Gale and Sheila Muhs, of Liberty County, Texas, aren’t a good looking couple. In fact, they are quite unattractive, even more so in their mug shots. So it comes as no surprise that they were both easily annoyed and overly protective of the few things that were theirs. This cost a 7 year old boy his life. The Muhs’ had a shotgun.
From the Houston Chronicle :
Donald Coffey Jr., his father and friends were on their way back from joy riding near a levee and swimming in the Trinity River around 9 p.m. Thursday when homeowners Gale and Sheila Muhs fired at them with a 12-gauge shotgun, police say.
The men stopped to use the bathroom and got out of the Jeep near the Muhses’ home in the Westlake subdivision south of Dayton when a woman’s voice boomed through the darkness, Nelton said.
In a message peppered with expletives, she said, the voice ordered the group to get their vehicles off the property.
“And then I heard a shot and our windows were blown out,” Nelton said.
Donald Coffey Jr. was shot in the face, and later died. Sheila Muhs felt entirely justified.
Meanwhile, Sheila Muhs — whose home is fronted by a sign warning: “Trespassers will be shot. Survivers will be reshot!! Smile I will” — had called 911. Bishop said the woman told a dispatcher: “They’re running over our levee in big-wheel vehicles, and I shot them.” Officials have not released the 911 tape.
Now I’ve been told in the past that I just don’t understand how people think in Texas. I admit it. I don’t. Is it their desperate love of property rights, the same that makes them feel that their Castle Doctrine should entitle them to kill at will anyone who breaches their doublewide? Is it that they consider life so cheap that it’s barely worth a shrug when they take it, whether from those sentenced to execution or 7 year old children? My Texas friends are right. I don’t get it.
The stories don’t quite explain what Donald Coffey was doing on the Muhs’ property. Was he peeing in the bushes or “big-wheeling” over their levies. Was he doing harm to the property or simply touching it when the Muhs’ didn’t want anyone touching it. I can’t tell. But regardless, was it worth a death sentence?
Texans tell me that they have a fierce love of freedom, one that they are prepared to kill for. It seems to me that they are prepared to kill for a lot of things, and that each individual Texan feels entitled to decide for himself what he’s entitled to do. The Muhs thought their right to kill someone was not only so clear that they shot at will, but so funny that they put up a sign to reflect their sense of humor. In other places, these people would be considered diseased.
We regularly hear that every infringement on personal freedom finds justification “for the children,” which of course is nonsensical most (though not all) of the time. It can be said of pretty much anything, and usually is, though the children excuse, aside from being cliché, usually bears little rational connection to the freedom infringed. This time is different. We know that because these two unattractive people killed a 7 year old. Aren’t they proud of themselves for pulling the trigger on their shotgun? Aren’t they so very Texan?
The machismo reflected in the attitude of those who see life as so cheap may not be quite as macho after this. It doesn’t take a he-man to shoot a child. Over an alleged trespass. No threat of burglary or harm, just a simple trespass. It seems that a little boy had to pee, not necessarily something one would want to happen on your property, but not quite worthy of a killing.
Are you proud of your son and daughter of Texas? Does it make you feel righteous to fire a shotgun at a trespasser in the dark? Can my Texas friends shrug off the death of a 7 year old, under the “he needed killing” theory? It’s time to reassess just how willing people are to pull the trigger whenever something annoys them.
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Much more of this and I will get behind the secession plan.
Well you’re right, they aren’t attractive. I’ll go out on a limb and call ’em seriously ugly on three different levels: physically, morally and spiritually. There, I’ve said it and I’m quite prepared to take any criticism that comes my way from the P.C. crowd who demand non-judgmental assessments of others one just can’t understand. One question though: Is it possible that one can be both Texan and “diseased” and that the deeds of this particular UGLY STICK damaged pair were way over the top for most Texans? I think its a possibility.
Maybe. I’m withholding judgment until I hear what our Texas friends have to say about this.
I know it’s not your point, but the Texas castle statute won’t protect these people from the Texas death penalty statute.
Texas only provides cover for defense of self or other people from force, or from forcible entry into a “habitation,” which is a building.
But as you say, it’s not a problem of Texas law. It’s a problem of Texas culture.
