Information about the interview:
Narrator: Tina Duroy
Date of interview: August 11, 2008
Place: Home of Tina Duroy, Conroe, Texas
Interviewer: Virginia Raymond
Videographer: Gabriel Solis
Also present: Tina Duroy’s husband (part of the time); Tina Duroy’s brother (part of the time)
Transcriber: Transcript not completed (see "How did this interview come about")
Reviewer and proofreader: Transcript not yet completed
Length of this video clip: 10:41
Length of interview: 1:54:07
Equipment: Sony 1080i mini-HD DV camcorder with Sennheiser external microphone
Recorded on: Sony mini-DV cassettes
Relationship of interviewer team to narrator: Exchange of phone calls before the interview, but met for the first time on the day of the interview
How this interview came about: Virginia Raymond and Gabe Solis of the Texas After Violence Project conducted this interview with Tina Duroy, at the request of Susannah Sheffer of the Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), to assist MVFHR and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in their collaborative research regarding mental illness and the death penalty. MVFHR and NAMI asked the Texas After Violence Project to ask particular questions focused on mental illness. In accordance with the request, and with the consent of Ms. Duroy, this interview departs from our normal approach of asking a narrator to simply tell us her story. Rather, this interview is structured around MVFHR's particular concerns about mental illness and at times takes a question-and-answer format. This interview departed from normal Texas After Violence Project protocol in a second way, as well. Normally, TAVP does not ask an narrator of personal experiences to donate her interview until after we have transcribed the interview and she has made any necessary corrections. In this case, Tina Duroy had agreed to donate her interview to MVFHR immediately, without a transcript to review. The resulting report, Double Tragedies: Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness by Susannah Sheffer (Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2009), is available from MVFHR, 2161 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140; info@murdervictimsfamilies.org, telephone 617.491.9600.
Date of donor's instruction regarding web publication: August 11, 2008
Video imported by: Gabriel Solis
Video edited by: Sabina Hinz-Foley
Video posted by: Sabina Hinz-Foley
Importing software: Final Cut Pro
Editing software: Final Cut Pro
Text: Virginia Raymond
Posting date: July 24, 2009
Tina Duroy is the younger sister of James Colburn, who was executed by the State of Texas on March 26, 2003, for the murder of Peggy Murphy in Montgomery County on June 26, 1994. In this interview, Ms. Duroy recalls her brother as a child, the mental and social changes he began to manifest as a teenager, and the severe mental illness he began to display after he was raped at the age of 17. She also describes her family's ongoing but futile struggle to find effective mental health services for James.
Mr. Colburn acknowledged that he killed Peggy Murphy; the State of Texas acknowledged that Mr. Colburn was seriously mentally ill. Nevertheless, the Montgomery County jury sentenced Mr. Colburn to death. The case attracted national and international criticism. See, for instance, a page on James Colburn at the International Justice Project.
