He allegedly told her not to tell anyone what had happened.Īlmost four weeks after the sleepover incident, Coy was arrested. When it was over, she asked Coy to drive her home. She would later testify that Coy came into the room and molested her. Later, when Coy's daughter was asleep, her friend remained awake, suffering from insomnia. During the movie, Coy allegedly began to touch the 9-year-old in inappropriate ways. As the Houston Press detailed in 2002, Coy and the two girls watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre - a movie Coy had picked out. On Labor Day Weekend of 2001, a 9-year-old family friend spent the night with Coy's 6-year-old daughter. The backbreaker, however, was yet to come. "I was 22 and smoking formaldehyde at the time." "I made the mistake of having a child with an underage girl. Coy admitted to the Chroniclethat he was the father of the boy, and according to public records, he paid $28,000 he owed in child support, an additional $3,500 for Odom's birth expenses and the boy's college fund, and $900 a month in child support going forward. It seemed that nothing could stop him.īut in April 2000, Jill Odom, then 20, sued Coy over child support for a child he'd fathered when Odom was 14. In 2000, he signed a deal with Universal. His first handful of albums sold more than 1.5 million units, a tremendous number for an independent artist. Newsweek and Texas Monthly lauded him as one of the next great Hispanic musicians, and his singles started getting constant airplay in Houston and around Texas. Gaining the support of DJ Screw, the preeminent figure in Houston's hip-hop scene, Coy began to rise. " was the Mexican, for real," says Matt Sonzala, a Houston hip-hop historian and former DJ for 90.1 KPFT, a Houston underground radio station at the time. In the 90s and early 2000s, the Houston hip-hop scene was coming into its own, and hip-hop radio station 97.9 KBXX was willing to play local, independent talent. In 1995, Coy founded Dope House Records with his brother, Arthur, and chose to rap about life on the streets rather than his faith. His first recordings were Christian rap, which didn't excite Houston crowds the way he had hoped. After dropping out of high school as a 17-year-old freshman, earning his GED, and failing classes at junior college, Coy turned to an array of odd jobs before settling into rap. "I don't think any inmate in TDCJ is as watched as I am."Ĭoy's rise and ugly fall remains a subject of fascination for both his fans and detractors. "I'm still the most watched inmate in Texas," he insists. But he's quick to point out that he's far from a free man. Through his appeals process, he was granted permission to record music under a privacy law in the county jail system. "Part of the real punishment is to be taken away from your livelihood," Coy says, acknowledging that his own livelihood hasn't been entirely taken away during his incarceration. It won't be the first time Coy has released new material from prison as South Park Mexican, or SPM - the stage name that made him both famous and infamous. He's also ready to talk about his upcoming album. On this sweltering August day in North Texas, however, the man across from me is 10 years into a 45-year sentence for sexually assaulting a child. Staring back at me is a former figure of my adolescence someone whose singles were fixtures at middle school dances in suburban Houston all those Friday nights ago. His face is skinnier than it was during his prime, but his thick frame is similar to the way I remember it. His white prisoner uniform is starting to become faded, and white hairs are beginning to bristle from his shaved head. He apologizes, acknowledging that he just got done playing basketball in weather that's approaching 110 degrees in the maximum-security confines of the Iowa Park, Texas, facility, which fluctuates between being the first- and second-largest prison in the state. On his side of the glass, Carlos Coy wipes away the moisture that has fogged up his view in the cramped, white-walled, 6-by-4 visitation room. Carolos Coy before his incarceration, and during a recent prison interview with the author (Left: Wikimedia Commons, right: Timothy Bella)Ĭondensation trickles down the window that separates me from a ghost.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |