speedpursuit?
It was 60 miles 60 miles Wow.
My God yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
He was going over.
Sorry, yeah.
So the pursuit went on for 60miles because the Georgetown PD
officer got behind him andpursued him up until the rest of
the law enforcement took over,which was mostly Texas
Department of Public Safety, andhe was going at speeds over 90
miles an hour in that.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
really big truck.
That's a long time, I mean, arepursuits usually that long?
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Well, there wasn't a way to stop this truck, so they
had spiked him right, so theylay out spike strips to try to
disable the vehicle.
But the truck has six tires, sohe would get one tire, would
bust, but he just kept going onit and eventually, by the time
he was actually stopped, it'sbecause, I guess, two of the
(22:43):
wheels on the back back he hadridden it all the way down to
the axle, pretty much um.
So that's ultimately why hestopped, because the vehicle was
finally disabled, but it tookmultiple attempts for them to
get him to that point was thison tv?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
was it being?
Was like?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
facebook live right, even better.
Well, besides facebook, that'shis facebook live.
There were some, was it beingit?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
was on Facebook Live, brandon, even better.
Well, besides Facebook, that'shis Facebook Live.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
There were some news crews from Austin that covered
it.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
That's what I was wondering, like Georgetown and
all that over there.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Okay, so, yeah, it stopped traffic on the
interstate.
They shut down the interstatefor him to go through just to
try to keep people off theroadway.
And you know, on the videopeople don't pull over, they're
in the pursuit, not knowing thatthey need to get out of the way
.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So you know it was a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
And at the end, because the vehicle was in such
bad shape and Randy Holloway'sface when he saw the pictures
during the trial.
You know that was not good.
He never recovered all that.
He was out because insurancedidn't pay what was owed on the
truck.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
He didn't have the gap insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
His truck was his manner of supporting his
business, which was aconstruction kind of business.
So he lost a lot.
So this thing affected a lot oflives.
Nick on his Facebook Live putshis hands a lot of lives, um.
Nick on his Facebook live putshis hands up out of the moonroof
of the truck and, you know,eventually does um allow himself
(24:11):
to be taken into custody.
And in the truck were guns andHavana.
How many guns were there?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Uh, he had seven guns in the vehicle and at least one
of them was an AR that wasloaded with the safety off on
the console, so you can readinto that what you will, but
these weapons belonged to theowner of the vehicle.
Some of them were Randy's guns.
Some of them were otherfirefighters' guns.
Some of them we couldn't evenidentify who one of the guns
(24:40):
belonged to because we think itperson.
It was a local person that hehad taken that gun out of his
truck before he even left, butdid he ever shoot one of them.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
No, Hmm, interesting right, well, he did shoot out
the glass at the Lowe's.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
How did he have the knowledge, though, of knowing
about the keys being left in thetruck, like all the people's
cars at the fire station, Iguess.
Is that like maybe?
A common knowledge in the area,because that's just like of all
the luck to pull up there.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Well, people in our small towns are very trusting.
They know that whenfirefighters roll out if
somebody needs to get in thetruck to move the truck because
they need a water truck to bemoved, you know, that's kind of
common practice and I'm surethat they may have rethought all
of that after this criminalepisode.
But you know, that's the thingabout.
(25:31):
Everybody was focused, like Isaid, on the courthouse, but
there was a whole lot of othermoving parts to this case.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, my gosh, talk about all the people affected,
like you said, with just everysingle one of these crimes and
things that he did.
So let's talk about the trial.
So he's arrested, he puts hishands out of the roof and says,
okay, he's taken into custody.
Question about the FacebookLives Was it more of like an
entertainment?
He wanted people to know he wasdoing this.
He just was very open andnondiscreet about what he was
(26:00):
actually doing.
Was it sort of a manifesto?
Was he saying things?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I would say it was definitely a manifesto, okay,
and manifesto is an interestingword that you use, because we're
also able to get a manifestooff of his text messages.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Oh, in his manifesto.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
there was intent that was formed prior to all of the
courthouse arson and any actstowards Michael, so that
manifesto was recovered andintroduced in evidence at his
trial.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Good, which should be .
So, yeah, okay, let's talkabout the trial.
So he's arrested, goes to trial.
You're trying this case.
How long did it take to pieceall of this together, once you
had video and evidence and howmany?
So it was here, right, thetrial took place here.
(26:50):
Did they move it out of countywhen?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
did it go?
The trial took place in BradyMcCullough County, which is a
neighboring county.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
We drove by it.
There's one letter missing formy name and I took a picture and
I said almost Brandy, but notquite Right.
Right, but okay.
So we drove past Brady, it tookplace in our neighboring
community in Brady.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
You know there are standards for when.
When you move venue in a caseand because the whole community
was affected, it would be reallyhard to get a jury.
You're in Mason, so we wereable to get a jury picked in
Brady, tried the case in Bradythe thing to know about.
You know it took a while to getto the trial because there was
a lot of investigation, a lot ofresources expended to
(27:29):
corroborate what we piecedtogether as part of the
investigation.
And that required our sheriff,who had only been in office for
a little over a month he tookoffice in January 2021, and he
did a fantastic job of stayingon it and making sure that the
things that we asked for getfollowed up on and doing those
(27:49):
things.
But the Texas Rangers were alsoinvolved doing those things.
But the Texas Rangers were alsoinvolved and, most importantly,
the fire marshal's office washeavily involved in collecting
evidence at both locations ofthe arsons and the arson of the
courthouse.
There was all kinds of samplestaking, and so you know that
evidence had to be sent to labs.
We hired a forensic expert to,you know, track the cell phone
(28:14):
data and to download the cellphone data.
