On the evening of August 10, 1991, 21-year-old Anita Byington, who was about to begin her senior year at Southwest Texas State University, went out with friends to Maggie Mae’s, a popular bar and music venue in the Austin, Texas entertainment district.
She had driven up to Austin from her apartment in San Marcos, Texas to stay with her cousin, Analisa Canales, and Canales’s roommate, Joanna Benavidez. The trio went out with three young men: Richard Kershaw, Jeff Gloden, and Marion Kevin Harris, all of whom were employed in the Sergeant at Arms office in the Texas State Senate.
In the early morning hours of August 11, 1991, Byington left Maggie Mae’s to go to her car because Gloden was not paying enough attention to her. Not long after, Harris left the bar as well. When the four others left the bar and came out, they found Harris, who everyone called Kevin, and Byington asleep in Byington’s car, a 1989 gold-colored Honda Accord. They woke them up and they all agreed to reconvene at Kershaw’s residence.
However, Harris and Byington did not show up.
Byington’s body was found around 6 a.m. in the parking lot of the Spring Creek apartment complex in East Austin. She had been bludgeoned to death with a 40-pound concrete water diverter, which was found nearby stained with blood. Her bra had been pushed up over her breasts under her blouse. Some of her press-on nails were cracked or broken off.
That morning, before Canales and Benavidez learned that Byington was dead, they reached out to Harris. Harris told them that he and Byington had driven to Canales’s and Benavidez’s apartment, went in for about 20 minutes, and then Byington drove Harris to his truck, which was parked at Kershaw’s house. That was where Benavidez, Canales, Gloden, and Kershaw had gone after leaving the bar.
Later that day, after learning that Byington was dead, Canales and Benavidez went to talk to Harris. He elaborated his prior account, adding that when he parted ways with Byington, she said she was going to go buy some crack cocaine. Canales and Benavidez were highly skeptical, knowing that Byington did not do drugs. They later told police that Harris was very nervous, would not make eye contact, and when they pushed back on his story about Byington seeking cocaine, he walked out of the room. They knew Byington did not use drugs.
Police interviewed Harris, Gloden, and Kershaw about the events of the previous evening. Before the three went to the police station, Harris asked Kershaw to tell police that he had seen Byington drop Harris off at his truck outside Kershaw’s house. Kershaw refused. He would later testify, “I said, ‘'There’s no way, Kevin. I was asleep. I did not see her drop you off at your truck. All you need to do; you need to go down to the Police Department and tell the truth. You need to tell the truth. The girl's been killed and that's what you need to do. And I didn't see that and I'm not about to say that.'"
At the police station, Harris was interviewed by Austin police Sergeant Michael Huckabay. Harris now said that when he and Byington got to Canales’s and Benavidez’s apartment, they were trying keys on different apartments, but couldn’t get in. He said that at Byington’s suggestion, they went to Harris’s house in northwest Austin, some distance away. He said that at his house, they had sex, and after they got dressed, she asked him to go with her to buy crack. Harris said he refused and told her to just drive him to his truck, which she did.
Harris had a bandage on his arm. He told the police that he had been cooking breakfast that morning. His dog had run into the house and ruffled the carpet, and Harris tripped and fell with his arm into the stove and burned himself.
Harris then gave a formal witness statement to Austin police officer Ruben Fuentes. In this statement, Harris added that there was a neighbor watching him try different keys on the apartment. He also added that when he and Byington first arrived at his house, they fell asleep, then had sex when they woke up. Harris also said that when Byington took him to his truck, she missed the turn. She dropped him off on the side of the road, and he walked to his truck.
Even though police were highly suspicious of Harris, their focus soon shifted after a witness said that a car had driven slowly past the scene where Byington’s body had been discovered. The license plate of the vehicle was noted and provided to police. The man driving the car had stopped and at one point, according to witnesses, said, without any provocation, “I didn’t kill her.”
Later that day, Byington’s car was found five miles away in a different east Austin apartment complex, parked next to a maroon-colored vehicle near a dumpster.
On August 12, 1991, police identified the owner of the car which witnesses said was driving slowly past the crime scene. The owner reported that he had loaned the car to 26-year-old Allen Adrian Causey, who lived part-time with his girlfriend, Dellanda Harrell, in the apartment complex where the body had been found.
Police located Causey that evening in the car that had been observed at the scene with 25-year-old Bobby Harrell Jr., Dellanda Harrell’s brother. Both men were taken in for questioning at about 8 p.m.
