Latest news with #KendallCounty
Daily Mail
16-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Illinois woman with flying saucer tattooed on her forehead commits unhinged crime
An Illinois woman with a flying saucer tattooed on her forehead was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for murdering her girlfriend. Alexia Telles, 28, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder last week in connection to the tragic death of Annissa Ellen-Williams, 25, the Kendall County State's Attorney's Office announced Monday. Telles, who has several other face tattoos, was charged in connection with the February 2023 slaying after Ellen-Williams died of a traumatic head injury at a home in Oswego - about an hour outside of Chicago. Life-saving attempts were made on Ellen-Williams, but she died at the scene, according to prosecutors. After her death, authorities discovered the couple, who appeared to be in a long-term relationship, had gotten into some sort of disagreement while Ellen-Williams was driving just before they arrived at the home. Forensic and digital evidence, along with statements made to police, soon revealed Telles 'intentionally killed' her partner and made it look like Ellen-Williams had committed suicide, investigators concluded. Investigators did not specify what sparked the argument and how the killing was carried out. 'These cases can be difficult to prosecute because only two people know exactly what occurred that fateful night,' Kendall County State's Attorney Eric Weis said. 'However, the investigative work done by law enforcement and the Coroner's Office led to the successful prosecution of Telles for the murder of Ms. Ellen-Williams.' Telles, who has remained in custody since her arrest, was ordered to serve her entire 30-year prison sentence, followed by three years of supervised release, prosecutors said. 'This sentence ensures that justice is served, and the victim's family does not have to endure the pain of a trial,' Weis stated. 'Telles has accepted responsibility for the heartless act she committed against someone she professed to care so much for.' Daily Mail contacted Weis and Telles' attorneys, Josh Adams and Alana De Leon, for comment. The couple appeared to be in a relationship for years, as their first ever post on Telles' Facebook was from 2016. In a post from 2019, Telles wrote: 'Love you fo [sic] ever,' alongside an image of her and Ellen-Williams. This story comes months after a 22-year-old woman was found naked and discarded in the grass after getting into a domestic dispute with her abusive boyfriend. Nahomi Citttadini, of Miami Beach, Florida was found abandoned on the side of the highway in early December. Lorent Pion, a 29-year-old convicted felon, was charged with his girlfriend's murder murder, despite initially telling officers that she had been struck by another car during an argument, CBS News reported. Disturbing video footage from August captured Pion violently beating Cittadini along a street in Miami Beach, relentlessly chasing after her before grabbing her hair and aggressively throwing her to the ground.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
A small Texas community where everyone survived flooding has sirens that warned them
As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort -- a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out. Daniel Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, believes that long, flat tone the morning of July Fourth saved lives. The sirens are a testament to the determination of a community that has experienced deadly floods in the past, warning residents of devastating floodwaters that hours earlier had killed at least 118 people in communities along the same river, including 27 campers and counselors in neighboring Kerr County. That county did not have a warning system like the one in Comfort. Everyone in Comfort, a more than 2,200-person unincorporated community in Kendall County, survived the flooding with many people along the river evacuating in time, Morales said. Comfort residents were driven by history Morales has been with the department for decades. He was there when flooding in 1978 killed 33 people, 15 of them in Comfort, including his grandfather. So when an opportunity arose last year to expand the community's emergency warning system, he and other residents buckled down to find the funding. The fire department's siren needed an upgrade. While the firehouse got a new siren, Morales found a Missouri company that was willing to refurbish the old one at a low cost so it could be moved to a central location in Comfort Park where it was connected to a U.S. Geological Survey sensor at Cypress Creek. When the water level reaches a certain point, the sensor triggers the siren, but it can also be sounded manually. 'We do for ourselves and for the community,' Morales said. 'If we hadn't had a drought the past months and the (Cypress) Creek hadn't been down, we could have had another (19)78. The past few days, I'll tell you, it brings back a lot.' Overcoming the cost hurdle for sirens Morales said they cobbled together money from a grant, from the county commission, the department's own budget and from the local electric utility, which also donated a siren pole. They also got help installing the flood sensor gauge in the creek. The price tag with all the donated materials and the costs the department fronted was somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000 or 'maybe a little more,' Morales said. In Kerr County, the price tag for a proposed flood warning system for a larger swath of the Guadalupe River was close to $1 million, which caused several county and city officials to balk when attempts at grants and other funding opportunities fell through. They ultimately didn't install the warning systems near the camps where dozens of young campers died in the recent flooding. In Comal County, Texas, about 90 miles east of Kerr County, the Guadalupe River meanders into Canyon Lake before picking back up on its journey to empty into the San Antonio Bay on the Gulf Coast. The county along with Guadalupe County, New Braunfels city government and the Water-Oriented Recreation District- a state-created entity- agreed to fund expanded flood sirens along the Guadalupe River. The project was completed in 2015 and Comal County now manages the system including the information from the river gauges and notifications about the river height. A message left for Comal County officials seeking details about the cost of the system was not returned Thursday. Training residents was key to success After the updated