Then you have the other end of the spectrum on drug use and it's tragic........
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5987592.htmlIt was supposed to be a fun night in the big city celebrating the 21st birthday of a friend. But a chance meeting at a north Houston gas station changed everything for Sam Houston State University student William Jackson Bius and admitted drug dealer Calvin Moore.
Coming from vastly different worlds, Bius and Moore likely never would have met had they not stopped at the Texaco after 3 a.m. on Aug. 17. Their paths crossed there and continued on to a rough apartment complex nearby, yielding deadly results during an alleged drug buy.
Now Bius, 19, is dead, and Moore, 21, is in Harris County Jail, charged with murder. And nobody knows exactly the reason why.
Nor does Bius' family understand why Moore was still on the streets of Houston, considering that he had been charged in July with robbing another man who had been shot.
"The only thing a parent can do is tell children you love them and pray for them — because when they drive out of that driveway, they may not come back," said Bius' father, Huntsville real estate investor Ben Bius.
"Who would've ever thought my son would be in a car that would pull into a gas station at 3:20 in the morning where a cold-blooded murderer is waiting — and they would meet and he would die?"
Moore admits ripping off Bius after the young man approached him for drugs, but denies shooting anyone.
"My heart goes out to the guy's family," Moore said from jail. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
Carefree, young man
Before Bius was shot in the head in the back seat of a car in a gritty urban area far removed from the comforts of his Huntsville upbringing, he had been known as a carefree young man who fully embraced life but sometimes took risks, much to his father's chagrin.
He grew up financially comfortable, active in the Boy Scouts, hunting and playing golf. His father was a well-known real estate developer who unsuccessfully sought election to the Texas Legislature and U.S. Congress, his mother a chemistry lecturer at Sam Houston State University.
Moore's background could not have been more different. Now 21, he has already fathered four children, including one due in February. Raised in Houston, he quit school in the 11th grade. In the past year and a half, he racked up convictions for unlawfully carrying a weapon, assaulting a family member, failing to identify himself to police, evading detention and making terroristic threats, Harris County court records show.
During a jail interview, Moore admitted selling powder cocaine and crack cocaine for the last two years and said he worked sporadically for a moving company.
On Aug. 16, Bius drove into Houston to celebrate a friend's 21st birthday at the Hush nightclub with a group from Huntsville.
Bius and his friends had a great time, drinking, dancing and acting silly at the club, said the birthday celebrant, Caleb Hooper.
When the friends left the nightclub in four cars at 1:45 a.m., Bius rode with Kelsey Kirkendall, 21, and Patrick Oliphant, 21, both of Huntsville. The group planned to drive to Hooper's Houston apartment.
But Kirkendall, who was driving, got separated from the other cars in the caravan. She stopped at a Texaco station at 7102 North Freeway near Little York. As she fueled up, Bius approached a group of strangers in the parking lot with a request, police said.
"He asked if we knew where he could buy some dust," Moore said from the county jail, using the slang term for powder cocaine. "I told him I have some, but not with me."
Moore said he got in the car with Bius, Kirkendall and Oliphant, then directed them to apartments at 7313 Northline.
Moore said the three scraped together about $35 or $36 and handed it over. Kirkendall and Oliphant said they never gave Moore any money.
Attempted cocaine buy
Kirkendall and Oliphant also said they were blindsided by Bius' attempt to buy cocaine.
"Will was telling us this guy is going to get him cocaine," she said Thursday. "We were like, 'Are you kidding us, Will? This is a random dude.' "
Oliphant said he doesn't do drugs and didn't know why the stranger was directing them to the apartments.
When they arrived at the apartments, Moore said he got out of the car and never went back. "They gave me the money before I even gave them the product," he said.
Kirkendall, however, said that Moore returned to her car, leaned inside and said one last thing.
"He said, 'There's a van parked behind you guys, and there's cops in it.' And when we turned and looked back, that's when he shot Will," she said.
Kirkendall and Oliphant then sped away, rushing Bius to a nearby gas station that was closed and called 911 from a cell phone. Kirkendall said she pressed a cloth to the wound in Bius' head as he gasped for breath until help arrived.
Both Kirkendall and Oliphant identified Moore as the gunman in a photo lineup, a criminal complaint shows.
Moore, however, denies shooting anyone and said someone he knows accidentally shot Bius when the gun discharged. He would not reveal that person's name.
Bius was pronounced dead 18 hours later at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. The gun has not been found, said Houston Police Department Homicide Sgt. John Shirley.
Why Kirkendall and Oliphant weren't shot is unknown. "That's a good question — I really don't have a good answer," Shirley said.
Moore was arrested two days later. He was already wanted in the shooting and robbery of someone who had gone to the Haverstock Hills Apartments at 5619 Aldine Bender to have sex with a prostitute. Moore denied the shooting.
'Evil in the world'
Bius' father cannot believe his son would approach a stranger to buy cocaine.
"William greatly underestimated the amount of evil in the world that can be brought against you," Ben Bius said. "He was a country boy in the big city, and he ended up dead."
William Bius had landed in trouble before.
Around the time he graduated from Huntsville High School last year, he and a friend were arrested by Huntsville police on charges of possession of marijuana and alcohol. Bius pleaded guilty to possessing less than 2 ounces of marijuana and was placed on probation for a year, records show.
But in recent months, his father said, Bius had turned a corner, going out rarely, signing up for a 16-hour course load at the university this fall and making amends for his past troubles.
