Blanco County Texas news

A Blanco County Grand Jury has indicted a man on six counts of Indencency with a Child by Sexual Contact.

Awaiting arraignment before the 33rd Judicial District Court is Dalton Savanich.

All the offenses listed on a March 7 indictment were alleged to have been committed against a child under the age of 17 during the summers of 2016 and 2017.

Each count is a second degree felony charge that carries a potential sentence of from 2-20 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 or both. A $25,000 bond was set on each.

By Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

The Highlander

Burnet County commissioners are interested in possibly obtaining a used mobile command trailer from Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) to be kept as an asset for a three-county area.

Commissioners spoke to PEC engineering department employee Matthew Austin about the 48-foot trailer at Tuesday, Feb. 13 regular court meeting.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers have released the names of a driver and his passenger killed in a fatal accident near Round Mountain Monday, July 3.

Richard Purpura, 69, of Blanco, and his mother, Anne Purpura, 99, also of Blanco, were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, which occurred after DPS troopers had attempted to stop Purpura's grey Honda as it sped northbound on US 281 in Blanco County, not far from the Burnet County line, at 11:30 a.m. Monday.

“According to the preliminary investigation, the Honda entered the trooper’s lane of traffic, as the DPS patrol unit was traveling in the opposite direction on the same roadway,” according to a statement released by DPS Staff Sgt. Robbie Barrera. “The Trooper’s emergency vehicle equipment was activated and the driver of the car refused to stop, continuing to travel northbound.”

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

An auto crash near Round Mountain on Monday, July 3, ended in the death of the two occupants of a car that failed to stop for Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Troopers.

Traffic was back up for miles to be re-routed from US 281 over the hours it took to clear the wreckage shown in videos from the scene littering the highway.

The names of the deceased still hand not been released late Friday, pending notification of next of kin.

In the Blanco County event July 3 DPS Troopers had attempted to stop the Grey Honda passenger car as it sped northbound on US 281 in Blanco County at 11:30 a.m.

A driver charged with evading law enforcement out of Mason County on July 2,  is safely in the Burnet County Jail.
Briana Marie Cuellar, a 26-year old woman from Uvalde, is now in the Burnet County Jail on charges of evading arrest and reckless driving out of Mason County.

When Cuellar refused to stop for law enforcement and headed her car at high speed toward Llano, police officer Aime Shannon was able to respond to the call by deploying Stop Sticks. StopStick, Ltd., makers of the tire deflation device, recognized Deputy Bucky Boswell of Llano County Sheriff’s Office in May with its “Hit of the Year” award for use of the Stop Stick tire deflation device in ending a pursuit.

The devices were again successful, according to Llano County Chief Deputy John Neff.

A Blanco woman was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of injury to a child resulting the death of her 15-month-old daughter.

Jamie Petronella, 24, was found to have failed to seek medical attention for her daughter Sunny Bort, who died May 5, 2016, in a San Antonio hospital from injuries she received at the hands of Petronella's live-in boyfriend, John Cody Lawrence, 24.

On Feb. 3, Lawrence was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to capital murder of a child younger than 10 years of age for intentionally causing the toddler's death.

Petronella appeared before 33rd District Judge Allan Garrett on Wednesday, May 17, for her role in the child's death. She was given a plea for a lesser charge after Lawrence accepted sole responsibility for causing the injuries, which he alleged he caused to the child while Petronella was at work.

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

The death sentence was taken off the table for a Blanco County man Friday, Feb. 3, when he entered a guilty plea in 33rd District Court in Burnet and accepted a life sentence for the murder of a child.

John Cody Lawrence, 24, appeared before District Judge Allan Garrett, to plead guilty to capital murder of a child under the age of 10, as well a four counts of assaulting a public servant.

The case made headlines in San Antonio last year, when the 15-month-daughter of Lawrence's girlfriend died in University Hospital there on May 5.

That was two days after Sunny Dakota Slade-Bort was found in the couple’s Blanco apartment bruised and unresponsive by emergency medical services and was air lifted to San Antonio.

District Attorney Wiley “Sonny” McAfee said he was contacted when the child was put on life support.