Introducing a new series from The Drag: "Forsaken." "Forsaken" is a series that explores the systems that both enhance and oppress the lives of the more than 29 million people living in Texas. Each episode will address issues that Texans face each day – the good and the bad. We’ll explore the criminal justice system, Texas politics, civil rights, social issues and even a little bit of history. Texas is the second-most diverse state in the nation and has equally diverse stories to tell. As...

Fifty years after the shooting, survivors, heroes and their families return to Austin. A committee pushes for a better memorial for the victims. Some testify at the Texas Legislature, trying to stop a law allowing guns on campuses.

College students discuss their experiences growing up with school shooting drills and the constant fear of a shooter. Host Sara Kinney and a March for Our Lives representative go over the state of gun legislation today.

Forty-four years after the Tower shootings, another shooting occurs on the University of Texas campus. Survivors continue their lives while gun violence grows as a hot-button political issue. The physical wounds begin to heal, but the emotional ones remain. 

The shooting becomes national news. Students return to classes a few days later. Law enforcement continues its investigation. An autopsy is performed on the sniper. A police officer is laid to rest. Victims start their road to recovery. 

Ninety-six minutes after the shooting began, the sniper is dead. Everyone nearby converges on campus. Law enforcement and journalists work to identify the dead. Hospitals struggle with the influx of patients. Friends and families mourn their loved ones.

More law enforcement officers swarm campus and join the efforts to stop the shooter. In the tower, a chaotic situation unfolds as a handful of officers and civilians make their way to the observation deck and exchange fire with the sniper.

A police officer assigned to divert traffic from the campus area decides to head into the action. The bookstore employee heads toward the tower and teams up with law enforcement. Together, they hatch a plan to stop the sniper. 

The shooting continues along The Drag, a nearby street full of shops and restaurants. An employee of the university bookstore helps a wounded boy. More people join the rescue efforts. Students eating lunch and shopping take cover or run to safety. Police officers, students, and others get their guns and begin firing back at the sniper.  

The sniper opens fire on the University of Texas campus and the surrounding area. He shoots a pregnant woman, leaving her on hot concrete in the middle of the gunfire. A local radio reporter heads to the scene. Students in a Shakespeare class watch out the window as a police officer is shot. 

It’s August 1, 1966, a hot summer day in Austin, Texas. Not that many people are on the University of Texas campus, except the students enrolled in summer classes. As Monday morning classes start, a 25-year-old former Marine has just killed his wife and mother. He packs the trunk of his car with seven guns and enough supplies to last him days. Then he drives to campus.

On August 1, 1966, a sniper climbed the steps of the University of Texas at Austin’s 27-story tower. Seventeen people were killed and more than 30 others were injured. Fifty-six years later, mass shootings make headlines nearly every week. And the University of Texas tower looms over campus, a reminder of one of the first mass school shootings in United States history that has long been forgotten. In season four of “Darkness,” host Sara Kinney walks through the day of the University of Texas...

As the bloody year of 1885 draws to a close and 1886 begins, the police are no closer to solving the vicious crimes that rattled Austin. Even more than a century later, no one knows for sure who killed these women or why. This episode explores the various theories, from the effects of the moon to the possibility that Jack the Ripper started in Texas. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darkness-podcast/support

Austin’s city leaders begin to panic amid the bloodshed and bring in outside detectives to help the city’s underperforming police force. Although six Black women have been killed in less than a year, the city and the nation show much deeper concern when two white women are killed in just one night. The mayor, governor, the media and the Black and white communities desperately search for the killer … or killers. --- Support this podcast:...

A few months after the death of the first victim, another Black woman working as a servant in Austin is killed. And then another. With three murder victims and a clear pattern, modern officials would know that a serial killer is likely behind the attacks. With few forensic tools at their disposal, Austin’s small and racist police force rounds up Austin’s Black men. The killings don’t stop. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darkness-podcast/support

As the capital of Texas celebrates the coming of a new year with exuberance, a dark shadow eclipses the city as an unknown killer stalks the streets. A Black woman working as a servant to a rich white Austinite is murdered, and her boyfriend barely survives. In a city rife with violence, the brutality of the killing shakes up its citizens. And the terror has only just begun. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darkness-podcast/support

Law enforcement officers close in on the cult leaders in Mexico City as fear spreads in the communities along the border. As they learn all of the horrible details of the cult’s activities, they turn to their religious faith and to superstition. Thousands gather to celebrate the life of Mark Kilroy, a college student who was so much more than just a headline in a story about a missing person. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/darkness-podcast/support

A mysterious young woman taking college courses in South Texas befriends a charismatic Cuban American. The two of them work their way into a drug gang in Mexico. In the aftermath of finding the bodies on a ranch, investigators seek the couple. They are focusing on Aldolfo Constanzo, the Cuban American who they believe is the cult’s leader. He keeps slipping out of their grasp. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/darkness-podcast/support

The bodies unearthed at a Mexican ranch and the people who buried them lead investigators to believe there’s something deeply sinister going on. While tabloids publish screaming headlines feeding into the “satanic panic” and the border communities fear who has been living alongside them, Mark Kilroy’s family offers forgiveness. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/darkness-podcast/support

Across the border from Matamoros, community members and law enforcement join Mark Kilroy’s friends and family in a desperate search. The friends go on the popular TV crime show, “America’s Most Wanted,'' and Mark’s father pleads on TV for anyone to come forward with information. Police set up road checkpoints, and a car blows right through it. The driver thinks he has powers that make him invisible to law enforcement. Police follow him to a ranch in Mexico … ending the search. --- Support...

A group of friends takes a break from the rigors of college by hitting the beaches of South Padre Island during spring break. Just a short ride and a bridge crossing away, the Matamoros, Mexico nightclubs beckon the partying students with cheap alcohol and nonstop dancing. The friends get separated amid a swarm of students. They can’t find Mark, their buddy who goes to the University of Texas. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/darkness-podcast/support

In March 1989, University of Texas student Mark Kilroy had everything going for him. He was preparing to take the MCAT exams and apply to medical school. He’d just turned 21. He was ready to finally take some time off from school and celebrate with his friends at America’s biggest Spring Break party spot…South Padre Island, Texas. In far south Texas, it wasn’t uncommon for students to cross the border into Mexico to continue the party. But after a night of partying in Matamoros, Mark Kilroy...

"Devilish Deeds" is out now wherever you get your podcasts! Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/devilish-deeds/id1616011815 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NB2HT09wMWO7LbaXIEtJN?si=480c3136308547ac About episode one, "Wicked Work": As the capital of Texas celebrates the coming of a new year with exuberance, a dark shadow eclipses the city as an unknown killer stalks the streets. A Black woman working as a servant to a rich white Austinite is...

Coming soon: A new historical true crime podcast from The Drag In 1885, a few years before Jack the Ripper went on a killing spree in London, an axe-wielding killer stalked the streets of the dusty frontier town of Austin, Texas. The victims, mostly Black women who worked as servants for Austin’s wealthy white residents, were brutally killed in the middle of the night. In a new podcast from the creators of the popular true crime series “Darkness,” host Megan Parker brings you back to the...