Middlebrooks Family Association Newsletter June 2010

Clovis Road, the Dr. Roy Hunt Murder, Littlefield, Texas 1942-1943, written by
+Dana Middlebrooks Samuelson and +Robert John Samuelson, M.D.
Dana is the daughter of the late +Allen Dale Middlebrooks and granddaughter of Jim Lee Middlebrooks and Myrtie Lee Reeves. Dana married Robert Samuelson in 1989. On November 10, 1996, Dana was mentioned in the Dallas Morning News for "Best Concepts" in a writing contest for a new television series to replace "Dallas." She has had a lifelong interest in medicine, true crime, and psychology. She and her husband published Common Ground – the Wheat and the Chaff in 2005, a genealogy collection of stories from several allied families.
Dana's mother, Sue Middlebrooks, told Dana and her husband about a Littlefield doctor and his wife who were killed in their home in the 1940s while their two young daughters were in the house. Dr. Roy E. Hunt started practice in Littlefield in 1937, which was the year +Waylon Jennings was born in the same town. Hunt bought a home, built a hospital along with his partners, and survived an attempted murder in 1942 by a medical school classmate. He was ultimately killed, along with his wife, in the middle of a night "hit" in their home on East 7th Street in Littlefield in 1943. This is a true Texas crime story.
The Roy Hunt murders of Littlefield, Texas, were among the top news stories in Texas during World War II, and made the front pages in Texas for several years. Clovis Road is the first publication that tells the whole story of the crimes that ended the young doctor's life and the life of his wife.
The book discusses the court trials, the motives, and the eventual outcomes of the characters involved in a medical training love triangle that so affected the grandson of a founder of Lubbock, Texas, and the son of a prominent physician and state senator. It discusses nurses' education, medical practice, and small town politics. The heroes of the story are a Texas Ranger, a District Court Attorney, and the physician brother of the victim.
Plainview, Texas, attorney Bill LaFont grew up hearing about the trial that riveted citizens across Texas. His father, Judge Harold LaFont, was District Attorney during the murder trial, as well as the previous trial when Dr. Billy Newton shot Dr. Hunt on Clovis Road, outside of Littlefield. LaFont recalls, "Dad tried to get in position to write a book but never took the time to sit down and do it."
The Samuelsons traveled throughout Texas for a year to get the material to write the book. They interviewed people who were in Littlefield that day in 1943, searched many trial court and probate records, and visited museums and newspaper files to be able to tell the story. Bill LaFont allowed them to research his father's records and transcripts of the trials that he had donated to the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The first-edition hardback is 184 pages, 93,000 words, and has about fifty illustrations. It tells the background of the families involved and carries the story to the conclusion of the dramatic epic story.
Dana's father, Allen Dale Middlebrooks, ran a service station in Littlefield and in Bula, Texas, for many years and passed away in September 2006. A Littlefield service station figures prominently in the Dr. Hunt murder story. Dale had one brother, Cleo Middlebrooks, and two sisters, Mardell and Robbie Lee. Dale Middlebrooks also worked at Pantex Munitions Plant in Amarillo during World War II, at the same time that a significant character in Clovis Road worked at that plant. Many coincidences like that were discovered while Dana and her husband were writing the book.
The book is available by writing them at 6257 Highgate Lane, Dallas, Texas 75214

MFA Newsletter Volume 9 Number 3