Teacher's accused killer found in his car and with his credit cards

HARLINGEN - A 16-year-old boy charged with capital murder in the death of a Harlingen High School South teacher is also accused of stealing the teacher's car, credit cards and computer, a District Attorney's Office spokesman said.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that the juvenile was distributing (the teacher's) credit cards to his friends," DA spokesman Jason Moody said Wednesday.

John Farr, 49, was found dead in his apartment June 16. He had been stabbed multiple times in the neck, according to the preliminary autopsy report.

Police arrested the boy the same day after they located him in Farr's car in Harlingen and found "several credit cards" inside the vehicle, Moody said.

The computer has not been recovered, he said.

The robbery of the car and other goods enhanced the first-degree murder charge to capital murder. Prosecutors had not elaborated before on why the charge was upgraded.

The boy attended a hearing Wednesday before retired state District Judge Menton Murray, Jr., who ruled the boy will continue to be held at a juvenile detention center and not returned to his family.

Murray also scheduled a hearing for Aug. 11 to determine whether the boy will be certified as an adult. The judge also set a hearing the same day on an unrelated aggravated assault charge.

Chief juvenile prosecutor Rene Garza, who represented the DA's office, filed a petition Wednesday to request the hearing to certify the 16-year-old as an adult, officials said.

Garza also requested that the Cameron County Juvenile Probation Office provide information including the teen's home evaluation, social study report and criminal background check, Moody said.

The background check will include the juvenile's current probation in Webb County on an aggravated assault charge and the pending unrelated aggravated assault charge in Cameron County, which will be taken into consideration during the Aug. 11 hearing, Moody said.