1982-10-15

Appellant retired as a captain of detectives with the Amarillo Police Department after twenty years of service. Prior to his retirement he had started a security business which employed certain family members, including his wife of 36 years. After retirement, the business was sold, but his wife continued to work in the office. On two occasions during her lunch period, appellant had seen his wife in her car apparently being followed by a man in a red pickup truck. The driver of the truck was Erle Winston Mathis, a regular coffee drinker at a cafe where appellant's wife had worked as a waitress about twenty years earlier.

His suspicions aroused, appellant determined to ascertain the activities of his wife. He advised his family that he was going on a trip to Houston, but rented a car and spent the night in a motel in Amarillo. The next day he waited until his wife left her office at noon. Appellant followed his wife to a parking lot in a medical center where she parked next to the red pickup. Appellant's wife got out of her car, and got in the pickup. Mathis, the driver of the pickup, kissed her and they drove off together.

Appellant then followed the pickup to a rather isolated area outside of town. The pickup stopped at a locked gate to a pasture; Mathis unlocked and opened the gate, appellant's wife drove the pickup through the gate, Mathis then shut and locked the gate and drove the pickup to a place where it could not be seen from the road.

Appellant drove down the road a short distance, but came back, parked his car, crawled through the pasture fence and approached the pickup. He observed his wife and Mathis, both nude, engaging in sexual intercourse in the cab of the pickup. Appellant returned to his car, got a .38 caliber pistol out of the glove compartment and checked to see if it was loaded. Appellant then drove to the medical center where his wife's car was parked, and then to the vicinity of his wife's office. After sitting in his parked car for a while, he started driving toward the office and saw his wife followed by the pickup. Appellant made a U turn and started trying to catch them. The pickup stopped in a lane of traffic; appellant stopped alongside the pickup, got out of his car and approached the pickup, the .38 pistol in hand. Mathis screamed something to the effect that a mistake had been made. Appellant responded "You did make a mistake, you sorry son-of-a-bitch", and then started pulling the trigger of the .38 pistol. An autopsy revealed that Mathis died as a result of five gunshot wounds.