So there was a tremendousamount of evidence in this case
that was introduced.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
I can't remember how many exhibits I think testimony
went on for a little over fourdays and we entered over 200
items into evidence.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Wow, so anybody?
So he did not take the stand.
Did anybody take the stand inhis defense?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
No, the defense didn't have a lot of evidence to
present.
They just relied on us to proveour case beyond a reasonable
doubt.
And in any arson case there'snot an easy such.
There's never such an easything in an arson case, no
matter what people want tobelieve.
You know the thing that Nickdid confess to a Texas Ranger to
setting the house on fire intown.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
And, to his defense attorney's surprise and our
surprise, at the beginning ofthe trial.
You know we do what's called anarraignment at the beginning of
the trial, where we, the state,stands up.
So I stood up and I was readingthe indictments and the
defendant enters a plea to eachone of those cases and, much to
everyone's surprise, at thatpoint, when I read the first
(29:23):
indictment for the arson of thehouse, he pled guilty.
He pled guilty to all of thecharges that we had at trial,
except for the arson of thecourthouse, charges that we had
at trial, except for the arsonof the courthouse.
So we only had a couple of thevehicles that were stolen and,
you know, charged in theunlawful possession of firearm
by felon, because he was aconvicted felon and we could
clearly see him on thesurveillance footage from the
(29:45):
grocery store.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So he was a convicted felon.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yes, he was.
He, as Havana mentioned before,he had gone into the lowes
grocery store it wasn't lowes atthe time, I don't think it was
lowes super s at the time.
So he had um, when he was much,you know, younger, he had
broken into that store, went inthe store and um took the money
out of the safe that was in thestore.
(30:09):
So kind of ironic that he wentand tried it again tried it
again maybe he'd think too.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
I mean, it's not a federal courthouse, but but the
burning down of that buildingwould have been federal charges
or something, and maybe tryingto avoid the federal charges
it's whatever time you have anylick of that time yeah I think
in his mind, because he can heconfessed to the ranger at the
interview following arrest, tothe house arson and then, of
course, at trial he pled guiltyto everything except for the
(30:38):
courthouse, I think in his mind,even though the arson of the
habitation and the arson of thecourthouse from the law's
perspective are the same leveland degree, subject to the same
punishment range.
But in his mind the courthousewas the big deal.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Because at that time was it a designated historical
landmark.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean it would have been so under the statute.
It was a place of gathering.
And so we put on evidence aboutall the gatherings that take
place in a courthouse, and sothat's one of the things we
asked a couple of ourlegislators to clearly designate
that when you burn down acourthouse, it's going to be a
first-degree felony slay tours.
To clearly designate that whenyou burn down a courthouse, it's
going to be a first degreefelony, because that you know,
(31:16):
that is something that I'm notaware of any other courthouse
being burned in an arson likethis in modern history, right
that's what you know.
That's something that I thinknot a lot of folks think about,
but we certainly did when wewere preparing this case for
trial, and even though you knowhe pled guilty during the trial,
we still had to put on all thecircumstances and all the
evidence that we had for all ofthe other cases, and so it took
(31:40):
a bit, and it took a team ofattorneys, a team of
investigators, a team of youknow all of the people that got
us there, and so it, you know,came together and the jury
deliberated for quite a while inthe case they did Through all
of the evidence oh yeah, thereis a lot, you know came together
and the jury deliberated forquite a while.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
in the case, they did .
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Through all of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh yeah, there is a lot, I guess, to look through.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
And some of our jurors, you know, have stayed in
touch with us and participateand you know, when we talk about
what happened at the courthousearson we greatly appreciate all
of their time, because that's alot of time out of somebody's
life to come listen to that typeof testimony and consider all
of that evidence.
And I think that one of ourjurors may end up being an
(32:19):
intern in our office, so sheswitched her major.
So you know of all the, of allthe horrible things, the
courthouse is, you know, rebuilt.
It's beautiful and the justicesystem is still intact, despite
somebody trying to burn down thecourthouse and burning it down.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
So what did he?
How many years did he get?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So during the middle of the you know, after the trial
was over, while the jury wasdeliberating, there was a
discussion had and he wanted tochange his election and so he
asked for the judge to sentencehim.
So, instead of the jurysentencing, he asked for the
judge to sentence him.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I agreed to do that, and so the judge sentenced him
to 75 years.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Wow, is that a common thing to ask the judge to
sentence you instead of a jury?
Can somebody request that atany time?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
It's the default is goes to the judge.
So somebody can.
In Texas, we're one of the onlystates where somebody can elect
whether they go to the judge orthe jury for punishment.
Okay, and the default is to thejudge.
And he wanted to go to thejudge and you know, judges
consider different things thanjuries.
And it takes a lot of time, forit would have taken us another
(33:29):
two to three days at least toput on all of the evidence of
all of the things that, nick,you know should be held
responsible for and consideredin punishment.
So when a judge does it, there'sa pre-sentence investigation
done which summarizes manythings, so that we don't have to
be having a jury sit there andlisten to all of the information
(33:51):
again and I know that jurywould have loved to have done it
, but I know that they were alsoexhausted and we talked to them
about that.
So the defendant picked and thejudge sentenced him to 75 years
.
It was a visiting judge, okay,so it was a.
It was a sentence that we feltlike justice was served.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
He had restitution to the guy for the truck as well
correct, although he may neversee that money.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, I don't think Randy Holloway will ever see
that money, but he did, and ofall the people, randy Holloway
was out quite a bit of money forthat.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
So I had an important question on my head after, when
Chris said that oh, I know whenis he serving his time.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
So all inmates go to Huntsville first where he's
classified and then I don't knowwhere he is after that.
I'm going to check and keeptrack.
