911 tapes show different story in Collins murder

Location pinpointed, deputy dispatched

Collins' Hitchin' Post

Whitney – A copy of the 911 audio made from the Hitchin' Post in the early morning hours of July 24 show that an unidentified caller contacted the Hill County Sheriff's Department dispatcher.

The caller reports there are “cars hauling ass all over the property” and abruptly ends.

In a second segment, both of which were obtained through a Texas Open Records Request, the Hill County and Bosque County dispatchers are heard pinpointing the location of the caller in the 1700 block of FM 1713 – at Collins' family's place of business, The Hitchin' Post.

The Hill County dispatcher advises the Bosque County 911 operator that a deputy is standing by at the Sheriff's Department Training Center on FM 1713, and he will have him go by the Collins family's store to see what is happening there.

An arrest affidavit developed from Edwin O. Collins' statements made when he arrived at the Sheriff's Department headquarters in Hillsboro mentions that he made a call to 911 on a cell phone, but the device dropped the call.

According to the affidavit, Mr. Collins did not tell his father that he had shot his daughter in the back, that she lay dead face down in a wooded area along the fence line on the southeast boundary of the family's property at the corner of FM 933 and FM 1713.(click here to read an earlier report)

Mr. Collins told deputies that his father told him that no officers arrived at the store, and he then left with his sons to report the matter in person at the department's headquarters office in Hillsboro. He further described a night of terror spent hiding with his two sons, waiting for the sun to rise as his daughter, whom he knew he had killed with the shotgun blast, lay dead.

At that point, deputies placed him under arrest; a magistrate later charged him with the murder of his daughter once deputies located her body with the help of his 18 year-old son, who accompanied them to the place of the shooting.(click here for a report on a similar shooting that took place earlier in July)

One may hear the audio recordings of both 911 calls by clicking here.