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Murder conviction in Southwest Austin oilman’s slaying
stands
By Steven Kreytak - Statesman.com
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has declined a petition to
review the Travis County murder conviction and 46-year prison
sentence of Rhonda Glover, a former rodeo queen who killed her
on-again, off-again oilman boyfriend Jimmy Joste in 2004.
The 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin had previously affirmed the
sentence and conviction. With the high criminal court’s decision
to decline review in the case, filed last week, the conviction and
sentence stand.
Glover, who owned an employee recruiting business, shot Joste
10 times in the home on Mission Oaks Boulevard in Southwest Austin
they once shared. At the time, Joste lived there alone.
Before the shooting, she had taken firearms training and one of
her trainers testified she once asked how to shoot someone from
behind while he was sitting on a sofa. She had practiced firing
her gun the day of the shooting at Red’s Indoor Range in Oak Hill.
Glover and Joste had a history of delusional behavior, drug
use, excessive drinking and domestic abuse, according to trial
testimony. Glover once told a Child Protective Services worker
checking on the couple’s son, who was 9 when Joste was shot, that
the boy was Jesus Christ; Joste said the boy could “pull stars
from the sky.”
Prosecutors said Glover had grown sick of Joste after draining
him of most of his family and self-made wealth. Glover said it was
self-defense. Her testimony in her own defense made great
courtroom dram.
Jury finds woman guilty of boyfriend's murder
Rhonda Glover faces up to life in prison for 2004 shooting.
Ancestry.com
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
A Travis County, Texas jury found Rhonda Glover guilty of
murder this afternoon in the 2004 shooting death of her longtime
boyfriend.
Glover, 39, a former Miss Houston contestant who ran an
employee recruiting business, faces up to life in prison when the
punishment phase of the trial begins Wednesday.
Glover's testimony that she killed Jimmy Joste to protect
herself was "trash," a "prefabricated story," prosecutor Bryan
Case told the jury during closing arguments today. Case called on
the nine women and three men on the jury to recognize Glover's
"crocodile tears" and find her guilty.
The jury deliberated for less than two hours.
On Friday, Glover testified that she went to the Southwest
Austin house the couple once shared — where Joste had been
living alone — to drop off her handgun and pick up camping gear
in preparation for a trip to Nashville with the couple's son, now
11.
Glover told the jury she had been avoiding Joste for months
because he would drink too much and beat her. She didn't think
Joste would be at the house, but he came home, yelled at her and
then grabbed her throat.
"I shot him," she testified, sobbing on the stand. "I shot him
because I thought he was going to kill me."
Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors called several of Joste's friends
to rebut Glover's testimony that Joste beat her. They testified
that Joste was peaceful and docile and that Glover was an
aggressive woman with a reputation for being a liar.
Prosecutors say Glover grew tired of Joste, 55, after spending
much of his money during their on-again, off-again relationship,
which began in 1990. Joste inherited millions from his family,
which was in the oil business, and earned more by pioneering
horizontal oil and gas drilling in the 1980s, friends testified.
Prosecutors said Glover carefully planned the murder, starting
by purchasing the Glock 19 handgun and taking shooting lessons in
the months before the shooting. Then, on July 21, 2004, according
to testimony, she rented a car, drove it to a shooting range in
Oak Hill, shot the gun at the range for about 20 minutes, then
went to the house on Mission Oaks Boulevard, off Southwest
Parkway.
In the upstairs bedroom and hallway. Glover emptied the gun's
magazine, shooting Joste 10 times, according to testimony.
"She lured him to the house," prosecutor Gail Van Winkle said.
"He worshiped this woman. And she surprised him with the gun and
started shooting."
Glover's defense lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, told the jury during
closing arguments that Joste was obsessed with Glover. He cited
testimony that he withdrew more than $1 million from a bank in
early 2004 and spent it on Glover. Joste had bought Glover a
$350,000 engagement ring in early 2004, which Glover testified she
knew about and declined.
Martin "Jimmy" Joste Murdered, Suspect in Custody
Ancestry.com
Sunday, July 23, 2004
Jimmy Joste and Rhonda Lee Glover dated for 15 years and had a
10-year-old son. On Sunday, Jimmy Joste was found slain in his
Austin home.
A week after Rhonda Lee Glover bought a 9 mm Glock pistol at an
Austin gun store and firing range, Austin police said, she showed
up at a Houston shooting range with her 10-year-old son seeking
shooting lessons and advice.
"How do you shoot someone in the head while they are sitting on
a couch and you're coming up from behind," she asked an employee
at Top Gun of Texas in early July, according to an arrest warrant.
On Sunday, Glover's longtime boyfriend — the father of her
son — was found dead in his Southwest Austin home, shot 13
times, and Glover, 38, had hit the road going north in a rented
white recreational vehicle.
On Tuesday, Kansas Highway Patrol officers traced signals from
Glover's cell phone to the RV, parked outside the Golden Ox truck
stop in Hays. Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. Mark Deterding said Glover
had stopped to buy milk for her son. Wearing a yellow sundress,
she surrendered and was charged with murdering 55-year-old James
Martin "Jimmy" Joste.
