HISD teacher shows fifth graders horror film in class

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Fifth grade students at an HISD school got a break from class to watch a movie, but what they saw has at least one mother angry and her son scared.

Houston ISD says the teacher made a mistake. The movie was shown this week at Shearn Elementary on Houston's south side.

'Insidious' looks like a freaky movie, even for adults. Entertainment Weekly calls it a haunted-house movie that has some of the "most shivery and indelible images in any horror film in decades."

Rated PG-13, parents are "strongly cautioned" against their children watching it.

"I couldn't believe what he was telling me. From school -- he's in fifth grade," parent Mary Baker said.

So you can imagine Baker's horror when her 10-year-old son, Kyle, came home, saying he watched it at school.

"I think it was a very poor choice for a teacher that was educated. He knows better, and it affected my son horribly," Baker said.

Baker says a teacher at the school let her son's class -- a group of 10- and 11-year-olds -- choose between a funny and scary movie, and 'Insidious' was one of their options.

"He was physically sick," said Baker. "He was throwing up last night until almost midnight. Then got in my bed and ended up sleeping with me the rest of the night."

A spokesperson for HISD confirms the teacher showed the PG-13 movie in class without approval. They added that their policy is that "any film shown in class must be approved by the principal. As a result, the teacher will be reprimanded and an apology letter will be sent home to parents."

Other Shearn parents agree.

"Do you let your student watch horror films?" we asked parent Guadalupe Gil.

"No I don't," she said.

"So I wouldn't feel comfortable," parent Heather Mouton said.

The teacher made a mistake. Baker just hopes now he's learned his lesson.

"Kids are affected, they're affected. It affects them. The little things count - even movies," Baker said.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »

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Video shows deputies running errands on your dime

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A 13 Undercover surveillance team has some pictures you'll want to see. After Watergate, it was all about the president's men. Now, it's all about the constable's men and what they did for the boss.

The FBI says the constable used some of his deputies as personal errand boys when they should have been protecting you. What do you think? Does a constable really need a chauffeur?

The last time you saw Lt. Ken Wiener, he was in handcuffs. The guy next to him, he's FBI. But before Wiener found out he was facing decades in prison, he got the chance to meet us.

"Got a lot of questions for you," we told Wiener.

"Well, I don't know if I've got a lot of answers for you," he replied.

He's been constable Abercia's right-hand man for years, and he's not cheap; you pay him $72,000 a year.

"What about all the errands and stuff you had him do for you and your family?" we asked Abercia.

"No, no, y'all are wrong," Abercia said.

"I've got it on video," we replied.

"Well, you may have it on video, but it wasn't me giving him information to do stuff," Abercia said.

But we've got the video. It sure looks like you were paying Ken Wiener an awful lot of money to be an errand boy for the Abercia family.

"You also chauffeur around the constable and his family?" we asked Wiener.

"Not his family, no," he replied.

But here's Wiener picking up the Abercia clan in the constable's county car. He'll drive them to meet the constable for lunch at the Tejas Grill downtown, and he doesn't even get to eat with them.

We know the Abercia family has their own car. It's a Lincoln, because we followed Ken Wiener when he picked up the family car and drove it across town to a vehicle inspection place in Garden Oaks.

"No, never happened," Wiener said.

"You never took his wife's car in for any service?" we asked.

"Never."

"At any station?"

"No Wayne, I didn't. That's all I can say," Wiener said.

The constable announced his retirement days before the FBI put him in chains. See the walker he used to charge at cameramen? Well the constable has a broken foot and he claimed that's why we saw the lieutenant driving him around.

"When I got sick, yeah he did take me places," Abercia said.

"Just because you were sick?" we asked.

"That's right," he said.

Wiener gave us that broken foot story, too. Maybe they didn't realize we've been doing surveillance since last July. You can see the constable walking just fine when Ken picked him and the misses up. Of course, the constable gets to sit in the back.

"We need a top-to-bottom, probably, investigation of everything that's been going on in our office," Harris County Pct. 1 Chief Deputy J.C. Mosier said.

Lt. Wiener has one other problem. During the work day, we watched him leave his county job to be a paid courier for a steel company -- traveling from the south side, then to the north side, then to the bank.

"He takes his own time to do those things, and I don't have anything to do with it. I don't approve extra jobs -- J.C. Mosier does," Abercia said.

"Who approved that?" we asked Wiener.

"Everybody, it's just an extra job," he replied.

"No, who approved the extra job?" we pressed.

"I guess J.C. Mosier had something to do with it. He knows about it," he replied.

"I knew nothing about SSS Steel and what they were doing, what it was. Never knew it was an extra job," Mosier told us.

Wiener says the courier job is done on his lunch hour and after work, but time sheets and our hidden camera video don't help him.

"Well then he's got a problem," Abercia said.

Chief Butler predicted the constable would say just that, and thanks to our hidden camera, you can hear it for yourself.

"Jack would throw Wiener to the wolves?" a deputy can be heard asking Butler on hidden camera.

"Yes," Butler replies.

"And just say he didn't know nothing about it?" the deputy asks.