But you can get on the TexasDepartment of Criminal Justice
Institutional Division websiteand you can track an inmate.
Yeah, I'll be doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Pit pal.
No, not pit pal.
I'm always curious becausepeople get moved all over and
sent different places.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
They do so.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I'm kind of fascinated with.
Well, because I just did aserial killer, I just
interviewed Darlie Root, yoursister last month, live and so,
yeah, she's one of seven ondeath row, but I just so.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, they all, like you said, they go to Huntsville
and then, depending on theirsentencing, male, female,
they're moved in differentplaces, so they have
classification and you know theysend them where they need to be
, in my opinion, and sometimesthey move them around, sometimes
they don't.
I guess it depends on how theyact and what's going on with
them.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, anything else you want to add about this case?
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know it was.
Of all the cases.
You know I've been a DA now forgosh how long have I been the
DA?
For a while now, but I've beena prosecutor for 25 years, and
this is one of the mostcomplicated cases that I think
any prosecutor's office couldever have, just because of the
volume of information and all ofthe moving parts that had to be
(35:52):
put together, and so I'm veryproud that we were able to get
the case to trial and get theresult that we did, and we
couldn't have done it withoutall the support of our community
.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, so it was amazing.
Well, thank you for being hereand coming today and you thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Thank you for what you do and all of these counties
and and um, it's people likeyou that the court system and
the justice system, um to us isfair, because you know, um, we,
sometimes we cover these casesand I'm sure you've seen these
cases and people don't belong inprison if they're innocent.
So, um, it takes a lot of duediligence and it takes a lot of
(36:33):
research, and it takes a lot ofresearch and it takes a lot of
resources and time toinvestigate these things.
So, thank you for everythingyou both do.
Thank you for being here.
Thanks, guys.
Give them a round of applause,please.
Thank you.
Thanks everyone for coming out today.
I hope you've gone to the winefestival over there.
If not, please go enjoy it, andthank you If you are just
arriving.
We are Texas Wine and TrueCrime.
We are a podcast married couplefrom Dallas.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Not necessarily in that order.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, definitely not in that order.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Chicken for me came before the egg, right the
chicken.
Are you sure the egg may havecame before the chicken?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm not sure yeah, the egg may go.
Oh, you're no worries noworries okay, so, um, I would
like you both to introduceyourselves, if you would like.
So we have tanya with us, sotanya yeah, I'm tanya, all sweet
.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm the district attorney here in mason and I'm
the 452nd district attorney andwe cover five counties awesome,
that would be edwards kimball, mMason, menard and McCullough.
So we go from the ColoradoRiver all the way down to nearly
the border of Texas.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So you travel around and try cases.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We are a traveling office.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Are you really?
Oh, you need to come on ourshow.
You're kind of fast.
That's fascinating for me andyou are, yeah, so think of my
name.
Yeah, y'all can pass it aroundso my name's Havana Schmidt.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm from Mason, tanya's also from Mason too, and
I'm an assistant districtattorney, so I work for Tanya,
but my counties that I primarilycover are Edwards and Kimball
which are further down south,prosecution.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Any cases you're currently working on that we
should know about.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So we're always working on cases and preparing
for trial.
So we try, try, try, lots ofcases.
We just finished trying a casein Kimball County.
It was a human smuggling casewhere someone was killed and the
defendant was sentenced to 99years.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, good.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We've got more of those coming, so pretty much our
outlook is trial, trial, trial.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Wow, keeps you busy, I'm sure, right.
Okay, so we're here to talkabout one case specifically, and
that is the Mason CountyCourthouse arson case.
Now, have you both been on thiscase since day one?
When did you get involved andwhy is this case important?
Well, let me back up.
Is this the second fire?
(02:27):
That's?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
happened at the courthouse.
This is the second arson of themason county courthouse okay,
yes, and the.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Does anyone do you know why?
The first time this happened?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
so the first fire, I believe, according to our local
historian, scott zesh, who doesall this research for us and
keeps us in the know, was in1877.
And the rumor, or the history,is that it burned because there
was some record cover-up havingto do with some cattle theft and
(02:56):
this thing called the HoodooWar in Mason.
But I'm not the expert on that,scott Zesch is, so y'all should
get him on next.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I was going to say we'll be discussing, we're
closing out with the Hoodoo Warstoday that was what I had
noticed in reading about that aswell too, that I was like, okay
, this is not the first timethis happened, obviously.
And so that's why a lot of therecords are actually lost from
the Hoodoo War, from that arson.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Right, I know that the clerk here who is retiring
has an arrest warrant for JohnnyRingo, so she still has that
original document.
She keeps that document fromback in that time.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
We'll be talking about Mr Ringo as well.
Wow, one of the morefascinating characters of the
who Do War.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
What is his name?
Mr who Schlesinger.
What's his name?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Scott Zesch Zesch.
Okay, chris, you're welcome,scott Zesch, if you're listening
.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
He's written several books on making.
We are filming this and we aregoing to be putting clips out.
So smile ladies.
No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, because I have to Some of the articles I was
reading too.
I'm going to have to look andsee if that was one of the names
, because I was looking at abook as well too.
I wonder if he's the samegentleman who had.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What year did this happen?
So not that long ago, becausehe was just tried and convicted
in sentencing 2021.
Okay, so much recent than Ithought.
So 2021, and this we have,nicholas Miller, and he's
charged with two counts.
Now make sure I have this rightTwo counts of arson, felony
possession of a firearm,burglary of a building and
unauthorized use of a motorvehicle.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yes, so the case of the arson of the courthouse is
much more complicated than justthe courthouse burning.
So there were actually a numberof crime scenes and we can take
you through those crime scenesPlease do.