Et tu, Patrick? And people wonder why I’m hestitant to make analogies and metaphors without footnotes to explain their purpose.
What isn’t mentioned in the story is one simple fact: the levee in question is fifteen feet on the other side of the Mr. and Mrs. Muhs’ property line. The Muhs shot four people on public property. I’m not a death penalty advocate, but I would like to reserve two spots on the hottest ring of hell for these two. I also have no confidence in a Texas jury to do the right thing. We shall see.
I haven’t seen that in any of the news reports, though this column by Cary Clack states that there was no trespass:
What exactly was happening at the time Sheila Muhs decided that shooting children was a good idea was particularly unclear in the news accounts I’ve read. But hey, when you’ve got a shotgun and an urge to use it, would the 15 foot “detail” really have made a difference?
On a side note, that “Trespassers Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again” sign may seem funny and macho when you buy it, but if you ever have to actually shoot someone, it’s going to come up at your trial, and it won’t make the jury feel warm thoughts. (May not apply in Texas.)
Scott,
Texas defense of property law will not protect these creeps. Whether the state will succeed in imposing the death penalty is obviously another matter. However, your characterization that Texans approve of this kind of conduct is very wrong. People with the attitudes of these people are thankfully a very small minority and can be found almost anywhere in this county.
Sorry, but I can’t agree. Obviously the Castle Doctrine isn’t implicated, but what’s at issue here is that Texas has a culture, reflected by the Castle Doctrine as well as the verdicts under it, that suggests that life is cheap, that taking life to protect property, that guns are an acceptable means of dealing with petty annoyances. It is not like that “almost anywhere in the count[r]y.” Most other places, people like these would be considered sociopaths, and conduct like this would be considered utterly reprehensible.
Try this another way: Assume that they hadn’t killed a child, but just shot at him to scare him off. Would that have been acceptable? Would that have brought universal condemnation? Almost anywhere else in the country, that would be the case. Would it be true in Texas?
As I learned from my good buddy Bennett, Texas has a defense that the victim “needed killing.” It’s almost funny, except for the fact that it takes its toll in human life. On the flip side, consider the number of executions in Texas, a detail that most Texans are oddly proud of. What is it about the value of a human life in Texas? It’s not the same as the rest of the country. Not even close.
I think that the Texas attitude — which appears real, from this northern remove — that there is such thing as somebody who “needed killin'” won’t be applied to a situation where idiots opened fire in the dark on a car that was at a safe distance (from the idiots’ POV) and managed to kill a kid and wound a bunch of other folks who were, by all accounts, doing nothing “worse” than finding a place to take a leak.
I think they go too far in some ways, just as I think other places go too far in others — I live in one of those — but I don’t think that blasting away and killing a cute little kid is going to go without a serious attempt to punish, and my reading of the article is that the reporters are doing their best to make that argument as clear as they can, regardless of what it might do around the periphery to make it difficult (although not perhaps impossible) for the perps to get a fair trial.
But I guess we’ll see.
But I think you’re right about the whole “warning shot” thing. I think that there’s lot of places — I don’t live in one — where the making of a loud sound without actually endangering somebody would go without social disapproval if there were sufficient reason to believe that the person ought to be scared off.
I heard that sort of thing, somewhere. (I always tell the folks who have just finished their qual not to post the target on the front door for that sort of reason.) Ditto for This House Protected by Smith and Wesson signs.
That’s how I see it. It’s not that Texans (or anyone else) approves of killing kids over nothing, but that a culture where indiscriminate use guns and shooting at/around people is no big deal leads to horrific things like this.
Well, I agree, but I think it’s a lot more complicated — doubt you disagree on that; doubt you agree on many and certainly not all of the specifics of the complications I think I see — and I probably want to write about that another, more suitable, place, and another time, because this sort of thing just makes me mad and sad.
It’s just horrible.
A few years back I moved from Victoria, Texas (in south Texas) to Cleveland, Texas (in Liberty County in East Texas). A friend gave me one piece of advice, “Be careful, Gary, those people live back in the woods”.
It isn’t about property rights in Liberty County. It’s about members of the group (family) versus outsiders.
