HPD HAS NORTH HOUSTON MATTRESS STORE MURDERER IN CUSTODY 
The manhunt for alleged mattress store killer Jose Gilberto Rodriguez came to an end at N. Eldridge Pkwy. and Wortham Landing Dr. earlier this morning after a brief police chase, reports abc13. Just last night, Chief Art Acevedo identified Rodriguez — a 46-year-old parolee who was released from prison last September — as a suspect in 3 homicides over the last several days. He was believed to be driving a dark Nissan Sentra — Acevedo explained — that he took from his latest victim, an employee of the Mattress1One pictured above at I-45 and Crosstimbers found shot to death in the store yesterday afternoon. Previously on Saturday night, the manager of a Mattress Firm across from the Willowbrook Mall walked into that location’s back office and found a 28-year-old female employee lying dead between 2 mattresses. Between the 2 retail slayings, Rodriguez also allegedly shot and robbed a METRO Lift driver (who’s expected to recover), and earlier last week, killed a 62-year-old woman after breaking into her house on Bent Pine Dr. in Cypress. [abc13] Photo of Mattress1One at 4400 N. Fwy.: Jessica Willey
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Crime
A SOUTHAMPTON BLOWUP OVER THE STATUE OF DICK DOWLING IN HERMANN PARK 
For the second time in 5 years, FBI and ATF officials on Sunday raided the house at 2025 Albans St. in search of explosives. Both ventures resulted in the arrest of one of its residents, now-25-year-old Andrew Cecil Earhart Schneck. Schneck, who was released from probation last year, had pled guilty in federal court 2 years earlier for knowingly storing explosives in the 2013 incident. He was arrested again this past Saturday night after a Houston park ranger reportedly found him kneeling in the bushes with tubes of nitroglycerin and the explosive HMTD, a timer, wires, a battery, and a detonator in front of the Carrara marble statue of Confederate commander and Houston saloon owner Richard Dowling. The statue was the first public artwork ever created by the city of Houston, and originally stood in Market Square outside of city hall when it was created in 1905. Albans St. and the alley to the south of it between Hazard and Wilton streets in Southampton have been under evacuation orders since Sunday, and gas service to the area has been turned off; law enforcement officials say they are working to “safely and properly dispose of” hazardous materials found inside the home “through a series of controlled detonations” — that may take place this afternoon. Nearby residents should expect to hear loud noises and smoke as a result of the detonations, they warn; there’s also a possibility of damage to adjacent properties. [Houston Chronicle] Photo of Richard Dowling statue at Hermann Park: Patrick Feller [license]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN SCHOOLS GET IN THE WAY 
“I’m sick and tired of people always complaining about how such and such crime happened close to a school. Schools are peppered throughout the city, so pretty much anywhere is ‘near a school.’ Find me a school-free area where I can do my shootings.” [criminal guy, commenting on The Great Coltivare Kumquat Tree Heist] Illustration: Lulu
One of the hazards of having a street-facing 3,000-sq.-ft. garden adjacent to your restaurant’s back patio: plant theft. But Coltivare chef Ryan Pera tells Bloomberg reporter Kate Krader that the Heights restaurant has more to watch out for than your typical fruit-off-the-vine snatchings by grabby customers. Namely: 3 of the restaurant’s fruit trees have gone missing, including “a 6-ft.-tall kumquat tree, worth about $175.” Pera tells Krader he was “stunned and hurt, but more awed by the fact that it was obviously planned. I mean, someone had to come prepared with proper garden tools, a truck, and the know-how on how to steal a tree.”
- What Gets Stolen From Restaurants? Everything [Bloomberg]
- Previously on Swamplot: Coltivare’s Patio Wrap Draws Attention from the City
Photo of Coltivare, 3320 White Oak Dr.: Coltivare
Grand Theft Citrus Japonica
Southern-tinged Korean restaurant Anju closed suddenly last week in the Midtown Crossing strip center, following the latest in a chain of break-ins to its space. Owner An Vo tells Swamplot that the spot near the corner of Webster and Brazos streets, on the eastern end of the strip at 510 Gray St., was broken into “like 5 times” in Anju’s roughly 4 months of operation there; Vo says the last incident forced the shut down.