You know, everybody focused onand the world and the state
focused on the courthouse thatburned and it was terrible, and
people in Mason sat around andwatched their courthouse burn to
(04:46):
the ground, including Havana,who was not yet a lawyer working
for me, burned to the ground,including Havana, who was not
yet a lawyer working for me.
So, you know, it was really coolthat she got to come on board
and participate and reallyhelped us in the trial of the
case.
But, you know, the first thingthat happened on February, the
4th of 2021, was there was ahouse fire here in town, and so
(05:07):
we are a very small communitythe local fire department went
over.
That means that you know, theseguys are volunteer firefighters
.
They're real out of bed andthey go to fight the house fire,
and so there was a house onfire and that's what their focus
was on.
And so during the trial, thetestimony was that you know,
these guys are over there at thehouse fire and firefighters are
(05:29):
coming in to volunteer fortheir duties and what they learn
is that there was someone inthat house.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And the circumstances .
Once they got to the scene theyimmediately alert law
enforcement and things startcoming together rather rapidly.
But that house was on fire andthat house belonged to Jamil and
Anna Jefferson, and Nick isrelated to Jamil and Anna Okay.
So while the fire department isfocusing on that, then the
(06:01):
second crime scene kicks off andI'm going to turn it over to
Vanna.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, before we jump into that.
So he lights the house on firewith them as still in it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah so Michael is that correct.
Michael Jefferson was in thebathroom at the time that the
house was set on fire.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
And the dog Razor he's a little pit bull actually
alerted him to something beingwrong and he ran out of the
house and so on the 911 call youcan hear him coughing and
hacking.
So he actually called in andreported that the house had
burned and so, like Tanya said,all of our local fire department
was already at this house arsontrying to save the house and
(06:37):
then the courthouse caught onfire shortly after that.
So the alert started to go offin the courthouse itself, which
alerted the dispatcher, who wasin the jail across the street,
and they hear this kind of likeautomated alarm that there's
been a fire in the courthouseand the dispatcher looks out the
window and sees that there'sflames coming out of the
(06:57):
courthouse.
And after that, I mean all ofthe other local fire departments
from the surrounding area werecalled in and so now the
resources were split and it wasincredibly chaotic.
I was there I actually happenedto be in town with some friends
that weekend because I was inbetween terms for law school.
And so my friend Racy had comeover for dinner and she called
(07:20):
me and let me know that therewas a house on fire, because
it's a small town.
So we all the word got aroundreally fast that, oh man,
there's, you know, a structurefire on Rank Street.
And then a little bit later shesent me a Snapchat of the
courthouse on fire and we allwent and sat around the square
(07:40):
with everybody else in town andwatched it burn and at that time
nobody really knew what hadhappened or why, it was on fire.
And then later on overnight Iguess is when it started to come
together that possibly NickMiller was the one who did it.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, so did he set the original house fire to kill
the people in there?
Did that come out in trial?
What was the purpose of?
Why did he start the spree?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well, there are many unknown questions about why
defendants and Nick.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Miller why?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
he did what he did, so we don't really know.
He didn't testify.
He did make a statement andthat statement has been made
public and available.
But you know, nick started thehouse on fire knowing that Jamil
, who was his relative, was inthe hospital because Nick had
been in the hospital caretakingof Jamil during the time period
(08:29):
that Jamil had been in thehospital.
Jamil's health was failing, hehad lots of health problems and
you know it wasn't a situationwhere he was going to get to
come home anytime soon.
So Nick had actually been inSan Antonio involved in the
health care of Jamil, and so heknew that Jamil and Anna were
not at home when he decided tolight the house on fire and he
(08:52):
knew that Michael was in thehouse when he did light the
house on fire.
So we don't know exactly whathis intentions were, but that's
the facts that we uncovered andMichael testified at the trial
and it was hard for Michael totalk about all of the things,
because this is a familysituation Now.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Were they all originally from here?
Was that family from?
Yes, okay, so people knewNicholas Miller.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yes, okay, so we all know each other in our small
town.
Jamil was older than meprobably six years older than me
in high school, and Nick wasmuch younger than me probably
six or eight years younger thanme, and so we all kind of know
each other, grow up together.
We're all part of the samecommunity and we all take care
(09:40):
of each other.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And nobody doesn't.
Yeah, did he set fire to thecourthouse, thinking that if
there's not a courthouse, hecan't be tried for lighting the
house on fire, or something likethat?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
My opinion is Nick had a family law dispute ongoing
from another county not evenfrom this county.
Nick had a pending burglary of ahabitation so he went into
somebody's home here in Mason.
He had a pending court casewith us and he'd been in court
even though COVID was ongoingand we still were having some
(10:15):
hearings in the courthouse andhe had been at hearings.
He was supposed to be at ahearing like the next day after
the fire, I believe, and so youknow he knew what was going on
in the courthouse because he hadbeen in the courthouse going to
court every month.
So you know he knew what wasgoing on and the family law case
was ongoing, and so you knowthere are a lot of motivations
(10:43):
maybe for what he did.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
None of it was justified, but it caused a lot
of chaos.
I guess the family law casesperhaps were not going in his
favor, I suspect.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
His family law cases I don't believe were going in
his favor and you know heappeared in court in I believe
it was Lampasas and so thosecases were ongoing and I think
you know it was just a lot ofthings going on.
But certainly Michael was avery innocent party in all of
this and he is very lucky to bealive and, with a good response
from our fire department, ourEMS and everyone else and
(11:10):
everyone else, michael is ableto tell his story and live his
life and we're very proud of him.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what else happened that night?
When the vehicle comes in.
So now he's lit the house onfire.
