Friend of family charged in kidnap, death of boy in '91

Authorities say drug dealers paid student to abduct Tyler child, 8

By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News

TYLER Authorities unsealed indictments Thursday in the bizarre 1991
kidnapslaying of an 8yearold boy, charging the abduction was carried
out by a high school student and family friend paid by Colombian drug
dealers.

The announcement of capital murder charges against Patrick Horn is the
latest twist in a 5 1/2year saga in which the family of the missing
boy, Chad Choice, received gruesome ransom notes and even human bones on
the anniversaries of his disappearance.

One of the notes, reading "you paid only part, so here is a part" and
accompanied by a small human skull, appeared on the Choice family's
porch exactly four years after the boy vanished, said David Dobbs, chief
assistant Smith County district attorney.

The indictment is only the latest charge against Mr. Horn, who was 17 at
the time of Chad's disappearance. Mr. Horn, now 23, is serving a life
sentence in federal prison for the 1994 robbery of a Tyler credit union
and a 1994 carjacking in which an 80yearold fruit vendor was slain.

Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen said prosecutors will seek the
death penalty against Mr. Horn.

Separate indictments unsealed Thursday charged two Colombians, Luis
Carlos Castillo and Silvio "Junior" Ulloa Castanada, with trafficking in
more than 400 ounces of cocaine.

The capital murder indictment against Mr. Horn charges that the two
Colombians and two other unnamed Colombians paid Mr. Horn in money,
cocaine and the promise of more such payments in exchange for the
kidnapping of Chad, according to the capital murder indictment.

The Colombians have not been charged in connection with the murder case.
Two additional indictments remain sealed in the Choice investigation,
and authorities said Thursday that they are still looking for suspects
in the case.

Within hours after authorities unsealed indictments Thursday, Chad's
uncle, Greg Sterling, and an employee at his family's Tyler funeral home
testified before a Smith County Grand Jury. Mr. Sterling and a second
employee of the funeral home, who was subpoenaed to appear Thursday but
did not testify, were ordered to return to the grand jury next week.

Mr. Horn had told investigators last summer that Colombian drug dealers
kidnapped Chad to try to force Mr. Sterling to repay a drug debt. Mr.
Sterling publicly denied the allegation, and authorities initially
discounted the story.

Mr. Sterling could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Mr. Dobbs and Mr. Skeen declined
Thursday to answer questions about Mr. Sterling, the ransom demands or
any other aspect of the case.

Chad's mother, Karen Choice of Tyler, could not be reached for comment
Thursday. At a news conference called to announce the indictments, Tyler
Police Chief Bill Young read a written statement in which Mrs. Choice
praised the progress of the investigation.

Chad disappeared from his bedroom in the family's locked north Tyler
home in the predawn hours of Oct. 13, 1991. Two days later, a ransom
note demanding $10,000 was sent to Mr. Sterling at the family's funeral
home.

A second ransom note demanding $6,000 was placed in a window of a car
owned by Chad's mother on the first anniversary of Chad's disappearance.
The third note, accompanied by the skull, appeared in October 1995.

Mr. Horn was questioned early in the investigation because he was a high
school classmate and friend of Chad's older brother and had visited the
family's home the night before Chad disappeared.

But the investigation focused on him only after he received a package in
the Smith County Jail last April 5 containing a human leg bone and a
letter referring to the Choice case.

At the time, Mr. Horn had been jailed for almost two years awaiting
federal sentencing in connection with the bank robberies and fatal
carjacking.

Mr. Dobbs said the letter, sent along with a leg bone, was strikingly
similar to the three ransom letters. It stated, in part: "You've had a
leg in this, so remember. Never cut off the leg that holds up your
destiny," Mr. Dobbs said.

On May 31, 1996, the day he was to be sentenced in federal court, Mr.
Horn told authorities he could lead them to Chad's body and took them to
a shallow grave in Mr. Horn's stepfather's backyard.

There, authorities found human bones wrapped in a bloodstained blanket,
bullet casings, a bullet and keys believed to have come from the Choice
home.

After the body was discovered, Mr. Dobbs said, Mr. Horn's younger
brother, Keithan Horn, told authorities that he had dug the grave at his
brother's request in the fall of 1991.

At the time he dug the grave, Keithan Horn said, his brother had
instructed him only to dig a hole and did not explain what it was for,
Mr. Dobbs said. The hole was later filled in and Mr. Horn's younger
brother suspected foul play but did not know that it contained the body
of Chad, Mr. Dobbs said.

Almost a year after being arrested and agreeing to testify against his
confederates in the carjacking and robberies, Patrick Horn contacted his
younger brother from jail and told him to drive from Houston to Tyler,
Mr. Dobbs said.

Following Patrick Horn's orders, Keithan Horn told authorities, he
unearthed the same hole he had dug four years before and removed a small
skull. After cleaning the skull with a toothbrush, he said he placed it
on the Choice family's porch along with a ransom note.

In the spring of 1996, Keithan Horn told authorities, his brother again
contacted him from jail and told him to get more body parts from the
hole, Mr. Dobbs said. Keithan Horn said he was instructed to mail the
bones along with a note to his brother at the Smith County jail, where
his brother was awaiting federal sentencing.

Mr. Dobbs said Keithan Horn told police "that his instructions were that
the note was to say, 'You had a hand in this, so here's a hand.' But he
couldn't find hand bones, so he improvised. He sent leg bones."

Keithan Horn pleaded guilty earlier this year to tampering with evidence
in the Choice case. He is awaiting sentencing on the charge and is being
held in the Smith County jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

One of the Colombians named in the unsealed indictments, Mr. Castillo,
was served at the Holiday unit of the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice in Huntsville. He is serving a 30year sentence on an unrelated
drug trafficking charge.

The other indicted Colombian, Mr. Ulloa Castanada, was arrested last
month in Houston. He is being held in the Smith County jail in lieu of a
$1 million bond.