One thing we do not know, is how much older the males involved in criminal activity they were though. One of my sisters went through some stuff when she was 14, and had a summer where she basically refused to come home. Her boyfriend's mom at the time was contributing to it, long story, but things happen. Middle class family, she ran track, was an honor student, just decided she was in love with a guy a few years older who was mixed up in stuff. I believe the boyfriend was 16, but I'm sure he associated with people in their 20s, so by default, so did she. His mother absolutely associated with criminal elements. My point is just to demonstrate how easily this could happen. All it would take is one link, and bam.
Here's a question, and I apologize if it's been raised already: how long would it have taken for someone to be sentenced to time at Ellis? Do people go directly from arrest to detainment in prison instead of a local facility? Here in NY, before the whole bail reform thing, people would sit in a county/city jail setting (unless they could bail out) until they were found guilty at trial and sentenced, and that could be a fair stretch of time, even pre-covid. People aren't usually held in an actual prison setting until they have been convicted and sentenced to prison time vs. jail time. Unless back then in TX people were quickly sentenced and moved to Ellis, wouldn't they have been in a county/city lockup somewhere for at least a few months while their case went to trial? Could she have met someone on the outside who was in turn arrested/detained/convicted/sentenced in such a short period of time?
In Tx offenders will spend time in county jail before their trial. If they are convicted they will be moved to a unit to what is called a classification unit and that is where they assign prisoners to facilities based on the classification of their crime.
