Delia D'Ambra

Henry admitted to the sheriff's office that he was responsible for JD's death, but he claimed it wasn't what it looked like.

His version of the story was that when JD had discovered him and his friends illegally duck hunting, he'd gotten frightened, and in the group's haste to flee, he'd tripped and fallen in the marsh and his shotgun had gone off accidentally.

Henry signed a confession asserting to this sequence of events and named one of his companions as 18-year-old Robert Harder.

There were at least five other people in the hunting group with Robert and Henry during the incident, but only two were named in the coverage I could find.

Those individuals were Bill Stanley II and his son, Bill Stanley III, who went by the nickname Poncho.

At the defendant's first appearance in court the day after the shooting, Henry was held on a $20,000 bond for the charge of murder, and Robert, who was deemed a material witness in the case, was held under $15,000 bond.

He was charged with game law violations of hunting without a license, shooting after hours, and using unplugged guns.

It seems that the two other people from Mauriceville were also kept in custody and faced charges for game law violations as well.

Now, the news of what had happened made many people who were part of the outdoors community in southeast Texas or involved in hunting culture in the region at all really angry.

J.D.

was far from the first gay morden to be attacked violently in the Lone Star State.

For example, in 1951, a state wildlife biologist named Gus Engling, who was investigating illegal duck poachers, was murdered and hidden in a game preserve in Anderson County, Texas.

I covered his case in depth in a previous episode of Park Predators titled The Biologist.

But there was an even more recent case that had gotten the press's attention.

You see, eight days before JD's murder, just a few hours southwest from where he was slain, four hunters illegally poaching deer at night with a spotlight had shot at two game wardens.

One of those wardens was injured in the eye but survived, and the offenders were quickly arrested and charged with assault with intent to murder.

So to say attacks on game wardens were becoming more and more frequent is kind of an understatement.

Henry's claim that what had happened to JD had been the result of an accident was a theory some people were split on.

The author of a piece in the Victoria Advocate noted that it felt like a bit of a convenient claim for Henry to make.

At a minimum, the writer explained that after all was said and done, Henry should probably never be allowed to hunt or use a firearm again.