Thomas Cullen Davis, the Fort Worth oil heir acquitted in the 1976 shootings that killed his 12-year-old stepdaughter and another man, has died at 93. Davis...
Cullen Davis, Fort Worth Oil Heir Acquitted in 1976 Murders, Dies at 93
Thomas Cullen Davis, the Fort Worth oil heir acquitted in the 1976 shootings that killed his 12-year-old stepdaughter and another man, has died at 93. Davis died Friday at his home in Colleyville. No cause of death was reported.
What happened
Born in Fort Worth on Sept. 22, 1933, Davis grew up in a family whose wealth was rooted in oil. His father, Kenneth W. “Stinky” Davis, was an oil businessman who founded Ken Davis Industries International. Cullen Davis became a prominent Fort Worth figure in his own right and was described as one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the height of his fortune.
That wealth shaped the public image surrounding him, but the cases that made his name nationally known involved violence inside the family’s private world. In August 1976, as Davis was divorcing his second wife, Priscilla, gunfire at the couple’s Fort Worth home left Andrea Wilborn, Priscilla’s 12-year-old daughter, and Stan Farr, 30, dead. Farr was Priscilla’s boyfriend. Priscilla and a friend were also shot in the chest and survived.
The shootings took place at Stonegate Mansion, a 13,000-square-foot home on Fort Worth’s Southside. The size and setting of the house became part of the story’s public mythology, but the central facts were stark: two people were killed, two others survived gunshot wounds, and Davis was accused of crimes connected to the attack. Those allegations were contested in court.
The case drew intense attention well beyond Texas. In 1977, the trial ran for 13 weeks and was moved from Tarrant County to Amarillo. Richard “Racehorse” Haynes, a prominent defense lawyer, represented Davis. Tim Curry, then Tarrant County district attorney, led the prosecution. The trial was described as the most expensive murder trial in Texas history, though no cost figure is reported here.
The jury found Davis not guilty. That verdict closed the prosecution against him over the 1976 shootings, but it did not supply a public explanation of who fired the shots or resolve the grief and questions left for the survivors and the victims’ families. A criminal acquittal answers whether the prosecution proved its case to the jury under the required standard; it does not necessarily identify another perpetrator.
The legal story did not end with the first trial. In 1978, Davis was accused of trying to arrange the killing of Priscilla and the judge overseeing their divorce. He was acquitted of attempted-murder charges in that case as well. The available account does not provide the full charging documents, evidence presented, or the jury’s reasoning, so those details should not be assumed.
The story’s reach was amplified by the contrast between Davis’s immense fortune and the violence at the center of the criminal cases. Stonegate Mansion became an emblem in news coverage, while the proceedings featured celebrated lawyers, a long trial, and a venue change. The case later provided the backdrop for the 1995 television movie Texas Justice. The film brought the events to a new audience, but dramatization is not a substitute for court records or a verdict.
Davis’s wealth did not last. He declared bankruptcy after losing most of his oil fortune during the economic downturn of the 1980s. His later financial collapse gave his life a different public arc from the one suggested by his years as a wealthy oil heir. Still, the criminal cases remained the defining part of his public reputation.
Legal context and charges or proceedings
The first case centered on deaths and injuries from the August 1976 shootings. Davis faced murder and attempted-murder allegations. He was acquitted after the 1977 trial. In the later case, prosecutors accused him of seeking to hire someone to kill Priscilla and the divorce judge; Davis was acquitted of attempted-murder charges. The essential legal distinction is simple but important: an accusation is not a finding of guilt, and an acquittal is not a conviction.
In a criminal prosecution, the government must prove the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. If jurors are not convinced to that standard, they must return a not-guilty verdict. The legal principle commonly called the presumption of innocence is summarized in this legal explainer. An acquittal means the jury did not find the defendant guilty under the burden of proof; it is not necessarily an affirmative declaration that the jury established what happened instead.
That distinction matters especially in a case that became part of popular culture. Public discussion can collapse different questions into one: whether Davis was charged, whether a jury convicted him, and who committed the underlying violence. The reported verdicts answer the second question: Davis was not convicted in either prosecution. They do not, by themselves, settle every historical question about the shootings.
Moving the 1977 trial to Amarillo removed it from the county where the shootings occurred and where Davis was charged. A change of venue is a familiar legal response when publicity or local conditions raise concerns about selecting an impartial jury. The account of the case does not state the court’s specific findings or describe the full motion practice, so the move should not be assigned a more precise legal rationale than the available facts support.
The trial’s length and prominence did not alter the standard the jury had to apply. A prosecution may present evidence and call witnesses, and the defense may challenge that evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and argue that the state has not met its burden. The public profile of the lawyers is part of the trial’s history, not proof of guilt or innocence. Haynes’s reputation and Curry’s role as prosecutor made the courtroom contest closely watched, but the verdict belonged to the jury.
The second prosecution raised a different set of allegations, involving an alleged plan to kill two people rather than the original shootings. Davis was acquitted there too. The account does not report whether the cases involved overlapping evidence or give details about a purported intermediary. Without those records, it would be irresponsible to fill in the gaps or treat the accusation as established fact.