For the next seven hours, Causey and Harrell were interrogated variously by Sergeant Huckabay, Senior Sergeant Hector Polanco, Detective Bruce Boardman, and Fuentes. Although the police had the equipment and the means to videotape the process, they chose not to do so.
Shortly after 3 a.m., Causey signed a three-page statement admitting that he and Harrell had killed Byington. The typed statement contained a narrative that Causey and Harrell were approached about 5:30 a.m. at the apartment complex by Byington and a young man, who was assumed to have been Harris, seeking to buy drugs. Negotiations broke down, a fight broke out, and the young man fled. Causey and Harrell caught Byington and killed her with the concrete rain diverter. The typed statement concluded with Causey and Harrell driving and abandoning Byington’s car five miles away at another apartment complex after wiping the car down to eliminate fingerprints. Harrell denied involvement in the crime.
Both men were charged with first-degree murder.
Friends and family members of Byington, who was an only child, disputed the police account of the crime, insisting that she did not take drugs.
In November 1991, Byington’s parents received in the mail a letter along with checks from Byington’s purse. The sender said Byington’s purse had been found two weeks earlier near a trash can by a bus stop in Austin. The purse was recovered but no fingerprints could be found.
In December 1991, during a pre-trial hearing on a motion to suppress the statement, Causey testified that he did not read the statement that he signed. He said that Polanco and Huckabay tricked him into believing that he was signing a document acknowledging that he had been given his Miranda warnings and that the police had not beaten him.
The statement, which was typed up by Fuentes, said that Causey and Harrell were using cocaine in the early morning hours of August 11, 1991. At one point, Harrell left. “[I]t was about 5:30 a.m.,” the statement said. “I was wondering what was taking him so long so I went to look for him. When I got outside I saw Bobby Harrell out in the parking lot talking to some Mexican chick. Bobby told me that he had gotten into a fight with some black dude and I saw the black dude running off. At this time, the Mexican chick took off running and Bobby Harrell told me that she had beat him for some cocaine. This means that they were talking about some agreement and she did not want to come through with it. Bobby was trying to get some sex from her for drugs. When the Mexican chick took off running, I ran after her.”
The statement continued: “I caught up to the Mexican chick and I grabbed her by the right arm and jerked her and she fell to the ground. I held her down and started choking her and Bobby came up and started hitting her with his belt buckle. His belt buckle was made of metal and was large and kind of round with the straight little rod in the middle of it. I hit her a few times with my hand on her face. Bobby started kicking her.”
At that point, Harrell picked up the concrete rain diverter and hit Byington several times, including at least twice in the head, the statement said.
The motion to suppress the statement was denied.
In May 1992, a pretrial hearing was held on a defense motion asking the Travis County District Attorney’s Office to disclose to the defense or to the judge for in camera review all exculpatory evidence and statements and other evidence which would tend to impeach the prosecution’s witnesses. The defense argued that it was entitled to police records in unrelated cases involvingPolanco, Huckabay, Fuentes, and Boardman as well as their personnel records.
The defense cited courthouse rumors and newspaper articles that the police department and a grand jury were investigating these officers for obtaining false confessions in other cases and had then lied during those trials. Defense attorney Michael Etchison said, “I want all of the impeachment material available in any state or state agency file regarding the methods, complaints, improprieties by which any of these officers have been involved in getting a confession. . . . Short of that, I would like every complaint having to do with the taking of confessions by all of these officers.”
Etchison said, “I assume a number of them are in custody of the Grand Jury office of the district attorney. There may well be others in internal affairs. I don't know where they keep these things in the police department, but I assume they're all in the City of Austin and the district attorney can find them.”
In February 1991, Polanco and another officer, Brent McDonald, had obtained a confession from John Salazar for the murder of a correctional officer. However, the confession was false. Two other detectives were obtaining confessions from the true killers at the same time that Salazar was allegedly confessing.
In December 1991, four teenage girls were murdered, mutilated and burned as they were closing up a I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop in Austin. Because of his reputation as a man who could solve cases with confessions, Polanco was assigned to a task force investigating the murders. He obtained a confession from Alex Briones, which was promptly proved to be false. Months later, Polanco was kicked off the task force. (In 1999, four men were charged with the murders. The charges against two of them were dismissed. Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen were convicted, but both were exonerated in 2009 as a result of DNA testing.)