Comfort sirens were installed, the volunteer fire department spent months getting the community used to the siren tests that sound daily at noon, putting out messaging that if they hear a siren any other time of day, they should check local TV stations, the department's Facebook page and elsewhere for emergency notifications. The sirens make a specific sound for tornadoes and a long, flat tone for floods. So on July Fourth, if people in Comfort hadn't seen the weather alerts sent to phones or announced on radios, if they hadn't heard shouting firefighters going from street to street to evacuate, they heard the long tone and knew they had to leave their homes. A Facebook post on the department's page noted a mandatory evacuation of all residents along the Guadalupe River. But Comfort was also miles away from the flash flooding that overtook the camps and didn't experience the cresting of the river flooding until after the terrifying rush of water in the pitch black early morning hours hit cabins. Many Comfort residents were already awake and aware of the rising water by the time the sirens sounded. The Guadalupe's crest was among the highest ever recorded at Comfort, rising from hip-height to three stories tall in over just two hours. Morales doesn't know if sirens would have changed things in Kerr County. But he knows they gave Comfort residents an extra level of warning. In recent days, Morales said he has been contacted by some of the funders to talk about adding a third siren in town. 'Anything we can do to add to the safety, we're going to sit down and try to make it work,' he said. 'The way things are happening, it might be time to enhance the system even further.' ___ This story has been updated to correct the name of a county to Kerr County, instead of Kerry County, in the 10th paragraph. ___ Lauer reported from Philadelphia.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
When floodwaters came, one small Texas town sounded its alarm
It's just before noon and several news crews are gathered outside the fire hall in Comfort, Texas, their cameras pointed at a yellow siren high on a pole and set to go off every day at midday. Ever since the deadly July 4 flash floods that ripped through the region, this small community of roughly 2,000 people and its flood warning siren have become a focal point amid questions about the failures of other warning systems in communities along the Guadalupe River. As floodwaters from the river started to back up along Cypress Creek, which snakes around the town, officials in Comfort sounded sirens which wailed in two locations to warn townspeople of impending flooding. "These sirens helped us," said assistant Fire Chief Danny Morales, a more than 50-year veteran of the volunteer fire department in Comfort, which is in Kendall County, immediately east and downstream of Kerr County which was hardest hit by the flooding. Inside the fire hall is the emergency command centre where responders can monitor weather patterns and data from water gauges along the river and creek. "That really is a dangerous creek for us," Morales said. "If it's flooding and runs into the river ... it backs all that up." WATCH | Long history of flooding: There's also a little black, electronic box with some buttons. One is for tornados, the second is for floods. That's the one Morales's team pushed around 10 a.m. on Independence Day. "The officers that were in charge, we made the decision that, 'Hey, we better hit this siren,'" he said. Per procedure, the community also sent police and fire department vehicles — with their sirens and lights turned on — to let residents know it was time to go, he says. Morales has a personal stake in making things better. "I lost my granddad in the '78 flood here in Comfort and ever since then I've made it a point that, you know, I'm going to try to better our warning systems for our community," he said. The sirens are part of a series of emergency upgrades within the community. "The community has been very supportive. I've had ladies in the community that have helped me a lot making phone calls to the right people, should I say, and you know how ladies can be, they can be demanding," said Morales. Betty Murphy is one of those ladies, a group of four women in their 80s who started the ball rolling looking for government, corporate and foundations to enhance the town's warning system. Murphy used to volunteer with the town's emergency medical services, wrote a book about the 1978 flood. As she researched the previous disasters that hit the community she and her friends couldn't stop thinking about solutions to make the community safer. They talked to Morales, got his input, and banded together to make change. "It took four women over age 80 to ... suggest that Comfort move forward and try to improve our situation so that we wouldn't lose people," Murphy said. The latest flood, which killed more than two dozen youths at Camp Mystic upriver, brought her back to another disaster that devastated the area. "Our hearts were aching because we knew that it was not going to be good," she said. "In '87, a busload of campers from Pot O'Gold" — another area summer camp — "turned and the river carried them away. And it was a nightmare for the community. I think 10 children were lost and many of them had to be rescued from tall trees." This time, Comfort was spared the worst of the flooding but the community is heavily involved in helping searchers look for the missing. The members of the volunteer fire department, almost all of whom have day jobs, have been out on the river searching, or helping to transport other search teams in their high-water rescue vehicle. Katie Rode surveys a dense debris pile across the river bank. The department recovered a body nearby and, as the waters recede, searchers are getting better access to look for the missing. "I think Comfort has been lucky this time. I think that the siren definitely helped. But the heaviest flooding just happened upriver from us and next time it could be here," she said. "Our job is generally to go in to help and to render aid," she said. "We're losing the hope that we'll get to resolve this other than reuniting families with their loved ones so that they can have closure." Rode, who is also a pastor, says it is emotionally and spiritually draining. "There's a line in the funeral prayer where we say that God makes holy the resting places of all of God's people," she said, pausing as tears ran down her cheek. "And if you think about it that way, this entire river has become a very holy place because this is a resting place for a lot of God's people."