The now ex-Anju space previously held  beer bar Gray’s Public House, which opened there after the departure of The Good Life. Around the corner along Gray St., the strip center currently hosts Buffalo Wild Wings, perpetually probing sandwich shop Which Wich?, River Oaks Cleaners, and Gyu-Kaku:
Webster at Brazos
When an unidentified arsonist wearing a face mask last Thursday spread what appears to be gasoline onto the railroad-track-facing back porch of the Cross Track Ice House at 200 Magnolia St. in Old Town Spring — just 2 miles southeast of the new ExxonMobil campus — footage of the scene and the fire’s initial moments from a security camera aimed at the porch somehow survived the blaze.
Whodunit?
Remember that incident last July when real estate investor and renowned neighbor-dismemberer Robert Durst — the Rice Village’s best-known resident — decided to spread his own bodily fluids in the CVS at 6011 Kirby Dr.? Thanks to the enterprising and patient reporting team at KPRC, surveillance video of the episode is now available for all to see. Together with the shocking scene included at the end of the HBO documentary The Jinx — in which Durst, retreating to the bathroom from an interview while wearing a still-live mic, appears to confess to multiple murders — the footage paints a portrait of a man prone to urination surprises. Durst pleaded no contest to charges of criminal mischief for the CVS episode, after he allegedly exposed himself to a cashier and then peed on a display of candy.
The newly released footage isn’t the clearest (and mercifully, any potentially offending images are blurred out) but it does reveal a few things, including where Durst stood when he began urinating — in case that matters to future customers of that CVS Pharmacy.
Where It All Went Down
Fresh off receiving a $300,000 settlement for the unauthorized removal of 6 oak trees in the city right-of-way from Ali Dhanani and Haza Foods, owner of the Wendy’s franchise at the corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd., the city of Houston’s legal staff has turned its attention to 2 other oak-tree-hacking incidents at neighboring Burger Kings — one a couple blocks to the south at 5115 Kirby Dr. at the corner of South Blvd., and the other at 2116 W. Holcombe Blvd. at Main St., next to the Medical Center. At each location, according to a report from the Chronicle‘s Mike Morris, landscapers pruned an oak tree on surrounding public property excessively, making it “likely to die.”
Both Burger Kings, it turns out, are owned by Dhanani’s brother, Shoukat Dhanani, whose company, Houston Foods, happens to be the second-largest Burger King franchisee in the country. (And with a just-announced purchase, his Dhanani Group is about to double the number of U.S. Burger Kings it owns, to more than 450.) But this latest scuffle with the city is not Shoukat Dhanani’s first experience with aggressive limb-cutting of city-owned oaks. Two and a half years ago, Swamplot readers reported on the mysterious beheadings of oak trees surrounding 2 other Burger Kings, both of which also happen to be owned by Houston Foods.
Fast-Food Landscaping
The hexagonal clock mounted above the front door of the former Cra-Bell Vacuum and Appliance Co. building at 216 Westheimer Rd. was stolen over the weekend. Derek Brotherton of Scott-Day Paint & Supply, the company that’s inhabited the building since 1963, tells Swamplot that he and coworkers noticed the disappearance this morning, and that they are “deeply upset over losing part of the character of the store.” Photos above show the clock in place (above, in an older image) and gone missing (at top, taken this morning). Brotherton says he believes the clock had been in its current position since the building was constructed in 1935Â — or shortly thereafter. Back then, the street was named Hathaway; it now sits on the north side of Westheimer between Helena and Mason.
Did You See Time Fly?
The City of Houston intends to proceed with legal action in connection with the overnight disappearance of half a dozen oak trees from the public right-of-way surrounding the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr., according to 2 separate sources. The trees were chopped down and ground up on site under cover of darkness Tuesday night as part of a renovation of the fast-food spot, which sits at the corner of Kirby and North Blvd. The removals took place on city property, but had not been permitted by the city.