"He didn't know nothing about it," Butler says, confirming the deputy's statement.

"Knowing (expletive) well he knows?" the deputy asks.

"Yep," Butler says on hidden camera.

Wiener had one last chauffeur job last week. He brought the constable's wife over to FBI headquarters after Abercia was arrested. Wiener had no clue then he was about to get arrested too.

Wiener is now facing federal charges, and Precinct One tells us he's just been fired. He may not be the last casualty of this scandal still unfolding.

On Wednesday, hidden video of the guys some people at Precinct One like to call the constable's cabana boys.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more 13 Undercover »

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New video shows another alleged package theft

  HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We showed you video of a man in a white car stealing a package right off the front porch of a home in West University Place back on December 6.

Yesterday, we received another video. This one showed a man in a maroon car taking boxes delivered to a home in the Uptown Houston area. While the men in both tapes have a similar appearance, they are driving different cars.

Anyone with information about the thefts should call police.

(Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Local »

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Autopsy shows man shot before dismembered

  HOUSTON -- A man whose headless body was found outside a vacant Houston house was fatally shot in the head before his body was dismembered, a medical examiner's office said Tuesday.

Police discovered the head and an arm of Marlon Thomas, 35, Sunday evening stuffed into a trash bag under a house. A chain saw was next to the bag and the rest of his remains were buried in a debris pile in the yard next door. Police arrested Thomas' best friend, Noe Gerardo Morin, 32, and charged him Monday with murder. Court records showed he was scheduled for a court appearance Wednesday but did not list an attorney. Morin was jailed without bond. Roxanne Mena, spokeswoman for the Harris County medical examiner, said an autopsy determined Thomas' death was a homicide and the gunshot wound killed him. In a probable cause affidavit filed with the Harris County district attorney's office, the physician who performed the autopsy said the wound was in the back of Thomas' head and it appeared he was shot before he was beheaded. Neighbors reported hearing gunshots Saturday but said the sound wasn't uncommon in Houston's Fifth Ward. They did not recall the sound of a chain saw and documents in the case do not indicate whether the chain saw was used to dismember Thomas. Neighbors also described Thomas and Morin as best friends for years and speculated a dispute over money or theft of property might have led to the slaying, a suggestion supported in the affidavit filed by investigators. According to the document, a neighbor told police Morin came to him Sunday morning and asked him to fix his chain saw. When the neighbor returned the repaired tool, Morin asked the neighbor if he could trust him, then took him to the property next door and told him to look through a hole in the fence. The neighbor "looked through the hole and saw the body of a headless black male and (Morin) said that the body was (Thomas') and that is what (Morin) does when people steal from him," the affidavit said. An officer identified in the affidavit as B. Williams said he was sent to the scene Sunday evening to respond to a "found body call" and saw the body "was covered in debris and was missing its head and one arm." After obtaining a search warrant, he and other officers spotted a trash bag sticking out from under the house. As another officer was pulling the bag from underneath the house, "a finger poked through the bag from the inside," Williams said. The officer opened the bag, and police saw the head and arm and some bloody clothing, he said. Another officer found the chain saw, also under the house. Court records show Morin with an extensive criminal record since at least 1998 with charges that included auto theft, aggravated assault, marijuana possession and felony weapon possession. (Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Mixed emotions after day care owner shows remorse

 HOUSTON (KTRK) -- In an Eyewitness News exclusive jailhouse interview, the day care operator accused in the tragic deaths of four children spoke out for the first time.

We went around the world searching for Jessica Tata until she finally came out of hiding in Nigeria. Now we're hearing for the first time from her, from inside the Harris County Jail. In our exclusive interview, Tata said she felt remorseful. But on Thursday, our legal analyst and some neighbors wonder where that remorse comes from. Teddy bears still line the outside of the house where Tata once ran a home day care. It's a makeshift memorial to the four children who died and a neighborhood that will never been the same. "We have to look at it every day, which is unfortunate. The memorial is still there," said neighbor Jeff DeShano. He is reminded of the tragedy that changed so many lives. We showed DeShano our exclusive jailhouse interview with Tata where she said, "Sorry is not enough. You can only say sorry so many times." DeShano has some sympathy. "She didn't mean it for this to happen, I'm sure," he said. Our KTRK legal consultant sees it as a ploy. "This is actually a public relations stunt on her part. She's trying to endure herself to potential jurors. She's not talking about the facts of the case," said Joel Androphy. Indeed, Tata did not address the details on the case, instead saying, "I'm doing well. I pray a lot." Androphy says with Tata facing multiple charges and the possibility of spending the rest of her life behind bars, it's hard to discern the true motive behind her statements. "She's trying to say, 'I'm not a monster. I made a terrible mistake. I can't explain the mistake I made, but I am asking for your forgiveness,'" Androphy said. Because of what happened, both the state and the city of Houston are trying to make it tougher to get an at-home day care operating license. On our Facebook page, we asked you what would you ask Jessica Tata if you had the chance? You can join the conversation anytime on the ABC13 KTRK Eyewitness News Facebook page. (Copyright ©2011 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.) 

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