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On Tuesday, a new "No Trespassing" sign was freshly tacked onto a gate barring entrance down a gravelly, shrub-canopied path leading to the barn and chicken coop on the ranch, which belonged to the father's dad. At the father's house, the front yard could pass for a children's playground: blue pinwheels sunk into patchy grass, an above-ground swimming pool, a swing set, a trampoline and a couple of ropes dangling from a tree for swinging. A partial privacy fence is painted powder blue. No one answered at the father's home. A few miles away, at a home listed as belonging to the father's sister, a woman shouted through the front door that the family had nothing to say. Huser, the father's attorney, told reporters that neither the father nor anyone else in the family would ever give interviews and asked that they be left alone. Veit, who lives across the street from the ranch, described the father as easygoing and polite
-- down to always first asking permission to search Veit's property for animals that had wandered off the ranch, even though the families have long known each other. Veit's son was a classmate of the father's at Shiner High School in a graduating class of about two dozen. Veit, 48, said the young father was never known to be in trouble. "Just like a regular kid, went to dances, drank beer like the rest of the kids around here," Veit said. Shiner, a town of about 2,000 people about 80 miles east of San Antonio, revolves around the Spoetzl Brewery that makes Shiner, one of the nation's best-selling independent beers. Even gas stations here sell it on tap. Flores' death is only the sixth homicide the Lavaca County Sheriff's Office has investigated in the last eight years. Shiner residents boast their squeaky-clean image on a highway welcome sign: "The Cleanest Little City in Texas." At Werner's Restaurant, customer Gail Allen said she didn't want to speak for the whole town, though her comments echoed what others said. "The father has gone through enough," said Allen, 59, who has nine grandchildren. "The little girl is going to be traumatized for life, and the father, too, for what happened. He was protecting his family. Any parent would do that."
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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