Now was the courthouse thesecond.
Yes, Okay, so the courthousewas second.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
So the house is on fire, then the firefighters are
notified that the courthouse ison fire, so some of them are
leaving that scene to go to theother scene.
And during the interim time thedispatcher and there's usually
one dispatcher on one deputy onat a time here the dispatcher is
made aware that you know, thereare a tremendous number of 911
(11:48):
calls coming in at this pointbecause people are reporting
that the bank is on fire,because people are reporting
that the bank is on fire, thatpeople are reporting that the
church is on fire, people arereporting the square is on fire.
So all of these calls arecoming in for one dispatcher, so
another dispatcher goes in tohelp her, and one of the calls
that came in was from Mr Rico ofRico's Cafe, and Mr Rico
(12:10):
reported that he had been robbedand so law enforcement has to
respond to that scene as well.
And then what happens?
Havana, do you want to take itup after?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
that one, okay.
So when all this is happening,do people in town know this by
now?
Are people just getting phonecalls from each other and going?
Can you believe this ishappening?
And then everybody congregatesand watches the courthouse burn
down?
The volunteer firefighters arethere, enough of them?
(12:43):
Are they calling people in tocome and help other men that can
, possibly?
Did you get a phone call tocome and help?
Okay, you know what I mean,though, but there's chaos.
There's chaos in a small town.
People are calling each other.
People are saying they'regetting robbed.
There's different phonescalling.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
It's almost like chaos.
On purpose, though, because,like you say, you wonder like
did he light the house on fireto exhaust?
Like knowing that you would bedividing the firefighters.
They wouldn't be able to fullyextinguish the flame in time for
the courthouse itself.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
It gets worse on the firefighters.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Oh, it does Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So while all of this is going on, I think people were
focused on the courthouse, so alot of this we put together the
next day, the next week and thenext month and the next year.
We had to put all of thisinformation together, so it was
an investigation that spanned alot of time and so once you know
those things are coming in.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
the next place that he went was Well, so he was
driving a Chevy Tracker thatbelonged to Jamil, and so he had
gone from the house fire to thecourthouse.
And then he was actually seen bysome other local people.
They couldn't identify NickMiller but they saw a vehicle
driving off the courthouse lawnbecause there is an access point
.
So he had driven onto thecourthouse lawn, driven that
vehicle around and we had somesecurity camera footage from the
(14:05):
New Way convenience store whichwas across kind of catty corner
from the courthouse.
So we had identified the ChevyTracker and he drove that Chevy
Tracker to the Lowe's grocerystore and actually used a gun to
shoot out the glass at thegrocery store to break in.
And then he went to where thesafe used to be because he had
actually been charged withrobbing what was then the Super
(14:29):
S, breaking in and stealingmoney out of the safe when they
didn't lock it up back in theearly 2000s.
So he had returned to a sceneof an old crime of his to try to
get some money, didn't reallyfind anything and left the
Lowe's grocery store.
And that's the point.
We think that he went to MrRico's because he was looking
fora different vehicle to drive,because the Chevy tracker
(14:50):
wasn't in very good shape and atthis point he wanted to get out
of town.
So he drove to Mr Rico's, whichis on the north side of town,
and Mr Rico was taking trash outfrom closing up his restaurant
right and Nick Miller came overto him with a gun and thought
maybe he had money or somethingin that bag.
So he took the bag and wentthrough it with his gun and Mr
(15:12):
Rico ran inside and called 911.
But he also was able toidentify what he said was a
blazer right and he was able toget.
Beige was the color right thatMr Rico said it was like a tan
tracker, so he was pretty closeon identifying the vehicle.
And then after that, becauseNick is still looking for a
vehicle to drive, he actuallydrives all the way out to Dos
(15:35):
Rios, which is, I guess, southof town.
Right, I'm not very good withcardinal directions, but he goes
out to Dos Rios, which is likean RV park, because he had done
work with Jamil out there,because Jamil was a plumber and
he knew that there was a worktruck out there that he had used
before and thought that thekeys might be out there.
Because Jamil was a plumber andhe knew that there was a work
truck out there that he had usedbefore and thought that the
keys might be out there.
So he went out and talked to awoman named Jessica Avant, whose
(15:57):
mother is a manager out there,to see if he could get the keys
to that truck, and by that timehe had gotten a pretty bad flat
on the tracker.
Jessica didn't have access tothe keys and so he left and it
just kind of kept going fromthere was he on drugs?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
do y'all know?
Um, we don't know one way oranother I mean that sounds like
a crack, so he drives back totown from dos rios goes the
kingdom automotive where hesteals a truck yeah, okay, so
steals a truck from the kingdomautomotive and that truck ends
up at the volunteer firedepartment at Pawnee talk.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
And based on our forensic tracking of all of this
, we also know that after hewent to kingdom automotive,
stole a truck, he probably wentall the way to Brady, texas,
came back to Pawnee talk and hewent to the fire department at
Pawnee Talk and guess where allthe firefighters were?
They were at the courthousefighting the courthouse fire.
(16:56):
So they left their vehicles,got up in the middle of the
night this is like probably 2 amor so and are fighting the fire
and he goes to the firedepartment and he takes one
truck and gives it a little ride.
Doesn't like that one, so hegoes and gets in another truck.
And so, havana, you want totell them about, randy.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Holloway's truck.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
So Randy Holloway drove a big souped-up Ford,
dually Okay, and all thesefirefighters.
So Pawnee Talk is kind of likea small little community on the
I guess it's what Llano Countyand San Sabat like that
direction in Mason, and so thereis a little volunteer fire
department out there and all thefirefighters were obviously in
(17:41):
town and they left their trucksthere.
