LANCASTER, Texas -- Police investigating the hatchet slayings of three women issued a arrest warrant Wednesday for a transient who was released from jail on drunken driving charges, even though he told inmates he was a killer.
David Martin Long, 33, of the Houston-area town of Bay City, was named in a capital murder arrest warrant issued in the slayings of Donna Sue Jester, 37; her blind cousin, Dalpha Lorene Jester, 64, and Laura Lee Owen, 20, last weekend.
Buffalo police officer Gerry Broadhead said Long was drunk and possibly high on drugs when he was arrested about 100 miles south of Dallas Saturday night on a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was released from jail before the slayings were discovered.
'He was running north in a southbound lane (of Interstate 45), very drunk and running cars off the road,' Broadhead said. 'He seemed crazed. He was cussing and ranting and raving about Jesus and God. He kept banging his head against my squad car until he cut his head.'
Leon County Sheriff Royce Wilson said Wednesday evening that an employee told him Long confessed to killings while in jail there.
'My understanding is ... that he told some prisoners in the jail that he killed some people,' Wilson said.
Wilson said Lancaster police took statements from Leon County inmates about the incident, but Wilson denied reports that a sheriff's office employee heard the confession and shrugged it off as drunken ranting.
Leon County authorities said Long was released Monday morning after paying a $589 fine. But Lancaster Police Chief John Whitehead said Long was freed without posting bond, a violation of state law.
'They released this individual on his own recognizance,' Whitehead said. 'They bought him a bus ticket to Houston. Then he got out on the highway and hitchhiked after cashing in the ticket.'
Wilson denied that his department gave Long a bus ticket to Houston.
Whitehead said he was angry with the way Leon County authorities handled the case. He said that because Long had one previous DWI conviction, the second offense should have been treated as a felony and he should have remained in jail until he posted bond.
Broadhead said the station wagon driven by Long, which police say was stolen from Donna Sue Jester, contained property that appeared to belong to her.
'A lady's purse was found in the front floorboard of the car, and it did have one of the victim's names on the medicine bottles,' Broadhead said.
Investigators said they believe the suspect, whom they described as a transient, was welcomed into Jester's home and that he killed the women in a weekend rampage that grew out of a 'fight or fuss' with one of the victims.
Whitehead said Long's name was noted in Jester's diary. The last entry in the diary was made Friday, he said.
Jester's body was found leaning against a wall inside the house. Dalpha Lorene Jester was found dead in a nearby bed.
Owen, of Naples, Fla., described as a transient who had lived at the house about three weeks, was found dead in the front yard.
Each woman died of 'multiple chop injuries of (the) head,' said Charlie Lynch, a spokesman for the Dallas County medical examiner's office.
The women were attacked with a camping hatchet that had a 3-inch-wide blade, and wounds on Donna Jester's hands indicate she also was stabbed with a steak knife, Whitehead said. Both weapons were found at the house.
