610SPOR2 Talk 650

News

Texas Murder Suspect Free After DA Fails To Fill Out Paperwork

Share this
View Comments
Left: Christopher Daigle at 17. Right: An age progression photo showing what Daigle might have looked like at 22. (credit: National Center for Missing Children/CBS Houston)

Left: Christopher Daigle at 17. Right: An age progression photo showing what Daigle might have looked like at 22. (credit: National Center for Missing Children/CBS Houston)

HOUSTON (CBS Houston) – A Texas man charged with killing his 17-year-old friend walked out of prison Monday after prosecutors forgot to file paperwork for an indictment.

Richard Mendoza Jr., 26, was arrested and accused of murdering Christopher Daigle in 2002 while hunting near Missouri City, Texas. Daigle was shot in the back of the head.

Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey confirmed that his office made a mistake and accepted responsibility.

Daigle was considered a missing person and an endangered runaway when he disappeared on Nov. 7, 2002. In the years following, the Houston Chronicle said his grandmother had bought a burial site and waited for bad newsthat was finally delivered this past August when police found his remains in a field.

Mendoza was arrested shortly afterward, and he was originally held on $250,000 bail. But prosecutors let the 90 days pass during which paperwork for an indictment should be filed.

A judge released Mendoza but will track him with GPS, according to KRIV-TV.

Share this
View Comments
  • gram

    let me guess they forgot to put a battery in the GPS…..too

  • Polyanna LaTigra

    I bet no one forgot to stick a brand new Mercedes in his garage!

  • Scott Heind

    Very interesting how you chose to place a picture of the White victim in order to give the impression that a White Man committed the murder and was set free.

    Yet another example of the media trying to suppress stories of brown on White crime.

    Here’s what the murderer looks like:

    http://www.chron.com/mediaManager/?controllerName=image&action=get&id=1776285&width=628&height=471

  • SDRider

    How sad for the deceased’s family.

  • The Sage Waitress

    Shows what happens when you leave paper shufflers in charge of things.

    Where is Paul Kersey when we need him?

  • Rich Lehmann

    Very misleading. He is still awaiting trial. This article makes it seem like he was not going to be charged. All this means if the family doesnt need to cough up 1/10th of the $250,000 to get him out on bail. Which is why a GPS has been attached which is more reliable for making sure he shows up to court than a bail bondsman anyway.

  • Rich Lehmann

    Nevermind. I was looking at this white kid in the picture figuring he was the shooter and that it wasnt like this kid was going to be able to cross over and hide in Mexico. Why do they have an artists sketch of the victim? Wow, this article REALLY is misleading. This murder suspect is as good as gone if he hasnt cut off the GPS and hopped over the boarder already.

  • Geoff

    Scott, thanks for adding the real facts. What a misleading story. Nothing on the murderer and little on the legal options.

  • Jackie S.

    I am very disappointed, I was all ways told the boys in Texas took care of their owen. No swamp land in texas?

  • R.S. Billings

    The purpose of an indictment with bail is to keep the dirtbag from affording to cough up the dough for his own release. Richard Mendoza Jr. is well aware he will be charged with CAPITAL MURDER. The death penalty is in play. The (alleged) murderer has every reason to flee to Mexico. Mexico does NOT participate in extraditions to the US for death penalty cases. Nevermind the 100,000+ murders in Mexico by their own federal, state and local officials during their current drug war.

    What other legal filings has this prosecutor forgotten? His staff does have some culpability. But it all rests on Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey’s incompetence.

  • enoughAlready911

    Common sense has left this country.
    Political correctness executed by complete idiots is what rules the day.
    Perfect description why this country is in the mess its in today.

  • Just An American

    Anyone wanna bet that the people who “forgot” in the office probably identified more with the ethnicity of the perp than the victim?

    I’m what liberals like to refer to as a “minority”, however I choose to simply identify myself as an American. During the 60′s and early 70′s, I was subjected to racism. I’ve never carried that forward, and it appalls me to see “white” people subjected to the same type of hidden and overt racism that once plagued me.

  • ma67

    Yes! Charles Bronson was awesome in those movies…..Do you believe in Jesus? Good, you’re about to meet him….BANG!

  • BigBoa

    How is it that stuff like this only applies to crimes like this?

    Just disgusting. Like the mighty Boa keeps telling you. Eradication is the only answer.

  • Seriously?

    Why would they do an age progression of the criminal since he was recently in custody and had a booking photograph taken. Perhaps you should read the article and not just look at the pictures. After all, you dont just look at the pictures in Playboy, do you?