And they commonly left theirtrucks there at that time I
don't think it happens as muchanymore but they left their
trucks out there with the keysin them so that if someone
needed to move their truck thatwas at the station they could
move their truck.
So he got access to thosevehicles and a lot of those
folks I mean, we're countrypeople out here, so everybody
(18:02):
has guns in their trucks, right?
So he gathered up guns frommultiple vehicles into Randy
Holloway's Ford Dually and thentook that to his next
destination, which was HorseshoeBay.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Really Mm-hmm.
Chris has been wanting to takeme there.
I've never been to HorseshoeBay, but Chris has.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I've spent a lot of time in Horseshoe Bay in the
past.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I've heard good things about the spas, so I
think I'm going to go.
Okay, so how long was thiscrime spree?
Did y'all determine how longthis actually took him to do all
of this?
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Yes, the house fire started after 9 o'clock and then
the courthouse was burned downshortly.
Then the courthouse was burneddown shortly.
It was around 10 o'clock atnight, I guess, when all this
stuff kicked off, and by thetime it ended it was the middle
of the day the next day, uh wasthe end of the criminal episode.
Okay keep going.
Yeah, so he drove frompontytalk to horseshoe bay, um,
(18:54):
and then he went on to blancowhere his uncle beverly lived,
who was Jamil's brother.
Uncle Beverly is a very niceman.
He's married to a lady namedBetty Fudge and he gets to, I
guess, uncle Beverly's housearound 6 o'clock in the morning
because Uncle Bev was getting upto go to work right.
(19:17):
And Nick had lived there withthem off and on over the years
and by this time the word hadgone out that the that Jamil's
house had burned, the courthousehad burned, everything was all
over Facebook, everybody hadbeen talking about it.
And so Bev knew that thecourthouse and the house had
burned and asked Nick if he hadset the fires, because he said
Nick was kind of in a state whenhe talked to him and his
(19:39):
testimony at trial was that Nicktold him that he set the fires
that night.
And so Uncle Bev actuallyreports it to law enforcement
because he tried to get Nick toturn himself in and he didn't
want to at this point.
So he took off and Uncle Bevcalled law enforcement to report
what had happened, figuringthat somebody would probably be
looking for Nick at this point.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Now does it keep going.
It keeps going.
Okay, Keep going From.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Blanco, Nick goes to um, towards Georgetown, and we
were able to forensically trackthat as well.
And he actually stoppedprobably in Round Rock and
brought some, bought some drugsin Round Rock and kept going to
Georgetown and by then there's abellow out.
Be on the lookout for hisvehicle, Not his vehicle, Randy
(20:24):
Holloway's truck.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Okay, oh, he still has that, so he drove that
through.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
He's in a giant F-350 , probably dually big truck, so
police officer gets behind himso discreet.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I was going to say that's rather easy to spot.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Such a discreet vehicle Go on.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Police officer gets behind him in Georgetown.
Nick sees that he's behind him,he takes off and all of this is
on video.
And so he takes off inGeorgetown, gets on the
interstate and heads to Waco.
So we have a pursuit with many,many vehicles on the roadway.
(21:00):
Many, many law enforcement lotsof black and whites from the
Texas Department of PublicSafety, helicopters, news crews
and traffic on the interstateuntil basically and that's when
Nick put it on Facebook Live.
So there's a Facebook Livevideo of him doing all of this.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
He went live during all of this.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Facebook Live.
I did not know that so we havein-car camera footage, we have
body cam footage, we have lawenforcement footage, and so we
actually, at the trial, showedsome of Nick's, we showed all of
his Facebook Live and we showedsome of the officers that were
pursuing him their advantage.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You could see them.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, so we could see the whole thing.
Oh my gosh.
Eventually, after he has beenspiked the vehicle has been
spiked by law enforcement tryingto get him to not kill somebody
else on interstate, or them orhimself.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
How long did the pursuit last?
I mean, was it a high-speedpursuit?
It was 60 miles 60 miles Wow.
My God yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
He was going over.
Sorry, yeah.
So the pursuit went on for 60miles because the Georgetown PD
officer got behind him andpursued him up until the rest of
the law enforcement took over,which was mostly Texas
Department of Public Safety, andhe was going at speeds over 90
miles an hour in that.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
really big truck.
That's a long time, I mean, arepursuits usually that long?
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Well, there wasn't a way to stop this truck, so they
had spiked him right, so theylay out spike strips to try to
disable the vehicle.
But the truck has six tires, sohe would get one tire, would
bust, but he just kept going onit and eventually, by the time
he was actually stopped, it'sbecause, I guess, two of the
(22:43):
wheels on the back back he hadridden it all the way down to
the axle, pretty much um.
So that's ultimately why hestopped, because the vehicle was
finally disabled, but it tookmultiple attempts for them to
get him to that point was thison tv?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
was it being?
Was like?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
facebook live right, even better.
Well, besides facebook, that'shis facebook live.
There were some, was it beingit?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
was on Facebook Live, brandon, even better.
Well, besides Facebook, that'shis Facebook Live.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
There were some news crews from Austin that covered
it.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
That's what I was wondering, like Georgetown and
all that over there.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Okay, so, yeah, it stopped traffic on the
interstate.
They shut down the interstatefor him to go through just to
try to keep people off theroadway.
And you know, on the videopeople don't pull over, they're
in the pursuit, not knowing thatthey need to get out of the way
.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So you know it was a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
And at the end, because the vehicle was in such
bad shape and Randy Holloway'sface when he saw the pictures
during the trial.
You know that was not good.
He never recovered all that.
He was out because insurancedidn't pay what was owed on the
truck.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
He didn't have the gap insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
His truck was his manner of supporting his
business, which was aconstruction kind of business.