In January 1992, Polanco had testified in the trials of Jose Flores and Ernest Flores, who were charged with the murder of the correctional officer. Polanco denied that Salazar had ever confessed. Flores and Perez were convicted. Three months later, in April 1992, a written statement from Salazar was discovered, prompting a motion for a new trial by Flores and Perez, which was denied.
However, the discovery prompted the police department to put Polanco on restricted leave, and spurred rumors of an internal investigation of his conduct in other cases.
Judge Bob Perkins ruled: “For the time being, I am denying it, but I am stating to you specifically that my denial as ordered today is not a final order; that I expect for you to bring me cases that you have on Thursday and I will be glad to look at it at that time and make a final ruling . . .”
After the defense filed a brief supporting the motion for disclosure, another hearing was held on June 30, 1992. Judge Perkins ordered the prosecution to produce for his in camera inspection any records of confessions that Huckabay, Fuentes, Boardman, or Polanco had obtained where there was a claim that the confessions were totally fabricated or that the officers had supplied inculpatory parts of the confessions. The prosecution did not comply, however, and the defense failed to object.
A jury was selected, and testimony in Causey’s trial began on July 14, 1992. Harrell was to be tried separately.
Harris was the prosecution’s first witness. He essentially told the same story that he had given Fuentes in his witness statement, but added that he and Byington had followed Kershaw and the others first to Canales’s and Benavidez’s apartment.
That conflicted with testimony from Kershaw and Gloden that they went directly to Kershaw’s from Maggie Mae’s. Kershaw also testified that he had refused to provide a false alibi for Harris.
Andrea Tasby, who lived at the apartment complex where the body had been found, said that she saw a car driving by slowly in the parking lot looking over at all the commotion that was going on. She said the driver, who she identified as Causey, came up to the group and tried to engage people in conversation. She said he seemed nervous, and that at one point he said he didn’t kill the victim.
The cornerstone of the prosecution’s case was the three-page statement that Fuentes had typed up and that Causey signed.
Huckabay testified that Causey voluntarily confessed after he was given his Miranda warnings. He said that Polanco was never alone with Causey. Huckabay denied that any officer fed information to Causey. Huckabay admitted that he yelled at Causey, screamed in his face, and repeatedly accused him of murdering Byington, despite Causey’s protestations of innocence. Huckabay said he used false evidence ploys such as suggesting that his alibi witnesses denied knowing him or disagreed with his story, and that Harrell had implicated him.
Fuentes testified that he typed up the statement as Causey gave it because he was a faster typist than the other officers.
Both Huckabay and Fuentes testified that they had no first-hand knowledge about whether Polanco had ever fabricated or obtained false confessions or given perjured testimony. Huckabay admitted he had heard rumors to that effect. Both said they had no first-hand knowledge that Polanco's job was in jeopardy or that he might be charged with criminal offenses.
A fingerprint examiner testified that 65 fingerprints were recovered from Byington’s car; 27 from items that were in the car and 38 from the car itself. Ten of the prints were suitable for comparison and four were associated with Byington. The examiner admitted that Harris’s prints had never been submitted for comparison. His prints were then supplied, and, after a break, the examiner testified that Harris was the source of two of the remaining six prints suitable for comparison: a print on the car above the driver’s door and a palm print on the outside glass of the back passenger window on the driver’s side.
The analyst also testified that there were no visible wipe marks on Byington’s car, contradicting Causey’s statement that they wiped the car down before they abandoned it. The analyst said the car was very dusty and wipe marks would have been apparent.
A crime lab analyst testified about serology testing on the evidence. The analyst said there were a few sperm detected on Byington’s blouse and her underwear. Blood stains were tested and found to be consistent with blood type O. The analyst said the test indicated that the source was someone with blood type O who was a secretor or from someone who was a nonsecretor of any blood type. A person is said to be a secretor if their blood type antigens are secreted in their body fluids.
The analyst said the antigen in the sperm was consistent with a type O secretor or a nonsecretor of any blood type. Harris, the evidence showed, was a type B nonsecretor. The police did not obtain any blood samples from Harrell or Causey.
