By Joel Langton
Del Rio, TEXAS — We are just devastated,” is how Beth Latham Brown described her feelings in a Facebook post less than 48 hours after watching her father’s killer on Facebook walk across the tarmac at Del Rio 
International Airport.
He was being transferred from federal custody to state custody because the feds wanted to parole him and Texas just doesn’t stand for that sort of thing. Cop killers aren’t supposed to walk free in the State of Texas.
Thirty-six years earlier, Rafael Calderon-Velasquez had killed Richard Latham. He was part of a gang of four jewelry thieves that had abducted Latham at the Del Rio Port of Entry and took him to Eagle Pass where they shot him.
He plead guilty to the crime and served 36 years in prison.
Tuesday, Aug. 25, he was flown back to Del Rio from Terre Haute Federal Prison, in Terre Haute, Indiana. Texas officials sent a jet that had gone with the sole purpose to pick him up and bring him back to serve a full Texas life sentence. His plane landed at Del Rio International Airport the same day where a number of law enforcement officers waited at parade rest. He was walked across the tarmac, handed over to Maverick County deputies who took custody of him and he was placed in a sheriff’s office vehicle.
A convoy of seven police vehicles left the airport with the convicted killer and blasted towards Eagle Pass with a helicopter overhead. Many thought this was the closest he’d ever get to freedom. Instead, he’ll probably be walking out of prison before Labor Day, Latham’s daughters found out a day later.
As officers processed him into the Maverick County Jail, it turned out his stay in prison was going to be short; he was supposed to be released on parole within weeks.
The same law enforcement officers who have scrambled to make sure he wasn’t released, have scrambled to try and find out what is up to little avail. It is no solace to the family.
Richard Latham’s daughter, Beth wrote the following on Facebook Thursday, August 27, “If he (her father, Richard Latham) had been killed 4 years later the death penalty would be automatic. There was no trial because he admitted his guilt. This is devastating to his daughters. JUST DEVASTATED!!,” she wrote.
Law enforcement, who’d worked hard to bring him back to Texas were also disappointed.
“I’m personally very disappointed for the daughters,” said Tom Schmerber, Maverick County Sheriff. “Our intent was to put this guy behind bars and leave him there.”
At noon Thursday, Schmurber said U.S. Marshalls were supposed to pick Calderon-Velasquez up Monday, Aug. 31, and take him to prison in his hometown of El Paso, Texas. Interestingly enough, there is no state prison in El Paso, only federal. The same federal system that was paroling him is supposed to house him again. Many speculate he’d be released from there, just a few miles from his home.