So he lost a lot.
So this thing affected a lot oflives.
Nick on his Facebook Live putshis hands a lot of lives, um.
Nick on his Facebook live putshis hands up out of the moonroof
of the truck and, you know,eventually does um allow himself
(24:11):
to be taken into custody.
And in the truck were guns andHavana.
How many guns were there?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Uh, he had seven guns in the vehicle and at least one
of them was an AR that wasloaded with the safety off on
the console, so you can readinto that what you will, but
these weapons belonged to theowner of the vehicle.
Some of them were Randy's guns.
Some of them were otherfirefighters' guns.
Some of them we couldn't evenidentify who one of the guns
(24:40):
belonged to because we think itperson.
It was a local person that hehad taken that gun out of his
truck before he even left, butdid he ever shoot one of them.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
No, Hmm, interesting right, well, he did shoot out
the glass at the Lowe's.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
How did he have the knowledge, though, of knowing
about the keys being left in thetruck, like all the people's
cars at the fire station, Iguess.
Is that like maybe?
A common knowledge in the area,because that's just like of all
the luck to pull up there.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Well, people in our small towns are very trusting.
They know that whenfirefighters roll out if
somebody needs to get in thetruck to move the truck because
they need a water truck to bemoved, you know, that's kind of
common practice and I'm surethat they may have rethought all
of that after this criminalepisode.
But you know, that's the thingabout.
(25:31):
Everybody was focused, like Isaid, on the courthouse, but
there was a whole lot of othermoving parts to this case.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, my gosh, talk about all the people affected,
like you said, with just everysingle one of these crimes and
things that he did.
So let's talk about the trial.
So he's arrested, he puts hishands out of the roof and says,
okay, he's taken into custody.
Question about the FacebookLives Was it more of like an
entertainment?
He wanted people to know he wasdoing this.
He just was very open andnondiscreet about what he was
(26:00):
actually doing.
Was it sort of a manifesto?
Was he saying things?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I would say it was definitely a manifesto, okay,
and manifesto is an interestingword that you use, because we're
also able to get a manifestooff of his text messages.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Oh, in his manifesto.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
there was intent that was formed prior to all of the
courthouse arson and any actstowards Michael, so that
manifesto was recovered andintroduced in evidence at his
trial.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Good, which should be .
So, yeah, okay, let's talkabout the trial.
So he's arrested, goes to trial.
You're trying this case.
How long did it take to pieceall of this together, once you
had video and evidence and howmany?
So it was here, right, thetrial took place here.
(26:50):
Did they move it out of countywhen?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
did it go?
The trial took place in BradyMcCullough County, which is a
neighboring county.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
We drove by it.
There's one letter missing formy name and I took a picture and
I said almost Brandy, but notquite Right.
Right, but okay.
So we drove past Brady, it tookplace in our neighboring
community in Brady.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
You know there are standards for when.
When you move venue in a caseand because the whole community
was affected, it would be reallyhard to get a jury.
You're in Mason, so we wereable to get a jury picked in
Brady, tried the case in Bradythe thing to know about.
You know it took a while to getto the trial because there was
a lot of investigation, a lot ofresources expended to
(27:29):
corroborate what we piecedtogether as part of the
investigation.
And that required our sheriff,who had only been in office for
a little over a month he tookoffice in January 2021, and he
did a fantastic job of stayingon it and making sure that the
things that we asked for getfollowed up on and doing those
(27:49):
things.
But the Texas Rangers were alsoinvolved doing those things.
But the Texas Rangers were alsoinvolved and, most importantly,
the fire marshal's office washeavily involved in collecting
evidence at both locations ofthe arsons and the arson of the
courthouse.
There was all kinds of samplestaking, and so you know that
evidence had to be sent to labs.
We hired a forensic expert to,you know, track the cell phone
(28:14):
data and to download the cellphone data.
So there was a tremendousamount of evidence in this case
that was introduced.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
I can't remember how many exhibits I think testimony
went on for a little over fourdays and we entered over 200
items into evidence.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Wow, so anybody?
So he did not take the stand.
Did anybody take the stand inhis defense?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
No, the defense didn't have a lot of evidence to
present.
They just relied on us to proveour case beyond a reasonable
doubt.
And in any arson case there'snot an easy such.
There's never such an easything in an arson case, no
matter what people want tobelieve.
You know the thing that Nickdid confess to a Texas Ranger to
setting the house on fire intown.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
And, to his defense attorney's surprise and our
surprise, at the beginning ofthe trial.
You know we do what's called anarraignment at the beginning of
the trial, where we, the state,stands up.
So I stood up and I was readingthe indictments and the
defendant enters a plea to eachone of those cases and, much to
everyone's surprise, at thatpoint, when I read the first
(29:23):
indictment for the arson of thehouse, he pled guilty.
He pled guilty to all of thecharges that we had at trial,
except for the arson of thecourthouse, charges that we had
at trial, except for the arsonof the courthouse.
So we only had a couple of thevehicles that were stolen and,
you know, charged in theunlawful possession of firearm
by felon, because he was aconvicted felon and we could
clearly see him on thesurveillance footage from the
(29:45):
grocery store.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So he was a convicted felon.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yes, he was.
He, as Havana mentioned before,he had gone into the lowes
grocery store it wasn't lowes atthe time, I don't think it was
lowes super s at the time.
So he had um, when he was much,you know, younger, he had
broken into that store, went inthe store and um took the money
out of the safe that was in thestore.
