Walter Ellebracht

Passions

Vocation

American rancher convicted in the 1986 'Texas Slave Ranch' trial on charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping. The 'Texas Slave Ranch' is the name popularly given to a ranch near Mountain Home, Texas where workers who had been abducted were forced to work without pay making cedar key chains that sold throughout the Texas Hill Country. The ranch was raided on 6 April 1984 and the operation shut down. The 1986 trial lasted three months, made national news, featured the celebrated Texas defense attorney Richard “Racehorse” Haynes and resulted in the conviction of Ellebracht along with his son Walter Ellebracht Jr., 33, and ranch foreman Carlton Robert Caldwell, 21, on charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping but acquitted of murder in the death of Anthony Bates, an Alabama man who worked on the ranch in 1984. In 2006, Glen Stephens directed the horror film Hoboken Hollow, which is loosely based on the events that occurred at the Texas Slave Ranch. The film stars Jason Connery, C. Thomas Howell, Dennis Hopper, Greg Evigan, and Michael Madsen. A book was written about the ranch, The True Story of the Texas Slave Ranch — How a Degenerate Ranching Family Got Away With Murder. Link to Texas Slave Ranch