Glover's Houston-based lawyer, Paul J. Smith, declined to
comment Wednesday.
While Glover sits in jail lin Ellis County, Kan. on a $1
million bail, Joste's friends and family are trying to fathom why
anyone would kill a man who had such a generous heart.
"His only fault was that he loved women so much he probably
overdid it in the generosity department," said Rocky Navarro, a
local real estate agent who has been friends with Joste for 15
years. "Men like us can be taken advantage of if the wrong woman
gets ahold of us."
Joste was an oil-patch millionaire from Houston, an
entrepreneur who friends said was always looking for the next big
oil strike. In the 1980s, they said, he jumped into horizontal
drilling as it was becoming the new technique to reach hard-to-tap
oil reserves.
Friends say Joste's 15-year relationship with Glover started at
a party at a friend's ranch. Though he never married her, they had
a child together and he bought her several cars and houses,
including the Austin house where Joste was found dead.
"Everything she had, he gave to her," said Stan Weiner, a
former Houston oilman.
Weiner and others said they don't know much about Glover's
past, but her presence caused them to distance themselves from
their gregarious friend. Glover and Joste's relationship was on
and off and frequently troubled, Weiner said.
Kelley Joste says his brother — whose family's oil money goes
back three generations — had countless friends in Houston, many
of them oilmen like himself who enjoyed the company of beautiful
women and frequented The Palm restaurant near the Galleria.
In that circle, Joste was the life of the party, slipping
outlandish tips to waiters and picking up friends' tabs, said
Danny Davis, who said he's known Joste since they were boys.
Joste always had money, but friends are not sure whether it
came from a family inheritance or his entrepreneurial forays into
the family business. Kelley Joste says Jimmy went through the
inheritance quickly and spent much of it on Glover.
"Even if he was broke you would never know it," he said.
Navarro, Joste's Austin friend, said Joste was giving Glover at
least $10,000 a month.
"Why would you kill the goose laying the golden egg?" he said.
"This guy was beloved. He didn't have an enemy."
When they shared a beer on July 20, Navarro said Joste steered
the conversation away from himself and his relationship with
Glover.
Austin police said a call to Navarro the next morning was the
last entry on Joste's cell phone, a call the real estate agent
says he missed. That same morning, Glover and her son, John
Chandler Joste, showed up at a friend's house in Cedar Park with
the rented RV, according to the arrest warrant.
Police said Glover had moved out of the couple's limestone
house in the Park at Travis Country, a gated subdivision, several
months ago and was probably living in Houston, where she has
family.
Glover's friend took her to rent a white Ford Taurus, which
Glover said she needed to run errands, the warrant said. When
Glover returned to the couple's home a few hours later, she
gathered up her son and said they were headed to Arkansas, the
warrant said.
Police said Glover had been reported missing in Houston since
March. On Sunday, Glover's aunt went to the Austin house hoping to
find her. Instead, she found the garage door and a utility door
open and called 911. An Austin police officer found the
decomposing body of Jimmy Joste lying near the doorway of his
upstairs bedroom, his 160-pound frame perforated with bullets that
police say their ballistics tests show markings on the slug were
consistent with a Glock weapon.
Police say the couple's son is living with a foster family in
Kansas while officials work out where to place him. According to
Kelley Joste, Glover's mother, Sherlyn Shotwell, has legal
custody. Shotwell could not be reached for comment.
Glover should be extradited to Texas within a couple of weeks,
according to U.S. Marshal Hector Gomez. In addition to
first-degree murder, Glover is charged with falsifying her address
on a firearm application, a federal crime.
James Martin "Jimmy" Joste
Birth: Jan. 15, 1949
Death: Jul. 21, 2004
Murder Victim.
Jimmy was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Martin William and
Barbara Kelly Joste. His grandfather, Barbara's Dad was Forrest
Kelly of Wichita, Kansas, a successful wildcatter, and CEO of the
Treat-o-lite, Petrolite Corporation. His grandfather's love of the
oil business inspired Jimmy to follow in his footsteps. Jimmy grew
up in the Memorial area. He graduated from Memorial High School
and attended The University of Texas in Austin. Many remember
Barbara's house on Potomac was the dinner party place to be, with
Jimmy often cooking for 20 people several nights a week. He was
the perfect host with everyone always feeling well fed and amused
by his great jokes, even if he told the same joke many times. He
was in the family's oil business, and was a pioneer of horizontal
oil and gas drilling.
He and his girlfriend, Rhonda Glover, had a son. A resident of
Austin, Texas, he died there in Travis County, Texas, of gunshot
wounds allegedly inflicted by his domestic partner and the mother
of his son.
He is survived by his brother, Kelly William Joste of Houston
and his son John Chandler Joste, as well as many, many wonderful
friends. He will be missed deeply. He was preceded in death by his
brother, John Forrest Joste, his father, Martin William Joste and
his mother, Barbara Kelly Joste. His amazing love and devotion to
his son was evident to all his friends. A memorial service was
held at Saint Martins Episcopal Church. His murder was later
featured on the television series, "Snapped."
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