If you aren’t known to be a cousin you need to be very careful in that part of the world. Most Texans don’t understand why East Texas doesn’t just get annexed by Arkansas or something
“life is cheap, that taking life to protect property, that guns are an acceptable means of dealing with petty annoyances”
Uh, well … sure. Do you really live in a place where life isn’t treated as “cheap” (check the mortality rate for area fishermen, the murder rate for young blacks …), where property isn’t routinely valued over humanity, or where petty annoyances aren’t met with the overwhelming state force, litigation, excessive criminal charges, etc.? Texans just acknowledge the reality and talk about it honestly.
Some of the East and West Coasters would like to kid themselves that their own most embarrassing specimens are any better, but I’ve been around both environs enough not to buy it.
I’m a 2d Amdt backing Texan and I don’t endorse these inbred cretins who violated the law and deserve to be punished as murderers of the worst brand (I believe one of the kids died). My guess: Most gun owning Texans would endorse capital punishment for this pair, which hardly jibe with the ideas that we tolerate such things!
One more thought: Research the cases and I’ll bet you’ll find that the “needed killin'” defense works in NY, too. 🙂
Nope, the cultures are nothing alike. Nothing. It’s too easy to try to raise the spectre, but I’m not buying.
As a gun nut and a Texan, I can tell you that me and my ilk neither condone nor defend their actions.
These two are going to be lucky if they get life w/o parole. They are likely going to get a well deserved death.
I know you don’t, and I know that you are as horrified by what these two inbreds did as much as I am (you too, Grits and Jig). But that’s not what I’m saying. Clearly, I’ve done one piss poor job of expressing myself this time (where’s Jdog when you need him?).
What I’m trying so inartfully to say is that it’s that very gun thing combined with that life is cheap thing that makes everyone from Texas go to the death penalty, that “it’s out right to protect our property and shoot at people” thing, that murder is okay if he “needed killin’
thing, that ultimately manifests itself in an incident like this happening.
Let me ask the question another way: Do you see any connection between all these Texas-isms and what happened here with this two crazies? Can you see why one would lead a couple of unstable people of dubious heritage and interfamilial relationship to think that this is the way to behave?
Well, I’m here. Gimme a while; I just had a much-needed snort (it’s been kind of day) but there’s something really important about this, and it’s something that keeps coming up all around the edges of a lot of stuff I care about, so, yeah, there is some connection, but I don’t think it’s what you think it is, or what some of the proud Texans think is isn’t, and if I’m going to tell you all why I think you’re wrong, I’m going to want to take my time with it.
And use more than three sentences.
I didn’t have time to give a proper response earlier. Thanks for the further clarification though.
There are times when using a shotgun to scare or injure kids is (culturally in my mind) justifiable. These cases are pretty limited though and one should be firing rock salt instead of shot. An example would be if the kids were tearing down a chicken house or destroying a green house.
This also assumes that other venues for recompense have been exhausted.
If there is a possibility that the kids would be seriously injured (or anything worse than a peppered backside), then it’s best not to shoot at them.
Both of those instances involve willful destruction of property but don’t involve deadly force. (Firearms don’t automatically mean deadly force.)
Another example would be if kids were throwing rocks at one’s dogs kept in a dog run. Once all other venues have been exhausted, then a high speed dose of rock salt to the behind is called for.
(FWIW, a discussion with the kids’ parents usually involves the phrase, “So what do you want me to do about it!” – not a question.)
If a trespasser on an ATV is about to run down a bunch infants and puppies crawling around the yard, then deadly force is justified regardless of his age.
In non-rural areas those “rules” change a bit.
I don’t view life as cheap – just the opposite. There are some people, such as the couple in the article, that are so terrible that their lives should be taken. They are much like a cancer that needs to be removed in order for the healthy tissue to survive.
Neither I nor just about any other Texan (there are definitely some so I won’t say “all”) would take delight or even think little of it in having to gun down a child, even if he were shooting at us.
Also, if someone is breaking into your doublewide, gun him down immediately. There’s never a good reason to break into a doublewide.
Words to live by. Thanks Shawn.
I live a few counties south of where this took place, and have lived in Texas for the past 23 years; having said the previous, I still don’t understand what failed attempt at logic tripped through these two idiot’s skulls. Then again, I still have a hard time convincing other Texans that I was born here and lived here for a couple of decades.
