How many witnesses were in Violet Andrews Park near midnight Friday? Did anyone see the killer lead the two girls into the deep grass, underneath a wooden site-seeing deck, with a beautiful view of the gulf. A nearby resident hears two loud bangs, thinking they were firecrackers.
Shell casings left in the grass. High caliber handgun used. Mollie Judith Olgin dead from a point blank shot to the head. Mary Kristene Chapa still alive from a shot to the head.
Okay, so maybe more than one witness heard the loud gunshots. And perhaps at least one saw a dark vehicle flee the scene, an ocean park in Portland, Texas. One oddity: Mollie and Mary are not found until 9:00 AM Saturday, by a visitor to the park.
I’m not blaming the eyewitnesses present at the park in the middle of the night, but rather sensing they may have been so shocked by the loud bangs, so as to believe they heard firecrackers, and thus were in denial of the stark reality of what had just occurred. I probably would have done the same thing; you go on your merry way guessing this was some kind of juvenile prank.
Okay, but still an uneasiness stays inside you. What did you actually hear? One can only imagine, the witnesses greatest fears come true when learning of the shooting the next day, Saturday, June 23rd. I’m from Texas, but I had to look at a map of Portland to see where it is located.
It has a population of just over 15,000 people and is just down the road from Corpus Christi. The investigation is being conducted by Portland Police Chief Randy Wright, with some help from CCPD, the Texas Rangers, and the U.S. Marshal’s office.
Randy Wright is suspicious this was a planned killing. It sounds to me like it was an execution-like shooting of the two girls. A very large-caliber handgun was employed by whoever did it. Oh, I forgot to mention, Mollie Judith Olgin (19 of Ingleside) and Mary Kristene Chapa (18 of Sinton) were lesbian lovers.
There are denials in the news that this was a hate crime, but I’m obstinately clinging to this rumor as spot on correct! Prove me wrong, but it has to be, I blindly opine.
Because of the horrific nature of this crime, and possibly since it involves gays (and for various other reasons), the story is going viral on the internet, with only 5 days behind us since its occurrence. Caller.com out of Corpus Christi broke the story on the 23rd, so please be sure to read their initial coverage.
MSNBC, CNN, The LA Times, and the Houston Chronicle are all firing off news reports; all sense the importance of what just happened in a small Texas coastal town. The question of whether this is a ‘Hate Crime’ couldn’t be anymore crucial.
Gay publications such as Dallas Voice are publishing stories as well. Friends of Mollie Olgin have told the press that Mollie didn’t have any known enemies. She worked at a Taco Bell and was a good student in high school and was currently attending Texas A & M CC. A truism: these were very nice girls who were merely minding their own business.
Who would want to hurt them? No homicides in Portland in several years. We hear the girls were going to a movie, and were at Violet Andrews Park wasting a bit of time. But what movie would start in the middle of the night? This seems a little strange to me, but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it.
As Mary Chapa starts to recover from her wound, she will probably be able to shed more light on who did this and why they did it. I suspect the perpetrator didn’t figure on one of the girls surviving the gunshots. We’ll get some answers soon, I sense. Is the killer a member of the local community of Portland? Or is he an outsider performing a mission on behalf of some dissonant group?
Friends reel from shooting of teen lesbian couple in Texas – U.S. News