The reported outcomes are therefore clear even where other details are not: Davis faced two highly publicized prosecutions and was acquitted in both. There is no reported conviction of Davis for either the 1976 shootings or the later alleged plot. The account of his death also does not identify any pending criminal proceedings involving him.
Law enforcement or court response
The 1977 proceedings brought together the Tarrant County district attorney’s office and a defense team led by Haynes. The trial lasted 13 weeks after being moved to Amarillo. Its scale and attention made it unusual, but the public account does not provide a complete trial transcript, a detailed inventory of exhibits, or a record of every ruling. Those limits matter: a reporter should not reconstruct the jury’s private deliberations or claim to know why individual jurors voted as they did.
The case also illustrates the difference between the work of prosecutors and the authority of a jury. Prosecutors decide whether to bring charges and present the state’s case. The jury evaluates the evidence under the court’s instructions. Neither the prosecutor’s decision to charge nor the public’s confidence in a theory can replace the verdict. In Davis’s cases, the juries returned acquittals.
The court proceedings were also shaped by the extraordinary public attention surrounding the defendant and the deaths. Contemporary newspaper archives and later magazine coverage can be explored through The New York Times’ search archive and Texas Monthly’s searchable archive. Such coverage helps document how the case was presented to the public, but reporting and later retellings should be distinguished from evidence admitted at trial.
The label attached to the proceedings—often remembered as one of Texas’s most expensive murder trials—speaks to the resources and attention involved. It should not obscure what a criminal trial is for. Courts determine whether the state has proved specific charges against a particular defendant. They do not issue a comprehensive historical account of every unresolved fact, and a verdict should not be stretched beyond the question jurors were asked to decide.
No cause of death was reported, and no statement about funeral arrangements or surviving relatives was included in the account of Davis’s death. His passing closes his personal story, but it does not change the legal outcomes of the cases: he was acquitted, not convicted. Nor does his death turn disputed allegations into settled facts.
Community and policy implications
For Fort Worth, the shootings and trials became an enduring part of local history. The case placed a family tragedy before a national audience and connected it to broader concerns about wealth, influence, crime, and the fairness of high-profile proceedings. Those themes deserve careful treatment, particularly because the victims and survivors can be overshadowed by a defendant’s money and the courtroom personalities surrounding a trial.
Andrea Wilborn was 12. Stan Farr was 30. Priscilla Davis and another person survived being shot. These are not supporting details in a story about a famous trial; they are the human facts at its center. The public record described here does not provide the survivors’ later accounts or the families’ views. Their absence from the available reporting should not be mistaken for an absence of lasting consequences.
Davis’s wealth also invites questions about whether money can affect a person’s experience of the justice system. A wealthy defendant may be able to retain well-known lawyers and sustain a long defense. That does not establish that wealth bought a verdict in this case, and the acquittals alone are not evidence of improper influence. A fair account can recognize the disparity in resources without claiming that it determined the outcome.
The broader policy concern is access to a meaningful defense for every person accused of a crime. Courts depend on counsel who can investigate allegations, test evidence, and challenge the state’s case. Public defense systems and court funding are recurring subjects of criminal justice policy precisely because those resources should not be available only to people with private fortunes. The Davis case is a reminder of the visibility that high-profile lawyers bring, not proof that the jury process was corrupted.
Venue changes raise a related question: how can courts protect an impartial jury when a case has saturated local news? Moving a trial can reduce the effect of intense local attention, but it cannot erase publicity or guarantee a particular result. The reported move to Amarillo is a concrete part of this case’s history; the underlying principle remains that jurors must decide charges based on evidence presented in court, not public reputation.
The case also shows why accurate language matters in crime reporting. “Accused,” “charged,” “acquitted,” and “convicted” describe different legal states. Using them precisely protects the rights of defendants while preserving the seriousness of the harm reported by victims and survivors. Here, the shootings and deaths are facts of the case; Davis’s guilt was not established by the juries that heard the prosecutions.
Davis’s story moved through several chapters: oil wealth, a high-profile divorce, deadly violence, two acquittals, a later bankruptcy, and a television adaptation. The last chapter is an obituary, not a new legal ruling. The record should be remembered without converting allegations into verdicts or letting the spectacle eclipse the people who died and those who lived with the consequences.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Cullen Davis convicted in connection with the 1976 shootings?
No. Davis was acquitted in the 1977 trial concerning the shootings that killed Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr and injured two survivors.
Was he convicted in the later case involving an alleged murder plot?
No. He was acquitted of attempted-murder charges in the later case involving allegations that he sought to arrange the deaths of Priscilla Davis and the judge in their divorce case.
Where was the first trial held, and how long did it last?
The 1977 trial was moved to Amarillo and lasted 13 weeks.
What was Cullen Davis’s age and cause of death?
He was 93 and died at his home in Colleyville. No cause of death was reported.
Final thought: The Davis cases remain striking not because an acquittal answers every question, but because they show the limits of what a verdict can say. The juries found the charges against him unproved beyond a reasonable doubt. The deaths, injuries, and lives changed by the shootings remain the human center of the story.