In Brief

Staff Reports

Texas Law Enforcement Releases New Sketch Of Suspect in Shooting Of Young Lesbian Couple

Newly Released Sketch

PORTLAND, TX -- Texas Rangers and Portland police investigators released a new sketch of the suspected shooter in the June 22 attack that claimed one young woman's life and left her partner struggling to recover in a Texas neurological rehabilitation centre.

Mary Kristene Chapa worked with a forensic artist from the Texas Rangers on Friday to update the drawing of the man who attacked her and Mollie Judith Olgin on June 22 in Portland, Texas. The original sketch was released on July 4. According to her father, Mario Olgin, upon viewing the new image, one thought came to mind after seeing it; "I think monster," he said, "you know? That guy took my daughter away from us."

In an interview with NBC News affliate KRIS-TV, Olgin said:

"The loving girl that she was, she didn't deserve this," said Olgin "Kristene's the same way. she didn't deserve this either."

Olgin says that his family is still trying to cope with the loss of their loved one but there is one thought that still haunts him.

"When I think about her last 15, 20, 30 minutes on earth," he said, "how scared both girls had to be whenever they were approached by this monster."

This thought is what keeps him from not giving up on finding his daughter's murder. He says he has one simple message for anyone who may know this man.

"It's been almost three weeks now and the longer it carries on the harder it's gonna be," he said. "So if somebody knows something, just come forward."

The suspected shooter portrayed in the sketch is described as a white man in his 20's, around 140 pounds, 5' 8" tall, with brown hair and a scruffy beard.

Mary Kristene Chapa's brother, Hilario, told NBC news they have now informed her of Olgin’s death.

“She didn’t know about Mollie for the longest time, but we finally decided to tell her,” he said, noting that the Olgin family and authorities were present to help break the news. 

“With that support group we passed the info to my little sister. She was brokenhearted, very upset.”

Anti-Gay Hate Group's Lively Preaches Against Anti-Discrimination Law In Missouri

SPRINGFIELD, MO -- Noted Anti-LGBTQ equality rights extremist and the head of the Massachusetts based Abiding Truth Ministries- a group listed by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as a hate group- Scott Lively, told an audience of 70 people Friday night that a culture war is currently being waged between those fighting for sexual anarchy and those fighting for family values. Standing at a podium with a sign displaying the message “Human Rights Commission is a Trojan horse for the gay agenda,” Lively told the audience that they needed to kill a proposed city ordinance extending civil rights protections to gay, lesbian and transgendered people in Springfield.

“Don’t let this anti-discrimination ordinance go through,” said Lively during his Friday night presentation at The Library Station on North Kansas Expressway. “It’s like chicken pox. It’s in your system forever. You’ve got to kill this thing before it goes in.”

The proposed ordinance is scheduled to be on the agenda of the city's full council next month for a vote.

According to local media reporting, members of the audience, representing the opposing views of the issue, listened intently to Lively's the speech, some nodding in agreement uttering an occasional "amen" while others shook their heads in disbelief later commenting that Lively was spreading paranoid misinformation and characterizing people fighting for the right to marry and have families as anti-family.

Lively, who said he paid his own way to Springfield to share this message, argued that homosexual activists have capitalized on what he called the black civil rights movement by bundling their rights with those he called “legitimate ethnic minorities” and riding their coattails to social legitimacy. 

“Since when is sodomy a civil right,” said Lively. “It’s a ridiculous, preposterous notion! There’s absolutely no correlation between sodomy and skin color.”

Diversity training, sensitivity training, anti-discrimination ordinances and human rights commissions give the network of focused, highly organized homosexual activists the leverage they need to violate the rights of Christians he said. ~ The Springfield News-Leader

Deputy director of PROMO, the Missouri statewide organization advocating for LGBTQ equality rights, Stephanie Perkins, told reporters that she hardly recognized herself in Lively’s speech. Perkins also felt offended by Lively's claims which cast LGBTQ persons as anti-family, and worse, unpatriotic. Lively told the audience that during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, "homosexual activists were pushing through self-serving gay rights legislation in California while the nation grieved."

Mark Kiser, president of Reclaiming Missouri for Christ and host of the event, plans to present a family first commission proposal to the city council. Kiser indicated that although he didn't agree with everything said, he thought his  Lively’s  message was precisely what people needed to hear.

“I wanted him to bring some shock and awe and to wake up the Christian community,” Kiser said. “The Christian community here is asleep.”