called Griffin the previous night, between 9:30 and
10:30, and asked what she was doing.
“Well, I’m sitting here talking to Edward,” Griffin
had said. Edward who? “Ms. Dews’s grandson.”
Now, sitting at the kitchen table, Ed heard a knock
on the door. He opened it to find three deputies, led by
Detective Dale Hukill, who said they had some more
questions for Ed. Would he mind coming down to the
sheriff ’s office? Ed said he would go, but first he wanted
to talk to his mother, Margie Jackson, who lived nearby
and had just phoned to say she was headed over. Margie
was a boisterous woman; addicted to cocaine, she had
plenty of experience with local authorities. When she
arrived, she insisted on accompanying her son.
They arrived at the sheriff ’s office in Tyler around
11 p.m. Ed had been questioned by law enforcement
before; indeed, he had spent time behind bars. He was
by nature a calm person, and that evening he’d also
had a few beers. Now he told the deputies he didn’t
think he needed a lawyer, even after Hukill told him
what Cubia had said. Ed denied being in Griffin’s
trailer that night.
The deputies asked Ed to take off his shirt, and they
checked him for scratches or blood; they checked his
fingernails too, then asked him to take off his shoes.
They found no blood, but when Hukill examined the
sole of the left shoe, he noticed a trace of something
stuck in its tread; he smelled it, then scraped it off and
put it in a baggie. He told Ed he was doing this because
deputies had found what they thought was feces in
Griffin’s trailer, including a clump in the kitchen that
appeared to have been stepped in. They believed she
had probably been sexually assaulted or strangled,
either of which could have led to her losing control
of her bowels.
At some point Ed went to the restroom. He often
carried a few Jolly Rancher candies in his pockets, and
now he ate one and threw the wrapper in the garbage
can. Back in the interrogation room, he again denied
having been in Griffin’s trailer that night and said
he’d been at the apartment of his girlfriend, Monica
Bush. She had come by to pick him up between 9:30
and 10 p.m., he said, and they’d sat around talking for a
few hours. Hukill dispatched a deputy to call Bush and
check out the alibi, but Bush contradicted Ed, saying
he’d shown up on his own. Armed with this, Hukill
confronted Ed again, certain that almost everything
coming out of his mouth was a lie.WHAT HE’Dwanted to do was play basketball. Ed was a muscular six
feet seven inches tall, and with his size and strength, he
had dominated games at Chapel Hill High School and
the outdoor courts where he and his friends played.
“He was a beast,” remembered Kelvin. Ed idolized
Michael Jordan—his grace as well as his confidence
on the court—and even resembled him. He wore only
Air Jordans and dreamed of getting a scholarship to
Jordan’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina,
then joining the NBA.
Ed’s parents had split up when he was young, and
at first, he and Kelvin, two years younger, lived with
their mom, who worked a variety of jobs in Tyler,
including as a seamstress and solderer. But then she
married a jealous and violent man who regularly beat
her (Margie would later shoot him after he broke
her jaw; he survived). He didn’t want Ed and Kelvin
around, so they moved in with their father, Emerson,
a reserved man who ran a nightclub (Margie had shot
him once too).
While still in elementary school, the boys began
spending more and more time in New Chapel Hill with
Dews, Margie’s mom. Eventually they moved in, and
Ed became close to her, helping her take care of her
garden and cook large dinners for family gatherings. HeCLOCKWISE FROM
LEFT: Ed Ates with
his wife, Kim, and
their children, Kyra
and Zach, at their
Cedar Hill home on
June 1, 2019; Bob
Ruff prays with Ed’s
family and some
of his supporters
while waiting for
Ed’s release, in
Huntsville, on
September 5, 2018;
Ed, left, with his
mom, Margie, and
his brother, Kelvin,
around 1975; Ed
and Ruff at Ed’s
home on the day of
his release.TEXAS MONTHLY 89