I would have to agree it is very much a Texas culture problem, coupled with the sheer number of firearms available. Astoundingly, on the road I lived on for a time (well, just a 2 mile stretch of it)in a previous county was more heavily armed than the Sheriff’s Department. Gary’s comment was dead on in this respect – nearly 70% of the aforementioned stretch were all related, one way or another, but I’m digressing.
Closer to the Texas culture issue, I remember trying to explain to a few co-workers why a suspect who had surrendered (admittedly, immediately after a high-speed pursuit is not an ideal time for the police to act in a restrained manor) did not require significant force (the suspect literally took a boot to the head while laying face down, spread-eagle) to restrain him. I started thinking I was the insane one with the looks I was getting for that one; the mentality was that “he deserved it”, and one co-worker said they should have just killed him for “endangering all those people” (admittedly, he did endanger a rather large number of people).
It isn’t hard to characterize life as cheep (which is disgusting enough to begin with); however, the Texas culture seems to deem life as among the lowest of possessions.
Responsibility is something I next to never see bantered in such a discussion; with the arsenal of weapons available in Texas, one would think a large concern would be the responsible handling of such a dangerous tool.
there must be more to this. she was irrationally defending her property (maybe!) because they were involved in prohibited activities- growing marijuana, manufacturing meth, etc. they’re offered no protection by the law, so they apply their own protective measures. meth could be a contributor to the attractiveness…
She does have that “methy” look to her. Or, she could just be an upstanding citizen of Liberty County. That she called 911 to report her good aim suggests that they weren’t engaged in free enterprise, since few such people invite police to stop by for a spell and investigate dead/dying children.
She’d thought she had been scared before, but it was nothing like this. Thank God she had been able to work herself loose from the duct tape, and kick the trunk open.
She didn’t dare hesitate even for a moment to look back as she ran barefoot down the road, the pebbles cutting her feet to ribbons, but she could hear his shouts behind her as she ran.
Up ahead, just off the dirt road, the trailer beckoned to her; the light on the front porch called to her, promising safety. Country people, well, sometimes they were a bit rough around the edges, but . . .
No. Don’t scream. Can’t afford to waste the breath.
Her feet pounded up the rough-hewn steps, and she wondered if she was leaving bloody footprints behind, but the door was just inches away, and —
She crashed through, and stumbled and —
“Omigod.”
All she could do was croak out one word: “Help.”
“Shit, lady, I don’t know what this is about — Madge. Madge — help this girl; I’m going to make damn sure nobody’s chasing her. You call the cops — now, dammit, Madge. Now.”
The last thing she heard before the darkness swept up and washed her away was the racking of the shotgun.
I live in WV, albeit not the backwoods part of it, but it ain’t far..
Yeah, I’ve heard opinions like gun nut Shawn’s around here, and not even from inbreds like our two perps. Equating a human health, even life to a damaged chicken house, jeez, what can you say… Sad! It’s ok if you shoot. But then, if the result don’t meet my standards, put ’em to death and quick like! Nothing wrong with that! Damn Shawn, you lost me.
Don’t know about Texas, haven’t been there enough, but in my environs people know that they wouldn’t ever get away with using their firearms wantonly. So they mostly don’t, unless it involves the ex or the gf, then they lose it,had two cases right across the street recently. As for the issue of cousins and other relations vs. outsiders, seems to me that there should be a lot of family blood feuds in Texas. Family can have less restraint to each other than to strangers, see above.
Martin, I’m talking about using non-lethal use of firearms. If rock salt is inappropriate, then use bean bags. Yes, it hurts like hell and can be fatal (though I’ve yet to ever hear of a case where it was). I’d wager it is also a more effective deterant than juvie court. (Actually, having been on the receiving side of the rock salt, I’m a little ashamed to say that I know it is.)
My view – because we’re talking TX culture – is that the chicken and green houses are very closely linked to a family’s well being. It’s amazing how little the parents of hoodlums will do to help those victimized by their kids.
It’s as important if not more than a bank security guard who will use deadly force to protect other peoples’ money.
My comment about the doublewide was hyperbole. When you use deadly force, always make sure of the threat against you.