CBC
10-07-2025
- Climate
- CBC
When floodwaters came, one small Texas town sounded its alarm
It's just before noon and several news crews are gathered outside the fire hall in Comfort, Texas, their cameras pointed at a yellow siren high on a pole and set to go off every day at midday. Ever since the deadly July 4 flash floods that ripped through the region, this small community of roughly 2,000 people and its flood warning siren have become a focal point amid questions about the failures of other warning systems in communities along the Guadalupe River. As floodwaters from the river started to back up along Cypress Creek, which snakes around the town, officials in Comfort sounded sirens which wailed in two locations to warn townspeople of impending flooding. "These sirens helped us," said assistant Fire Chief Danny Morales, a more than 50-year veteran of the volunteer fire department in Comfort, which is in Kendall County, immediately east and downstream of Kerr County which was hardest hit by the flooding. Inside the fire hall is the emergency command centre where responders can monitor weather patterns and data from water gauges along the river and creek. "That really is a dangerous creek for us," Morales said. "If it's flooding and runs into the river... it backs all that up." WATCH | Long history of flooding: 'Being prepared is our thing' 24 minutes ago Duration 0:56 The region around Comfort, Texas, has a long history of flooding which makes being able to warn the populace — often late at night — very important, says volunteer firefighter Danny Morales. 'Being prepared is our thing,' he says. There's also a little black, electronic box with some buttons. One is for tornados, the second is for floods. That's the one Morales's team pushed around 10 a.m. on Independence Day. "The officers that were in charge, we made the decision that, 'Hey, we better hit this siren,'" he said. Per procedure, the community also sent police and fire department vehicles — with their sirens and lights turned on — to let residents know it was time to go, he says. Morales has a personal stake in making things better. "I lost my granddad in the '78 flood here in Comfort and ever since then I've made it a point that, you know, I'm going to try to better our warning systems for our community," he said. The sirens are part of a series of emergency upgrades within the community. A small team of local ladies helped "a lot," he said. Betty Murphy is one of those ladies, a group of four women in their 80s who started the ball rolling looking for government, corporate and foundations to enhance the town's warning system. Murphy "can be demanding," said Morales, and used to volunteer with the town's emergency medical services, wrote a book about the 1978 flood. As she researched the previous disasters that hit the community she and her friends couldn't stop thinking about solutions to make the community safer. They talked to Morales, got his input, and banded together to make change. "It took four women over age 80 to... suggest that Comfort move forward and try to improve our situation so that we wouldn't lose people," Murphy said. The latest flood, which killed more than two dozen youths at Camp Mystic upriver, brought her back to another disaster that devastated the area. "Our hearts were aching because we knew that it was not going to be good," she said. "In '87, a busload of campers from Pot O'Gold" — another area summer camp — "turned and the river carried them away. And it was a nightmare for the community. I think 10 children were lost and many of them had to be rescued from tall trees." This time, Comfort was spared the worst of the flooding but the community is heavily involved in helping searchers look for the missing. The members of the volunteer fire department, almost all of whom have day jobs, have been out on the river searching, or helping to transport other search teams in their high-water rescue vehicle. Katie Rode surveys a dense debris pile across the river bank. The department recovered a body nearby and, as the waters recede, searchers are getting better access to look for the missing. "I think Comfort has been lucky this time. I think that the siren definitely helped. But the heaviest flooding just happened upriver from us and next time it could be here," she said. "Our job is generally to go in to help and to render aid," she said. "We're losing the hope that we'll get to resolve this other than reuniting families with their loved ones so that they can have closure." Rode, who is also a pastor, says it is emotionally and spiritually draining. "There's a line in the funeral prayer where we say that God makes holy the resting places of all of God's people," she said, pausing as tears ran down her cheek. "And if you think about it that way, this entire river has become a very holy place because this is a resting place for a lot of God's people."
