Suspect's tale confusing, but lawmen charge murder

Dallas bail bonding company goes defendant's half-million dollar bail at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon

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A shot in the dark - the target - a scream

Whitney – Edwin Odell Collins must have looked like the last nine yards of hell when he walked in the front door of the Hill County Sheriff's Office in downtown Hillsboro.

An arrest warrant says he had “numerous scratches on his arms, face and shoulder,” and the right shoulder of Mr. Collins' shirt was “torn off.”

He told deputies he had a need to speak with someone - “to make a report.”

As he talked, he told a horrific tale of terror and an entire night he and his children spent hiding in the trees along a fence line on the family's home place; the lawmen realized that “the Accused was about to escape so that there was no time to procure a warrant.”

The terrible truth came in bits and snatches, according to the deputies' affidavit, as they “attempted to obtain more information as to the location of the shooting and the body of the victim.”

The victim is Judith Collins, Mr. Collins' 15-year-old daughter.

She lay face down and dead, more than 12 miles away along the heavily wooded fenceline where Mr. Collins and his children took refuge during their long night of terror, fatally shot in the back, cut down by a blast from her father's semi-automatic shotgun.

In the laconic words of the affidavit, “E. Collins advised that he knew that he had killed his (daughter) Judith Collins and he then remained hiding in the woods with his two surviving children until daylight.”

At some point, he attempted to contact authorities through the emergency 911 system, but the cell phone dropped the call just as he began to speak to the operator.

At the time the sun arose, he and his 17-year-old son Alex and 11-year-old Logan went to the back door of the family business, a 24-hour convenience store named Collins Hitchin' Post, and asked his father if deputies had responded to a 911 call he made during the night.

When his father said no, he and his sons left the property in his vehicle and headed for the Sheriff's Office in Hillsboro.

“E. Collins advised that he did not tell his father about shooting Judith Collins nor did he call for any emergency services from the store's landline phone.”

When the lawmen were unable to get Mr. Collins to tell them exactly where the shooting took place and where to find the child's body, they took the girl's 17-year-old brother Alex with them so he could help them locate the crime scene quickly.

It was at that point that they detained E. Collins in connection with a murder investigation, in spite of his confusing story about how during the early morning hours of the night, “he thought that someone was trying to get him at his residence...”

He told them how he armed himself with the shotgun, and loaded the three kids in the family's minivan to drive toward the front of the property and the store, which is located at the corner of FM 933 and FM 1713, just north of Whitney.

They could see the lights from two flashlights, Mr. Collins said, shining on the ground while people walked through the semi-rural property in the darkness of night.

Panicked, they alighted from the vehicle and ended up “running through the fields and the woods to get away from the people and he ended up shooting his daughter and killing her,” according to an Investigator Collins, who served as the affiant I the statement Mr. Collins gave officers.

As he and his kids stood at the rear of the business, said Mr. Collins, he heard a bang he thought might be a gunshot, so they ran for the wooded area along the fence line southeast of the store in order to hide in the woods.

He ordered his children to move back about a hundred yards while he waited with his gun to kill the people with the flashlights.

When he heard “one of his daughters scream,” he “turned and shot his shotgun in the direction of the scream.”

Again, in the stony language of the investigator, the story takes its fatal turn.

“E. Collins advised that he was approximately ten feet from his daughter Judith Collins and that he shot her in the back with his semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun.”

A magistrate set his bond at $500,000. Prosecutors will seek to prove that he “intentionally or knowingly caused the death of an individual;” or “intended to cause serious bodily injury and commited an act clearly dangerous to human life” that caused the death of an individual if a Grand Jury returns an indictment on the charge of murder.