Charles “Big Charlie” Flores and Richard Childs were searching for money when they slid under the garage door of a one-story brick home on Bergen Street. The Black family had built it in the early 1960s when the one-block neighborhood of Farmers Branch was nothing but pasture. They had raised two children and four grandchildren there and were hiding $39,000 in cash for their son Gary Black. Flores and Childs aimed to find it when they entered the house early in the morning Jan. 29, 1998.
Flores was a big man rumored to have connections to the Mexican mafia. Childs, who had a strung-out Joe Dirt look, was involved with Gary Black’s ex-wife, Jackie Roberts. Both men had criminal records. Childs and Flores distributed methamphetamine and used it. They had been smoking it with Childs’ girlfriend shortly before they pulled up in a psychedelic-colored Volkswagen Beetle and slipped underneath the Blacks’ garage door at 7:30 a.m., police say. [Read more on the “Dallas Observer”]