T. Cullen Davis, the Texas oil businessman whose trials following a deadly mansion shooting drew lasting attention from true-crime writers and television producers, has died at 93. His son, Trey Davis, said Monday that Davis died Friday at his home in Colleyville, a suburb of Fort Worth. Davis consistently denied wrongdoing and was acquitted in both a murder case and a later alleged murder-for-hire plot.
The shooting occurred in August 1976 at Davis' secluded Fort Worth mansion while he and his second wife, Priscilla Davis, were in a bitter divorce. A gunman wearing black clothing and a woman's black wig killed Priscilla's 12-year-old daughter, Andrea Wilborn, and her live-in boyfriend, 30-year-old Stan Farr.
Priscilla Davis and a visitor, Gus “Bubba” Gavrel Jr., were wounded and survived. Gavrel's date escaped without injury. All three survivors identified Cullen Davis as the shooter. Prosecutors tried him for capital murder in Wilborn's death, with prominent Texas lawyer Richard “Racehorse” Haynes representing him.
Juror misconduct caused the first trial to end in a mistrial. A second trial resulted in his acquittal in 1977. At the time, Davis controlled a business empire built largely on oil and valued at $400 million. He was described as the richest man to have faced a murder trial up to that point.
Nine months after that acquittal, authorities arrested Davis on a charge of solicitation of capital murder. An FBI informant alleged under oath that Davis had directed him to kill 15 people. The alleged targets included the judge handling his divorce and the three people who survived the mansion shooting. Haynes again defended Davis, who was also acquitted in that case.
The mansion killings became the subject of several books and true-crime television programs. Heather Locklear portrayed Priscilla Davis in the 1995 television miniseries “Texas Justice.” Priscilla died of breast cancer in 2001. She was 59.
Davis' business holdings were deteriorating by the mid-1980s. Speaking in the mid-1990s, he attributed his company's bankruptcy to the oil industry's collapse rather than the criminal trials.
Trey Davis, whom Cullen adopted after marrying Trey's mother, Karen Master, remembered his father as loving and accepting. He said Cullen had been a caustic person when they first met in the mid-1970s, while Master and Cullen were dating. Trey attributed a subsequent change to Cullen becoming a Christian in 1981, saying his father took his faith seriously and describing him as a man of integrity, humility and determination.