  • BigBoa

    Just An American,

    The mighty Boa salutes you. It is unfortunate that you have had to suffer due to the idiocy of others in your race. That you still identify as “American” is something to be proud of. Hopefully you will not endure more……

  • D. Garmin

    “A judge released Mendoza but will track him with GPS, according to KRIV-TV.”

    Arriving at destination.. behind bars.

  • ryenotzinger

    CBS: It is DECEPTIVE to place TWO PICTURES OF THE VICTIM! You are “twisting” this to look like white on white crime!

    YOU SHOULD BE SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST and post the pic of the MURDERER (if room for only one) or BOTH of them. But NOT two pics of the victim!!! Why would you even do a ‘timelapse’ of how the murder victim would look like now? HE HAS BEEN DEAD FOR YEARS! That NEVER done with a long dead person and NEVER when the OBJECT of the article is the PERP!! Such a pic ONLY serves to inflame the public (unnecessarily) and to HURT the victim’s parents (again, for no reason other than to serve SOME EDITOR’S PERSONAL AGENDA)! [I certainly hope that such deception is not the agenda of CBS.]

  • DigitalBob

    Amen. Can’t they charge him with anything else the statute of limitations hasnt run out on? Assault? Littering?

  • DigitalBob

    “Hey Mendoza ! How about you and I go hunting while you are awaiting trial??”

  • CHECKOUT BARRY’S PAPERWORK

  • LightlyYoked

    I, too, found it bizarre that a picture of the VICTIM was posted with this article, including an even more bizarre “this-might-be-what-he-looks-like-now” age progression picture. What any rational, thinking author of an article like this would understand is that the reader wants to see a picture of the PERP! Especially if the perp has been set free! Seriously, TWO pictures ~ one of which isn’t even real ~ of the victim and NO picture of the perp???

    Little wonder the author’s name isn’t published.

  • http://www.fastnews.tv/?p=116547 Murder Suspect Goes Free After DA Forgets To Fill Out Paperwork… | Breaking News

    [...] (First column, 16th story, link) [...]

  • jnsesq

    Nope. Nuttin’ wrong with the criminal “justice” system. Are we really so ACLU/morally hamstrung as not to be able to correct clerical oversights in murder cases? Any outsider must be laughing at our impotence.

  • Todd Clemmer

    Don’t you love how they don’t include a picture of the killer instead they show a then and now of the victim as if he was missing or something. So blatant.

  • Bob

    perfect job for DEXTER

  • Scott Johnson

    Are you out of your mind? Black hair and eyes and he’s white? You’re just stupid……

  • Jimbo Limbo

    Get the picture of the age progressed VICTIM off of the site!! How disrespectful can you be? He WOULD have looked like that?? No, he never had the chance, because he was murdered! He was left to rot in a field! I understand, you had the graphic (because he was classified as missing for some time, before they found his body) but that graphic is useless in this news story. Take it down. Put up a picture of his accused murderer, or nothing.

  • John Moser

    Hispanics can be black, white, or brown. Don’t be racist.

  • Jimbo Limbo

    It is very lazy journalism. That age progression picture is from when the poor kid was classified as a missing person. It’s what they had put out to look for the kid, before his body was found, years later. That picture has NO bearing on this story, they just put it up because they had it. Either that, or there is some truth to the suggestions that they were overly sensitive to the fact that the real alleged murderer is Hispanic, and they did not want to show a picture of him. Either way, there’s tons of Hispanics in Texas, so obviously SOME of them will commit crimes, just as all groups do. It is irresponsible to put up the picture of a murder victim that includes an age progression picture that now obviously goes well beyond the date when he was shot in the head. BAD call, CBS. Why don’t you just poke the kid’s family in the eye?

  • Fanny Forbes Franklen

    This is because government is made up of of low IQ degenerates that watch TV, drink fluoridated water and are probably on 4 or 5 big pharma prescriptions. No surprise here. Just mentally deficient people that tell you they are your government and are in control. They can’t even fill out paperwork. Another product from the government schools.

    http://911essentials.com

  • Moth Man

    Why do so many people notice the blatant media bias against Whites yet never examine just WHO owns/controls the media? Check out an article by Joel Stein called ‘Who Runs Hollywood? C’mon’ in the LA Times to see for yourself who is producing this hateful “news” and “entertainment.”

  • Barack Obama

    How about a picture of what the alleged perp would look like if he were a gringo?

