T. Cullen Davis

Thomas Cullen Davis (born September 22, 1933, Fort Worth, Texas) is an American oil heir and member of a prominent Fort Worth, Texas oil family. Davis is best known for standing trial, and being acquitted, twice in the 1970s, first for the murders of two people at the home of his estranged wife Priscilla on August 2, 1976 and the second two years later for conspiring to murder the judge in his divorce proceedings against Priscilla. At the time of his first trial, Davis was the wealthiest man to have stood trial for murder in the United States. The prosecution alleged in his murder trial that he forced his 12-year-old step-daughter Andrea Wilborn into the basement of Priscilla's home, making her kneel before shooting her dead, and also shot Priscilla's live in boyfriend Stan Farr, a former basketball star at nearby Texas Christian University. A Texas jury found him not guilty of the murders. The girl was the daughter of his second wife, whom he was in the process of divorcing.

Thomas Cullen Davis was born on September 22, 1933, in Fort Worth, Texas. His wealth, which at the time of the trial was estimated at over a $100 million ($420 million in 2016 dollars), was inherited from his father who founded KenDavis Industries International, Inc. Davis had a reputation in Fort Worth society circles for displays of bad temper and general "creepiness", according to female associates. Davis' second marriage was to Priscilla Lee Childers. They were married on August 29, 1968, only hours after the death of his father. It was her third marriage, and she had one daughter from her second marriage, Andrea Wilborn.

Davis and Childers separated in 1974 and both began dating other people openly. On August 2, 1976, shortly after a judge had granted a considerable increase in the support Davis had to pay Childers, an intruder entered her home and killed her 12-year-old daughter Andrea Wilborn, who had just returned home from a Bible study. When Childers and her boyfriend, Stan Farr, came back to the house unaware, both were shot and wounded, Farr fatally. Childers staggered from the house being pursued by the killer as two family friends drove up; one, Gus Gavrel, Jr. was shot by the killer and left paralyzed for life. The body of Wilborn, who had apparently been shot execution style, was found in the basement.

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