Tommy Witherspoon
KWTX Managing Editor
Waco, Texas
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Tommy Witherspoon is a longtime newspaper journalist who began his career at the Corsicana Daily Sun in 1980.
He worked 39 years at the Waco Tribune-Herald before joining the staff at KWTX as managing editor in March 2022.
Tommy is a native of Weatherford, Texas, and graduated from the University of North Texas with a journalism degree.
He has three sons.
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A Waco man jailed in May after Texas Rangers linked him through a DNA database to the 30-year-old murders of prostitutes in East Texas and California was charged in a sealed indictment this week in McLennan County.
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The woman is seeking unspecified monetary damages against Scaman, who pleaded no contest in March to misdemeanor official oppression and was placed on deferred probation.
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A Waco man whose murder charge was dismissed last month was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday after a judge revoked his felony probation.
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A McLennan County grand jury indicted former death row inmate US Carnell Petetan Jr. Wednesday on charges he slashed another McLennan County Jail inmate’s neck with a razor blade.
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A McLennan County grand jury indicted Adam Dean Hoffman, 45, on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a young child, a first-degree felony that carries a minimum prison sentence of 25 years without parole up to life in prison with no parole.
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Waco attorney Adam Hoffman, free on bond after his arrest on allegations he abused his son’s 10-year-old male friend, can live at home as long as he is not left alone with his son, a judge ruled Wednesday.
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A bitter dispute between two neighbors has gone from North Waco to the courtroom after a woman shot another woman in the neck.
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McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said he has no plans to review his office’s high-speed chase policies after a Saturday night incident in which a Bellmead man was killed in a fiery crash on Interstate 35 while fleeing a sheriff’s deputy.
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Christian Allen Ainsworth, 24, a former employee at a Waco funeral home, pleaded guilty to second-degree felony sexual assault in a June 2021 incident in which the mother of his child reported he sexually assaulted her on the stairway at her apartment.
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A Waco manufacturing plant worker who had sex with a 13-year-old girl when he was 19 was placed on deferred probation for 10 years Friday.
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Nathaniel Hall Jr., 37, who spent six months in an Austin state mental hospital last year, pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping and two counts of possession of methamphetamine.
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McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson fired Aubrey Robertson on Wednesday, 12 days after Johnson announced in a splashy news conference that he was hiring the Democratic nominee for DA as his first assistant.
The lame duck Republican district attorney announced he has hired the Democratic nominee vying to replace him in January.
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A 66-year-old convicted sex offender remains jailed after his arrest on charges he sexually abused a 6-year-old girl for a period of two years.
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A recent order requires new patent cases filed in a Waco court to be randomly assigned to other judges across the state
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Bellmead man on probation for drug, assault convictions back behind bars on child sex assault charge
A Bellmead man arrested on charges he sexually assaulted an 8-year-old girl was placed on felony probation in October for drug and assault convictions.
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An experienced prosecutor was fired last week amid a burgeoning backlog of criminal cases in McLennan County.
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A Waco woman who police say stood over her boyfriend and shot him multiple times as he was lying on the ground and pleading for his life was indicted Thursday.
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The judge ordered a psychological evaluation before proceeding into the sentencing phase.
When called to the witness stand, the girl, now 8 years old, said she could not remember if anything happened to her in her relative's bedroom.
Prosecution testimony is set to resume Tuesday morning in the trial of a Bellmead man charged with sexually assaulting a 5-year-old family member in July 2019.
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An appeals court ruled that a Waco federal judge was wrong when he dismissed a lawsuit against two Coryell County jailers who applied force to the inmate’s lower back and neck until she died
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If the old legal maxim “justice delayed is justice denied” rings true, it might hold particular significance for former Baylor University football player Sam Ukwuachu and the former student who claims he sexually assaulted her.
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The suspect was a key prosecution witness in the Keith Antoine Spratt capital murder trial in 2021.
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The gruesome murders of three teenagers at Lake Waco terrified the community and sent shock waves across the state.
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The Ellis County man is seeking more than $1 million in damages in his lawsuit.
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Judge Thomas West of Waco’s 19th State District Court approved recommendations from a team of doctors at the Kerrville State Hospital that Alfred Kilinus Cornelius, 33, be moved from the Kerrville facility to a private group home in Seguin called Bluebonnet Hills.
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Jamarr Walker, 32, was indicted in May 2017 on a second-degree felony sexual assault count and a Class A misdemeanor assault family violence count in a March 2017 incident in which a woman went to Walker’s apartment to pick up her children.
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The abuse started when the girl was five years old and continued over a 30-month period.
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A 10-year-old girl testified Wednesday that Jorge Carbajal, a family member, sexually abused her multiple times at a home in Robinson starting when she was 5.
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A fugitive from Louisiana who exchanged gunfire with McLennan County sheriff’s deputies is on his way to prison.
The former construction worker has been jailed 1,120 days on the sexual abuse charges and an immigration hold.
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KWTX has learned police were sent a screenshot from one of the girl's Snapchat stories with the message “help.”
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The incident happened April 14, 2021, at an apartment in the 1000 block of Austin Avenue.
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The man who sent a chocolate bar shaped like male genitalia to a sheriff’s office employee as a prank was charged with harassment.
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The co-defendant has been offered a plea deal with a reduced charge.
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A Gholson man whose mental health was spiraling downward when he shot his mother in the face almost two years ago was placed on deferred probation.
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Christopher Ray Grider is asking a federal judge to dismiss five of the nine charges against him for his role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
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District Attorney Barry Johnson, who took office in January 2019, refers to the pandemic-related shutdown as his office’s “500-year flood.”
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A man convicted in a 2-15 murder-for-hire plot has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after he was awarded a new trial.
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A 15-year-old Illinois girl testified a Central Texas man sexually assaulted her about 30 times during her summer visit in 2018.
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Testimony is set to begin Wednesday morning in the trial of a Bellmead man charged with sexually abusing a young family member four years ago.
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The defendant was originally indicted on a murder charge but prosecutors downgraded that to manslaughter.
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The defendant pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.
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A jury convicted the 32-year-old woman of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
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A U.S. Postal Service employee indicted for aggravated sexual assault of a child pleaded guilty Monday to reduced charges.
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Doyle lived the remainder of his live in Waco after the deadly siege at the Branch Davidian complex.
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A fitness instructor was sentenced to six years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to six counts of possession of child pornography.
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A former church secretary pleaded guilty Friday to embezzling more than $150,000 from the First Baptist Church of Elm Mott.
The defendant said he regrets entering the Capitol with hundreds of others but remains adamant he will not plead guilty to a felony.