Houston true crime. A contract killing. A rigged trial. And the most dangerous defense attorney in Texas. In 1968, Alan Berg — a Houston carpet salesman — was lured to the parking lot of the Brass Jug on Sin Alley, forced into a car, and murdered for hire. His body was found six months later in a cedar grove off County Road 257 between Surfside and Galveston, clad in one shoe, a coat, trousers and a belt. He was 31 years old. Charles Harrelson — the contract killer who would later assassinate a federal judge — pulled the trigger for $1,500. Percy Foreman, the most feared criminal defense attorney in America, represented both Harrelson and the man who allegedly ordered the hit. The eyewitness was Sandra Sue Attaway, who had worked at Houston's Cork Club — the same private club where Ash Robinson drank and Joan Robinson Hill was a regular. Foreman destroyed her testimony with a single legal argument. Both men walked free. This week on Crude Acts, we're covering David Berg's memoir Run Brother Run — the book Berg spent forty years waiting to write about his brother Alan's murder, the 1970 Angleton trial, DA Ogden Bass, and the Houston organized crime infrastructure that made all of it possible. If you've been following our Blood and Money deep dive this season, this episode is the connective tissue. Same lawyers. Same city. One year apart. Key names: Alan Berg, Charles Harrelson, Percy Foreman, Racehorse Haynes, Sandra Sue Attaway, Frank DiMaria, Nathan Berg, Robert Leonard, Dennis Weadock, Crawford Booth, Ogden Bass Key locations: Brass Jug Club Houston, Sin Alley Houston, Cork Club Shamrock Hotel, Imperial Carpets Montrose, Surfside Island, Brazoria County, Angleton Texas Crude Acts is a Texas true crime podcast covering organized crime, corruption, and the cases that shaped the Gulf Coast. New episodes every week.
