Luxury townhouses will be built on the site of a soon-to-be-demolished Fort Worth mansion where two unsolved murders took place more than 40 years ago.
Dallas-Fort Worth Channel 5 is reporting that demolition has already begun on the Cullen Davis mansion, where Texas Christian University star basketball player Stan Farr and his pre-teen stepdaughter were murdered on Aug. 2, 1976.
At the time of the murder, Farr, 30, was the boyfriend of Priscilla Davis, the estranged wife of oil tycoon T. Cullen Davis, who built the mansion in 1971 for $40 million. Farr was shot and killed by a late-night intruder along with 12-year-old Andrea Wilborn. Priscilla Davis was also shot in the chest, but survived, and a third person, Gus “Bubba” Gavrel Jr., was shot, survived, and ended up paralyzed from the waist down.
In 1978, T. Cullen Davis arrives at a Dallas psychiatrist office for testing after Fort Worth prosecutors charged him with murdering a 12-year-old stepdaughter and a former basketball star. (Getty)
Cullen Davis was arrested the same night, becoming the richest man in US history to be ever charged with murder. Even though he was identified as the gunman by Gavrel, he was twice acquited of the charges, according to the station.
The murders and ensuing “trial of the century” were the basis of many books and the 1995 Heather Locklear TV-movie “Texas Justice,” which also starred “NYPD Blue” cop Dennis Franz.
In 1990, Davis, now 87, agreed to pay a civil court settlement to the Farr family, and also paid Garvel a settlement for his injuries.
Garvel died of cancer in 2018, as did Priscilla Davis in 2001.
In the ensuing years, the Albert Komatsu-designed mansion was used as steakhouse, a Tex-Mex restaurant, a church, and, for the last 10 years, as a wedding and events venue known as Stonegate Mansion.
The property was purchased by Kyle Poulson and three other investors about a year-and-a-half ago, according to the station, with the intention of turning it into a condo building.
But after getting feedback from the town’s mayor and friends living nearby who feared a condo tower wasn’t a good fit, the partners decided on building 30 luxury townhomes.
[WNBC DFW 5] — Vince DiMiceli