Bastrop Murder Linked to Woodside Trails History

Joseph Douglas (Photo courtesy of Bastrop Sheriff's Office)

The young man accused of killing his girlfriend's mother a couple of weeks ago in Bastrop County is the same youth whose recanted testimony led to the controversial closing of a youth services facility five years earlier.

Two juveniles say they were present when 18-year-old Joseph Douglas shot and killed Tracy Bellard, the mother of the 14-year-old girl Douglas was dating, at Bellard's McDade home. The daughter and Douglas' 13-year-old brother have both told the Bastrop County Sheriff's Office that they were present when Douglas took a .22-caliber rifle (allegedly supplied to him by his younger brother) and killed Bellard, whose charred remains were later found on a 5-acre property in Smithville that Douglas shares with his grandparents. Bellard had told Douglas that he was not to see her daughter, and Douglas had already been charged with indecency with a child and criminal trespassing in connection with his relationship with the girl. Both Douglas and Bellard's daughter have been charged with Bellard's murder; Douglas remains in jail in Bastrop in lieu of a $500,000 bond, and the girl remains in a juvenile facility in Seguin.

It is an extreme turn of events in the very troubled life of Douglas, who was the child at the center of a controversy in 2004 that ended with the closure of the Smithville therapeutic wilderness camp Woodside Trails. Douglas, whom workers at the camp considered one of the most troubled kids they'd had in their care, alleged that he'd been abused by a counselor there. Though Douglas had a history of making false allegations of sexual abuse and had already made a written recantation of that specific allegation, Child Protective Services investigators – under pressure from then-Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn – instead used Douglas' allegation to shutter the camp for good. Douglas had been badly abused, both physically and sexually, prior to his placement and had been assigned to a special program at the camp designed for habitual liars. (For more on Woodside Trails, see "Campfire Horror Story," Nov. 21, 2008.)