(30:09):
So kind of ironic that he wentand tried it again tried it
again maybe he'd think too.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
I mean, it's not a federal courthouse, but but the
burning down of that buildingwould have been federal charges
or something, and maybe tryingto avoid the federal charges
it's whatever time you have anylick of that time yeah I think
in his mind, because he can heconfessed to the ranger at the
interview following arrest, tothe house arson and then, of
course, at trial he pled guiltyto everything except for the
(30:38):
courthouse, I think in his mind,even though the arson of the
habitation and the arson of thecourthouse from the law's
perspective are the same leveland degree, subject to the same
punishment range.
But in his mind the courthousewas the big deal.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Because at that time was it a designated historical
landmark.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I mean it would have been so under the statute.
It was a place of gathering.
And so we put on evidence aboutall the gatherings that take
place in a courthouse, and sothat's one of the things we
asked a couple of ourlegislators to clearly designate
that when you burn down acourthouse, it's going to be a
first-degree felony slay tours.
To clearly designate that whenyou burn down a courthouse, it's
going to be a first degreefelony, because that you know,
(31:16):
that is something that I'm notaware of any other courthouse
being burned in an arson likethis in modern history, right
that's what you know.
That's something that I thinknot a lot of folks think about,
but we certainly did when wewere preparing this case for
trial, and even though you knowhe pled guilty during the trial,
we still had to put on all thecircumstances and all the
evidence that we had for all ofthe other cases, and so it took
(31:40):
a bit, and it took a team ofattorneys, a team of
investigators, a team of youknow all of the people that got
us there, and so it, you know,came together and the jury
deliberated for quite a while inthe case they did Through all
of the evidence oh yeah, thereis a lot, you know came together
and the jury deliberated forquite a while.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
in the case, they did .
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Through all of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh yeah, there is a lot, I guess, to look through.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
And some of our jurors, you know, have stayed in
touch with us and participateand you know, when we talk about
what happened at the courthousearson we greatly appreciate all
of their time, because that's alot of time out of somebody's
life to come listen to that typeof testimony and consider all
of that evidence.
And I think that one of ourjurors may end up being an
(32:19):
intern in our office, so sheswitched her major.
So you know of all the, of allthe horrible things, the
courthouse is, you know, rebuilt.
It's beautiful and the justicesystem is still intact, despite
somebody trying to burn down thecourthouse and burning it down.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
So what did he?
How many years did he get?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So during the middle of the you know, after the trial
was over, while the jury wasdeliberating, there was a
discussion had and he wanted tochange his election and so he
asked for the judge to sentencehim.
So, instead of the jurysentencing, he asked for the
judge to sentence him.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I agreed to do that, and so the judge sentenced him
to 75 years.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Wow, is that a common thing to ask the judge to
sentence you instead of a jury?
Can somebody request that atany time?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
It's the default is goes to the judge.
So somebody can.
In Texas, we're one of the onlystates where somebody can elect
whether they go to the judge orthe jury for punishment.
Okay, and the default is to thejudge.
And he wanted to go to thejudge and you know, judges
consider different things thanjuries.
And it takes a lot of time, forit would have taken us another
(33:29):
two to three days at least toput on all of the evidence of
all of the things that, nick,you know should be held
responsible for and consideredin punishment.
So when a judge does it, there'sa pre-sentence investigation
done which summarizes manythings, so that we don't have to
be having a jury sit there andlisten to all of the information
(33:51):
again and I know that jurywould have loved to have done it
, but I know that they were alsoexhausted and we talked to them
about that.
So the defendant picked and thejudge sentenced him to 75 years
.
It was a visiting judge, okay,so it was a.
It was a sentence that we feltlike justice was served.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
He had restitution to the guy for the truck as well
correct, although he may neversee that money.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, I don't think Randy Holloway will ever see
that money, but he did, and ofall the people, randy Holloway
was out quite a bit of money forthat.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
So I had an important question on my head after, when
Chris said that oh, I know whenis he serving his time.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
So all inmates go to Huntsville first where he's
classified and then I don't knowwhere he is after that.
I'm going to check and keeptrack.
But you can get on the TexasDepartment of Criminal Justice
Institutional Division websiteand you can track an inmate.
Yeah, I'll be doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Pit pal.
No, not pit pal.
I'm always curious becausepeople get moved all over and
sent different places.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
They do so.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I'm kind of fascinated with.
Well, because I just did aserial killer, I just
interviewed Darlie Root, yoursister last month, live and so,
yeah, she's one of seven ondeath row, but I just so.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, they all, like you said, they go to Huntsville
and then, depending on theirsentencing, male, female,
they're moved in differentplaces, so they have
classification and you know theysend them where they need to be
, in my opinion, and sometimesthey move them around, sometimes
they don't.
I guess it depends on how theyact and what's going on with
them.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, anything else you want to add about this case?
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know it was.
Of all the cases.
You know I've been a DA now forgosh how long have I been the
DA?
For a while now, but I've beena prosecutor for 25 years, and
this is one of the mostcomplicated cases that I think
any prosecutor's office couldever have, just because of the
volume of information and all ofthe moving parts that had to be
(35:52):
put together, and so I'm veryproud that we were able to get
the case to trial and get theresult that we did, and we
couldn't have done it withoutall the support of our community
.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, so it was amazing.
Well, thank you for being hereand coming today and you thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Thank you for what you do and all of these counties
and and um, it's people likeyou that the court system and
the justice system, um to us isfair, because you know, um, we,
sometimes we cover these casesand I'm sure you've seen these
cases and people don't belong inprison if they're innocent.
So, um, it takes a lot of duediligence and it takes a lot of
(36:33):
research, and it takes a lot ofresearch and it takes a lot of
resources and time toinvestigate these things.
So, thank you for everythingyou both do.
Thank you for being here.
Thanks, guys.
Give them a round of applause,please.
Thank you.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!