Although Causey’s clothing, as well as Harrell’s, had been confiscated after their arrest, no blood was found on any article. A belt was confiscated during a search of Causey’s residence, but the pathologist who conducted the autopsy said the belt buckle was not responsible for any marks on Byington’s body. The pathologist testified that Byington died of blunt force trauma to her head. The pathologist also testified that there was no evidence of trauma to her genitals, but that was semen found in her underwear, and her bra was pushed up over her breasts. The pathologist noted that four of Byington’s false fingernails were either broken off or cracked, indicating that a violent struggle had occurred. However, no scrapings of any fingernails were taken during the autopsy. The toxicology report was negative for the presence of any drugs in Byington.
The prosecution did not call Polanco as a witness, but the defense did. Polanco testified that he was never alone with Causey in the interrogation room. He denied feeding Causey information, making any threats or physically abusing Causey.
Polanco testified, “I’ve never seen a coerced confession." He also said, “I always have told the truth.” Etchison then argued that he should be allowed to impeach Polanco with specific instances from unrelated cases. The judge refused to allow that line of questioning.
Causey then testified and denied committing the crime. He testified that Polanco was alone with him in the interrogation room for at least an hour. He said he was coerced into making the statement because Polanco choked him, threatened him with a lethal injection, and promised to have him “turned out.” Causey told the jury that he understood that meant that Polanco could have him sexually assaulted by other inmates while he was incarcerated.
On July 21, 1992, the jury convicted Causey of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
In November 1992, Travis County District attorney Ronnie Earle held a press conference to announce an investigation of misconduct by Polanco and other members of the Austin police homicide unit. “Specifically,” Earle said, “the police misconduct involves using improper methods to obtain confessions and statements, obtaining false and incorrect statements and confessions, and concealing evidence.”
On April 1, 1993, the prosecution dismissed the case against Harrell, citing a lack of evidence to obtain a conviction and Causey’s refusal to testify against Harrell.
In April 1993, a report was issued. By that time, Polanco had been fired for testifying falsely in the case of Perez and Flores. The report cited Polanco for failing to write police reports. The report said that officers in the unit filed incomplete reports or filed no reports at all. The report said, “It suspends belief that those in the chain of command above Sr. Sgt. Hector Polanco did not know what was going on in the homicide detail with regard to interrogation methods and incomplete report writing.”
The report cited Polanco for obtaining false confessions from Salazar and Briones as well as Billy Gene Davis. Davis had been charged with the murder of his girlfriend after he confessed during an interrogation by Polanco. The charge was dismissed several days later when the girlfriend turned up alive.
In June 1993, an arbitrator reinstated Polanco, and he ultimately filed a lawsuit alleging that he was targeted because of his Mexican heritage. (In 2001, he was awarded $318,000 and retired with full benefits.)
In September 1994, the Third District Texas Court of Appeals affirmed Causey’s conviction and sentence.
In January 1999, Harris was charged in Austin with burglary and assault for an attack on a woman who said he followed her home after she finished work as a server at a gentlemen’s club. The woman said Harris grabbed her by the neck as she attempted to get into her apartment. Her roommate heard shouting and called the police. Harris was arrested as he drove away.
In October 2000, Harris was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to a year in custody, but was released after serving only a few months.
That same year, Causey and Dellanda were married, allowing them to have contact visits, meaning they could hug each other at the beginning and end of each visit.
In 2022, the Innocence Project of Texas (IPT) began investigating Causey’s case. Later that year, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) began re-investigating the case. The CIU discovered several boxes of records relating to the internal investigation of Polanco and the homicide unit as well as records relating to the prosecution of Harris for the assault case.
On October 22, 2022, Causey was released from prison, more than 30 years from the date of his conviction.
In 2023, IPT attorneys Michael Ware, Jessica Freud and Chase Baumgarten filed a state law petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking a new trial.
Beginning that year and stretching into 2024, a series of hearings were held before Travis County Criminal District Judge Chantal Eldridge. The prosecution supported the defense motion for a new trial. The prosecution and the defense lawyers presented evidence and argued that Harris had been the killer and that Causey’s confession was false.
The evidence included:
In 2000, in preparation for Harris’s trial on the assault and burglary charges, the prosecutor in the case filed a brief saying that if Harris took the witness stand, the prosecution intended to introduce the “following crimes or bad acts for purpose of impeachment” or during the punishment phase of his trial, and those crimes were “murder or party to murder committed on or about August 11th, 1991, in Travis County, Texas. The victim was Anita Byington.”