The Independent
10-07-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
A small Texas community where everyone survived flooding has sirens that warned them
As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort -- a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out. Daniel Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, believes that long, flat tone the morning of July Fourth saved lives. The sirens are a testament to the determination of a community that has experienced deadly floods in the past, warning residents of devastating floodwaters that hours earlier had killed at least 118 people in communities along the same river, including 27 campers and counselors in neighboring Kerr County. That county did not have a warning system like the one in Comfort. Everyone in Comfort, a more than 2,200-person unincorporated community in Kendall County, survived the flooding with many people along the river evacuating in time, Morales said. Morales has been with the department for decades. He was there when flooding in 1978 killed 33 people, 15 of them in Comfort, including his grandfather. So when an opportunity arose last year to expand the community's emergency warning system, he and other residents buckled down to find the funding. The fire department's siren needed an upgrade. While the firehouse got a new siren, Morales found a Missouri company that was willing to refurbish the old one at a low cost so it could be moved to a central location in Comfort Park where it was connected to a U.S. Geological Survey sensor at Cypress Creek. When the water level reaches a certain point, the sensor triggers the siren, but it can also be sounded manually. 'We do for ourselves and for the community,' Morales said. 'If we hadn't had a drought the past months and the (Cypress) Creek hadn't been down, we could have had another (19)78. The past few days, I'll tell you, it brings back a lot.' Overcoming the cost hurdle for sirens Morales said they cobbled together money from a grant, from the county commission, the department's own budget and from the local electric utility, which also donated a siren pole. They also got help installing the flood sensor gauge in the creek. The price tag with all the donated materials and the costs the department fronted was somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000 or 'maybe a little more,' Morales said. In Kerry County, the price tag for the proposed flood sirens, sensors and studies for a larger swath of the Guadalupe River was close to $1 million, which caused several county and city officials to balk when attempts at grants and other funding opportunities fell through. They ultimately didn't install the warning systems near the camps where dozens of young campers died in the recent flooding. In Comal County, Texas, about 90 miles east of Kerr County, the Guadalupe River meanders into Canyon Lake before picking back up on its journey to empty into the San Antonio Bay on the Gulf Coast. The county along with Guadalupe County, New Braunfels city government and the Water-Oriented Recreation District- a state-created entity- agreed to fund expanded flood sirens along the Guadalupe River. The project was completed in 2015 and Comal County now manages the system including the information from the river gauges and notifications about the river height. A message left for Comal County officials seeking details about the cost of the system was not returned Thursday. Training residents was key to success After the updated Comfort sirens were installed, the volunteer fire department spent months getting the community used to the siren tests that sound daily at noon, putting out messaging that if they hear a siren any other time of day, they should check local TV stations, the department's Facebook page and elsewhere for emergency notifications. The sirens make a specific sound for tornadoes and a long, flat tone for floods. So on July Fourth, if people in Comfort hadn't seen the weather alerts sent to phones or announced on radios, if they hadn't heard shouting firefighters going from street to street to evacuate, they heard the long tone and knew they had to leave their homes. A Facebook post on the department's page noted a mandatory evacuation of all residents along the Guadalupe River. But Comfort was also miles away from the flash flooding that overtook the camps and didn't experience the cresting of the river flooding until hours after the terrifying rush of water in the pitch black early morning hours hit cabins. Many Comfort residents were already awake and aware of the rising water by the time the sirens sounded. Morales doesn't know if sirens would have changed things in Kerr County. But he knows they gave Comfort residents an extra level of warning. In recent days, Morales said he has been contacted by some of the funders to talk about adding a third siren in town. 'Anything we can do to add to the safety, we're going to sit down and try to make it work,' he said. 'The way things are happening, it might be time to enhance the system even further.' ___
