Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, May 15, 1992 Page: 11 of 40
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Teen pleads guilty in Houston murder
Outrage over brutal attack of Paul Broussard last
summer had mobilized Houston gays and lesbians
By Tammye Nash
ft
A teenager from the Woodlands, a
wealthy suburb north of Houston,
pleaded guilty this week to murder in
the July 4 stabbing death of a gay man
in Houston’s Montrose area.
John Christopher Buice, 18, entered
the plea before State District Judge Brian
Rains. Buice was sentenced to 45 years
in prison, and will not be eligible for
parole for at least 11 years, according to
Assistant Harris County District Attorney
Joan Hoffman.
Buice was one of a group of 10
teenagers who attacked 27-year-old
Houston banker Paul Broussard and two
companions in the early morning hours
of July 4 last year as the three men left a
gay nightclub. Mike Anderson, the
prosecutor in the case, said that what
happens to the remaining nine
defendants, all charged with murder, “is
up to them. We’ll be ready, whichever
way they choose to go.”
Anderson said that Buice, who had
been out on bond, had been back in
police custody for two weeks when his
attorneys offered prosecutors the plea
bargain arrangement. “They made the
offer that he would plead guilty for 45
years aggravated time. I presented that
to [Broussard’s] family and to the two
survivors of the attack. They were all for
it.”
Anderson said that “it was very
important” to Broussard’s family and to
Fontana
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance before
he and his companion moved to San
Francisco several years ago. After his
the two survivors of the attack that the
plea bargain agreement not include a
reduction of the charges against Buice.
‘We were very careful about that,” he
said.
Anderson said Buice “made no
bones about” having participated in the
attack that left Broussard dead. “I don’t
remember his exact words, but basically
what he said was ‘I did it, and I know I
have to pay my dues. I understand that.’
He was remorseful, at least he seemed
to me to be. And he did say on the
record that he did this with the nine
other co-defendants, that they had acted
as a group in [the attack]. We were very
careful to get that on the record.”
The prosecutor explained that Texas
law stipulates that when a group of
people conspire to commit one felony,
and another felony occurs as a
reasonable, foreseeable result of the first,
everyone in the group is guilty of the
second felony.
Buice was set to go to trial on May
18, and Anderson admitted that he was
“pretty shocked myself” when Buice and
his attorneys offered the plea bargain.
“Considering the amount of work we did
on the case, all the time and effort we
put into it, from a personal standpoint, a
selfish standpoint, it would have been
more satisfying to actually try the case.
But the bottom line is that you’ve got to
have the good sense to know when
you’ve got a good deal,” the prosecutor
said, explaining why his office had
companion died of AIDS in San
Francisco, Fontana had moved back to
Dallas, renewing his DGLA membership
once he returned.
A memorial service for Fontana will
be held Sunday, May 17, at 11 a.m. in
The Little Chapel in the Woods on the
TWU campus. ▼
agreed to the plea bargain.
Broussard’s murder sparked an
outcry among Houston’s gay and lesbian
community, as well as the gay and
lesbian community statewide. Publicity
surrounding the attack helped spur the
passage of state legislation mirroring the
federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act, and
also lead to the formation in the
Houston police department of an
undercover task force aimed at catching
gay-bashers in the heavily-gay Montrose
neighborhood.
Houston gay activist Ray Hill said
“there seems to be a uniform satisfaction
in the gay and lesbian community” with
the verdict, and praised Anderson’s
efforts on the case. “This is a major
By Tammye Nash
Two men were wounded Friday
night, May 8 in a shooting in the parking
lot behind the Black-Eye Pea restaurant
on Cedar Springs at Reagan, according
to Det. Ronald Caldwell with the Dallas
Police Department. Injured in the
incident, which occurred at
approximately 8:35 p.m., were Terry
Inman, owner of Inman Florist on Oak
Lawn, and Kelly Everitt.
Police reports indicate that Inman
was shot three times. He was taken to
Parkland Memorial Hospital, and an
employee at the florist shop said Inman
was released from the hospital on
Sunday. Everitt was shot once in the leg.
He was treated at Parkland and released
Friday night.
The two men had just gotten into
break-through. The judge and
[Anderson] have been very sympathetic.
[Anderson] put a lot of work into this
case, and he was ready to go to trial.”
Noting that Buice “just turned 18 in
March,” Hill pointed out that he has
been “sentenced to prison for more than
twice the number of years he has
already lived, and he will have to serve
more than half the number of years he
has already lived before he is even
eligible for parole.”
The attackers used nail-studded
boards and pipes in the attack.
Broussard died of stab wounds later that
morning at a Houston hospital, but his
two companions both escaped serious
injury. ▼
their car when two suspects, one
possibly as young as 11, approached the
car. The suspects “demanded that they
get out,” Caldwell said, but the two men
refused and attempted to drive away. At
that point, the detective said, the
suspects began firing through the car
windows. Several cars in the parking lot
were damaged as Inman and Everitt
attempted to escape, he added.
“We don’t know if this was a car
jacking or an attempted robbery or
what," Caldwell said. “The suspects
didn’t actually demand any property or
the car from the victims."
The two suspects were described as
“possibly Hispanic or Oriental,” Caldwell
said. One was 14 or 15 years old, and
the other was 11 or 12 years old, he
said. No arrests have been made in
connection with the shooting. ▼
Local businessman and
companion shot in auto
Police seeking 2 youths in connection with incident
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DALLAS VOICE
MAY 15, 1992
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, May 15, 1992, newspaper, May 15, 1992; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth615739/m1/11/?q=Buice: accessed February 5, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.