In the prosecution file were notes of an interview in 2000 by the prosecutor with a woman, M.B., who said that in 1991, she was Harris’s girlfriend. She said that he had come to her apartment and asked her to help him move Byington’s car. At the time, she had noticed that he had an injury to his arm.
M.B. testified in 2024 at the writ hearing that Harris was physically and sexually abusive in their relationship. She recalled the early morning call from Harris asking her to help him move Byington’s car. She said she saw a purse in the car and that Harris claimed it belonged to his stepmother. She also recalled his arm was injured at the time, which was several hours before Harris would later claim it happened in his kitchen.
A close friend of M.B. testified at the writ hearing that she recalled M.B. getting that phone call from Harris because they had spent the evening together to celebrate the friend’s 18th birthday. The friend said she remembered the night specifically because it was her birthday.
DNA testing had been performed on Byington’s clothing and identified Harris as the source. Causey and Harrell were excluded.
In 2002, Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger were exonerated of their convictions for a 1988 rape and murder of Nancy DePriest, an employee in an Austin Pizza Hut restaurant. After two 12-hour sessions with Polanco, and detectives Boardman and Ed Balagia, Ochoa had signed a confession that included important details about the murder. He implicated Danziger as well, saying that Danziger shot DePriest and that both men had raped her. Danziger and Ochoa were exonerated when the real criminal came forward and DNA testing confirmed that the man was telling the truth. Ochoa said after the exoneration that when Polanco came into the interrogation room, he introduced himself as “el Cucuy” or “the Bogeyman.”
A 23-year-old woman, G.B. testified that in 2001, she was sexually assaulted by Harris. In 2003, Harris was charged with that assault. That case was still pending in 2025.
There was evidence that the Austin police homicide unit was responsible for at least seven false confessions, and that Polanco was responsible for at least four of them: Briones, Davis, Salazar, and Ochoa.
Richard Leo, an expert on false confessions, reviewed Causey’s case and concluded that Polanco, Huckabay, Boardman, and Fuentes “demonstrated a reckless and incompetent disregard for the truth from almost the very beginning of their investigation. Causey, Leo noted, had an IQ of 66, which is at the level of an intellectual disability, leaving him susceptible to a false confession. The statement “bears numerous indicia and hallmarks of unreliability,” and “has all the markers of a false confession, all the characteristics that you would expect to see in a false confession.”
During one of the hearings, Sarah Byrom, an assistant District Attorney, said, ‘The truth is that over 30 years ago, the State failed to obtain justice for Ms. Byington and convicted an innocent man, Mr. Causey, of her murder.”
Judge Eldridge interrupted Byrom to ask, “I'm going to stop you for one second. So the concern by the family after they thought that they had obtained closure for these last three decades is that now the case is going to be reopened, and they’re worried that they’re not going to get closure again. Now, you believe that Mr. Causey is innocent. The wrong person was convicted. But you have every intention of prosecuting who you believe is, in fact, responsible for Ms. Byington's death, correct?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Byrom replied. “We have every intention of seeing this through to [the] prosecution of the accountable perpetrator.”
In July 2024, Judge Eldridge recommended that the writ be granted based on numerous factors, including that the prosecution had failed to disclose at the time of Causey’s trial the extent and nature of the investigation of Polanco’s misconduct during interrogations in other cases and his false testimony at trials.
The judge found credible the testimony by M.B. and her friend that Harris was involved in moving Byington’s car and that he had an injury to his arm. This evidence disproved part of Causey’s confession, the judge declared. However, the judge declined to find that Causey was actually innocent. “[T]he parties have not established by clear and convincing evidence that Kevin Harris acted alone in the murder of Anita Byington,” the judge ruled.
Judge Eldridge ruled that Polanco had testified falsely at Causey’s trial. And the judge found that three months prior to Causey’s trial, Huckabay had confirmed for the internal investigators that Polanco employed coercive tactics, including physical violence.
In April 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the writ and vacated Causey’s conviction. The court noted that in the years since Causey's conviction, new evidence had been discovered, including "DNA implicating an alternate suspect, testimony from witnesses contradicting parts of Causey's confession, and allegations of police misconduct. This evidence suggests that another person may have been involved in the crime." The court declared, "Although this Court does not find that the evidence shows Applicant to be actually innocent, this Court finds that habeas relief should be granted based on the State's unknowing use of false testimony."
On May 20, 2025, the prosecution dismissed the case. Causey was later granted compensation by the state of Texas.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 09-02-2025
