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Thanks To The Drought, A Woman’s Remains Are Discovered In Lake Granbury

Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/04/18/5748677/womans-skeletal-remains-pulled.html?rh=1
A look at Lake Granbury last month. Drought conditions helped authorities spot a pickup truck in the lake last week. Inside were a woman's remains. Authorities suggest the remains belong to Helen Holladay, missing since 1979.

Five stories that have North Texas talking: Has a missing woman’s remains been discovered?; remembering William Blair Jr., Dallas is a basketball and hockey playoff team (at least for now); and more:

For nearly 35 years, no one has been able to find Helen Holladay after she fought with her husband. Last week, authorities went to Lake Granbury to pull out a truck. Inside: a skeleton. Hood County authorities say they found identifying information that ties the skeleton and truck to Holladay. Credit the ongoing drought for making it easier to spot the truck. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports: “Low lake levels brought on by the drought revealed the pickup’s resting spot. At normal lake levels, the area where the vehicle was found would have been in 15 to 16 feet of murky water and about 15 feet from the normal shoreline.” A Granbury city employee saw a vehicle sticking out of the lake. Holladay was last seen alive in 1979, when neighbors said she’d been in a blood struggle with her husband, Herman Holladay at a home on Lake Granbury, the Star-Telegram reports. Helen Holladay was declared dead in 1986. Her husband died later. Authorities will use DNA samples provided by Holladay’s daughters to identify the remains, the newspaper reports. In a separate case, in South Dakota last week, authorities announced that the drought revealed a missing car and the remains of two missing teenagers who hadn’t been seen in more than 40 years.

  • William Blair Jr., founder of the DFW Elite News and a civil rights advocate, has died. He was 92. WFAA-TV reports: “The Dallas native graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and began his career as a pitcher in Negro League baseball in 1946. Blair launched Southwest Sports News in 1949, a newspaper that specialized in reporting on African-American collegiate games. The weekly newspaper was renamed Elite (pronounced "E-light") News in 1960 and expanded its coverage to other issues focusing on the black community. Blair helped establish the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade in Dallas, and attended the most recent event in January.” A city park was named in his honor. The Dallas Morning News has more.

  • Dallas is both a basketball and hockey playoff town – at least for now. The Dallas Mavericks blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter Sunday to lose to the San Antonio Spurs, 90-85, in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. (Game 2 is Wednesday.) San Antonio won despite going three for 17 on 3-pointers and getting only 23 points from its normally potent bench, ESPN reported. “The Spurs held Dallas to one field goal in the final seven minutes,” ESPN said. “The Mavericks also went scoreless for 5½ minutes during that stretch, their lone field goal coming with less than a second remaining.” In the other playoff series, the Anaheim Ducks beat the Dallas Stars 3-2 Friday night. The Ducks have a 2-0 lead in their first-round series. Game 3 is Monday night in Dallas. CBS Sports reports: “Rookie Frederik Andersen made 34 saves in his second postseason start, and Andrew Cogliano scored a short-handed goal in the third period before the Ducks survived Dallas' late flurry to move halfway to their first series victory since 2009.”

  • The housing market in North Texas is hot, hot, hot. It’s so hot that if you’re selling a home, be prepared to have a place to live – because it’s likely to sell quickly, according to a new national survey issued by the Redfin Research Center. Dallas is ranked No. 5 on a list of the country’s fastest housing markets in March. In Dallas, 14 percent of homes sold within three days. Fort Worth is ranked No. 8. Slightly more than 10 percent of Fort Worth homes sold within three days. Read more from KERA News.

  • The Dallas Chamber Music Society welcomes the Emerson String Quartet to SMU's Caruth Auditorium at 8 p.m. Monday. The concert includes works by Mozart and Mendelssohn. Over three decades, the quartet has produced more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and received several awards, including nine Grammys, three Gramophone Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. Here’s a sampling: Dvořák's "String Quartet No. 11 in C major."

(Photo credit: Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Eric Aasen is KERA’s managing editor. He helps lead the station's news department, including radio and digital reporters, producers and newscasters. He also oversees keranews.org, the station’s news website, and manages the station's digital news projects. He reports and writes stories for the website and contributes pieces to KERA radio. He's discussed breaking news live on various public radio programs, including The Takeaway, Here & Now and Texas Standard, as well as radio and TV programs in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.