Shannon Bleau spent two years in Dallas County court trying to reclaim her late grandfather’s land along the Trinity River. “And I was trying to keep it low-key,” she told me over the weekend. Which she did. For a while. Until that land, at the dead-end of Riverwood Road in far southeast Dallas, became a crime scene.
The late William Wesley Thompson’s property was once — and is again, finally — among the most majestic and meaningful parcels in this city’s history, where, a century ago, Dallas leaders foolishly hoped to build an inland port. But until only days ago, it spent years beneath an illegal dump so gargantuan it spilled into the river.
The desecration of the McCommas Bluff has resulted in numerous ongoing investigations by local, state and federal agencies. And for a second time, the man authorities say was responsible for burying the bluff in mountains of garbage has been arrested.
A media release issued Friday by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office announced that on July 28, 59-year-old Dallas resident Kyle Scott Boyd was jailed on charges of forgery of documents and theft of land, each a felony. Neither Bleau nor her attorney knew of the announcement until I forwarded it to them Friday afternoon.
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“And now,” Bleau said, “my name’s plastered all over Dallas.”
As recently as April, trash washed into the Trinity River from the illegal dump along the McCommas Bluff.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
So, too — yet again — is Boyd’s, only months after he spent time in jail last April on three state felony counts of illegal dumping. The sheriff’s office said Friday that Boyd was arrested by detectives last week at his Lower Greenville home, accused of forging deeds to steal the property that Thompson, Bleau’s grandfather, left to her as administrator of his estate upon his death in a nursing home in the spring of 2023.
Thompson left behind 11 acres overlooking the Trinity, including the Lock Keeper’s House built more than a century ago to keep watch over the lock and dam sunk into the river. Or what remains of the manse, anyway. It burned to the ground in the middle of the night July 15, 2023, three months after Boyd went to the county clerk’s office to file those forged documents. Dallas Fire-Rescue never did discover what sparked the blaze.
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On July 15 of this year — exactly three years after that fire, to the day — a Dallas County judge ruled that Boyd forged three quit claim deeds to seize what belonged to Bleau. Dallas County Probate Court Judge Margaret Jones-Johnson wrote that those deeds were “recorded illegally and do not serve as valid or enforceable notice of any conveyance of title.” Jones-Johnson also ordered Boyd to pay Bleau $20,000 in attorneys’ fees and expenses.
I’ve never been able to reach Boyd, and it’s unclear whether he has an attorney. But he’s out of jail: A spokesman for the sheriff’s office said he bonded out Thursday. The forgery charge, a second-degree felony, carried a $35,000 bond; the theft of property charge, a third-degree felony, was $25,000.
The sheriff’s office said Boyd came to their attention while the Dallas Police Department and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s Environmental Crimes Unit were investigating the illegal dump, which city marshals knew about since at least Dec. 16, according to earlier arrest warrant affidavits. The Environmental Protection Agency is also investigating the illegal dump, though a spokesperson said it will not comment on “potential or ongoing enforcement cases.”
Per Friday’s media release, the TCEQ called the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office “to inform them that there was possibly some fraud involved in the ownership of these properties.” At which point investigators contacted Bleau, who told them that Boyd forged the documents three weeks before Thompson’s death.
A long-arm excavator was used in July to remove debris from the Trinity River banks. Dallas Fire-Rescue installed nets to keep the trash from once again spilling into the river.
Courtesy NBC DFW
The case could expand to include others living along Riverwood Road who also allege Boyd filed fraudulent deeds to take their land. Among them is Stacye Wall, who said that no matter what county deed records show, she did not sign over her property to Boyd or his 1106 Riverwood Trust in December 2023.
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“That deed was forged,” Wall told me Monday from her home in Brownwood, 178 miles southwest of Dallas. She said Boyd had contacted her about buying the property, but never sent a contract. Wall said she found out about Bleau’s case, then contacted her lawyers to go after Boyd — especially now that she’s being sued by Dallas County, the city and others over more than $12,000 in back taxes, with a court date set for October. She read about Boyd’s arrest Friday and said she would be calling the sheriff’s office this week.
“It looks like my signature,” Wall said of the deed posted to the county’s website, “but I did not sign that deed.”
If nothing else, Bleau told me Saturday, having her story out there might get others to step up. Boyd has “taken advantage of people thinking no one would fight back,” she said. “He shouldn’t get away with what he’s been doing to that community. I am not one for the public spotlight, but maybe it will help others come forward and send a message.”
At least Bleau has her land back. And it no longer looks like the hellscape it resembled only months ago.
It’s now easier to see all that remains of the Lock Keeper’s House, which had belonged to Shannon Bleau’s grandfather and a Dallas County judge determined had been stolen using forged deeds.
Robert Wilonsky/Staff writer
Workers from numerous city departments just spent several weeks attempting to undo the damage Boyd wrought atop McCommas Bluff. And more than 270 truckloads of trash later, the land has been cleared if not reclaimed, because God knows how deep the damage traveled beneath the soil.
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The river, though low from a recent lack of rain, is now easily seen from the accessible shore, covered with erosion control matting meant to hold the soil in place. The cliffs below, too, are visible with a slight strain of the neck, the limestone liberated from the trash, much of it charred, that had been casually shoved into the Trinity. And from the newly unearthed shoreline, Lock and Dam No. 1 are almost within reach.
Lock and Dam No. 1, once hidden by brush and trash, now seem within arm’s reach after city crews spent July removing the illegal dump from the McCommas Bluff.
Robert Wilonsky/Staff writer
Bleau and her husband, Gerald, aren’t yet sure what they will do with it. Master naturalist Ben Sandifer, long the Trinity’s caretaker and storyteller, said Monday he’d like to see the city use its reforestation fund to buy it and protect it.
“Properly managing and conserving it for the public would be great,” he said. “There needs to be a way of keeping the bad-doers away.”
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McCommas Bluff is a rare Dallas gem whose beauty is again revealed. But there remains a lot of ugly story left to be told.