Deadly Blessing

by Steven Salerno

Young Texas power-broker, Price Daniel, Jr., startled his wealthy peers when he married Vickie Carroll, a Dairy Queen waitress--and his murderer. With all the drama of courtroom fiction, this book retells the dark secrets of a promising young man and the controversial, surprise verdict of the court.

Genres: True Crime

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a so-so true crime book to me and maybe more of interest to Texas, certainly of the time or I suppose of the Bed of Lies TV movie (1992). Southern Dairy Queen waitress Vickie Daniel, a "low born woman married to rich man", is accused of his murder. However, the subsequent trial reveals their marriage was lies, abuse, and infidelity. Both in the marriage were unstable and in 1981, Price Daniel Jr., son of Texas Governor Price Daniel, was shot to death by this second wife Vickie, a former waitress. The murder trial of Vickie Daniel, who was represented by famed attorney Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, unleashed a storm of disclosures about the younger Daniel's private life and habits, including drinking, pot, and apparent pedophilia. This aberrant behavior meant the custody case for the children is more central to the story than the murder trial which ended in Vickie's acquittal.