“I have already been assured by the City of Houston’s enforcement officer that the city intends to proceed with a civil case,” writes Trees for Houston executive director Barry Ward in an email sent to members of the canopy-enhancement organization this morning. He calls plans to pursue legal action “a continuation of the recent, positive trend by the current administration to put an end to illegal tree removal in the City right-of-way or on city property.”
$150K for More Sunlight
This yellow 2-story at 4601 N. Roseneath Dr., which has been on the market since April, popped up in a new listing earlier this month sporting the same $850,000 asking price. It sits on a 1.2-acre lot below Brays Bayou, just south of the University of Houston campus. Since 1994, the 1937 property has been the home of Earnest Gibson III, the longtime president of Riverside Hospital. Earlier this week, a federal jury convicted Gibson, his son, and 2 others of various conspiracy charges in connection with a $158 million Medicare fraud scheme centered around patients at the hospital. All are scheduled to be sentenced next February.
If you’re wondering why there are no photos of the foyer in this listing for the ranch home at 8402 Glenscott St. in the southeast Houston neighborhood of Meadowbrook Freeway, it’s likely out of respect. Because that’s the room where Sybil Berndt, the previous owner of this 3-bedroom, 2-bath home, fell, lay still face down on the floor for 3 days, passed away, and then slowly decomposed over the course of 3 months, all while her twin 48-year-old sons Edwin and Edward carried on with their lives, staying inside and watching TV and eating popcorn, potato chips, and candy.
There was a brief period after their mother fell, 2 days before her 89th birthday, when the twins considered getting her to a hospital, but they worried they might not be able to pay for her medical bills, according to investigators. Later, they worried how they might pay for her funeral. (It appears their mother had more than enough money to cover both.) Their mother, according to the twins’ account, never asked for help.
Paint and Carpet Magic
Investor Steve Moore, who’s made a name for himself by buying up, moving into, establishing unusual rules in, cleaning up, and lowering crime rates at some of the roughest apartment complexes in Houston neighborhoods such as Greenspoint and Westwood, has a new investment (and new address) — in Sharpstown. Working with an investment group, the owner of more than 5,000 apartment units has purchased a majority interest in the Gardens at Bissonnet condos at 7400 Bissonnet St., the 200-unit complex near Fondren Rd. known as the Le Promenade condos when it was home to the La Primera gang. Moore was sought out for the purchase by the Greater Sharpstown Management District after the condo complex was put into receivership last year; a series of security measures, which included changing the property’s name, were instituted as part of a legal settlement between the county and the property’s previous owners.
Moving into the Gardens at Bissonnet
STREET POOPING, WIPING, AND PHOTOGRAPHING IS BACK IN THE WOODLAND HEIGHTS 
According to a Houston Chronicle report, a resident of Byrne St. reported to police earlier today an encounter with yet another act of public pooping in the 77009. And it appears to be the work of a familiar figure from that neighborhood: that of the defecating, toilet-paper-toting man commonly referred to as the, uh, “serial pooper” of Woodland Heights. Back in May, a surveillance camera posted in a tree had caught images (above right) of the sidewalk hijinx of a man who, residents say, had repeatedly been defecating in and around the yards and driveways of the 500 block of Byrne St. A 56-year-old man had confessed to the defecatory acts after he was later picked up on a related charge of public urination near the Fiesta Mart at Quitman and Fulton  — but was not charged with a crime at the time, because “the man had serious mental health issues,” Heather Alexander reports. There’s apparently a photo of the man’s most recent exploits as well; Harris County precinct 1 spokesperson J.C. Mosier tells Alexander “there’s a very good chance it is the same guy,” but is waiting to receive a copy of the photo before confirming. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Click2Houston
A FOILED BIT OF ART THIEVERY DOWNTOWN 
Two men in casual business attire attempted to walk out of a basement service door of the JPMorgan Chase Tower at 600 Travis St. after midnight last night with the beach-scene painting pictured at right, which had been hanging in one of the building’s common areas. Police recovered the painting from a stairwell near the Alonti Cafe, where the pair appeared to have dropped it after hearing sirens. Suspects were arrested as they walked casually along the sidewalk in front of the building, and charged with felony theft. [News92FM] Photo: KHOU