  • Jacob Jones

    Hello?.. Leaving a body in swamp land is how this mess started.. If you’re not willing to dig a hole, then you shouldn’t be killing anyone.. And it’s probably best to have the hole dug, first, if you know what I mean?.. ;-P

  • ironhorzmn

    Despicable. You didn’t have the guts to show the SUSPECT who was Hispanic, so you posted the VICTIM’s face?

  • bob

    Texas man charged with killing his 17-year-old friend .
    geeesch with friends like that who needs enemies

  • mr_bill

    This story is misleading. It makes it sound like the accused is getting off on a technicality. There is no statute of limitations on murder and the DA can bring charges at any time.

    What is happening here is that a suspect cannot be held indefinitely without charges being brought. This is a protection I’m happy to see we have, although it sometimes means that humans will make mistakes and fail to secure an indictment. The bottom line is that if a grand jury hands down an indictment against the accused, he will stand trial and isn’t getting off on a technicality here, he just can’t be held in jail any longer, pending an indictment.That said, I would prefer to see this guy sitting in jail and the DA’s office should have to answer for dropping the ball.

  • jeff

    The statute of limitations doesn’t run out on murder. That’s why they can arrest people for murder decades after they commit it. The way I understood it is that the only time he couldn’t be recharged with murder is when he has already been tried and found not-guilty… double jeopardy, hence OJ and Casey Anthony. Why can’t they simply recharge him with murder and take him back into custody?

  • Incredulous

    Wow, unbelievable. I hadn’t read or heard of this story and got it from a Drudge link. I assumed, looking at the picture that this person was the murderer. The day the MSM dies will be a great day for the world…

  • keven beeken

    greetings

    we are the minority not people of color as like to be referred to, most don’t even identify as being Americans there is a group of Mexicans nationals that believe the southwest and texas belongs to mexico, we as white Americans need to become the Borg

  • http://www.davidmcelroy.org/?p=7514 NEWS LINKS: More mainstream media attention coming to Ron Paul « David McElroy

    [...] office in Fort Bend County forgot to file paperwork indicting a murder suspect, so the suspected murderer has been released from jail. The DA’s office had 90 days within which to file the papers, but somehow didn’t get [...]

  • anonymous coward

    hecho en la mexico, Normally, federaly take out is shot
    in back of head, no mess, no bother, period.
    Any one guess why 100,000 people die in mexico.
    Narco shoot, federaly shoot, policia shoot, poor citizen
    can only run away today.

  • Just An American

    Thanks, my fellow American.

  • Just An American

    No, no hecho en Mexico. Hecho en Estados Unidos. But I agree, nothing left for the average guy to run away.

    Maybe we should start shooting back.

  • http://disturbingnews.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/murder-suspect-freed-after-d-a-fails-to-fill-out-paperwork/ Murder Suspect Freed After D.A. Fails To Fill Out Paperwork « Retch's Disturbing News!

    [...] CBS Houston GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_bg", "002728"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_border", "034450"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_text", "ffffff"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_link", "a8ef9d"); GA_googleAddAttr("theme_url", "afdaff"); GA_googleAddAttr("LangId", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Autotag", "religion"); GA_googleAddAttr("Autotag", "entertainment"); GA_googleAddAttr("Autotag", "family"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "hurp"); GA_googleAddAttr("Tag", "oops"); GA_googleFillSlot("wpcom_sharethrough"); Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Comments RSS feed [...]

  • http://www.theweeklyworldview.com/christian-politics/conservative-talk-the-weekly-worldview-a-world-gone-mad Conservative Talk – The Weekly Worldview: A World Gone Mad | Conservative Talk

    [...] PlayPlace, a drunk driver thumbs his big red nose at the just-a-system, one murder suspect walks free on a clerical error, and another actual murderer rips the liberal Oregon governor for [...]

  • Roseanna

    The voice of riatonialty! Good to hear from you.

  • pyjapwsvobw

    4wlO4B tupuwxxetvag

  • okrvkq

    CHusC1 dvibyxrnhybu

  • http://edebat.shikshik.org/2012/02/29/texas-murderer/ Texas murderer | Edebat

    [...] Texas Murder Suspect Free After DA Fails To Fill Out Paperwork …How Travis County prosecutors tried a gruesome murder case in front of the … and laid groundwork for recognition of an inevitable discovery doctrine in Texas. [...]

  • Bates Eye Exercises

    Very great post. I simply stumbled upon your blog and wished to mention that I’ve really loved surfing around your weblog posts. After all I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I’m hoping you write once more very soon!

blog comments powered by Disqus
Listen Live!

CBS Houston Categories

Follow Sports Radio 610