My comment above about outsiders was in to Liberty County, not to Texas culture. Liberty County contains an area called the Big Thickpet. It’s hillbillies without the hills. There actually are a lot of blood feuds in that part of Texas. There just aren’t that many people there.
I asked my greatmother once where her family came from when they moved to Texas (she grew up on a West Texas ranch and lived within 100 miles of Lubbock all her life).
Her reply, “Oh, we ain’t always lived in Texas. My daddy, Joe Taylor, he came from Liberty County in East Texas”.
Most Texans consider East Texas to be part of Arkansas.
I agree. I am a native Texan living in Delaware, and I don’t think it’s a question of “Texan” mentality. Both Texas and the East Coast exhibit fine examples of idiots, and idiots with guns.
I will note that as a child I was raised to stay the hell off people’s property, as to wander innocently might invite being shot at. However, I never knew a Texan in my extensive family to have ever wantonly shot at anyone, so I understood the warning to be something adults told children so they wouldn’t wander. I’m far more nervous about the East Coast. Shooting and violence seem random and in closer proximity.
Just curious Lexie. Do you find telling kids not to walk on someone’s property because they will be shot at all an odd way to explain things? Why not, “don’t walk on someone else’s property because it’s trespassing, wrong and rude?” Doesn’t the “you’ll get shot” part, even though it seems perfectly normal to you because of your Texan upbringing, strike you as a peculiar and inappropriate rationale for children? Do you think this means of explanation might contribute to a “shoot trespassers” mindset?
I’m not sure you’re right, Patrick.
A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land . . . [when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary] to prevent the other’s imminent commission of [among other things] criminal mischief during the nighttime . . . and he reasonably believes that the land or property cannot be protected by any other means. . . . Texas Penal Code 9.42.
Just because I can make a straightfaced argument that their conduct was legally justified doesn’t mean these people aren’t aberrational even for Texas.
It’s easy to call these killers names, that is the American way. One thing not understand here is the ongoing assult of this free off-roaders. Constant noise from atvs, big engine mud trucks and the lack of consideration for the human need of peace. May have caused them to go off!!!
Sheila Muhs is aged by a lack of sleep and of constant stress. There was an ongoing problem of these trespassers and noise from atvs and mud trucks.
100 yards is nothing compared to the level of noise put off by this activity.
This family new exactly where they were and planed to throw some mud. They may have been there to harrass in an already established danger zone. How can you say you just stop to let your kids pee but planed to do some off roading. BS you off roaders drove these tired and sick people to murder!!!
It’s always nice to hear the views of the Off-Roader Society of the Ukraine.
Nah. Jerks can be irritating, but you’re really not allowed to shoot people just because you’re irritated, even if your Visualization of the Cosmic All is correct, and predicts that they’re going to throw some mud.
Would it kill you to be a bit more accommodating to our foreign guest?
It would cause me great pain, but it probably wouldn’t be lethal. Probably.
Suck it up, Comrade.
Such signs are ill-advised even in Texas. It implies, whether or not it is the intent of person displaying it, that you are planning (hoping?) to shoot someone.
“No Trespassing” notices have to be conspicuous and legible in Texas-although a fence or purple stripes on trees qualify. I’m not sure the Muhs’ hand-painted sign qualifies.
There are parts of East Texas that are very nice.
There are parts of East Texas that seem to be populated by people who crossed the state line at night under dubious circumstances. Just like parts of New York City, even the modern, cleaned up version, there are also places in the woods inhabited with a surplus of crazy people. In the south central part of East Texas it is advisable to be very careful. There are places out in the country where police only go in pairs also.
There are stories of people calling the police to report their illegal drugs have been stolen…
If you know the children’s parents, you have means to a remedy other than shooting at them with rock salt.
Rock salt can kill—as can a BB gun. Remember that before someone is reading you your Miranda Rights.
It’s the “Big Thicket”. If you are a Taylor from there we are almost certainly cousins.
Not all of East Texas is like the area south of Nachedoches and north of greater Houston (Houston has it’s own problems).
She got life for murder; he got 20 years for aggravated assualt with a deadly weapon. I’m in Houston and was outraged at this senseless killing.